Real Life

What makes our lives rich and full? Jesus offers us life "in abundance" -- but what does that mean? Some folks claim that it means to be materially wealthy. Is that right? That's the question that I consider in this sermon.

My mind sometimes works in strange ways. Let me tell on myself and give an example of what I’m talking about. I frequently wonder about the names of churches that I pass when I am traveling. Now, I’m not talking about traditional church names like “St. John’s” or “Holy Trinity.” And it’s perfectly clear why some churches are named after their location, as ours is. But there are other church names that send my mind off the cliff! For instance, when I pass a church that is named “Full Gospel Apostolic Church,” I can’t help but wonder whether they think that other churches only believe in a “partial gospel.” Do they think that we stop reading Matthew after the fourth chapter, or leave out every other word in the Gospel of John? Inquiring minds want to know! During my recent vacation to the east coast, I ran across a church name that I had never seen before: “Real Life Christian Fellowship.” You can guess where my mind went with that one! If that church offers “real life,” do all the others offer “fake life”? Now, while I giggle at a church named “full gospel,” this one made me stop and think. What is “real life,” anyway?” Is there a “false life”? And if there is, how do we avoid it? This morning’s scripture reading from the gospel of John (10:1-10) claims that Jesus has come “that [we] might have life, and have it to the full.” But Jesus didn’t give us any details! He didn’t show a PowerPoint presentation with bullet points that tells us how to get to that real life that he offers us. But there is a difference between the “real life” that Jesus wants us to have and the “false life” that so many people run after; and we need to consider just what that difference is.

Let’s start with the passage from John that I just read. In it, Jesus tells us that not only is he the shepherd of the sheep; he is the gate to the sheepfold where the sheep are protected and cared for. It’s safe in the sheepfold; but outside, it’s dangerous. All kinds of wild animals with big teeth and sharp claws run around out there; and there are lots of places where there is nothing to eat or drink. If the sheep wander unprotected into those places, they run the risk of being killed or starving to death! The sheepfold is the place where the sheep are cared for and protected. And if they venture outside the sheepfold, the shepherd is right there to make sure that nothing happens to them. We, of course, are the sheep. Jesus wants us to stick as close to him as superglue as we go through our lives. Now, that’s nothing new. Most of us learned that in Sunday school. Jesus is the Good Shepherd; and we want to live in his sheepfold. And what kind of life do we have there? Why, the 23^rd Psalm spells it out for us! When we stick close to Jesus, we won’t lack for anything. While we may not have everything that we want, we’ll have everything that we need. We’ll “lie down in green pastures” and be led by “still waters.” Our souls will be restored as we “walk in paths of righteousness,” and we won’t have to be afraid of evil even if we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” God himself will comfort us, and our cups will overflow with “goodness and mercy.” That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? It that’s the kind of “real life” that Jesus gives us, I want some of it!

But some preachers these days think that there’s more to “real life” than just trusting in Jesus to give us what we need. Some preachers believe that we have to be lots of money to have a full life. This emphasis on money started back in the 1960s with TV preachers like Oral Roberts, Reverend Ike, and Jim Bakker. They told their audiences that faithful Christians should send their hard-earned money in to them so that it could do the Lord’s work. They told them that if they sent in that money, God would bless them; and the more money they sent in, the more they would be blessed. But all the time, those preachers weren’t giving that money away to people in need; they were feathering their own nests! Most people eventually caught on to their shenanigans. Some of them were even jailed for their illegal activities. You’d think that this kind of preaching would have ended there. But just when we thought it was gone, it came back like a boomerang with a slick new name. Nowadays, it’s called the “prosperity gospel.” The “prosperity gospel” claims that wealth is the way to a good life; and because that’s the case, God wants all of us to be rich. But before God gives us those riches, we have to prove that we have faith. And how do we do that? Why, we give and we give and then we give some more until it hurts! Then, these preachers tell us, God will bless us with so much wealth that we won’t know what to do with it all! We’ll be able to buy diamonds from Tiffany’s and clothing from Saks Fifth Avenue and cars from Mercedes. Some very famous preachers offer a version of this message every week on their syndicated TV shows.

Now, if you’re wondering where in the world they got that idea, the surprising answer is that they got it from the Bible. Some parts of the Old Testament claim that if we do what God wants of us, we will receive material blessings. If we prove to God that we’re faithful, in other words, God will reward us by making us rich. They point to verses like this one in Psalm 17: “You quiet the hunger of those you love. Their sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children.” (Psalm 17:14a) That sure sounds like we get a payoff for loving God! It buys right into the American dream that anyone can get rich if they work hard enough. It puts a religious spin on it, though, so that the message turns into, “Anyone can get rich if they have enough faith.” But if this claim is true, what happens to God’s love for everyone? Does God only love me if I prove that I love him back? And what about God’s grace? If we have to earn grace, it isn’t grace at all!

