3-26-00. Discipline. This quarter's lesson texts are from Paul's ltr to the church at Corinth, a sometimes rowdy and quarrelsome congregation who were not certain about what the good news of God incarnate meant. It was only a few yrs after the sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrec• tion, of God's Messiah, so in just about everything that pertained to living the life of the re• deemed in Christl{they were ignorant. If modern scholarship is correct, then they had none of the gospel. accounts of J's life & tP.aching, there was no collection of study-course books to instruct and to guide their behavior. Most~of them were Gentiles, non-Jewish pagans whose morality came from the philosophe-r8°;\wh~ advice was so noble that we continue to read and discuss it as the highest attainmt of the'-numan intellect. The proper study of mankind is Man, they taught; we should know ourselves and our limits, and then taste of all that the world has to offer, but noth• ing to excess. Love was not self-giving but self-serving, generosity was a way of glorifying the individual, and the greatest success came with popular acclaim for deeds well done. If any of that sounds like the morality of the mob in our day, then think seriously about the feather• weight of ch~nge from ~ncient athens to the present. But~ those early Xns ~ hafe their questions about the living of the faith that Jesus is God-with-us, to redeem us from our sin and to teach us how the redeemed should live out their days. In this we get to the fundamentals, and they are dilficult for us to swallow, just as they were for those Gentile Xns in Paul's church in Corinth. They were his children in the faith, so he kept in touch with them, and continued his teaching through letters that he wrote to them. Last week the pr_g.blem was the intrusion of secu• lar life-styles into the thinking of the born-again, a temptati~o all of us; today~~e problem was of the moral behavior of church members. text I Cor 5. The name of learning to live joyously and willingly\\by a code of right & wrong\\is the Latin word discipline. That is a concept that many of us reject outright; we are masters of our own minds & souls, we grab pleasure wherever we may find it, and are properly offendee if anyone tries to impose moral limits upon our behav• ior. 0aul did it, in what we may read as sharp language. But note that he spoke as he did not out of anger at a member who knew not, or refused to abide by, the most obvious of morality. So let us hear the words of the text, I Cor 5:1-13. Discipline is something that many of us think is associated with military Gbedience to commands. Whatever the branch of service, the basic training concentrates upon marching in close order, obeying instantly the drill SGt1s command. It is designed to make obed Lence immet.' ate & unquestioning. Some year~: ago the novelist Herman Wouk wrote a story about a mutiny pn a S navy-ship •. In a sentence before •the title page he said, ~This is a work of fiction. Never in A er hist has there been a mutiny on a ship of the fleet.~ Hiscipline from the very beginning of an enlistmt~leads to unity and efficiency, whatever be the order. What Paul in these verses wants ust.to understand is that discipline in our private lives, and in our community of the faithful, is necessary for the health of the Church. In times past, church members often expelled those ·whose life-styles brought ridicule to the group. HenryStroupe who was ~hairl of the WF Hist ~ept and dean of the graduate school, wrote a paper describing what our forefathers called Dismissa)(lrrom N.C. r>apt ,L.hurches. L'arther back in time{!the M0ther Church excommunicates and. sometimes executed those who refused to conform to the hierarchy(\on matters of faith and morals; We are all of us selective literalists--very selective--as we read our Bibles. I think it safe to say that we shall not witness a death by burnihg1 as was meted out to heretics such as Wil1=iam ~·yndale, who translated. the Bible into English, or Giordano Bruni, who agreed w/ Copernicus that the earth is not the center of the umver-se , not even of the solar system. G,'1lileo made a telescope thru which he saw a reality that did not find expression in the Bible. 1!h \\is defense before the Inquisition !i,as, The Holy Scriptures tell us how to get to Heaven, not how Heaven wor~s. He did bow to t~uthorities by saying aloud, the earth does not move; but as he left the room he whispered into his beard, i~ still moves. In every generation there have been defenders of morality who have tried to apply ~aul's discipline to the unmannerly among us, be it an adolesce~~ i;n;'esident, or an humble shop-keeper who runs a numbers game under the counter. But those earnest defenders of the rules are not so numerous as they have been in the past. I leave to you tht1:i decision as to whether society ii st.r-orrge r-;- or weat<:eI, beeause of that chanve , But we must loo~ ~t this passage in some detail. We cannot know who among the membership was this man; it was enough that the congngation knew that Paul's complaint spoke truth. The man was living in a sexual relatship with his father's wife--not his own mother but a step-mother, when the father had died,or had divorced this second wife. It was by the standards of'. the time incestuou,s; it was something that not even the pagans accept.adj- aRf:l ify the Holiness eode of the Hebrew 'Iorah it was condemned, Deut 21:20; Levit 18:8, 20:11. Cursed by anyone who lies w/his father's wife. It was a direct violation of Uod's covenant w/Israel. Paul's respon5e was accall for community dis• cipline not so much as a way of punishing the guilty as of purifying the community of faith. A faith that dl'oes not produce mor-a Lobehavi.or , or change one's attitude toward the world and our living in it, is not much of a fai th';{/''~s it?1 Paul had already cast judgmt on the erring brother . "' '71// .11? 