Forfeiting to win
Commentary
Object:
Our youngest daughter was born in Nigeria while I was teaching at the Reformed Theological College in Mkar. Because the Nigerian government does not automatically grant citizenship to all who are born on its soil, Kaitlyn was truly a person without a country in her earliest days. Until I could process her existence with the United States consulate in Kaduna she had no official identity, no traveling permissions, and no rights in society outside of our home. We took a picture of her at five days old, sleeping in my hands, and this became the photograph used on her passport for the first ten years of her life. The snapshot may have become outdated quickly as she grew through the stages of childhood, but the passport to which it was affixed declared that she belonged to the United States of America. She had rights. She had privileges. She had protection under the law. When the time came for us to leave Nigeria and travel through three continents to get back to North America, that little passport opened doors and prepared the way for her. She had never lived in the US, but the US knew her by name and kept watch over her.
So it is and more with the kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus. It becomes the badge of identification for us, as well as the symbol of our protection and care. When we choose other allegiances, or dig around for treasures in our own backyards we get from them what we are looking for -- things that we can possess. But when the glory of the Great Kingdom comes our way, or we stumble onto the pearl of great price, we realize that our little hoards are insufficient. It is not enough to own a piece of fading substance; we need to be owned by something that transcends our time. We need God to lay hold on us.
This is why, in many of the earliest liturgical forms for baptism, those who were newly coming into the fellowship of believers were asked if they renounced the devil and all his works. Early on it was recognized that entering the kingdom of God was more than just adding another spiritual talisman to the mix of superstitious hex warders; it was a fundamental commitment of identity that could not be shared. No dual passports in this kingdom! The truly great treasure demands that one sell everything else. It is exclusive. And when it is purchased, it actually purchases you.
Jeremiah knew this the day that God gave him an object lesson at the potter's house. Without submission to the master's hand, the clay could never become a vessel of honor. Paul gave the same instruction in another context to his good friend Philemon, master of an estate and owner of young Philemon. Unless Philemon remembered his own slavery to Jesus, he would never become "useful" in the things that really matter. Of course, Jesus, in our gospel reading for today, makes the point with incisive certainty. In order to win, we need to forfeit. Giving up to God is the first stage of finding ourselves in the way that ultimately matches who we are in the first place -- citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Jeremiah 18:1-11
A friend called me one Saturday. He was a perennial student, far away from the town that shaped him, and mostly at odds with his family. There was good reason for his mother to chide and nag and scold, for my friend had lost his faith, and his parents were worried. But the more they pushed the certainty of their beliefs on him, the more he chafed and backed away. He could no longer live in the simplicity of their dogma, even if it gave them shelter and safety.
So now he wandered in the wilderness of academia, hoping in each class to find a glorious utopia or a grand dream or at least a tiny map that might point toward some secularized Holy Grail. Every term he called me to describe his latest faculty mentor, a true savior, finally, who was worthy of his devotion. But this Saturday something was different. There was wistfulness in my friend's voice, and a trembling uncertainty in his words. What if there was no big picture or all-encompassing thesis or unifying meaning? What if we were tripping with stumbling paces through the wilderness and there was no limit or signpost or way out? What if he was on a quest, but there was nothing to find?
"I'm lonely," he told me, and I was left to imagine his cosmic, spiritual aloneness, a void where both heaven and hell were silent and he was left in awful communion with only his inadequate self. There was no dream here; only an incessant heart hunger kept awake by an unrelenting nightmare.
Generations ago George Herbert penned a brilliant picture of the aching in each of our souls. In his poem "The Pulley" he portrayed God at the moment of creation, sprinkling his new human creature with treasures kept in a jar beside him. These were God's finest resources, given now as gifts to the crown of his universe: beauty, wisdom, honor, pleasure… All were scattered liberally in the genetic recipe of our kind.
When the jar of God's treasures was nearly empty, God put the lid on it. The angels wondered why God did not finish the human concoction, leaving one great resource still in its container. This last quality, God told the angels, is "rest." But God would not grant that divine treasure to the human race.
The angels, of course, asked why. Herbert was ready with the divine answer regarding the best mix for the human spirit:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.
