“Maintaining Our Balance Between Two Worlds”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – September 4, 2016

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; Luke 14:25-33

    Two Sundays ago, we had a very challenging passage of Scripture to consider.  Jesus said, "I have not come to bring peace but division."  (Luke 12:51)   When we read our Gospel lesson today, Jesus sounds as though he had completely taken leave of his senses.  The words in our translation sound totally out of character for Jesus.  This morning we are going to consider why he would teach by using such judgmental language.

    Listen again to this passage, "If anyone wants to follow me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -- yes, even his own life -- he cannot be my disciple."  (Luke 14:26)  Our lesson ends with the crown jewel of his thinking -- "None of you can be my disciple unless you give up everything you have." (Luke 14:33)  If we would have heard these words directed at us, we might have responded, "Okay!  Have fun attracting new people by yourself."

    Jesus had other teachings that support this theme.  One that comes to mind is when Jesus mentioned that people had the desire to follow him but, for a variety of very logical reasons, they could not drop everything and follow him .  One said, "I will follow you but first let me bury my father who has just died."  Another said, "First, let me say good-bye to my family."  Jesus responded, "Anyone who starts to plow and keeps looking back is of no use to the Kingdom of God."  (Luke 9:57f)

    How are we to understand these rigid and highly controlling attitudes and still cling to our understanding that Jesus was loving, merciful, forgiving and compassionate? 

    Jesus was unwavering in his thinking when a young man asked, "Master, what must I do to receive eternal life?"  Jesus said, "You need to do only one thing.  Give all of your wealth to the poor and you will have riches in heaven.  Come and follow me." The man responded, "I am saddened by your answer.  I have a lot of assets.  I thought you would be more understanding and reasonable." (Mark 10:178f)

    It is interesting that Jesus treated Zacchaeus very differently.  Zacchaeus was not only a wealthy tax collector; he was the chief tax collector. Jesus did not give him such an either-or decision to make. He invited himself to lunch.  While Zacchaeus experienced a life-transformation during their brief meeting, he did not give up being a tax collector. (Luke 19:2f) 

    What is going on here?  What was Jesus confronting with the language he was using?  One possible explanation is that he said these words in response to what centuries of repeated traditions and mandatory obedience to the Laws of Moses had done to his people.  He was facing people that had no way of thinking differently. The world of spirit was so radically different, Jesus had to re-educate those who would listen to him.

    Consider how the clergy had been trained to think and behave.  Think of how the Pharisees had conditioned themselves with their holier-than-thou attitudes.  Think of how parents were mirroring to their children that one day a holy war of God's design would be waged to save His Chosen People from the chokehold of Rome.  Jesus' entire society needed a complete retraining that love grows from a mysterious, hidden world that is within them.   

    A more accurate translation of this troublesome passage is this:  "If anyone wants to be my disciple, he must first completely abandon the attitudes and vision of his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -- yes, even distance himself from his own orientation and interpretation of life.  Only then will he understand my words and what I am asking him to do."  (Luke 14:26) 

    If we want to consider one of the reasons why we have empty churches today in the midst of spiritual hunger surfacing among people everywhere, it may be that the Church has wandered from the universal message that Jesus gave to humanity.  Christianity may be facing the same dilemma as Judaism experienced when Jesus arrived thousands of years ago.

    When the Pope travels around the world, audiences are dazzled by the splendor of every worship setting.  Every experience is carefully choreographed from the altar boys to the priests that wave their golden incense containers.  Why is that?  What was this conspicuous opulence communicating?

    While I was attending seminary in Washington, D.C. a large congregation had installed a quarter of a million dollar Italian marble pulpit.  A mailing was widely circulated by the church inviting people to the dedication service for this pulpit. The seminarian community wondered what would motivate a church family to spend that amount of money for a pulpit when horrendous human-need existed within a mile of their church. 

