Year A, Proper 8, Romans 6.12-23, Slaves of Righteousness

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen

“Freedom” is actually an illusion.

We are not free.

We never have been free.

And in fact, the more we attempt to be free, the greater our bondage becomes.

We are slaves.

The only question is “Who will we serve as Lord and Master?”

Paul writes:   “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

And again:  “But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification.”

You see, we will always have a Lord and Master, the only question is what Lord and What Master.

To claim Jesus as Lord, is to be set free from our bondage to sin, yet we are bound to obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ.

To deny that Jesus is Lord, is to willfully accept the reign of Sin in our lives, and to be bound to that which will one day kill us.

We live in turbulent times.

There is no where that this is more evident than in our nation’s politics.

And one need look no further than the reaction to our current president, and our former president, to see the intensity of the turbulence.

He is the best president we’ve ever had.

He is the worst president we’ve ever had.

The problem is that we can’t agree on which is which.

I think that underlying this problem is our illusion of freedom.

People are free to believe whatever they want to believe.

The result of that freedom is that there is no moral compass guiding us, no common understanding of what is good, no consensus about what is right.

If there were in fact, some shared values about these things, we’d actually be able to agree about whether a particular president was the best or the worst, but we can’t. 

We are that divided.

But this freedom to believe whatever we want to believe is in fact slavery to our own natural inclination to sin.

It is in our human nature to seek that which benefits us the most.  This selfishness is a bondage, a slavery, which leads to death.

But we don’t want to admit it.

“You do realize,” God says, “that the path down which you are walking will lead to your destruction and death, don’t you?”

And our response is to claim our freedom, and to continue doing whatever we want to do, thinking that we are free when in fact we are enslaved like no other. 

There are many example of this.

When I was drinking I used to love it when Karla would be gone for a few days because I was then free to drink however much I wanted without having to listen to her complaining.

The truth is I was not free at all, I was simply blind to the slavery I was experiencing to alcohol.

Oh, and that slavery, almost killed me.

Now, I am no longer free to drink, and yet this new ‘slavery’ to sobriety will let me live. 

Slave to the bottle?

Or slave to sobriety?

One leads to death, the other to life.

That was the choice that had to be made.

Scientists warn us today, about the effects of our lifestyles on the planet and the environment.

There is little debate within the scientific community that the planet is warming.  Glaciers are melting.  Weather patterns are getting more severe.

Perhaps the world’s scientists are wrong.

As we hear the dire predictions that they are making, one can even hope, that they are wrong, because if they are right the future may look bleak for many parts of the world.

But what if they are right?

We are so enslaved to our lifestyles that it is almost impossible for us to change.  We don’t want to.  We want to be free to live as we please.  But we are not free at all.

We are in bondage to a way of living that will one day kill us.

I was part of a conversation recently in which someone was maintaining that the scientists were wrong.

Another person, my brother, responded to that person saying “I hope you're right, that the scientists are wrong, but in refusing to listen to what the scientists are saying you are risking the future of our planet.”

Think about it—

What better definition of slavery, of being in bondage, is there than this:  that we are so compelled by our sinfulness to act in a certain way that we will continue to do so even if it kills us.

And yet we are not bound to be slaves to that which kills us.

That is the point that Paul is writing about.

You have been set free from your bondage to sin, that you might be slaves to righteousness and servants of God.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We will be slaves, one way or another.

Slaves to sin.

Or slaves of God, offering our lives to him in obedience.

To be ‘redeemed’ means that we are set free from our slavery to sin, and we might serve God as slaves of righteousness.

Did you know that the term ‘redeem’ actually comes from the institution of slavery.  To purchase a slave was to redeem that slave.  And once redeemed, the slave was now under obligation to serve the new master.

What does it mean to be slaves of Christ Jesus?

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

This seems so simple and straight forward.

Except for one thing.

We remain so deeply in bondage to sin, that on our own we cannot come close to agreeing what is loving, and what is not.

Another example from our current political environment.

We consider ourselves to be a great nation,.

