Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

The Spirit of the Risen Christ is in You

 Transcribed from the sermon preached February 21, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

St. John’s Presbyterian Church

2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705

Telephone 510-845-6830    Fax 510-845-6837

http://www.stjohnsberkeley.org

Scripture Readings: Romans 10:5-15, Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Luke 4:1-13

Miles McPherson, Minister of the Rock Church in San Diego says that we have an indisputable God given identity.  Our quest is to allow that identity to be, to allow God to live into us.  If we picture bugs bunny, we don’t question who he is.  If we see Snoopy, we know he is the coolest dog ever, the original snoop dog.  He is who he is.  Many of us are worried about our standing, about proving who we are.  We may search high and low to find a fit, an identity.  But by God’s grace, we are children of God, coheirs with Christ, we have a life to live, a person to be, not static but with spirit – a dynamic being free to respond to life with spirit and grace. 

Do not say in your heart, “who will ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down) or “Who will descend into the deep?” (that is to bring Christ up from the dead). The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart.

There are many ideas about how to find God, how to reach God.  Implicit in such a search is an understanding that we are somehow separated from God, that God is distant or we are distant from God and there is someplace we need to go, something we need to do to reach God.  Some may seek a mountain top experience, to commune with nature and experience awe and wonder.  Last week we remembered the mountain top experience of Moses, and how his face was lit up after meeting God.  We may have such experiences on a mountain, at the ocean or in a garden, but usually it is associated with being removed from the hustle and bustle of society, the confusion of relations or politics: Jesus, like Moses before him goes out into the rocky wilderness to be with God. 

Perhaps you have been to Sedona, AZ, with its absolutely beautiful high dessert red rock formations.  The Center for the New Age offers vortex tours.   They say these vortexes are “swirling centers of subtle energy coming out from the surface of the earth…it resonates with and strengthens the inner being.”  Tours, they say, are “customized to accelerate your personal transformation.” 

Others seek to be close to God through pilgrimages to Holy sites, like the Vatican, The temple in Jerusalem or Mecca, where saints and so many pious people have gathered before.  There is a sense that God is especially present there and we hope to experience that presence. It is nice to take a break, to go to see a special place, call it a vortex or holy site, to commune with God, but we can also get stuck up there, or miss the holy right in front of us, within us.

In a world that values material success and knowledge, often people seek to climb the mountain of society, to reach the height of heavenly luxury, to be surrounded by people of class, of subtle art and knowledge.  It is something to be recognized for the hard work of gaining specialized knowledge or talent, to surround oneself with similarly accomplished people.  My sister Sony is a principal down in San Diego and came up this week for a conference on Brain function and learning.  She and her husband Mark took us out to Chez Panisse for dinner.  Such art, beauty and passion goes into the food, it was amazing, wonderful.  Alice Waters is a great example of someone who has used her God given talents to find the simply divine locally, right where she is. 

And I can also see how some may be so drawn into and aspire to the fine life, and may become critical of themselves or others based on the ability to afford or taste.  Discriminating taste may also become discrimination. Notice the devil shows Jesus the glory, the temptation of the world’s kingdoms, not the wars, the political maneuvering, the waste and the injustice of the worlds kingdoms.  You look at a commercial for Vegas; they show the glory, the flash, the lights, the pretty girls, the green golf courses; they don’t show the cigarette smoke, the upset marriages, the addicts, the hangovers, the disease, the envy, the draining of the Colorado river, the poor losers draining their ATM.  Jesus says, “Worship the Lord and serve him only.”

There are also those who seek to meet God through suffering and denial of self, through strict discipline of beating and training the body and mind.  We know that to become good at most anything requires the discipline of difficult practice, of breaking the body and mind down to strengthen it.  Jesus fasts in the wilderness for forty days.  Fasting is a way of placing God above all things, a way of breaking addictions to idols.  But sometimes there are those who take this to the extreme, deprive themselves for the wrong reason.  Again, this can be a way of showing off our worth and strength to God or other humans, rather than showing God she is first and that you trust in Her love. 

In the 13^th and 14^th century flagellants whipped themselves to show their penitence.  If there was suffering from the plague, offering themselves as scapegoats to suffer even more would ease an angry God’s judgment.  What these pilgrims failed to see in their attempt to follow Christ was that he suffered at the hands of others because he stood strong to relieve suffering and injustice.  He was living out the Way of love and simply wouldn’t let suffering turn him from his path.

Another example of journey to the pit gone wrong is The Spiritual Warrior Retreat in Arizona where people were locked in a plastic sweat lodge without water or air until they became sick and some died.  We have to know our own limits, to listen to the Spirit within us.  God may push us past what is comfortable, but not into the unhealthy.

Some of us feel like we have to suffer the pain of others, to dwell in hard service to the sick and poor to be worthy of sainthood.  We may feel especially proud of our willingness to suffer, to show and share difficult feelings, to do the dirty work, to be in crisis situations, to come to the aid of lepers and orphans.  We like to quote Jesus saying, “if you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.”  We like to tell stories of how we were there, in that tough and tragic situation, how we descended into the deep, how we tossed ourselves off that cliff and yet were saved by God.  The motivation may be more to prove ourselves or prove God than to live into the confident identity as God’s child.  Jesus said, do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  We don’t have to look for danger and difficulty.  Enough of that will come our way without looking to get into it.

After Jesus has been fasting for forty days, the scripture says, he was hungry.  You think!  So the devil says to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”  The devil is asking him to prove himself.  But when you know who you are, you have nothing to prove, nowhere to go.  As the Son of God he merely has to be who he is.  He has nothing to prove to the devil.

In the same way, because Jesus was who he was, as Children of God, as coheirs with Christ, there is nowhere we have to go, nothing we must do to reach God.  God has already reached out to us.  The risen Christ is here, in our mouths, in our hearts, right here and now.  This means that the risen Christ can be present in simple, everyday life, in jobs that don’t take us up to the heights of heaven or down to the pit of death, in everyday actions and relations, in our house or in this church. 

The forgiveness Christ offers, the Spirit of love that will not forsake and will not die is present in us now.  All we have to do is recognize it, and we gain all the beauty, power and strength we will ever need.  We may go to beautiful spiritual places, to holy sites, into the wilderness to fast.  We may train ourselves with discipline and use our gifts for art, or justice, or to relieve suffering, but that is simply because that is what God calls us to do, our way of living Christ, of spreading the Gospel. All we have to do is believe Christ is alive, and we will find him in our hearts. Through Christ, the vortex of transformation is here and now.