We are made in the image of God, but there is this tendency, or this human flaw, or as some theologians call it, original sin, which in time distorts this divine image. I usually perceive this occurring in very poor human decisions, faulty choices.
God calls human beings in each generation to be his illustrative people. To stand out from the crowd. To be different from the natural tendencies of the human creature which shape most who walk the land. In one generation he called a man by the name of Isaiah. In our generation, he calls us, you and me, imagine that - people like us called to be God's illustrative people. Peter in the New Testament once wrote: "Once you were nobody, but now you are God's own people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation."
But please understand and appreciate this: God never calls with out equipping us or gracing or gifting us for the task to which we are called.
Today, this morning, he calls you to be his people. To never compromise with evil. To achieve a level of integrity, and faithfulness, and unselfishness, unparalleled in the world.
Consider the call of Isaiah: Isaiah lived in the 8th Century, 742 years before the birth of Christ to be exact-about 2800 years ago. We know this for Isaiah, the prophet of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, noted in his writings in our Old Testament, that it was in the year that King Uzziah died.
Now Uzziah of Judah in his day was a powerful leader who lived in the Mediterranean city of Jerusalem. The herds of the wealthy grew abundantly, trade prospered, and the army of Judah was strengthened. He would serve as King of Judah for 41 years until his death with leprosy in the year 742.
In the year that King Uzziah died, writes Isaiah, I saw the Lord, high and lifted up." The prophet's encounter with God revealed to himself as he writes: "I am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of uncleanness." And God did for Isaiah what Isaiah could not do for himself, he was cleansed of his disease of sin. With the words of a mystical poet, Isaiah writes of "Seraphim," winged mythological creatures, who bring burning coals from the altar of God to touch his unclean lips to cleanse him from all unrighteousness.
To come close to God is to realize or unworthiness, our need for change, to be better, to be different. As good as we are, in the presence of God we see ourselves as we really are: needy, selfish, opinionated and vindictive. Isaiah heard the voices of Sepherian singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" and saw himself in God's presence as unholy--as living among a people of unclean lips." Martin Luther once wrote that he would know nothing of his sin, had not the Holy Spirit taught him.
When Peter encountered Jesus, his sin became so evident and he cried out: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man."
It is in the presence of the immensity of God that we realize our finitude.
Sometimes, human beings drop out of life's mainstream. I have seen them stop praying, to fail to mark the week with a Sabbath day of rest and worship and they begin to live an illusion. The problem is that they begin to put their faith in themselves or in Gods, which cannot ultimately save them. The problem is not that they no longer find meaning in prayer, worship or of practicing holy habits or doing acts of kindness. The problem is that they don't want to face the reality of their life, which is without God there is no hope! The further one gets from the presence of God, the less ability you have to realize how shallow or selfish your lives become. That's why when Isaiah encountered God in the temple, he cried out: "I am a man of unclean lips."
God calls human beings in every generation to know him and to serve him and to represent his ways in the world, but first he frees them from their sin and releases them for Christian service. Just as he freed the slaves from Egypt and just as he freed Jesus from the grave, so also he will by the power of his might, free us.
In Isaiah's case and in ours, God must first cleanse us from our sin. This is never a one-time event and it is finished. This cleansing has to be done annually, weekly, daily. "One day at a time." We are an unfinished product. A cathedral is never finished. Little boys sometimes don't like to take baths, but when you live in a dusty, dirty, germy, world, baths have to be taken every day. So also does God's gift of forgiveness has to be requested and received every day.
Here's the good news: Today's your day for a bath. For cleansing. For being touched with the burning coal from the altar of God. For Holy Communion with the divine creator. Don't fool yourself any longer. You can drift from God's grace. This is not territory which is once conquered and ours forever. You can fall from grace!
I once knew a man who refused to take communion because he said: "I'm not good enough." Well neither am I. But God never said come to the table all you who are good enough, who have achieved a level of holiness. He never said: "Come to the table all you who have figured it all out. He said: Come to the table all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Isaiah writes 1:10 "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your doings…cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression…Come now, he writes, let us reason together, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."
Let me suggest the following, based on Isaiah's story:
1. First, Seek God in familiar places, where you may expect to meet him. For Isaiah it was the Temple.
2. Secondly, Call upon Him out of your recognized needs. For Isaiah it was for cleansing: "I am a man of unclean lips…"
3. Thirdly, Wait for God's Healing, Holy presence, knowing and believing as Isaiah would later write: "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." (40:31)
An unsuspecting visitor to our Church coming into our fellowship in last Sunday's wonderful celebration at the Saenger and the launching of our Building on the Dream Capital Campaign, and returns today and reads the sermon title: The Rule of Gold, might think the minister has lost his mind.