Herbert saw well that the strong talents and marvelous abilities of humankind would make us like impatient children, eager to strike out on our own and find our self-made destinies. Only if God would hold back a sense of full satisfaction from our souls would we search our way back home.
This remains a perennial theological paradox: It is the creative act of God that gives us freedom. Yet when we use our abilities for our own ends we tend to lose what is best in ourselves and often demean it in others, and push like adolescents away from our spiritual parent. Only if we become restless to find the face of God in some longing for home will we regain a glimpse of our own best faces reflected back toward us in the kindness and smile of God.
We are the people who go about declaring our great importance. But like the clay Jeremiah's potter's wheel, we lack the resources to make of ourselves anything of lasting value. We would die shapeless and unformed if left to our own devices. As with the clay in the fingers of the potter, there is no direction or purpose to keep us alive unless God does a miracle.
Philemon 1-21
Four of Paul's letters mention that he is a prisoner at the time of their writing: Ephesians (3:1; 4:1; 6:20), Philippians (1:13-17), Colossians (4:10; 4:18), and Philemon (1; 23). According to the book of Acts (and a brief reference in 2 Corinthians 12:23), Paul was imprisoned a number of times. On most of these occasions, however, his incarceration was very brief (e.g., in Philippi; Acts 16:16-40). Two imprisonments, though, were of significant duration: his two-year stint in Caesarean confinement (Acts 24) and the doublet of years he spent in Rome waiting for Caesar to hear his appeal (Acts 28:30). Paul's prison letters could have been written from either of these, though there are good reasons to opt for Roman origins.
For one thing, it is clear that Paul's letters to the Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon were written at the same time. They are sent by way of the same human carriers, Tychicus (Ephesians 6:21; Colossians 4:7) and Onesimus (Colossians 4:9; Philemon 8-19), refer to the same people surrounding Paul in prison (Timothy, Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras), and deal with identical issues in almost verbatim repetition of words (cf., Ephesians 5:21--6:9 and Colossians 3:18--4:1; Colossians 1:3-6, Philemon 4-6, and Ephesians 3:14-19). With this in mind, it is highly unlikely that Philemon's slave Onesimus would run away from the Lycus and Maeander river valleys in Phrygia (southwest Asia Minor) toward Palestine. On the other hand, with trade and communications moving to and from the capital of the empire, it is very likely that he would end up in Rome.
Similarly for Philippians, Paul's reference to the "whole palace" in 1:13 could possibly indicate a provenance of Caesarea as well as Rome (though not as likely), but the specific note about fellow Christians "who belong to Caesar's household" (4:22) can hardly be taken as anything other than the royal courts of the empire capital. Because of these clues it is very reasonable to understand that Paul's prison letters were written while he was in Rome between 57 and 59 AD.
Probably sometime near the end of 58 AD, Onesimus, a runaway slave from Paul's friend Philemon, came to Rome and found Paul. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by this alien environment and heard that Paul, someone he had met a few years earlier, was in town. Or maybe Onesimus came to the city specifically because he knew Paul was there, remembering how kindly Paul had treated him while the itinerant evangelist was staying at Philemon's home. In any case, Onesimus and Paul had a joyful reunion, and for a time Onesimus lived with Paul, acting out the true value of his name, which meant "useful."
After a while, though, Paul began to have qualms about ignoring the property rights that bound Onesimus to Philemon. He was sure that he would sometime soon run into his old friend again, and this secret would not come to light without great damage to their relationship. In fact, Paul was beginning to make plans for his next travels after being released from prison, and wanted to see Philemon as one stop on that journey. Evidently Paul had received word that his case was soon to be on Caesar's docket, and knew from Herod Agrippa's testimony (Acts 26:32) that royal judgment would clearly be in his favor.
So, probably in early 59 AD, Paul made plans to send Onesimus back to Philemon, accompanied by a trusted friend named Tychicus. Paul penned a short note to Philemon, explaining Onesimus' circumstances, and pleading with his friend to treat the young man well.
Paul's short letter to Philemon was mostly kind greetings and wishes (1-7), with a brief explanation of Onesimus' situation and Paul's hopes for his good treatment (8-21). At the close of that letter Paul told Philemon to get the guest room ready, for Paul was sure he would be traveling to visit both Philemon and Onesimus soon (22-25).
