It happens that we hate things we ought not to, just as we love things we ought not to. We are ordered to love our brothers, not to hate them. If you think that someone is ungodly, remember that “Christ died for the ungodly.” And if you think that because your brother is a sinner you do not have to love him, remember that “Christ came into the world to save sinners.” but if he is righteous, then he is much more worthy of love, for “God loves the righteous.”

—Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans

I think that any love without God is artificial and not genuine. For God, the Creator of the soul, filled it with the feeling of love, along with the other virtues, so that it might love God and the things which God wants. But if the soul loves something other than God and what God wants, this love is said to be artificial and invented. And if someone loves his neighbor but does not warn him when he sees him going astray or correct him, such is only a pretense of love.

—Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans

There is a “mysterious and hidden Wisdom of God. God planned it before all ages for our glory.” And this Wisdom of God is Christ;he is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

In the Book of Revelation we are shown a scroll sealed with seven seals. If you were to give it to a learned person to read, the scholar would say: I cannot, because it is sealed. How many people today, who claim to be learned, hold a sealed Book [the Bible] in their hands! And they cannot open it until the seals are broken by him “who wields David’s key and who opens and no one can close, who closes and no one can open.” Understand from this that you cannot begin to follow the Scriptures without a guide to show you the way [the Holy Spirit].

So tell me: to live in the atmosphere of these holy books, to think about them constantly, neither to know nor to look for anything beside them, is this not to live in the kingdom of heaven already, here on earth? And do not be put off, in the Scriptures, by the simplicity and bluntness of language which may be the translators’ fault or even intentional. They are always set forth in such a way that whoever comes along can find instruction so that, in one and the same sentence, both the learned and the ignorant can find the plain meaning.

I am not by any means making so wild and foolish a claim as to flatter myself that I understand everything in Scriptures: but I confess that I long to understand and am pressing on in my endeavor. So here on earth let us study these things, the understanding of which is laid up for us in heaven.

—Letter 53, to Paulinus of Nola

It was clear through unlearned persons that the cross was persuasive. In fact it persuaded the whole world. How the foolishness of God is wiser than we are, and God’s weakness stronger than we are!

In what way stronger? The living who waged war on a dead man [Jesus] proved helpless. Therefore, when a Greek tells me I am dead, he shows only that he is foolish indeed, for I, whom he thinks a fool, turn out to be wiser than those reputed wise. Paul had this in mind when he said: “The weakness of God is stronger than humankind.” That the preaching of the Apostles [Bartholomew among them] was indeed divine is brought home to us in the same way. That they were fearful and timid, the evangelist makes clear; he did not reject the fact or try to hide their weaknesses. Indeed he turned these into a proof of truth. What did he say of them? That when Christ was arrested, the others fled, despite all the miracles they had seen.

How then account for the fact that these men, who in Christ’s lifetime did not stand up to attacks by the Jews, set forth to do battle with the whole world once Christ was dead–if, as you claim, Christ did not rise and speak to them and rouse their courage? Did they perhaps say to themselves: “What is this? He could not save himself but he will protect us? He did not help himself when he was alive, but now that he is dead he will extend a helping hand to us? In his lifetime he brought no nation under his banner, but by uttering his name we will win over the whole world?” Would it not be wholly irrational even to think such thoughts, much less to act upon them?

–John Chrysostom, Homily 4 on 1 Corinthians 3-4

I cannot help but substitute atheist or secularist or politically correct for Greek in Chrysostom’s writing and see that things have not changed much over time, at least in regard to being an enemy of the cross. May God in his mercy give real wisdom to these poor lost souls so that they too might enjoy real life.

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace and truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Sermon delivered on Sunday, August 22, 2010 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. Due to technical difficulties, the audio version of this sermon is not available.

Lectionary texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! This morning I am going to preach a different kind of sermon. It is intensely real and still quite raw for me. It is about real grief and real hope. I preach it to you as an offering to God in the hopes that he will take my wife’s and my grief and use it to help you deal with your own. This is not a “how to” sermon, but rather my story of how I am attempting to be faithful in my grief. I am preaching it as much for myself as I am for you because I too need to hear some Good News right now. Consequently I ask that you hear it not just from Fr. Kevin, the priest, but also from Kevin Maney, a Christian disciple who struggles like the rest of you with all that can go wrong in this broken world of God’s.

