Acceptance, Forgiveness, And Camping
Sermon
Growing in Christ
Sermons for the Summer Season
Object:
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you ... Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye," when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.
-- Luke 6:36-38, 41-42
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Acceptance" and "Forgiveness" -- two appropriate and typical topics for Sunday morning sermonizing. But because of the informality of a July weekend morning, let me try an untypical approach.
I would like to begin this morning's sermon with sort of a self-confession and reveal a particular negative attitude I had toward certain people.
During the Fourth of July week, my wife and I took a day off and went camping at a campsite just off the Appalachian Trail in High Point State Park near the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York state borders. We went to hike the Appalachian Trail to get used to carrying heavy backpacks and get our legs and feet ready for our vacation in August, when we plan to do extensive hiking.
Another major reason for this July day of camping was to get away from the hustle and bustle of Route 33, and noisy teenage backyard swim parties, and televised Watergate. In other words, we went for just a day to get away from it all and participate in the quiet and solitude of nature and listen only to the mysterious but quiet sounds of the forest night and perhaps the crackle of a campfire.
The camping area was very nice. It was for tents only, and each campsite was isolated from the next by fifty yards of forest. After about a six-hour hike and then a refreshing swim in a cool mountain lake, we returned to the campsite to enjoy the quiet of a beautiful, still July night. Then it happened!
Our neighbors in the next campsite through the woods moved in. They came in about two or three station wagons, and when they all got out of their vehicles, my wife and I were certain the circus had just come to town. It seemed as though there were about 25 children of various sizes and shapes yelling, screaming, and crying throughout the forest. They were followed by two or three barking dogs, one of which was a huge German shepherd that looked like a cross between a wolf and a grizzly bear, a creature who projected a never-ending bark that I am sure was heard and feared in nearby New York and Pennsylvania.
Following this parade were about four adults who seemed to enjoy yelling at each other and yelling at all the children and animals. One adult male had a knack of standing in the middle of the campsite screaming orders, peppered with obscenities, about the correct way to set up the tents, tables, chairs, and what sounded like four transistor radios.
One of the unique features of their finished camp set-up was that they had about six pressurized gas Coleman double-mantle lanterns, which I am sure together threw off more light than the surface of the sun. All in all, their nearby section of the forest, as evening fell, took on the appearance in both sound and sight of Times Square.
And so the night went. I had gone to the mountains for quiet, rest, and solitude, and instead, all night I listened to children crying, and the "top 50" rock and country songs on numerous radios. I listened to the high-pitched barking of little dogs, the deep resonant bark of the monster dog, the loud, cruel laugh or hostile yell of adults, and the constant pop-swish of opening beer cans.
In my sleeping bag, I almost hated those people. I was too much of a coward to go complain to them; I was certain they were incapable of reasoning with me and besides, I was afraid their dogs would rip me apart.
In my mind, as I lay awake in my sleeping bag, I tried to think of ways I could get those degenerates legally.
The next day, I came home to put the finishing touches on my sermon for last Sunday -- a sermon specifically about women's liberation but ultimately about Jesus' message from Luke where he had welcomed and had eaten with the outcasts of his day.
I had already written for the sermon, "Each one of us, each one of our neighbors is important, immeasurably important. Each person is a free center of decision and responsibility, with a history and present capacity for fully developed, loving relationships with other people. We must respect and love each individual even though he may not be just like me or the way we would like him to be. Jesus offers us together forgiveness and the possibility for total life and joy in serving others."
Here I was, at least mentally, scheming how to get that loud-mouth family in the woods.
Looking back, I see I had been rationalizing. In the sleeping bag, I felt I did not fall into the sometimes-easy trap of hating their kind. (They were from Brooklyn.)
I certainly didn't hate everyone from Brooklyn. Everyone from Brooklyn or the city doesn't have to prove himself or herself to me. I like to think there is no prejudice in my mind. I honestly take each person as an individual and I had made individual judgment and decided that night in the tent. I was going to get that loud-mouthed individual family.
