I am starting this morning a new sermon series on “The seven deadly sins and the beatitudes”.

Today I want to introduce the series by giving some history of the seven deadly sins, look at the meaning of sin, and talk about why it is important to name sin.

As we begin this series on the seven deadly sins, I know how unfashionable it is talk about sin today. In many churches sin has been dropped from their vocabulary.

Human psychology has taught us the importance of good self-esteem. So, we are extremely hesitant to critique anyone’s behavior or life choices for fear of damaging their self-image.

We don’t want to step on people’s freedom to be and do what they want.

We also have dropped talking about sin because we don’t want to be associated with those preachers who yell at people to get saved and make everyone feel guilty and grief-stricken over their wickedness.

We also have gotten tired, week after week, of listening to sermons on sin and how bad humans have messed up the world.

Today, we think we are so much smarter and better that we don’t have to call anyone by that awful name – sinner – even though Jesus came for sinners.
We know that things are not all right in our world but we prefer to call them mistakes or blunders or problems.

So, we now have drug problems and rape problems and cheating problems and violence problems and environmental problems and economic problems, but we are hesitant to call any of it sin or that it could possibly be morally wrong.

Even devout Christians are hesitant to call things sin because they are afraid of being seen as intolerant – which may be the only universal sin worth mentioning today.

William Willimon, a Methodist Bishop, wrote a book titled “Sinning Like a Christian”.??In his book, I found this statement: He writes,?“It is odd that we have made even Jesus into such?a quivering mass of affirmation and oozing graciousness,?considering how frequently, unguardedly, and gleefully?Jesus told us that we were sinners. Anyone who thinks that Jesus was into inclusiveness, self-affirmation, and open-minded, heart-happy acceptance has then got to figure out why we responded to him by nailing him on a cross. He got there not for urging us to ‘consider the lilies’ but for calling us ‘whitewashed tombs’ and even worse.”??Jesus was probably the most gracious, loving and accepting person ever – especially for those rejected by the religiously self-righteous. He was always found hanging around a bunch of sinners.

But Jesus also had no trouble calling people out for their sins or telling them to “go and sin no more”.
It wasn’t that Jesus went around looking for sin because he didn’t. That wasn’t his focus. Jesus’ focus was that God’s reign was invading earth and he wanted people to get on board and join the mission.

So, Jesus’ message everywhere he went was – “repent – change your mind, turn around, and follow me because I will lead you to life and wholeness and healing”.

God’s mission in the world is to save and redeem the world. God wants to save us from a self-serving, destructive, violent, and fragmented existence that we think passes for life.

Through Jesus we are saved from sin that cuts us off from our Creator so we can begin to participate in heaven on earth.

Now, before we look at the history of the Seven Deadly Sins I want to talk a little bit about what sin is.

The most common word for sin in the bible is the Greek word “hamartia”. In the Greco-Roman world it was an archery term.

When an archer would draw the string back and let the arrow go – if the arrow strayed from its target it was said “hamartia” had occurred.

The arrow missed the mark.

So, a simple definition of sin is missing the mark. Sin is a violation of God’s will. It is a rebellion against God. It is living counter to God’s intended purpose for our life.

Sin is not just a matter of breaking some law – it is a matter of breaking covenant with God our Savior.

When we stray from God’s will – when we miss the mark – we find ourselves missing out on the very things God desires most for us.

In our scripture from Isaiah 11 this morning we got a picture of shalom – a picture where peace, justice, righteousness, and wholeness reign.

It is a picture of a peaceable kingdom where the wolf and lamb lie down together.

It is a picture of what God intended for the world from the beginning and what Jesus came proclaiming when he invited people to repent and follow him.

So sin always violates shalom. It always ruptures our relationship with God. Sin makes the world “not the way God intended it to be”. When we sin we miss out on the very things God desires most for us.

So sin is missing the mark God intended for us. It affects our relationship with God, with each other, our world and it even leads to brokenness within ourselves.

Now, as a parent, I always wanted what was best for my children. I set boundaries and rules for them to follow so that they would have a good and joyful life. I wanted to protect them from harm and keep them safe.

And when I saw them making choices that I knew would have consequences it would break my heart. Like every parent I know – I cried myself to sleep more than once knowing they were doing things that could hurt them.
In the same way, when we miss the mark with God – God, more than being angry at us – is disappointed and sad. God weeps over our sin.

God does not want to see us hurt. God wants to keep us away from those things that choke life from us and keep us from experiencing shalom.

And this is where the seven deadly sins come in.

For most of church history – the church has identified seven sins that have been seen as particularly deadly because of how they choke out life and keep us from pursuing a vibrant relationship with God.

I want to give a brief history of the development of the Seven Deadly Sins and why they remain important to us today.

The earliest formulation of the Seven Deadly Sins comes from the desert monk Evagrius Ponticus in the 4th century.

Evagrius established a group of monks who went out to live in the desert in order to separate themselves from a wicked world so they could pursue a closer walk with God.

The ironic thing, though, was that there in the desert – away from the temptations of the wicked world these monks discovered their own sin.

Evagrius started to write down the things he struggled with the most in his little ascetic community.

He named “eight demons” that he thought about and pondered and wrestled with that kept him from God and made life in community so difficult.

As he wrote these down he discovered that the other monks shared these same struggles over the same sins.

For Evagrius, the 8 sins in order of least importance were: gluttony, lust, greed, sadness, anger, sloth, vainglory and pride. 

Evagrius began with the bodily sins–gluttony and lust–because for him they were the “easiest” to overcome. 

Pride was the most difficult sin because if you got through all of the others, you were still left with pride -that you’d been able to conquer the other ones. 

Then, in the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great said these sins are not unique to monks and that all Christians struggle with them.

He narrowed the list to the seven we have today – pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.

He also noted that these seven sins were the root sins of all other sins. He said what makes these sins so deadly is their generative quality.

Gregory spoke of the seven as “leaders of wicked armies”.

These seven were not deadly in the sense that they led one to damnation but that they were the source of all other sins.

These sins, if they gain a significant hold on our hearts will burrow themselves in until all that is beautiful in us is torn away.

So, throughout the Middle Ages the church began to teach people about the Seven Deadly Sins because these were the things that could choke life out of you and ultimately destroy you.

Now, there are several things that are interesting about the Seven Deadly Sins.

One is that you won’t find this list of sins in the bible some where. It doesn’t exist.

Sure, these seven sins appear randomly throughout the bible, but not in one list and they are not given the weight that the church gave them over the centuries.

After the Reformation the Protestant Churches basically ignored the Seven Deadly Sins because they weren’t listed in the bible and emphasized more the Ten Commandments as a basis for Christian morality.

And yet these Seven keep coming back as those sins that have a way of choking off our life with God.

Another interesting thing about the Seven Deadly Sins is – they don’t seem all that bad.

They don’t seem all that deadly.

One has to ask -why should we worry about gluttony when murder is so prevalent?

Or Hitler’s killing of Jews seems much more significant than Jimmy Carter lusting after women.

Or why should we talk about sloth and anger when we have ethnic hatred, racial violence, human trafficking, and religious persecution to deal with?

As I said earlier, these Seven were chosen because they seemed to lead to all other sins.

But you still may be thinking – these all seem so ordinary and common. Everyone deals with these things.

And that is just the point.

One of our temptations is to think that real sin belongs to madmen like Hitler or Gaddafi or Osama bid Laden.

It is easier to lament the evil that is large, systemic, and political because as long as we keep sin large and global we don’t have to deal with our own sin and brokenness.

Scott Peck, in his book People of the Lie, writes – “The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endangers the world.”

It is so easy to think that sin applies to someone other than ourselves.

But the sins of envy, anger, and lust don’t let me escape my sin by blaming others.

The Seven Deadly Sins, being so ordinary, help us to always speak of “my sin or our sin” – not somebody else’s sin.

And what I found particularly helpful in the development of the Seven Deadly Sins was that the monk Evagrius noted these Seven in the context of living in community.

Anger and envy and pride and sloth and greed and lust and gluttony all become exposed when we live in Christian community together.

Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself’ is difficult because these Seven sins constantly raise there ugly heads as we try to live together in the church.

So this is why these ordinary and common seven deadly sins are still relevant today. They affect us all. We are all sinners.

Now, the good news this morning is that Jesus came to save sinners like us.

The categories are not so much “the sinners” and “the righteous”, but the sinners who see their sin and the sinners who don’t.

In our scripture from Matthew – there were some folks who were not ready for Jesus because they didn’t see their sin. So Jesus left them in their blindness.

But those who named their sin and confessed it were set free and their relationships were restored.

The reason we are going to be looking at these Seven Deadly Sins over the next few weeks is so they can be exposed for their destructive tendencies. So that we do not become blind sinners like the Pharisees.

Confession and repentance frees God’s grace to move in us. The power of sin is its secrecy and so when we confess it – sometimes to a trusted friend – it loses its power over us.

In this series we are also going to be leaning heavily on the saving grace of God – who came into the world to save sinners like us.

Each one of us needs to be part of a community that will not only help us see our sin more clearly, but who will be generous with dispensing God’s grace to one another.

Each Sunday we will look at one of the Deadly Sins and one Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount.

The Beatitudes offer us a picture of the resurrected life. They describe a new way to be human. They are a picture of the world being restored.

In essence, the Beatitudes are a picture of the voids created by sin being filled in with the life of heaven.

The Beatitudes and the Seven Deadly Sins offer us two sets of invitation. Both call to deep places within us to come and taste. Both present themselves as life-giving.

But only the Beatitudes give us a true picture of what it means to be human. They alone help us see the world as God does and they expose the poison of the Seven Deadly Sins.
My hope and prayer for this series is that with God’s grace we will experience what it means to be more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.

Jesus said – “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Mt. 9:12-13).

While the rest of the world trivializes sin and tries to shrug it off or ignore it – we sinning Christians openly acknowledge that we sin and by God’s grace can get up again and move on because of Jesus’ forgiveness.

As we learn to name and confess our sins to one another may we come to be known as a Beatitude Community of mercy and grace and peace for the world. Amen.

