Richard Lischer - "We Are Not There Yet" (February 11, 1996)

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-	The great theologian, Karl Barth,	0:37
	once advised preachers	0:42
	to preach with the Bible in one hand	0:45
	and the newspaper in the other, like so.	0:48
	The idea being that the word of God	0:56
	is meant to address the real situations in life	0:58
	and not straw people in a make believe world.	1:04
	I think even Barth would have agreed	1:09
	that however there are some Bible passages	1:12
	that do not have an obvious relation to the world.	1:17
	You will read the newspaper a long time	1:23
	before you come across a story	1:25
	of a virgin conceiving or a man walking upon the water.	1:27
	These are in the Bible, we believe them,	1:33
	we know that they say something important about God,	1:36
	but it's hard to connect them to our lives.	1:39
	But when we come to the fifth chapter	1:46
	of the Gospel of Matthew,	1:48
	just read as today's gospel lesson,	1:50
	in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount,	1:54
	all that changes.	1:56
	For suddenly, Jesus is not merely talking	1:59
	about things you might read in the newspaper	2:01
	or hear on the talk shows,	2:03
	which we still refer to as other people's problems.	2:05
	But he is addressing our own inner contradictions.	2:10
	He is describing dark clouds that hang	2:16
	above the Christian home, the Church,	2:19
	and the Christian soul.	2:23
	What did he say?	2:26
	He says, "If you call a brother or sister a fool,	2:29
	"you are liable to judgment.	2:34
	"If you look on another person with lust,	2:37
	"it corresponds to adultery.	2:40
	"If you divorce, it creates sin."	2:44
	These are not other people's problems.	2:51
	Hate, anger, mean talk, adultery,	2:54
	lust, divorce, lying, and swearing.	2:58
	Who is he talking about?	3:03
	He's talking about the father who	3:07
	when his fourth grader gets a C in arithmetic	3:09
	spews out instinctively, "How could you be so stupid?"	3:12
	He's talking about good people	3:19
	who can break bread together in sacred places,	3:21
	but who cannot break through the walls	3:25
	that separate them in secular places.	3:27
	He's talking about Christians	3:33
	who have figured out how to separate	3:36
	their sex lives from their spiritual lives,	3:38
	and to live the contradiction.	3:41
	He's talking about millions of marriages	3:45
	cut loose from their moorings in God's covenant.	3:48
	He's talking about churches awash	3:54
	in heterosexual sins,	3:57
	who cover for them by scapegoating homosexuals.	4:00
	He's talking about a culture	4:06
	in which a person's word is only as good	4:08
	as his lawyer's word.	4:11
	He's talking about Christians,	4:14
	who when they feel threatened or angry	4:16
	or edgy or miffed, reach for their guns.	4:19
	Oh, suddenly the gap between this holy book	4:25
	and this real world	4:31
	seems to have narrowed.	4:35
	The Sermon on the Mount is speaking to us.	4:38
	I realize that not everybody here today	4:44
	considers the word sermon	4:47
	to have a positive connotation.	4:50
	Or the word preach, for that matter.	4:53
	We say, don't preach at me,	4:58
	by which we mean, don't you lecture me	5:01
	from some socially or physically protected position.	5:03
	I mean, there's a slab of granite between you and me.	5:07
	Even Webster's second definition	5:12
	of the word sermon in the New World Dictionary,	5:14
	an annoying harangue.	5:19
	(congregation laughs)	5:22
	And preach, to give religious advice,	5:27
	especially in a tiresome manner.	5:33
	(congregation laughs)	5:36
	But this Sermon on the Mount	5:39
	is unlike any sermon you've ever heard.	5:40
	It's not tiresome religious advice	5:44
	about how to be a well-adjusted personality,	5:46
	and it's not given by some pampered protected parson	5:48
	who's afraid to put his life on the line.	5:51
	The one who preached this sermon	5:53
	came out from behind the pulpit	5:55
	and punctuated his word with his blood.	5:57
	Some years ago, I used to give a seminar	6:05
	in the psychiatry department,	6:06
	that's gonna shock a lot of you psychiatrists	6:08
	and doctors out there.	6:10