We are a nation that has a substantial Christian majority.

And we who are Christians, at the very least, should feel compelled to do that which Christ commanded us to do, namely to love one another as Christ first loved us.

But, what does that mean?

What does that mean with respect to Health Care?

The current debate in Washington over health care reform shows how difficult it is for us to agree on something as simple as what it means to love one another.

We can put the question bluntly.

Should our health care system be loving, or cruel?

Most of us would say, “Well, loving, of course.”

But what does that mean for health care?

Does that mean that we should have universal coverage for health care, so that everyone has access to medicine and the care they need, even if it means that all of us would have to pay for it?

Or does that mean that people should be free to purchase whatever health care options they choose, even if that means that some will not be able to afford to buy insurance?

I wonder if the proposals for health care reform would be different if those writing these laws could only do so while sitting beside a loved one in the hospital.

Our intuitive sense of what is loving is probably most evident when we are sitting face to face with a loved one in need of care.

So imagine, sitting beside your child in the hospital, and what decisions you would make then regarding their care.  Love tends to make a difference at moments like that.

I could go on and on.

The point is that issues of life and death are not issues that we are free to do whatever we want.

We are slaves.

We are not free.

We never have been free.

Freedom isn’t the choice.

The choice is whether we are going to be in bondage to sin, which will lead to death.

Or slaves of righteousness, obediently serving our Lord Jesus Christ, loving as he commanded that we love, loving as he first loved us, which will lead to life.

It should be an easy choice to make.

But it isn’t.

Our slavery is real. 

And only Christ can set us free from our slavery to sin in order that we can live in righteousness with him.

Amen

Year A, The Baptism of our Lord, "You, my Child"

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

In the Beginning, as God created us, there were two words that described how he felt.

"Tov Meod."

These are the Hebrew words for "Good, exceedingly Good."  God looked at all that he had made and saw that it was Good.  Really, really, Good.  Not just 'alright', or 'sort of good', or 'good, but.  .  .'  God saw all that he made and yes, indeed, it was exceedingly Good.  Tov Meod.

And that, remains God's opinion of you, his child.  It is part of your identity.

Oh, there are times when our own personal failures threaten that essential part of our identity.  Its been over four years now since I first had to speak the words "I am an alcoholic."  That identity I'd been denying for some time.  I was deeply ashamed of what I'd become.  

Yet confessing that identity led me down the path of recovery.  Now there is an addendum to that confession.  "I am an alcoholic-- who has recovered."  "Alcoholism, in remission" is my official medical diagnosis.  I have been set free.  And that is "Tov Meod."

As Jesus was coming up out of the water following his baptism by John, the heavens opened and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove and God said “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  These words that God spoke to Jesus at his baptism, are the words he speaks to us as well.  "You are my son, my daughter, I love you, and with you, my child, I am well pleased.

These words and this identity take us to two places.

First they take us back to our creation, and the words "Tov Meod".  Good, exceedingly Good.  God delights in us.  God loves us.  God is well pleased with us, his children.  Wow!

And secondly, they take us to the foot of the cross where by the grace of God we have been forgiven and born again.    

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far he removes our transgressions from us.

(Psalm 103:11 & 12)

Pure.

Holy.

Forgiven.

And God says "With you I am well pleased!"  and "Tov Meod!"

Nothing more needs to be said, for this is who we now are.  

Year A, Advent 2, Matthew 3:1-12, “Truthtelling”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

When you look in the mirror, who do you see?

·         Most often, when we look in the mirror, we see what we want to see.  We see a person that we have created, a false self.  We look into the mirror and we see the person that we would like to imagine that we are. 

·         And then there are times when we look into the mirror, and see that person who we wish that we were not.  We see ourselves as we truly are, not as we wish we might be.  And the truth that we see in the mirror is an uncomfortable truth.  So uncomfortable that we are tempted to simply turn our eyes away, deny the truth, and go on imagining ourselves to be something different.