Today is Earth Day. It is a day that was ear marked to call attention to the environmental crisis more than a century after the Industrial revolution. However in many instances environmentalists and Christians have not been able to see eye to eye on many counts. The envornmentalist accuse Christians off ignoring hard science and the Christians see many environmentalist more as New Age earth worshippers than serious scientists. What then in the Biblical imperative for the Christ towards the environment.
I want to begin by acknowledging that the earth has been thrown in a Crockpot and we are all feeling the heat. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the earth has been thrown into Crockpot and we are all feeling the heat. Let me begin with some facts. From 1975 till now the Global surface temperature according to Wikipedia has already increased by 0.6 degrees and the trend in this entire period is a straight line upwards on a graph. Now the increase in atmospheric CO2 is not the only cause for global warming. Another green house gas methane has been increasing but is not the only factor in global warming. Methane emissions are increasing also from a source that I would never have guessed. It turns out that most of the temperature increase that is happening in global warming is concertated in the refrigerators of the earth the artic and antartic continents. This not only causes the polar ice to melt but it is causing the melting of the perma frost and exposing and decomposing the organic matter that has been buried there for 10s of thousands of years. The carbon released in this process could be in the form of CO2 but it could also be in the form of methane. Now methane has 72 times the global warming power of CO2. Also once you reach a trigger point the effect of the carbon coming out of the perma frost melting is irreversible. This is only one aspect of what is happening to the earth. We have not even talked about pollution. I could talk about the expansion of deserts, shrinking of the forests, mass extinction of species. Just in the recent decades 20 percent of the world’s freshwater fish species have either become extinct, are threatened or endangered. The picture an’t pretty. But before I move one I want to touch upon the human condition in this scenario. Somewhere towards the end of last year or beginning of this year the global population reached 7 billion. When you look at the way wealth is distributed, a United Nations University special study reported that in year 2000, the richest 1% of the worlds population owned 40% of the global assets. The richest 2% own 50% of the global assets and the bottom half of the global population together owns 1% of the worlds assets. And when you take a closer look at the global poor, the picture that emerges is that almost a billion people do not get enough nutrition to meet their basic needs. And one third of the human population does not get enough vitamins and minerals in their food to allow them to meet their physical and intellectual potential. Finally when you look at why there is so much hunger in the world, you see three causes. The first is armed conflict. The second is the AIDS epidemic and close on its heels is climate change. The earth my friends is getting cooked and we are all feeling the heat.

Now there are three common attitudes people have towards our earthly abode, indifference, exploitation or worship. People would be indifferent because they are not aware of the issues or because they don’t care or because they are too overwhelmed with other aspects of life to be able to think about the earth. Some of us may be in this category and I think most of us at some point in our life I am sure could have been considered indifferent to the issues facing the earth. ___The second category are those who care only about their pocket books. There are individuals, businesses and government whose agendas include all forms of exploitation of the environment whether it is factory profits put ahead of pollution of the earth, water or air. Profits are to be made in cutting down forests, mining resources without paying attention to the process and over exploitation of plant and animal life. ___Now there is a third kind of human attitude towards the earth that is neither indifference or exploitation. It is worship of the earth. The 1practice of worshipping the earth is an ancient as the human race and spans many tribal religious around the world. But in recent decades many important leaders like Al Gore and Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong have lifted up the spiritual connection between human beings and the earth and the key to saving the planet. The Earth Charter published in March 2000 was considered humanity’s new covenant with the Earth and the original copy of this document was placed in an arc made to mimic the original arc of the covenant which then toured the world. Mikhail Gorbachev has also made statements to the effect that the Earth Charter is the New Ten Commandments. At many levels the new environmental movement is taking the form of religion, complete with a covenant, relics and even an encouragement of a spiritual connection with Mother earth. So in summary when we look at the human attitude to the earth we find three primary responses. We find indifference, blatant exploitation or worship.
Now the Bible is very clear that the earth is groaning as a result of human sin. Apostle Paul in Romans 8, 22 says “The whole of creation groans and travails in pain together till this time. The whole of creation groans with pain because of our sin. When we examine the context of this verse it begins with the remarkable story of creation in which God who is in the beginning builds this incredible world in 6 acts with the final act of creation being creation of man and woman. Then God gives Adam and Eve the job of chief stewards of God’s good creation. Gen 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Mathew Farrelly comments on this verse saying that when you look at the language used both in Gen 1 and 2 you see that human beings are to be God’s representatives as both king and priest’s for creation. So the picture that Farrelly sees in Genesis is one of human beings mediating God’s presence and God’s purposes on the earth. Farrelly then completes the picture by noting that “like priests, we offer creation back to God”.___ Then this pristine world with Adam and Eve as both steward and priest of creation is shattered by sin. Paradise is broken and broken so badly that very soon God has to start over. So God makes a new covenant with Noah and the earth. God loves all of His creation so much he makes an exhaustive covenant in Gen 9 and versus 9 and 10 which says I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you-the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you-every living creature on earth.” You can clearly see God’s love for his creation when he knows that sin will still prevail. And sin does prevail so by the time we get to the beginning of the nation of Israel’s decline in Isaiah chapter 24 and versus 5 and 6 it says, for they have broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth. Scripture is unambiguous that the problems facing the earth are clearly the result of human sin.
Now I believe that John 316 makes the astounding claim that the cross initiates the redemption of the cosmos In other words the scope of the redemption spoken of in 316 is cosmic is scale and it begins at the cross. To understand John 316’s claim we will begin first by looking at the final redeemed world and then work our way back to the cross. The cross initiates the redemption of the cosmos.
Everybody is familiar with the words of John 316 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should have everlasting life.” In the Greek the word translated “world” is Kosmon from the root word “kosmos” which also means “universe” or “ordered system”. In other words 316 says for God so loved the ordered cosmos that he just had to clean up the mess of sin and death and make a new Order out of the disarray. What is the kind of world that God is looking for? This is the world foreseen long ago by prophets like Hosea and Isaiah who saw a world in which there was no war, where the little child would be playing by the hole of the poisonous snakes without any fear or harm, where the lion would lie down with the lamb and people and animals of every kind would enjoy peace and joy in a beautiful and pristine planet where no death exists. But a world without death cannot have sin. So before God makes this deathless world he has to take care of the problem of sin. Christ takes care of the problem of sin by first paying the penalty for all human sin on the cross. Then by resisting all sin himself and by the power of his divinity he reversed death itself by becoming the first born of the New Creation promised long ago to the prophets. In this new world created by Christ’s work on the cross, those who truly put their trust in Christ will not be indifferent to the will of God but constantly seek to live out their responsibility of being stewards and priests of God’s creation. After all only a heart sold for Christ can seek the same justice that Christ seeks, only a heart sold for Christ can seek the same peace that Christ seeks. Only a heart sold for Christ can desire to be a steward of this world for Christ. Then again only Christ’s death and resurrection could have transformed sinful human beings into hearts sold for Christ. Once every heart there is to transform has been transformed, God will transform the planet itself and with it the whole universe to make it a fitting dwelling place for eternal life. It was the cross of Jesus Christ that put into motion the glorious redemption of the cosmos.
In Christ we are then reconciled to all of God’s creation as stewards and priests. Yes Christ made reconciliation between us and God possible. Yes he also made reconciliation between each other possible. But Christ also now makes reconciliation between us and the rest of his creation possible. It is because of this reconciliation that the little child will one day be able to play near the vipers. But today already through Christ each of us can seek a right relationship with the rest of creation. In Christ we are once again stewards of this planet. We can take go out and restore land that is damaged, we can tend the gardens and we can make the trees in our care fruitful. As Christ’s ambassadors we can be indifferent to our impact of the earth. We cannot be driven by greed. And we cannot be wasteful. Instead we can be wise sowers and generous reapers. As Christ’s ambassador’s we have to be kind to the animals and respectful of animal life even when we have to sacrifice their life to sustain ours. The Words of Christ is Luke remind of God’s concern for the animals, “are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies, yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight”. Finally, as Christ’s ambassars neither can we made the environment our idol worship. Col chapter 1 and verse 16 says “for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him;” We can never forget that we tend a small portion of God’s creation not because it is ours by ownership. We tend it with care because the true owner is coming soon. In Christ we are reconciled to all of God’s creation as stewards and priests.
As we pause to reflect on the state of the planet we will in may our relationship with Christ help us have a right relationship with all of God’s creation. May God be glorified.

It’s a fair stretch to say that Christianity’s history is not a checkered one, riddled with many things that have been of an unsavory nature, and which we look back on and chide, “Good Lord, what were we thinking!?”

For anyone who believes it’s a rosy history of good people doing good things, who know what they’re talking about, have all the answers, and have it all right, well…there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary.

This morning we’re going to examine what I honestly believe to be the most crippling problem in Christianity: generations of Christians who think they have it all right, and feel strongly that everyone else should know that they have it all right.

This is not an issue that is specific to a particular generation of Christians. And I should clarify that Christianity is not the only religion with people arguing that they’re right.

In fact, there are plenty of non-religious debates that are fed by people wanting to prove that they are right. People wanting to prove the other side wrong.

Yes, this is a very human tendency, and it’s part of our nature. But Christianity is about acknowledging and embracing our human nature, and then developing good practices and habits that help us grow into the full humanity to which we have access through God’s son, Jesus.

For too long, Christians have failed to contend with this burning inclination to be right, and it has resulted in some of the most devastating and harmful events which are numerous enough to fill the pages of a tome.

This is what I mean when I say it’s a fair stretch to say that Christianity’s history is not a checkered one.

We’re going to delve into this matter this morning by visiting the annals of Christian history and examining a thought-provoking instance of people wanting to be right; and then looking at the Pualine passage that was read to us this morning to pinpoint some good practices to develop that help us contend with this…confounded desire to be right. (2:25)

Let us begin, then, by travelling back to the 4th century of the Common Era – arguably one of the most influential periods in the history of Christianity. Much of what we still consider to be the foundation of the Christian faith was decided during this century.

It is the year 318 C.E. (some of you might say A.D.). And Constantine is the emperor of the largest empire in the world: the Roman Empire.

Christians are particularly fond of Constantine at this time. Can anyone tell us why?

Yes! He legalized Christianity in 312 with the Edict of Milan. This was a big deal because it was the first time that Christianity had been legal. Sure, it was tolerated at times, and of course many Christians faced persecution, were banned from public office, denied service in the military, even prohibited from owning property. But never had it been legal.

The Edict of Milan resulted in one, an increase in the number of Christians in the Roman Empire; two, a united and by and largely happy constituency for Emperor Constantine; and three, a door flung wide open to disagreements.

Because once Christianity was made legal, debates over theology didn’t have to be waged through secret letters between obscure theologians spread across the empire; it was now something that could be discussed publicly by anyone.

And in 318 a debate ensued of such magnitude that it reached the ears of the Emperor himself and received his personal intervention.

There are three main characters in this story:

Alexander, Arius, and Athanasius.

Alexander was the bishop of Alexandria, the chief city of Christianity in the Roman Empire. He is described by the Roman Catholic Church as “a man held in the highest honor by the people and clergy, magnificent, liberal, eloquent, just, a lover of God and man, devoted to the poor, good and sweet to all.” Sounds pretty endearing, doesn’t he? (5:15)

Arius. Arius was a young bishop in Alexandria at this time who is unfortunately cast as the villain of this story. We can’t be sure of his appearance or his character because the only surviving historical accounts are those written by his opponents. We do know, however, that Arius was a song writer, he was an excellent orator, and he won the respect of many followers through his charismatic demeanor.

Athanasius, our third character, is my favorite to describe. He was a middle-aged man of unusually dark complexion with a horribly hooked nose and brilliant red beard that glowed against his dark skin. On top of this, he was short and fat. Often called a “dwarf” by his opponents, he most likely suffered from “small man” syndrome. Indeed, if there were a patron saint of stubbornness, Athanasius would have fit the boot perfectly.

The story begins with Alexander giving a sermon on the eternal generation of the Son, arguing that God the Father and Jesus the Son are eternal together. Meaning neither of them had a beginning. Always the father, always the son. At the same time, he upheld the oneness of God.

