Choosing Hope
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Where do we, as a people, look for hope? Or, as a people, have we given up on hope? How do we fix our lives? How do we help others? The Bible tells us -- L-O-V-E. Love is the answer. James Killen writes about hope this week. Stephen McCutchan writes the response. There are the usual illustrations, worship resource, and children's sermon.
Choosing Hope
By James Killen
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30; 1 Corinthians 13
Where do we look for hope?
There are lots of things wrong in our world: wars, crime, poverty, the disintegration of our most precious relationships, and sometimes, just when we have got every thing just like we want it, we find ourselves feeling that our lives are empty or falling apart. Where do we look for solutions for problems like these? Where do we look for hope? Or have we given up on hope and simply learned to live with things as they are?
God is always reaching out to us to give us hope. That is what the Bible is about. No, God is not just trying to give us hope for something beyond this world. There is that, but there is also more. God is at work in our world -- and in our lives -- working to fix the things that are wrong. The Bible tells us what God is doing. It also tells us what God wants us to do to work with God to fix the things that are wrong in our lives and in our world. Have we ever really understood what God is trying to tell us? Have we ever tried to understand? And, if we have begun to understand, have we ever taken it seriously? Have we dared to believe that God has acted to put us in touch with a source of real hope? God has acted to give us hope. But it is a different hope. It is a hope that must be chosen.
THE WORLD
The world is very aware that there are problems. And, the world has its own ways of trying to deal with them -- mostly through different kinds of force -- ways that are mostly really one kind of violence or another -- either overt or disguised as something else. The world seems to think that those are the only solutions. But they are not. There are other ways of dealing with problems that are actually present and available in our world.
What about war? That is painfully present to us right now. The wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa are the results of people thinking that the only way to solve problems is through violence. When we try to solve the problem of war, we usually try to do it through using more violence. Will sending more troops to Iraq solve the problem there? If the answer is "no," then we have to recognize that simply not sending more troops won't solve the problem either. There must be something different that can be done. The theologian, Walter Wink has published a seven-page list of major social and political changes that have been accomplished by non-violent actions. Among those are the end of colonialism in India, the independence of several former Soviet Block countries, and an end of apartheid in South Africa. (Engaging the Powers, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992, pp. 244-255) How did those changes come about? Shouldn't we try to find out?
Once during a time when we were all afraid of "crime in the streets" it became expedient for our politicians to talk about being tough on crime. To deliver on their promises they established systems of mandatory minimum sentences and put more people in prison. Now we have more people in prison than any other country. We are impoverishing our communities to support the prisons -- and crime hasn't gone away. The Texas State legislature is debating whether to spend $440 million dollars to build prisons for 5,000 more inmates or to shift resources to improve parole and rehabilitation facilities for low risk inmates. Other states are dealing with the same question. Is there a better way of dealing with crime?
What about poverty? Now we know that it is not true that only the lazy are poor. Social and economic conditions trap many hard working people in poverty. Is there some way to deal with that problem other than creating a culture of dependence or threatening people with starvation?
And what about the things that happen in the more intimate circle of our own lives and our relationships with those who are most precious to us? Are we actually doing violence to ourselves and to those we love most? Yes, more than most of us can imagine, that violence breaks out into different forms of abuse. But even when that doesn't happen, we often make demands upon ourselves and those we love. We often punish ourselves and those we love in ways that empty life of its joy and meaning. Is there a better way of treating ourselves and those we love? Some seem to find a better way.
THE WORD
The Bible tells us that, from the beginning, God has been reaching out to us and to our world to save. God sent Jeremiah and the other prophets to show a better way to a nation that was disintegrating. God sent Jesus, no, God came in the person of Jesus, to show us what God is doing in our lives and in our world and to call us to become participants in the saving work of God.
In brief summary, the Bible tells us that God is reaching out to us in love and doing loving works in our lives and in our world. And God wants us to live in love so that we can be agents of God's saving work.
The love that we find described in the Bible is not just a warm fuzzy emotion. The love implied in John 3:16 is a costly but joyful commitment of life to life. The love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is an entirely new way of relating to ourselves, to others, to life, and to God. The basic dynamic of the Christian faith is the dynamic of love. God is at work among us to show us the shape of love, to call us to live in love, and to love us into the ability to love as God loves.
This love that God shows us and makes possible for us has certain qualities that can be translated into an effective strategy for making a difference in the world and in the lives of people. One of these is a respect for the personhood of each person. Another is a commitment to value the life and dignity of each person. And still another is a commitment to the wholeness and well-being of every person who is loved. That must include yourself, your family, the others whom you know, and the whole creation. Can you imagine how those aspects of love can be translated into a strategy for dealing with things like war, and crime, and poverty, and the hurts and incompleteness in our own lives?
