Sermons
"Who Hit the Triple?"Pastor Ken Hilston |
I Corinthians 4; Matthew 6
Most of life is a double edged sword, even the good things! It is good to celebrate one's accomplishments, one's achievements, one's victories, even our good fortune. We all need a sense of pride, and need to encourage it in others.
Good naturedly we like to boast about these things, grandparents seem to do it a lot, yet we understand that we all need to leave room for other grandparents to have their say, and time in the sun. School pride is important. Pride in one's community helps to build a stronger community. This is a weekend when we take time to have pride in those people who served their country, and paid the ultimate price.
Of course we all know zillion examples when pride, boasting and celebration crosses that line into arrogance, taunting, gross selfishness and even violence. Just a couple weeks ago, the Sox/Yankee rivalry turned ugly, and after some alcohol and fights, a woman who had been taunted severely for being the rival fan, just gunned her car and ran over one who taunted her. Rival school buses when our boys were at Brockton High, were pelted with rocks after leaving a game of a bitter foe. School pride can easily turn into an excuse for becoming a bully and shameful behavior.
We as human beings have a hard time not crossing that line between good natured celebration and ugliness. At times we cannot stop at the point of rejoicing, without going into how bad the other person, other city, other team is. We cannot just say, "I am really proud of our son," without saying, "because he is not like so in so." We cannot just boast a little without looking down on someone less fortunate. There is something inside us that has to separate us from others, creating a divide.
We cannot just say, "I'm happy," without comparing our happiness to someone else's unhappiness and poor fortunes, that we feel they deserved for their poor behavior. And, even when we don't say it out loud, others can hear in our voices, the slam, the put down.
Of course, the faith is not immune to comparing, others adversely to ourselves. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth that is rife with competition, boasting and putting others down, inside their church. Yes they are proud of their faith, exuberant about the joy it provides, but they cannot stop there. They have to put others down.
At one point, the richer members would get to their Agape feast early, and would eat all the good food before the poorer members arrived. Being poor, they had to work longer hours and would put them at a disadvantage in the celebration. Others were bragging about their own niche in the church, their own group and clique. Some would brag, I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Paul. It's like they chose up sides, asserting, "I'm better because I have a better teacher, lineage, or heritage." Setting up opposing groups of self importance, obviously describes more of a church illness than health.
Others had great gifts in the faith, that they used for the faith to support the growth of the church. But they couldn't stop there without comparing themselves to others who didn't have the same level of gifts, even though they had other gifts. "My gifts are more important."
He calls them in parts of the 4th chapter of I Corinthians, the puffed up ones, those who boast. In boasting, Paul reminds them what they are doing is pitting one church member against another, causing rifts, "saying that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another." (4:6) In an other marvelous line of Paul's, he declares a truth most of us know, yet don't like to admit, "what have you that you have not received? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?" (4:7) Or, as one wise person mentioned, "why do people born on third base, always assume they were the ones who hit the triple?"
Paul knows all about the false bravado that causes rifts and even leads to violence. Remember, his background in the faith, began with a background in faith's blindsides, in the ugliness of the best intentions turned sour, to promote the faith. He started off holding the coats of those who stoned Stephen for going against his initial faith background. Later he would lead groups to search out those who held faith beliefs contrary to what excited him about the faith.
While writing to the Corinthian church, he realized how powerful and enticing this arrogance and boasting had become in his life, how only a strong, direct intervention of our Lord could get him to stop attacking those who believed contrary to him. For the rest of his life he comprehended the ugliness of arrogance and its intoxicating violence. From then on, it would be the great humility of the cross that would challenge the over zealousness of unchecked wisdom and the unbridled assurances of the faith.
Paul begins this passage with a declaration of purpose for our lives, a faith and job description of not a master or a boaster, but a steward, a steward of the mysteries of God. Paul reminds us, a steward needs to be simply trustworthy in their task GIVEN to them. Here the relationship is clear. A steward, important yes, but never the one placed totally in charge, only in charge of what his master has provided. Ours is the more humble job: make sure what the master has provided us is not squandered or messed up. Make sure what the master desires, happens.
Maybe we like the title master as our role for life, because servant and steward imply responsibility yes, but being responsible and trustworthy with what has been placed in our care by another, we are beholden to.