Nevertheless, for one coming out of a world perspective, there is a dominant feeling that "He who has the gold makes the rule". As a matter of fact, the world perspective in so many ways is far different from what Jesus brought with him into the world. The World knows of revenge, hate, retaliation. You name it and it is to be found in the world and in some religious perspectives.
Jesus was born into a religious culture that taught, and the Zionist movement still teaches to this very day "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." This has been a basic principle of society for thousands of years.
I saw this attitude expressed this week on a bumper sticker: "We don't get mad, we get even." The title of today's sermon simply refers to Jesus' statement in the scripture read this morning, which is often referred to as "The Golden Rule" or the Rule that is golden: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
This section of scripture in Luke's story is sometimes referred to as "The Sermon on the Plain" in contrast to Matthew's longer compiled version of the teachings of Jesus found in "The Sermon on the Mountain". For Matthew, "The Sermon" contains all of the Beatitudes and other material, but Luke cuts through to what one might call the essence of the Lord's Teaching.
And focuses these teachings on love of enemies and judgment of others. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This was not an original teaching by Jesus as you will find it in the writing of Homer, Tobit, Enoch, Philo and elsewhere. The difference is that Jesus elevated this principal of human living to a level that would define us as a unique people.
In Matthew's version, it is assumed that doing good to others is in the context of the church where everyone knows how to do good. But for Luke, this teaching on Love is offered in the context of a world that knows little of doing good to others.
Luke recalls Jesus saying "Do good to others even when they abuse or misuse you, are unkind to you. Show mercy to them when they are ugly and mean spirited and treat them as you would have wished to have been treated by them."
Goethe once wrote: "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is; treat a man as he can be and should be, and he will become as he can and should be."
Radical Christian discipleship means that we be people of love who give and forgive-it is so contrary to our nature and the way most of us live out our relationships. The nature of our life in Christ is that we do not repay evil for evil, but that we repay evil with good.
The apostle Paul would restate this teaching in I Thessalonians 5:15 when he wrote to a Roman audience:
"Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all…. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." This means that we will deal with others like God deals with us. "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" "God is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful"
This statement is found in 6:35 and many Biblical scholars have reported that it is not an overstatement to say that 6:35 expresses the essence of the whole Gospel.
Sometimes Jesus seems to miss the mark of reality. But here's the rule that is of gold, more beautiful with age, if you want to be ugly, and selfish, and mean spirited, you are going to have to go somewhere else other than here. And if you want to debate this principle of operation, you will have to debate it with Jesus, not with me. For I am only the administrator of the policy, not the policy maker.
Treat others as you desire to be treated. God is merciful to the ungrateful and the selfish, so also are you to be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Have you ever given a gift to someone and they never responded. They never said thank you or anything. You come up with this great idea. You shop for it, you buy it. You wrap it up. You drive to the post office to mail it and you stand in one line after another, and then you never hear from the recipient.
I sacrificed some time ago my self and my family to give a gift to someone and they took it, and never acknowledged it. You are left not knowing whether it wasn't perceived as a good gift, or the recipient was pleased or whether they were just an ungrateful, selfish, clod-which is how I come away with these resentful feelings.
I wonder if God doesn't feel like we do sometimes, when he gives us a new day every day and we take it and never say thank you. I wonder if God must feel like we sometimes do, when he recalls the death of his only son for us clearly illustrating the extent Love will go, and we take Jesus' death as a historical fact, with no tears in our eyes. I wonder if sometimes God doesn't feel like we feel. But then I am reminded in the Bible, "His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways."
God operates on a different principal than is the human norm. That's our calling-to be the sons and daughters of God. Made in his image to live in his image. This is what was captured in Luke's memory of Jesus saying: "Do unto others as you desire that they do unto you, and you will be the sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."
You can live above the human tendency to retaliate or be self-righteous! You never get ahead by getting even.
