[This sermon was the last in a series on the foundational beliefs of the Christian faith. The first seven were about the beliefs that all Christians share in common. Because it was preached in a United Methodist Church, we included this sermon about the practices of United Methodists. It clearly will be more helpful for other United Methodists, but I hope that non-Methodists will find it beneficial as well, since I am absolutely *not* claiming that simply because these things have been emphasized within the Wesleyan tradition that they are any less true for brothers and sisters in Christ from other denominational traditions.]
If someone asked you, “who are you?”, how would you answer that question? You’d probably start by giving your name and maybe describe where you live and where you work or go to school. But if, after saying those things, that person looked at you and said again, “OK, but who are you?” To truly explain who we are, we have to reveal how we live our lives. Our lifestyle really defines us.
As we conclude our series on Back to the Basics today, we are asking ourselves, “Who are United Methodists?” And that’s a question that has always required telling what we believe, and also telling how we live. So last week we focused on what United Methodists believe. This week we focus on how United Methodists live.
And how United Methodists live goes all the way back to our origins. When two of our church’s founders, John and his brother Charles Wesley were in college, they formed a small group called the Holy Club. These students wanted to practice their faith more sincerely. So they came up with a highly structured way to live, engaging in regular practices of prayer, Bible study, collecting food for the poor, visiting the sick and the prisoners, spiritual conversation, and so on. They even kept detailed notes about their daily activities and their spiritual conditions. And to keep them on track, they would meet to make sure they were following the structured lifestyle. Their goal was to have their outward life match up completely with their heartfelt beliefs.
Now, because they were so structured in the way they lived, people began to come up with names for them. You know how people are. Name-calling has always been one of the ways people label things they don’t understand. So this little group of students were called the “Bible Moths” because they spent so much time “fluttering” around the Bible. They were made fun of as “Methodists” because they were so methodical in the way they approached their faith. Methodist is the name that stuck.
Later in his life, John Wesley would write that: A Methodist is “one who lives according to the Method laid down in the Bible.”
And that’s exactly how Methodists were trying to practice their faith. They looked for what the Bible says about how we should live our lives, and they took those things seriously! They intentionally arranged their lives around those habits and practices that they found prescribed in the Scriptures.
And so, over 200 years ago in England, you would find small groups of Methodists led by regular people who met every week to encourage each other to live by a set of practices that assisted their growth as Christians. Together, they worked hard to grow into fully developed, mature Christians. Generally, these were not people of extraordinary talent or exceptional ability, but ordinary people with struggles like we have, hopes like we have, sufferings and joys just like we have.
What set them apart from others around them was that they followed a daily practice of devotion, gathered together regularly for Christian fellowship, public worship, and caring for their neighbors. Methodists were convinced that by following this discipline they would grow in the knowledge and love of God and love for their neighbor as well. In other words, they would live a truly, altogether Christian life.
Even today, a true Methodist is still a person who has made a commitment to intentional, regular practices that draw us closer to God and closer to the people God intends for us to be. Being a Methodist has as much to do with how you practice your Christian faith as with the specific doctrines you believe. It’s about spending time each day growing in your faith and knowledge of God, growing in your ability to live a fully Christian life and regularly doing the things that make you more like Christ and more free from sin.
We heard a passage from the Apostle Paul this morning that compares that kind of regular, intentional, and disciplined Christian living to the way an athlete trains for a race. Listen to that passage again:
24Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly, I do not fight like a man beating the air; 27No, I beat my body and make is my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (NIV)
Paul compares the work of being a successful Christian to the work of being a successful athlete. And athletes work hard to become strong, and fast, and smart.
Athletes get out there every day—whether they feel like training or not—and run, and stretch, and lift weights, and do drills and push themselves and become as knowledgeable as they can about their sport. There’s a daily regimen they follow to constantly improve their performance. Every sport has specific methods they follow to make an athlete as strong and healthy and fast and efficient as they can be.