But the final proof that this “prosperity gospel” isn’t much of a gospel is Jesus himself, who never once said that getting rich is the key to having a good life. In fact, Jesus didn’t think too highly of wealth. Do you remember what he told the Pharisees when they asked him if they should pay taxes? He said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; and give to God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:15-21) Caesar is concerned about money, Jesus was saying, while other things matter to God. Jesus taught his disciples that “Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing…. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:23, 34) If anyone should have been blessed with wealth, it was Jesus, who did everything that God asked of him; but who died after losing even the clothes on his back. Yes, Jesus was blessed more than anyone else in history; and money had nothing at all to do with those blessings. The “prosperity gospel” is as fake as a three-dollar bill; and the claim that wealth is the way to a full life is fake, too. Jesus gives us a full life not by making us rich with money, but rich in things that really matter: love for one another, forgiveness for our mistakes of the past, courage arising from the certainty that we have nothing to fear from death, the peace that passes all understanding, and the assurance that God is on our side no matter what happens to us. That’s what a “real life” looks like.

My prayer for all of you who read this is that your lives are full and real. I pray that if anyone tries to snooker you with the claim that riches are the way to a good life, you have the sense to throw them into the nearest river. I pray that you stay close to Jesus; and that you live in the sheepfold with him where life is rich not with dollars and cents, but with love and peace. And I hope that you live in a “Real Life Christian Fellowship” all the rest of your days!

Praying Properly

Have you ever wondered if you're praying "the right way"? There isn't really any "right way" to pray, because God listens to all our prayers regardless of how we pray -- even when we don't have any words! That's because of the Holy Spirit. If you want to know more, you might want to read this sermon.

After I chose the title for this sermon, I realized that it might not be the best one to use. “Praying Properly” suggests that I’m going to tell you how to pray in the right way – something like “three easy steps to effective prayer.” But that’s not what I have in mind at all. In fact, I’m convinced that giving you “three easy steps to effective prayer” wouldn’t be a good thing to do at all; because prayer can’t be boxed into “three easy steps.” Maybe the best way to start is to take a look at prayer itself and go on from there.

Prayer, at its most basic, is simply communication with God. Prayer is getting in touch with the one who created the universe, the one who is the source of all blessings, the one who stands by us when life throws us a curve ball. Christian writer Anne Lamott (I highly recommend her books to you) believes that there are really only three kinds of prayers: “Wow!” “Thanks!” and “Help!”

“Wow!” is a “joyful expression of wonder in response to astonishing moments great and small.” Did you ever stand in awe at the grandeur of nature – the vastness of the Grand Canyon, perhaps; or the crash of ocean waves on a rocky coast; or the deep orange hues of a sunset – and as you stood there, you were amazed at the creativity that designed all of it and gave us the capability to appreciate its beauty? You just prayed a “Wow!” prayer. Or maybe you marveled at a coincidence that put you exactly where you needed to be exactly when you needed to be there; and you said to yourself, “That had to be God’s doing!” That was a “Wow!” prayer, too. Oh, I know – you didn’t use any words. But the reality is that sometimes, no words are adequate to capture what we are feeling, especially in “Wow!” moments. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans (8:26-27) that the Spirit puts those prayers into words when we can’t. Sometimes “Wow!” is all we need to say; and the Spirit knows exactly how to interpret that.

Then there are the “Thanks!” prayers. You all know what they are. We pray them every single week here in church. “Thanks, God,” we say, “for all the things that you have done for us.” But “Thanks!” prayers aren’t limited to just Sunday mornings. If you have ever appreciated a warm home while a blizzard rages outside; or if you have ever been thankful for a cold glass of fresh, pure water on a hot August day; or if you have ever held a baby in your arms and felt a rush of gratitude for that new life – well, then, you have prayed the “Thanks!” prayer. And just like the “Wow!” prayer, sometimes we can’t put our gratitude into words. And on those times, the Spirit does its thing and puts our prayers into appropriate words that go straight to God.

