Other Scripture used:
Isaiah 28:14-22
Psalm 46
Hebrews 12:18-19,22-29
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)
In our Gospel today, Jesus is turning people away in heaven who claim to know him and his teachings. Their claims of meal sharing, hearing his teachings, and invoking Jesus name on behalf of their actions, reminds me of some of the problems the Body of Christ faces today.
We’re saved not by doing good works, but by really knowing Jesus, walking with him, accepting him as leader of our lives. “Doing things in his name” is not the same as doing what he commands us to do.
We see church leaders, clergy included, doing what they feel “enlightened, progressive” Christians should do, then demanding that God bless their actions and that all of us have to accept the results of their actions because they’re doing it all in the name of Jesus.
It’s almost as though they believe that if they do something in Jesus’ name, then he’s stuck with it, whether he agrees with the action or not.
Our actions come from our hearts, but our actions alone don’t fulfill God’s commands to us. God says to love others as much as we love ourselves.
If we give money and possessions to the poor but still despise them, we’re merely doing good works. We haven’t brought our hearts closer to Jesus. In fact, if we resent having to do those works, we’re actually pushing our hearts further away from Jesus by doing them.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do those good deeds; it means we need to get our hearts right as well as our actions.
God’s greatest commandment to us is to love him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength. His second greatest commandment to us is that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
When our hearts are with Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills us with his love for us and others. It overflows from us because we can’t contain God’s Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit is not meant to be contained. Like a perpetual stream, the Holy Spirit flows into us, through us, and then out of us.
We’re like broken vessels through which God’s grace and spirit pour out.
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it; and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one-and-a-half pots of water to his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."
"Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"
"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts," the pot said.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some.
But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it.
“I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."
Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace His table. In God’s great economy, nothing goes to waste.
We’re expected to let God’s grace flow through us onto others, just as water flowed through that cracked pot.
We also need to be in prayer continually, to replenish the grace that’s flowing out. The famous evangelist D. L. Moody said, “The only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep it always under the tap.”
James, the brother of Jesus and first bishop of Jerusalem reminds us in his letter to the church that our faith requires action:
"So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless." (2:17)
He’s talking about people who claim to be followers of Jesus who see others who are poor, hungry, and needing clothing or other help, but who do nothing for them. James tells us to help.
In 1:27, he writes,
“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”
In his first letter, John implores us to behave as followers of Christ:
"And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, ’I know God,’ but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did." (1 John 3-6)
Like James, John mentions practical ways we can show our love for others.
"If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. …
We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God." (1 John 3:14, 16-18)
A Roman historian named Tertullian, who lived in the late second to early third centuries (AD 155-220), wrote that even those who opposed Christianity knew that the mutual love of those who followed Christ was unique.
“Our care for the derelict and our active love have become our distinctive sign before the enemy … See, they say, how they love one another and how ready they are to die for each other.” (Apology 39)
The official acceptance of Christianity enacted by Constantine in AD 313, led to nearly a half-century of tolerance under Roman rule until Julian the Apostate, a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 361-363, tried to destroy Christianity by persecuting Christians.
Even he admitted that “the godless Galileans (Christians) feed not only their poor, but ours also.” He also realized that his own pagans were not assisting each other. He said, “Those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”
In our Gospel today, Jesus mentions “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
He is talking to the Jews who believed that the kingdom of God was their birthright. They expected to go to heaven when they died and be with the great patriarchs of the faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as all the prophets, just because of their ancestry. Not because of anything they may have done in their lives to serve God — they believed their entry into heaven was guaranteed merely by being born Jewish.
So imagine their shock when Jesus tells them that they themselves will be thrown out of paradise! As if that wouldn’t shock them enough, Jesus then tells them that people from all over the world, “from east and west, from north and south,” — the Gentiles, whom the Israelites referred to as “dogs” — that these people would be in paradise with the Jewish patriarchs and prophets.
Some Gentiles, whom the Jews considered lowest of the low, or last, would receive the highest reward imaginable, while Jews who believed they were guaranteed entry into heaven as a birthright, would actually be worse off than the Gentiles they despised.
Twenty centuries later, many orthodox Christians find ourselves behaving the same way as those first century Jews. We think that saying we believe in Jesus, or being baptized, is all we need to do to guarantee entry into heaven. That Christians are saved, but everyone else is damned to hell.
Al Capone, Adolph Hitler, and Josef Stalin were all baptized. In fact, Stalin attended seminary at Tbilisi for a while. I think the odds of those three souls being in heaven are astronomical. I don’t doubt God’s compassion and willingness to forgive anyone who repents, even at the last moment like the thief on the cross. I just doubt any of those three guys repented at the last minute.
So we have examples of baptism not being sufficient to call ourselves followers of Jesus. Belief is more than mere words. Belief in the first-century Greek and Hebrew context meant a “total placement of hope” upon whatever you claim to believe.
I believe Elizabeth II is the current Queen of England. It’s an intellectual fact that has no effect on my behavior. If I believe that it’s 95 degrees outside and I’ll be in the desert all day, that’s an intellectual fact that will affect my behavior. I’ll dress appropriately, uses sun block, make sure I have plenty of water, and so on.
That’s the kind of belief we need to have in Jesus — the kind of belief that results in changing our behavior. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have that sort of belief. Many Christian evangelicals have a belief best summed up by the ad slogan used by American Express (1987-1996): “membership has its privileges.”