11/0U./ 011 lliliJq .J~Dl/ p (}./iJl{l it t d t . th h. and qe ca 11 e d upon t he c h urc h t o car uostuu pa/ !I r • · • ou , an o agree".w1 am, 1111r11 1 c h '11 h h d'ff' lt 11 · uaaqn.1vwpvff ~~ th 1 · 'l'h e hurc wi ave enoug l. acu y l'/,, pun 111811q swooiq aAo/ 1 cou.E~~ e secu ar neigh- . ' I /iJl/AI <, v' "CC t 1v'V- ./ llOSOiJS JDll0.1/0.1./.1 iJI{/ S.1 S.11/.1 ~ borhood that we are not just a buncl{o.glypocrits, living as we please, while sitting in judgmt of those outside. Paul's answer was to demand the expulsion of the wrong-doer. He acted as he did because he knew the rliblical tradition that one sinful person can bring God's condemnation to the entire group, and that the community has responsibilty for the welfare & the conduct of its members. The ehurch should offer to the,;;world a higher and more conunendable way of life than does the unbelieving ne Igh torhood ; as the English poet John Donne put it, No man is an island; all in Xr1s ~hurch are bound together in a fellowship of caring and supporting, comfortfung and encouraging. One rotten apple, one who holds himself above the standards that govern the group, and the whole is weakened and loses power. So he advised t he Corinthians to expell, to dismiss, to exca.mmunicate, the wrongdoer. This is discipline as a way to bring unity smong the brethren and the sisters. I know it sounds mean to people who make a point of excluding no one, and who refuse to judge other peoples' behavior. But one self-serving Church member may undo all the Bi• ble study and sermonizing of the group. C.S.Lewis, in that channing little booK of letters from a devil in the managemt class to a buck privat:.e in the outfit--the .icr.ewtape .Letters--wrote his underling, douno t loss heart because your subject, has joined a ~n· ih-.;ust remind him that the one who just passed the collection plate is the same man who vor-ce d in the bup-cher shop where you bou~ht your potroast, who surreptitiously put his thumb on the scales to give it a push. An extra dime for the beef isl.not much, but how does it look to a newly converted believer that someone in a position of leadership in the thurch would doruch a thing? Note clearly that 0aul1s motive was to strengthnn the believing community. His advice, and it was very close to a command, 5:4,5, 13, When you are assembled,s~hich squnds like a summons to a wltch-hunt,You are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,and the spiritj\saved for th~y of jtldgmt. As we read it we may well ask, If the Church is not t~lace for the second chance, then ~re in this f'allen world shall we find it? But tr1ere is another lesson in this text, one that moves me emo• tionally. It begins at v.6, where Paul is criticizing the entire Church membership for the be• havior of that one immoral person. 'l'o do that he used the imagery of the Passover and God 1 s in• tervention in history to liberate the Hebrew people from slavery in 1gypt, and to make them a nation, Mis own Chosen Peoole. From that night when the Deatth Angel passed over the homes of the children of Israel, the Passover was the centerpiece of their worship. It was in two parts, and here he referred to the story in ~xod 12; mark your ~ible at S:6,7 to connect the two passages. One part of·.the Passover was the death of the lamb and the sprinkling of its blood on the door• post of the house. Tnat protected the live.s of the first-born, and by extens,~on shouted out the truth that our salvation comes to us thru the shed blood of the Lamb of liod . .l.he•>other part was the search thru the house,W~t\much fu~.ffe"~aughter by the children,as tney made certain that no• where in any cabinet or cubby,•hole~~ay"''l'S"aven. 'l'he bread they ate that night, and tool<;.. with them on their escape,must be unleavened, they must leave on short notice, and there would not be time for bread to rise. That celebration, and what it meant in Uod's plan, w~ for Isr~el only. Now note, and think about, what Paul has done in these few lines.~ includ~ those ~orinthian Gen• tiles in the batch of dough that was part of God's saving work('\that had until that time l:nalonged only t.o. Israel. The blood of the lamb on the doorpost marked Israel as a separate people under God's protection. The cleansing of the households of any leavenflsymbolized the expulsion of the wrong-doer, so that the lump was pure. ~hrist was the Passover Lamb of the new Covenant. He had died on the cross, and his blood symbolized the salvation that gave life to those whom God would spare and protect. That was the sacrifice that atone~or sin, and it was ttheir faith in that sacrifice that made them Xn, thru the grace of a loving God, just as it ~oes also for us. But now note--Paul preached Xr and Him crucified to those Greek pagans; now he reminded them of the other part of thr Passover event, to search for, and to root out, any unclean act or thought that would prevent our liberation from the bondage of sin. He knew they would understand the etent to which he referred, and also that he was including them--outsiders, goyim, ethnic strang• ers to the religion of Israel--within the lump of the pure and the chosen. Paul made it expli• cit in ~ph 2; He has made the two one, and he has broken down the, ·dividing wall ~of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law w/its comdmts & regul~tions. He has created one new human be~ngjj thus making peace, and reconcilinf> both to uod. Whatever may h~ve been the dividing line between nations and races and status of life before Paul included Ge-ntiles in the lump of purified human• ity, Now it is clear. ·vle·•are one people in Chris~, for His blood.ga~&tis life, and that ab.lndan- tly, and as we remove the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but the bread of sincerity and truth. In Xr we c. are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise, Ga].J-28. Why then should we boast? God has grac.tiously invited us to be His peoplet ~€s live lives worthy of our calling. All who are in Xr1s church are responsible for one another, bound together into one people, testifying by our love and care, that there is indeed something new under the sun. Rejoice andl;B glad, therefore, for Llod is present in all that we do in His name. 'I' l. Liar o , t s ez-« - 4-2-00. Marriage and Morality. oday we have a text that invites us to think seriously about what it means to belong to Christ and at the time live as male & female human beings.8\It is a subject and a condition that has become more important in our time of slackening powe~ of the fuh• damental rules of behavior, and the open avowal of many of us that we are free to live as we please. i:>tatistics kept by the census people, and the scholars whose field of study is the famil;y in our day, shout it out 'torus that the conjugal pair living under one roof, is no longer the predominant household. People meet in a civil ceremony, or before the altar of a religious com• munity, and take oaths that bind them from this day forward, so long as we both shall live, for• saking all others, for richer for poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, and in increasing numbers t.hey tor-eak their pledged word to remain faithful. Years ago, in a history· of late medieval Bngland, I read of the custom among couples who could no longer amide each other's company, t0 get up one morning and go forth into the streets and the roads until they found the carcass of a dead animal. One walked on one side of it, and the other on the other side, and ther they went their own ways, never again to meet. They had keptthe letter of their vow--death had parted them. :More recently dissatisfied husbands & wives do not go to the trouble of finding road-kill to get free from an unacceptable mate. But marriage is not like a business partnership or a golfing partner. Marriage has been defined as an unlimited commitmt to an unknowable compam ion. It is the foundation-stone to the family, which is the basic building-block