Uncommon Courage

John 14: 15– 18, 25– 27; 15: 26– 27; 16: 33 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you.

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.

You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

1 Corinthians 3: 9– 15; 15: 20– 28

For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—

the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.

If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward.

If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;

for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power.

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him.

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

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In this letter from Paul to the Corinthians,

         he is addressing a church that is fractured,

         that is made up of people who are in conflict

         because some of them are fans of Paul,

         some are fans of Apollo,

         and some are fans of other church leaders.

But Paul reminds them that he laid a foundation, and the foundation is Christ.

The foundation of the church is Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christ is our only foundation. There is no other.

And Christ says to us today, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

And what are Christ’s commandments to us? To love God with all we have, and with all we are; and to love one another. Even those who are hard to love. Even our enemies.

But, wow. Our list of enemies keeps on growing.

·      Terrorists killing people all over the world.

·      Politicians who fall short of our expectations, who offer not hope but dread.

·      All sorts of persons we perceive as “others” and therefore not trustworthy or safe.

·      Threats of illnesses ranging from cancer to Zeka virus, all seemingly out of our control. These are not human enemies, per se, but things we see as enemies nevertheless, to be fought against, to protect ourselves from, along with all the rest.

All these enemies of our good lives push us toward fear, and away from courage.

And in the midst of this, Christ says to us – take courage!

Yeah, right.

But you see, Christ didn’t say – take courage – I know you can do it!

Christ said – take courage – I have conquered the world.

Christ said – I will send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. You will do all things through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We do nothing good by our own power.

·      The power we have comes from the Holy Spirit.

·      The courage we need to do what is good and what is right – that also comes from the Holy Spirit.  

·      And when we step out in faith, it is there for us to rely upon.

o   Both as individuals and as the church of Jesus Christ.

When Paul speaks of God’s temple, he is speaking of the church.

And God’s temple is holy – not because we holy people are in it, but because God’s Holy Spirit dwells in it. And we are called to live as if we not only realize that, but that we are willing to act in line with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Paul says that when the firestorms of life come, and they will come, then what is temporary things will burn away, but what matters will not burn away – those things will be refined and strengthened. They will be purified.

So the question for us is this: do we understand Christ to be our rescuer in crisis – meaning when we are not in crisis, we can push Christ’s call, as we hear it through the Holy Spirit, to the sidelines in the meantime?

Do we place our trust elsewhere these days for the foundational things of our life – do we place it on governments, on family members, on the support of friends, or on our own self – our own achievements, our own capabilities, our own ability to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”?

This is not what Paul has in mind.

In a commentary on this passage, Mark Tranvik writes, “Christ is not merely one option among many, but the very source or foundation from which we live our lives.”

If we choose to live our lives trusting other sources, we do so to our own peril.

But – will Christ as our foundation keep us out of trouble?

In a word, no.

Christ did not ever promise his followers an easy life or a safe life.

Christ tells us in today’s gospel reading, “In this world you face persecution. But take heart – I have conquered the world!”

So what ever made us think that the purpose of our lives was to avoid persecution or trouble?

What ever made us think that being a follower of Christ would create for us some sort of inherent privilege?

Certainly it was not the Living Word, the Holy Scripture, that ever gave us that idea.

None of the disciples of Christ had easy lives. In fact, they faced great persecution, imprisonment, torture, death at the hands of oppressors. And they did not try to avoid any of that. Christ had told them it was coming, as a consequence of following him.

We need to remember that much of the New Testament was written from inside prison.

Following Christ means flipping the way we live completely upside down.

Let’s see what this might look like. (video: How strange behavior can save the day.)

Now, we all know that taking this courageous approach doesn’t guarantee what we would call a happy ending, a good outcome as we would perceive it.

They don’t all end up good.

It was only a little more than a year ago that nine people in a Charleston prayer group, all black, welcomed a white man who came to join them.

And after praying with them for an hour, he shot and killed them all.

A horrific ending to a similar sort of situation, a case of behaving opposite to what your instincts might tell you to do.

But beloved in Christ,

         how it ends up is not the purpose

         of us flipping our behaviors upside down.

The purpose is to be faithful followers of Christ,

         not fearing death,

         but courageously loving without focusing on the outcome.

It’s about accepting that Christ has conquered the world,

         and so we have nothing to fear.

         Come what may.

I was watching news coverage Friday on the terrorist attack in Nice, France.

