“An Immunity for Every Disease”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – March 8, 2020

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 121; John 3:1-12

 

    Last week, we discussed what happened to Jesus during the 40-day experience in the wilderness following his baptism.  Jesus was immune to the useless temptations he experienced.  All three incoming enticements concerned the material world. Jesus' responded to them from the world of Spirit as he used Scriptures to support his answers.

    This morning we are going to talk about Spirit. At that time in history, very few people wrote or spoke about spiritual matters.  Jesus may have been the first to speak openly about Spirit.  Most serious discussions concerned pleasing God by obedience to the Laws of Moses. 

    Spirit, however, had the power to make people immune to all the diseases that may try to force their way onto the stage of their lives. Each disease had to do with what happens to people in the material world.  The recognition of Spirit does not depend on faith, discipline, or any religious beliefs for it to be as equally important to us as our brains, heart, or lungs.

    What may prevent its presence from being recognized and utilized is when people deny or remain unaware of its existence.   Yet, no one denies aspects of life that are equally invisible like our minds, our imaginations, or our intuition.  Spiritual development is often defined only by what it does to someone's personality.

    In our lesson this morning, Jesus was attempting to offer guidance to one of the most respected teachers in Israel.  Nicodemus had been thoroughly trained in being obedient to the Laws of Moses. Leaving his training to accept the vitality of the more abstract concept of Spirit represented quite a leap for Nicodemus. He staked his life on wanting to cling to his religious heritage along with all its traditions and practices. He knew that Moses' Laws defined life's boundaries. Those Laws worked for him because of what obedience to them did for the quality of their lives.

    While living in Washington, D.C., we gave our dry-cleaning business to a Chinese gentleman.  The first time I paid my bill, I noticed that he used an abacus to calculate what I owed him.  I had heard of these ancient Chinese calculators but I had never seen one being used.

    Being the only customer in his business at the moment, I asked him why he was using it when we have wonderful, electronic calculators.  He said:

No use calculators! Abacus just fine. Abacus never break.  Power go off, calculator no good. Abacus quick and right every time.  Since I child, I used Abacus.  No need to change.

    The Chinese businessman preferred to stay with an ancient calculator that worked for him.  Nicodemus had the same understanding. He knew the rules, that God had prescribed through Moses, worked for him by keeping the culture of Israel pure and unified as God's Chosen People.   

    Jesus was challenging him with a new way to understand life:

No one will understand what it is like to live in the Kingdom of God until each individual completely changes from using human responses to using loving responses created by the spirit. The transformation is so dramatic that it is like being born again. A person will automatically respond to life with the same energized spirit as is present in the essence of God. That person will become like the wind.  Others will only understand the presence of a loving spirit by the results it creates. Nicodemus, you, of all people, should understand this.  (John 3:3f)

    Now that we are two thousand years removed from their conversation, Jesus' teachings are somewhat ancient for us. Our western societies have created many new calculators in every area of our lives.  Today, many people have not been taught that spiritual nourishment is absolutely essential to the well-being of our lives. 

    Nearly every week someone is writing an article on matters of spirit in the Lifestyle section of the Gazette. Such articles deal with Yoga, exercise, meditation and the importance of attitude.  Their words are not religious, but about the importance of a person's Spirit.

    What has happened is that we have become energized by what has made our lives easier and more convenient during our physical lives. Here are some examples why the material world has such control over our lives while Spiritual energy is as unknown to scores of people today as it was for Nicodemus.

    Most of us remember a time when students had to memorize the times-tables. The times-tables were our mental Abacus.  Next, came electronic calculators.  After that, smart cash registers appeared that were equipped with technology that gave the total of all purchases of a customer by the press of a key. A further improvement came when the cash registers could provide the amount of change that cashier had to return to the customer. Over time, people became so dependent on a machine that they no longer needed to make such calculations with their minds.

    One day a former school teacher of mine went to her bank to get a $200 cash advance from her account. The teller told her that the bank's computers were down. The wisdom of the Chinese merchant was accurate, "Power go off, calculators no good."

    Betty responded, "That is your problem, not mine.  Please give me a pencil and a sheet of paper. Here is my account number."  The teller looked at her as though she had lost her mind.  She repeated herself, "The bank's server is off-line." Sensing this, Betty said, "This bank is where I have had an account for 15 years.  If you cannot give me a cash advance from my account, may I please speak with the bank manager." She got her money. We can smile at this experience, but it provides evidence of what has been slowly happening in every area of our lives.

    Something as natural as cooking a meal has started to decline. How many of us remember the arrival of frozen TV dinners?  Who has the time and patience to make Lasagna when we have Stouffers?  Who has the time to bake a pie from scratch when we have frozen crusts and pie filling?  Who has time to gather and mix ingredients for baking a cake when we have Betty Crocker and Duncan-Hines? Do you remember the bread machines?  People dumped the ingredients into the machine, turned it on, and went to work.  When they came home, their residence smelled like a bakery.

    Today in the United States, why even cook at all when excellent quality, nutritious meals can be delivered to our homes by companies like Nutrisystem that advertise, "You eat the food.  You lose the weight." 

    Today, people are willing to spend more money for food because the label reads Organic.  That word announces the arrival of a concept that allows vendors to raise their prices of their products significantly.  I read in this week's food supplement of the Gazette that Market Place has a pint of Alden's Organic Ice Cream on sale for $8.49, a savings of $1.50.  Can anyone tell me how that is possible?  What is organic ice cream but a legal money grab by its producers?