In the audience to which Alexander addressed was a young bishop, who although very quiet and reserved, cared very much about the study of scripture and the ways which people talked about God. This young man was Arius.

He left the sermon and immediately composed a letter to Alexander expressing his disagreement with Alex’s teaching that the father and son are eternal together.

Instead, he suggested that the Son had a beginning. That at one time there wasn’t a Son, and that he was at some point begotten by the Father.

He questioned how Alex could talk about the Father and Son as two persons or realities while still claiming there is only one God.

– Clarify the argument –

Of course, you can imagine Alexander – the lover of God and man, sweet to all – pouring over this letter and fuming at Arius’ claims. All the while, his beloved, portly secretary, Athanasius, recording Alex’s every thought and comment about Arius.

Immediately deeming Arius’ claims as wrong, Alexander appeals to the bishops of Alexandria to gather support for himself.

He fabricates a tale of how Arius conspires with lots of women in attempt to poison the bishops against him. He does everything he can to characterize Arius in a way that makes him appear as the “other” who is polluting the orthodox teachings of the time.

Determined not to be thwarted, Arius steps out of his quiet comfort and begins delivering sermon after sermon in Alexandria and even abroad refuting Alexander’s claims that the Father and Son are eternal.

The eloquence with which he spoke and his driving passion, along with his song-writing capabilities synergized to amass a considerable following.

Many of his followers could be heard singing a popular jingle Arius had written, “There was a time the Son was not. There was a time the Son was not.”

This outraged Alexander and the bishops of Alexandria to such a point that the tumultuous argument reached the ears of the Emperor himself, and he decided he had to do something to settle the argument which had grown to be known on a worldwide scale.

Skip ahead a few years and we arrive at the Council of Nicaea in 325. This is the very first ecumenical council, and there are three things decided and one promulgation made:

The books of the Bible were chosen.
The date of Easter was set, following the Hebrew calendar.
Arius’ teachings were deemed heretical and Alexander was victorious.

The promulgation was, of course, the Nicene Creed, which upheld Alexander’s theology of the eternal generation of the Son.

The Council was Emperor Constantine’s attempt to settle the dispute, but it persisted. Why? Because as Alexander lay on his deathbed, he supposedly conjured up enough energy to verbally appoint his portly secretary, Athanasius, as his successor.

And what do we remember about Athanasius? He’s a stubborn, colossal jerk. Literally, that’s what he is.

He does two things upon taking the appointment of bishop of Alexandria. He coins the term “Arian” to indicate followers of Arius; and he begins putting together “Monk Posies” to go out and literally hunt Arius’ followers and persecute them.

Both of these actions are driven by the desire to be “right”.

Although the term “Arian” doesn’t seem harmful, to put it in perspective it’s the same thing as the more common and derisive term “Commi”.

You can make it mean whatever you want in terms of calling someone wrong. Its sole purpose is to designate the otherness of someone’s beliefs or thinking. And it’s very harmful.

Shortly after Athanasius’ ascent to power, Arius is unsurprisingly excommunicated to the remote fringes of the empire, never to return to a position of influence, let alone polite recognition, and he is remembered as a villain in the history of Christianity until recently actually.

Indeed, all of Arius’ writings were destroyed so that all we have left today are a couple fragments of his songs.

Everything we know about Arius we’ve learned through the writings of his opponents and therefore must interpret carefully with a large grain of salt. (Pause)

This story is best known for its insight and influence into how we speak about God today. Specifically, how we talk about the Trinity.

And you know what? That’s messy stuff. Talking about God isn’t easy and it shouldn’t be easy. It should be approached with care, respect and humility.

But the point I want to draw out from this story is the harm that was caused because people wanted to be right.

Whether it was Alexander, Arius, or Athanasius, all three of these men wanted to see to it that their view was accepted as “orthodox”, and the other’s pronounced as “heterodoxy” – that which is different, other, or wrong.

Ultimately, this struggle resulted in a searing division within the church that persisted for centuries.

We’re talking about masses of people who belonged to the same faith, yet held each other in contempt because certain ones among them believed differently.

And we still experience this today right?

There’s untold numbers of denominations within the Christian faith which divide us, there’s still conflict surrounding the acceptance of women in ministry, there’s still disagreements about people of different sexual orientations being welcomed and affirmed in the church, we still struggle with immigration, religious tolerance, racial bigotry, and even more.

That’s sad.

It’s sad because these divisions and disagreements represent broken relationships and a lack of community with each other.

Why in the world do we have to be right?

Why do we have to push our point across?

Why must we label others as wrong?

Why must we sacrifice the experience of community with one another to make sure our desire to be right is satisfied?

Why do we have to be right? (Pause)

The greatest gift God gave us was God’s Son; the next greatest gift God has given us is each other.

And to sacrifice relationships with one another because we have to be right…is to thwart that gift.

Paul writes to the Romans, “Live in harmony with one another, do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

So far as it depends on you.

That’s the key right there, folks.

It’s up to you whether you’re going to be an Alexander or an Arius or an Athanasius…

It’s up to you whether you want to be remembered as an Alexander, Arius, or Athanasius – and I pray from the depths of my heart that you’re not remembered as an Athanasius.

The next time your wife or husband, partner, or significant other says something to you that just ignites that desire to have your say and prove them wrong, think about what’s more important: you’re being right…or the relationship you have.

The next time your mom or dad makes a statement that you just don’t agree with, that really ticks you off, think about what’s more important: being right…or the relationship you have with your parent or guardian.

When you just want to get into a row with a coworker over a matter of politics or religion or other controversial topic (I don’t know why you’d want to), but remember what’s more important.

And I want to make it clear that I’m not saying to simply concede every discussion or point you want to make. There are plenty of instances where we need to stand up for certain values and convictions in the face of opposition.

But when it comes to petty matters, we have to ask ourselves, “is this worth my getting into a heated disagreement with this person?” “Is this really worth me having to be right?”

And you know what? A lot of times the answer is no.

And what a joy it is to be in right relationship with others; to not have to mend the fractures that have been caused by the driving desire to be right.

So let us go forth today with this in mind: If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And for goodness’ sake, why do we always have to be right???

Amen

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Happy Easter!

In the Gospels we are told the place Jesus wants to go after his resurrection is to Galilee. At the empty tomb the angel tells the two Mary’s that Jesus has risen. Then they are told:
“Do not be afraid; go and tell his disciples to go to Galilee; there they will meet Jesus.”

Now, here is my Easter question for you: Why go to Galilee? What is so special about Galilee?

You would think that Jesus, right after his resurrection, would go to the seat of Roman power, the palace and confront Pilate.

You would think Jesus, to maximize his influence and power after being raised from the dead, would go right to the top. He would talk with those who have power and prestige so he could get his name and message all over the news.

You would think Jesus would take the opportunity to make a big splash and raise a lot of money. It was his one time to let the world know that death and the powers of death in the world have been defeated.

I read a while back that an official for the National Council of Churches – when asked why the Council was having less influence replied – “The Bush administration has refused to welcome us to the White House.”
The implication being – if you want to get something done you have to go to the seat of power.

As you know this is an election year and so be prepared to hear over and over again that the most important things always happen in Washington.

But Jesus didn’t go to the Roman Palace, the White House, the Kremlin, or Beijing.

The moment Jesus was raised from the dead he went back to Galilee. He went back to where he carried out most of his ministry.

Now, Galilee was an “out of the way sort of place”. It was not a destination place for people with money and power. In fact, when one of the disciples learned that Jesus was from Nazareth of Galilee he asked – “Can anything good come out of Galilee?”

So, no one special lived in Galilee – except that is where many of Jesus’ disciples lived.

Jesus, instead of going to the centers of power for maximum coverage – appears to his ragtag group of followers in Galilee.

He appears to the ones who disappointed him, misunderstood him, forsook him and even fled from him in the darkness. Galilee is significant because Jesus returns to his betrayers.

Paul, in First Corinthians 15, tells us that after his resurrection Jesus went to Galilee and showed himself to Peter and the twelve disciples. Then he appeared to over 500 sisters and brothers at one time.
Then he came to James and the other apostles. And lastly, the risen Jesus appeared to the great persecutor and murderer of the church – Paul himself.

By going back to Galilee the risen Christ was only doing what the crucified Christ always did – he came back for his followers. He kept seeking them out. He kept looking for them.

In Romans 5 Paul writes about our searching God when he says – “One of us might be willing to die for a really good person, but God proves his love for us through Jesus’ death for us while we were enemies of God.”

God’s response to our sinful ways was not to punish us or judge us. Instead, God came back to us – not with the wrath we deserved but with his presence and love and offer of forgiveness.

The risen Jesus returns to Galilee to be with his disciples. Jesus goes to Galilee because he never stops seeking out those who have wondered away or gotten lost.

God is the shepherd who does not sit back and wait for the lost sheep to wander home. God goes out, risks everything, beats the bushes night and day and finds the lost sheep.

God is like the father who doesn’t sit back and wait for the wayward son to come home. Instead, God runs to meet him and restores him as his son and not as a slave.

God is also like the mother who after she loses a coin searches high and low until she finds it. Like the mother, God never quits on us.

The wonderful story of scripture is not that people are seeking to find God but that God is seeking to find us.

As Good Friday demonstrates – human beings can adjust quite well to death.

It is possible to get along very well without Jesus. The disciples went back to work – doing what they were doing before Jesus called them.

Certainly they were sad and discouraged, but they were not looking for a resurrected Jesus. They thought the campaign for Messiah was over. They had gotten on with their life without Jesus.

But the story of Easter is about how God – despite us – keeps seeking for us. The risen Jesus went back to Galilee for us.

The real proof of the resurrection in scripture is not the empty tomb but the presence of Jesus with his followers. The result of the resurrection is a vibrant community of people who have met the risen Christ.

His appearance to them transformed them and gave them courage to live fully for Christ and to even face their own death.

The message of Easter is that God never stops seeking us out. And now “the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us so that we may have newness of life.”

Now, what is interesting about this new community of the Spirit is that to outside observers this community of Jesus followers doesn’t look all that impressive.
In Second Corinthians 4:7 Paul writes – “we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear, that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

The truth is that after his resurrection, Jesus went back to Galilee for a bunch of cracked pots and earthen vessels.
As hard as it is to believe – God’s face is revealed through our ordinary humanity – clay pots.

In this passage, Paul is being criticized by some visiting preachers at Corinth for his ordinariness.
They are critical of Paul because he isn’t very flashy. Paul isn’t in it for the money.
Paul is well-educated but he is not a great orator. Paul lacked the dynamic speech and action of these other high-flying preachers.
Paul also seemed to lack the power of the Holy Spirit. Three times he prayed for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed but it never was.
Paul’s rivals are challenging the adequacy of his ministry and whether he was qualified to be an apostle.

Paul’s response is – “we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

The source of Paul’s strength did not come from his own willpower or giftedness but from God’s Spirit at work in him. Paul had met the risen Christ.

The promise of the Holy Spirit is never that our troubles will all pass away but that the power of God is there to bring us through them.
Paul was afflicted in every way, persecuted, beaten, and ridiculed but God’s Spirit enabled him to endure and his life was a powerful witness to the transforming power of the risen Jesus.

