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 |