But this brief communication has enormous significance. While some have used it tediously to show that slave ownership is compatible with Christianity (hence the separation between "Southern" and "Northern" branches of so many major denominations in the United States by the time of the Civil War), they miss the real point that all of us must become slaves of Christ in order gain our truest selves. Only when Philemon (and we) forfeits our own kingdoms in favor of allegiance (slavery!) to Christ, do our ethics and morality work themselves out in socially meaningful ways. We must lose in order to win.
Luke 14:25-33
The kingdom of God has to possess us, says Jesus, or we are not a part of it at all. It demands total allegiance from us. It is the kind of thing that J.R.R. Tolkien tried to picture in his powerful trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Writing in the recovery years after World War II, Tolkien imagined what powers there are in this world that can possess peoples and nations, for good or for ill. His tale of the struggles of Middle Earth allegorically reflected the biblical idea of kingdoms in conflict.
Either, as Jesus indicates, we play games with little treasures, buying and selling them on world markets, and moving among commercial districts that hold our attraction for a while, or we are sold out to a greater power. We sell all and buy it. We give up our claims in order that we might be claimed.
Jesus even uses battlefield language to convey these ideas. Not every citizen in most realms is thereby automatically also a soldier preparing for battle. A few times in history it has been close to the truth -- when the modern state of Israel was founded, for instance, and all of its neighbors made a concerted effort to drive it into the sea. Suddenly everyone was under military orders; there was no other way to survive. While this is not a typical occurrence of our citizenship experiences, it does in fact mirror the urgency of Jesus' view of the kingdom of heaven.
Certainly, of course, we have to be careful with battlefield images as we communicate Christianity. Too often our world has experienced bellicose religion in forms that have destroyed civilizations, dehumanized societies, degraded value systems, and diminished piety. We have had enough of religious groups battling for domination at the expense of God's honor and human dignity.
Yet one cannot read both Old and New Testaments without appreciating the challenge of transformation that places citizens of the kingdom of God under orders. Some time ago I talked with a pastor of a large congregation in a major city. He was pleased with the worship and the ministries of his church. Everything seemed to operate with care and good taste and competence. He had the right staff in place, and they all were able to find dedicated, trained volunteers to shape a marvelous network of programs. Yet something didn't sit right with him. In his words, it was a very, very nice church. And therein was the problem. It was a church that looked after itself so well that it had forgotten that it was under orders to be about the missionary business of the kingdom of heaven.
If people wanted wonderful worship, all they had to do was join the congregation on Sundays. If they wanted terrific children's ministries and youth programs, all they had to do was drop their sons and daughters off at the right times. If anyone wanted a little diaconal assistance, just stop by the office and a secretary would arrange for a modest handout.
But the onus was on others to come and find the church. The congregation itself had little use for going out to search for the lost and the last and the least. It had lost its marching orders. It had gained the corner on "nice" but was losing the ability to call itself church.
Application
The writer of Ecclesiastes captured our reality best when he said that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (3:11). We are on pilgrimages of the soul. We are looking to find meaning, usually by declaring the amazing strength, goodness, and prowess of our own abilities.
So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more. We claim and declare and produce and use until we have exhausted ourselves in making our marks.
But it is never enough. Augustine reflected on the essential spiritual character of our race. "Man is one of your creatures, Lord," he said, "and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you." We must forfeit in order to win.
Alternative Application
Luke 14:25-33. C.S. Lewis knew the battlefield connection underlying Christianity. He came about that insight in a very personal way. When he was nine years old his warm and loving mother contracted cancer. Within a very short time she was confined to bed, enduring harsh treatments, in terrible pain, and stinking because of the sores and horrible wasting of her body. At night she would cry out in anguish, and young Jack (as he was known) hid in terror under his covers. He had heard the minister say that God answers prayer; so he begged God for his mother's deliverance. But to no avail. She died gasping and screaming, and his belief in God went with her.