Paul says the Christian life is exactly like that. You have to put some real effort into it. If you want to succeed, you have to train yourself and push yourself and do the things that make you grow as a Christian. Except the goal of the Christian life isn’t to win a gold medal or a blue ribbon, the goal is freedom from sin, peace in your Spirit, the eternal reward of unity with God; things that are far more valuable and worthy of our efforts than a mere sporting event.
So, early in the Methodist movement, John Wesley came up with three simple rules for a Christian to train with. They’re simple… but they’re not exactly easy. Or at least, easy to remember, but not easy to do. But, if you follow them, consistently, regularly, the way an athlete follows a training method, they will make you an outstanding, altogether Christian. Methodists call them the Three General Rules.
Are you ready to learn them? The Three General Rules of the United Methodist Church are:
First – Do no harm. Avoid evil of every kind.
Second Rule – Do good. Be kind as often as you can, and show as much kindness as you are able to help the bodies, minds, and souls of other people.
Finally – As constantly and consistently as you do the first two things, do the things that bring you closer to God.
Three simple rules. Avoid evil. Do good. Do things that bring you closer to God. The prophet Micah put it this way: “What does the Lord require of you? Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God.” What does the Lord require of you? Do no evil. Do good. Grow close to God.
So let’s unpack those three little rules a little bit.
The first rule is “Do no harm” which means avoiding evil of every kind.
You know, the first time I heard that rule, I thought to myself. “That part’s easy! Some people might have a hard time avoiding doing evil, but I’m generally a good person and I try not to hurt the people around me. Avoid evil? That’s no problem.”
But after spending more time with this rule, I think it may be the one we Christians actually have to work the hardest at. You see, it’s one thing to not bully other people or pick fights or cheat them out of money. It’s much harder to think through the full consequences of our decisions and actions in a world so interconnected. When I do something, does it harm people in ways I never intended or were even aware of?
Because it’s not only a question of the harm we do with our own hands. It’s also a question of the harm we could do through our relationships, how we use our money, and how we use, or do not use, our voices.
One of the examples that helped me to understand how our actions can inadvertently cause harm comes from our church’s history. The early Methodist church was opposed to alcohol, but not for the reason you might think.
Methodists were a leading opponent of alcohol. But it wasn’t simply a matter of drunkenness and abuse of alcohol. In fact, that wasn’t the main reason Methodists objected to it. The main reason Methodists opposed alcohol was because poor people in England were going hungry. Meanwhile, vast quantities of wheat and barley and grains were being fermented into beer and liquor. Grain that could be used to feed starving people was turned into beer. Potatoes that could have been eaten were turned into vodka.
So it wasn’t just a matter of drinking it. Methodists took issue with the making of alcohol. So Methodists strongly discouraged anyone from working in the brewery or selling it at their place of business, or even driving the vehicle that transported it. It wasn’t so much about how bad it was to drink alcohol. It was mostly about the harm that resulted from the making, buying, and selling it!
Now, that’s just an example from 250 years ago, but the same principles from that example still apply today. Things we do often have an impact far beyond ourselves. Have you ever thought about your work and your money that way? What behaviors do you support through your work and your money? Does your employer treat people fairly? Does it harm anybody through its business? Do your investments support things that you disagree with? If we are truly trying to “do no harm” does it matter if we participate in businesses that do harm or invest in companies that do harm? That’s where the issue of “doing no harm” gets sticky!
Spending money is an even more difficult question. In a global, interconnected economy, something as simple as going to the clothing store to buy a new pair of shoes has consequences that ripple through our own community and our entire world. A box of crackers tells us on the side exactly how many calories are in the food, but the box of shoes doesn’t tell you if a 14 year old girl made the shoes for 20 cents an hour.
And buying one little item at a store may seem like a very small, innocent act– but once you give your money to that company, it makes you a part of it. The rule about avoiding evil means we are morally obligated to consider these things.
That’s why I said that this rule may be the one we have to work the hardest to do well. At the very least, we have to think the hardest to do it well. Part of what makes avoiding evil difficult is knowing where to draw the line in our own lives and how far we have to dig to understand the consequences of our actions. And that takes work.
