Power to Overcome

 Transcribed from the sermon preached June 21, 2009

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: I Samuel 17:32-49, Mark 4:35-41, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

My father used to read bible stories to us at bedtime. My favorites were Sampson and David. I loved to think of myself as David, the little kid who was invisible because of his big faith. Such a self-image game me the strength to stand up for kids on the playground. For years I did stand up and fight for the weak and the outcast. I am proud of that. But I didn’t start my journey toward mature faith until I doubted God and the ability of my popularity, physical ability or skill to overcome. Standing up for what is right when one has the strength or know-how to meet a challenge doesn’t take near as much will power or faith as when we feel physically weak, threatened or overwhelmed. Doing right, being kind and loving even when it will cost us takes much greater strength and faith than when we hold the worldly power to force our way.

This is the power and truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Regardless of whether we have a hard time in our scientific age believing in God, the power of love to stand up for what is right even in the face of overwhelming odds, demonstrated so profoundly by the person of Jesus Christ, should be enough for us to bow down to our knees, give thanks and worship. Whether we choose to follow or deny him, I believe we all know in our heart that if there were a reason for humans to believe in divinity, this Jesus is it; if a person could embody divinity, here he is.

          And Paul gets this, or we should say, he is beat by it. Paul begins his journey with Christianity by persecuting believers. With the authority of the state, he arrests, beats and tortures Christians with zeal because they are heretics and blasphemers. How can they worship Jesus when there is but one God? But the followers of Jesus whom he persecutes break him down with their love until he sees himself persecuting Jesus himself. Paul is transformed into a most powerful disciple.

          Now without signs of ego and patriarchal culture in his arguments, Paul sells himself pretty hard as the leader of the Corinthians should follow. But he is also challenging Corinthian disciples to stay true to the Gospel of love, even in the face of great hardship, opposition and persecution. Endure with love and grace through whatever storms life throws at us.

          I suppose we should be careful in our zealousness to avoid masochism. There is no need to look for ways to suffer to show how strong and faithful we are. Trouble and storms will find us without us looking for them. No need to deny the easy route if it is available and doesn’t compromise love and truth.

          You have heard the fable of the guy stranded on his roof in a flood. A boat comes by and invites him to get. “No thanks,” he says, “God will save me.” Another boat comes by and he says the same thing. “God will save me.” The man drowns and goes to heaven. When he meets God he says, “ I thought if I had faith, you would save me.” God says, “I sent two boats.”

          No need to look for enemies, or assume people are out to get us. In fact Paul encourages us to give people the benefit of the doubt. When they are mean, and we are quite certain we don’t deserve the vitriol, we probably don’t. The weakness is likely theirs, not ours. Grace frees us from having to force everyone, by our greatness, to be good to us. We can accept the fact that some other problem or traumatic experience or fear out of our control has led that person to lash out. Our salvation is not determined by our ability to make others approve or respect or love us. God’s grace is sufficient to get us through the storm.

          We simply determine by faith that we are not going to let the waves of someone else’s fear or anger sink our productivity and love. We determine we will not give them the power to alter our forward momentum and take us down. This is one of the things I hope and pray we fathers could pass onto our sons and daughters. There is a lot of talk about the need for respect on the street today. And often a fight breaks out, or someone gets shot, the fighters say the other person disrespected them. But how much respect do we have for ourselves if we let ourselves get thrown off our productive and loving track by someone’s words. Why should we give them the power to affect our lives like that? If we wait until nobody insults or offends us to stand proud and do good, then we will go our entire lives letting idiots determine our behavior and action.

          The same principle works on the family, societal and national level. Family members are best at pushing our buttons. We allow them to do throw us off track. Let it go. We can thank God and pray for Her grace to be with those who are willing to serve our country in the military, and hope and pray that if and when we send them to fight, we and they maintain the values we claim we are sending them to fight for. And we should beware in such stories as David and Goliath that we do not sanctify violence: as if as long as we are certain God is on our side, then it is ok to chop our enemies’ heads off, or just torture them. Faith in God, or faith in God’s faith in us should not be an excuse to be an idiot.

          German pastor Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984) who protested Hitler’s anti-Semitic measures in person to the fuehrer was eventually arrested, and then imprisoned for eight years. He confessed, “It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He is not even the enemy of his enemies.”(http://www/journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20090915JJ.shtml)

Lott and Werner in God is No More speak about the power of enemies to suck vitality and integrity our of our lives:

I fear my enemy because he wants what I have. I hate him because he has what I Want… My enemy is mean, since he will not trust me, presumption since he expect me to trust him. He refuses profusely to see life as I see it, and I suspect he waits for the opportunity to compel me to see it his way. My enemy is my safety valve: in him I can freely condemn what I uneasily feel I should condemn in myself. (God is No More. P. 136)

          “Jesus doesn’t ask us to lack enemies. The good person is not the one who lacks enemies, as though goodness always has the power to purge opposition. The person who lacks enemies is only non-descript – so lacking in character that he goes his way unnoticed.

          “Goodness does not go unnoticed. Jesus was put on the cross by others. But we can ask ourselves, does the enmity, the unfriendliness I provoke in others, result from qualities in my own life that would link me to the man on the cross or to the men who hanged him there? In responding to the enmity, do I seek to say words like those Christ spoke on the cross, “Father forgive them,” or do I insist on some kind of crucifixion.”(Lloyd Averill. Christian Ministry. Sept/Oct “96)

          Let’s listen to Paul once again: “As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights hunger: An with what have they endured? ⁶By purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, ⁷truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand for the left:

          While held in what kind of esteem by society? ⁸In honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute.

          Yet what do they know of themselves? “We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; ⁹ as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see – we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possession everything.

          So as Christians the Gospel is not something to die for, it is something to live for, not a cause to kill for, but to love for. In this life and love of Christ we have already won. Glory be to God.