	Well, it was only one lecture once a year	6:13
	to third year residents,	6:15
	entitled "What Psychiatrists Should Know	6:17
	"About the Religious Beliefs of Their Patients,"	6:19
	or something catchy like that.	6:22
	For whatever reason, the seminar was made up	6:25
	mostly of people who had grown up	6:27
	in the Christian faith, but had moved a few steps	6:29
	away from it.	6:32
	During the course of my little presentation,	6:35
	I would say something like,	6:37
	"The Gospel means good news of deliverance	6:38
	"by a loving God.	6:41
	"It is celebrated in a new community of believers."	6:43
	After the presentation, when the residents would respond,	6:49
	often critically, to what I had said,	6:51
	I began to realize that when I said Christianity,	6:55
	what they had on their brain was the Sermon on the Mount.	6:58
	Many a person would say, you know,	7:04
	I grew up in a Christian home,	7:06
	and I must say, I never heard much about the good news.	7:11
	I never heard much about joyous deliverance	7:14
	or this new community.	7:16
	I tell you what I did hear, though.	7:17
	I heard do this, and do that,	7:21
	and don't do this, and don't do that,	7:23
	and fly right and sit up straight	7:25
	and go to Sunday School.	7:27
	Christianity is a list of rules	7:30
	and this Sermon on the Mount is more and harder rules.	7:33
	They were not concerned so much	7:38
	that Christianity was either true or false	7:40
	in some great metaphysical sense.	7:43
	As good doctors, what they were concerned about	7:47
	was that the Sermon on the Mount and Christianity	7:49
	might be bad for your mental health.	7:51
	I have a patient who actually believes,	7:56
	get this, actually believes	8:00
	that God knows what she's thinking.	8:02
	Can you imagine that?	8:06
	Do not swear, do not be angry, do not lust,	8:10
	do not be anxious.	8:13
	Keep all that bottled up inside you,	8:15
	the sermon seems to say.	8:17
	Well, who can go through life without being anxious	8:19
	or angry or occasionally lustful?	8:21
	And why should you?	8:23
	I give them their point.	8:27
	They have a point.	8:30
	If you tear Matthew 5 out of this book,	8:34
	out of the New Testament and try to live it,	8:36
	independent of the Lord who spoke it	8:40
	and died for it, independent of a community	8:42
	of people who are trying to help one another	8:45
	lead a different sort of life	8:47
	in a very difficult world, then it doesn't	8:49
	make much sense.	8:52
	Why should I worry about insulting other people	8:54
	unless it happens to be bad for business	8:57
	or bad for a relationship?	8:58
	Why should I worry about anger except for medical reasons?	9:00
	You repress too much of it, it's bad for the psyche.	9:05
	Express too much of it, bad for the blood pressure.	9:08
	Perhaps Socrates was a better psychiatrist than Jesus.	9:13
	He said moderation is best,	9:18
	and this doesn't sound very moderate.	9:22
	The Sermon on the Mount is not a prescription	9:27
	for mental or physical well-being.	9:30
	The criteria for which, of course,	9:33
	change from year to year.	9:35
	Anybody wanna buy some oat bran?	9:36
	No, not prescriptions for a well-balanced life,	9:39
	but a charter for a whole new daring way	9:44
	of living with one another	9:48
	and in the presence of God.	9:51
	The sermon is a list, all right.	9:55
	It begins with a list, and without that list	9:57
	we are lost.	9:59
	It's a series of blessings spoken upon our heads.	10:02
	It describes who we are, you poor in spirit,	10:06
	you meek, you merciful, you who will see	10:11
	the kingdom of God.	10:16
	Blessed are you.	10:19
	Very early in my ministry, I found myself	10:24
	in a counseling situation, meeting regularly	10:27
	with a father and his teenaged son,	10:31
	who to say the least, did not get along.	10:35
	They were alienated from one another,	10:38
	they were at loggerheads with one another over everything.	10:39
	One afternoon, we were sitting in my office	10:45
	and I looked at them.	10:47
	We were in our usual state of impasse.	10:49
	They were a perfect study in opposites.	10:53
	The father, a military man, ramrod straight in his chair	10:57
	and ramrod straight in his life.	11:01