of a sooi!.ety and a neighborhood. Yet increasingly in our time the family is on .the defensive. I hear much talk about teaching and cherishing values, but far too many of the leaders in the community are unable to say much about family values, for their own family has failed. Presidents and chief executive officers of all kinds of institutions set embarrassing examples, .and raise few eyebrows in their schools and corporations. Books with such titles as Bobby has two mothers, or households where the members come and go, ,are much too common , One of my acquaintances told IJ1e a year or so ago about meeting a young woman with a small child in a grocery store. ,The woman began a conversa• tion that lasted several minutes •. As they walked away he heard the child say, Why did you talk to him, Momma? We already have·q ~~ddy. He and I both wondered how often that boy had seen the father of the family leave, to be replaced by another. It is a problem, isn't it? one that may be more destructive of community and character than an economic collapse or a major war. How can we live in the company of the body of Xr as sexed creatures? That was the problem that our ances· tors in ane iarrt i,.;orinth, in Greece, presented tl:R;i the evangelist who had converted them to the revelAtion of God in Xr? In the city where, if the reports be accurate, was the most openly im• moral of any other~:!< 1-tie time, where the worship of the goddess .of love and the joys of youth, Venus in ·L.atin, Apnrodiie in Grk, was a major activity? Text l ear 6;18-20. Please read the en• tire paragraph for yourselves; it begins at v.12. Here Paul engaged in a dialog withe i.
'f Dion de Ma»belle. There's a land beyond the riv,er, that we call the sweet forever, And we only reach th8t shore by faith's decree; One by one we'll gain the portals, There to dw@ll with the immortals, When they ring the golden bells for you and me. Don't you hear the bells now ringing? Don't you hear the angels singing? '~is the glory halleluJah jubilee. In that far-off sweet forever, just beyond the shining river, .-Jhen they ring the golden qells for you and me. 4-30-00. W}lat is Real Love? A good case can be made that the English-~ord LOVE is the most misused expression that we have. Hardly a day passes that I do not use the word in a different way than I used it the day before. I love baseball; I love the emotional charge in a Mozart sym• phony; I love a colorful sunset; I love a cheese omelette and mt buttered popcorn; I love my wife and my daughter and the three cats who dominate my home. I could go on and on, but that is enough to make the point. Of all the deficiencies that I find in the English language--which is another gift of my ancestors that ::t: love--one of the most glaring is thevabsence of precise words for the idea of love. How much more exact is the common Greek of the ancients. ~.S.Lewis, the British writer and p-o re ssor , wrote a little book nearly 40 years ago with the title, The Four Loves. If you do not know it, please find a copy and read it; it takes about two hours. In Greek there are four words for love, each with a different meaning. Storge, two sy Ll.ab.Le scand the G is hard, means affection, as of a mother and her child; philia, with PH forhthe F sound, is the love we have for subject-matter, as· in philosophy, the love of wisdom, or philharmonic, the love of pleasing sounds; and if you, know someone named Philip it means one who lo~es horses; eros, from which we get erotic, is the love that isr,peaivy-laden with lust, selfish search for physical pleasure; and then the word that we find in the NT, agape. It means self-giving love, unconditional love, that comes when we are not seeking an advantage of some kind. We LIKE app Le pie because it tastes so good; we like people because they are congenial and friendly; ~ut we love not be cau ss of, but in spite of what or who it may be. It is that kind of love that the Bible calls us to know, and to live by. God is love, Goq so loved the world, even though the world was as mixed-up and difficult as we know it to be; God is Love because that is His Nature. Today's text invites us to think seriously about agape iove, as the greatest gift that life has to offer us. l Cor 13. We will read it in a few minutes, but before we do we need to be careful not to make these few 1 ines into something soft and beautiful--for that is what it is, along with preset:iting a definition of love that, could we but grasp it,.and hold to it, .would solve every problem that we face in life. Every one's favor• ite essay about the chapter was given in 1883, at a mission station i,n central Africa, by the Scottish scientist-evangelist Henry Drummond, entitled 'l'he Greatest .i:hing in the world. That too will inspire Y,OU whether you've read it often, or ne~e~. There it is, right in the middle of Paul's teaohi~g the ~orinthian converts about spiritual gifts and how to rank them. The ~orinthians, only recently idol-worshippers and erotic people who enjoyed their taste-buds and their glands, were continuing the life-style as Ans that they had known before. They quarrelled and bickered with each other as to-the meaning of the life in Ar; they divided into cliques, and they sought dominance over those they called waak. Having no NT, no gospels telling of J's teaching and self• giving, they turned to their founder, Paul of Tarsus, who had convinced them that Jesus is the Xr of God, and the proof is in his triumphant resurrection from the dead. He answered their ques• tions in the ltr ~~know as ~irst Corinthians, though it may in fact be a compilation of more than one letter~ the Church. As we read the book we come to frequent use of terms such as Now, concerning your inquiry about the communion supper, or about the resurrection of the dead ••• and he would write to teach them what they needed to know. Hut in the chapter we ha~ before us this morning we have. an answer to an unasked question. Nowhere do we read that they asked a rout the meaning of real love, self-giving love, agape love. ~ut Paul was inspired to write thia brief es• say as he was explaining to them about spiritual gifts--healing, ecstatic speaking, prophecy, and the· others. As we come to the f~nal sentences of Ch 12 Paul spoke of the Ch as the body of Xr, and as with our physical bodies it has ma~y parts--feet, hands, heart, eyes--each with a role to play in giving us life. Are all apostle.s? do all work miracles? do all have the gift of healing? Suddenly it hit him that there was a better way for us to get along; it was unselfish love,the most excellent way of being the body of Xr in the world. 12:31 is a bridge sentence. 