I am not a potter but I think all of us know that even the finest pottery can easily be chipped or broken. It is easy to break a handle, crack a lip, or shatter a vase.

In the same way, God did not put his treasure in a crush-proof box or a solid-lead vault or wrap it in styrofoam padding.

Instead, God chose fragile clay pots and this makes for pain and injury.

Sometimes we do the very things we don’t want to do.
Sometimes we struggle to overcome our addictions to food or drink or work or sex.

Some of us feel like we have failed as parents. Others of us feel like we failed in a significant relationship. And some of us struggle to accept that God really forgives us when we ask.

Like clay pots we can be broken, easily damaged, and scarred.

Yet the good news of Easter is that Jesus goes to Galilee. He appears to us, he seeks us out, he finds us and he embraces us.

This is what the risen Savior does. He continues to seek us out and then he makes us agents of Easter in clay pots.

Jesus says to his disciples after the resurrection, “as the Father has sent me so I send you”. (John 20:21).

With all of our brokenness we sometimes wonder at God’s sanity in entrusting these clay pots with such a wonderful treasure.

And yet the distinguishing mark of the church is not our perfection. Our distinguishing mark and our only hope is our willingness to bring our brokenness and sins to the one who always comes back to Galilee looking for us.

Sometimes Christians are made to believe that if we have the Holy Spirit in us that we will be able to walk on water, rescue our friends, protect our children from harm, and win over the hearts of all of our enemies.

But God has not filled us with the Holy Spirit to be warriors and fighters. God has filled us with the Holy Spirit to be physicians and wounded healers.

The way to recognize Christ and his followers in the world is not by their big muscles, but by their scars.

The Risen Jesus, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, was not the undefeated champion of the world, but he was the suffering servant who went back to Galilee with his wounds still visible to show his disciples.

The risen Jesus is identified by his wounds and he has sent us out into the world as wounded healers.

Paul says – “We have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

So, what might all this mean for us today?

The good news of Easter for us today is that God is still on the loose in the world looking for people to love and forgive and restore. God is looking to bring life out of death and hope out of despair.

Easter means that God is on the loose and can show up on your doorstep at any time. God is not a quitter.

Jesus is still traveling around Galilee today. Easter is still happening. God is on the loose and a new world is being born where forgiveness and not vengeance is the new norm.

A new world where death doesn’t have the last word and where injustice is made right.

Easter also means today that when you walk through your valley of the shadow of death or when you face a dead end in life or feel like you are looking into a dark abyss – the good news is that God is there with you. You are not alone. He is waiting for you to show you his nail scarred hands.

The Psalmist put it this way – “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there.” (Psalm 139:7-8)

The risen Christ never leaves you alone. He is waiting to meet you. He is searching for you.

I read this week of a man who was on his deathbed.
His pastor asked him how he was feeling and if he feared anything. His response was – “No, I am not fearful of dying because of my faith in Jesus.”

The pastor asked him to say more about his hope and he said – “when I look back over my life and all the mistakes I have made and all of the times I turned away from Jesus – I am not afraid to die because even when I wasn’t looking for Jesus he was looking for me and he always found me and loved me.”

As I read that story I thought to myself – this was a man who understood Easter. He had met the risen Christ in his Galilee.

So, the very good news this morning is that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to each one of us for our day-to-day living.

Through the Holy Spirit we are connected to the power of the resurrection and we can partner with God in being wounded healers.

God has not left us helpless in our life work of restoring the earth to God’s original intention. We are not left on our own to grind it out in hard labor.

Because of the resurrection – we know that all of our efforts to love others, to forgive those who hurt us, to care for the earth, and to foster reconciliation between people groups will not some day just be thrown on the garbage dump by God.

Our work matters because God is making all things new.

God is on the loose, always searching and looking for someone to love and a world to restore.

Paul says – “We have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

This Easter – the good news is we are broken but truly blessed. Christ is risen!

Thanks be to God that the Risen Christ came back to Galilee for you and me.

Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 5: 13-16

Our Lenten series theme is “Where do I sign?”

The background to this theme is that God is seeking to restore human beings and all of creation into a right relationship with God and one another.

In pursuing this restored relationship – God makes a series of covenants with Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and then with Moses.

Each one of these covenants helped bring God’s rule on earth closer. They pointed people in the right direction.

But now the prophet Jeremiah says a new day is coming when God’s covenant will be written on people’s hearts.

The old covenants pointed toward a godly way of living out God’s reign on earth, but they were all external covenants.

In the new covenant Jeremiah proclaims, God’s laws are to be written on our hearts. God’s covenant becomes internal so that we are transformed from the inside out.

We will know what to do, not because of some external rules, but because God’s ways are written on our hearts.

Now, in the bible your “heart” represents the source of all your motivations. The term “heart” is used to describe the bundle of desires, hopes, interests, ambitions, and affections you have.

Your heart reveals the real you – what you love to do and what you care most about.

Another word for heart is simply your “passions”. Our interests and passions come from God and can be reshaped by God’s Spirit at work within us.

So, as God’s covenant is written large on our hearts it affects all of our desires, longings, motivations, interests, and what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

It is important to pay attention to your interests and passions because that might be the very place God wants to use you to serve others and make our world a better place to live.

Now, in the NT Jesus is seen as the one who brings this new covenant that is written on our hearts into being.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is seen as the new lawgiver. He is the new Moses. Jesus goes up on a mountain like Moses did and begins to teach the crowds about this new covenant that is written on people’s hearts.

The Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5-7 of Matthew, is a summary of Jesus’ teachings and what this new covenant written on our hearts looks like. It describes a heart yielded to God.

This new covenant written on our hearts even changes our value system.

The world says you are blessed if you seize power, take control, gain wealth, inhabit the corner office, or you’re the big man or woman on campus.

But in the Kingdom of God – Jesus says that isn’t so.

Jesus says – the poor in spirit or humble ones are blessed. The meek or gentle ones are blessed. Instead of seeking for power and control – people now hunger for justice and right relationships. They are peacemakers.

And when the new covenant is written large on your heart you become more concerned about the spirit of the law than the law itself.

Jesus says – you may never commit adultery but if you lust after another person – you have already committed adultery in your heart.

Or you may never murder anyone but if you put someone down or slander someone – Jesus says you have already committed murder in your heart.

So, this new covenant written on our hearts begins to affect everything about us – our desires, longings, motivations, interests, and what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

Then, with these renewed and reshaped hearts – Jesus gives us our mission in the world.

In Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus says we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

In Jesus’ day, salt was used to preserve food before there was refrigeration. Salt was a preserving agent that kept food from spoiling.

The implication here is that Jesus’ followers are the preserving agents in society. They actually help society keep from destroying itself. They keep it from spoiling.

Being humble, gentle, merciful, and a peacemaker are all preserving ingredients.

Salt also flavors food. It makes the food tasty. Jesus’ followers bring out the best in others. Jesus’ followers actually make the world more interesting and livable.

Jesus also says his followers are the light of the world and that we should let our light shine before others so that they might see our good works and give glory to God.

I found it interesting that the Greek word for “good” in “good works” actually means – “beautiful or attractive”.

When Christians do their “beautiful deeds” before others people will see them and give praise to God.

People will see the beautiful deeds of Christians and be reminded that this is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be fully alive.

It will inspire people to look for the source of those beautiful deeds. It will inspire people to hunger and thirst after right relationships and a restored creation.

When this new covenant is written on our hearts – our lives become filled with these kinds of beautiful deeds because they flow from a transformed heart.

We don’t do “beautiful deeds” to show off – it is just that light can’t be hidden.

Light shines through the tiniest of cracks. It always finds a way to get out and illuminate a space.

So this is our Christian calling in the world – to be salt and light – performing beautiful deeds that help preserve and bring flavor to our world. That inspire other “beautiful deeds” and makes our world a better place.

Now, we could apply this teaching in a variety of ways but this morning I want to apply it to gift discernment. I want to focus on our congregational mission to be equippers. Our mission is to equip people to do “beautiful deeds” in the world.

A few years ago, we wrote a mission statement here at PMC. One part of that mission statement says this: Our mission is “to help people discern their unique call to contribute to building Christ’s kingdom in the world and equip them for ministry in their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and beyond.”

So, a significant part of our congregational mission is “helping people discern their call and equipping them for service in the world.”

In other words, we want to equip people to practice their beautiful deeds at home, at work, in their community and around the world.

At times, the Christian church has given the impression that being “called by God” was something only missionaries, pastors, or full-time church workers experienced.

And many Christians believed the only place they could impact the Kingdom of God was through serving in their local churches.

They saw the local church as the only place they could express their gifts – often by volunteering for different roles in the church.

But the truth is that God has called all of us to perform “beautiful deeds” and they take many shapes and forms.

1. Many times, the place we work is the place God has called us to let our beautiful deeds restore our broken world.

There will always be a place for full-time church workers but the call of God on people is just as real for people to use their God given talents and gifts in their places of work.

Many times when Jesus healed people and called them to follow him – he sent them back home to their towns and villages. He wanted them to restore the needs right under their noses.

Jesus didn’t tell Zacchaeus to quit his job as a tax collector. But he did inspire him to change the way he did his work and to be honest and not take advantage of people.

God gives us different abilities, talents, interests, and personalities and expects us to use them to bring honor and glory to him.

So it is important to pay attention to your natural interests and passions because that is often the way you will serve God and others best.

You can serve God as an artist, business person, farmer, mechanic, teacher, doctor, dish washer, nurse, stay at home dad or mom, counselor or any other job.

As followers of Jesus we need to think about our work not just as a job – but as serving in a vocation.

And by that I simply mean that we begin to see our occupational placement as part of God’s greater mission to bring about healing and wholeness in our world.

When we serve out of our interests and passions, rather than from duty, our deeds will indeed be beautiful and bring praise to God.

So the first thing I want to say today is that each one of us is called by God to perform beautiful deeds and the work of the church is what we do all week.

Our congregational mission is to help you discern your call and to better equip you to live that out everyday of your life. You are the church. You are a representative of Christ wherever you go and in whatever you do.

So for most people the way you will serve the church is by what you do everyday. You don’t have to be on a church committee to serve the church.

1. But there will also be ways to serve the church outside of your work.

You will also be able to follow some of your interests and passions through volunteer work in your community or school or some local organization that serves the city.

Some of these volunteer opportunities that serve our communities can also grow out of the church – whether formal or informal.

Just this week I learned that Alisha Hershberger, Holly Puett, and Miriam and Everett Ramer go monthly to a nursing home to sing.

They all love music and they care about the elderly – so they use their gifts to express “beautiful deeds” of love through music in a nursing home.

For the last few weeks Karen Howard, Sam Morgan, and Julie Swartzentruber have been working with women in rehab at POWER on writing.

They have shared their love for writing with these women and it has been a beautiful gift for them.

I know others of you volunteer on boards like Ten Thousand Village or PULSE or School PTA’s or in community development. Others of you are involved in community gardening or in environmental restoration.

PMC is also beginning a sister relationship with a Mennonite Church in Honduras. Randy Kolb and others of you have been working at this relationship and this fall a group of folks from Honduras will be with us.