	His son sitting across from him,	11:04
	or slouching across from him, lank hair,	11:06
	sullenly resentful of his father's authority.	11:09
	I made the mistake of asking the father,	11:14
	"George, what do you want from Tim?"	11:16
	And as soon as I asked it, I was sorry I had,	11:20
	because I knew what the answer would be.	11:22
	Get a job, get better grades, get a haircut,	11:26
	get some new friends, forget the motorcycle,	11:29
	get rid of the earring, and straighten up.	11:31
	A whole laundry list of improvements.	11:33
	It was so predictable.	11:36
	The older man looked at the young man	11:42
	very deeply, and he said,	11:46
	"I want him to be my son."	11:50
	It's been a long time ago and I don't remember	11:57
	if they solved all their problems.	11:59
	But I know that in the awkwardness of that moment	12:01
	that afternoon, they discovered the only basis	12:04
	on which they had a chance.	12:09
	This is where it's at for you and for me, my friends.	12:13
	For any of us who have fallen short of some standard.	12:17
	And the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount,	12:23
	the call of Christ, a job, a relationship.	12:25
	The road to restoration begins when the Lord God	12:30
	looks deeply at us and says, "You are my son,	12:33
	"you are my daughter.	12:36
	"I love you.	12:38
	"I want to go with you on your journey.	12:41
	"Blessed are you."	12:45
	And suddenly, we discover we really don't want	12:48
	little hidden sectors of our lives	12:50
	that are free of the influence of Christ.	12:52
	We don't want little ghettos in our existence,	12:55
	whether it's our sex lives or our business lives	12:58
	or our very thinking.	13:00
	That are somehow independent of the authority of Christ.	13:02
	For if he is Lord of all,	13:07
	then let him be Lord of all, all of us.	13:08
	And if he died for us, let it be for all of us.	13:11
	Isn't this what baptism means,	13:16
	with its symbolism of immersion into Jesus Christ?	13:18
	Isn't this what the Eucharist means	13:23
	when we receive Christ into our very being?	13:25
	Recently, a National Council of Churches study showed	13:33
	that Christian clergy get divorced	13:36
	at about the same rate as the rest of the population.	13:37
	A spokesperson for the organization hailed the study	13:41
	as "good news."	13:44
	Because as she put it, "It's perceived that the clergy	13:46
	"divorce rate is higher than that	13:48
	"of the general population."	13:49
	In fact, it is not good news.	13:55
	We do not rejoice when our failures fall	13:59
	within a statistical norm or our morality reflects	14:01
	the national average.	14:04
	What is good news is that we have been created	14:07
	and redeemed and forgiven and set on a new trajectory	14:11
	beyond to be more than what we are.	14:14
	In the sermon, Jesus says, "Let your light so shine	14:18
	"before all that they may see your good works	14:21
	"and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven."	14:24
	The Sermon on the Mount is a part of a larger story	14:30
	in the Gospel of Matthew, and one that we	14:32
	have been living out in our existence called Epiphany.	14:34
	It began five weeks ago with the journey of the Magi	14:38
	following the star to the place where the Christ was.	14:41
	You will see it end next week in the gospel lesson	14:46
	when Jesus will have moved, as it were,	14:48
	from one mountain on which he preaches authoritatively,	14:51
	to another mountain, on which he will be transfigured,	14:54
	standing between Moses and Elijah.	14:57
	Somewhere the apostle Paul says that each of us Christians,	15:02
	we Christians are being transfigured,	15:06
	day by day, from one degree of glory into another.	15:09
	That means that whether we're young or old,	15:16
	no matter what the path looks like before us,	15:18
	we are all on the way to a greater fullness of life	15:21
	that was intended by God.	15:26
	It's natural to wonder what that life looks like.	15:30
	There is no blueprint.	15:34
	You can't devise a law comprehensive enough	15:36
	to cover new life in Jesus Christ.	15:39
	Matthew 5 offers a few snapshots of our destination.	15:43
	When our children were very young,	15:51