This really is what the Christian faith is all about. Do you believe it can work? The Bible tells us that the people to whom Jeremiah spoke and the people to whom Jesus came did not believe it. They rejected the prophet and subjected him to all kinds of abuse. Jesus was rejected by the people in his own hometown and finally ended his ministry on earth on a cross. Do you believe that it could make a difference in the things that are going on in our world? Would you be willing for your community and your nation to develop strategies for dealing with the problems of the world that are based on the redemptive power of love? Would you vote for a candidate for public office who promised to try it? Would you at least be willing to apply the strategies of love to the things that are going on in your own life and in your own family?
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The above materials can serve as an introduction and basic outline for a sermon. Many of the issues are very sensitive. It will be important to present them in ways that try to lead the hearers into the discovery of a new possibility rather than to bludgeon them with what may seem to be an impossible demand. Stand by their side and say, "Can we see what the Christian faith is trying to show us here?" It will be necessary to recognize that it is sometimes necessary to use force to prevent violence until a better solution can be put into effect. It will also be important to recognize that it will take a real act of faith to rely upon the strategies of love rather than on the strategies we are accustomed to using to solve our problems. It will be hard to do unless you can really believe that God is at work in your world.
If one of the issues mentioned above is of special or urgent concern to your people, or if there is some other local issue that calls for a decision between the strategies of love and the strategies of force, you may want to focus on that issue and deal with it more adequately. Then you can mention that the things you have discussed with regard to that issue are applicable to other issues as well.
Toward the end of the sermon, it will be good to move the discussion to a personal level. Talk about how the interactions with the loving work of God can help them and their families to move toward fullness of life. Talk about how God's love working in their lives can give them the will, the ability, and the courage to act in love in all of their relationships and actions.
It will be good to end with some illustration that will help the people to visualize the ways in which the loving work of God can make a real difference.
Let the writer share an illustration from his recent personal experience in case you don't have one. Two weeks ago, I went with a prison ministry team to hold a retreat for a group of inmates in a prison where people convicted of serious crimes are held. These people are tough, convicted felons, but they have become active in the prison ministry program and have been introduced to the Christian faith. We spent most of the day in a chapel with about 160 "brothers in white." The theme of the retreat was love. First Corinthians 13 was one of the primary scriptures. We tried to help them see that God's love, working through their acts of kindness, could have an important humanizing effect upon the dehumanizing situation in which they and their fellow prisoners lived. There was no naive assumption that this would be easy. These men know how tough the people with whom they live are. But the participants were responsive. In fact, they already have a reputation for being a humanizing leaven in the prison. One tough prisoner who was bigger than I am (I am pretty big), confided that he had once wanted to be a priest. I told him that he could still do some of the work of a priest by sharing love in his present situation. There were some tears. He gave me a hug. Then he went away to hide his emotion. Love can make a difference. But you have to choose to let it.
ANOTHER VIEW
By Stephen McCutchan
Every four years this country engages in the election of the president of the USA. Some of us can remember when the Republican and Democratic parties would hold their conventions during the summer prior to the election and choose their candidate. The decision was largely made by the politicians "behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms." The campaign would then begin following Labor Day, and we experienced a few months of intense campaigning. In the 1960s, there was an effort to involve the public in choosing the candidates through the use of primaries and this has now evolved to the point that the candidates are usually determined well before the conventions occur. Campaigns now take much longer and cost much more money. So now, almost two years before the election, there are many people who are exploring the possibility of running for president.
What one notices in all of the media hype around such people as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is the great hunger for a leader who could rescue the country from the considerable problems that face us. James Killen, in his reflections on the lectionary passage, notes the frequent resort to violence as a solution for our problems. Frequently, candidates, as they contend with each other, will seek to portray their opponents as weak and incapable of making the tough decisions, which often means that they wouldn't use sufficient force to defeat the enemy. Killen suggests that there might be an alternative to such easy use of violence in the Christian application of love. He poses the question as to whether you would vote for a candidate who tried to apply the Christian strategy of love to the problems of the world. Can't you just see the rival candidates suggesting that such proposals were a sign of weakness inadequate for the tough problems of our world?
The question that our lectionary passages pose for us is whether we would be willing to support the type of leadership who is "tough enough" not to offer popular answers. Both Jeremiah and Jesus were leaders that faced the tough questions of their world, but they did so in ways that were not easily received by the society around them. Jesus, in his sermon that is recorded in Luke, confronted the people with the truth that God's ways are larger than their own personal self-interests. They did not receive his leadership gladly but rather tried to resolve the conflict that he raised through the use of violence. The haunting question for Christians is whether we are willing to be part of a church that offers the type of tough leadership demonstrated by Jesus.
Killen mentions his visit to a prison in which many of the prisoners had become Christians. Because of our "get tough on crime" attitude, we now have over 2.1 million people incarcerated in our prisons, more than any other developed country in the world. Unless one concludes that Americans are just naturally more criminal minded than the rest of the world that has got to reflect a problem with our approach to crime.