1Cor12: 3lb-13:14:1~. This is as nearly perfect a poem ~he Bible contains. Treasure it, memorize it, read and quote it often. But because it is a work of great literary quality, we may analyze it to understand it better. It is in three parts: first, vv 1-3, the uselessness of all forms of worship and service to God if we do them without love; second, vv.4-7, a definition of what self• giving, agape love, really is; and third, vv.8-13, the inadequacy of every spiritual gift that is used in the a~sence of love. Ifa as if the poet wan-t:s us to ask of ourselves every time we use a spiritual gift--preach a sermon that delivers to this present congregation a word from God lili.~~ present day/ or sweep the floor, cook a casseno Le , bring flowers, teach a class, whatever--that we ask of ourselves, Why am I doing thi.s? And if it is for any other motfute1than self-giving aga• pe love, then we might jus~ as well not do it at all. Hear the words that in prose~ scant; like a poemilinform.fl us that love must be the reason for all that we do with the gifts we have been given. The passage is purely ethical; here there is no mention of uod, no reference to Jesus or to our faith in the risen Lord. It puts its emphasis upon a short sentence that is,neartthe end of the & letter, in 16: 14--Let all that you do be done in love. Without it, we are just spin• ing our wheels and getting nowhere. '"~~n's purpose was not to do~play the spiritual gifts, but instead'that we shou~d use our gifts~ love as our guide; love is not a better gift; it is a be~ter way of living, with which all of the gifts can strengthen the community. """1p-f\.~ofL-t/!r(.fi1 r+,'those in our group, the tour-guide turned out the lights. The darkness ·¥as total, falling upon me J,..1;~ a weight, fright• ening. but quickly relieved by the return of Thomas Edison. When my Army~ft NYC in a huglf con• 'iioy of ships in 1943, bounti for the port of Liverpool in England, we sww·mo more lights in the openi/at night until theronflict ceased in May 1945. Dark at night, when there may be someone shooting something at you, is unsettling to the nerves, much worse that the heavy burden of dark• ness at Carlsbad. And I was surprised at the time, as you may be when I tell you now, that on May 9, 1945 all the Army vehicles took the covers off their lights,and the windows in th~ German towns took down the·>blackout curtains & boards, and I was frightened at the brightness. fio figure, as the saying has it. But as we read the Bible and understand God's part in creating light, and providing light, and planning to do away with it when we all live in the light of God's glory, we dimly understand the part that light plays in our lives, and our faith. So let us hear again Paul's words to the people of the Xn Ch of Corinth, this time, and for the final SundC!'{s in May, they will be from the book we know as 2 Cor. Some scholars argue that it is a compilation of fragments from a number of epistles, which may or may not betrue. Read it carefully to locate the seams in the book, where one subject ends and another begins, to see if you could agree that they were not written at the same time. To us it does not matter, for what interested Pastor Paul was helpine those infant Xns understand the newness of their faith in Jesus as God's incar• nate Being. 2 or 4:1-18. The first 6 vv. of this passage may be entitled Paul's defense of his ministry of light f~ainst darkness, and of his method of preaching. Because he was a minister by the grace of God, ~.erla" given up deceit and dishonesty in his wo rk , and lie do,t'tiot lose heart. That·is a constant temptation to all of us, in whatev~r work we do. But it is particularly acute to the person who ·speaks to God for the people who need faith and constancy. To minister to a congregation is the most difficult task in the community; it requires tact and understanding, a gentle way with critics, a vast store of knowledge about human nature as well as the written of the insoired proohets who went before him, rt requires at least one sermon wtth God as the subject and the needs of this present congcegation as the object, and conducting weddings and fun• eralsnand60unselling sessions and visitation, so the pastor will know what is on th~ minds of his flock. Row else preach to them? It is not as easy assignmt, but those who are called never lose heart//o!..falter, nor do they, as Paul put it, tamper w/God 1s word, or twist it to make it ·fit what WE want it to be. In v.3 he referred to a significant event recorded in Exod 33, when Moses' face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord, so he covered his face with avail because it was so bright w/God 1s light/fthat the people feared to go near him. In that incident there is food for thought, for all of us. Jjef~O the Corinthians, he used that image to declare to them that if the g oape L he preached~~~.. tCWas vailed only tb those who rejected it, who were perishing and pre ferred to keep on that course. I remember as a small boy wondering why anyONE would refuse God's offer of life eternal, in aj}fs~t1of peace and joy. All this, and Heaven too! I continue to stand in amazemt at so many who do not worship the·:-God of grace & forgiveness as we are invited to do. Jesus told .a:little story a 'rout a sower who went forth to sow, and some seed fell upon soil so hard that the seed cannot get into it. Not even the best seed can sprout and grow; there is as much an obligation upon the hearer as there is upon the teacher. To those who will not hear, it was to Paul the proof that the world is a battleground between God & Satan. Xr 1 s resurrection dest~oyed Satan's power over hwnan~ind. Still we who live for the flesh and this present, the Evil one works to prevent us from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Xr, who is the likeness of God. Hear how the phrases build up in that powerful sentence, v.4. The god of this world has blinderl the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing, and then the clauses tumble all over themselves in that marvellous statement ••. the light of the g~ary1 of Xr, who is the likeness ~£.--God. Underline it, pray aboutzit for in°that majestic collection of words there is the secretv,;cdlilftlman troubles and worries. At 6 he returned to the idea of light, citing C&gn 1, For God said, Let light shine out of the dark ss , who has shone in our'.. . hearts--and again a tower• ing sentence--to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. In that is God's gracious invitation to us to repent/(and on our knees beg God 1s instant forgiveness. In 20 words Qr so Paul summed ]P t~e ~p+rityalhmeaning of the Xr-event. May you and I see that glory, and live it, for OH my/a~~p.rs·~~gv~!!cK8tlt behind which some of us want to liv~9d how bright the light when we make our peace with God 2Jld open our minds to all that the ~ld can offer in holiness and guidance. In Xr God has shone iri\~ur hearts; how long shall we vail our faces to shut out that light? hut if theta vv. mark the depth of despair at the difficulty of unfolding the word to the world, then w/v.7 Paul turned tD the power a~e positives. we have this treas• ure in earthen vessels--your version may put that differently, for original words