The news reporter gave the number of persons who were dead,

         and then this caption appeared as a follow-up:

        

         “50 persons between life and death”.

Of course this was meant to say that 50 persons were critically injured, hovering between life and death.

But the words struck me….

         because aren’t we all between life and death?

And through our baptism, as Christians, have we not already moved from death to life eternal in Christ?

And since Christ has conquered death for us, then how can we, how shall we, choose to live our lives?

We now that someday we will be judged by God. And we can be thankful that God is merciful, and we can be hopeful about our judgment based upon this.

We have choices all the time as we walk this journey between life and death and life eternal.

Choosing kindness and love is what we were made for.

With Christ as our foundation and the Holy Spirit

         as our Advocate and guide,

         we can trust that God will work within us,

         that God will see our heart,

         even when kind acts are not reciprocated,

that God will know when we aimed

·      for love over hate

·      for inclusion over exclusion

·      for generosity over profit

·      for self-giving over self-protecting.

These are the things that will be refined as the troubles and firestorms of life occur.

And, friends, God will also know when we choose

·      hate over love

·      exclusion over inclusion

·      profit over generosity

·      self-protection over self-giving.

And these are the things that will not last.

God will judge the world, all of us, by the way that we have chosen to live our lives.

We will not be judged by our successes –

         for only God produces the outcomes of our actions.

But we will be judged by our faithfulness – by our choices –

         by whether we have reflected trust

         in the direction of the Holy Spirit,

         or whether we have relied

         on our own perceived knowledge of right and wrong,

         our own limited view of good and evil.

I pray that we may give ourselves up,

         more and more, to trusting in the urgings of the Holy Spirit,

         knowing that even though life is not easy or safe,

         that we are never alone, and that in the end,

         come what may, in ways beyond our understanding,

         in Christ, all will be made well.

Amen.

Secret Agents in God’s Mutuality Mission

John 10:11-18

“I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The hired hand,

who is not the shepherd

and does not own the sheep,

sees the wolf coming

and leaves the sheep and runs away—

and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

The hired hand runs away

because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd.

I know my own

and my own know me,

just as the Father knows me

and I know the Father.

And I lay down my life for the sheep.

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.

I must bring them also,

and they will listen to my voice.

So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For this reason the Father loves me,

because I lay down my life

in order to take it up again.

No one takes it from me,

but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have power to lay it down,

and I have power to take it up again.

I have received this command from my Father.”

Ephesians 5:15-6:9

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.

Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself,

and a wife should respect her husband.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

“Honor your father and mother”—this is the first commandment with a promise:  “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.

And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

Hebrews 13:1-8




Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

So we can say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper;

I will not be afraid.

What can anyone do to me?”

Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.




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There is a saying on a tile that is hung on the wall in my house. It says this:

In this place:

We do love

We do laughter

We do mistakes

We do forgiveness

We do family.

I guess you could call it a kind of household code. At least it is the code I would wish for my household.

And you might think that the emphasis should be on the things it says we do – Love, laughter, mistakes, forgiveness. Family.

But I believe it is every bit as important that it says “We” do these things. No one person is more or less responsible for them. We love one another. We laugh and bring joy to one another. We make mistakes, we all do. We forgive one another. We are family.

There is a mutuality in this. We own this household code together.

In Ephesians today, Paul has taken what was a familiar household code at that time, and remixed it to provide instruction on the new code of life for Christians. This passage is not one that pastors are typically eager to take on, and it is one that congregations can feel squeamish about hearing. That’s understandable, because it has often been used out of context, and held up as justification for a moral code that emphasizes power and privilege over mutual love and respect. But we are studying and proclaiming the Word of God this year based upon the 52 chapters of the Brian McLaren book, We Make the Road by Walking, and whether we like it or not, this week’s chapter 47, entitled “The Spirit Conspiracy”, is based upon this Ephesians passage, as well as the passage from Hebrews we heard, and two others from the letters and epistles that follow the four gospels. So as much as I might have liked to avoid this passage, we shall explore it and mine it for what God wants us to learn from it.

The bookends of this Ephesians passage provide the principal themes. At the beginning, verse 21 in chapter 5 states, “Be subject to one another, submit to one another, out of reverence for Christ.” And at the end, verse 9 in Chapter 6 states, “with God there is no partiality, no favoritism.” The examples in between take three common relationships and the way they would have been experienced in the culture of that time, and turn them upside down to reveal how Christ serves the church, and so how we should serve one another.

