Restored Relationships

During Lent, it's a good idea to take a look not only at our relationship with God, but at our relationships with other people. How are those, anyway? Good? Not so good? Could use a little work? This sermon takes a look at the reason that we should try to reconcile with other people -- and it's a pretty good one!

“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” That verse is the very heart of the gospel message; and it should give us all goose bumps when we hear it! Jesus died for us when we had done nothing at all to deserve it! That’s what Paul is trying to explain in this portion of his letter to the Romans (5:1-11). Paul’s letters aren’t easy to understand, are they? In this text, for instance, he uses lots of big words like “justification” and “reconciliation.” He borrowed those words from the Roman legal system, so it’s no wonder that we wade through Paul’s letters slowly and painfully; and when we’re finished reading, sometimes we don’t know what in the world he was talking about! This letter to the Romans sounds like a legal brief that was written for the Supreme Court! It’s full of technical terms and complicated arguments that make it very confusing and hard to read. So let’s cut to the chase and translate Paul’s message into language that we use every day. Paul is saying that when Jesus died and was resurrected, he restored our relationship with God that seemed to be broken beyond repair. And Paul is saying that we didn’t do anything to help with that. In fact, when Jesus died for us, we were still behaving like jerks! But now, our relationship with God is restored – not because of anything that we did, but because of what Jesus did for us. We can boast, says Paul, not in ourselves, but in God and in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

That’s the gospel message in a nutshell. It’s really pretty easy to explain once we get past all of Paul’s legal terminology. But what does it mean for us and for our behavior, especially our behavior during this season of Lent? I can tell you what it doesn’t mean! Just because Jesus has given us a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, we don’t get to sit on our big fat recliners and boast about how great we are! That “Get Out of Jail Free” card isn’t a reward; it’s an obligation. Since Jesus restored our relationship with God before we did anything to deserve it, we should be in the business of restoring relationships, too. After all, Jesus tells us over and over to get along with other people! As just one example, take a look at some things that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1 – 7:29). “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (5:9) “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that someone has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to that person; then come and offer your gift.” (5:23-24) “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (5:44) Are you getting the gist of this? We have been reconciled to God; and now Jesus asks us to reconcile with others! It’s as simple as that. But there are some objections to doing all this reconciling; and we might as well go right ahead and face them head-on.

“Why should I be reconcile with him? He owes me an apology.” We’ve all said that at one time or another, haven’t we? And we feel very self-righteous when we say it. But we probably owe apologies to other people, too. Have we done that? And we certainly owed God an apology when Jesus died for us! Maybe this objection doesn’t hold as much water as we think it does.

“We don’t agree on anything.” We hear a lot of that these days! People don’t agree on anything: politics, religion, even where to eat for lunch! But let’s think about that a little more deeply, shall we? We’re all limited human beings, influenced by what we’ve been taught and what we’ve experienced. And because we are limited, we all come to different conclusions about what should be done and how it should be done. If we wait to agree with one another, we’ll never get along! Don’t let differing opinions keep you from reconciling with other people! Remember that they may be criticizing you, too.

“She really hurt me.” Yeah, that’s a tough one. When we have been hurt, we turn into turtles that pull back into our shells and don’t want to come out until it’s safe. But being hurt is part of being human. We need to remember that we have also hurt others; and we probably didn’t even realize that we were doing it. Maybe we should treat others the way that we want to be treated in return and at least try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But let’s jump to the other side of the fence for just a minute and take a look at some pitfalls that it’s easy for us to fall into when we try to reconcile with other people. Reconciliation doesn’t mean allowing other people to treat us as doormats. It’s always wise to set boundaries in our lives to keep others from using us – and misusing us. And reconciliation also doesn’t mean that we should allow other people to dictate what we do. Sometimes we need to stand firm even if others don’t agree with what we’re doing. And that means that there will be people with whom we will never reconcile; because they won’t want to reconcile with us! Sometimes the best that we can do is to be ready to reconcile with those folks. Reconciliation is, after all, like the tango: it takes two to do it.

The bottom line is that reconciling with other people is really hard. But Jesus never said that following him would be easy. In fact, he assured us that it would be very difficult. Remember that he told us that following him would be like picking up a cross and carrying it along with us. If that isn’t one of the messages of Lent, I don’t know what is! When we are tempted to let a broken relationship stay broken because reconciling would be too hard, we should remember that Jesus’ entire life was spent reconciling people. He healed lepers to bring them back into community with others; he loved the undesirables of society; and in the end, he died to reconcile us with God. Being willing to reconcile with others is simply not optional for us if we claim to be following Jesus.

“Therefore,” says Paul, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” If Jesus restored our relationship with God, maybe we should start healing our relationships with other people, too. It seems to be the least that we can do for someone who died for us.

Who's Driving Your Life?

