Living In Two Worlds At Once
Sermon
Tears Of Sadness, Tears Of Gladness
Gospel Sermons For Lent/Easter
Here are two statements about the world. Tell me if both of them ring true for you. The first of them is this: "The world is a beautiful place." And the second statement is this: "The world is a terrible and dangerous place." Both statements are true - don't you agree? - and yet, ironically, they seem to say the exact opposite thing. How much easier it would be to affirm one statement or the other, but not both.
The world is a beautiful place - most of us can say that with no difficulty at all. The miracle of the birth of a baby, the splendor of a spectacular sunset, the wonder of music and poetry and art and drama - all of these affirm the beauty of the world in which we live. Joseph Sittler taught theology at the University of Chicago for years. Late in his life he began to go blind. His friends said to him, "Joe, if you had your full sight back for just one afternoon, what would you go and see?" Without any hesitation at all he said, "Chartres, the glories of the blues in the cathedral windows there are so beautiful."1
If you have ever beheld the beauty of the trees when they are aflame in their fall foliage, then you can identify with American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay when she wrote:
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color!
... Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.2
If you have ever looked into the nighttime sky at the moon and the planets and the shimmering stars which hang down like lovely lanterns in God's cosmic cathedral, then you know firsthand that the world is a beautiful place. Speaking of the cosmos, I know that every woman here believes that the world is a beautiful place. Do you know why? Because the word cosmos, the Greek word for "world," is the same word from which we get our word "cosmetics"! Ponder that the next time that you are applying your makeup. Yes, if there is one thing we can all affirm, it is that the world - the cosmos - is a beautiful place.
But the world is not only a beautiful place; it is also a terrible and dangerous place: every earthquake, tornado, or hurricane; every plane crash, like the tragic crash which took the life of young John Kennedy, his wife, and his wife's sister; every dreaded disease like cancer and AIDS; every random act of violence; every school ground shooting; every awful episode of ethnic cleansing; and every war which is ever fought - all of these events remind us that the world is a terrible and a dangerous place.
If only we could choose one or the other, we'd know how to live. If the world is beautiful, then we could embrace it. But if the world is terrible and dangerous, then we'd be better off to fear it and guard ourselves against it.
Like us, the Gospel of John struggles to make sense of the world. On the one hand John affirms that the world is good and worthy of God's love. After all, way back at the time of creation, God pronounced the world "good." And in the fullness of time, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed," continues John, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16--17). The world, John wants us to know, is deeply loved by God.
But the world is also a dangerous place. For one thing, the world is a dark place, which needs the light of Christ to shine in it. "The light shines in the darkness," wrote John, "and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:5). For another thing, the world has rejected Christ. "He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him" (John 1:10). Can you see John's struggle to make sense of the world? The world in not just a beautiful place deeply loved by God, it is also a "godless world"3 which has turned its back on Christ.
You might say, therefore, that John had a lover's quarrel with the world. Robert Frost, the American poet, once said that about himself. One day Frost was walking through a cemetery looking at the tombstones. He grew interested in the words inscribed on each tombstone, which attempted to sum up the person's life. Frost found himself asking, "What epitaph would I choose for my own tombstone?" These are the words engraved on his gravestone: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."4
And so it was for the author of the Gospel of John. He too had a lover's quarrel with the world. He knew that the early Christians should be engaged in the world through mission because, after all, this is God's world, the world God loves, the world God sent Christ to save. But John also feared the corrupting influence of the world. He must have wondered as many have wondered since - how can we Christians be in the world without being of the world? How can we live in the world without being swallowed up by the world? How can we live in two different worlds at once?
Of course, the early Christians were not the first ever to face such a problem. Hundreds of years before, the people of ancient Israel faced a similar struggle during what we've come to call the Babylonian Captivity or the Babylonian Exile. They had been dragged away from their homeland and forced to live as prisoners of war in far--away Babylon. A beautiful poem from the Book of Psalms recalls their ordeal:
By the rivers of Babylon - there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
- Psalm 137:1--3
"Sing us one of the songs of your homeland," said the captors. And do you know how they answered? "How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" Indeed, how can anybody sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How can we live in this strange and secular world and at the same time hold on to what is spiritual and sacred?
Jesus knew that his disciples would face this very struggle in the world. So he gathered them in the Upper Room to prepare them. He knew that his time with them was winding down. Soon he would go to the cross. Soon he would be put to death. Soon he would leave them all alone, alone in a world that was both terrible and dangerous, a world that would swallow them alive unless they could define themselves in terms that were distinct from the world. So there in the Upper Room he spoke to them tenderly as if they were little children. There in the Upper Room he put before them both a challenge and a promise. The challenge was, at the same time, both simple and demanding. He stated the whole thing in just nine words: "If you love me," he said, "you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).