It takes time and energy and resources to nurture this relationship but it is one where we can mutually learn from each other.

These, along with many others, are all wonderful ways of partnering with God in restoring our communities.

So another part of our congregational mission of equipping is helping people link with ongoing organizations or ministries or to even start new ones.

This past fall we looked at taking on responsibility for a food pantry but then another church took it on.

We didn’t do the food pantry but if you have a passion for something like this or something that flows from your passions and want to find a place for discernment let me know and I will help connect you with others.

1. And then lastly this morning, our life together as a community has to be nurtured so that we can be a discerning and equipping congregation of beautiful deeds.

Teaching Sunday School, planning for worship, coordinating fellowship meals, caring for the building, providing youth sponsors, and many other internal roles help us be an equipping congregation.

Over the next two months the “gift discernment committee” will try to match gifts and passions in the church with some of these internal roles that help us be an equipping church.

So we will be talking with you and in small groups to see if we can match up your passions with what will help us be a more effective equipping congregation.

What I have tried to say this morning, though, is that our congregational mission is far greater than meeting our internal needs. Our mission is to be an equipping congregation.

We want to equip you and empower you to bring the tangible love and goodness of God to our community and world every single day of your life.

We want you to know that God has called you and given you a vocation of expressing “beautiful deeds” wherever you are and in all that you do.

As followers of Jesus we are salt and light.

As a response this morning I would like for you to take the green bulletin insert that has two questions on it.

For the next five minutes I would like you to reflect on your God given interests and passions.

What passions has God written on your heart? What interests do you have? What are you good at?

This is only a beginning but I want you to name some of your gifts/passions/or interests.

And then the second question is – how has the church supported you or empowered you to use your gifts? I would like you to also suggest ways we could better equip you for doing “beautiful deeds” of love.

So take five minutes to reflect on this.

After 5 minutes Keith will lead us in a song.

We will then collect our morning offering and I invite you – if you want to – to put this paper with your gift/passions on it in the offering plate as a way to offer your gifts back to God.

If you want to put your name on it you can but you don’t have to. It will be a way of saying thank you to God for the gifts given to you to serve the world and to make it a better place.

(take five minutes)

Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21

Our theme for Lent this year is “Where do I sign?”. During this series we have been looking at how God’s people have responded to God’s invitation to sign up and journey with God.

So far we have seen how Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and Moses said “yes” to God in the midst of opposition and uncertainty. They signed on with God as an act of faith.

Today we want to continue with this theme by looking at two stories – one in the OT and one in the NT. The OT story is an obscure passage that we probably wouldn’t look at if Jesus hadn’t brought it up with Nicodemus.

But since Jesus brought it up, it is important for us to go back and look at the story again.

The background to this passage in Numbers 21 is that the children of Israel have been wandering around in the wilderness for almost 40 years.

The Israelites who experienced the Exodus have mostly died off and their children are now ready to enter the Promised Land.

As they near the end of their wilderness sojourn and begin heading back toward the Promise Land they are forced to take another long detour.

The king of Edom will not let the Israelites pass through his land – so they have to take the long way around. This inconvenience angers the people, and like their parents before them, they begin to bad mouth Moses and God.

The people muttered – “why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” And then they go on to complain about how much they hate the free manna God was giving them everyday for food.

This story reminds us of how easy it is to get discouraged, after we “sign up with God”, when things don’t work out like we expected or we are overcome by difficulties along the way.

Some of the Israelites got so discouraged they formed a “back to Egypt committee”. These are the folks who are never happy. When good things happen – they always look for the bad. They are the first to point out when something new is tried – “we never did it this way before”.

But even more lethal to any group or church is the contagious spirit of negativity. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to get a negative, complaining discussion going?

It certainly can happen in church but we see it most clearly in politics. Negativity sells. Mudslinging works. It is easier to gather people to protest than to praise.

A complaining, negative spirit can bring any group or church to a grinding halt. It did to the Israelites time and again.

The first time the Israelites complained about lack of food and wanting to go back to Egypt- God gave them Manna.

But this time, when they reject the Manna and want to return to death valley in Egypt – God gives them snakes.

With snakes in tents, snakes in breadbaskets, snakes in cooking pots, and snakes in cribs – it doesn’t take the people long to figure out they have sinned against God.

So the people confess to Moses and he intercedes to God on their behalf.

Now, what is interesting to me in this story is that God doesn’t do what you would expect. You would think that since God sent the snakes into camp – God would simply make the snakes disappear. But that isn’t what happened.

Instead, God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and to put it on a high pole. God then tells the people to look at this artificial snake as the cure for the bite of a real snake.

Instead of removing the snakes, the cause of death, from the people – God provides a remedy in the midst of the threat of death.

With snakes all around them the people soon learned that being bitten by snakes was part of life. They couldn’t control being bitten but they could control how they responded to being bitten.

So, whenever they were bitten, if they looked at the bronze snake on the pole God healed them.

Now, you might be asking, why did God do it this way? Why did the Israelites have to look at an image of what ailed them, in order to get cured of what ailed them?

I must confess that I don’t know why God did it this way. It seems to me that it would have been much easier to just get rid of the snakes so the people wouldn’t be bitten

That seems easier to me, but the issue here is not really about snakes – it is about trusting God with our lives.

The bronze snake had no magical powers to heal the people. In fact, we learn later in II Kings 18:4 that King Hezekiah smashes the “bronze snake” Moses had made because now, 500 years later, people were worshiping it instead of God.

The Israelites had made the bronze snake into an idol. What was a symbol of God’s saving power was turned into a lucky charm – a false god.  They made sacrifices to the “bronze snake” thinking it had power to heal them.

But it wasn’t the bronze snake that did the healing – it was God. When they looked away from “self” and looked to God and God’s instructions – they lived.

The bronze snake was a constant reminder of the deadly results of their sin – but it also pointed them to God who had liberated them from bondage and who was their true savior.

Many years later Jesus comes along and he uses this same story to explain who he is to Nicodemus.

Jesus tells Nicodemus in verse 14 – “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Now, the story of Nicodemus and, in particular John 3:16, is so familiar to Christians, and even non-Christians, that it has almost lost its power to address us.

In many ways, I think this verse has become our idol that needs to be smashed like the bronze serpent was smashed.

The bigger story here in John’s gospel is about – how we know God. In the time of Jesus there were two main Jewish groups debating how one can know God. And these two groups were often at odds with each other.

The Sadducees were the rich gate-keepers of temple worship. They taught that one could get close to God by keeping the Torah and obeying the sacrificial laws.

To get close to God one had to go to the temple and make a sacrifice. The only problem was you couldn’t bring your own animals to sacrifice – you had to buy what they had to offer.

Also, you couldn’t bring your own money for offerings. You had to exchange your Greek and Roman coins for temple currency at a higher rate. For some people these practices took all of their yearly earnings.

These temple practices were a huge money making machine for the Sadducees. It was an oppressive system of making money off the people in the name of God.

Just prior to his talk with Nicodemus – Jesus cleanses the temple and chases out the money changers. The cleansing of the temple was a strong statement by Jesus opposing the Sadducees’ temple practices and ways of knowing God.

The other main Jewish group at the time of Jesus was the Pharisees. The Pharisees were actually very popular because you didn’t have to pay for your relationship with God.

The Pharisees said all you needed to do was follow the law and you will be close to God. They had a lot of laws to follow – about 613 in total – but at least you could be close to God without emptying your bank account.

Now, my sense is that after Jesus cleanses the Temple in opposition to the Sadducees – Nicodemus, a devout Pharisee, comes to Jesus thinking Jesus is on his side.

Nicodemus says to Jesus in verse 2 – “Rabbi we know you are a teacher who has come from God.”

I think Nicodemus is really saying – “Jesus, we know you are a good Pharisee. Otherwise you couldn’t do all those cool things you have been doing.”

However, Jesus unsettles Nicodemus and challenges his way of being close to God too by immediately saying – “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

All of a sudden, Nicodemus – this great teacher and scholar – has no idea what Jesus is talking about. He has no idea what being “born from above” means.

He thinks it means climbing back into your mother’s womb and being born all over again.

Jesus says – no, no – being born again is about being born of God’s Spirit. It is about God’s Spirit filling your life and making you new from the inside out.

And, then, because Nicodemus still doesn’t get what he is talking about, Jesus reminds Nicodemus of this familiar story of the bronze snake and how the people were healed when they looked at it.

Jesus says to Nicodemus – when the Messiah is lifted up like the bronze snake in the wilderness – then all who put their trust in him will have life for all eternity.

Jesus tells Nicodemus the reason God is doing it this way is so that no one has to be destroyed. God didn’t send Jesus to point out how bad the world was – or to eliminate the poison snakes in the world.

God gave his only Son to the world because God loved the world so much and wanted to put the world right again.

Jesus says – those who put their trust in him will find true life and will discover purpose and meaning for living.

Now, I want to talk for just a few minutes about two of the common images mentioned in this passage.

One of the most common ones is this idea of being “born again or being born from above.”

For some Christians, the idea of being “born again” has come to mean – If I believe in Jesus I am in. I am saved. I don’t have to worry about heaven anymore. I believe in Jesus – therefore I am good to go.

I think that is part of what it means, but I think it means so much more than that.

John uses the birth imagery here to talk about “newness” – to talk about a new way of living in the world. As human beings we need more than forgiveness. We need to be changed and reborn.  We need to be set free from all of those things that keep us in bondage.

God wants to set us free so we can fully participate in God’s life here and now.

Being born of the Spirit is not just a one time experience. Being reborn by the Spirit is really a continuous process. Spiritual rebirth happens over and over again throughout our life.

All of life’s experiences – the good ones and the hard ones – are opportunities to be reborn spiritually. They are opportunities to share in God’s life more fully.

They are opportunities to grow in becoming more Christlike – more human and more fully alive.

So, to be “born from above” is really a posture of how we are to live our daily lives. It is a posture of openness to receive whatever God’s Spirit brings to us. We can’t control God’s Spirit – we can only surrender to it.

The other main image used here is of “the Son of Man being lifted up like Moses lifted up the bronze serpent”.

Most scholars think this “lifting up of the Son of Man” is referring to Jesus death on the cross.

This understanding is reinforced from a verse in chapter 12 of John’s Gospel where Jesus again says – “when I am lifted up from earth I will draw all people to myself.”

And then John adds this interpretive phrase – “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”

Just as God did not remove the snakes from the Israelites in the OT – God does not remove the scourge of death from earth. Death remains in the world and every one of us will die.

Yet, Jesus says that everyone who puts their trust in him will have life now and for eternity.

Now, Jesus did not say that a person would have life eternal just by looking at the cross or touching the cross or by wearing a cross. The cross has no power in itself.

There have been times in church history when the cross became a relic that was supposed to have power. In the Middle Ages people sold pieces of wood that supposedly had come from Jesus’ cross.

These small slivers of wood were revered because they were thought to confer saving power on the person who owned them.

Those kinds of practices are similiar to the kind of idolatrous worship the Israelites made of the bronze snake.