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;
Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
If you, LORD, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

Back on July 10 of this year, a stray little kitten adopted my wife and me at the local cemetery as we were riding our bike. He was about 4 months old at the time and cute as he could be. It actually took him two nights to adopt us because we did not stop to pick him up as he chased us the first night. On the second night, being the suckers we are, Dondra and I stopped and took him with us after we found him in the same place and after he once again chased us. We named him Woodland J. Pussycat after the name of the cemetery in which we found him and called him Woody for short.

He was moving right along, enjoying his new family and growing nicely, until last Tuesday morning when we noticed his breathing was labored. We took him to the vet and then to the vet ER where we discovered he had irreparable heart disease. He didn’t respond to aggressive treatment to get the fluid off his lungs and the docs pretty much gave him no more than three months to live, if that. This forced us to make the painful decision to have him euthanized Tuesday evening about 6:30. All of this in a span of about 8 hours.

Dondra and I are both devastated by this sudden turn of events because we loved the little guy and he brought great joy to our home. Now he is gone, yet another stark reminder that we live in a world created good but which now struggles under the curse caused by human sin, and about how terribly fragile and transient mortal life is.

At this point, some of you may be scratching your head over this. “What’s the big deal over a cat?” you may ask. My wife and I are still grieving pretty intensely, in part, because we did not see this coming at all nor did we have time to process it. All of this is made worse by the fact that Woody basically adopted us. We rescued him from starvation and a sure death, only to have him die an untimely and premature death. He was a very trusting and friendly little kitten that picked up everyone’s spirits in a family where there has been grievous loss, alienation, and separation of all kinds of late. In short we loved him and quickly made him part of our family, and he responded in kind.

These are the times, then, when all we can do is to follow the psalmist’s lead in Psalm 130. We cry out to God for help, and are reminded of God’s great love and mercy for his creatures, sometimes despite appearances to the contrary. In other words, these are times that demand a human response of faith and trust in God’s great love for us in Christ.

Where is God’s Grace?

But is that all there is for Christians, to cry out in anguish to God in the midst of our grief? Does not the Christian faith have anything else to offer to help us in our grief? Thanks be to God that it does. We have the promise of the New Creation that the writer of Hebrews talks about in today’s Epistle lesson. It is essential for us to remember the hope and promise of the New Creation, especially in the midst of our grief, so that we can grieve as people with real hope, defined as a sure and certain expectation, rather than as people who have none.

What is the hope and promise of the New Creation and why is it essential for us to grasp onto it and hold it firmly? God’s New Creation, the new Heaven and Earth, is God’s promise to finally redeem all that has gone wrong in his broken and fallen world. Isaiah talks about it in the latter half of chapter 65. Paul talks about it in Romans 8. John talks about it in Revelation in chapters 21-22.

The New Creation is our final destination. It will be ushered in at Christ’s Second Coming and those who are in Christ will be raised from the dead to receive our new resurrection bodies, bodies that will be immortal and not subject to decay or death. We will be reunited with those in Christ whom we have loved and lost for a season. We will be finished with sin forever and get to live directly in God’s Presence forever. As John reminds us in Revelation, God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. There will no longer be any curse in the New Creation, the curse that our sin brought on the old creation (Genesis 3:14-19; cf. Romans 8:18-25). No wonder the writer of Hebrews exhorts us constantly to keep our eyes on the prize and run the race with perseverance! The New Creation is infinitely better than the old!

And how do we get into the New Creation? By our merits? Because we are good people or more deserving of it than others? Heaven’s no! We are allowed to live directly in God’s Presence forever because of the blood of the Lamb, shed for us so that God’s holy justice and mercy could be at once satisfied. Our destiny in the New Creation is God’s ultimate gift of love to us, secured because of the cross of Christ and validated by his mighty Resurrection.

And while there is no scriptural warrant for this, I hope (as in wish) that God in his tender mercy will redeem his innocent little creatures who loved his human creatures and who loved them. After all, if Christ died for someone the likes of me so that I might have a chance to live with him forever, he can surely redeem a sweet little creature like Woody.

Where is the Application?