Of course, not everybody likes the idea of commandments, of rules and regulations. "Did God really say that we can eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, but not of that fruit?" But that temptation was too great for our spiritual ancestors Adam and Eve, and they did what they should not have done. Ever since, we humans have struggled to decide - should we live by the commandments that God has set before us, or should we do our own thing and hope that no one is watching?
Yet, as we mature most of us begin to realize that the commandments are not just rigid rules to obey. They are also good and gracious gifts of God to order and regulate our lives and which help to shape our identity and define who we are and how we might live. Once, someone said to Jesus, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He answered, " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' " (Matthew 22:36--39). On another occasion Jesus said to his disciples, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another" (John 13:34).
Don't you find it interesting that when Jesus spoke about obeying the commandments, he almost always spoke in terms of love? "If you love me," he said, "you will keep my commandments" - not primarily out of obligation, you see, not out of guilt, not out of fear, but out of love. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." That's the challenge he puts before us, a demanding challenge to be sure.
But the challenge is made easier because of the promise that accompanies it. "I will not leave you orphaned" (John 14:18), he says. I will not leave you alone. No, you are part of my family, and "I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever" (John 14:16).
Some time ago I heard a young man speak at the funeral for his grandfather. The young man told the congregation that he was adopted but had always sensed that his grandfather loved him as much as the other grandkids, none of whom was adopted. To illustrate his point, the young man told of the time that he, his grandfather, and his father all went to a major league sporting event. At halftime they bumped into a man who had been the grandfather's business associate years before. The man, not knowing that the grandson was adopted, looked at the three generations - grandfather, father, and son - and said, "Wow! I can sure see the family resemblance. All of you look so much alike." With that, the grandfather put his arm on his grandson's shoulder and said simply, "Yes, we all do look alike, don't we?" At that moment, recalled the young man during the funeral eulogy, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that my grandfather loved me unconditionally and that I was part of the family.
As disciples, we are part of the family of Jesus Christ. He has adopted us into his family. He has given us the promise of his presence to guide us and sustain us when we venture out into the world, which, as we've seen, is a terrible and a dangerous place. He challenges us to live lives that give glory to the family name, the name of Christ, not by defining ourselves according to the world's standards, but according to the standards of Christ. He challenges us to stand apart from the world and to try to transform it. "If you love me," he says, "you will show that love by keeping my commandments."
____________
1. Joseph Sittler, Gravity And Grace, ed. Linda--Marie Delloff (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), p. 6.
2. Edna St. Vincent Millay, "God's World" in Contemporary Poetry, ed. H. Lincoln Foster (New York: The Macmillan Company Publishers, 1963), p. 28.
3. This is a phrase which Eugene Peterson uses in his paraphrase of the New Testament called The Message (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993), p. 151.
4. Quoted in R. Maurice Boyd, A Lover's Quarrel With The World (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), p. 13.
The world is a beautiful place - most of us can say that with no difficulty at all. The miracle of the birth of a baby, the splendor of a spectacular sunset, the wonder of music and poetry and art and drama - all of these affirm the beauty of the world in which we live. Joseph Sittler taught theology at the University of Chicago for years. Late in his life he began to go blind. His friends said to him, "Joe, if you had your full sight back for just one afternoon, what would you go and see?" Without any hesitation at all he said, "Chartres, the glories of the blues in the cathedral windows there are so beautiful."1
If you have ever beheld the beauty of the trees when they are aflame in their fall foliage, then you can identify with American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay when she wrote:
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color!
... Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.2
If you have ever looked into the nighttime sky at the moon and the planets and the shimmering stars which hang down like lovely lanterns in God's cosmic cathedral, then you know firsthand that the world is a beautiful place. Speaking of the cosmos, I know that every woman here believes that the world is a beautiful place. Do you know why? Because the word cosmos, the Greek word for "world," is the same word from which we get our word "cosmetics"! Ponder that the next time that you are applying your makeup. Yes, if there is one thing we can all affirm, it is that the world - the cosmos - is a beautiful place.
But the world is not only a beautiful place; it is also a terrible and dangerous place: every earthquake, tornado, or hurricane; every plane crash, like the tragic crash which took the life of young John Kennedy, his wife, and his wife's sister; every dreaded disease like cancer and AIDS; every random act of violence; every school ground shooting; every awful episode of ethnic cleansing; and every war which is ever fought - all of these events remind us that the world is a terrible and a dangerous place.
If only we could choose one or the other, we'd know how to live. If the world is beautiful, then we could embrace it. But if the world is terrible and dangerous, then we'd be better off to fear it and guard ourselves against it.
Like us, the Gospel of John struggles to make sense of the world. On the one hand John affirms that the world is good and worthy of God's love. After all, way back at the time of creation, God pronounced the world "good." And in the fullness of time, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed," continues John, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16--17). The world, John wants us to know, is deeply loved by God.
But the world is also a dangerous place. For one thing, the world is a dark place, which needs the light of Christ to shine in it. "The light shines in the darkness," wrote John, "and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:5). For another thing, the world has rejected Christ. "He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him" (John 1:10). Can you see John's struggle to make sense of the world? The world in not just a beautiful place deeply loved by God, it is also a "godless world"3 which has turned its back on Christ.