It’s harsh, but nonetheless true.
In his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, Ronald J. Sider writes,
“We proudly trumpet our orthodox doctrine of Christ as true God and true man and then disobey his teaching. We divorce, though doing so is contrary to his commands. We are the richest people in human history and know that tens of millions of brothers and sisters in Christ live in grinding poverty, and we give only a pittance, and almost all of that goes to our local congregation. Only a tiny fraction of what we do give ever reaches poor Christians in other places. Christ died to create one new multicultural body of believers, yet we display more racism than liberal Christians who doubt his deity.” (Page 50-51)
We have abdicated our responsibilities as followers of Jesus Christ to the government. The early church loved each member, cared about and for each member, and also showed that love toward others outside the church. Today, the leaders of most mainline denominations gather together to protest that the government is failing in its responsibility to do what the church leaders should be doing instead.
The mainline bishops are unable to attract people to their churches. Membership is declining due to people leaving or dying. More of their money is being spent on lawsuits against their own congregations than on helping others. The Episcopal Church’s Millennium Development Goal, which is being publicized as their primary focus following the 2006 General Convention comprises just .7 percent of the budget.
That’s seven-tenths of one percent. If you look in your own checkbook and figure out where you spend seven-tenths of one percent of your money, you’ll see that no matter what else it may be, it is not a priority. Seven dollars out of every thousand is not a priority. And it’s a flat out lie to call it one.
There is nothing in the United States Constitution that authorizes the government to fund the thousands of social programs we now have, but there are plenty of verses in the Bible commanding us as individuals to do the things we’ve tried to make the government do instead.
In his essay from 1918, a Yale College professor named William Graham Sumner described government social action in his essay called “The Forgotten Man.” In it he wrote,
“The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.”
Things have gotten even worse in the 90 years since Sumner wrote his essay. The 16th Amendment, which authorized the government to start taxing income, had been approved just five years before, in 1913.
We have gone from being a nation of neighbors caring for each other, to a nation of individuals who don’t even know their neighbors.
For example, let’s say mainline church leaders — we’ll call them “A” — meet with government officials like city council, mayor, governor, or Congress — we’ll call them “B” — to help the homeless in the area — whom we’ll call “D.”
The solution used to be that “A,” the church leaders, would appeal to their congregations to meet some weekend and build a shelter and provide some food.
Instead, we find that “A” and “B,” the government officials, decide to solve the problem by taking money from “C” — the taxpayers — to pay for building a shelter and hiring people to look after “D,” the homeless people “A” and “B” feel so badly about.
The problem is not that a good thing is being done for “D.” The problem is that neither “A” nor “B” are paying for it. They are taking the money from “C,” who has no say in the matter, while taking credit for it themselves.
Taking care of the poor is the responsibility of each one of us. Once we abdicate that responsibility to the secular government, the Church loses part of its reason for being, its purpose. We weaken the Gospel message when we give lip service to our belief in Jesus Christ, while behaving worse than the pagans of Ancient Rome.
In a Joint Statement sent to President Bush in March 2005, the leaders of The Episcopal Church, USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church Of Christ, and United Methodist Church criticized the President’s budget proposal for not taxing people enough.
“If passed in its current form, [this budget] would take Jesus’ teaching on economic justice and stands it on its head. …
Some contend that works of mercy are not the business of the government but of private citizens. …
Some contend that with the proper support faith-based charities will step forward to fill the gap created by the government’s retreat. But this flies in the face of the lessons that we, as religious leaders, have learned first hand. … Believe us when we tell you that neither we, nor our Evangelical brothers and sisters, nor our friends of other faiths have anywhere near the resources to turn back the rising tide of poverty in this country. …”
A few weeks later, The Christian Century ran an article about the faith-based initiative in which church-based charities can received tax money collected by the government. (April 5, 2005)
It said, “In general, the spokesmen welcomed Bush’s faith-based initiative, which assists religious groups in providing social services. Lutheran Social Services in America already receives 90 percent of its budget from the federal Department of Health and Human Services. But they said the initiative does not come close to plugging the gap caused by government spending cuts.”
They claim that because they can’t fill their pews anymore, the government needs to do their job for them.
Their silence on other issues in society such as morality and following Christ, has been noticed, and many people now view the church as inconsequential and anemic.
When church leaders demand that the government take money at gunpoint from the citizenry, which is how taxation is enforced, because they have allowed the church to become complacent due to their evangelistic impotence, we have reached a new low.
When church leaders demand to be beneficiaries of money collected for faith-based initiatives, and then complain it’s too low, we face a crisis as Christians.
Can any of us imagine Peter or Paul demanding that the Roman Emperor Nero should tax the Jews even more, because they would like to create some social programs for the poor that they can’t quite afford yet?
Where have we fallen to as a church that we now reject Christ’s authority in our own lives, as the mainline church leader repeatedly profess, while demanding that our secular leaders fund our social programs in accordance with Christ’s teachings?
We need to get back to the first-century approach to our walk with the Lord, caring for each other, loving each other, each individual Christian doing whatever he or she can for any child of God.
Our in our Collect today we prayed, “Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name…”
We will show forth God’s power when we stop trying to pass our responsibilities onto the government, when we take back those responsibilities that we’ve already abdicated, and when we demonstrate more love for God and others than we do for ourselves.
God bless you.