So what would I like you to learn from all of this? First, it is OK to grieve and show emotion because our loss is real and our grief does not indicate a lack of faith. There is a time when our grief is too raw and we are too numb to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ and the promise of the New Creation. It is precisely during those times when it is best to give our pain up to God and leave it at that for the moment. For example, this past week, I have read Psalm 130 and Psalm 90 frequently because they express well how I feel and the hurt that I bear. Both psalms acknowledge the brokenness of the human condition but they also affirm God’s great love and mercy for us.

Second, and related to the first lesson, despite the seeming paradox regarding what I just said, it is precisely when we are grieving the most that we must turn back to Scripture to help remind us of our destiny in Christ. We may be in no condition or mood to hear it but hear it we must. I cannot tell you why it is so but the more I read Scripture, the better I have been able to persevere.  For example, in addition to the psalms I mentioned, I have also read the New Creation narratives in Isaiah, Romans, and Revelation to remind me of God’s ultimate gift of love to us. I have read the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 to remind me that God is a good and loving Creator and that the kind of things that happened to Woody and to others is not what God intended for us.

It is important to read passages like this because they serve as healthy antidotes to Satan whispering in our ear that God really does not love us or cannot help us, or that God is responsible for our grief and pain. Don’t listen to that voice. Listen to the voice of God contained in Scriptures. Find verses that speak to you in those times and rehearse them as often as you can. Make this a priority! When you are in real trouble, turn (or return) to God’s word in Scripture for real help. Your grief will not magically disappear but you will be better equipped to deal with it.

Third, offer your pain and hurt up to God in prayer. Be honest with him. Tell him how badly you hurt and ask him to bring comfort and healing to you in his time and in his way. Ask him to use your grief to teach you what he will, even when it is not obvious to you. Ask him to strengthen your faith in the midst of your sorrow so that you will be equipped to persevere. Ask others to pray for you as well. There is no magical formula here. Simply lay your broken heart at God’s throne and ask him to do with it as he will. If you are worried that he might further break your heart if you offer it to him, resist that temptation by remembering the cross of Christ and the horrible death he suffered for you so that you can live with him forever. The God who became human to die for you so that you can live will not break further your already broken heart.

Fourth, let God’s people comfort you. Turn to your Christian friends or spouse or small group for help and let God love on you through them. I cannot tell you what a help and comfort my wife has been to me this past week, just by being there for me and holding me as I cried like a baby over that little kitten who stole my heart. I hope I have done likewise for her as well. Don’t be too proud to let God love you through other faithful souls.

If you are asked to comfort those who grieve, remember that your presence is more important than anything you can say or do. One of my favorite book titles is Don’t Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart. We hate seeing people grieve and want desperately to make them feel better, which is really beyond our immediate power, although perhaps not beyond our ultimate power in Christ. This leads to all kinds of poor or awkward attempts to deliver comfort to the afflicted when there is none to be had. When you are uncomfortable or don’t know what to say, then simply let your presence do the talking or acknowledge the person’s hurt or pain instead of trying to fix it.

Summary

We live in a broken and fallen world because of human sin, sin that has real and dire consequences to it. Consequently we must inevitably face grief. But we are a people who can grieve with hope because we have the sure and certain expectation of the New Creation, God’s ultimate gift of love and grace to us, and that makes all the difference in the world.

I started this sermon by telling you about our little kitten and how I am handling my grief over his untimely and unfair death. In doing so I hope I have offered you some real help and hope, help and hope that is based on Christ, not me. In closing I would be remiss if I did not remind you to also thank God in all things, for he loves you and cares for you and is generous to you beyond description. And so let me practice what I preach and close this sermon by offering a quick prayer of thanks to God.