Let’s talk about the meaning of “being subject to one another” first.

Subjecting yourself to one another, the act of mutual submission, is expressed here by Paul as an act of reverence to Christ. Paul often instructs the church to behave as Christ behaves. When we think of Christ getting up from the table, wrapping a towel around his waist, and kneeling down to wash the feet of his disciples, we have an absolute example of what it means to subject ourselves to one another.

In John’s gospel, Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. This shepherd subjects himself to the sheep. The work of the shepherd is the work of submission, of going so far as to risk his life to save the sheep. When Jesus goes to the cross to save us, Jesus is submitting himself to us. Paul calls us to submit ourselves to one another.

If we think about the word “submission”, and unpack it to explore its meaning, we can see even deeper into what Paul is telling us.

Sub mission. Sub – as in supporting – and mission – as in, well, mission. So a submission is a support of something primary.

So when we submit to one another out of reverence to Christ, then we are committing to supporting one another’s life of discipleship.

So wives submit to husbands AS wives submit to Christ.

AND – husbands love their wives JUST AS Christ loved the church and GAVE HIMSELF UP for her. To give oneself up for another is to submit to her. So husbands submit to wives AS Christ, the good shepherd, submits himself for the life of the church, for the sake of God’s people. Just as wives submit to husbands. Mutual submission.

The same with parents and children. Children obey parents, AND parents don’t push children into anger. Mutual submission.

At the time Paul was writing these letters, it was common in a household for there to be a master and household slaves. Paul takes this work relationship and uses it to provide another example of mutual submission, saying that masters should do the same to slaves as slaves do to their masters. Paul’s intent here does not appear to be the justification of slavery, but rather the display, once again, of mutual submission as what Christ intends for the world, what Christ has displayed for us, what we ought to do as slaves of Christ.

Just as we have been freed from death by Christ, we are now owned by Christ, we have been bought by Christ, and we are slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. We obey Christ and live our lives in obedience to Christ, out of gratitude for the freedom this life in Christ has given us. Freed people, and slaves of Christ. Another paradox, another mutual submission.

Paul sums up this section by saying “With God there is not partiality, no favoritism”. This statement alone negates the way this passage is often used to imply power of privilege or hierarchy between husband and wife, or between parent and child, or master and slave.

And so, as God’s chosen family, how do we treat each other with no favoritism, with no hierarchy, with mutual submission? This is what we read all through the gospels and the letters from the apostles – but it seems to us to be such a strange way to live. How can we be assured of our own safety and well-being, how can we make sure we are going to be OK, how can we control our own outcomes if we live like that?

Well, the answer is, we can’t. God already has control of our safety, our well-being, our outcomes, our very lives. In Christ, we live, and move, and have our being. In Christ death has been conquered, and we live forever. In Christ we let go of the things of this life and we rest assured that our lives have already been saved. Not life as we know it now, but life as God has given it to us – true freedom in Christ, true life lived in the confidence and trust that there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love, true communion with the Holy Spirit. And yes, this is foreign to the world as we know it. This is why we are called to be in the world but not of it.

The mission statement recently adopted by New Life Presbyterian Church attests to the contradiction between what the organizations and systems and powers and principalities attempt to enslave us in, and the upside down nature of the kingdom of God. Please turn to the inside front cover of your bulletin and, as I read the mission statement out loud, think about what first steps we must take to support this mission – to be in submission, in support of mission, submitting our lives to the call that we are hearing from God in this place, at this time.

Assured of the new life we have received in Christ, we will live out our faith together through worship, prayer, education, fellowship, and mission. 

Being called to love all people, we will use our gifts to serve God in an imperfect world. 

Equipped with our faith and filled with the Spirit, we will:    

• reach out in acceptance to a diverse community;
• embrace the marginalized and show love to all;
• feed the hungry and care for the sick;
• search for peace and work for justice.

This is why being a follower of Christ is akin to being a secret agent for the Holy Spirit – living our lives in submission to the mission of our Lord and Savior – the mission of mutual self-giving love – between spouses, between parents and children, between work colleagues, bosses and subordinates alike, between neighbors, between faith communities, between one another – knowing there is no “other”, but that we are all part of God’s family, beloved children, heirs of the kingdom. And in this place, as we gather around the table to be fed, to receive sustenance, to be equipped for submission to the mission, here in this place…

We do love,

we do laughter,

we do mistakes,

we do forgiveness,

we do family.