Years later, when as an Oxford professor he began to rationally think through the possibility of Christian belief, Lewis finally understood what was going on in his mother's painful illness. He came to see that this world is a battlefield between the kingdom of God and the powers of evil, and that Christianity was true precisely because it took this conflict seriously. The religion of the Bible was not a streamlined Santa Claus story of a jolly old grandfather figure who always brings gifts, whether you are naughty or nice. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the struggles present in this world and the necessary reality of God's intervention. Lewis' mother died not because God didn't grant a child's wish but because the evil one had twisted God's good world in such a way that even the very cells of her body no longer worked as they should. But though healing did not come in that instant of boyish spiritual lisping, the prayers did not go unheard, and his mother was not lost forever or forgotten.
What Lewis finally realized, however, was that we are all living on a battlefield, and only when, like Jesus said, we count the cost, will we find the true winning side. This became, for him, the story of Aslan and Narnia, and the struggles of choice that none of us can escape, including his own family.
Preaching the Psalm
Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
This psalm takes us into places that most people would rather not go. This psalm takes us to the door of a personal God, a God who is intimate and immediate. God as an abstract notion is something that most people can absorb and engage. Hence the oft quote statistics that show most Americans as "believing in God." But a God who has "searched me and known me" is a bit more than most people want. A God who knows everything about us is even a bit creepy. This God knows when we get up and when we go to bed. This God knows our every thought. This God knows the things we've done that we wish we hadn't. This God knows the hurt we've caused and the wounds we've endured. This God knows it all.
Yes, the language of a personal and certainly familiar God. Who hasn't heard someone at some time blathering on about their personal relationship with God? It can be aggravating. But is it aggravating because of the person doing the blathering? Or does it annoy because it confronts us with something that causes discomfort? How often do we engage the idea of a God who knows everything there is to know about us? That's right. Everything. Think about it. Indeed, it's more than creepy. Most people have constructed themselves in such a way that there is a public and a private domain in their lives. And most, if not all, people have secrets. And to think that those carefully constructed private places; those closely guarded secrets are actually known is, well, a bit disconcerting.
The truly incredible thing in all this is that God does know everything. God knows the good and the ugly, the embarrassing and the shameful, the noble and the selfish; God knows it all and loves us completely. One wonders how many people in our lives are like that. Is there someone who knows it all and loves you still? If so, that is a true gift. The reality, though, is that most of us feel that if we were completely known that we would not be loved or accepted.
God, however, loves us warts and all. To contemplate a love like this is to pray in a new and powerful way. So go ahead, contemplate. Go ahead, pray. God knows everything about us and loves us with a love we can barely comprehend. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it…."
So it is and more with the kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus. It becomes the badge of identification for us, as well as the symbol of our protection and care. When we choose other allegiances, or dig around for treasures in our own backyards we get from them what we are looking for -- things that we can possess. But when the glory of the Great Kingdom comes our way, or we stumble onto the pearl of great price, we realize that our little hoards are insufficient. It is not enough to own a piece of fading substance; we need to be owned by something that transcends our time. We need God to lay hold on us.
This is why, in many of the earliest liturgical forms for baptism, those who were newly coming into the fellowship of believers were asked if they renounced the devil and all his works. Early on it was recognized that entering the kingdom of God was more than just adding another spiritual talisman to the mix of superstitious hex warders; it was a fundamental commitment of identity that could not be shared. No dual passports in this kingdom! The truly great treasure demands that one sell everything else. It is exclusive. And when it is purchased, it actually purchases you.
Jeremiah knew this the day that God gave him an object lesson at the potter's house. Without submission to the master's hand, the clay could never become a vessel of honor. Paul gave the same instruction in another context to his good friend Philemon, master of an estate and owner of young Philemon. Unless Philemon remembered his own slavery to Jesus, he would never become "useful" in the things that really matter. Of course, Jesus, in our gospel reading for today, makes the point with incisive certainty. In order to win, we need to forfeit. Giving up to God is the first stage of finding ourselves in the way that ultimately matches who we are in the first place -- citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Jeremiah 18:1-11
A friend called me one Saturday. He was a perennial student, far away from the town that shaped him, and mostly at odds with his family. There was good reason for his mother to chide and nag and scold, for my friend had lost his faith, and his parents were worried. But the more they pushed the certainty of their beliefs on him, the more he chafed and backed away. He could no longer live in the simplicity of their dogma, even if it gave them shelter and safety.