That leaves the “Help!” prayers – those 911 prayers that we shoot up to God when we are in trouble. And on those occasions, we aren’t at a loss for words. No, at times like those, we tell God exactly what we want! When we are in a difficult situation, we want God to get us out of it; when we have been wronged, we want God’s justice; and when a loved one is suffering, we want God’s healing. We’ve all prayed those kinds of prayers. But even as we cry out to God for the things that we want – and we should cry out to God when we need help – it’s worth remembering that sometimes we don’t pray for the wisest things. After all, those “Help!” prayers ask God for something in the future: relief or justice or healing. We don’t have that problem with “Thanks!” prayers, because they appreciate something that is in the past. We don’t have that problem with “Wow!” prayers, either, because they marvel at something that we are experiencing right now. But those “Help!” prayers… They respond to what’s taking place now and spring ahead into the future. We don’t always ask for the wisest things where the future is concerned. So, especially where “Help!” prayers are concerned, we need to let the Spirit help us to pray.

But… how do we do that? Praying through the Spirit starts with a healthy humility, and the knowledge that we don’t know everything that God is doing right now. We don’t know where God is working in our lives or in the lives of others; and so, what we praying for might be the exact opposite of what God is trying to do! Here’s an example. Mike is in a tough situation. He just got a job as a stock boy in a local chain store; and his supervisor is making Mike’s life difficult. He’s abrupt; he’s demanding; sometimes he’s downright rude. Now, the temptation is to pray that Mike gets another job. But what we don’t know is that Mike’s supervisor is having a terribly tough time himself. His wife just died suddenly and left him with two small children to raise; so he’s being hard on all the employees that he supervises to make sure that he doesn’t lose his own job. Mike is in a position to be a listening ear, and maybe even a support for him; but if Mike gets another job, that support will be gone. We don’t know where God is working in the lives of others. A better prayer would be that Mike is able to do his job well, and to understand why his supervisor is so tough on him.

I know that it’s tempting when we pray to tell God how to fix thorny situations. But God has better solutions than we do! So maybe we should be less specific in what we ask for in prayer. Maybe we should simply lift those situations up to God and let God handle it! Instead of praying, “O God, fix things so my child doesn’t get into any more trouble” (which isn’t really a bad prayer), what if we prayed, “O God, I lift up my child to you. I am worried about what she is doing. Please work in her life so that she learns the difference between right and wrong.” That’s a better prayer, because it gives God room to work – and isn’t that what we really want?

Finally, we should pay attention to what the Spirit says to us. The Spirit not only talks to God for us, you know; it talks to us for God. But to be able to listen to the Spirit, we have to listen more and talk less. If we have decided beforehand how God should answer our prayers, there is no room for the Spirit to guide and instruct us. You may remember, way back at the beginning of this sermon, I said that prayer is being in touch with God. Communication with God is a two-way street: we talk to God, and God talks back. That is especially true in “Help!” prayers. Take time to meditate on what you are praying about. Give the Spirit room to enlighten you to other ways that your problems might be solved. Remind yourself that we don’t know everything there is to know; and that God might want to let you in on some things!

So… how do we pray properly? We pray properly by letting the Spirit speak for us and to us. We pray properly by lifting our awe and our thanks to God, and not worrying about always using words to do it. We pray properly by lifting our concerns to God, and not assuming that we know what the outcome ought to be. We pray properly by asking the Spirit to help us every single time that we start to pray. The Spirit is with us and in us! This morning, as we are in prayer, I invite you to listen to what the Spirit has to say.

The Soul of a Nation

What is the relationship between Christianity and country in the United States? Although the country is not permitted to influence our faith, our faith has certainly influenced our country for the good! This sermon that I preached on the Sunday prior to the Fourth of July considers how we have done that. If you choose to read it, I hope that you resolve to proclaim your faith to those in our country who need to hear it!

During my recent trip to Scandinavia, I visited the home of composer Edvard Grieg in Bergen, Norway. While I was there, I enjoyed a piano concert of Grieg’s music. It was a real treat for a music lover like me! Norwegians say that Grieg’s music embodies the soul of Norway. That’s because Grieg was a master at capturing experiences in his music. His quiet, lyrical pieces recall the sunlight falling on the long-awaited, first green grass of spring. The low, deep chords in some of his compositions reflect the mysterious depth of the fjords, as well as the darkness that covers Norway during their long, cold winters. And when you listen to his composition “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” you can’t fail to picture the fabled trolls of Norway frolicking in their mountaintop caves with their knit hats and their long beards. From a spring morning to the gloom of a mountain cave, Grieg captured it all.