have synonyms. The point is clear; we who profess a faith in the one true God/~re of the earth, earthy, but in our minds and hearts we contain a heavenly truth. It is a treasure that we are invited to accept, snd to share,with those we meet--not obtrusively, but tactfully and sincerely. We are sinners, saved and forgiven by the grace of a loving God; Paul himself did battle with the Messiah, and regretted it all his life; but he also gave thanks for the vision that opened his mind to spiri• t~al truth, just as we all must. It is a truth that you and :rhmst not miss. Humble, mortal man• kind, of the earth earthy, are called upon th preach the al-r:.but-unbelievable truth t~at God is Love, and God forgives. Note clearly that the power to redeem and reform humanity is not of our• selves, but is a gift, a treasure, that is God's alone. Paul was himself aware of the thorn in his flesh, whatever it was, but he preached Xr and Him crucified for the salvation of the hpraan race, as God intended from the beginning, when the earth was without form) and void, and dark. Let there be light, God said, and there was light. It shines out of the mind of God, into our own beings, to,warm us and to light our way thru life. W/vv8,9 we come to the climax of the upward path that Paul described, from weakness to power. It is the golden text for today, the key vv of the lesson we are offered, to think atout, and to do. Again the descriptive adjectives are pi~ed upon each other, to make what Eould be a warning to all who would l@ok down the road of disciple• ship, but is instead one of the most powerful words of encouragemt we find in this book. It is a series of 4 contrasts that we should underline and read.frequently. Each of them represents a bur• den ".>aul himself had to bear. We are troubled on every side (afflicted in every way) --it doesn't get more painful than that·~ But see the contrast; in spite of affliction,we are not distressed (Cru• shed). We are perplexed that our words, and our example, do not $ncourage those we meet, on the job on,.in society--but not in despair, for the treasure that we contain is God's gift. Persecutedf made fun of, ridiculed, even attacked by those who get angry that wecb not do the things, or say the words, that they do; but never are weforsaken, for God in Xr was persecuted, and prayed God to forgive his tormenters. We m'.'e struck down, but never destroyed, always bearing in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of J may also visible in our bodies. The Xn life is the con• tinual laying down of our lives, for there is a cross for us to bear, and a self within us that we mus~ deny and dominate. This is the treasure that we have in our h\lJllble earthy beings.A ~cottish preacher said it long ago: he that takes up that bitter Tree (Cross) and carries it cannily (quietly will find it the same kind of hlrden as wings are to a'6i'rd, or sails to a bo~t. Out of our wea~ness' comes the strength of the God who said Let there b"e-light, and there was 1ight. By it we live. Read Staton Bible Class David L. Smiley 5-21-00. The Collection .. One of the most often repeated complaints about the subject-matter of the pastor's sennons is that they do not often talk about spiritual matters; they are too busy talking atout money. In which case, to many of us, they have quit preaching~and gone to meddling. In my imagination I can hear the elders of Israel muttering behind their hands about the laws God gave to Moses about the first-fruits of the harvest, and the tithe that was paid into the Temple. I can hear the relig ldrs in the Jerusalem o:tP's time, complaining when the rabbi of Nazareth spoke of the po~.J-?~lht.z that a man's life does no~ consist of the multitude of things which he posses• ses, and p~1sld'the -poor widow who put two mites into the collection box, and thus gave mope than anyone e~se in the congregstion; the others gave out of their plemty,,'wHILE she gave all that she had. Now that's meddl}n$• Also bright in my fading memory is a deacon's meeting in the cam• pus chuech , when I was a ~l;mfb(;9J, For three hours or so the group discussed the budget, and rais• ing money to pay the bills. 'When it was o~er one dea\::9n said, What a waste of time! all this talk and nothingabout God. To which the pastor responded, you have been closer to God tonight that you have ever been before. Today we have a lesson-text about aocollection of funds in Greece--what was then the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Achaial·the Gentile world--to be given to Xns in the mother church in Jerusalem, text 2 Cor 9. For a lesson about, giving, let us begin with a bit of fiction about 'the ~'rench fries at a fast-food restaurant. According to the story a man and his son went into the place for lunch; the father ordered a sandwich while the son added a serving ~ench fties to his tray. Out they came, crisp and crifultly and golden brown. The father asked the boy if he might have a few of the potato sticks to eat with his sandwich, but the boy made a face and said, No, they are mineJ Some time later, after thinking about that incident, the father wrote an article to explain why the son's response made him sad. First, the child did not understand where the fried potatoes came from; the father had provided them, and by rights they were his. 2d, if the father wished, he could have taken all of the potatoes, or even bought a large sackful of the greasy sticks and poured them over the boy. Jd,~did not.need them, and if he did he could havw bought his own serving. But how much nicer it wo'Ufd have been had his child shared them willingly. That little story contains not only something for us to chew upon, but also a truth for us to pon• der. Do we really believe that God is the sourere of'oour- lives, and all that we are and have? that God provides for all our needs? Do we give God thanks for all that we enjoy, and freely share what we have with those who are less-well supplied? Do we understand that God does not need our offer• ings, for all the universe is His? but that he wants us to worship Him by confessing our needs and praising God's unlimited giving to us? Or do we hide what we have, and petulantly respond that what I have been given is MINE, to have and to hold? If God gave us 10 French-fry sticks, would we object to giving Him one or two of them--a tith~nd a gift? Would Wt_give God the best and the bi~gest of them, or would we break one or two small fries into sma1:e:1p1eces, and give God//who gave us all that we have, only a tiny serving? And would we then think highly of ourselves for being so generous? And in case I get carried away in this session, and forget to make the point this Biblical teaching about giving invites us to consider, we must not miss the point that giving to the Church is ~tout showing our gratitude for what God has done for us in our work, in our homes, in our gardens, and at our tables; and what God has done for us in