One of the problems in changing that reality is a problem of the churches. Jesus made clear that we were to visit those who are in prison but most of our churches join with the society in ignoring those who are locked away. One prison in Marion, Ohio, which had been under federal court monitoring for decades, had a different experience. The new warden invited Kairos Ministries into this difficult prison. They, in turn, sent several dozen Christians into the prison for a long weekend and matched them up with prisoners. Through an intense program of caring for the prisoners that they met, not only was the prison released from the court decree but the recidivism rate was changed from a national average of 23.4 percent to 10 percent. The truth is that there are hundreds of thousands of Christians in prison who hunger for a connection with other Christians in the Body of Christ who exist outside the prisons.
This is but one example of leadership of a body of Christians who decided not to wait on others for leadership but to be leaders in advancing the type of love that Killen is talking about. To bring it even closer to home, one has to ask the question of what type of leadership God is calling you to exercise. One of the truths of our scriptures is that God has an intention for the lives of those that God calls. To be part of either Israel or the church is to assume new responsibilities.
Consider what it means that you were in the mind of God before you were a "glint in your parents' eyes." What does it mean that your life has an intentionality to it that transcends the fact that you were the result of lust or love? The purpose, and therefore the meaning, of your life is lodged not in your circumstances or environment but in the mind of God. There is a mystery to the call of God in our lives. We dare to suggest that there is an intersection between eternity and finite time. In a way that precedes our very existence, "before I formed you in the womb," we are part of a much larger story that takes shape in the mind of God. There is a natural resistance and a sense of inadequacy to such a thought. Who are we to have a purpose that has eternal dimensions? It almost seems arrogant to contemplate such a possibility. It is captured in Jeremiah's words, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak for I am only a boy." We also resist because such a thought suggests that we do not belong to ourselves. Yet, at the same time, it gives our life a dignity that is ennobling. Despite all our fears, we are reassured that our existence is a matter of importance to God. "Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you."
Christian leadership may result in running for political office or visiting a prison. It may even involve providing direction for a youth or serving on a church board. It frequently does not result in popularity and occasionally not even in apparent success. The mark of Christian leadership is the capacity to listen for the call of God and focus on how your gifts can contribute to the well being of others.
ILLUSTRATIONS
As followers of our Lord we are called to act with love rather than violence, but acting in this love can put us distinctly at odds with the world around us.
John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite theologian, saw the gospel tradition as rooted in a historical community, and it is only within the faith of that community that its message can be understood. For that community, not the sword and power, but the cross and suffering determine the meaning of history.
Inevitably the price of the believer's "social nonconformity" is the cross; suffering is part of "the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come." "The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come."
-- Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory, p. 224
* * *
But using violence to combat social injustice can be a big temptation for us as Christians -- as it probably was for our Lord.
Yoder sees Jesus himself as having been confronted repeatedly by the temptation to rely upon violence to accomplish his messianic ends. Relying on popular support, Jesus could have instigated the crowds to overcome the Roman authorities and establish his own rule three times: after the feeding of the multitudes, after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and at the trial in Gethsemane.
"The one temptation the man Jesus faced -- and faced again and again -- as a constitutive element of his public ministry, was the temptation to exercise social responsibility, in the interest of justified revolution, through the use of available violent methods."
Yet the social stance of Christians addresses issues of violence, power, and community. Central targets of the Christian challenge are the fallen "Powers," those created structures of reality that provide regularity and system to society and history, but whose good and necessary function has been perverted by sin.
Claiming for themselves an absolute value, the Powers now have the status of idols and "enslave humanity and human history."
-- Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies, pp. 224-225
* * *
So what are we as followers of our Lord called to? We are called not to violence but to love.
[The] calling for the church to be the church is not a formula for a withdrawal ethic; nor is it a self-righteous attempt to flee from the world's problems; rather it is a call for the church to be a community which tries to develop the resources to stand within the world witnessing to the peaceable kingdom and thus rightly understanding the world.
The gospel is a political gospel. Christians are engaged in politics, but it is a politics of the kingdom that reveals the insufficiency of all politics based on coercion and falsehood and finds the true source of power in servanthood rather than dominion.
-- Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies, p. 228
* * *
"We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them.
"We are commanded to love our neighbor because our 'natural' attitude toward the 'other' is one of either indifference or hostility."
-- W. H. Auden "A Certain World"
* * *
"The divine Word comes to Jeremiah. He does not seek it. It is not the fruit of inward searching. It breaks in as an alien presence... This inbreaking Word is different from our words. Martin Luther observed that ordinary human language consists of "sign-words": Signifiers which allow us to name and describe the world around us. God's Word, on the other hand, is a "deed-word" -- active power which goes forth to accomplish God's work... Jeremiah's calling is to the task of witness -- as bearer of the divine Word, it is he who bears testimony to that which others do not see, namely, the inexorable working-out of God's will and judgment in the terrible events of Judah's fall."