    Today, tap water is no longer acceptable for a growing number of people. They buy water that is more expensive than two liters of gasoline because it comes from a natural source straight to our tables from the Alps and has been given an exotic name.  The next time that you are shopping at Lindo's, check out the large assortment of bottled water along with the price tag of each liter.

    The path of discipline that Nicodemus was following eventually produced an entire class of people called The Pharisees. What Jesus was teaching created men and women who were spiritually free. Such a life was free from having to conform to rules when every decision and response was motivated by all the ways that a loving, compassionate spirit can communicate.

    Jesus concluded his conversation with Nicodemus by saying:

You do not believe me when I tell you of the potential you have to live a remarkable life in this world. How will you ever believe me if I were to tell you about the things of Heaven. (John 3:12)

    Nicodemus was holding on to his dependence of what he had received through his training. Jesus was teaching spiritual freedom. People were free to paint outside the lines, to take risks without being afraid of a judgmental God, and to develop skills of spirit that will promote their physical, emotional, and mental health. They become immune to the diseases that affect billions of people.

    We can hardly imagine our lives being free from worry, fear, anxiety, stress, resentment, self-centeredness, loneliness, uncertainty, hopelessness and beyond. Judging from what we see in the behavior and attitudes of many people, the spiritual development that Jesus was referencing has been left behind. People accept their negative experiences created by their choices as part of the price of being human. Really?

    The vacuum created by spiritual malnutrition has been filled with exotic sounding and expensive medications, psychiatrists, life-coaches, comfort-foods, our escape into streaming movies, video games, and our choice to remain a slave to our cell phones.  

    Again, the wisdom of the Chinese gentleman comes to mind, " Since I child, I use Abacus. No need to change."  Our ancient spiritual abacus of loving energy is what Jesus was attempting to teach Nicodemus. Basically, he was teaching that people can quite literally live in the Kingdom of Heaven while they are alive in their physical forms.  But this teaching is not for everyone.  Many still want to ride the wave of new products, technologies, and services.

    Has this wonderful immunity to all diseases become missing in so many lives because it is wearing the cloak of religion?  Think about this.  This spiritual abacus of treating others exactly as we would like to be treated existed in 6th century BC's Buddhism, in 5th century BC's Confucianism and in 1st century AD Christianity. 

    If we remove all the trappings of religion, the wisdom of The Golden Rule stands by itself.  No religion but common sense can make the claim that the Golden Rule is their teaching.  This understanding is a light that has never gone out in spite of where our technologies take us.  This light has mutated and has surfaced in scores of business books written about Best Practices; a concept introduced by Gordon Guyett in 1991. Was this teaching new?  Not at all; read Galatians 5:22. If all employees from the CEO to the people in the mail room displayed these attitudes, the likelihood is good that the company will run smoothly.

    While Jesus was a Jew by birth, what religion did he represent? The answer is none.  Jesus walked away from the Laws of Moses, the war-god Yahweh, and many of the separatist-practices of the Jews in order to embrace non-Jews like those who lived in Samaria. Christianity with all its theological twists and turns did not exist.  Jesus stands alone with no religious affiliation.  He became a spiritual abacus for anyone seeking Spiritual freedom regardless of their religious affiliation.

    The only responsibility that Spiritual beings have while living in the material world is to be fully present in it.  When such beings sow their seeds in every vocational setting, God's loving energy spreads the immunity for all diseases by the same method of transmission as today's Coronavirus (Covid-19) that has frightened billions of people.

    Just think of how rapidly that virus has spread throughout the world in just three months of its existence. Love is a magical energy that mutates and expresses itself in different forms making our world a more wholesome environment for children, women, and men to live.  

    Let all of us be a vital presence in our world while also living in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Impossible? Not at all. Jesus lived that way and he told his listeners, "Follow me."  Would he have taught this if living this way was impossible to do? 

     

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Loving God, most of us long for a vision that keeps your presence in our daily awareness. Yet we confess that we cannot always separate the wheat from the chaff.  We cannot always recognize your presence in the challenges we face, nor can we sense that we are being blessed by everything that confronts us.  Only through hindsight do we observe your footprints in events where we thought we were standing alone.  Inspire us to use our vision to choose faith over fear.  Guide us to remember that we do not need to understand why life's events unfold before we possess an unshakable faith.  We are amazed that the death of Jesus gave us a window through which to view eternity.  Amen.

 

THE PASTORAL PRAYER

Thank you, God, for these moments during Lent when we continue our reflection on the direction and quality of our lives.  We are aware of the many aspects within us that remain unrefined.  We can always choose words that reveal more of our understanding and compassion. Our pains, frustrations, and impatience only reveal the distance we have to go before we reveal your spirit. Help us to recognize the emotional drivers in our lives that cause us to reflect a less than loving, helpful spirit.

Enable us, O God, to learn character strengths from our failures. Lead us to discover the joy of giving ourselves away.  Comfort us with the understanding that our fears and doubts are often necessary steps toward a stronger faith.  Help us to remember that our mountains are always opportunities for us to polish our skills at climbing. 

Inspire our confidence in reflecting your nature everywhere and to everyone. Help us to remember that we are always being watched by others.  We may be the only contact that people have to what it looks like to live in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus came to teach people how to live a life that has become immune to the numerous diseases that lurk everywhere. We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray. . .