so loving the world that he gave his only son, that w~soever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. If we do not believe that, and~feel deeply indebted to God's love, then it isn't a Church to which we belong, but a social club for doing good in the world. Necessary, yes; helpful, yes; but not a leap of faith or a shout of gratitude to God. Giving is about thanks; it is also about our share which serves as a token of what we owe to God. To return one French fry out of 10 isn!t very much, is it? or 10 out of a 100. If someorte were to tell us that he will give us $100,000 on one condi• tion--that we g~~ back $10,000 at the end of the month. H0w many of us would refuse such an offe Yet that is wh~o many of us do when we know that God is the owner and giver of whatever wear~-• our energy and good health and life, our talents and our time. What we have earned is ours ';'Ytbe~(U; cause we worked for it. We will do with it whatever we please. We will tear down our barns and build i:;reater bee.quse the harvest is bounteous--and I've never understood that solution; wouldn't it make more sense to build additional barns to store the surplus? To give is to say Thank you// to God, and it is to know joy rich and full and bubbltng over. But let us hear once again what Pau l, wrote to the Church at eorinth, which was the capital city of the Roman province of Achaia. 2 Cor 9:1-12. In °aul1s enthusiasm for a g'ift of alms to the center of Jewish Xty he tried to stir up a com~etition between the two parts of Greece, the north and the south;(fto see which of them would prove more generous ~o the Jerusalem church. There was genuine need in Israel; from Acts 11 and from the historiaiJJosephus we learn that in the years of the emperor Claudius, 41~L there were settere food shortages in the eastern Mediterranean. But more than that, ~aul saw~~lift of moft~Y from the gentile world to the Jewish/Xtn world would be a strong bit of evidence that the Xr• event was.for all people everywhere, and that the faith made brothers ~sisters of them all. T~ere are so~ l.mportant things we must notice about this passage. One is that it is not an appeal to
I make a small offering to help needy people. In our day we see newsreel pictures of starving chil• dren in some distant part of the world, or cities and towns flooded with river i•ater, or buildings destroyed by a storm. Certainly those are disasters which cry out for a contribution, often given in sscks of food stamped with the flag of our country. We may rightfully wonder whether we are moved by human need, or inspired by pride in our country's wealth and generosity. But see what ·Paul wrote to the Corinthians--he praised their eagerness to give generously where there was need. He wanted it to be something freely given, not something grudgingly given, as an extortion, some• thing we may hide in the corner to avoid, or something to be given 'only so other people may praise us for our caring spirits. He sug%0sted a discipline of giving, something you and I should think about. In Ch 8 he presented what we might define as~trange argument~ to defend his appeal that the well-to-do Corinthians contribute to the sufferitg Jews in Jerusalem. One of them is in 8:9-• the example of Xr. Jesus was rich, but for your sakes he became poor, so that by His poverty you mf.ght ibecome ·rich.· He is speaking of the difference between being in Heaven with His Father, and lacking nothing, and voluntarily coming to earth in human flesh and putting aside his heavenly ex• istence. '.I:n His day· nearly everyone was poor by modern standards, but the carpenter Joseph did well enough~ with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn child. His point is that Jesus gave\JHis God -ness(~o we by faith could know the intimacy of God within us. As we ~ive we pay back a~iny fragment of our debt. The other strange argument is in 8:15, a citation from Exod 16:18, during the escape from Egypt, when the people gathered manna every morning, and always had enough. If they gathered more than they could eat, it spoiled; if they did not gather much, it was always just enough. God will take care of us, so let us put aside our childish fears, and re• fuse to give to the Father a few French fries of the serving that he bought for us. From these ex• amples Paul suggested some rules for giving. I find it fascinating that thetheologian who objeclf~ to living by the law, put to the Corinthians some laws for giving. Give in proportion to w~at we have, not how much we can spare, but how much we can spend._We can never out-give God, however hard we may try. We need to discover the joy of giving, and that giving reveals who we are and what our deepest commitmts are. How strong is our trust in God's goodness? Nor should we impoverish our• selves by our giviqg; there is little advantage in making some of us poor in order to make others of us rich. In 1 L;o:r 16 we read Paul 1 s law of giving--on the first day of every week, each ~you is to put a~~de and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when(2Jome. I have know)People who took that sentence literally. The breadwinner was paid by the month, so he and the mother added up one tenth, and divided by the number of people in the family. Father then went to the bank and got coins to put into offering envelopes, so that each member took to Sunday School exactly the right amount of money the tithe required of them--so many quarters, and dimes, nickels, and pennies, carefully measured out. That is legalism to the letter. I think God loves a cheerful give~ with a monthly check, and perhaps a few extra dollars as a free-will offering each month. There is a joy in giving, just as there is a doy in receiving, for we are beholden to God for life for health even when we are in pain and are weak-tn-the-knees, for the warmth of the sun and the sot pastel shades of our beautiful world. There is also a call to giving; it is not only aomething w w~re meant to do, it is something we were mecnt to be. We were not created to occupy our total at ntion ~~ourselves; we are made to live together in.the human family, which is the gift of a gift giving God. What do any of us have that we did not receive as a gift from God? 1 Cor 4:7. And if we received it, why do we boast as if we invented ourselves? There is one other rule for giving, and tis that the compensation far our generosity is not material, but is in the aware -ness that giving eans thanks and praise to God. It also comes to the generous giver in the form of felwshp in the hurch. Benevolence is the test of the individual's cormnitmt to ministry; we do not simply throw money at a perceived need. That may lead to evil that is worse that the need we wish to alleviate. The only standard for us to follow is the example of Xr, not to g~f&our mon• ey by the promise of terial or even spiritual reward. I have known people who contributed faith• fully to the budget of heir church, and did