Let me tell you a story that didn't really happen, but it sure illustrates a point: The Pope, Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts, so the story goes, all died in a plane crash. But when they arrived at the gates of heaven Saint Peter said: "This is terrible. I'm so sorry, but we don't have your rooms ready yet. This is unexpected and has caught us unprepared." But then he had this great idea. He called up the devil and asked if the three of them could stay with him for a couple of days until their accommodations in Heaven were ready. All of their life, these men had spent fighting the devil and now there first day in heaven was going to be spent in hell. You figure it out. Reluctantly the devil agreed. But the very next day, Saint Peter's phone range and it was the devil. The devil said: "Peter, you have to come down here and get these guys. The Pope is forgiving everybody, Billy Graham is saving everyone, and Oral Roberts has raised enough money to air condition the whole place."
Enough of this foolishness, let me make these two suggestions in the light of the Rule that is of Gold, which is to be our standard:
1. First, chose intentionally to sacrifice something for some cause. In sacrifice and suffering, we grow close to the nature of the Divine.
As Larry Morris has taught me, you never sacrifice something that doesn't come back to you not as something you lose, but as something you gain. Sacrifice in the presence of God, is transformed into Blessings.
I suspect that the opposite is also true: Blessings when not sacrificed are turned into loses.
What we don't do with our money is just as important as what we do with it.
Jonathan Kozol in his book Amazing Grace, analyzes the impoverished conditions that many children are forced to grow up in the South Bronx section of New York City. He writes: "Evil exists. I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher would call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people, that is my idea of evil."
Many years ago, Dante wrote: "He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it."
Jesus intentionally became "the suffering servant" and thereby found glory. He could have chosen the way of power but chose a more excellent way.
I don't have to tell parents about sacrificing something for their children, or to tell a teacher to sacrifice something for their students, or a lover to sacrifice something for their lover, you do this automatically. But perhaps I do need to remind you that there in you discover the true beauty of a Rule that is of Gold.
2. Secondly, make a habit of living above the revenge rule.
In Stephen Covey's book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he writes, "Habits have a tremendous gravity pull. Lift off takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension." When Jesus speaks of loving our enemies, he is not talking about our engaging in merely periodic acts of kindness. Instead, he is talking about a way of life. He is instructing us to develop a habit of acting in a Godly manner where you treat ungrateful and selfish persons in respectful ways. Breaking out of old patterns of behavior and instituting new habits requires considerable intentional effort, but the result is ultimate freedom from the law of getting even.
3. Thirdly, realize that you are equipped to live above the revenge rule by God the Holy Spirit who is present within you to do good works.
This story tells of a turning point in Jesus' life and the lives of the disciples who experienced this unusual occurrence. It is told in the manner of an Old Testament Theophany. There are unusual things that happen. In a theophany there is a new revelation or epiphany or a new understanding. Like the story of Moses' on the Mountain receiving the Ten Commandments, there is a cloud, there is an encounter with the Divine, There is a Voice from above, there is a transfiguration-Like Moses who glows after the Mountain Top encounter, So Jesus and Elijah and Moses are portrayed as appearing together in a strange light in a time of conversation. From this event, Jesus sets his mind toward Jerusalem just as Moses moved from the burning bush to Egypt and his encounter with Pharo.
This is certainly one of the major events in Jesus life, right up there with his Birth, his Baptism, his death and his resurrection. Interestingly enough, as a voice from above is heard in his Baptism: "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased", so also here in this event, a voice is heard: "This is my son, listen to him."
For the disciples, for the first time in these rather common men's understanding, for the first time, they realize that Jesus is the culmination of the great prophets depicted in the appearance in their mind's eye of Elijah and the great Law giver, depicted in the appearance in their mind's eye of Moses. Both of these great men appearing in conversation with their friend.
There was Moses who in 1200 B.C. led the Israelites to freedom and gave them God's Law, which would define them forever as God's Moral People, unique and special. And then there was Elijah. He was an Israelite prophet in the 9th Century. The former slaves from Egypt now had Kings and they were trying to establish what they believed and what was unique about them. Recall the encounter of Elijah the prophet of God with the prophets of Baal, an agricultural deity, who were supported by Queen Jezebel. Elijah was to remind the Israelites that they were to have no other God's but God alone.
And Jesus appears with these historical giants and there is this voice: "This is my son, Listen to him." It is a clear message to us today: Listen to Him! You listen to everything else, but you must listen to him who is the author of life at its best.
The average American home has the TV turned on more than seven hours per day. Each individual watches approximately four and one half hours of TV each day. When young people graduate from high school, they have spent more hours watching television than they have spent in school and in church combined. It is estimated that when they finish high school, they will have watched 500,000 commercials. I am for the family in our church that turn off their TV's on three out of five school nights. With school work and the computer and one's home chores, you just must start being selective. What are those who will run the world in the future listing to? Do you not see that we are in a battle for the minds of the young? Do you even wonder why we must build a new youth center and do all that we can do to help shape the minds and spirit of the youth of today, the adults of tomorrow?