"What are you giving up for Lent?" It's fashionable to deny ourselves something during the season of Lent. But... is that what Jesus meant when he told his followers to deny themselves? This sermon examines self-denial -- what it is, and what it isn't.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) Wow. That’s heavy stuff. This is one of Jesus’ teachings that most of us have trouble with. Who in the world wants to deny himself and take up a cross? Can we get away from it by saying that this teaching is a figment of Matthew’s imagination? No, it’s in three out of the four gospels; so we have to take it seriously. In fact, it’s one of the foundations of a life lived for Christ. Self-denial is something that we are clearly supposed to do; so we might as well face it head-on.

What is self-denial, anyway? Maybe the first thing to do is to realize what self-denial isn’t. First of all, self-denial isn’t seeing ourselves as worthless. The same Jesus who tells us to deny ourselves also assures us that we are God’s beloved children. After all, he died for us! No, we are infinitely valuable to God, and Jesus wants us to recognize our own worth. Self-denial also doesn’t mean discarding the gifts and talents that God gave us. If you enjoy doing something, you don’t have to give it up! God created us with those gifts and talents; and God wants us to use them. And self-denial doesn’t have to mean seeking out suffering for its own sake. Giving something up for Lent – a favorite food, an hour of TV, or even constantly checking your Facebook wall – can be meaningful if it is done thoughtfully and prayerfully. But throughout Christian history, people have taken this kind of practice to lengths that Jesus never intended! In the Middle Ages, for example, some people gave away all their possessions and spent their lives as naked beggars. Others mutilated their own bodies. At the extreme, hermits lived alone in caves and existed on bread and water, fasting until they were almost dead. But this kind of behavior turns self-denial into a mockery of what Jesus is really asking us to do!

And that begs the question, doesn’t it: what exactly is Jesus asking us to do? If we have a healthy self-image, make joyful use of the gifts and talents that God gave us, and reject self-inflicted suffering – well, how can we practice self-denial? Here’s my answer to that: we deny ourselves when we turn our lives over to God and let Jesus direct what we are doing. Let me say that another way. We deny ourselves when we give up control of our own lives and give that control to Jesus. In last week’s sermon, I said that the essence of Lent is “repentance,” and “repentance” simply means making adjustments in your life when you realize that you aren’t living the way that God wants you to live. I compared living a Christian life to driving a car. You have to make adjustments constantly as you’re driving. You can’t just get on the road, point your car towards your destination, and sit back and read the newspaper! You need to keep your eyes on the road! And the more skilled the driver, the better chance you have of arriving safely. So, who’s a better driver when your life is concerned: you or Jesus? I think that we both know the answer to that!

A country song from several years back tells the story of a young mother who wasn’t really paying attention to the winter road on which she was driving. Before she knew it, she was spinning on a sheet of black ice, out of control and heading for disaster. Terrified, she cried, “Jesus, take the wheel. Take it from my hands! I’m letting go; so give me one more chance and save me from this road I’m on!” After the car stopped safely on the side of the road, she realized that her car wasn’t the only thing that she needed to give to Jesus; so she prayed, “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been living my life. I know I’ve got to change; so from tonight, Jesus, take the wheel.” That’s self-denial, friends. Self-denial is simply admitting that we aren’t very good drivers, and that we need to let Jesus drive us to our destination! After all, we aren’t very good at staying on the right road! We get distracted by that wide highway marked “Selfishness” that runs right alongside the road that we’re traveling. There are exits to selfishness all along our way; and letting Jesus drive helps us to stay on track. We love to pull off at the hotel labelled “Comfort,” and then we stay there for way too long! Jesus wants us to renew ourselves, but it should be an overnight stay, not a destination. And boy, do we pay attention to all the billboards along the way! You know, the ones that I’m talking about. They say things like, “Exit here for status!” or “Hate and revenge in only 25 miles!” One of the most enticing is “More stuff than you can possibly use – and plenty of useless trinkets for the kids! Pull over now!” If Jesus isn’t driving us, we get sucked in by all those ads; and we risk never getting back on the right road.

Now, it’s true that self-denial carries some risk. When Jesus is driving, we’re never sure exactly where he is going to take us. And let’s face it, Jesus sometimes drives us over roads that are on very few maps. Loving others as we love ourselves is a road full of bumps and ruts. It’s not comfortable at all. And that road of mercy and compassion… It’s really hard to stay on. Why, sometimes we aren’t even sure where the sides of the road are! And now and then, Jesus asks us to suffer for the sake of other people. I’m convinced that’s what he means when he tells us to “take up our cross.” Most of the time, it’s merely an inconvenience – a hangnail where suffering is concerned. But if he asks us to really, truly suffer, to risk our health, or our financial security, or even our lives… Well, we need to be ready to stay in the car without doing any backseat driving.