it as a form of insurance against serious illness or a fai1u~n a school co se or a business venture. Health is a positive good, to Paul, provided that we master IT, and a not mas$ered BY it. Nor is our managemt of what we ha~e intended to enhance our own sense of ing right. If it be not in response to our knowledge of what God in Xr has done for us, then it is but a clanging cymbal or a noisy gong. What matters in Biblical thou• ght is not so much \VHAT we , as the motive for our doing it. The same is true of how we behave when the offering plate is p ssed before us, How you and :r respond(,is not just a matter of whether those starving people in ~ast frica have a bowl of rice this evening, but it is also a question of the life of the entir.e chur h , If Xns in Winston-Salem have no interest in Xns in some distant land, it would not be long befo e there would be no Church in Winston-Salem. Oh, there would be social gatherings, and softball teams, and bus tours to interesting nLaces , but church means con• cern, and commitmt, and felwship and warmth in relatshps what do not exist anywhere else. ~o when God asks a child, or a father ass his son, for a small gift of the French fries God has just pro• vided 'bio us because He is a lov· g and a giving God, may we not whine, But it's mine and ~ant all of it. May yod foreive JfS for our greed and selfishness. How will we a ns~en Goa .. asks ~ to pass the ranch rries. ~ llw~ J..,. r ~ o~ t~~ Q.. p~~( I -u..- GO-.-,- ~tr-41..J-r::.. Ii~/ .r 0 f '-Vfl. r. 5-28-00. Living in the Faith. Reid Staton Bible Class David L. Smiley. The world and the age in which we live is filled with questions about power & authority in the ldrshp with whic~e are served. At least once a week there is a story in the news about the abuse f power b IDse who are ent~sted with it--a few police officers who use excessiVB force; a ba~~ball co ch whose temper is so strong that he throws chairs across thel6dft, and physically attacks his players with hands and voice,; a forest service manager in the s6uthwest who decided to burn off some undergrush in a dry section of his territory as a safety measure that would De• duce the risks of a destructive fire--and as I write this the uncontrolled bla7,e has destroyed a huge number of homes and scared ev.erybody/{because it is so close to a nuclear laboratory that may contain dangerous materials. By what authority? we might well ask. \nd what of the Church pf God in Xf? In so many of the denominations and divisions of the believing communityffthere are sc~sms and divisions and battles for contro~f the retirement annut.td.es a~e decisio~s over the bti'dget. Power--and authority -- and their u~, among generals in the army, and politicians in high office, the news is unpleasant, even frightening. Many years ago I read a line from someone--dictator• ship is not a form of govt; it is a state of mind, and it is found everywhere, in a business of• fice, in a classroom, or on the job. Just to mention authority raises eyebrowsfland brings a sneer and causes questions about who may benefit--the ancient rtomans had a proverb about that--and who may be deprived. Those to whom the Bible is their authority, dis~gree about which verse, or which sentence, should take precedence in deciding the matter. Clearly, issues of power & authority will not fade away with the rising of the sun; nor will rf" help to put power into the hands of others, who have never before exercised it. One of the endlessly repeated lessons of history is, that given the opportunity, the oppressed are easily tempted to become oppressors themselves. ~or those of us in the church, a fundamental question that we must continually face, is, under what authori~y, and with wh3t kind of power, does the church of J Xr live? Te~t 2 Cor 13. ~aty today we conclude a 13-part series based upon texts from the 2 Corinthi\n lts in NT; next week, if we be given the time, we shall have a 3-month cours~ OJ!. the theme, New Life in Xr, with texts from other instructive Ltrs from Paul the Apostle, thtfQ''ni~lppi, Ephesus, Colossus, and the brief ltr to an individual named ~hilemon. Any who would ,like to have a list of topics & tP.xts should call or write. Today the text is the last Chap of 2 ~or, Chap 13. The commentators eiffer about these vv., whether what we have is indeed the conclusion of a ltr from Paul to an unruly congregation, or a fragment of another ltr, most of which is now lost. You may read it and make your own decis• ion. The chapter deals with what must have been a major disagreemt in the Church, and with Paul, about a matter that remains a mystery to us. Everybody in the Ch knew what it was, so Paul did not need to explain what be wrote about. It was a serious matter of power, and authority, even a sharply critical attack upon Paul's ministry among them. The :plrt of 2 Cor that contains his re• sponse is in Chaps 10-13, of which we read only a portion. A careful reading of the entire seg• ment of the ltr is worthtthe time. It is in 4 parts. Ch 10 is Paul's strong defense of his own apostolic work among them; part 2, Ch 11, first half--Paul's attack upon unnamed false prophets who appeared in Corinth as described themselves as "super11 apostles; part 3, 11:16 to 12:10, in which Paul boasted, not of his own activities, but instead of all that he had suffered in his mis• sionary journeys; and finally, P;:iul's concern for the he'3lth of the Ch as the body of Xr, from 12: 11 to the end of 13. It ends with one of the most beautiful, and most meaningful, blessing in any of Paul's remaining epistles, in v. 14. It is a trinitarian prayer, and is another sentence that we should underline, memori~€, copy out to put on the mirror where we will see it often ••• grace, love, felshp, are the gifts of the three-person God. But we need to read theJi.e sentences of the assigned te~t, 2 Cor 13•1-14. Paul began his words to the Corinth~an chu:rch with a remind~r that he was planning his 3d visit to them, and they were behaving as if they were at war w/themselves ·If Because he planned to bring evidence of their misconduct he ·:cited the ancient law regarding wit• nesses--3: l is from Deut 19:15--and he may have meant that 3 visits to them represented the 3 wit• nesses that were required to establish a fact. Paul made it clear that he did not wish to disci• pline the members, though he had the authority to do so. Mis preference was that they confessed the errors of their ways, and repented •• It was not his own standing that was at issue, but the church itself. For that reason he acted to instruct them,and threatened to deal more firmly with then when he came. To begin the ministry of instructing them, he asked them to examine themselves, to see whether they are living in the faith. This is a significant point that he made, worth not- ~ and thinking about. It is in two p:irts, one in vv 3-4, the other in v.5. Note that when his critics attacked him,~\resoonded not with sweet-talk, about h~w much he prayed, or suffered, to oreach to them. He went to the bedrock faith of the gospel. His authority flowed from his under• standing of the combination of weakness_.