You might say, therefore, that John had a lover's quarrel with the world. Robert Frost, the American poet, once said that about himself. One day Frost was walking through a cemetery looking at the tombstones. He grew interested in the words inscribed on each tombstone, which attempted to sum up the person's life. Frost found himself asking, "What epitaph would I choose for my own tombstone?" These are the words engraved on his gravestone: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."4
And so it was for the author of the Gospel of John. He too had a lover's quarrel with the world. He knew that the early Christians should be engaged in the world through mission because, after all, this is God's world, the world God loves, the world God sent Christ to save. But John also feared the corrupting influence of the world. He must have wondered as many have wondered since - how can we Christians be in the world without being of the world? How can we live in the world without being swallowed up by the world? How can we live in two different worlds at once?
Of course, the early Christians were not the first ever to face such a problem. Hundreds of years before, the people of ancient Israel faced a similar struggle during what we've come to call the Babylonian Captivity or the Babylonian Exile. They had been dragged away from their homeland and forced to live as prisoners of war in far--away Babylon. A beautiful poem from the Book of Psalms recalls their ordeal:
By the rivers of Babylon - there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
- Psalm 137:1--3
"Sing us one of the songs of your homeland," said the captors. And do you know how they answered? "How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" Indeed, how can anybody sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How can we live in this strange and secular world and at the same time hold on to what is spiritual and sacred?
Jesus knew that his disciples would face this very struggle in the world. So he gathered them in the Upper Room to prepare them. He knew that his time with them was winding down. Soon he would go to the cross. Soon he would be put to death. Soon he would leave them all alone, alone in a world that was both terrible and dangerous, a world that would swallow them alive unless they could define themselves in terms that were distinct from the world. So there in the Upper Room he spoke to them tenderly as if they were little children. There in the Upper Room he put before them both a challenge and a promise. The challenge was, at the same time, both simple and demanding. He stated the whole thing in just nine words: "If you love me," he said, "you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).
Of course, not everybody likes the idea of commandments, of rules and regulations. "Did God really say that we can eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, but not of that fruit?" But that temptation was too great for our spiritual ancestors Adam and Eve, and they did what they should not have done. Ever since, we humans have struggled to decide - should we live by the commandments that God has set before us, or should we do our own thing and hope that no one is watching?
Yet, as we mature most of us begin to realize that the commandments are not just rigid rules to obey. They are also good and gracious gifts of God to order and regulate our lives and which help to shape our identity and define who we are and how we might live. Once, someone said to Jesus, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He answered, " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' " (Matthew 22:36--39). On another occasion Jesus said to his disciples, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another" (John 13:34).
Don't you find it interesting that when Jesus spoke about obeying the commandments, he almost always spoke in terms of love? "If you love me," he said, "you will keep my commandments" - not primarily out of obligation, you see, not out of guilt, not out of fear, but out of love. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." That's the challenge he puts before us, a demanding challenge to be sure.
But the challenge is made easier because of the promise that accompanies it. "I will not leave you orphaned" (John 14:18), he says. I will not leave you alone. No, you are part of my family, and "I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever" (John 14:16).
Some time ago I heard a young man speak at the funeral for his grandfather. The young man told the congregation that he was adopted but had always sensed that his grandfather loved him as much as the other grandkids, none of whom was adopted. To illustrate his point, the young man told of the time that he, his grandfather, and his father all went to a major league sporting event. At halftime they bumped into a man who had been the grandfather's business associate years before. The man, not knowing that the grandson was adopted, looked at the three generations - grandfather, father, and son - and said, "Wow! I can sure see the family resemblance. All of you look so much alike." With that, the grandfather put his arm on his grandson's shoulder and said simply, "Yes, we all do look alike, don't we?" At that moment, recalled the young man during the funeral eulogy, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that my grandfather loved me unconditionally and that I was part of the family.
As disciples, we are part of the family of Jesus Christ. He has adopted us into his family. He has given us the promise of his presence to guide us and sustain us when we venture out into the world, which, as we've seen, is a terrible and a dangerous place. He challenges us to live lives that give glory to the family name, the name of Christ, not by defining ourselves according to the world's standards, but according to the standards of Christ. He challenges us to stand apart from the world and to try to transform it. "If you love me," he says, "you will show that love by keeping my commandments."
____________
1. Joseph Sittler, Gravity And Grace, ed. Linda--Marie Delloff (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), p. 6.
2. Edna St. Vincent Millay, "God's World" in Contemporary Poetry, ed. H. Lincoln Foster (New York: The Macmillan Company Publishers, 1963), p. 28.
3. This is a phrase which Eugene Peterson uses in his paraphrase of the New Testament called The Message (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993), p. 151.
4. Quoted in R. Maurice Boyd, A Lover's Quarrel With The World (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), p. 13.