Giving Jesus control of our lives – putting him in the driver’s seat – that’s what self-denial is all about. When Jesus drives our lives, our healthy self-image won’t swell into an inflated ego that cares nothing about other people. When Jesus is in the driver’s seat, he’ll make sure that we have opportunities to use our gifts and talents in ways that not only satisfy us, but also benefit others. And the suffering that we are asked to undergo will be for the sake of other people who are also God’s children! In the end, denying ourselves is really just another way of saying that we have been “born again.” That’s not some weird, spooky thing that happens in the dark of night. Being born again is putting aside the need for control of every facet of our lives, and we handing that control back to Jesus. And for most of us, we need to do it over and over and over again. So, on this second Sunday of Lent, as each one of us is trying our best to repent in the way that is most necessary, here are some questions for you to consider. Who’s driving your life? Are you allowing Jesus to decide which highway you travel? Are you letting him help you pass by the temptations that lead to very dangerous roads? Are you ready to follow him wherever he leads you? As we move through Lent towards Easter, it’s something that you might just want to consider.

The Essence of Lent

What is Lent about, anyway? During my next six sermons, I plan to discuss various aspects of Lent that are meaningful to many people. In this first one, I want to start at the beginning. What, at its basis, is Lent all about?

A wild-eyed man wearing tattered clothing, holding a crudely carved wooden staff, standing in the wilderness screaming, “Repent! Repent!” That’s the image that comes to mind when John the Baptist pops up in a scripture reading. And if we can believe Matthew’s description in his gospel, that’s pretty much on target (Matthew 3:1-12). John the Baptist was apparently much more like the hellfire-and-damnation preachers who frequent late-night TV than he was like a typical Protestant preacher who stands in the pulpit on Sunday morning and doesn’t do much screaming and hollering at all. Somebody like me, for instance. I don’t see myself as a John the Baptist type. Except that this morning, I’m going to preach the very same message that John the Baptist preached (although I’ll be considerably quieter about it). We all need to repent, every single one of us, in bigger or smaller ways. Today is the first Sunday in Lent; and Lent is all about repentance!

But maybe I’m putting the cart before the horse. Before I start yelling “Repent!” I should tell you what that means. Does repenting mean being sorry for something you did? Well, yes, that’s the start of repentance; but it’s only a start. Does repenting, then, mean not only being sorry for something you did, but also asking for forgiveness? Yes, that’s another part of repenting; but it’s still not the whole story. Repentance is really very simple. Repentance means “turning around.” To repent means to stop doing one thing and to start doing something else! The Old Testament prophets talked about repentance in terms of “returning to God” – taking a good look at the ways that we have wandered away from God, and then going in a different direction. But it’s the same thing, in the end. When we repent, we change the direction of our lives.

A piece of advice that always makes me laugh comes from the great baseball sage Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” I imagine that not too many preachers use that quote on Sunday morning, but it’s a perfect description of repentance. When our lives come to a fork in the road, we should take a good look as far as we can down both sides of that fork to see which way leads to God. It will probably be the one that is less traveled. That’s because it’s not very popular to realize that our lives aren’t going the way they should be going, and taking a different path because of it. Roads that lead to comfort or popularity or wealth are far more popular than the ones that lead to God. But, like Robert Frost describes in his famous poem, taking the road less-traveled may make all the difference! Now, I’m not saying that you have to change everything about your life in order to repent. Roads go off in all kinds of different directions. Some do, indeed, lead back the way we came; while for others, just a slight turn will do. But all of them require some adjustments on our part. Imagine for a moment that you decide to drive to Dayton. What would happen if you got on a road, headed south, and decided that you didn’t need to steer the car anymore? That’s not a pretty picture, is it? You’d be in a ditch – or worse – in less than 5 minutes! We do something like that when we head out on our spiritual journeys and never make any corrections! We end up in the ditch.

What does that look like on a practical basis? Well, it starts with the realization that we’re doing something wrong. Maybe we’re having trouble loving someone else. There’s a lot of that going around these days. Just realizing that we’ve lost some of the love that we used to have is the start of repentance. That’s followed by being sorry for it. Scriptures tell us that God is grieved when we wander away; and we should be grieved, too. If you don’t care that you don’t love – well, then, there are bigger problems that you need to deal with as a Christian! But being sorry isn’t the end of repentance. An apology to God is in order; and maybe an apology to your neighbor; and the prayer that God might help you to love again. God’s pretty good about helping with prayers like that. Finally, do something about it! What that is will depend on the particular situation in which you find yourself. Where spiritual lives are concerned, one size never fits all.

That, my friends, is the essence of Lent. Repent! Make a change! Return to God! If you don’t know what how to go about that, pray about it. I guarantee that God will answer you. You may hear something that you don’t want to hear; you may be called to travel a road that you really don’t want to travel; but the reward will be a renewed relationship with God and a renewed life! Repentance isn’t a punishment – it’s an opportunity! We have never gone so far on a road that it is impossible to leave it and start again. What a blessing that is! Thanks be to God!