·         Fortunately, for us, God sends into our lives truthtellers.  Truthtellers are the true prophets.  They are the ones who stand with us in front of the mirror, who expose all of our denials for what they are, and who open our eyes to see the painful reality that we face as we look into that mirror.

·         And our first reaction is to hate these people who speak the truth to us.  Because we don’t want to hear it.  We’d rather believe the lies we’ve created about ourselves, or at least a doctored up vision of reality, than to see ourselves as we truly are.

·         Truthtellers are necessary though, because apart from them, and the truth that they help us to see, there is no hope for us or our lives. 

John was one such truthteller.

He came announcing that the Kingdom of God has come near, and calling the people to repentance, to face the truth about themselves.

I used to get irritated that the lessons which we read during Advent are about John the Baptist.  Isn’t this a time to focus on the birth of Christ.  The Good News. 

Why John?

Why not Elizabeth?

Or the Angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary?

Or any number of texts that might capture the joy and delight of this season of the year?

Afterall, isn’t that what this time of year is about?  We decorate our homes.  We buy the presents.  We bake the special treats.  We go caroling.  We look forward to the visits with family and friends.  It’s a time of ‘peace on earth, and good will to all’. 

And then we come to church and hear John calling the people a “brood of vipers”.

It just doesn’t seem to fit with the Spirit of the Season.

I am not alone in that sentiment.

It used to be that the liturgical color that we used for Advent was the same as for Lent.  Purple.  It symbolized that this season of the Church Year was a time of repentance.

More recently, we changed the color.  Now the color for Advent is blue, which symbolizes “hope”, a much more positive theme.

And yet such a shift in emphasis overlooks a simple fact:

·         There is no reason to hope for a savior, if we do not recognize our need for a savior.

·         There is no reason to rejoice in the forgiveness that is ours in Christ Jesus, if we do not recognize that we need to be forgiven.

·         In short, apart from the message of John, the message of Jesus makes no sense.

I first realized this when I had to sit face to face with my “John”, the truthteller that God had sent into my life.

I’ve told you before of my struggles with alcohol.  And if that isn’t enough, you see me take the grape juice, not the wine, each Sunday.

I apologize for revisiting this theme once again, but it was, and will always remain one of the most important things in my life.

It was a time when I had to look into the mirror, and see the truth.  And see the truth in a way that I never wanted to see the truth. 

It began in a rage.  I had come under criticism from some people in my congregation, and a life time of anger boiled over into a full blown rage.  Trying desperately to calm the wild animal that I had become, I turned to my bottle of Scotch. 

And I drank.  And it didn’t work.  So I drank some more.

Still it didn’t work, the rage continued.

So I took my anti-anxiety meds, which multiplied the effect of the alcohol, and that is the last I remember with any clarity.

The next morning, I reached for my glasses and discovered they were a mangled mess.

I went to the bathroom, and looked into the mirror, and saw scabs and bruises on my face. 

My wife greeted me, and told me that some of our friends wanted to come over and talk to me.  The bishop, and my doctor, would also become part of the conversation.  And later that day they would get me admitted to the hospital.

It was there I met my “John”.

She was the psychiatrist assigned to me.

And she sat across the table from me, and point blank told me that I was an alcoholic.  It was a truth I didn’t want to admit.  But I had seen myself in the mirror that morning. 

My first response was to attempt to clarify that.  I stated that I realized that I was abusing alcohol, but that I didn’t think I was an alcoholic. 

And then, I looked at her and realized that on the table before her were my charts.  And in those charts was a toxicology report.  And that she knew the truth. 

She went on to explain that I’d almost died.

And that I would die, if I didn’t get help.

Truthtelling.

Prophecy.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

We have to meet our John, if we are ever to meet Jesus.

We have to recognize our need for forgiveness,

if forgiveness is ever going to mean anything to us.

Apart from that, it’s all just theory.  It’s theology apart from reality.

All talk of a Savior, without our recognition of our need for a savior, is meaningless dribble.

Who is your “John”? 