-- P. Mark Achtemeier, "Lectionary Homiletics"
* * *
"Now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three..."
doubt moves in
and props its feet
at the hearth of my soul,
warming them
on the coals of my unbelief;
while faith
rents space
for a few days
in the summers of my life.
despair is the frayed,
soft corduroy jacket
that fits comfortably
on my shoulders,
while hope
is a hair shirt
i resist wearing.
impatience is the face
i put on
each morning
in order to greet the world,
while love
is that mask
i wear occasionally,
removing it
when i look in the mirror,
not recognizing myself.
which three will abide in me, O God?
which three?
* * *
As the Doomesday clock ticks away moving yet another two minutes toward midnight we note the chilling difference between what so called Christian students of the end times say that God is going to do to us, and what students of science say we are likely to do to ourselves. Frankly as a student of American pragmatism, Im more likely to be soberly convinced that the latter possibility is more firmly rooted in the real than the former. Very frankly indeed, Im convinced that God sent his Son not to condemn the world but that through him we might be saved. Theres a biblical resonance to that turn of phrase isnt there? We are free to do as we will with our weapons of mass destruction. I hope and pray that we may act soberly, wisely and with restraint.
The words love and thanksgiving in Greek and in Hebrew are verbs and describe action. They are not nouns that describe things we possess like so many other commodities that we can buy or sell, or keep and save. They are new every morning as the old hymn says it, like a recipe for a freshly baked loaf of bread. Come to think of it, it is that very yeast that brings life to the whole lump, just as Jesus pointed out so many years ago. And so love with abandon, find forgiveness that blesses your life, reconcile those at odds, and find eternal life welling up within. These are verbs well worth exercising in the human heart and in the human life.
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
-- Thomas Merton
WORSHIP RESOURCE
By Thom Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: Today, the words of God come to us:
People: inviting us to not be afraid,
but to place our faith in God.
Leader: Today, the words of God come to us:
People: inviting us to trust in the One who knows us,
to place our hope in the One who saves us.
Leader: Today, the Word of God comes to us:
People: inviting us to be gracious in our love
and in our service to others.
Prayer Of The Day
Gracious God:
your wall of hope
surrounds us in our despair;
your haven of faith
welcomes us in our unbelief;
your citadel of love
protects us from our anger.
Gracious Word:
you reach out to those
we would not touch;
you greet those
we would ignore;
you welcome those
we would exclude.
Holy Spirit:
rest gently upon us
so we might be kinder people;
touch us with your humility,
so we would let go of our pride;
show us your Way,
so we would not insist on our own.
God in Community, Holy in One,
our hope and our trust,
hear us as we pray as Jesus taught us,
Our Father...
Call To Reconciliation
The One who knew us before we were born knows our secret failings. The One who saw us in our mothers' wombs sees into our shadowed hearts. The One who bends down to listen to our words will speak grace and hope to us.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
Patient God, we must confess that our love is not what we would hope. We are so focused on ourselves, the needs of others dim in our eyes. We secretly rejoice in the miseries of those around us, knowing that they must have done something to deserve such lives. We push our families and friends away by insisting they do everything our way.
Forgive us, Faithful Deliverer. Rescue us from ourselves, so we might become your people. Touch us with the faith, the hope, the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, so we might be made whole.
(Silence is observed.)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: God's love never ends! Now, we know
we are forgiven; now, we know we are
healed.
People: Now, we can bear all things, believe
all things, hope all things, endure all
things. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Growing
Object: a diaper, bottle, or some other object familiar to a young child
Good morning! As we grow, we change. When you were very young, you undoubtedly wore diapers. You may have used a bottle. You had different kinds of shoes -- baby shoes -- because you couldn't walk and didn't need the kind of shoes you are wearing today. You probably had to sit in a high chair instead of a regular chair. How many of you used to do these things? (let them answer) I thought so. Now -- how many of you still wear diapers, use a bottle, wear baby shoes, and sit in a high chair? (let them answer) I thought so. Those things you did when you were very young, but now you do not do them.
You will continue to change. The way you think right now is not the way you will think in ten years. The things you do today are not the kinds of things you will do as you grow older. The style of clothes you wear today will change. The kind of music you enjoy will change. In other words, many things will change for you as you grow in years. That's neither good nor bad -- that's just the way it is!
The same is true as we learn how to love. God loves you and me. That can be hard for us to understand. But as we grow in our love, it will change just like everything else changes for you and me. If our understanding and experience of love didn't change, that would not be good. As we learn more about God's love through Jesus, our love for God, ourselves, and others will grow. It is exciting to grow. That is what makes Sunday school so exciting. In Sunday school, children grow and learn and change.
The same thing happens to us adults. We also keep growing and changing. We learn to trust in God more and grow in our faith; we learn to place our future in God's hands and learn more hope; we experience God's love and the love of others and grow in our ability to love. Everything changes as we grow. And that's the way God intended it to be.
