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“When Spirit Confronts
Orthodoxy” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – April
30, 2017 Centenary United Methodist Church
Romans 8:35-39; Luke 24:13-24 Two themes crop up in our lesson this morning that are worth
considering. Both themes
occurred during the episode when two disciples were walking away from Jesus asked what the two were discussing.
They responded, "Are you the only visitor in The things that
happened to Jesus of Nazareth.
This man was a prophet and was considered by God and many of us
to be a breath of fresh air.
Our chief priests and rulers, however, handed him over to be
sentenced to death and he was crucified.
We had hoped that he would be the one who was going to set our
people free. The first issue that surfaced was what happened between Jesus, who was a breath of fresh air, and the religious authorities, who organized the charges against him. The second issue that surfaced was the thought that Jesus was not the one who would set his people free. It had to be unsettling to these two disciples that their
religious leaders were the ones who
found Jesus to be a threat and
engineered a crucifixion of
their teacher that healed others as he preached a message of love and
forgiveness.
How could something like this
happen? How many times
has the Church
been on the wrong side of
truth?
This happens today when Jesus' teachings are being
taught by those who are the
authorities on what is best for people to believe for their own
salvation. Sixty Minutes
is an investigative news program that prides itself on presenting to the
viewing public accurate, well-documented commentary on social issues
that would not surface in normal news reporting. One of the lead reporters interviewed a number of pastors of
mega-churches that had ten to twenty thousand people attending on any
given Sunday morning. What
made these pastors newsworthy was that all of them had spiritually
outgrown the orthodoxy of
their faith and yet they felt compelled to preach what they no longer
believed. The staff of Sixty Minutes
disguised the pastors and distorted their voices so that no one in the
viewing audience could recognize them as they were being interviewed.
The pastors had remained silent about the inner struggles because
they feared the leadership of their denomination. These pastors felt
that they were too close to retirement to risk losing their jobs.
This was the same issue
that Jesus faced only he faced it differently. The fear of these pastors was real because they were aware of a
number of seminary professors that were recently dismissed from their
positions because they had incorporated new discoveries of science into
their teaching materials, discoveries that refuted the authority of the
Scriptures. These pastors
were not free because of their fears. The two disciples also said, "We had hoped that he would be the
one who was going to set our people free."
While walking with them, still unrecognized, Jesus explain to
them that this is exactly what happened.
Jesus demonstrated from the
cross that he was free from the
tyranny of orthodoxy.
The sarcasm and mockery from those standing at the foot of the
cross, the nails in his wrists and feet had no effect on his loving
spirit. He was free. In Peter's first letter to Christians living in northern During his baptismal experience, Jesus became
an awakened spirit.
His days as a carpenter ended because of his intense spiritual
encounter with God. One of the interesting qualities of an
awakened spirit is that a
person's connection with God is often unique to that individual. Jesus'
new awareness had very little to do with the teachings of the religious
leaders of his people. An authentic spiritual experience does not give people
a holier-than-thou sense of
superiority nor does it give them an exclusive right to God. Quite the
contrary. Such an
experience is very humbling because it is life-changing.
There is no denying a spiritual
awakening when we have one.
We own it. We do not own
the second-handed orthodoxy that has been handed down by those in our
past. One Sunday in a former church, I was greeted at the end of our
service with the hug from a woman whose eyes were filled with tears.
She said, Thank you, Rev.
Stetler, for your sermon today.
For the first time in my life, I now understand who Jesus was and
what meaning he has for my life. I
never understood any of it until this morning.
I was totally overwhelmed by what happened to me in the
sanctuary. I thanked her for her comments and for telling me how her life
had suddenly changed by a new awareness. Later that Sunday afternoon, I
read my sermon again to see what she heard.
The name of Jesus was never
mentioned in that sermon. Ironically, that message was delivered on Pentecost Sunday. The
sermon discussed how God's spirit can mysteriously appear at the oddest
times and in the most unlikely forms to cause our spirits to awaken and
soar. Through the years, I have come to understand that sermons do not
communicate the way we pastors think they do.
Pastors cannot govern
what it is that people experience. An
idea that may take up residence in a listener's mind is one that has
passed through a unique one-of-a-kind set of filters when their mind
is not wandering. Everything
else spoken in that sermon enters
the graveyard where all
never-heard words are buried. People do not perceive the same way.
Often people are not ready
emotionally or spiritually to receive what is being said.