    These symbolic material images are exquisite to look at but they have little to do with acquainting people with an inner-world that they cannot see. We can almost hear echoes of Jesus' teaching, "Not everyone who calls me their Lord will enter the Kingdom of God.  Those who enter will be those whose spirits communicate the qualities of my Father."  (Matthew 7:21f)

    The life-style that Jesus was highlighting with his teaching has never been about earning our own Salvation by giving up everything we have, or by the stylistic format and manner of our worship experiences. At the heart of Jesus' teaching is why his disciples must communicate with wholesome, loving attitudes among others that may not have developed such qualities.  Do we have our lives focused on developing this collection of loving-attitudes?

    In one of my former churches I prepared our facility for a series of services we were having during Lent.  I had just opened the door to our nursery when I heard someone using the pay phone that was outside of our kitchen. The voice of a man exclaimed, "Will you just shut up and listen to me?"  He also used a number of judgmental expletives.  I quietly took a peak at who this was.  I did not recognize the man.

    Lois and I joined the other attendees of the service.  The coordinator of the Lenten series stood up to introduce the speaker for the evening.  After he provided the background of how our guest had become an evangelist, the man that went to the pulpit was the stranger that had been using the pay phone.  In spite of my earlier experience of him, his presentation was excellent.  

    A number of us have met Christians who have a wonderful working knowledge of Jesus' life and teachings but they also have an edge to them. There is a part of their spiritual energy that needs their immediate attention. When something bothers them, their mood changes.  They communicate a fragility that causes others to feel as though they must tip-toe around them lest they ignite some tirade of hostility over something that would appear trivial to most people.

    As we noted last week, it is not how much we know that governs our decisions and moods.  What matters is how we feel.  Attitudes grow and blossom from our emotions, not from our collected wisdom.  Jesus taught, "Your spirit will always reflect to others the values that matter the most to you."  (Matthew 6:21)  Again, what was Jesus wanting from his disciples?

    He wanted his disciples to become a window through which God's loving spirit could be seen consistently by others.  Potential disciples cannot become that window unless they have discovered a different way of understanding and interpreting life's experiences. (Romans 12:2)  Basically, his people had been living in a spiritual wasteland of centuries-old traditions and conditioned responses to rules.

    When life in the material world is the only one that people understand, their pain and disappointment can be quite profound when one illusion after another fails to deliver what each had promised.  

    Jesus wanted to acquaint people with the power of their inner world, but he could not accomplish that task unless his disciples were capable of demonstrating what such a life looked like. This was at the core of his harsh sounding words. 

     We can be wealthy and still experience dramatic mood-swings. We can be highly successful while clinging to our love of alcohol. We can be stunningly physically attractive and yet become terrorized by the encroachment of the aging process. We can enjoy a high profile personality filled with influence and notoriety and yet cannot successfully negotiate the change in our perceived identity when our name and title are removed from the door of our former office.

    A lot of people experience these responses to life because they do not know or have not accepted the reality that there is another world that is available to everyone. 

    In truth, we do not have to give up everything as Jesus suggested.  Jesus was responding to a generation that had been starving for spiritual insights and guidance for over 400 years.  This is why his listeners recognized that Jesus taught as one who knew what he was talking about.  (Mark 1:22)

    Today, Jesus' message to us would be different.  The seeds that Jesus sowed thousands of years ago have germinated.  We can experience the result of his message when we experience it surfacing in motivational-psychology, physiology and all levels of research from spirituality to space travel. Today the inner world of our species is known by people and most professions.  We know what attitudes can make or break the quality of lives. 

    Our calling is to develop the balance that Jesus demonstrated of bringing the creativity of a world that no one can see into the physical world where everyone lives. 

    It is this understanding of discipleship that we need to model for everyone, particularly those who are only familiar with the world of their five senses.  This is who we are.  This is our task.  It is we who must pass the torch of spiritual freedom to those around us.  We must teach others how to live and thrive in two worlds.