Dear God: Thank you for helping us change and grow. Teach us more about love. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 28, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
Choosing Hope
By James Killen
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30; 1 Corinthians 13
Where do we look for hope?
There are lots of things wrong in our world: wars, crime, poverty, the disintegration of our most precious relationships, and sometimes, just when we have got every thing just like we want it, we find ourselves feeling that our lives are empty or falling apart. Where do we look for solutions for problems like these? Where do we look for hope? Or have we given up on hope and simply learned to live with things as they are?
God is always reaching out to us to give us hope. That is what the Bible is about. No, God is not just trying to give us hope for something beyond this world. There is that, but there is also more. God is at work in our world -- and in our lives -- working to fix the things that are wrong. The Bible tells us what God is doing. It also tells us what God wants us to do to work with God to fix the things that are wrong in our lives and in our world. Have we ever really understood what God is trying to tell us? Have we ever tried to understand? And, if we have begun to understand, have we ever taken it seriously? Have we dared to believe that God has acted to put us in touch with a source of real hope? God has acted to give us hope. But it is a different hope. It is a hope that must be chosen.
THE WORLD
The world is very aware that there are problems. And, the world has its own ways of trying to deal with them -- mostly through different kinds of force -- ways that are mostly really one kind of violence or another -- either overt or disguised as something else. The world seems to think that those are the only solutions. But they are not. There are other ways of dealing with problems that are actually present and available in our world.
What about war? That is painfully present to us right now. The wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa are the results of people thinking that the only way to solve problems is through violence. When we try to solve the problem of war, we usually try to do it through using more violence. Will sending more troops to Iraq solve the problem there? If the answer is "no," then we have to recognize that simply not sending more troops won't solve the problem either. There must be something different that can be done. The theologian, Walter Wink has published a seven-page list of major social and political changes that have been accomplished by non-violent actions. Among those are the end of colonialism in India, the independence of several former Soviet Block countries, and an end of apartheid in South Africa. (Engaging the Powers, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992, pp. 244-255) How did those changes come about? Shouldn't we try to find out?
Once during a time when we were all afraid of "crime in the streets" it became expedient for our politicians to talk about being tough on crime. To deliver on their promises they established systems of mandatory minimum sentences and put more people in prison. Now we have more people in prison than any other country. We are impoverishing our communities to support the prisons -- and crime hasn't gone away. The Texas State legislature is debating whether to spend $440 million dollars to build prisons for 5,000 more inmates or to shift resources to improve parole and rehabilitation facilities for low risk inmates. Other states are dealing with the same question. Is there a better way of dealing with crime?
What about poverty? Now we know that it is not true that only the lazy are poor. Social and economic conditions trap many hard working people in poverty. Is there some way to deal with that problem other than creating a culture of dependence or threatening people with starvation?
And what about the things that happen in the more intimate circle of our own lives and our relationships with those who are most precious to us? Are we actually doing violence to ourselves and to those we love most? Yes, more than most of us can imagine, that violence breaks out into different forms of abuse. But even when that doesn't happen, we often make demands upon ourselves and those we love. We often punish ourselves and those we love in ways that empty life of its joy and meaning. Is there a better way of treating ourselves and those we love? Some seem to find a better way.
THE WORD
The Bible tells us that, from the beginning, God has been reaching out to us and to our world to save. God sent Jeremiah and the other prophets to show a better way to a nation that was disintegrating. God sent Jesus, no, God came in the person of Jesus, to show us what God is doing in our lives and in our world and to call us to become participants in the saving work of God.
In brief summary, the Bible tells us that God is reaching out to us in love and doing loving works in our lives and in our world. And God wants us to live in love so that we can be agents of God's saving work.
The love that we find described in the Bible is not just a warm fuzzy emotion. The love implied in John 3:16 is a costly but joyful commitment of life to life. The love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is an entirely new way of relating to ourselves, to others, to life, and to God. The basic dynamic of the Christian faith is the dynamic of love. God is at work among us to show us the shape of love, to call us to live in love, and to love us into the ability to love as God loves.
This love that God shows us and makes possible for us has certain qualities that can be translated into an effective strategy for making a difference in the world and in the lives of people. One of these is a respect for the personhood of each person. Another is a commitment to value the life and dignity of each person. And still another is a commitment to the wholeness and well-being of every person who is loved. That must include yourself, your family, the others whom you know, and the whole creation. Can you imagine how those aspects of love can be translated into a strategy for dealing with things like war, and crime, and poverty, and the hurts and incompleteness in our own lives?