Who is it who has taken you to the mirror, and helped you to see the person that you really are?

And who is it that pointed the way to Jesus?

As a nation, every four years we elect a president.

It’s an interesting exercise.

I heard it said once that we elect that person who best represents what we want to believe about ourselves.  We don’t elect presidents who will tell us the truth about ourselves, because, quite frankly, we seldom want to hear the real truth. 

And for this reason, no president can save us.

No president can save us, because you cannot win an election telling people the truth that they don’t want to hear.

John didn’t win an election.

No prophet has been elected.

Even Jesus, with his message about the Kingdom of God, would lose an election.

This is because we categorically do not want to look into the mirror and see the truth, even if it comes from Jesus.

As a Church we are faced with decline.  Membership in congregations is dwindling.  We are getting older and older.  Many young people simply don’t see the relevance of the Church in their lives. 

Oh, there are a few congregations that seem to be thriving, but very few.  And even in those congregations what is actually happening is not that the church is growing, but rather that more and more people are gathering in fewer and fewer places, creating an illusion of growth, when there is none.

And so we pray to Jesus, to save us.

Give us a future, and a hope.

But seldom do we pray for a prophet like John to come to us and tell us the truth about who we are and what we’ve become. 

We want to be saved, as long as it doesn’t involve being changed. 

If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There is a truth that people in recovery have discovered that applies to us all.

Until we have suffered enough, we will not accept the truth and be willing to change.  But when the suffering has become so severe, that we cannot continue down the path we are walking, then, and only then, will we accept the help that is out there.

The question for us as Christians, is this:

Has the pathway down which we are walking become painful enough that we are willing to repent, that is change, the direction of our lives?

Have we suffered enough, the consequence of our own sins that we are will to accept Jesus as our Savior and the forgiveness that he offers?

It’s actually an ongoing battle.

A question we must ask ourselves, day by day.

Like an alcoholic, we are always at risk—one slip and we can revert to our old ways.

We remain forever dependent on God, who is faithful and just, to forgive us and cleanse us. 

And it is the promise that God will forgive us, and will cleanse us that allows us to face the truth about ourselves.  That is, that we actually need forgiving, and cleansing from all unrighteousness. 

But facing this truth carries with it one big promise, namely, that the truth will set you free.

Amen

Year C, Proper 25, Luke 18:9-14, A broken and contrite heart. . .

I will confess the envy that I have experienced toward those who have a rich and well developed prayer life.  There are spiritual disciplines that seem to have escaped me.  As a pastor I often felt I should be better at this.  Its not that I don't pray.  I do.  In a variety of ways.  Often I'm called upon to be the "professional prayer", something I do willingly, though I often feel that others do better.  And then there is the "personal life of prayer".

I was being interviewed for the call to First in Sandpoint, when at the Synod's suggestion, they asked me to describe my "personal life of prayer".  "If I have to talk about it in a call interview, its no longer personal." was my initial response.  Part of me simply didn't want to talk about something that I felt was woefully inadequate.  I imagined what other pastors did.  In my imagination, I never quite measured up.  I've always taken great consolation in the verse from Romans, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."  "Sighs too deep for words", that I can do.

And then came one of the worst moments in my life.  Over a period of ten years I had become more and more dependent on alcohol.  I was self medicating.  I was later to be diagnosed as bipolar.  Alcohol, it seems, is not a good mood stabilizer for someone who is bipolar.  Actually, it worked until it didn't.

A conflict erupted in the parish.  Personal criticism that I felt was unwarranted was thrown my way.  A letter had been penned that threatened to seek my dismissal if I didn't comply with their demands.  I went into a rage, and desperately tried to calm the beast within with my old friend, Scotch.  It didn't work.

I found myself locked up in the psych unit at a local hospital.  My doctor, very bluntly and forcibly shared two things with me in those first days.  "You are an alcoholic."  And "You almost died."  Utterly defeated in every way, I agreed to enter the chemical dependency program.  Correction:  I wasn't yet totally defeated, as part of my agreeing to enter the program was to preserve some sense of my own dignity.  I had fallen and injured myself, and I wanted some time to heal up before showing my face to my congregation again.  

