| July 27, 2008
You are welcome to reflect on this message
As you can see, reconstruction is taking place on all sides of The Meeting House. So I thought I’d preach on how to build up the church. Because there are always forces both within and without that try to tear it down. Everything from competition to apathy. In church, like any other gathering of beings that are human, we have to live together, before we’re fit to live with. And that guarantees differences of opinion. “To live above with those we love, that would be glory! To live below with those we know, that’s a different story!” I guess that’s why Jesus said there’ll always be “wars and rumors of wars.”
To build up a church it takes trust, acceptance of diversity, a willingness to experiment, a cooperative spirit and the ability to disagree appropriately, not cowardly. We’re in luck today, because the Bible tells us about two young men, the bulk of whose lives were dealing with continuous disagreements: Samson of Zorah and Jesus of Nazareth. Each of these guys fit the bill, sharing messianic similarities. Both were strong, attractive personalities, equally impassioned about their convictions. They were unusually confident and charismatic. Both made a powerful impact on their contemporaries. Lesser personalities envy their power and like to take-on guys like that, but not always in an honest fashion. So they had lots of experience struggling against unfair opposition. Maybe they can teach us something.
Samson’s life is a story of unfulfilled potential, revolving around his obsessions: growing long hair, pumping iron, and mostly having to get his way. And when he didn’t ... he was fervent about getting even. Turning to God only when he’s in trouble, he’d fit in with a lot of today’s rock-star culture. He was a heck of a warrior, but as a leader, an enormous flop, because he lacked the one necessary ingredient of leadership, humility. Acting out of his own strength, instead of God’s. This Old Testament Johnny Rambo had a life-long feud with the Philistines. Bad-blood existed between them and the Hebrews for a mighty long time. And it didn’t help matters by playing mean-spirited jokes on them. The gotcha-last mentality predictably gave way to one-upmanship, as pranks turned to violence, and the violence kept escalating, as violence always does.
Samson burned Philistine fields with foxes tails and socked their soldiers with a mule’s skull. I like to call it the first “jawbone offense” in history! But he met his match in a gal, named Delilah, who cut off his hair, jabbed out his eyes, and made him the brunt of cruel ridicule. And once again, a woman brings down a strong man, when nobody else could. Finally Samson’s enemies had him where they wanted him; chained to a grindstone-wheel like an animal and forced to walk in circles to the taunts and jeers of the Philistines. The Book of Judges records how their petty disagreements degenerated into alienation, divisiveness, and destruction. And that led to the sadness ... of a wasted life.
Likewise Jesus was every bit as passionate as Samson, only not for himself. His zeal was for God and everybody else. But he also had to constantly cope with those who disagreed with the changes he initiated. Herod slaughtered the innocents at his birth. In Jerusalem, 12 years later, his Mamma boxed his ears good. At 33 he got into it with his hometown synagogue. Jesus’ disagreements were as intense as Samson’s. That’s because his ideas had to do with change in traditional religious practice. And that never comes without stern resistance in any period of history, including ours. Have you noticed that some folks can tolerate change in any area but church? In athletics, in education, in our government we vote-in change. Industry wants up-to-date, the military gets state-of-the-art. But at church, we like progress, but not change!
In Jesus’ day they didn’t like change or progress! They liked the rules. They didn’t make the rules, they just worship them. So life was relegated to minute religious details with hundreds of laws restricting the Sabbath. And other mundane issues, like how you washed your hands or how scrupulously you refrained from certain foods. Jesus stayed in hot water precisely because he tried to improve all that. His approach to faith was from an entirely different angle, namely, relationships matter more than ritual; more than correct doctrine or out-dated legalisms. Jesus’ theology wasn’t new but it was simple: “love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” Relationships.
So he spent more time helping people than obeying ceremonial laws. He was more interested in re-teaching than entrenching –“You’ve heard it said of old time...but I say unto you...today” That drove them crazy! So he spent more time healing and blessing than observing rigid rules. But this set him on a guaranteed collision-course with the pharisaical types, who hang out around churches, and became Jesus’ “Delilah.” They maneuvered his capture, then Rome taunted and tortured him as the Philistine’s did to Bro. Sammy Rambo centuries ago.
To this point, the experiences of these men with conflict were remarkably similar. From here on out though, they stand at opposite poles. And the difference lay in each one’s response to the way he was treated by his enemies. I offer it to you today. You see it most clearly by comparing how both men prayed, just before they died. Somebody thought it was important to record each of them. And their prayers couldn’t be more disparate.
Samson was taken to a Philistine coliseum on a holiday, so the crowds could poke fun at him. But nobody noticed his hair had grown out! He’d been blinded, and coaxed some guy to help him feel his way between a couple of pillars, then allowed him to lean against it. Big mistake! That was the spot where Samson made his last stand and prayed his final prayer: “O Lord God, remember me I pray and strengthen me only this once, that I may avenge the loss of my eyes against the Philistines...” Then he grabbed the pillars on which the coliseum rested and torqued with all his might as he cried, “Let me die with these Philistines!” And the entire place tumbled down, along with all who were in it. And this last little gotcha-last, “So the dead whom he slew at his death were more than those whom he had slain during his life.” There you have it – a prayer for vengeance. Don’t get mad, get even! Both Samson’s pride and body had been ravaged by the Philistines and with his final breath, his last desire was to hurt them in return. And that’s what he did.