But if we are to take our role in the world as Christians seriously, we are called upon to think through these things and help the world be less evil. We can’t change everything about the world, but we can avoid being personally involved in harmful acts through avoiding evil of every kind in our own lives.
So, the first rule is do no harm, avoid evil of every kind. The second rule is to do good – to do as much good as possible! We do good to benefit other people. And we do good to benefit ourselves.
One of my favorite sermons that John Wesley preached was called “Visiting the Poor.” In it, he claimed that when we go to visit the sick or the poor or the imprisoned, they benefit from our visit, but we also benefit ourselves. While talking with Martha Smith the other day about the ASP trip, that was certainly the case for her. I could tell they had really helped the people they were serving. But I could also tell that it was a transformative experience for Martha and the others from our church as well. They went thinking they were helping other people, and it turns out they were helped by the mission trip as well!
Wesley insisted on people going and doing good for others in person. He said there’s nothing wrong with sending money or sending somebody else to help out. But he also emphasized that you can only get that benefit from helping others if you go to serve.
One of the responses that people gave John Wesley was that they didn’t know any poor people. They’d say, “I can’t go serve the poor. Nobody in my family is poor. None of my friends are poor. I don’t think I even know a single poor person! How can I serve the poor when I don’t even know anybody that needs my service?” That’s what people would say to John Wesley two hundred and fifty years ago, but nobody ever says that any more, right? But Wesley wouldn’t let people off the hook that easily! Instead, he’d challenge them directly. “Of course you don’t know any poor people! You know exactly where they are, and you do everything you can to avoid them! If they live in a certain part of town, you make sure never to visit that part of town. And if, by chance, you see somebody walking down the street, you quickly cross to the other side to make sure you don’t encounter them.”
Ouch! Don’t you just hate the way Wesley is always beating around the bush? Why doesn’t he just say what’s on his mind? I’m kidding – you might have agreed with Wesley or disagreed with him, but you always knew exactly where he stood on things. And challenging words like these emphasize just how much importance Wesley placed on visiting the poor in person. As he said, you might assist somebody from afar, but you’d miss the chance to grow “in humility, in patience, in tenderness of spirit, in sympathy with those in need.”
And this is the key to the second guideline. Encouraging people to “do all the good you can” was something that helped everybody. The people being served benefitted in obvious ways. But the person doing the serving was also impacted by their service.
At one point in his life, John Wesley summed up the second guideline in a pretty clever way:
Do all the good you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
For as long as ever you can!
So the first two guidelines for living were basically to do less bad and do more good. And in addition to avoiding evil and doing all the good we can, Wesley encouraged Christians to do those things that help us get closer to God. And on this subject, Wesley was really practical. He wasn’t interested in things that might move us closer to God. He didn’t want to know what somebody else thought would move us closer to God. If living our lives with a fuller and more meaningful relationship with God is the goal, Wesley wanted to know what actually helped us form that closer relationship with God. And so he consulted the Bible and then he talked with thousands of Christians about what worked and what didn’t work. And Wesley went with what worked.
For those of you who don’t know, Joe Konecny works for Northern FS, and his job is to help farmers achieve the highest yield for their crops as they possibly can. Plain and simple, Joe’s advice helps farmers grow more corn or soy beans. And over the course of his career, Joe has visited around three thousand farms. Now Joe’s a pretty practical guy, so when he sees farms and when he talks to farmers, he is mainly interested in finding out what works. If a hundred farmers are using a particular technique and it’s working well for them, Joe is likely to suggest that another farmer try that technique to try and improve his yield. If a hundred farmers tell Joe that a particular technique isn’t working, he’s not going to tell other farmers to try it. He keeps doing what works. And he stops doing what doesn’t work.
So when Joe gives farmers advice, he’s not being bossy or asking them to be legalistic or rigid. He’s not even telling them what they have to do. He’s simply telling them what works and what doesn’t work. And he knows what works and what doesn’t work based on his experience and his wisdom.
