Following the (Perfect) Leader

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
Matthew 5:38-48     

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God says to Moses, Tell the people of Israel, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

Jesus says to the crowd assembled on the hill, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?”

Wow. This is a pretty tall order. God is holy, is perfect, and we are called to be as well, since, after all, God’s Spirit dwells in each and every one of us.

How are we supposed to be holy, like God; what does it mean to be perfect, as God is perfect?

Well, fortunately for us, God gives Moses specific details on what being holy is all about. And Jesus, when he says, “therefore”, be perfect as God is perfect, is summing up the instruction he has just given. And in both cases, it’s all about relationships.

The details of being holy, of being perfect (and the Greek word that is translated here as “perfect” also means “complete”) – the details describe how God desires to be in relationship with us, and how we are to be in relationship with God, and THEREFORE how we are to be in relationship with one another – because, as Paul says, each of us is God’s temple, and God dwells in each and every one of God’s children.

So in Leviticus, we get a list of ordinary actions in everyday places, in everyday relationships. This is how we are called to be holy.

·      Leave behind some of your harvest in the field; don’t strip it clean. Leave it for the poor, for those whose crops failed or were insufficient, so others do not go hungry.

·      Don’t steal what belongs to someone else.

·      Don’t tell a lie, even when it seems harmless to do so.

·      Be a good employer, and pay someone on time for work they have done.

·      You are holy, according to Leviticus, when you try not to make life more difficult for someone with a disability,  when you don’t walk by a neighbor in trouble, when you don’t gossip, or slander, or hold a grudge.

·      You are holy when you treat everyone fairly and equally, when you are not influenced by pity or by greed.

·      You are holy when you don’t say, “Oh, God”, unless you really do want God’s attention.

·      Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Why? Because I am the Lord, and I love you, and I love your neighbor, too, just as much. So you shall do that too, because you are called to behave like me – in a holy way.

With this in mind, when we turn to the words of Jesus, we can see the parallels between what God tells us it takes to be holy, and what Jesus tells us it takes to be perfect. To be complete.

Jesus is talking about the same behaviors, providing really strong examples; ones that, frankly, make it sound a lot more challenging.

Jesus is not just talking about how to treat those who are in need, who you feel pity and compassion for – the poor, the hungry, your neighbor. Jesus is telling us how to treat those who oppress us, those who make us poor, or hungry, or diminished. And when Jesus walked on earth, there was plenty of oppression going on. People understood what it was like to have their cheek struck for no reason, or their coat to be taken, to be forced to carry a Roman soldier’s pack for a mile. When Jesus instructs kindness even in these circumstances, it’s not that he’s saying accepting oppression is easy, that loving your enemy is a simple and straightforward thing. What he is saying is, when you do this, you let go of the burden this oppression creates for you otherwise. You cease to worry about protecting your possessions, your coat or your cloak or your time on the road, or even protecting your life. It’s when we are compelled to protect all these things we accumulate, we want, that life becomes complicated. And it’s when we want to maintain a line between our friendly neighbors and our enemies, that we become focused on fear, and when we can no longer do those things that make us holy, make us like God.

So, yeah. Being perfect can be hard, even when the individual elements are straightforward. And being perfect takes practice. Lots and lots of practice.

As I watched the Olympics ice dancing team competition last week, paying particular attention to this event because of all the Michigan connections of so many of the teams, from all over the world, I began to notice how the commentators would point out, for those of us who were not so familiar with the intricate details of the sport, where the errors popped up. Those little things that would cost points.

And then Charlie White and Meryl Davis came out for their short dance performance, the night before they won the gold medal. And it was perfection – the highest score ever for that competition. No errors here. Let’s take a look.

Charlie White and Meryl Davis

Clearly, to compete this perfectly takes years of practice and hard work. And those Olympic athletes who have not been perfect in Sochi also have been working hard and practicing for many years. For them this is a total commitment, a top priority. But that does not guarantee perfection.

Likewise, we cannot be perfectly holy, no matter how hard we try. But God is not looking for us to win a gold medal. God wants us to try, in our relationships with everyone, to be holy in the way God has described holiness.  And God loves and forgives us, no matter how well we do.

That’s because we are God’s children, and God loves us unconditionally. Much like the “mom” commercials they’ve been showing during the Olympics, where we see how these athletes were supported and encouraged by their moms as they grew, that’s what God does for us as a loving parent. God forgives us when we fall, or fail, or turn away. God encourages us to try again, over and over.  God helps us when we ask for help. Like a loving mom or dad. God is always encouraging us to do those things that, with practice, will let us be more holy, be more perfect, be more complete in our relationships, both with God and with God’s children. We love, because God first loves us.