	we decided to take them to the World's Fair.	15:53
	So we packed them in the back of the Pinto and set out.	15:55
	It was a long, long trip.	15:59
	And because our kids were such good kids,	16:04
	they only asked about every 20 minutes or so,	16:06
	"Are we there yet?"	16:09
	"No," we would reply, "this is Burlington.	16:13
	"It's a very nice place, but it's not the World's Fair."	16:15
	But they believed and trusted that we knew	16:20
	what a fair was and that we were	16:22
	on the right road toward it.	16:25
	Our destination served as a kind of magnet	16:27
	for our journey and made the whole thing	16:30
	worthwhile and bearable.	16:33
	Somewhere the apostle John writes,	16:36
	"Beloved, it does not yet appear what we shall be."	16:38
	We have crafted anti-hate laws	16:45
	that protect us from violence.	16:47
	We've passed no-fault legislation	16:48
	that civilizes our divorces.	16:50
	We have designed new laws to protect the weaker parties.	16:52
	We have developed strict laws of evidence	16:56
	to ensure justice.	16:59
	We have come a long way from the moral stone age.	17:00
	But Jesus looks at his people and he says,	17:05
	"You are not there yet."	17:07
	"There is a fullness of life that transcends life	17:11
	"in the law and under the law	17:15
	"that is found only in me."	17:17
	My dear friends, we are on a journey	17:22
	from observing laws to fulfilling them in Christ Jesus.	17:25
	If you would like a little inkling of the kingdom,	17:31
	some snapshots to keep you going on this difficult journey,	17:34
	glimpses of it are available,	17:38
	in faithful husbands and wives,	17:42
	in people who have quit hating other people,	17:45
	in believers who always tell the truth,	17:50
	in Christians who refuse to kill.	17:55
	These may not be perfectly well-adjusted people	18:00
	as the world measures mental health.	18:05
	In fact, they may be like characters	18:08
	in a Flannery O'Conner novel about whom someone wrote,	18:09
	"You shall know the truth, and the truth	18:12
	"shall make you odd."	18:15
	But I tell you what they are, for sure.	18:19
	You look around, you see these people.	18:24
	They're in our midst.	18:28
	They are signs of the kingdom.	18:30
	They follow the Lord Jesus who himself	18:33
	followed a difficult path, that took him	18:35
	to one final little mountain, called Golgotha.	18:38
	It's a long journey, my friends.	18:44
	And we are not to the fair yet.	18:47
	As Martin Luther said, "This life is not righteousness,	18:52
	"but growth in righteousness.	18:57
	"Not health, but healing.	18:59
	"Not being, but becoming.	19:02
	"Not rest, but exercise.	19:04
	"We are not yet what we shall be,	19:07
	"but we are growing toward it.	19:09
	"The process is not yet finished,	19:11
	"but it is going on.	19:14
	"This is not the end, it is the road.	19:17
	"All does not gleam in glory,	19:22
	"but all is being purified."	19:26
	Amen.	19:30

Item Info

Title:

Richard Lischer - "We Are Not There Yet" (February 11, 1996)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:37. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 19:30.
Considering the demands of discipleship portrayed in the Sermon on the Mount, this sermon claims that Jesus' words, spoken in the context of relationship and grace, serve as a vision of the kingdom of God; it calls Christians to long for the fullness and abundance of sanctification rather than settle for mediocrity. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ht2gs96

Date:

February 11, 1996

Speaker:

Lischer, Richard

Liturgical Calendar:

Epiphany

Biblical Book:

Matthew

Chapter and Verse:

Matthew 5:21-37

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0795
ref9699_epi
uachapelsermaud
duke:321201
dcrau001467
ark:/87924/r4ht2gs96
d5f3051d-5e80-4502-a8aa-13afdad2fd51

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Educational Use Permitted

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Richard Lischer - "We Are Not There Yet" (February 11, 1996)

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1. Richard Lischer - "We Are Not There Yet" (February 11, 1996)

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