Here’s a man so embittered in spirit, whose grudges festered so long, that he went out like he lived, bulldozing the entire place down on his own head. In one dying act, killing more people than in his entire tempestuous life, and in the process wasting himself too. What an obituary! And that crumpled heap of destruction bears stark witness to what happens when people try to live together before they’re fit to live with. Everybody loses. Nobody wins. Centuries later, Jesus spoke of a better way, “Those who live by the sword, will die by it.” He might’ve been talking about Samson, who bullied his way with people. He’d rather die than not get his way and anybody who disagreed with him was to be eliminated.
When problems crop up in a church, you can usually trace it to somebody acting like Samson. And Baptist Rambos are cited as an excuse to keep folks away from church. Baptist churches are democratic not theocratic, yeah right. But there’s always somebody who wants to be “theo.” In a Baptist church “you get your say but not always your way.” But Jesus was the One of whom it was said he WAS “the way,” and everybody knows the way his life ended. What a contrast! Jesus also had a dying prayer. He too died in the midst of taunts and mockery: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” When this Messiah died it drew a compliment from a Roman Centurion: “Never did a man die like this.” Rather than vengeful, he was forgiving. He grew softer not harder. Compassionate not violent. Instead of “returning evil for evil” in the madness of escalation, where everybody loses, Jesus returned good for evil where everybody wins ... but him. Jesus gave life, he never took it. In the face of hostile opposition, Jesus prayed to redeem his opponents!
My experience has revealed that too often the church has been better at getting in the way than following God’s way. Because it’s easier to get at each other than it is to get through to one another. In our homes, international situations, we keep choosing Samson. From the beginning the Christian church has been no stranger to controversy. Read the Book of Acts. Even at the Last Supper they’re at it, as the disciples squabbled over “which one’s the greatest?” Scarcely had Jesus been crucified than disagreements began to rend the faith. Paul established a church at Corinth that was severely conflicted, “It’s been reported to me that there’s quarreling among you. Somebody says ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another says ‘I belong to Cephas,’ and another says, ‘I belong to Christ.’ Is Christ divided?’” What a question! “Is Christ divided?” But the answer’s worse. Yeah, Christ is divided because his people haven’t yet learned how to live together before they’re fit to live with.
I’d like to think we can beat that in this church. Because everyday we’re thrown into close proximity with others who have different ideas, world view and especially methods. But when everybody thinks a like, nobody thinks much. I can tell you this. If we try to handle our disagreements like Samson, I see little hope for a healthy congregation. Especially with a restoration going on. The way of Samson is to set up a contest with a winner and a loser. When we allow our passion to get the best of us, nobody wins. But if we let Jesus be our savior in our relationships as well as our souls, it leads to reconciliation and spiritual growth as we learn to control our passions and manage ourselves. Because with Jesus’ way, everybody wins! Jesus taught us to give our lives away, not throw them away.
The geographical makeup of Israel epitomizes these two impulses. There are two major bodies of water. They call them “seas.” One is fresh with fish in it. Green trees line its banks and stretch their roots to its fresh mountain run-off. Jesus lived by the sea of Galilee in Capernaum. The River Jordan meanders southward to another sea, but with no splashing fish, no fluttering leaves. They don’t baptize in it. The air hangs heavy above its water and neither man, beast nor fowl can drink it. What makes the difference in these two seas is not the River Jordan. It empties the same clear springs into both. But the Galilee takes in the water from mountain run-off but doesn’t keep it. The giving and receiving take place in equal measure to contribute to its servant nature. The other sea is egotistical. It takes for itself and gives nothing back, aptly named, the Dead Sea.
There are two kinds of people in the world, like the two seas in Palestine. The church needs more people who try to serve somebody rather than trying to be something. And that makes the challenge before us today, as always, to move beyond the limitations we impose upon ourselves by trying to be a world unto ourselves. Give your life away. Don’t throw it away.
Prayer: (7-27-08)
Help us not to just be receivers but givers of your blessings. Sensitize us to those who need the forgiving touch from you that we have received. Give us the courage to extend it not only to those who are indifferent, but those who are different. Help us not to do anything or say anything that makes somebody feel left out...as we are forever having to distinguish between essential Christian beliefs and matters of personal opinion.
Show us what it means to be weak and to be strong, to be free in Christ and that true religion is not a matter of outer observances, but of inner spirit. Rather than passing judgment on other people’s religious practices, you tell us we can do anything or not, as long as what we do or not do brings honor to the Lord. Let that be our standard as a church.
We are taught to do our duty. But if our hearts are not right, no amount of obedience to rules and regulations will matter. May this worship remind us that none of us lives unto ourselves. Show us in this worship that just because something’s different doesn’t mean it’s bad. Grant us the grace to allow others to be who they are without exacting from them a price because we’re threatened by their freedom. “For if we live, we live unto the Lord. And if we die, we die unto the Lord. So then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” In Jesus’ name. Amen. |