In last Sunday's Confession of Sins, I said, according to Celebrate, "I was slow in forgiving, too proud of myself; I said of many sins I am guilty, I ask you, my sisters and brothers, to forgive me and to assure me of the joy of the Lord."
And you answered, according to Celebrate, and I am sure honestly, "God forgives you, we forgive you."
And that meant much to me after that camping experience.
I had forgotten that at times you don't have to like someone to love them, to care for them and about them, to be concerned for their ultimate well-being.
God's plan for life is a communion where people dwell in a loving relationship with the creator of life and with one another. It should be a joint existence.
The family in the woods, through not only their general lifestyle or even their unbearable loudness, but through their yelling at one another, through their vocal bitterness toward the crying children, and through their lack of concern or respect for others around them -- was living out of harmony with God's purpose for existence, as I was in my mental scheming, in my thoughts, words, and deeds of selfishness.
Today's gospel parable comes to mind.
Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but pay no attention to the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Please, brother, let me take that speck out of your eye," yet not even see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite!
-- Luke 6:41-42 (paraphrased)
We are selfish, sinful creatures. I could not help them that night; but knowing I am as they can be and are, in God's forgiveness, I receive the strength to strive to bring together others and myself in forgiveness and acceptance and respect and love. We do exist in and for one another; it is being a part of true life.
At this point, I would like to comment on some mixed thoughts about "sin" and "grace," which are really at the heart of any discussion of forgiveness and acceptance, and in so doing, let us try to penetrate the deeper levels of our life.
Sin does not mean an immoral act, and sin should not be used in the plural. We should not talk about "sinners" and "non-sinners." Sin is rather the great all-pervading problem of our whole life.
Sin is separation -- separation from other people, separation from yourself, separation from the ground of meaning, and a self-imposed separation from God's intention for existence.
It is self-destructive, but we all equally participate in it. We are estranged from something to which we really belong and with which we should be united and our whole personality is involved.
"Grace" on the other hand, is the knowledge of the unity of life, a sensing and revelation of the way things should be.
Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace is the reunion of life with life. Even in our knowledge of and state of sin, grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement.
It is reconciliation of the self with the self. It changes guilt into confidence and courage, and our life as Christians is a struggle between this separation and reunion.
Jesus revealed the way it should be, but our selfishness constantly pulls us apart.
Often in a very refined way, we seek the pleasure of self-elevation. We put ourselves above loud campers from Brooklyn, we enjoy seeing the high-paid, cocky, big guns in government knocked down.
When people in the world and country and county starve emotionally, mentally, and physically, and injustices abound for others including family and friends, it seems quite often that thoughts and actions turn to number one, to ourselves.
In both humankind and nature, life is separated from life. This is the way we are, and this includes the most sensitive of humans. Man is split within himself. Life moves against itself through aggression, prejudice, hate, and despair.
It is a mixture of selfishness and self-hate. We are not capable of merciful, divine love toward ourselves or others. And when we abuse others, there is the abuse of ourselves.
The state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence. We know the way it should be; we hope for that.
From today's epistle, Paul wrote,
... not just creation alone, but we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his sons and set our whole being free.
-- Romans 8:23 (paraphrased)
But now we are separated and yet bound, estranged and yet belonging, destroyed and yet preserved.
It was here that Christ revealed God. He revealed that in the midst of your separation, you are totally accepted, and when the understanding of this grace strikes you, you can then accept yourself and you can be reconciled to others. You are accepted!
It brings meaning to empty lives that are in despair because of having violated other lives when we know we should have loved.
God's acceptance can give meaning right when our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us.
It can come to us when we are fed-up with the apparent facts that things just don't seem to change and when despair destroys all joy and courage.
You are accepted by the power of life and existence, not for anything you did but because you are life.
In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. Nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition -- nothing but acceptance.
In the light of this acceptance, in the light of this grace, we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. It is reunion of life with life. It breaks separation.