This, I think, is the approach John Wesley took to the spiritual life. Wesley was a practical guy, and he really was most interested in what works and what doesn’t work. When Wesley offered suggestions on what things would help us grow closer to God, his advice was based on his extensive wisdom and experience – he knew what works! He wasn’t being legalistic. He wasn’t bossing people around. He wasn’t telling people what they had to do. There were concrete actions they could take—things they could do—that would make it more likely that they would become closer to God and he instructed them to do those things.
So, when it comes to those things that help us grow closer to God, what works? You know them as well as I do. We can approach God in prayer, making our humble requests, bringing before God our needs, rejoicing with God about our celebrations, weeping to God about our sorrows. We pray because it works—prayer helps us become closer to God.
Another action that works is reading the Bible. And not just reading it, but truly searching it for what it reveals to us about God. As an example, when Paul was preaching about Jesus to a group of non-Christians, Acts 17:11 says “the Bereans received Paul’s message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
They heard Paul’s sermon with great eagerness, but they wanted to check his message for themselves. They examined the Bible to see if Paul told the truth. And what was the result? The next verse tells us: “Therefore, many of them believed.” They heard the message, they checked it against the message of the Bible, then they believed.
Every time we open the Bible to search its message and examine its truths, we give God a chance to speak to us in a new way. Every time we read our Bible and meditate on its meaning, we open up a pathway for God to reveal new wisdom to us!
A third action we can take that brings us closer to God is Holy Communion. We know that we experience something special every time we approach the Communion table. We feel God’s presence in a special way when we take the bread and the cup. And we can’t always put the experience into words. We sometimes call it the sacrament of Communion, and sacrament comes from a Greek word that means ‘mystery.’ How taking a bit of bread and a few drops of grape juice reveals God’s love isn’t always clear to us. We can’t really explain how Communion “works.” But I know from my own experiences, and from talking with many other Christians, some of the most profound experiences we have of God’s love come to us when we enjoy the Lord’s Supper. Somehow, it works.
And of course, we come into this time of worship with the expectation that we will know God more fully here. We invite the Holy Spirit to enter into this worship space to inspire us and breathe new life into us. Through our action of worshiping, we come to know God in a better and more meaningful way.
Another way we come to know God better is when we serve other people. Often, when we show kindness toward others with humility and selflessness, we experience a taste of the generosity and goodness and kindness that God has offered us. In Mark 10:45, Jesus said, “I came not to be served, but to serve,” and when we follow his example, we experience God’s presence in a stronger way.
In all of these ways, we grow closer to God. And we continue to encourage people to pursue these activities because we know they work! When we as United Methodists encourage people to pray or study the Bible or worship or serve others, it’s not because we want to restrict everybody to a rigid lifestyle. It’s not because we want to boss people around. It’s not because we’re telling people what they have to do. We invite other people to do these things because we hope people will grow closer to God, and we know from experience that these activities help us do that!
Now they might not always feel like they’re working right away. And sometimes they might not feel like super-profound experiences. Most of us didn’t experience math class as a deeply moving experience, but we did learn the material and our lives our better because of it. We know there are actions we can take that will help us grow closer to God, and God can use these actions, whether or not we feel deeply moved by them
One of the things Joe said is that sometimes farmers get frustrated because his advice doesn’t work immediately. He offered some advice to one farmer, and said the man called him back three times in a little over a week, saying the advice wasn’t producing any results yet! Joe thought to himself, “Of course it’s not showing any results yet! It’s only been three days!” He encouraged the farmer to continue on the same path, assuring him that his advice would produce results, but he had to stick with it.
If we’re going to live fully as Christians, we’ll have to stick with it. If we truly hope to live in a way that involves doing less bad and more good and gets us closer to God, we’ll need to stick with it. If we’re going to really run the race and reach the finish line, we’ll need to stick with it. When it comes to living out the Christian faith, I hope we’ll live by avoiding bad things, by embracing good things, and by engaging in those activities that bring us closer to God. Through thick and thin, whether we are moving forward slowly or by leaps and bounds, I hope we’ll stick with it!