We do not respond the same way
to what is happening in life.
No one is right or wrong
in their thinking; they are just different in how they understand and
interpret their life-experiences. The two disciples walking with Jesus did not realize that he
accomplished what he set out to do -- he demonstrated what spiritual
freedom looks like for all humanity.
We do not have to conform to beliefs that have come from some
religious authority even if that authority is the Bible. This is not the
Bible's fault but the way a number of authorities use the Bible to teach
others what they must believe to be saved.
This may sound like heresy but think about it.
If everyone had to believe every word in the Bible as coming
from God, no one in Jesus' day would have accepted much that he had
to say. Many lessons that he
taught were dramatically different from the teachings that were in the
early scrolls of the Torah.
By teaching that God's nature
is love and that
God exists inside of each of us, Jesus was
clearly abandoning the God of his heritage.
The
nature of God during Jesus' day was understood quite differently. Here
are some references to God's nature. God
fought in support of the Jews as they killed other people.
(Exodus 14: 25-27) God spread
disease among His Chosen as a
punishment. (Exodus 15:26) Once, Moses convinced God to change
his mind. (Exodus 32:14) God once ordered Moses to kill all the leaders
of Why the Jews worshipped such a moody, tyrannical, vindictive and
judgmental deity is beyond anyone's guess.
Yahweh was the God of their heritage and the Jews were given
little latitude by their leaders to understand God for themselves.
Jesus delivered people from
their fear of God and all of his demands and rules. The new lens
that Jesus created with his life and teachings has given us a God that
can become a living presence
within us. We are free from
requirements and disciplines from a deity that is threatening.
We are free to seek God from our own level of awareness. What
religious authorities are teaching today can be dismissed if their
teachings evoke fear in us rather than compassion.
This shift was a
quantum leap from obedience to laws to freedom for individuals to
connect with God in their own unique way when they were ready to open
up to the mystical side of their lives.
According to Mark's Gospel, the two disciples that had met Jesus
on the road returned to the other disciples in What we can take home with us today is an awareness that it does
not matter when others do not believe us. What really matters is how our
experiences have transformed our attitudes and goals.
The experience of God's presence causes our spirits to sing, it
helps us to detach from life-issues that have been cycling for centuries
and it helps us to develop attitudes that inspire our acceptance of
others in spite of their level of spiritual awareness. Yesterday's Royal Gazette featured a quote by Mike Royko on its editorial page: Show me somebody
who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will
show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is going
on. When we are living in the In dying, Jesus demonstrated what spiritual freedom looks like.
He had a firm grasp on the
bigger picture that placed him in the realm of understanding that is
far beyond the petty squabbles created by people who believe they alone
have the truth.
He said, "Follow me and not them."
(Matthew 15:14)
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER Each time we gather for worship, O God,
we are challenged to think differently.
This remains difficult to do since many of our self-taught
responses have been in place for most of our lives.
Jesus taught us to measure success by our experience of happiness
and peace.
He taught us
that those who have light should let it shine in all circumstances.
Heal us, O God, when we give authority to
the voices that prevent us
from taking leaps of faith and that cast doubts on our ability to shed
old habits. In spite of our struggles, thank you for continuing to work
through us to help make our world a more wholesome place to live.
Amen. PASTORAL PRAYER Loving and merciful God, we are grateful
for our Sabbath mornings when we can pause to refresh that part of
ourselves we often neglect. We wonder what our lives would be like
if we never took time to nourish
the captain of our ship, the decision-maker inside of us or the
spirit that responds to all of life’s many varied circumstances.
We thank you for the little reminders
that you send to us, that teach us how strong we are when our steps
falter. How easy it is to be filled with regret when we make
mistakes or when we belittle ourselves for not being
perfect. We thank you for the
lessons we have learned from hindsight or from realizing the power that
distractions have to blind and immobilize us when we least expect it.
You always show up anyway. We thank you for your presence in the lives
of our friends. When we receive firm handshakes, their smiles and
laughter, their support, we are reminded how nurturing others are to
us.
We live in a world that needs us to be
more accepting of others just as we find them. How can you ever work
through us if our worries, fears, prejudices and regrets prevent your
presence within us from being seen by others?
Help us to let go of our need to be someone other than the
angel-in-the-flesh that you created us to be.
With grateful hearts we thank you for being who you are.
We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ,
who taught his disciples to say when they prayed . . .
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