So now he wandered in the wilderness of academia, hoping in each class to find a glorious utopia or a grand dream or at least a tiny map that might point toward some secularized Holy Grail. Every term he called me to describe his latest faculty mentor, a true savior, finally, who was worthy of his devotion. But this Saturday something was different. There was wistfulness in my friend's voice, and a trembling uncertainty in his words. What if there was no big picture or all-encompassing thesis or unifying meaning? What if we were tripping with stumbling paces through the wilderness and there was no limit or signpost or way out? What if he was on a quest, but there was nothing to find?
"I'm lonely," he told me, and I was left to imagine his cosmic, spiritual aloneness, a void where both heaven and hell were silent and he was left in awful communion with only his inadequate self. There was no dream here; only an incessant heart hunger kept awake by an unrelenting nightmare.
Generations ago George Herbert penned a brilliant picture of the aching in each of our souls. In his poem "The Pulley" he portrayed God at the moment of creation, sprinkling his new human creature with treasures kept in a jar beside him. These were God's finest resources, given now as gifts to the crown of his universe: beauty, wisdom, honor, pleasure… All were scattered liberally in the genetic recipe of our kind.
When the jar of God's treasures was nearly empty, God put the lid on it. The angels wondered why God did not finish the human concoction, leaving one great resource still in its container. This last quality, God told the angels, is "rest." But God would not grant that divine treasure to the human race.
The angels, of course, asked why. Herbert was ready with the divine answer regarding the best mix for the human spirit:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.
Herbert saw well that the strong talents and marvelous abilities of humankind would make us like impatient children, eager to strike out on our own and find our self-made destinies. Only if God would hold back a sense of full satisfaction from our souls would we search our way back home.
This remains a perennial theological paradox: It is the creative act of God that gives us freedom. Yet when we use our abilities for our own ends we tend to lose what is best in ourselves and often demean it in others, and push like adolescents away from our spiritual parent. Only if we become restless to find the face of God in some longing for home will we regain a glimpse of our own best faces reflected back toward us in the kindness and smile of God.
We are the people who go about declaring our great importance. But like the clay Jeremiah's potter's wheel, we lack the resources to make of ourselves anything of lasting value. We would die shapeless and unformed if left to our own devices. As with the clay in the fingers of the potter, there is no direction or purpose to keep us alive unless God does a miracle.
Philemon 1-21
Four of Paul's letters mention that he is a prisoner at the time of their writing: Ephesians (3:1; 4:1; 6:20), Philippians (1:13-17), Colossians (4:10; 4:18), and Philemon (1; 23). According to the book of Acts (and a brief reference in 2 Corinthians 12:23), Paul was imprisoned a number of times. On most of these occasions, however, his incarceration was very brief (e.g., in Philippi; Acts 16:16-40). Two imprisonments, though, were of significant duration: his two-year stint in Caesarean confinement (Acts 24) and the doublet of years he spent in Rome waiting for Caesar to hear his appeal (Acts 28:30). Paul's prison letters could have been written from either of these, though there are good reasons to opt for Roman origins.
For one thing, it is clear that Paul's letters to the Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon were written at the same time. They are sent by way of the same human carriers, Tychicus (Ephesians 6:21; Colossians 4:7) and Onesimus (Colossians 4:9; Philemon 8-19), refer to the same people surrounding Paul in prison (Timothy, Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras), and deal with identical issues in almost verbatim repetition of words (cf., Ephesians 5:21--6:9 and Colossians 3:18--4:1; Colossians 1:3-6, Philemon 4-6, and Ephesians 3:14-19). With this in mind, it is highly unlikely that Philemon's slave Onesimus would run away from the Lycus and Maeander river valleys in Phrygia (southwest Asia Minor) toward Palestine. On the other hand, with trade and communications moving to and from the capital of the empire, it is very likely that he would end up in Rome.