It got me to wondering: what music embodies the soul of our United States? We have a huge country to capture! What music reflects all of that? We might choose the music of the American west. When we sing “Home on the Range,” we remember the independent pioneers who helped to settle the West; and when we listen to Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite,” we picture the vastness of one of our grandest natural wonders. But we might choose something very different: the music of Stephen Foster, for example. We hear “Way down upon the Suwanee River,” and we think of the Old South with its plantations and cotton fields. The world-renowned Kentucky Derby always plays one of Stephen Foster’s compositions, “My Old Kentucky Home,” just before the horses begin to race. Other folks would say that we can’t forget our cities; and they might choose the music of George Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Blue,” perhaps. Its wailing clarinet and syncopated rhythms reflect both the sophistication and the quirkiness of New York City. And on the Fourth of July, surely we would all agree that the marches of John Philip Sousa capture the soul of an America that is afraid of nothing! Who can hear “The Stars and Stripes Forever” without getting a few goose bumps of pride that we are Americans?

There are lots of choices when we think about music that embodies the soul of our nation. We’ll probably never agree on just one; and that’s OK, because we are a vast, diverse nation both in natural resources and in our people! But whatever the soul of our nation may be, no one can dispute that the church of Jesus Christ has helped to make it what it is. Christians are, and have always been at the heart of the political entity that we call the United States. We Christians are not a political group, but “a royal priesthood, a holy nation… the people of God” (I Peter 2:9-12). The church of Jesus Christ has always influenced our nation for good. Our own soul – the soul of a church that is loyal to Jesus Christ above anything else – has helped to shape our national soul into something that we can point to with pride. Here’s what I mean.

The United States is one of the most generous nations in the world. If you consider how many of our citizens donate money to a charity, volunteer their time, or offer help to complete strangers, we rank 5^th in generosity in the world! That figure was generated by the World Giving Index and published by the Charities Aid Foundation after a survey of 195,000 people in 153 countries worldwide. That generosity didn’t just appear. It is a result of our Christian heritage that has taught us to help others. We all know the story of the Good Samaritan who stopped to help a stranger in need (Luke 10:25-37); and we take that story seriously. We donate our money, our time and our possessions; and our generosity has worked its way into the soul of our country. I, for one, am proud that it has.

There’s something else that makes me proud: the fact that our country considers all people to be equal under the law. We all know what the Declaration of Independence says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It sounds very much like the book of Galatians that says: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We Christians don’t believe that anybody is better than anybody else. A white man who is the CEO of a Wall Street investment firm is no better than a poor black girl who lives in the inner city. God created all people equally in his image. Now, we don’t always do very well in putting that into practice. It’s easy to fall into the trap that “we” are better than “they” are, especially in this day when Americans are divided and disagree on so many things! But throughout our history, Americans have fought for the rights of not just a few, but everyone; and I am proud of that.

We Americans have a long tradition of hospitality, too. We have welcomed millions of immigrants over the 241 years of our history! They have come from England, Ireland, and Wales; from Germany, Denmark, and Norway; from Italy and Greece and Russia; from India and Laos and Cambodia; from Syria and Lebanon and Jordan; and I haven’t even begun to name all the countries in Africa that were home to millions of slaves who were brought here against their will! We are a country of people who originally came from someplace else; and America has always welcomed those strangers. Inside the base of the Statue of Liberty is a plaque containing a poem by Emma Lazarus. I’ll bet that you are familiar with its final lines:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That’s what we do, we Americans, we welcome people; and that hospitality is part of our Christian heritage, too. The book of Hebrews gives us this advice: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). We are a country whose arms have always been open wide to welcome those people who needed a welcome the most; and I am proud of that.

Generosity, equality, hospitality. We Christians helped to put these virtues into the soul of America. Since our country was founded, they have been part of the cornerstone of who we are and how we do things. They are so much a part of our country that we take them for granted! But we Christians can’t stop proclaiming them; and here’s why. Some Americans are still greedy. They are like the main character in the 1987 movie Wall Street who believed that “Greed is good.” We Christians need to keep proclaiming generosity. Some Americans are still prejudiced. They look down on anyone who isn’t just like they are, whether those people are women, homosexuals, or people of color; and they want the laws of our land to reflect their prejudices. We Christians need to keep proclaiming equality. And some Americans are afraid. Because they are afraid, they want to close our borders to people who aren’t just like we are. Is it protection of our own citizens or prejudice against foreigners? I don’t know the answer to that, and time will sort it out; but I do know that in our global society, we Christians need to keep proclaiming hospitality.

Our country isn’t perfect. But with God’s help – and with our Christian witness – it can get better! On this Fourth of July holiday, as we celebrate our independence and everything that it means to us, I invite you to pray for our country; and then to think seriously about what we can do to make it better. Remember the words of John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” It’s what we’re called to do, as good citizens – and as good Christians.