Sermon: Heavenly Minded, Earthly Good

 

10:30 am, Sun, July 31, 2022 - J G White / FBC Amherst

(Hosea 11:1-11; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21)

 1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. So begins Colossians chapter 3, and what a lovely start to a chapter that may have some of your most favourite lines in the Bible, or your least favourite.

The old, bearded Man in the clouds may be what comes to mind when you hear these words. God, up there; Jesus up there; they each sit on a throne. Our imaginations are tainted with centuries of artwork and legends. And what Middle-Eastern people imagined two thousand years ago would not be quite what we do. We must get behind the words and images, to the meaning. The Kingdom of the Heavens, and the Earth, are two realities that touch, that even overlap, in our experience. Bringing them together is the work of our God. This is the story we tell.

So, the author of Colossians tells it his own way, in today’s chapter, with lots of encouragement about this life. 2 Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, might seem like being heavenly minded but no earthly good. We know better. We know this must be about both – being ‘heavenly minded’ and ‘earthly good.’ The real question may be: can you be earthly good – live a good life – without being heavenly minded, religious, spiritual, Christian?

A month ago I took a two-day course in map reading, navigation and compass use. Our instructor (from Pugwash, Greg Nix) had the ten of us learn and put into practice some basic skills so we could use the basic tools to get around in a landscape. Many of you must know some of the proper techniques: how to take a bearing and stay walking in a straight line; how to use some landmarks and your map to work out where you are. And so on. Often, keeping your head up, looking around and afar, is important. You can’t be just watching the ground in front of you.

Easy for me to lose track of my track! I am always looking at all the plants right around me – the ferns, the orchids and other wildflowers, the grasses and sedges, the shrubs, the trees. Also the lichens and mushrooms and birds. Pretty soon I have not much idea how far I travelled and where I ended up.

It is a matter of keeping perspective, of pausing to see the big picture. As it is in hiking and hunting, so it is in the path our personal lives take. There is a ‘big picture’ to be aware of and to guide our steps. Set your minds on things ‘above’ so you can live better on the earth.

3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God, says Colossians 3... 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. For you have died. This is, of course, what our full immersion baptism celebrates. We lay down, dead, and rise up, alive like never before. What an evocative phrase: “your life is hidden with Christ in God.” There are so many ways to express a new beginning in life.

And a ‘new life’ can begin with many chapters at many times, thank God. I think of friends I know – new and long-time, who remember and celebrate: so many years sober, so many years since they quit smoking, so many years since they go out of jail. Other folks rejoice in one year cancer free, or five years, or twenty. And there are those who always recall that time when they came back to the Church, to the faith, to Christ.

A new chapter in our life begins with the death of some old things. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: says this page in the Bible. What things about you have been “put to death?” Your list may well be different from my list. My personality and problems need different improvement from yours.

This part of the Colossians chapter is really a classic bit of writing from that age. It is called the ‘two ways’ form, really because it contrasts two ways of going – the bad and the good. We see this in other New Testament letters. It starts with a strong introductory statement: “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly.” Then it speaks of ways to live or ways not to live. In this case we read: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). Thirdly, the cosmic consequences are told. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.

The author gets back to the list of wrongs and adds to it. Our list today may be similar, but it will not be the identical. 7 These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. 8 But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.

It is suggested here that there is a setting your mind on things that are above, which helps us achieve these improvements. Our spiritual practices are for the sake of our ordinary conversations and relationships. Our prayers are for the sake of our actions. Our Bible is for the sake of our personal betterment.

As the centuries go by, each generation of humans struggles to discover how to get rid of anger, nasty talk, immoral desires, greed, and so on. We have many techniques; we also need to be inspired. Sometimes, the beauty of language itself will help us. Such as this clothing talk: take this off to put that on.

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.

I hear there are some costumes in a room downstairs. I hear some of you have been the wearers, on stage, of those outfits. I hear there has been great laughter, and great power, in those fanciful moments. As it should be.

There are many ways to ‘strip off the old self’ and get in touch with where God will transform us. Doing some drama or some comedy are great methods. How about jumping?

A great photographer of the 20^th century was Philippe Halsman. One thing he did was ask people to jump, and he took their photos. He wrote:

"Starting in the early 1950s I asked every famous or important person I photographed to jump for me.  I was motivated by a genuine curiosity.  After all, life has taught us to control and disguise our facial expressions, but it has not taught us to control our jumps.  I wanted to see famous people reveal in a jump their ambition or their lack of it, their self-importance or their insecurity, and many other traits." (“Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book,” 1959— reissued by Abrams, 1986).

Something different of the real Jeff, or the real You, comes out, when we jump, when we sing, when we paint, when we tell a story. Some of the old can come off and get replaced with some of the new in you. In this we must look for the work of God.

I want to glimpse something deeper in you, when you do something a bit different. When you see and discover something new. When you face a new pain or problem. When you receive an unexpected gift. The simple, earthly things we do can be for our ‘heavenly’ good. And this does not mean our ‘life after death.’ This is about our deeper selves: the human spirit – alive and growing here and now.