This really is what the Christian faith is all about. Do you believe it can work? The Bible tells us that the people to whom Jeremiah spoke and the people to whom Jesus came did not believe it. They rejected the prophet and subjected him to all kinds of abuse. Jesus was rejected by the people in his own hometown and finally ended his ministry on earth on a cross. Do you believe that it could make a difference in the things that are going on in our world? Would you be willing for your community and your nation to develop strategies for dealing with the problems of the world that are based on the redemptive power of love? Would you vote for a candidate for public office who promised to try it? Would you at least be willing to apply the strategies of love to the things that are going on in your own life and in your own family?
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The above materials can serve as an introduction and basic outline for a sermon. Many of the issues are very sensitive. It will be important to present them in ways that try to lead the hearers into the discovery of a new possibility rather than to bludgeon them with what may seem to be an impossible demand. Stand by their side and say, "Can we see what the Christian faith is trying to show us here?" It will be necessary to recognize that it is sometimes necessary to use force to prevent violence until a better solution can be put into effect. It will also be important to recognize that it will take a real act of faith to rely upon the strategies of love rather than on the strategies we are accustomed to using to solve our problems. It will be hard to do unless you can really believe that God is at work in your world.
If one of the issues mentioned above is of special or urgent concern to your people, or if there is some other local issue that calls for a decision between the strategies of love and the strategies of force, you may want to focus on that issue and deal with it more adequately. Then you can mention that the things you have discussed with regard to that issue are applicable to other issues as well.
Toward the end of the sermon, it will be good to move the discussion to a personal level. Talk about how the interactions with the loving work of God can help them and their families to move toward fullness of life. Talk about how God's love working in their lives can give them the will, the ability, and the courage to act in love in all of their relationships and actions.
It will be good to end with some illustration that will help the people to visualize the ways in which the loving work of God can make a real difference.
Let the writer share an illustration from his recent personal experience in case you don't have one. Two weeks ago, I went with a prison ministry team to hold a retreat for a group of inmates in a prison where people convicted of serious crimes are held. These people are tough, convicted felons, but they have become active in the prison ministry program and have been introduced to the Christian faith. We spent most of the day in a chapel with about 160 "brothers in white." The theme of the retreat was love. First Corinthians 13 was one of the primary scriptures. We tried to help them see that God's love, working through their acts of kindness, could have an important humanizing effect upon the dehumanizing situation in which they and their fellow prisoners lived. There was no naive assumption that this would be easy. These men know how tough the people with whom they live are. But the participants were responsive. In fact, they already have a reputation for being a humanizing leaven in the prison. One tough prisoner who was bigger than I am (I am pretty big), confided that he had once wanted to be a priest. I told him that he could still do some of the work of a priest by sharing love in his present situation. There were some tears. He gave me a hug. Then he went away to hide his emotion. Love can make a difference. But you have to choose to let it.
ANOTHER VIEW
By Stephen McCutchan
Every four years this country engages in the election of the president of the USA. Some of us can remember when the Republican and Democratic parties would hold their conventions during the summer prior to the election and choose their candidate. The decision was largely made by the politicians "behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms." The campaign would then begin following Labor Day, and we experienced a few months of intense campaigning. In the 1960s, there was an effort to involve the public in choosing the candidates through the use of primaries and this has now evolved to the point that the candidates are usually determined well before the conventions occur. Campaigns now take much longer and cost much more money. So now, almost two years before the election, there are many people who are exploring the possibility of running for president.
What one notices in all of the media hype around such people as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is the great hunger for a leader who could rescue the country from the considerable problems that face us. James Killen, in his reflections on the lectionary passage, notes the frequent resort to violence as a solution for our problems. Frequently, candidates, as they contend with each other, will seek to portray their opponents as weak and incapable of making the tough decisions, which often means that they wouldn't use sufficient force to defeat the enemy. Killen suggests that there might be an alternative to such easy use of violence in the Christian application of love. He poses the question as to whether you would vote for a candidate who tried to apply the Christian strategy of love to the problems of the world. Can't you just see the rival candidates suggesting that such proposals were a sign of weakness inadequate for the tough problems of our world?
The question that our lectionary passages pose for us is whether we would be willing to support the type of leadership who is "tough enough" not to offer popular answers. Both Jeremiah and Jesus were leaders that faced the tough questions of their world, but they did so in ways that were not easily received by the society around them. Jesus, in his sermon that is recorded in Luke, confronted the people with the truth that God's ways are larger than their own personal self-interests. They did not receive his leadership gladly but rather tried to resolve the conflict that he raised through the use of violence. The haunting question for Christians is whether we are willing to be part of a church that offers the type of tough leadership demonstrated by Jesus.
Killen mentions his visit to a prison in which many of the prisoners had become Christians. Because of our "get tough on crime" attitude, we now have over 2.1 million people incarcerated in our prisons, more than any other developed country in the world. Unless one concludes that Americans are just naturally more criminal minded than the rest of the world that has got to reflect a problem with our approach to crime.
