1. Good Morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: Let me tell you the title of my Homily this morning. It’s “Witness by Demonstrating” and no we’re not going to be talking about the uprising in Egypt but we are going to be talking about the potency of our Christian lives.
Please listen once again to our Lord’s encouragement to be His authentic and powerful disciples:
Matt. 5:13 “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
Matt. 5:14 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. 15 If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. 16 Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
You probably realized that that came from the Message Paraphrase of the Bible. It’s not a precise translation but often it get’s to the heart of the matter rather cleverly.
Let me quote verse 13 once again:
If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness?
That’s a fundamental reality check for all of us don’t you think?
So we’re to be salt and light to the world but it seems by our numbers and the general enthusiasm of many Christians that they have – many of us seem to have lost our saltiness and our lights are pretty dim. The Christian church is not in a great season of massive expansion throughout this world right now!
So Christ’s exhortation to be “salt and light to the world” is very appropriate for us today don’t you think?
Take a quick survey of your saltiness level.
On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate your saltiness as an authentic and vital witness to the reality of the resurrected Jesus Christ? How good a disciple are you? . . . on a scale of one to ten?
Our Old Testament reading from the Book of Isaiah chapter 58 beginning at verse 8 reminds us that if we are being true worshippers of God . . . not just listeners but doers of His commands then . . .
Isaiah 58: 8 When you are true faithful doers of God’s word . . . the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The GOD of glory will secure your passage. 9 Then when you pray, GOD will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
Are you God’s light in the world around you and when you pray does He answer and when you turn to Him can you hear Him say, “Here I am!”
Is your life as a Christian REAL, AUTHENTIC, VITAL, POWERFUL or is in in fact a pale and powerless witness to anyone who may be looking to you for help to make sense of this world and of their lives in it?
Incidentally, I know that a clear majority of us at TCC understand this because when asked to rate what you wanted most from our Teaching on Wednesday Nights you answered in effect “teaching that will enable us to live real and authentic Christian lives!
Now let’s turn for our answer to the Second Reading from First Corinthians chapter 2 beginning with the fist verse:
1Cor. 2:1 You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s master stroke, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. 2 I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did—Jesus crucified.
1Cor. 2:3 I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate—I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it— 4 and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God’s Spirit and God’s power did it, 5 which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.
I want to read the last 3 verses from the NIV because the translation is slightly more specific:
3 [When I came to you brothers and sisters] I came in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Let me read those last few lines once again:
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
With a demonstration of the Spirit’s power!
Ah! Show me don’t just tell me!
You see the recent witness of Christianity has been heavy on words but short on demonstration of the Spirit’s power!
Now it could be argued that the great Pentecostal and Charismatic and Evangelical revivals over the last century were strong in the “demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” But evidently not strong enough to break through the thick skin of this world’s “show me the beef” pragmatism which has relegated “those crazy Pentecostals and fundamentalists and Evangelicals” to the back alleys of their heats and minds only to be remembered when a movie or Television commentator show footage of “an Evangelical Born Again preacher protesting at a Military funeral with placards stating ‘This is God’s Judgment for our Homosexual loving Congress’” or some other such absurd inanity!
And so here we are in a quiet neighborhood of a city that was at the center of the technological era at the beginning of the 20th century and is now aging and trying once again to recapture its old brilliance but is arguably not doing very well at it currently.
And we of TCC who know and proclaim the Creator of everything and we’re struggling to get anyone’s attention even with a pink elephants in our front yard!
It’s by the demonstration of the power of the Spirit of our God that is going to once again get the world’s attention!
Not by words alone but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power!
We must witness by demonstrating!
We must incarnate what we say! We must embody what we believe.
This is always where the rub comes isn’t it? Live what we say or don’t say it at all! For to say it and not live it is a disgrace. It belittles the magnificent reality behind it all!
But how do we do this? How do we regain potency – power to change this world!
Zech. 4:6 So Zechariah the Prophet said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
It’s by the power of God’s Spirit that this world will become His beloved captive!
This, by the way, is very consistent with what Fr. Eric was saying last Sunday in his Homily – we are the blessed and beloved of God. There is nothing we have to do but be who we are by the power of His Spirit who lives in us!
How do we not do anything but do everything?
I’m not trying to be clever or mystical or philosophical but simply to state the problem!
We really can’t do it with the mindset of this current world. Most of us, if not all of us, think like this world! To not do so is to run the risk of becoming intellectually irrelevant, socially untouchable, psychologically odd or weird and politically revolutionary. Need I go on?
To be who we really are is to become like Jesus Christ was in His time – a revolutionary - totally unacceptable to the civil and religious authorities of His time.
We have to rethink who are to be if we are to have any real impact upon those around us!
The alternative is to continue on the path we’re currently on and that is to have one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom. It sort of works but it definitely works badly.
I can’t give you a practical prescription – it would take too long and the cure for many of us would seem to be worse that the sickness!
But the gradual pathway towards a more powerful Christian life is definitely to allow the Spirit of God to reveal to us those areas in our lives which are going to have to change or go away if we are ever to BE who we say we really are.
It’s His powerful spirit that we must invite into our inner lives to change us into what the world calls “utter foolishness!”
Let me read briefly from the book our Saturday Morning Men’s Gathering are reading. This comes from “New Seeds of Contemplation” by Thomas Merton.
Here we go,
“If, then we want to seek some way of being holy (read potent in our witness to the world), we must first of all renounce our own wisdom. We must ‘empty ourselves’ as Jesus did. We must ‘deny ourselves’ and in some sense make ourselves ‘nothing’ in order that we may live not so much in ourselves as in Him. We must live by a power and a light that seems not to be there. We must live by the strength of an apparent emptiness that is always truly empty and yet never fails to support us as every moment.”
This sounds like utter foolishness to the modern mind which has largely become captive to the way of thinking that gives weight to “observable fact” but no weight and even strong disdain for so called “spiritual facts.” – Ha!
I can hear the words, “That’s all just so much rubbish!”
I remember once praying for God to reveal Himself and someone of a very rationalistic bent exclaimed “this sounds like a séance!”
Listening for God in silence was to his modern mind foolishness – the foolishness of a spiritualist séance!
I can hear him say, “Pastor just give me good expository sermons. All we want God’s Word!”
To which I, in one of my less that gracious moment, might have responded, “Then you’re going to end up with a vapid, spiritless, powerless faith that is strong on memorization and short of miraculous demonstrations!”
Let me conclude by reading once again the Prayer of Humility. May this become who are ARE and then our very lives will declare the reality of the God we love and serve:
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I,
provided that I may become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
In a few minutes we’re going to participate in what the world might kindly call a “cute ritual.” Others less kind have referred to as cannibalism. I mean eating someone’s flesh and drinking someone’s blood – that’s called cannibalism isn’t it?
Yet for some of us – perhaps even most of us it’s the very source and summit of our faith!
Let’s this act of worship – receiving the body and blood of Christ – be a recommitment to becoming one of His devoted disciples not just one of His hangers on! Amen and Amen!
Let’s pray . . .