I think, by now, I have wandered all over the map, claiming to be walking through Colossians 3. Perhaps, I have neglected to follow the compass of scripture or the North Pole, Jesus. I hope we can appreciate how our Guiding Sprit has many ways to take us into new land – in our lives – that is greater than our lives before. May it be Jesus who is our Way through the wilderness towards renewal. Colossians 3:11 says:+ In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all!

From our grandchildren Sharon and I have learned the movie, Frozen 2, and what Kristoff sings. Could we sing it to Jesus?

Now I know you're my true north,

'cause I am lost in the woods

Up is down, day is night, when you're not there

Oh, you're my only landmark,

so I'm lost in the woods

Wondering if you still care.

Our Guide, and our Outfitter for this journey, is Christ Jesus. Can we put it that way, to our world? And so we find our way to be transformed. Connected, we get recreated. Minds with the Heavenly One, we are more earthly good.

Let me finish up with part of Colossians 3 we did not read today, but this was read here back on December 26^th, by Ed. This time, I’ll read from Eugene Peterson’s adaptation, The Message:

12 So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

15-17 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

Sermon: Captive, Condemned, Disqualified

 

Captive, Condemned, Disqualified

10:30 am, Sun, July 24, 2022 - J G White / FBC Amherst

(Psalm 85; Colossians 2:6-19; Luke 11:1-13)

 It’s 1996. I’m a 25 year old fresh graduate from Acadia Divinity College, so you might think I’d be somewhat divine. ;)  I’ve been interviewed by a committee from three Baptist Churches, looking for their next Minister. I’ve just visited them and preached at a service. At the meet-and-greet afterwards, the chair of the Pulpit Committee gives the congregation an opportunity to ask me, the candidate, questions. 

The people seem more scared to ask me anything than I am to answer.  Finally, one fellow does speak up. He asks a question. A theological question. A bit of doctrine. It is a brief question he asks me. 

“Where is the new covenant?”

 How would you answer that? 

I fumbled some sort of answer.  I felt, in the moment, this man was looking for just the right, exact words from my mouth. I had no idea what! (He probably wanted me to say something like, “The new covenant is in the blood of Jesus.”)

We have plenty enough of ‘do this, don’t do that; believe this, don’t say that’ in the history of Christianity without adding more rules. But we keep doing it. And it ends up being a competition: “I’m right, you’ve got it wrong!” This will not work.

Whatever false teachings were being spread in Colossae in the first century, this letter to the Christians there encouraged them to let no one lead them astray in their thinking, religion, or spirituality.

To be grounded, rooted deeply in Jesus the Christ, is the key to staying on track. It says, here, 6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Then the author gets into a pep talk, to keep the readers on track. In the face of opposition and pressure to turn away from their new Faith, they are told ‘let no one take you captive,’ ‘do not let anyone condemn you,’ and ‘do not let anyone disqualify you.’

[Captive to thinking] Still today, we need not let anyone take us captive through thoughts and theories and the latest human ways of explaining life. We read here: 8 Watch out that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

Watch out that no one takes you captive. Eugene Peterson retranslated it this way: Watch out of people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk.  

For me, it is about priorities. I like thinkers. I like theories. I don’t ever come up with any of my own, but reading books and hearing people talk on lots of ideas fascinates me. At my best moments, I pay attention to Jesus in the room. When it is all said and done, my conversation must be with the Master. I wonder about things with the wonderful Spirit.

This is our lesson for our world today. This is what we have to offer. A deep Root to nourish us, that allows us to grow up and out and explore this thing called life. That root is Christ; that Cornerstone is Jesus; that Source is the Saviour.

I’m not sure what people on the street think of the One we worship in this room. I need to be a bit more direct in asking folk. ‘What’s Jesus to you?’

A couple decades ago, Christian thinker, Dallas Willard, taught about how smart Jesus Christ was and is. “There is in our culture an uneasy relation between Jesus and intelligence,” Willard wrote, “and I have actually heard Christians respond to my statement that Jesus is the most intelligent man who ever lived by saying that it is an oxymoron... Almost on one would consider him to be a thinker...” (D. Willard, The Great Omission, 2006, p. 180)

Is Jesus the smartest person you know? Remember all the biblical language about the Wisdom of God. I, for one, have so much yet to learn about being close to Jesus and accessing the wisdom of God. We have this good news to offer our world also. Yet it is shown best in our lives, not in our own talking.

One of the earliest accounts of Francis [of Assisi], the “Legend of Perugia,” quotes Francis as telling the first friars, “You only know as much as you do.”

The early Franciscan friars and Poor Clares wanted to be Gospel practitioners instead of merely “word police,” “inspectors,” or “museum curators” as Pope Francis calls some clergy.  (R. Rohr May 29, 2017)

[Condemned by religion] Speaking of ‘word police’ or religion ‘inspectors,’ we must face the tradition of rules that sometimes overtakes Faith. We know we must counteract the stereotype of Xianity as a legalistic, rule-filled organization. We did earn this stereotype through our failures!

There has been many a joke told on Christians about how we won’t get along or agree. Like: put two Baptists in a room, and you’ll get three opinions. We are called upon to keep on showing how we do get along, how we do agree to disagree about some things. I must say you (at least, First Baptist) have a reputation for being a wide variety of Christians who do get along, cooperate, and stay together.