Today, we don’t try to buy and sell slivers of Jesus’ cross, but there are times I think we have made an idol out of the cross. We have so commercialized the cross that it has become like a magic wand to save us.

For some people the cross becomes more important than trusting God with your life.

Now, there is nothing wrong with wearing a cross around your neck or having crosses in your home. But I hope none of us think that just by wearing a cross or touching a cross that it will make us any more holy than we already are by God’s grace.

The cross is only a sign of God’s deep involvement in our healing and redemption. It is a reminder that we cannot save ourselves. By looking toward the cross we see beyond it to the God who liberates and redeems us.

The cross is a constant reminder of the deadly results of our sin – but it also points us to God whose desire is to heal the whole world.

The crucified Christ is lifted up high, so we can see the passionate love of God for us and the whole world.

A number of years ago I saw the movie “The Green Mile”. It is the story of a condemned inmate who is wrongly accused, but he has healing powers.

In one scene, the inmate opens his mouth inches away from a woman dying of cancer. She opens her mouth and a swarm of demonic-like flies flow out of her mouth into his.

He ingests them and his own body becomes weakened for a bit. But then he opens his mouth again and expels the flies into the air, along with their evil and poison.

Through this experience the woman is made whole again.

Now, this image from the movie helps me understand better what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. Jesus absorbed all our poison, evil, violence, hatred, and death into himself.

The personal cost to Jesus was so great that he died. But death did not win and in his resurrection he expels all the poison.

The good news this morning is that when we put our trust in Jesus – when we open ourselves to the Spirit – God will make us whole again and give us life for all eternity.

God does not leave us alone. God provides a way for us, through Jesus, to have new life now and for eternity.

All of us, from time to time, can get side tracked or lose our way on this journey of life just like the children of Israel did in the wilderness.

The secret to fulfillment on this journey is to keep trusting Jesus with our lives and relying on God’s power to heal us and make us whole.

The cross doesn’t save us but it points to the one who can. The cross is a sign of God’s passionate love for us – that God cares for us. That God wants to live in us and redeem us and change our world.

This morning – we still live in a world where death is everywhere and threatens all that we hold dear. Yet God has given us the cross to look at to assure us that life is available to us through Jesus.

The folly of the cross turns out to be the wisdom of God. The cross signals death’s end and is a sign of hope.

As a response this morning we want to share in communion together. By coming to the Lord’s Table – you are affirming the hope you have as it streams from the cross.

The cross reminds us that God did not come to condemn our world but to reclaim it and make it new again. By the power of God we can be made new again.

Let us pray.

Thank you Lord for all the ways you have come to us and given us faith and hope in the face of difficulties that have plagued us. Our hearts are filled with gratitude today as we ponder the incredible extent of your love for us and your world.

Your love for us is not easy to describe with words, but it is a joy we can sense in our hearts and sing with our tongues.

As we come to your Table today we ask that you would enlarge our hearts by the work of your Spirit until we are fully shaped by your love.

I pray that you would touch every heart here with your Spirit and lighten every burden we carry this day.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Gen. 17:1-7, 15-16; Mark 8:27-38

Our theme for Lent this year is “Where do I sign?”

This theme grows out of the understanding that God has initiated a covenant with us and desires us to sign on.

The OT scriptures for Lent are about God’s covenant with Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and Moses.

These are ordinary people who, struggling to live by faith, “sign on to a covenant with God”.

Their stories are recorded so that we can find strength, encouragement, and hope for living out our faith in God.

Last Sunday Joel started off the Lenten series by looking at God’s covenant with Noah.  After the flood God made a commitment to Noah to never destroy the earth again and then God gave us a rainbow as a constant reminder of that commitment.

In the covenant with Noah God was saying – “I know human beings will continue to sin, but I am not going to let them sway me from my purpose for creation.”

My work in the world, God says, is to heal, forgive, and restore life to wholeness no matter how destructive human beings are.

And so the rainbow is a constant reminder of God’s commitment to continue to work for healing and reconciliation in the world.

It is a reminder that God’s will for us is life and not death.

Now in our scripture for today from Genesis, the covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah is the story of how God plans to work for healing and wholeness in our world since the flood did not work.

Instead of destroying the world again, God sets out to form a covenant community of people around Abraham and Sarah who will be a blessing to all nations.

We don’t know a lot about the early part of Abraham and Sarah’s life.

All we know is that Abraham’s father, Terah, took them and his grandson, Lot, on a journey and on their way to Canaan they settled in the land of Haran.

We also know that at the time of God’s call on their lives Abraham and Sarah are 75 years old and they are “barren”.

In Genesis chapter 11:30 there is this one line we often skip over, but it is so important if we want to understand Abraham and Sarah and what it means to live by faith.

In verse 30 it says – “Now Sarah was barren; she had no child”.

How would you like to have your whole life summarized as “barren, no children”?

In the scriptures “barrenness” not only means someone doesn’t have children, it is also a metaphor for “hopelessness”. Sarah and Abraham feel hopeless.

Many biblical scholars think that Sarah’s barrenness is also meant to sum up the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

Not only is Sarah barren, but every human effort for meaning, security, and well-being has ended in barrenness.

The Tower of Babel story at the beginning of chapter eleven describes people as trying to make a name for themselves in the world.

They are trying to control their own destiny and to establish human oneness and unity without God.

But these human attempts all end in confusion and people are scattered all over the face of the earth.

The conclusion of chapter eleven is that there is barrenness everywhere.  There seems to be no hope for the future of the world.

But then, in the midst of this barrenness and hopelessness God calls Abraham and Sarah to leave the comfort of their home and to move to a new place.

In Genesis 12:1 God says to Abraham – “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.  So Abraham went, as the Lord had told him”.

One of the amazing things about this story for me – is that they sign up with God and actually go.

They just packed up their belongings and headed off in the direction of an unknown place.

The only thing they had going for them was this promise of God that said – “Go and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you”.

God didn’t give them a map, or directions, or even a cell phone. They had no GPS.  God just said trust me and Go!

Now, were Abraham and Sarah faithful or just plain stupid?

To their contemporaries they must have appeared completely crazy. They were leaving the security of a nice place for the danger of a nomadic future wandering across deserts looking for a new home.

Many people thought they were crazy, but Abraham and Sarah signed up and made a decision to go “using evidence that others could not see.”

The Bible calls this “living by faith”.

Hebrews 11:1 defines faith this way – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

When the writer to Hebrews wants to describe what faith in God looks like Abraham and Sarah are the examples.
Hebrews 11:8 says, – “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out not knowing where he was going.”…“by faith he sojourned in the land of the promise, as in a foreign land”….

For Abraham, faith was trusting God with his life even though he couldn’t see the end.  Faith is always more like a journey than believing a statement of faith.

Now, I know that for many Christians today faith is often associated with believing the right things about God.

We tend to think becoming Christian means we primarily adopt a different belief system.

But in the Bible, faith is more than beliefs to be learned.  It is more than learning a few biblical principles.

If faith means intellectual assent to certain ideas about God then even Satan is a believer. James 2:19 says that even “the demons believe in God and shudder”.

For Sarah and Abraham, and most of the Bible, faith is not about intellectually believing in God.

Someone once said, “faith is better understood as a verb than a noun”.

For Abraham and Sarah living by faith meant trusting God with their lives.  It meant relying on God’s call and promises even when they couldn’t see them or feel them.

So, faith is not so much something you have, as it is something you live.

To live by faith is to act, to live, and to shape your life on the basis of God’s promises that have been revealed to you in Jesus.

To live by faith in God is to bet your whole life on things that you cannot yet see, but trusting that God is leading and will bring it to pass in God’s time.

If Abraham and Sarah are really our mentors in living by faith – then we also have to act on God’s promises even when we don’t know how they will be fulfilled in our lives or in the world.

The hard part about living by faith is that we always want to know how things will turn out before we sign up to join with God on this journey to an unknown place.

Even Abraham and Sarah struggled to live by faith.

Genesis tells us that twice Abraham lied about his wife Sarah and told people that she was his sister instead of his wife.  She was beautiful and Abraham lied because he didn’t trust God to protect them.

And then another time, Abraham takes a second wife – Hagar – as a backup just in case Sarah can’t have the children God promised them.

Like us, Abraham at times wanted to know the end of the story before he started and so he did things his way instead of God’s way.

But God, instead of giving us a road map that shows the final destination – invites us to take one step at a time and only gives us what we need to follow Christ today.

If God gave us more, it wouldn’t be living by faith.

So, living by faith means we don’t need to know the end of the story before we sign up.  It means acting on God’s promises as they come to us.

The point of the Abraham and Sarah story is not that they did everything right because they didn’t.  The point is they signed up with God and in the midst of all their confusion, weaknesses, and stumbling – they trusted God to lead them based on evidence that others couldn’t see.

They left behind the security of what they had – to act on the assumption that God’s promises would come true.

I know a young man who almost had his PhD completed when he felt called by God to serve with MCC.  Initially his family and friends, who were not Christian, were strongly opposed to this and could not understand what he was doing.

Yet he felt called by God to go and so by faith he stepped out and went with MCC in Jamaica.

I also know of a family that has chosen to live on a set income and to give the rest of what they make away.  For many of their friends that seemed like a very foolish way to live.  And yet for them it was an act of faith that has brought much joy and freedom to their life.

I know a 50 year old man who quit his job as administrator of a hospital to work at community development among the poor.  He felt God calling him to work at housing issues to help people purchase a home.

Again, many of his friends did not understand what he was doing but in faith he acted on God’s call.

These stories help us to see that faith is not just having some head knowledge about God.  Faith is signing on with God and ordering your life as if God’s promises will come true even though you don’t know the outcome.

In our NT scripture from Mark’s Gospel we have another invitation to sign up with God as Abraham and Sarah had done.

Jesus asked his disciples – “who do people say that I am?”

They tell him – “some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others say one of the prophets”.

Then Jesus asks them – “who do you say I am?” And Peter quickly responds – “we know you are not just a prophet, you are the long-awaited Messiah”.

At that very moment, I imagine Peter feeling on top of the world because he got it right. Peter is ready to sign up with a Messiah who will overthrow Rome and restore Israel.

But after Peter proclaims him as the Messiah – Jesus immediately begins to teach them that he must undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders and chief priests, be killed and then rise again after 3 days.

Peter’s euphoria turns to anger and he rebukes Jesus. The glamour of following Jesus is suddenly gone and he is not sure if he really wants to live that kind of life.

Now, I don’t blame Peter for rebuking Jesus or having doubts. Would we really be any different?

Peter wanted a strong God – as most of us do.

When hardships bear down on us, when the voices of despair drown out all others, when its one disappointment after another – don’t we all want a strong God to avenge our hurts, to right our wrongs, and to put us back on top of things?

From a human perspective – strength is everything, might makes right, and the one with the most money wins – right? Isn’t that how our world works? That is what Peter was thinking when he rebuked Jesus.

But we learn here that God measures strength not in terms of might but of love, not by victory but vulnerability, not in possessions but in sacrifice, and not by glory but by the cross.

Jesus invites his disciples to sign on with him by saying – if you want to follow me you must be willing to deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me.