A week from Wednesday begins the season of Lent, which is a time for us to reflect on who we are, and whose we are, and on the meaning of the gift of salvation through the resurrection and death of Jesus Christ. The first day of Lent we will worship together, here, on Ash Wednesday, at 7 PM. This will be a service where you will have the opportunity, if you choose, to come forward and be marked with ashes on your hand or your forehead, to remind us of the mystery that, even as we are God’s temple, that we are also dust.

I ask the ushers now to hand out, and you can pass them along down each pew, a question for each of you on a small piece of paper. It says “You are a child of God. What keeps you from becoming the person God created you to be?” Please think and pray about this question, and write down one thing (not THE one thing, but also not EVERY thing; just one thing) that you feel holds you back from fully becoming the holy, perfect, complete person God created you to be? Please fold up your paper – it’s between you and God, it’s not meant to be read by anyone else – and either place it as an offering when the offering plates come around, or else bring it to Christ’s table after worship and leave it on the table there. Give it to God, and let it go. I will gather them all up, and I will set them aflame, all together, this week (safely) - and they will become the ashes we will use on Ash Wednesday.

Let us pray.

Gracious God, we thank you that we are your beloved children, and that you want the best for all of us. And we thank you for the many ways you show us how it’s up to each us to make that happen for all your beloved children. Lord, you have shown us the Way. Lord, because of you, the Way, the living Word, has walked among us to show us what it means to be your beloved children. Help us to acknowledge, and to let go, of those things that keep us from being holy, and complete, and perfect. Keep forgiving us, and encouraging us, and lifting us up so we can try, again, and again, to truly love one another as you love us, all to your glory. We ask this in Christ’s name, Amen.

The Choices We Make

Deuteronomy 30: 15-20

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them,

I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live,

loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?

For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," are you not merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building.

Matthew 5: 21-24

"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

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During the time between finishing school and joining all of you here, I had a six-month-or so “mini-sabbatical”. I was no longer working, I was no longer taking classes, and I was not yet able to receive a call, needing to be six months longer as a Candidate before I could begin my search. 

And so I bought books to read – many more books than I had time to read.

One of the books I bought captured my attention because the title seemed to speak to the call that pulled me away from corporate life and toward ministry.

It was called Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition. It’s written by Brian Mahan. And like many books on my shelf, I got partway through it but haven’t finished it yet. 

But a story at the very beginning of it stuck with me.

It’s a story about a young woman named Pam, who the author, a professor at the University of Colorado, met when she was a senior there. When he asked her what her plans were for the coming year, a question he often asked seniors pretty casually, he was surprised to hear her say that she was going into the Peace Corps.

She affirmed that it was a really difficult decision, especially because she had been accepted at Yale Law School as well.

The next day the professor brought up Pam’s decision in his ethics class.

And because of the way the discussion went, that first time, he has brought “the Case of Pam” into this ethics class each time he has taught it since then.

You see, the way the conversation went was something like this: first of all, people were polite and nonjudgmental – “well, if that’s what she wants to do, more power to her”.

Then the second wave of the conversation turned a bit more toward questioning her choice, and even some self-reflection: “I wonder if she knew she could apply for deferred admission, maybe go to Yale for Law School after the Peace Corps”,

or “I wonder if her parents were upset, after they spent all that money on her for undergrad, to not take the opportunity at Yale and to go in the Peace Corps instead”, or, “it’s strange that she didn’t realize she could do more for the poor coming out of law school than being in the Peace Corps…”.

And the third wave of the discussion then turned into something like this: “I wonder if she’s just afraid to go to Yale? It’s awfully competitive and tough there”; or “this way she has the prestige of the Yale acceptance, and she also looks like a sensitive person, going into the Peace Corps; I wonder what she’s trying to prove?”

And then someone said, “did it ever occur to you that maybe she lied about getting into Yale Law School? Maybe she didn’t get in, and she’s using the Peace Corps to save face. After all, if she really got in, does anyone think that she wouldn’t have gone?”

The script of our society, of our culture, about success and failure, is this: Choose Yale, and gracefully forgo the Peace Corps. This script, this expectation, is what drove all the angles and suspicions the class brought up, term after term, about this decision.

What does take to resist the pull of our culture toward high achievement, to turn from ambition to vocation, from success to service?