We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it is hostile and harmful to us, for through grace, we know that it belongs to the same intention to which we belong and by which we have been accepted.
We can then love life, love others, and love ourselves, not because of our goodness and self-complacency, but because of our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life.
I would like to close this morning's sermon with a prayer that deals outwardly with praying hands but inwardly deals with our topic of forgiveness and acceptance in our hearts and personalities. Let us pray.
These hands that grip steering wheels and flick light switches, turn doorknobs, press typewriter keys, push brooms, lift dish towels and fold laundry, guide pencils, hold children, wield heavy tools, fine instruments, and intricate machines.
These hands I fold -- a symbol of restraint of my own activities so that I might concentrate on what I am saying when I pray, "Into Your hands I commend myself."
Your hands, once tiny, holding your mother's little finger or fumbling with a toy; those hands that rested on the shoulders of burdened people, that passed out food to throngs, that lifted little children high, that touched the eyes of men and made them really see; those hands that touched fevered brows with cooling relief, that drew saddened people near; that restored total life.
Those hands broke bread and passed the cup.
Those hands You surrendered to hammer and nails and death.
Those hands revealing scars were raised to communicate to men God's peace, forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
Those hands stretched out to us beckon and invite -- and so we come to hands far stronger than our own, at your hands to receive strength for our own weary, failing hands -- strength to draw away from greedy grasping and selfish seizing.
Take these folded hands.
Open them to receive your love and to share that love with others whose hands have long been cold and empty and far too often crushed and crippled by selfish and thoughtless people.
You have made us members of Your body, forgiving our stiff and unbending paralysis.
Strengthen us to be the hands that reach out in your name to the lonely, the frustrated, the frightened, the exhausted, the bitter, and the hopeless with your love, with your acceptance, so that hands everywhere may be raised in praise to you, whose hand is ever upon us to hold us fast and to give us peace.1
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
Sermon delivered July 15, 1973
Resurrection Lutheran Church
Hamilton Square, New Jersey
____________
1. Karl E. Lutze, Forgive our Forgettings, Lord! (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1972), pp. 43 ff.
-- Luke 6:36-38, 41-42
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Acceptance" and "Forgiveness" -- two appropriate and typical topics for Sunday morning sermonizing. But because of the informality of a July weekend morning, let me try an untypical approach.
I would like to begin this morning's sermon with sort of a self-confession and reveal a particular negative attitude I had toward certain people.
During the Fourth of July week, my wife and I took a day off and went camping at a campsite just off the Appalachian Trail in High Point State Park near the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York state borders. We went to hike the Appalachian Trail to get used to carrying heavy backpacks and get our legs and feet ready for our vacation in August, when we plan to do extensive hiking.
Another major reason for this July day of camping was to get away from the hustle and bustle of Route 33, and noisy teenage backyard swim parties, and televised Watergate. In other words, we went for just a day to get away from it all and participate in the quiet and solitude of nature and listen only to the mysterious but quiet sounds of the forest night and perhaps the crackle of a campfire.
The camping area was very nice. It was for tents only, and each campsite was isolated from the next by fifty yards of forest. After about a six-hour hike and then a refreshing swim in a cool mountain lake, we returned to the campsite to enjoy the quiet of a beautiful, still July night. Then it happened!
Our neighbors in the next campsite through the woods moved in. They came in about two or three station wagons, and when they all got out of their vehicles, my wife and I were certain the circus had just come to town. It seemed as though there were about 25 children of various sizes and shapes yelling, screaming, and crying throughout the forest. They were followed by two or three barking dogs, one of which was a huge German shepherd that looked like a cross between a wolf and a grizzly bear, a creature who projected a never-ending bark that I am sure was heard and feared in nearby New York and Pennsylvania.
Following this parade were about four adults who seemed to enjoy yelling at each other and yelling at all the children and animals. One adult male had a knack of standing in the middle of the campsite screaming orders, peppered with obscenities, about the correct way to set up the tents, tables, chairs, and what sounded like four transistor radios.