Back in those earliest days of the Christian movement, we get hints of the challenges those people faced. Colossians 2 says, at one point: 16 Therefore, do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food or drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. 17 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the body belongs to Christ. The way Christians do their religion has not been just one way. We have such variety! Not all of it, good, of course. Here, we continue to have the challenge of learning to be practicing Christians, without being corrected all the time, and without criticizing other believers every week.

I’ll tell a story on a fellow I know, far from here. He is a Christian, and I got to know him from hiking trips we were on together, and when he joined a Bible study group I led. In person, in the study group, he was interesting and pleasant. On social media, though, the posts he shared were often direct in condemning others... correcting Christians for getting all sorts of details wrong.

My friend would share things on Facebook regularly about the real name of Jesus – what we should be saying (and how to spell it). For instance:

Not Jesus, not Yahshua, not Yahushua,

BUT Yahusha!!!!!

Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

I’m not sure where this teaching came from, but this dear fellow was always sharing things like this. And things about Sunday not being the Sabbath, and Christmas being a pagan festival, and so forth. Here’s another example from online:

Keeping a weekly Sabbath is a sign, that you are still under the law and you need to be born again. Will you enter into His rest? And, cease from your works

I have not much patience for this kind of religious teaching; but I have all the patience in the world for my friend who posted this online. When Jesus is in us, inspiring us to be patient with others, we will show our world that true religion is uniting, not dividing people. As I usually say, religion, at its best, is a way people share spirituality. The Church is a gift from God.

Spiritual teacher, Richard Rohr, says: We can’t risk walking around with a negative, resentful, gossipy, critical mind, because then we won’t be in our true force field. We won’t be usable instruments for God. That’s why Jesus commanded us to love. It’s that urgent. It’s that crucial. (Richard Rohr, Oct 30, 18)

[Disqualified for spiritual practices] A third and final phrase I want to draw out from Col. 2 is, I think, about personal spirituality. This long sentence: 18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, initiatory visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with a growth that is from God.

Whatever all these things were like, 2000 years ago, they seem to be about personal spiritual practices. Again, here’s Eugene Peterson’s take on this: Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions.

You will learn, in time, that I am a lover of spiritual disciplines, or spiritual practices – whatever we want to call them. At least, I have loved learning about them and exploring them. I just have not got good at actually fasting, meditating, being in solitude, memorizing scripture, or just praying, for that matter. There are many forms of prayer and devotion, and so many of us miss out on a lot. But let us not be known for being harsh with others when it comes to how they pray or worship, or however else they spend quality time with God.

I looked back this week into Richard Foster’s book on prayer, with twenty-one chapters for twenty-one types of prayer. I like his imagery here, in the first chapter, called ‘Simple Prayer.’

What I am trying to say is that God receives us just as we are and accepts our prayers just as they are. In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer. (Foster, 1992 Prayer, p.9)

Then, like a child artist, we develop our praying through life, we don’t stay with crayons and finger paints. There is so far we can go. Christian meditation, lectio divina, pilgrimage, prayer without words.

And yet, there is something to be said for crayons, and finger painting. Simple prayer and Bible reading are not to be judged; they have their place in our lives. The riches of the Christian tradition are ours to offer the world, and Christ is with us - starting with the simplest of prayers.

We have some help to offer. To offer the people of Amherst, and Cumberland County, and the world. A person need not be captive, condemned, or disqualified, for their thinking, their religious life, their spirituality. There is a Way, a path of grace. Keep on doing what you are doing.

In a world of critics, be an encourager. Christ develops such kind grace in us.

In a world of fears, be confident. Christ lovingly draws us together.

In a world of a million confusing choices, choose to be faithful. Christ powerfully is present in Spirit.

Clerk, Calamites & Car Keys

What do you do on the hottest day of the summer? Go on a field trip to a beach! What better way to get to know three church members? I spent lots of quality time with my new Church Clerk, her father and aunt, today. Our destination? Mary's Point national wildlife area, NB - between Hopewell Rocks and Cape Enrage.

Along the way, Tammy and I got to confer about church membership matters, including the process Sharon and I are taking to join First Baptist Amherst. I even had the Church Constitution with me to refer to in the car! And I got to know Dan and Elaine - what great adventurers they all are! Lots of laughter and good stories were shared.

Part of Tammy's life has been work as a geologist, so this destination was aimed at the fossil-bearing rocks... for the fun of it. Dan found this sample of a plant stem on the beach: Calamites. Very nice. 

I was looking at all the living plants, of course, on this 30 C day. 

The scenery was fabulous in and of itself, with these rocky islands amidst the expanses of mudflats. 

We got back to the car after wandeing out to the point and back, 6 kms... but the car keys promptly got locked IN the car! So we spent an extra hour hanging around: 30 C outside, and very air-conditioned in the interpretive centere. At last, a CAA fellow from Moncton arrived and got Tammy into the car: Hooray! 

Off we headed for home, with an obligatory stop at Trueman's for home-made ice cream, of course! ;) I wonder where the next adventure will be?