Each of our three scripture passages today puts the issue of choice in front of us.

In Deuteronomy, Moses is giving his farewell speech to the Israelites, after 40 years of wandering in the desert. He knows that they will cross over to the Promised Land, and that he will not go. And so he wants to remind them about all the things they should have learned during this “long enough” time of wandering. And here, in his summation, he says to them, I have placed in front of you life and prosperity, or death and adversity. You have a choice, and you must make the choice. Whichever you choose will have consequences. Follow God, and do not serve other gods and idols, and you will be blessed and live long in the land you are entering. But turn away from God, and serve other gods, and you will not live long in this new land you are entering. It’s your choice.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he is continuing the conversation with them that we heard from him a few weeks ago – if you choose to focus on being part of the “right team”, and following the “right leader”, then you are choosing the ways of the flesh over the ways of Christ. Each of these teams are fine, but they are all part of God’s plan.  One team plants, another waters – but God gives the growth. As long as you are caught up in jealousy and quarreling, you are showing yourself to be spiritually immature, he tells them – like infants needing milk rather than solid food. We have a common purpose. We are part of God’s one field, God’s one building, God’s one kingdom. There is no room for divisions, and if you choose them, you turn away from God.

And in the Gospel according to Matthew, as part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to choose reconciliation over division. If you are angry with a brother or sister, if you insult someone, if you call someone a fool, you have reconciliation work that needs to be done, and it cannot wait. Don’t come to the table with an offering to God while that sort of thing is left unresolved; go to the one with whom you are quarreling, and be reconciled. Do what needs to be done for reconciliation – it’s our first priority.

The choices laid out here are clear. Choose God over other priorities. Choose God over other teams that appear to lead to success. Choose reconciliation in God over the win/lose situations that divide us. To choose God is to live peaceably with one another, in harmony with one another, to not get caught up in our own ambitions or desires for success, but to put our relationship with God and with one another at the top of our lives.

Our college senior friend Pam chose vocation over ambition, chose service over success. The students in the ethics classes that discussed this case study could not comprehend the choice of service over success that was reflected in the Peace Corps rather than Yale Law School. Our culture does not lead us naturally in this direction; in fact, it raises suspicions when somebody makes that choice.

For us to be the church of Jesus Christ, to really follow God and set aside success in order to choose service, we need to step away from what looks “normal” or “right” from a cultural standpoint, and follow the Lord of Salvation, who washed the feet of his disciples, who rejected the temptation by Satan that would have shown his power and authority, who submitted to the scandal of crucifixion on the cross, who came not to be served but to serve, who emptied himself. Jesus calls us to first be reconciled to one another, and then to serve him by feeding his sheep, tending his lambs, loving one another, doing the things that make no sense in a world driven by ambition, but are the things that truly satisfy the longing in our hearts, and that will bring about the kingdom of God. So let us be about these things, together, as the congregation of New Life Presbyterian Church. And we can trust that God will lead us, will show us, step by step, just how to do this, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To Draw Near and To See

Luke 10: 25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”  He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’  Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

 “To Draw Near and To See”

The question in this passage that generally gets the most attention is this one: Hey, just who is my neighbor, anyway? The theologian Eugene Peterson calls this a trick question – and that this lawyer is looking for a loophole when he poses it.

Of course, Jesus is not easily duped by this guy. And so he tells a story, and ends with a question posed right back to the lawyer – not who is MY neighbor, but – Who WAS the neighbor to the man in trouble?

And given the choice of three responses – the priest, a leader in the Jewish faith; or the Levite, who was something like a designated lay priest; or the Samaritan, who was considered not even worthy of attention by a Jew – this lawyer can not even bring himself to say “the Samaritan”. He responds instead by saying, “the one who showed him mercy.”

To which Jesus says, OK – go and do likewise. Go and show mercy.

Go and be sure that you don’t just walk on by, like the others did.

So why did the Samaritan show mercy when the others did not?

The other two saw him, but then crossed over to the other side of the road. Only the Samaritan drew near. And that is what led him to truly see this man’s awful situation – he had been beaten and left for dead – and so to be “moved with pity. Now pity can be defined as a gut level feeling of empathy for the suffering of others. And being moved means doing something about it.

How many of you have ever seen the movie “Tootsie”? This is the movie where Dustin Hoffman takes on the persona of a woman to get work, and gets into all sorts of crazy situations, and of course he learns a lot in the process. There’s a short video clip of an interview with Dustin Hoffman that was popular on the internet recently.

