Why I Love Jesus

Sermon from 5th February 2012

Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!

My sermons so far have been on the personal side, but I try as much as I can to put them in universal language, to try to bring up questions that are universal. Questions we can all ask ourselves. In sitting with today’s readings however, I feel the need to be a bit more confessional this evening. I am going to testify!

What led me to this realization, that this sermon calls me to tell you about the Jesus I know personally, was wrestling with the passage from first Corinthians. Paul’s epistle disturbed and challenged me, as his writing often does; especially his emphasis on “wining” people and saving them. Rhetoric that is so often used to justify any number of shaming, fear mongering and harmful speech in a competitive bid to convert people who are considered damned.

It is not, and never will be my goal to convert another person to my religion. There was a time when I would have said that it’s a violation or at very least an imposition on another to do so. But my reasons have shifted somewhat since then. I now believe the only way one can truly become a Christian is by choosing it for yourself. If I cajole, manipulate or seduce you into wanting to be a Christian, are you embracing Christ or me? No, best let people see the transformation in my life and ask how I became that way. It’s a matter of attraction rather than promotion. And honestly if someone I know and love finds a spiritual path that works for them, I do not particularly care if it’s the Christian path or not. Christianity is not for everyone. But it is for me.

I have struggled with Christianity. It would not let me go. But as long as I felt obligated to be a Christian, pressured into it, I could not fully embrace it. When I was ready God put people in my life that were Christian. People I admired. Who talked about their faith in a way I respected. Who invited me to join them but had no investment in “winning” me over.

I have been embarrassed to be a Christian, based on the assumptions of what that means in this culture. I do not want to be thought of as a homophobic intolerant bigot, who is all in other people’s faces about their sins. I’ve been apologetic about being a Christian as a result. I’ve been careful to hide it in the past. But no more! I have drawn a line in the sand for myself. In claiming my Christianity I am not endorsing all other Christians. I am admitting my deep connection and love of Christ.

I spent a year in deep meditative contemplation of the Gospels; entering the story as if I were a disciple myself. I have profoundly followed Jesus through his ministry, death and resurrection. I have hung on his word, followed him towards certain death, been crushed by his death, and astonished by his resurrection. I have heard direct messages to me from his lips. I worship him, am utterly devoted; continually give him my whole life. Except when I take it back in fear or confusion, but that does not last as long as it used to.

Even when I was doting on Jesus, falling in love with him really, I was never all that impressed by the physical healings or expulsion of demons; those kinds of miracles didn’t speak to me in and of themselves. What drew me to Jesus was his compassion, pity, forgiveness, his charismatic presence; his ability to inspire faith in others. He was willing to come down into the trenches with the least of his society; to party with sinners and tax collectors, to embrace the unclean. He never even took credit for any healings. How many times after a healing did he say: “Your faith has healed you.”

What he seemed most about to me; why I felt devotion enough to sacrifice anything for him, was witnessing how He could take your hand and put it in the hand of his Father. It is not because we are not worthy to reach out to God that Jesus has to intercede on our behalf, but because God could not reach us in our walled off woundedness and despair.

Why would I not want to share this good news? Oh the enemy feeds me all kinds of reasons. This is too personal – no one can relate. Not everyone’s experience of Jesus, even if they give themselves the chance will look like this. It’s inappropriate, boring, and on and on. These experiences were mystical, a gift, and I can’t guarantee another person that they’ll have one. And yet something inside me, a still small voice, insists that all people, made in the image of God as we are, have this potential.

And so, yes there is that part of me that wants to shout as Isaiah did:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

I do know, though, that I would not serve Christ by being all up in people’s faces. A subtler approach is called for, in many cases.

Let’s look back to what Paul was saying today:

I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.

Ah what a call to co-dependency this can be. In order to help others, save their very souls, are we to abandon ourselves, to be false, conniving, manipulative in order to “win”? Is falsehood and inauthenticity being called for here?

I would say no.   A Jew, someone outside the law, someone who is weak; these are all ways Paul has described himself in other letters.

I imagine this passage is really more about meeting people where they are at. I have found myself in various stages and levels of consciousness about my faith. There are trials and tribulations I my own journey. Remembering where I was at and how much I could hear or grasp at the time can inform me on how to approach someone who I’m trying to communicate with.

Yet I’ve known many people who use Christianity as an excuse to not look at themselves, to not find those places where empathy and compassion reside, because they don’t have time for navel gazing, others need their help. I want to remind them that Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself, not instead of yourself.

Oh, they argue, we’re in a culture of greed and individualism. We’re too self-absorbed and self-pitying for contemplation to be anything but self-indulgent. And indeed, I do not deny that being helpful to others is definitely a way to “get out of yourself” to break with self-absorption and self-pity. But I would argue that self-absorption and self-pity are not reinforced by an introspective practice. They are paradoxically the result of outward focus; taking on the negative messages you’ve received and worrying about what others think about you. Being present to yourself, connecting with who you really are is often the key to compassion and empathy. Observing your thoughts and feelings with the distance and discovering that they are not who you really are is a way to wear these things lightly. Besides, a guide, or spiritual director is vital in this process, it is not an exclusively solitary practice.

As we saw in today’s Gospel, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, needed to get away and pray. To be done with helping in one town and move on to another. If God incarnate needed this to avoid burnout, who are we to think we don’t?

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength…

More than this, I’m convinced that meditative, contemplative prayer, is how Jesus stayed in such firm and empowering contact with His loving divine parent; the source of his compassion, forgiveness and acceptance of the unacceptable. It is through that kind of prayer that I know and love Christ. It is guiding others through that kind of prayer that is the most cherished part of my ministry.

The readings:

Isaiah 40:21-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!

For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission.

What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.

To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law.

To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.

I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.

He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.

And the whole city was gathered around the door.

And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.

And Simon and his companions hunted for him.

When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you."

He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."

And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.