One of the definitions for the word servant at that time, was galley slave, one of the boat rowers, deep down below the deck of the ship. Of course, we would rather be the captain, but if the boat needs to get someplace, you also need rowers. Of course, without our Lord as captain, we would all be rowing to arrive in all the wrong places.
We are stewards of the mysteries of the faith, and yes it is a mystery, but not like Agatha Christie where you have to read several hundred pages to find out the secret of the mystery that is confusing and on purpose, elusive.
They are mysteries that we really do know, but just cannot either accept or believe or trust how they can really work. Our faith life is mysterious, only because it goes against the grain of all of what life proclaims. It is a mystery because we cannot control it. There is no mystery to having power, or shinning a spotlight upon ourselves, but understanding life as a gift, or accepting the priority of the cross over strength, these are mysteries.
Paul forever understood that leveling, calming and truthful aspect of faith and life, that under girds every stewardship principle we have: if what he have, cherish and hold unto with great joy, is a gift from our Lord, we boast in nothing but our Lord, period. We boast in the gift giver, but ourselves, we are only the gift recipients. It is that selfless power of the cross, our Lord freely ascended, that makes sure we understand all we have in the faith and life is a gift, a gift He purchased for us with His torn up life. The One who could boast, was the one who gave up his life, and did not flaunt it or use his deed to put others down. All boasting He saw took the spotlight of life off His father and put it unto strange people
The cross is our example. The cross defines the limits of our boasting and arrogance. The cross turns all of our pride upside down. The cross-based faith was used to bring us together, so we may all be ONE. Our lives and strengths can never be used to segregate others away, to push them out of our sight, or beneath us.
The cross is there to build bridges of understanding, compassion and caring, never there to build boundaries and barriers between people. We can, and should, all stand not above, but beneath the cross, and beneath the cross, there is room for all, without boasting, pushing or shoving!
Paul later on in the passage describes the faith's wisdom that is so mysterious to us. (4:12b-13) "When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the off scouring of all things." All that sounds almost preposterous, no matter how you look at it.
We become anxious because when we carefully orchestrate groups and evaluate what they can provide me, later on they will decide someone else ought to take our place, because they can connive better than we can. What starts off as prudent thinking and planning, can never keep up, as we find out when we are shoved, to the outside. And yes, on the outskirts of life, we become very anxious. Grabbing more things and power, only confuses us, only gets us looking for life in all the wrong places.
When we look closely, this is a daunting world, filled with great complexities, dead ends and false promises. Who would want to be a master in this world? My joking suggestion during presidential election years: anyone who wants to be president, out to be disqualified out right! Again, after closer investigation, the greater mystery is why anyone would want to be a master in this world in place of our Lord. That leads us light years beyond anxiety, into utter chaos and blackened fear.
Yes, deep down inside we think we can rise above all these obstacles and warnings. We want the spotlight on ourselves, even if that light is harsh, withering and very demanding. We want to be able to boast. We want to be able to brag. We want to be the master of our lives. In the end, it is most seductive to be in the spotlight of life, but in over our heads, it all leads to great anxiety. Can we really pay the price of anxiety?
Several years back, a foreign film entitled, "Mephisto" used a spotlight to great effect. A great actor in Germany wanted to be revered, and have the spotlight on him as the greatest actor of his time. When the Nazi's came into control, their propaganda controlled the theater. His choice: do I give up, slowly, my principles and do what they demand so I can perform, or do I do the noble thing?
He thought he could walk the tightrope and be true to his craft and outwit the Nazis. Slowly but surely, he became more of a stooge, but performed the stooge admirably. He had to give up other actors who were not with the program, but he had a chance to shine. They were so excited by him, they put him shamelessly in charge of a great Nazi rally. In that glaring last scene, they have him go down into the center of the great amphitheatre and see what it was like to be in the glare, the spotlight of many lights.
The lights that time felt like they were attacking and accusing him of caving in, not a bathing in glory. It ends as he is trying to frantically run unsuccessfully from the spotlight that he always courted. Now he saw all too clearly what he had become. What we all don't count on when we boast: that bright spotlight we crave so much, makes sure everyone can see exactly who we are, a bargain we really don't want to make. As the movie's title lets us know, the bargain that we make, is with the devil, Mephisto! AMEN