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice!

God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

Many a prayer I would have preferred to offer. Many a thing I would have preferred to say.  But I had been entirely defeated.  The rage that I had experienced toward others, became focused on myself.  And now I had to face that rage without the numbing effect of alcohol.  I wish I could say that my prayers had an immediate positive and healing effect, but the truth is that I plummeted into depression and would continue to experience recurring bouts with it for years.  

Four years have passed.  Healing has come.  Life is good in sobriety.  In a few hours I will stand before a new congregation and offer the prayers. The words will be well crafted.  The posture -- liturgically correct.  And I suppose there may be some in my congregation that will hear my prayers and wish they could pray like that.  

Yet, in all my life, there was only one prayer that really mattered.  It was offered from that psych ward in utter despair.  And God answered.

"a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

Year C, Proper 6, 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15, You are the man!

Looking in the mirror can be a painful thing.

In our own mind we fashion an image of ourselves that is acceptable to us.  Perhaps we think much more  highly of ourselves than we ought to think.  Perhaps we simply believe about ourselves what we would like others to believe about us as well.  And perhaps, at times, we are simply not capable of seeing ourselves for who we are.

I believe that most of the time people do what they perceive to be right.  "It seemed like a good idea at the time" is a statement that rings true to me more times than not.  There have been few occasions that I intentionally chose to do evil.

It is as though we spend much of our lives writing our own resume'.  And the image we present of who we are and the list of accomplishments that we would take credit for are both equally flattering.  We spend much of our lives crafting this self identity, and the rest of our lives telling ourselves how well we are doing at maintaining this image that we've created.

And then there is that damn mirror.  And those moments when we look into the mirror and actually see the person that is reflected there, and not just what we would like to see.

"You are the man!"

October 15, 2012,  The first thing I remember about that day was waking up, and reaching over to the bedside stand for my glasses, only to discover that they were a mangled mess.  Next, I recall becoming aware that I had some scrapes and soreness, where it  should not had been.  And then, running to the mirror I saw what there was to see.  And the man in the mirror was not at all who I wished was there.

The night before, in a rage, I had turned to my drug of  choice, alcohol, in an attempt to quiet the beast within.  Still raging at bedtime, in spite of consuming over a fifth of Scotch, I decided that I would take my regular dose of Ativan, an anti-anxiety med I had been prescribed.  Not a good choice.

I vaguely recall reaching for, and missing the bed post, as I tried to undress.  Like a bad dream, I recall a sensation of going down, down, down.  Then there were people there.  My wife.  Friends.  They were doing something to me.  Bothering me, really.  (Tending to my wounds.)  And throughout the night they kept waking me up as a precaution, fearing a concussion.

I had to face them in the morning.  "You need help."  I could acknowledge my depression.  Depression is a convenient 'neutral' thing.  And so I went to the hospital, hoping for help for my depression, and quite frankly, thankful that I'd have some time away to heal before having to show my face to my congregation.

And then "Nathan" spoke.  "You are an alcoholic."

Nope.  Not the image I was accustomed to seeing in the mirror.  "I admit that I drank more than I should have last night and that I've been self medicating with alcohol, but I'm not an alcoholic."

"You almost died."

You are the man!

Finally, I had to admit that the man in the mirror was me.  And with the words, "I am an alcoholic." spoken first to my wife, my child, and my bishop (and a couple others), forgiveness came.  I may have been locked up in a psych ward, but hope was renewed for the first time in a long time.  Forgiveness is a blessed thing.  Especially when it is wrapped in a deep love and compassion.  I experienced that.

But I could not escape the consequences, either.  There was some wreckage to clean up.  And a life to rebuild.  Its been a process of healing that is still unfolding years later.  I'm headed in the right direction.  I can face the man in the mirror.

"You are the man!"

"But I am the Lord, and I declare unto you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.  Your faith has made you well."