Let us listen to Jesus. Let us listen to the one who is the Son of God as he seeks to speak to us through the noise and clutter of today.
1. Let us listen to him, first of all for he gives to us our clearest understanding of God. In Jesus, we see enough of the Creator of the Universe as we ever hope or need to see. Anything you think of God that is not found in Jesus should probably be suspect.
Because of Jesus and his teachings, we have come to understand God in three ways. We call this "The Trinity". There is in God these three dimensions of Creation, Redemption, Holy Presence. God is a creating Father, a Redeeming Son, and an Ever Present Spirit. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Not that we worship three separate entities, but that we worship One True God, who has made himself known in creation, redemption, and involvement with his creation.
We have a family in the church who when they sit down for dinner in the evening at their family table, the father asked "Where have you seen God today?" And each person shares where they experienced God in their lives. Sometimes the responses of the children are very interesting, but the exercise is wonderful.
A central Christian belief, taught by Jesus is that God did not just make the universe and then go off on vacation. No, in some way, God is present in our lives, each and everyday. It might be that talking about how God is present in our lives can be as simple as saying: "Look at the beautiful sunset that God has created today." Rather than saying "What a nice sunset."
Keep your thoughts on God's involvement in your life and you will experience a peace that surpasses all human understanding. A word of caution here, you can't blame every cancerous disease germ on God nor every careless mistake.
A young friend began to cultivate seeing God in everything and when he left his note book for his class at home, he said: "Well God didn't want me to take my note book to class today." Not having his notebook with his homework in it, meant that he received a zero on his work for that day.
You don't blame God for your carelessness.
An older friend, arrived to work late, had a bad attitude at work, with other fellow workers, and another serious mistake, a bad attitude toward her employer, and so when the business changed some priorities and downsized, she lost her job. Trying to maintain a perspective of God's involvement in her life, she said: "Well God wanted me to lose that job." Don't be foolish. God equips you to use your gifts everyday for his purposes and he will see you through difficult times, but he is not the author of every tragedy which strikes our lives. Take responsibility for your own carelessness, don't blame it on God.
God is the Creator, the Redeemer, and the ever-present Spirit.
2. Listen to Jesus when he talks about the importance of prayer and acts of kindness as being carefully linked in the lives of highly effective persons.
In Jesus you see a rhythm, being and doing, silence and speaking, prayer and action. I think this is carefully portrayed in this beautiful stained glass where Jesus is portrayed in reflective conversation with Mary and then as the Good Samaritan helping the injured man beside the road. We are probably better at doing than we are at praying, better at action than we are at silence. Yet, Jesus made a place for both in his life, and if we listen to him, we will make a place for both in our busy lives.
Lent is about to begin this coming Wednesday and it can be a unique opportunity for us to intentionally spend time in prayer, worship, and silence. Increasingly, I find it difficult to discover God in noise and restlessness, but only in quietness and reflection. Increasingly, I have come to believe that God is a friend of silence. In nature; trees, flowers, grass, all grow in silence. Springtime comes quietly in silence. In silence, the stars, the moon, and the sun move along their established tracks in the trackless darkness of the universe. Perhaps Mother Teresa was correct when she wrote: "The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life."
Just as the voice long ago said: Listen to my son, so God says to his disciples today: Listen to Jesus and you will learn of God and you will learn of the very careful balance in life. Listen and you will live. Listen…
Prayer: Eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let your presence burst forth upon us like the coming of springtime. Give us the eyes to see the burning bushes in our lives. Give us the eyes to see those things that are not explained by reason or even language. Just as Moses was visibly changed when he met you face to face, and Jesus was changed before the eyes of the Disciples in prayer, so also may we be changed. May the brilliance of your glory surround us and embrace us.
Through each moment of every day, make us aware of how you are at work in our lives. Give us the ability to look at the events of each day as being not merely a series of random occurrences. Enable us to gain a sense of what you are saying to us through the people we meet and through the words that we hear. Give us the ability to hear Jesus in a new way. Give us the ability to hear what we may find hard to hear. Give us the ability to feel what is beyond our senses. Most of all give us the ability to see your light even though everyone else tells us it is dark. Enable us to hope even in the midst of despair. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord we pray.