Similarly for Philippians, Paul's reference to the "whole palace" in 1:13 could possibly indicate a provenance of Caesarea as well as Rome (though not as likely), but the specific note about fellow Christians "who belong to Caesar's household" (4:22) can hardly be taken as anything other than the royal courts of the empire capital. Because of these clues it is very reasonable to understand that Paul's prison letters were written while he was in Rome between 57 and 59 AD.
Probably sometime near the end of 58 AD, Onesimus, a runaway slave from Paul's friend Philemon, came to Rome and found Paul. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by this alien environment and heard that Paul, someone he had met a few years earlier, was in town. Or maybe Onesimus came to the city specifically because he knew Paul was there, remembering how kindly Paul had treated him while the itinerant evangelist was staying at Philemon's home. In any case, Onesimus and Paul had a joyful reunion, and for a time Onesimus lived with Paul, acting out the true value of his name, which meant "useful."
After a while, though, Paul began to have qualms about ignoring the property rights that bound Onesimus to Philemon. He was sure that he would sometime soon run into his old friend again, and this secret would not come to light without great damage to their relationship. In fact, Paul was beginning to make plans for his next travels after being released from prison, and wanted to see Philemon as one stop on that journey. Evidently Paul had received word that his case was soon to be on Caesar's docket, and knew from Herod Agrippa's testimony (Acts 26:32) that royal judgment would clearly be in his favor.
So, probably in early 59 AD, Paul made plans to send Onesimus back to Philemon, accompanied by a trusted friend named Tychicus. Paul penned a short note to Philemon, explaining Onesimus' circumstances, and pleading with his friend to treat the young man well.
Paul's short letter to Philemon was mostly kind greetings and wishes (1-7), with a brief explanation of Onesimus' situation and Paul's hopes for his good treatment (8-21). At the close of that letter Paul told Philemon to get the guest room ready, for Paul was sure he would be traveling to visit both Philemon and Onesimus soon (22-25).
But this brief communication has enormous significance. While some have used it tediously to show that slave ownership is compatible with Christianity (hence the separation between "Southern" and "Northern" branches of so many major denominations in the United States by the time of the Civil War), they miss the real point that all of us must become slaves of Christ in order gain our truest selves. Only when Philemon (and we) forfeits our own kingdoms in favor of allegiance (slavery!) to Christ, do our ethics and morality work themselves out in socially meaningful ways. We must lose in order to win.
Luke 14:25-33
The kingdom of God has to possess us, says Jesus, or we are not a part of it at all. It demands total allegiance from us. It is the kind of thing that J.R.R. Tolkien tried to picture in his powerful trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Writing in the recovery years after World War II, Tolkien imagined what powers there are in this world that can possess peoples and nations, for good or for ill. His tale of the struggles of Middle Earth allegorically reflected the biblical idea of kingdoms in conflict.
Either, as Jesus indicates, we play games with little treasures, buying and selling them on world markets, and moving among commercial districts that hold our attraction for a while, or we are sold out to a greater power. We sell all and buy it. We give up our claims in order that we might be claimed.
Jesus even uses battlefield language to convey these ideas. Not every citizen in most realms is thereby automatically also a soldier preparing for battle. A few times in history it has been close to the truth -- when the modern state of Israel was founded, for instance, and all of its neighbors made a concerted effort to drive it into the sea. Suddenly everyone was under military orders; there was no other way to survive. While this is not a typical occurrence of our citizenship experiences, it does in fact mirror the urgency of Jesus' view of the kingdom of heaven.
Certainly, of course, we have to be careful with battlefield images as we communicate Christianity. Too often our world has experienced bellicose religion in forms that have destroyed civilizations, dehumanized societies, degraded value systems, and diminished piety. We have had enough of religious groups battling for domination at the expense of God's honor and human dignity.
Yet one cannot read both Old and New Testaments without appreciating the challenge of transformation that places citizens of the kingdom of God under orders. Some time ago I talked with a pastor of a large congregation in a major city. He was pleased with the worship and the ministries of his church. Everything seemed to operate with care and good taste and competence. He had the right staff in place, and they all were able to find dedicated, trained volunteers to shape a marvelous network of programs. Yet something didn't sit right with him. In his words, it was a very, very nice church. And therein was the problem. It was a church that looked after itself so well that it had forgotten that it was under orders to be about the missionary business of the kingdom of heaven.