I think today it is hard for many of us to hear this teaching by Jesus because of how these words have been interpreted.

Sometimes the words “deny yourself” have been taken to mean we should put ourselves down or even hate ourselves.

But Jesus doesn’t say that. To deny yourself means you put Jesus at the center of your life. It is to cease living for yourself and to put yourself in a place to learn from Jesus. To deny yourself is a willingness to revise your personal agenda and learn from him.

And to “take up your cross” is not a call to go out and get yourself beaten up or killed. Instead it is an invitation to submit yourself to God’s will no matter what the cost is.

It means being willing to engage in the same work that Jesus was doing – feeding the hungry, healing the sick, speaking the truth, touching the untouchables, forgiving the unforgivable, and loving the unlovable.

So, our call is not to suffer, but to live like Jesus and when we do we can expect that what happened to him might happen to us too.

Following Jesus does not necessarily make your life easier. In fact, it can make it more complicated.

I have always appreciated the story of John Woolman.

In the 18^th century, John Woolman was a successful Quaker merchant. He lived a comfortable life until God convicted him one day of the offense of holding slaves.

After God convicted him of this – John Woolman gave up his prosperous business. He used his money to try and free slaves. He also started to wear undyed suits to avoid relying on dye that slave labor produced.

For John Woolman, his Christian faith brought him much joy but it also complicated how he lived out his life and it caused him to make new sacrifices.

So signing up with Jesus can be tough and doing the right thing can be costly. But playing it safe and holding onto life is also dangerous because Jesus says we can lose our souls if we hold on too tightly.

When Jesus mentions that he will suffer and be killed – Peter’s heart is broken because he does not get the strong God he wants.

But the good news in this story is that he gets the God he needs. In signing up with Jesus he gets a vulnerable God who is full of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and sacrificial love.

Peter’s life got more complicated by following Jesus, but it also brought him much joy and meaning that was far deeper than anything he had ever experienced.

I believe God is inviting us again this morning to be part of the solution to our broken world. We are invited to sign up with this vulnerable God in changing the world.

God isn’t looking for great intelligence, great talent, great wealth, or great attractiveness.

What God is looking for is a readiness to travel from barrenness to blessing.  What God is looking for are people who believe the promise of God in the midst of those who don’t believe the promise.

All that God needs is your availability and willingness to follow Christ wherever he leads you.

Are you ready to sign up with this vulnerable God today? If you have never signed on with God before – you can today. Just let me know.

Or if you have signed on with God before – are you ready to renew your covenant with God and embrace a servant posture of healing the world?

If you are, God will sustain you and make you a blessing to others.

Let us pray.

A sell-out crowd  enjoyed a great evening of food, music and dancing provided by the incredible Hospitality Commission, a host of volunteers and Pittsburgh’s newest sensation “Jazz Conspiracy.” Weeks of preparation did not prepare us totally for the overflow crowd of PMCer’s and community members as Doug Miller scrambled to set up extra tables and chairs.

Throughout the day, the aroma of sauces simmering wafted through the building making it hard for the staff to concentrate on their work. Kathleen Good and Ken Zeleny were faithful stirrers as the pots bubbled their own melody. The kitchen was a buzz of activity as a steady stream of volunteers prepared the food for our hungry guests. Tables were arranged, rearranged to accomodate our guests with Alma Kauffman adding that feminine touch to make the room glow.

Guy Smith and Ken Zeleny greeted our guests as the Fellowship Hall soon filled to capacity. Word spread throughout the community and greater Pittsburgh area that PMC was the place to be. A special thank you to PATCH for promoting our cause. As the guest enjoyed a tasty meal served by our wonderful volunteers the Jazz Conspiracy demonstrated why they are the band to watch in 2012. A group of  19 musicians from various backgrounds under the direction of Dan Lindey demonstrated a high caliber of energy and talent. Feet were tapping and hands were clapping as the band wowed us with standards and new arrangements from the big band era. Young and old alike filled the dance floor. The highlight of the evening was a “special performance” by several PMC men who danced out the dessert trays much to the delight of the audience. Who says Mennonites don’t dance?

A special thank you goes out to all of those who volunteered their talents, energy and time to make this event a success! There are too many to name but you all deserve to take a bow! This was definitely a community effort and we are blessed by you all. Much gratitude and appreciation goes out to our hostess Kathleen Good who pulled  this event together. Proceeds of this event will go towards a commercial sized refrigerator for our kitchen. Happy dancing until next time!

2 Chron. 26:1-5, 15b-16; Prov. 16:18-22; Phil. 2:1-11

Last Sunday we started a new sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes.

The Seven Deadly Sins were first articulated in the 4th century by the monk Evagrius Ponticus. He had gone out into the desert to get away from the temptations of this wicked world – only to discover that he continued to battle these seven sins.

Later on Pope Gregory the Great, Aristotle, Aquinas and other scholars developed these Seven Deadly Sins more fully and they became a way to look at those things that choked off our life with God.

Now, I said last week that these seven sins are identified as deadly because of their ability to generate more sin. They are seen as the source of all other sin.

I also defined sin as – missing the mark or straying from
God’s will for us. Sin always destroys shalom and ruptures our relationship with God.

These seven are called sin because of the way they choke off our life with God, one another, and destroy us from within.

So, each week we will look at one of the Seven Deadly Sins and one Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount.

I suggested last week that the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes offer us two sets of invitation.
Both invitations call to deep places within us to come and taste. Both present themselves as life-giving. But I said that only the Beatitudes give us a true picture of what it means to be human and faithful to God.

So each week we will name one of the seven deadly sins and then look at how to overcome it.

This morning, we are looking at the deadly sin of “pride” and the beatitude of “blessed are the poor in spirit”.

I want to begin this morning with a parable.

One day a man came to God and said, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”

God showed the man two doors. Inside the first door, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

They all appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”

Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful stew that made the man’s mouth water.
The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand.”

God smiled. It is simple – love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another with their long spoons. You have seen heaven.

This parable illustrates that heaven is communal and bent toward the service of others. The attitude of hell assumes everything exists for me – to benefit me and serve me because I am the most important person.

The ancients called this excessive self-focus pride and when pride takes over everyone starves.

But you may be asking – is it always wrong to be proud?
• Can you be proud of your children or grandchildren without sinning?
• Is it wrong to take pride in your work?
• Is it okay to be proud of your church or some organization you work for?

I certainly hope so. I think there is a good kind of pride.

When Jesus was baptized – God says “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”. Sounds like God was proud of Jesus.

Paul, at one point, says he is proud of the church in Corinth.
So, I think being proud of our children when they do something well is a good thing. They need positive affirmation.

If you are good at something – it is important to acknowledge the gift and appreciate it. There is no value in putting yourself down.

One thing we have to remember when we talk about the Seven Deadly Sins is that they all begin with something that is very good.
• Take gluttony for example. We all have to eat to stay alive. God gave us this desire to eat and enjoy food. So eating is good – it is overeating that is the problem.
• We also need to work to earn money to live. Work is a good thing. But when making and having money becomes the primary focus of our lives – then greed takes over.

And this is the way it is with all of the deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are all just a distortion of something that is very good.

So there is a good pride. We shouldn’t confuse blessing our children or encouraging another person or even bragging about what our church does with deadly pride.

Self love is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Jesus said one of the commandments is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. If you don’t love yourself and value your personhood – it is hard to love others.

Our problem is that too often we only take one part of that commandment to heart – love of self.
Pride that is deadly is simply excessive love of one’s importance. It is an obsession with oneself. It is making me feel superior or better at someone else’s expense.

In our scripture today from Second Chronicles we have a good example of deadly pride in the story of King Uzziah.

King Uzziah started off well. He was crowned king at the age of 16 and he reigned for 52 years.

At first he sought after God. He was faithful in all that he did. God blessed him and even prospered him.

But along the way something happened to him. In verse 16 it says that “when he became strong – he grew proud.”

In other words, he became full of himself. He no longer remembered that it was God who gave him gifts and abilities to be king. He forgot that he was the creature – not the creator.

He was so full of himself that he began to mistreat others. He was so full of himself that he thought he did not need priests anymore.

In those days priests offered sacrifices and incense to God – not the king.

However, King Uzziah one day goes to the temple and decides to offer his own incense.

His thinking is – I am the king. I am not only the king – I am a very successful king – I don’t need priests. I can burn incense for myself.
His downfall was that he started to believe all the nice things people said about him. He thought he earned his success on his own. Because of his success – he thought the rules didn’t apply to him anymore.

The priest cries out – please don’t do this king Uzziah. Eighty priests try to stop him but he refuses to listen to them. He burns his own incense. He disobeys God.

So before he leaves the temple that day his body becomes inflicted with leprosy. His reign is cut short because of his pride and his son has to take over.

King Uzziah thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was above the law. He thought people were there to serve him. He thought the world revolved around him.

The bible is full of stories like this. This is why Proverbs 16:18 says “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Now, to be completely honest with you this morning, I am not sure it is possible to avoid the sin of pride. Most of what we do is a mixed bag of motives.

For example:
• When I read the scriptures and pray everyday – good things to do – pride is there to pat me on the back and tell me what a devout person I am.
• Or when I tithe regularly or fast during Lent – pride sneaks in to make me feel superior to the person who doesn’t.
• Or if I am not tempted by gluttony or lust or sloth – pride has a way of making me feel superior to those who struggle with these things.
• So, I think spiritual pride is a huge problem for most of us.

The more knowledgeable we are about the bible and the longer we have been Christians we can get “puffed up” around those who seem spiritually immature.

We think we have the right answers and if people only knew what I know – their lives would be so much better.

Denominations can feel superior to other ones. We can put other churches down to make us feel better.

Even our good deeds of justice and mercy can be sources of deadly pride.

As a good Mennonite, I try to be humble, but even in my humility there is a pride in being humble.

So, I think pride is one of those unavoidable sins. We are all guilty. But I think there are some ways to help us deal with the sin of pride.

1. I don’t want to be overly simplistic but one way is to be in right relationship with God. To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Jesus said: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

When Jesus says we have to lose our life before we find it – that means we lose our concern about ourselves, our reputation, how much money we have, how many things we own, how we look, and what advantages we have over others.

Jesus is inviting us to lose our life of self-centeredness and to center on God – and God’s will for our life.

When we seek God’s esteem – the focus is taken off of me and we can be at peace with the purpose of our life.

Our life gains meaning in Christ – even if our abilities, looks, and finances become diminished because we know we belong to God and our worth comes from God.

One of the reasons we gather regularly for worship is to be reminded that God is God and we aren’t. Here we are reminded that all we have is a gift from God.

The first Beatitude Jesus taught his disciples was – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus says here – that heaven is not occupied by those who think they have it all together. Heaven, Jesus says, is a refuge for the infirm and those who are hurting.
• All of us have broken places in our lives that just won’t heal right.
• Everyone hurts those they love the most.
• Everyone lacks the kindness and wisdom they ought to possess.
• We all lack in certain ways. We are poor in spirit.

For me, being poor in spirit is like being at an AA meeting where all the participants confess openly that their lives have become unmanageable.

Jesus says – it is those who acknowledge their spiritual poverty – who will experience heaven.