In it, he talks about an epiphany he had that came from drawing near, and experiencing the world through the filter of another.

Dustin Hoffman Interview Clip

What do these two stories have in common – the Samaritan’s response to the man who has been attacked by robbers, and Dustin Hoffman’s reaction to being made up to look like a woman?

Both stories include a description of what happens when we “walk on by”, and also the impact of “drawing near”, coming close.

Hoffman’s epiphany was that he realized he would, in essence, “cross the street”,when a woman didn’t meet his expectation for female beauty. He wouldn’t have bothered, in the past, to get to know her, or to learn what was interesting or unique or special about her, because, as he said, he had been brainwashed to believe she didn’t matter.

Because he brought himself near to the experience of another in this way, he was moved with compassion to do something.

If we don’t come close, we will not be moved.

If we don’t come close, we will not have the experience of knowing many, many, interesting people… because we, too, have been brainwashed.

Sometimes it’s because we are afraid. It may be a reasonable fear, or it may be a fear that has been passed on to us, one with no basis when it is held up to the light.

We live in a world that wants to eliminate all risk, and so we avoid anything that might go wrong, even though the odds are minimal.

We remember what we were told as children – “don’t talk to strangers” – and we continue to practice this as adults.

And we rely on the filters we’ve developed over time to tell us what’s safe and what’s not – who’s a stranger and who’s not.

But we have got to watch out for our filters getting clogged, because they can cause us to make snap decisions with long lasting, negative consequences. We must draw near to others to have any hope of knowing if our filters make sense anymore.

Sometimes it’s because we are just too busy.

Our work and our family demand our primary attention.

And then there’s time spent in exercise, and there’s choir practice and session meetings, and all the other things with which we fill our days and nights and lives. How can we possibly let anything slide if we stop to be a neighbor to someone in need?

But we must ask ourselves what priorities and idols we serve in the way we fill our lives, and what it would take to rearrange our priorities.  

For example: I remember the time my dad had a medical crisis.

I had young children, I had a high powered stressful job, and for the next four months just about everything else got minimal attention from me, so that I could be present for him and my mom.

Now, will I shift my schedule in a similar way to help another, to show mercy, to someone who’s not in my family or circle of close friends?

Sometimes it seems what little I can do won’t matter anyway. What good will a dollar or five dollars do if I give it to this homeless person, on this corner, this one time? The problem is so large, Lord, and I am so small. The tiny drop in the bucket that I can offer feels like a wasted effort. And I want my donations to be productive! Surely there must be a program out there that is trying to solve the bigger issue.

I’ll write a check to them instead.

But – the act of writing a check does not draw us near to one another, and we miss learning firsthand about the lives of the people we serve.

If we believe that God puts people and situations in front of us to teach us how to trust, and to love, and to serve, then we begin to respond differently to the people and situations we encounter. We may not be able to fix the whole problem, but often we can do something just because we were present at that moment.

Our gospels are filled with parables from Jesus about people bringing less than what is needed – the boy with five loaves and two fishes, the widow giving her last two pennies to the synagogue, even Jesus using ordinary stuff like water and mud – and from these came miracles.

 There’s an important message here for us not only as individuals, but as the church, the body of Christ, as well. This parable can help us see how the church can be a neighbor, and show mercy. But this means facing the ways we have been brainwashed as the church as well.  Can we suspend judgment, and trust, and truly be the body of Christ for those in need? Can we offer time and space to the stranger, to the lonely, to the troubled? – a willingness to stop and draw near and be moved by the compassion that we feel, not overcome by anxiousness that often arises when we consider what we ought to do? Can we show mercy by serving in new ways, even if we realize that we can’t do it all? Can we trust that God brings the right people and opportunities together, so that God’s will can be done?

When we are open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we see with new eyes. And the way we see our neighbor is the way God sees us. You see, God drew near to us, in Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate, and took pity on us, and acts with compassion toward us, caring for us far beyond what we deserve.

God willing, we will act with the same compassion, and not with fear, because of what we have been given, and how we have been loved; with the confidence that God is making all things new, and that God wants us to draw near to one another and to participate in God’s kingdom; knowing that whatever we can do, God will bring to completion.

Let’s pray.

God of grace and mercy,

Help us to draw near, as you draw near to us even now.

Help us to be neighbors to those in need, and to not just walk on by.

Move us with compassion, and give us new eyes to see the wonder in each and every person, every one your beloved child, so that we can be the kind of neighbor you desire, the kind that shows mercy beyond measure.

In Christ we pray – Amen.