If people wanted wonderful worship, all they had to do was join the congregation on Sundays. If they wanted terrific children's ministries and youth programs, all they had to do was drop their sons and daughters off at the right times. If anyone wanted a little diaconal assistance, just stop by the office and a secretary would arrange for a modest handout.
But the onus was on others to come and find the church. The congregation itself had little use for going out to search for the lost and the last and the least. It had lost its marching orders. It had gained the corner on "nice" but was losing the ability to call itself church.
Application
The writer of Ecclesiastes captured our reality best when he said that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (3:11). We are on pilgrimages of the soul. We are looking to find meaning, usually by declaring the amazing strength, goodness, and prowess of our own abilities.
So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more. We claim and declare and produce and use until we have exhausted ourselves in making our marks.
But it is never enough. Augustine reflected on the essential spiritual character of our race. "Man is one of your creatures, Lord," he said, "and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you." We must forfeit in order to win.
Alternative Application
Luke 14:25-33. C.S. Lewis knew the battlefield connection underlying Christianity. He came about that insight in a very personal way. When he was nine years old his warm and loving mother contracted cancer. Within a very short time she was confined to bed, enduring harsh treatments, in terrible pain, and stinking because of the sores and horrible wasting of her body. At night she would cry out in anguish, and young Jack (as he was known) hid in terror under his covers. He had heard the minister say that God answers prayer; so he begged God for his mother's deliverance. But to no avail. She died gasping and screaming, and his belief in God went with her.
Years later, when as an Oxford professor he began to rationally think through the possibility of Christian belief, Lewis finally understood what was going on in his mother's painful illness. He came to see that this world is a battlefield between the kingdom of God and the powers of evil, and that Christianity was true precisely because it took this conflict seriously. The religion of the Bible was not a streamlined Santa Claus story of a jolly old grandfather figure who always brings gifts, whether you are naughty or nice. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the struggles present in this world and the necessary reality of God's intervention. Lewis' mother died not because God didn't grant a child's wish but because the evil one had twisted God's good world in such a way that even the very cells of her body no longer worked as they should. But though healing did not come in that instant of boyish spiritual lisping, the prayers did not go unheard, and his mother was not lost forever or forgotten.
What Lewis finally realized, however, was that we are all living on a battlefield, and only when, like Jesus said, we count the cost, will we find the true winning side. This became, for him, the story of Aslan and Narnia, and the struggles of choice that none of us can escape, including his own family.
Preaching the Psalm
Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
This psalm takes us into places that most people would rather not go. This psalm takes us to the door of a personal God, a God who is intimate and immediate. God as an abstract notion is something that most people can absorb and engage. Hence the oft quote statistics that show most Americans as "believing in God." But a God who has "searched me and known me" is a bit more than most people want. A God who knows everything about us is even a bit creepy. This God knows when we get up and when we go to bed. This God knows our every thought. This God knows the things we've done that we wish we hadn't. This God knows the hurt we've caused and the wounds we've endured. This God knows it all.
Yes, the language of a personal and certainly familiar God. Who hasn't heard someone at some time blathering on about their personal relationship with God? It can be aggravating. But is it aggravating because of the person doing the blathering? Or does it annoy because it confronts us with something that causes discomfort? How often do we engage the idea of a God who knows everything there is to know about us? That's right. Everything. Think about it. Indeed, it's more than creepy. Most people have constructed themselves in such a way that there is a public and a private domain in their lives. And most, if not all, people have secrets. And to think that those carefully constructed private places; those closely guarded secrets are actually known is, well, a bit disconcerting.
The truly incredible thing in all this is that God does know everything. God knows the good and the ugly, the embarrassing and the shameful, the noble and the selfish; God knows it all and loves us completely. One wonders how many people in our lives are like that. Is there someone who knows it all and loves you still? If so, that is a true gift. The reality, though, is that most of us feel that if we were completely known that we would not be loved or accepted.
God, however, loves us warts and all. To contemplate a love like this is to pray in a new and powerful way. So go ahead, contemplate. Go ahead, pray. God knows everything about us and loves us with a love we can barely comprehend. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it…."