One of the unique features of their finished camp set-up was that they had about six pressurized gas Coleman double-mantle lanterns, which I am sure together threw off more light than the surface of the sun. All in all, their nearby section of the forest, as evening fell, took on the appearance in both sound and sight of Times Square.
And so the night went. I had gone to the mountains for quiet, rest, and solitude, and instead, all night I listened to children crying, and the "top 50" rock and country songs on numerous radios. I listened to the high-pitched barking of little dogs, the deep resonant bark of the monster dog, the loud, cruel laugh or hostile yell of adults, and the constant pop-swish of opening beer cans.
In my sleeping bag, I almost hated those people. I was too much of a coward to go complain to them; I was certain they were incapable of reasoning with me and besides, I was afraid their dogs would rip me apart.
In my mind, as I lay awake in my sleeping bag, I tried to think of ways I could get those degenerates legally.
The next day, I came home to put the finishing touches on my sermon for last Sunday -- a sermon specifically about women's liberation but ultimately about Jesus' message from Luke where he had welcomed and had eaten with the outcasts of his day.
I had already written for the sermon, "Each one of us, each one of our neighbors is important, immeasurably important. Each person is a free center of decision and responsibility, with a history and present capacity for fully developed, loving relationships with other people. We must respect and love each individual even though he may not be just like me or the way we would like him to be. Jesus offers us together forgiveness and the possibility for total life and joy in serving others."
Here I was, at least mentally, scheming how to get that loud-mouth family in the woods.
Looking back, I see I had been rationalizing. In the sleeping bag, I felt I did not fall into the sometimes-easy trap of hating their kind. (They were from Brooklyn.)
I certainly didn't hate everyone from Brooklyn. Everyone from Brooklyn or the city doesn't have to prove himself or herself to me. I like to think there is no prejudice in my mind. I honestly take each person as an individual and I had made individual judgment and decided that night in the tent. I was going to get that loud-mouthed individual family.
In last Sunday's Confession of Sins, I said, according to Celebrate, "I was slow in forgiving, too proud of myself; I said of many sins I am guilty, I ask you, my sisters and brothers, to forgive me and to assure me of the joy of the Lord."
And you answered, according to Celebrate, and I am sure honestly, "God forgives you, we forgive you."
And that meant much to me after that camping experience.
I had forgotten that at times you don't have to like someone to love them, to care for them and about them, to be concerned for their ultimate well-being.
God's plan for life is a communion where people dwell in a loving relationship with the creator of life and with one another. It should be a joint existence.
The family in the woods, through not only their general lifestyle or even their unbearable loudness, but through their yelling at one another, through their vocal bitterness toward the crying children, and through their lack of concern or respect for others around them -- was living out of harmony with God's purpose for existence, as I was in my mental scheming, in my thoughts, words, and deeds of selfishness.
Today's gospel parable comes to mind.
Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but pay no attention to the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Please, brother, let me take that speck out of your eye," yet not even see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite!
-- Luke 6:41-42 (paraphrased)
We are selfish, sinful creatures. I could not help them that night; but knowing I am as they can be and are, in God's forgiveness, I receive the strength to strive to bring together others and myself in forgiveness and acceptance and respect and love. We do exist in and for one another; it is being a part of true life.
At this point, I would like to comment on some mixed thoughts about "sin" and "grace," which are really at the heart of any discussion of forgiveness and acceptance, and in so doing, let us try to penetrate the deeper levels of our life.
Sin does not mean an immoral act, and sin should not be used in the plural. We should not talk about "sinners" and "non-sinners." Sin is rather the great all-pervading problem of our whole life.
Sin is separation -- separation from other people, separation from yourself, separation from the ground of meaning, and a self-imposed separation from God's intention for existence.
It is self-destructive, but we all equally participate in it. We are estranged from something to which we really belong and with which we should be united and our whole personality is involved.
"Grace" on the other hand, is the knowledge of the unity of life, a sensing and revelation of the way things should be.
Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace is the reunion of life with life. Even in our knowledge of and state of sin, grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement.
It is reconciliation of the self with the self. It changes guilt into confidence and courage, and our life as Christians is a struggle between this separation and reunion.
Jesus revealed the way it should be, but our selfishness constantly pulls us apart.
Often in a very refined way, we seek the pleasure of self-elevation. We put ourselves above loud campers from Brooklyn, we enjoy seeing the high-paid, cocky, big guns in government knocked down.
When people in the world and country and county starve emotionally, mentally, and physically, and injustices abound for others including family and friends, it seems quite often that thoughts and actions turn to number one, to ourselves.
In both humankind and nature, life is separated from life. This is the way we are, and this includes the most sensitive of humans. Man is split within himself. Life moves against itself through aggression, prejudice, hate, and despair.
It is a mixture of selfishness and self-hate. We are not capable of merciful, divine love toward ourselves or others. And when we abuse others, there is the abuse of ourselves.
The state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence. We know the way it should be; we hope for that.
From today's epistle, Paul wrote,
... not just creation alone, but we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his sons and set our whole being free.
-- Romans 8:23 (paraphrased)
But now we are separated and yet bound, estranged and yet belonging, destroyed and yet preserved.
It was here that Christ revealed God. He revealed that in the midst of your separation, you are totally accepted, and when the understanding of this grace strikes you, you can then accept yourself and you can be reconciled to others. You are accepted!
It brings meaning to empty lives that are in despair because of having violated other lives when we know we should have loved.
God's acceptance can give meaning right when our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us.
It can come to us when we are fed-up with the apparent facts that things just don't seem to change and when despair destroys all joy and courage.
You are accepted by the power of life and existence, not for anything you did but because you are life.
In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. Nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition -- nothing but acceptance.
In the light of this acceptance, in the light of this grace, we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. It is reunion of life with life. It breaks separation.
We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it is hostile and harmful to us, for through grace, we know that it belongs to the same intention to which we belong and by which we have been accepted.
We can then love life, love others, and love ourselves, not because of our goodness and self-complacency, but because of our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life.
I would like to close this morning's sermon with a prayer that deals outwardly with praying hands but inwardly deals with our topic of forgiveness and acceptance in our hearts and personalities. Let us pray.
These hands that grip steering wheels and flick light switches, turn doorknobs, press typewriter keys, push brooms, lift dish towels and fold laundry, guide pencils, hold children, wield heavy tools, fine instruments, and intricate machines.
These hands I fold -- a symbol of restraint of my own activities so that I might concentrate on what I am saying when I pray, "Into Your hands I commend myself."
Your hands, once tiny, holding your mother's little finger or fumbling with a toy; those hands that rested on the shoulders of burdened people, that passed out food to throngs, that lifted little children high, that touched the eyes of men and made them really see; those hands that touched fevered brows with cooling relief, that drew saddened people near; that restored total life.
Those hands broke bread and passed the cup.
Those hands You surrendered to hammer and nails and death.
Those hands revealing scars were raised to communicate to men God's peace, forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
Those hands stretched out to us beckon and invite -- and so we come to hands far stronger than our own, at your hands to receive strength for our own weary, failing hands -- strength to draw away from greedy grasping and selfish seizing.
Take these folded hands.
Open them to receive your love and to share that love with others whose hands have long been cold and empty and far too often crushed and crippled by selfish and thoughtless people.
You have made us members of Your body, forgiving our stiff and unbending paralysis.
Strengthen us to be the hands that reach out in your name to the lonely, the frustrated, the frightened, the exhausted, the bitter, and the hopeless with your love, with your acceptance, so that hands everywhere may be raised in praise to you, whose hand is ever upon us to hold us fast and to give us peace.1
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
Sermon delivered July 15, 1973
Resurrection Lutheran Church
Hamilton Square, New Jersey
____________
1. Karl E. Lutze, Forgive our Forgettings, Lord! (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1972), pp. 43 ff.