Let us pray. Thank you, merciful God, for blessing our house with your little creature, Woodland J. Pussycat, even if it was only for 5 weeks. Help mend the Maneys’ broken hearts and be pleased to remind us all that in you we have Good News in any and every situation, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

The One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today. To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because he assures us of God’s love for us. He sets us free from guilt because he died for us, from the prison of our own self-centredness by the power of his resurrection, and from paralysing fear because he reigns, all the principalities and powers of evil having been put under his feet. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship. He introduces us into his new community, the new humanity he is creating. He challenges us to go out into some segment of the world which does not acknowledge him, there to give ourselves in witness and service for him. He promises us that history is neither meaningless nor endless, for one day he will return to terminate it, to destroy death and to usher in the new universe of righteousness and peace.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, I Believe in Preaching 154

Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

—Job 2:3-13 (TNIV)

Today, the story about Satan’s diabolical plot to drive a permanent and irrevocable wedge between God and humans continues. Satan intends to show God that even (or perhaps especially) the righteous and godly do what they do because it pays, i.e., they are rewarded for doing good. This would show God that his creation is radically flawed, that redemption is unthinkable because even the most godly of people would be exposed as really being evil. God would therefore have no basis in taking delight in the righteous because they are the most self-serving of all.

Two things stand out in this passage. First, that Satan can use even our loved ones as vehicles of temptation. Notice here that he implicitly uses Job’s wife to tempt Job to curse God. (Read Job’s comment about foolish women in its context. Job is not saying that all women are foolish; he is simply calling his wife foolish for suggesting he curse God.) In the midst of our sorrow, in the depths of our despair, we must always be on guard against falling into Satan’s snare and temptations. In my experience, this is one of the hardest things to do and that is why we must call out to God for help.

Second, we are introduced to Job’s three friends and they perform their duty as grief counselors magnificently. Notice they do not offer platitudes or try to fix Job’s despair. Instead they grieve with him and they do so silently. The next time you are called to offer help to those who grieve or are in despair, remember this lesson. We naturally want to try to help others who suffer, which is a good thing. But in the case of grief, words will usually not do the trick. Let your presence be your words. Never underestimate the comforting power of your presence to those who grieve. Your words matter little. Your presence matters a lot because by being there for those who grieve, you are really telling them that you love them and care for them.

What wonderful profundity [deep insight; great depth of knowledge or thought] there is in your utterances [in Scripture]! The surface meaning lies open before us and charms beginners. Yet the depth is amazing, my God, the depth is amazing. To concentrate on it is to experience awe—the awe of adoration before its transcendence and the trembling of love. Scripture’s enemies I vehemently hate (Psalm 138:22). I wish that you would slay them with a two-edged sword (Psalm 149:6); then they would no longer be its enemies. The sense in which I wish them ‘dead’ is this: I love them that they may die to themselves and live to you (Romans 14:7-8; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

—Confessions 12.14.17

Anyone who has spent any time at all wrestling with Scripture can verify the truth of Augustine’s musings on God’s word. And wouldn’t we expect the depths of his word to be endless if indeed they come from God? When we start fooling ourselves and thinking we have mastered completely holy Scripture, we are surely succumbing to a sinful pride (not to mention delusional thinking). I love the wonderful humility expressed in Augustine’s writing here.

Notice too how Augustine expresses his love for the enemies of Scripture. He wants them dead. Not physically dead but rather for their sinful nature to die so that their eyes may be opened to the wondrous glory of God’s Scriptures so that ultimately they may live. This manifestation of real love sounds foreign to our ears today because the various enemies of the cross have misled us to believe that love always and only manifests itself in giving the beloved what it wants. However, as Augustine reminds us here, Scripture has a very different definition of love. Love indeed desires the best for its beloved and since God loves us and wants us to live with him forever, he desires that we put to death our sinful nature so that we can do so. He cannot allow the unholy to abide in the presence of Perfect Holiness (himself). He’ll help us do that, and he has solved the intractable problem of human sin through the cross of Christ, but we have to make the initial effort and keep at it our entire lives. It isn’t easy work but the reward for doing so is life forevermore. This is faith made manifest in our actions.

Lord Jesus! Teach me that I may teach them: Sanctify and enable all my powers; that in their full strength they may deliver your message reverently, readily, faithfully, and fruitfully. Oh, make your word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life and conversation: that as the rain returns not empty, so neither my your word, but accomplish that for which it is given. Oh Lord, hear, Oh Lord, forgive! Oh Lord, listen, and do so for your blessed Son’s sake, in whose sweet and pleasing words, we say, Our Father…

If you want to know what the heart of a pastor looks like, a pastor who is humble and cares passionately about his people, read carefully these last three excerpts from Fr. Herbert.