& strength that Jesus showed in his passion. It is the fundamental par2dox of Good triday and Easter. At the cross J permitted people to do with him w~at the~ ~ant~ he did not resist. The ~orinthians had rejected Paul's criticism of them on his 2d visit; .now he would give them anc examnIa of Xr's weakness ip the will of God. As one of those who held the coats of those who stoned the martyr ~tephen to death, ?aul learned that he had participated in the persecutioh of Xns, and therefore in a senseljhe was part of the,plot to kill the prophet. And because he was a"witness in a vision to the risen Lord, he understood the power of God over death andtthe grave. So when his opponents in Corinth pushed him, he responded by reminding them of the very heart of the gospel, that in weakness & in strength God worked to provide salvation for the human race. Even yet there are people who accuse Xr of being spineless and a weakling. Messiah could call upon armies of angels to fight his battle; he came in power, not as a helpless infant. Yet it was the way of God for him. It was not a weakness that. lacked power to resist; it was the strength that refused to resist, because it was God's way of salvation. When I was a small boy in a small town in Mississippi, I went to a small movie theatre to see a film--it may have been the celebrated l\ing of "\ings--it was a bout Jesus. When the mob turned upon him, an~. the Roman soldiers took him, I still remember my anger, and my tears. but what I said to myself,flOh, how I wish I had been there with a machine-gun! ~ut in Xr there was divinely provided power ih human weakness. Paul also lived in the weakness that is human, and in the limitless pwr of the risen Xr. As someone put it, if charater was needed, all the strength of J's character is in him; if h~needs to speak, Xr will speak in him--see 2:17. He had the mind of Xr,2:16, for Xr lived in him---Oal 2:20. At the time ofcrisis in Corinth, paul emphasized the gospel truth that our salvation came from the combination of weakness & power at J's death/~nd resurrection. Of that we may have no doubt. He also called uoon them to examine themselves to see whether they remained in the faith. To Paul, Faith is an unshakable certainty that in Xr God walked the earth, took on human nature and likeness, and that in Him we have life (1abundantly, and eternally. Seeing is not believing, however often we hear that line. Seeing is seeing; believing is KNOWing in the absence of proof to our senses. Faith, someone has said, is the sense-perception by which we KNOW the un• seeable, and walk in confidence in that knowledge. There is a children's book in which a small boy named Curdie is sent upon a mission to save the princess. He came to a tall ~ound tower beside the sea; his angel-li~e guide urged him to enter it, and walk up the circular staircase to the top, where there was a door. Open it, and enter, the guide whispered. But when he opened the door there was nothing but air on the other side, and far below it were huge stones upon which the waves of the sea dashed. Go in, the guide told him; but he was afraid. Go, she told him; no harm will come to you. So, slowly, he put a foot on the other side of the door, and as he did, a portion of floorliformed beneath him. And as he walked in faith, bhe room took shape~ and be• came real. To try to understand the spiritual by the sense-perception of vision, nevervorks. It would be like 8utting a blind person before a masterpiece of art, and ask if sh.fl could smell the colors in it; or a deaf person in an orchestra hall, and asking, can you~ the chords? No; we sense the presence of the spirit by the perception of faith, and we know joy and peace and the matchless love of God for us. For as we trust,we have Xr-within us, just as we are in'Xr. Paul wrote often of Xns as being "in Xr ;" but only rarely did he change the wording as he did here, v , 5, as of Xr in us--Xr in you, the hope of glory, Col 1:27. Just as our bodies are the temples of God, so also the local church, wherever it meets and whether small or large, is the visible body of Xr on earth, living in faith until He comes again. If you follow the KJV you will see an archaic English word in vv 5,6,7, reprobate; it means those whom God has condemned to suffer anEt.ernity in qell, preordained to reject God's offer of salvation. So read those lines, you know that Xr is in you, unless you be among the unacceptable; do whst is honest, do no evil, un• less we are among the rejected. We can do nothing agairnt the truth--it is a losing battle, for truth will stan~a ainst all efforts to overcome it--and our caring pastor prays constantly that we become perfec in every way, v.~. Therefor~ Paul wrote these things before he cdme1 to them, otherwise hem gt use sharpness of speech, according to the power--in other translats authority-• v.10, which he us.es for edification, a Latin word that means building up and not tearing down, as other readings put it. In his conclusion he returned again to the imagery of weakness~ strength, but with new meaning, v.9. If th~ church people of Corinth will repent of their wron~doing, then when he sees them again he will not need to use force/streng!f°t'Vpower, or be severe with them. Here he suggests that discipline can be des;,ructive, and may even represent failure in his teaching & oreaching to those people. He considered it to any who called his work a failure. What he used as his response was his folwg Xr in suffering, and in combining thew eakness of the Cross with the power of the resurrection. That was his proof that he had not failed in his mission. He had been weak as 1.r was weak on the cross, and he has been as strong as Xr was strong in defeating death. With those ideas echoing thru our minds, we come to the inexpressibly beautiful benedic• tion to the letter. Finally my brothers 8.'.. sisters, farewell. The original may also be read, re• joice, be haopy, wal~ as if your feet had wings, for life is beautiful when lived in truat. Be perfect, put things in order, or we could read, mend your ways, may your ways be mended, under• standing God as .the loving Father who does the mending. Listen to my apoeal, and agree with one another, encou~age one another. These are..ords intended to correct a divided church and to make it a felwsho •• He.ur~ed the.members to greet one another wiLb a holy kiss· when I was a small bov in a sma i.t t.own in Ml.ssissiopi 1 always giggJ.eawwnen t.nat, line was reaa in meeting. But ~l.'t remains a healthy and edifying practice. The blessing has 3 clauses, which emphasize the results fa unified body of believers--grace that makes us Xn, love of God from which redemltion co s, and the communion of the Spirit hat gives us strenryth to face the~rld in the name of God.