One of the problems in changing that reality is a problem of the churches. Jesus made clear that we were to visit those who are in prison but most of our churches join with the society in ignoring those who are locked away. One prison in Marion, Ohio, which had been under federal court monitoring for decades, had a different experience. The new warden invited Kairos Ministries into this difficult prison. They, in turn, sent several dozen Christians into the prison for a long weekend and matched them up with prisoners. Through an intense program of caring for the prisoners that they met, not only was the prison released from the court decree but the recidivism rate was changed from a national average of 23.4 percent to 10 percent. The truth is that there are hundreds of thousands of Christians in prison who hunger for a connection with other Christians in the Body of Christ who exist outside the prisons.
This is but one example of leadership of a body of Christians who decided not to wait on others for leadership but to be leaders in advancing the type of love that Killen is talking about. To bring it even closer to home, one has to ask the question of what type of leadership God is calling you to exercise. One of the truths of our scriptures is that God has an intention for the lives of those that God calls. To be part of either Israel or the church is to assume new responsibilities.
Consider what it means that you were in the mind of God before you were a "glint in your parents' eyes." What does it mean that your life has an intentionality to it that transcends the fact that you were the result of lust or love? The purpose, and therefore the meaning, of your life is lodged not in your circumstances or environment but in the mind of God. There is a mystery to the call of God in our lives. We dare to suggest that there is an intersection between eternity and finite time. In a way that precedes our very existence, "before I formed you in the womb," we are part of a much larger story that takes shape in the mind of God. There is a natural resistance and a sense of inadequacy to such a thought. Who are we to have a purpose that has eternal dimensions? It almost seems arrogant to contemplate such a possibility. It is captured in Jeremiah's words, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak for I am only a boy." We also resist because such a thought suggests that we do not belong to ourselves. Yet, at the same time, it gives our life a dignity that is ennobling. Despite all our fears, we are reassured that our existence is a matter of importance to God. "Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you."
Christian leadership may result in running for political office or visiting a prison. It may even involve providing direction for a youth or serving on a church board. It frequently does not result in popularity and occasionally not even in apparent success. The mark of Christian leadership is the capacity to listen for the call of God and focus on how your gifts can contribute to the well being of others.
ILLUSTRATIONS
As followers of our Lord we are called to act with love rather than violence, but acting in this love can put us distinctly at odds with the world around us.
John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite theologian, saw the gospel tradition as rooted in a historical community, and it is only within the faith of that community that its message can be understood. For that community, not the sword and power, but the cross and suffering determine the meaning of history.
Inevitably the price of the believer's "social nonconformity" is the cross; suffering is part of "the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come." "The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come."
-- Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory, p. 224
* * *
But using violence to combat social injustice can be a big temptation for us as Christians -- as it probably was for our Lord.
Yoder sees Jesus himself as having been confronted repeatedly by the temptation to rely upon violence to accomplish his messianic ends. Relying on popular support, Jesus could have instigated the crowds to overcome the Roman authorities and establish his own rule three times: after the feeding of the multitudes, after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and at the trial in Gethsemane.
"The one temptation the man Jesus faced -- and faced again and again -- as a constitutive element of his public ministry, was the temptation to exercise social responsibility, in the interest of justified revolution, through the use of available violent methods."
Yet the social stance of Christians addresses issues of violence, power, and community. Central targets of the Christian challenge are the fallen "Powers," those created structures of reality that provide regularity and system to society and history, but whose good and necessary function has been perverted by sin.
Claiming for themselves an absolute value, the Powers now have the status of idols and "enslave humanity and human history."
-- Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies, pp. 224-225
* * *
So what are we as followers of our Lord called to? We are called not to violence but to love.
[The] calling for the church to be the church is not a formula for a withdrawal ethic; nor is it a self-righteous attempt to flee from the world's problems; rather it is a call for the church to be a community which tries to develop the resources to stand within the world witnessing to the peaceable kingdom and thus rightly understanding the world.
The gospel is a political gospel. Christians are engaged in politics, but it is a politics of the kingdom that reveals the insufficiency of all politics based on coercion and falsehood and finds the true source of power in servanthood rather than dominion.
-- Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies, p. 228
* * *
"We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them.
"We are commanded to love our neighbor because our 'natural' attitude toward the 'other' is one of either indifference or hostility."
-- W. H. Auden "A Certain World"
* * *
"The divine Word comes to Jeremiah. He does not seek it. It is not the fruit of inward searching. It breaks in as an alien presence... This inbreaking Word is different from our words. Martin Luther observed that ordinary human language consists of "sign-words": Signifiers which allow us to name and describe the world around us. God's Word, on the other hand, is a "deed-word" -- active power which goes forth to accomplish God's work... Jeremiah's calling is to the task of witness -- as bearer of the divine Word, it is he who bears testimony to that which others do not see, namely, the inexorable working-out of God's will and judgment in the terrible events of Judah's fall."
-- P. Mark Achtemeier, "Lectionary Homiletics"
* * *
"Now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three..."
doubt moves in
and props its feet
at the hearth of my soul,
warming them
on the coals of my unbelief;
while faith
rents space
for a few days
in the summers of my life.
despair is the frayed,
soft corduroy jacket
that fits comfortably
on my shoulders,
while hope
is a hair shirt
i resist wearing.
impatience is the face
i put on
each morning
in order to greet the world,
while love
is that mask
i wear occasionally,
removing it
when i look in the mirror,
not recognizing myself.
which three will abide in me, O God?
which three?
* * *
As the Doomesday clock ticks away moving yet another two minutes toward midnight we note the chilling difference between what so called Christian students of the end times say that God is going to do to us, and what students of science say we are likely to do to ourselves. Frankly as a student of American pragmatism, Im more likely to be soberly convinced that the latter possibility is more firmly rooted in the real than the former. Very frankly indeed, Im convinced that God sent his Son not to condemn the world but that through him we might be saved. Theres a biblical resonance to that turn of phrase isnt there? We are free to do as we will with our weapons of mass destruction. I hope and pray that we may act soberly, wisely and with restraint.
The words love and thanksgiving in Greek and in Hebrew are verbs and describe action. They are not nouns that describe things we possess like so many other commodities that we can buy or sell, or keep and save. They are new every morning as the old hymn says it, like a recipe for a freshly baked loaf of bread. Come to think of it, it is that very yeast that brings life to the whole lump, just as Jesus pointed out so many years ago. And so love with abandon, find forgiveness that blesses your life, reconcile those at odds, and find eternal life welling up within. These are verbs well worth exercising in the human heart and in the human life.
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
-- Thomas Merton
WORSHIP RESOURCE
By Thom Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: Today, the words of God come to us:
People: inviting us to not be afraid,
but to place our faith in God.
Leader: Today, the words of God come to us:
People: inviting us to trust in the One who knows us,
to place our hope in the One who saves us.
Leader: Today, the Word of God comes to us:
People: inviting us to be gracious in our love
and in our service to others.
Prayer Of The Day
Gracious God:
your wall of hope
surrounds us in our despair;
your haven of faith
welcomes us in our unbelief;
your citadel of love
protects us from our anger.
Gracious Word:
you reach out to those
we would not touch;
you greet those
we would ignore;
you welcome those
we would exclude.
Holy Spirit:
rest gently upon us
so we might be kinder people;
touch us with your humility,
so we would let go of our pride;
show us your Way,
so we would not insist on our own.
God in Community, Holy in One,
our hope and our trust,
hear us as we pray as Jesus taught us,
Our Father...
Call To Reconciliation
The One who knew us before we were born knows our secret failings. The One who saw us in our mothers' wombs sees into our shadowed hearts. The One who bends down to listen to our words will speak grace and hope to us.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
Patient God, we must confess that our love is not what we would hope. We are so focused on ourselves, the needs of others dim in our eyes. We secretly rejoice in the miseries of those around us, knowing that they must have done something to deserve such lives. We push our families and friends away by insisting they do everything our way.
Forgive us, Faithful Deliverer. Rescue us from ourselves, so we might become your people. Touch us with the faith, the hope, the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, so we might be made whole.
(Silence is observed.)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: God's love never ends! Now, we know
we are forgiven; now, we know we are
healed.
People: Now, we can bear all things, believe
all things, hope all things, endure all
things. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Growing
Object: a diaper, bottle, or some other object familiar to a young child
Good morning! As we grow, we change. When you were very young, you undoubtedly wore diapers. You may have used a bottle. You had different kinds of shoes -- baby shoes -- because you couldn't walk and didn't need the kind of shoes you are wearing today. You probably had to sit in a high chair instead of a regular chair. How many of you used to do these things? (let them answer) I thought so. Now -- how many of you still wear diapers, use a bottle, wear baby shoes, and sit in a high chair? (let them answer) I thought so. Those things you did when you were very young, but now you do not do them.
You will continue to change. The way you think right now is not the way you will think in ten years. The things you do today are not the kinds of things you will do as you grow older. The style of clothes you wear today will change. The kind of music you enjoy will change. In other words, many things will change for you as you grow in years. That's neither good nor bad -- that's just the way it is!
The same is true as we learn how to love. God loves you and me. That can be hard for us to understand. But as we grow in our love, it will change just like everything else changes for you and me. If our understanding and experience of love didn't change, that would not be good. As we learn more about God's love through Jesus, our love for God, ourselves, and others will grow. It is exciting to grow. That is what makes Sunday school so exciting. In Sunday school, children grow and learn and change.
The same thing happens to us adults. We also keep growing and changing. We learn to trust in God more and grow in our faith; we learn to place our future in God's hands and learn more hope; we experience God's love and the love of others and grow in our ability to love. Everything changes as we grow. And that's the way God intended it to be.
Dear God: Thank you for helping us change and grow. Teach us more about love. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 28, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