So, nurturing our relationship with God is a central way to deal with our deadly pride.

2. Another way we can deal with pride is by having close friends around us who keep us accountable.

Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator, tells the story of the time he was invited to be president of a college. He was struggling to know if he should accept the job or not.

So he called together 12 friends, in a clearance meeting, to help him discern what to do.

In his discernment meeting one friend asked him – “why do you want to become president of this college?”

Parker began by saying all the reasons why he wouldn’t want to be president.

Finally, his friend asked him again – why do you want to be president?

This time he blurted out – “what I most want is my picture in the paper with the word president beside it.”

The moment he said it – Parker realized how foolish his motive was and how he was pursuing the presidency for all the wrong reasons.

I think we all need honest and loving people in our lives who can help us see our own blind spots and how we are easily driven by our egos.

At the same time this is challenging because prideful people have a hard time admitting their pride. Pride thrives in isolation.

Every story about a fall from grace is first of all a story of secrecy and hiding.

The “poor in spirit”, on the other hand, are those who know they need help and are willing to ask for it. We not only need God’s help, we need the help of a community of trusted friends to overcome our pride.

So, a second way to deal with pride is having a few close friends who know us well and know our deepest longings and desires and can help us puncture our pride.

3. A third way to deal with pride is through self-sacrificial service to others.
One thing that destroys community is this sense that I am better than you or more important than you – it is all about me and my importance. So, I think an important way to deal with pride is to take the focus off ourselves by focusing on others.

In Philippians 2 Paul writes:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant.”
Paul’s point here is that we are to shift our focus from ourselves to others by serving one another.

Jesus did not focus on his own preservation or status – instead he became a servant to others.

What would happen to us and to the church if we stopped looking out for our own interests and really made an effort to take the interests of others seriously?

This would be a huge shift because in our culture the saying is “if you don’t look out for yourself nobody else will”. And so what happens is that we are holding long spoons with no one to feed us and we are all starving.

What would happen if each one of us focused on helping someone else get ahead? What would happen if we forgot about ourselves long enough to lend a helping hand to someone else?

What would happen to us and the church if we really regarded others as better than ourselves?

What would happen, I believe, is that we would become like the people in the parable behind the door of heaven who are happily feeding each other and enjoying one another’s company.

True humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of serving others. We crucify our pride through serving others.

The truth is – we can humble ourselves by serving others or we can let God humble us through our prideful failures.

Peter writes in First Peter 5:5-6 – “And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”

Good self-esteem comes from humility, not pride. And we humble ourselves by being willing to serve others.

I think we will always struggle with the deadly sin of pride, but the good news is that Jesus came to seek out and save pride-filled sinners like us.

Jesus said – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Let us pray

PMC
May 6, 2012
Pride and the poor in spirit
2 Chron. 26:1-5, 15b-16; Prov. 16:18-22; Phil. 2:1-11

Last Sunday we started a new sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes.

The Seven Deadly Sins were first articulated in the 4th century by the monk Evagrius Ponticus. He had gone out into the desert to get away from the temptations of this wicked world – only to discover that he continued to battle these seven sins.

Later on Pope Gregory the Great, Aristotle, Aquinas and other scholars developed these Seven Deadly Sins more fully and they became a way to look at those things that choked off our life with God.

Now, I said last week that these seven sins are identified as deadly because of their ability to generate more sin. They are seen as the source of all other sin.

I also defined sin as – missing the mark or straying from
God’s will for us. Sin always destroys shalom and ruptures our relationship with God.

These seven are called sin because of the way they choke off our life with God, one another, and destroy us from within.

So, each week we will look at one of the Seven Deadly Sins and one Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount.

I suggested last week that the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes offer us two sets of invitation.
Both invitations call to deep places within us to come and taste. Both present themselves as life-giving. But I said that only the Beatitudes give us a true picture of what it means to be human and faithful to God.

So each week we will name one of the seven deadly sins and then look at how to overcome it.

This morning, we are looking at the deadly sin of “pride” and the beatitude of “blessed are the poor in spirit”.

I want to begin this morning with a parable.

One day a man came to God and said, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”

God showed the man two doors. Inside the first door, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

They all appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”

Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful stew that made the man’s mouth water.
The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand.”

God smiled. It is simple – love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another with their long spoons. You have seen heaven.

This parable illustrates that heaven is communal and bent toward the service of others. The attitude of hell assumes everything exists for me – to benefit me and serve me because I am the most important person.

The ancients called this excessive self-focus pride and when pride takes over everyone starves.

But you may be asking – is it always wrong to be proud?
• Can you be proud of your children or grandchildren without sinning?
• Is it wrong to take pride in your work?
• Is it okay to be proud of your church or some organization you work for?

I certainly hope so. I think there is a good kind of pride.

When Jesus was baptized – God says “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”. Sounds like God was proud of Jesus.

Paul, at one point, says he is proud of the church in Corinth.
So, I think being proud of our children when they do something well is a good thing. They need positive affirmation.

If you are good at something – it is important to acknowledge the gift and appreciate it. There is no value in putting yourself down.

One thing we have to remember when we talk about the Seven Deadly Sins is that they all begin with something that is very good.
• Take gluttony for example. We all have to eat to stay alive. God gave us this desire to eat and enjoy food. So eating is good – it is overeating that is the problem.
• We also need to work to earn money to live. Work is a good thing. But when making and having money becomes the primary focus of our lives – then greed takes over.

And this is the way it is with all of the deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are all just a distortion of something that is very good.

So there is a good pride. We shouldn’t confuse blessing our children or encouraging another person or even bragging about what our church does with deadly pride.

Self love is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Jesus said one of the commandments is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. If you don’t love yourself and value your personhood – it is hard to love others.

Our problem is that too often we only take one part of that commandment to heart – love of self.
Pride that is deadly is simply excessive love of one’s importance. It is an obsession with oneself. It is making me feel superior or better at someone else’s expense.

In our scripture today from Second Chronicles we have a good example of deadly pride in the story of King Uzziah.

King Uzziah started off well. He was crowned king at the age of 16 and he reigned for 52 years.

At first he sought after God. He was faithful in all that he did. God blessed him and even prospered him.

But along the way something happened to him. In verse 16 it says that “when he became strong – he grew proud.”

In other words, he became full of himself. He no longer remembered that it was God who gave him gifts and abilities to be king. He forgot that he was the creature – not the creator.

He was so full of himself that he began to mistreat others. He was so full of himself that he thought he did not need priests anymore.

In those days priests offered sacrifices and incense to God – not the king.

However, King Uzziah one day goes to the temple and decides to offer his own incense.

His thinking is – I am the king. I am not only the king – I am a very successful king – I don’t need priests. I can burn incense for myself.
His downfall was that he started to believe all the nice things people said about him. He thought he earned his success on his own. Because of his success – he thought the rules didn’t apply to him anymore.

The priest cries out – please don’t do this king Uzziah. Eighty priests try to stop him but he refuses to listen to them. He burns his own incense. He disobeys God.

So before he leaves the temple that day his body becomes inflicted with leprosy. His reign is cut short because of his pride and his son has to take over.

King Uzziah thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was above the law. He thought people were there to serve him. He thought the world revolved around him.

The bible is full of stories like this. This is why Proverbs 16:18 says “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Now, to be completely honest with you this morning, I am not sure it is possible to avoid the sin of pride. Most of what we do is a mixed bag of motives.

For example:
• When I read the scriptures and pray everyday – good things to do – pride is there to pat me on the back and tell me what a devout person I am.
• Or when I tithe regularly or fast during Lent – pride sneaks in to make me feel superior to the person who doesn’t.
• Or if I am not tempted by gluttony or lust or sloth – pride has a way of making me feel superior to those who struggle with these things.
• So, I think spiritual pride is a huge problem for most of us.

The more knowledgeable we are about the bible and the longer we have been Christians we can get “puffed up” around those who seem spiritually immature.

We think we have the right answers and if people only knew what I know – their lives would be so much better.

Denominations can feel superior to other ones. We can put other churches down to make us feel better.

Even our good deeds of justice and mercy can be sources of deadly pride.

As a good Mennonite, I try to be humble, but even in my humility there is a pride in being humble.

So, I think pride is one of those unavoidable sins. We are all guilty. But I think there are some ways to help us deal with the sin of pride.

1. I don’t want to be overly simplistic but one way is to be in right relationship with God. To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Jesus said: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

When Jesus says we have to lose our life before we find it – that means we lose our concern about ourselves, our reputation, how much money we have, how many things we own, how we look, and what advantages we have over others.

Jesus is inviting us to lose our life of self-centeredness and to center on God – and God’s will for our life.

When we seek God’s esteem – the focus is taken off of me and we can be at peace with the purpose of our life.

Our life gains meaning in Christ – even if our abilities, looks, and finances become diminished because we know we belong to God and our worth comes from God.

One of the reasons we gather regularly for worship is to be reminded that God is God and we aren’t. Here we are reminded that all we have is a gift from God.

The first Beatitude Jesus taught his disciples was – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus says here – that heaven is not occupied by those who think they have it all together. Heaven, Jesus says, is a refuge for the infirm and those who are hurting.
• All of us have broken places in our lives that just won’t heal right.
• Everyone hurts those they love the most.
• Everyone lacks the kindness and wisdom they ought to possess.
• We all lack in certain ways. We are poor in spirit.

For me, being poor in spirit is like being at an AA meeting where all the participants confess openly that their lives have become unmanageable.

Jesus says – it is those who acknowledge their spiritual poverty – who will experience heaven.

So, nurturing our relationship with God is a central way to deal with our deadly pride.

2. Another way we can deal with pride is by having close friends around us who keep us accountable.

Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator, tells the story of the time he was invited to be president of a college. He was struggling to know if he should accept the job or not.

So he called together 12 friends, in a clearance meeting, to help him discern what to do.

In his discernment meeting one friend asked him – “why do you want to become president of this college?”

Parker began by saying all the reasons why he wouldn’t want to be president.

Finally, his friend asked him again – why do you want to be president?

This time he blurted out – “what I most want is my picture in the paper with the word president beside it.”

The moment he said it – Parker realized how foolish his motive was and how he was pursuing the presidency for all the wrong reasons.

I think we all need honest and loving people in our lives who can help us see our own blind spots and how we are easily driven by our egos.

At the same time this is challenging because prideful people have a hard time admitting their pride. Pride thrives in isolation.

Every story about a fall from grace is first of all a story of secrecy and hiding.

The “poor in spirit”, on the other hand, are those who know they need help and are willing to ask for it. We not only need God’s help, we need the help of a community of trusted friends to overcome our pride.

So, a second way to deal with pride is having a few close friends who know us well and know our deepest longings and desires and can help us puncture our pride.

3. A third way to deal with pride is through self-sacrificial service to others.
One thing that destroys community is this sense that I am better than you or more important than you – it is all about me and my importance. So, I think an important way to deal with pride is to take the focus off ourselves by focusing on others.

In Philippians 2 Paul writes:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant.”
Paul’s point here is that we are to shift our focus from ourselves to others by serving one another.

Jesus did not focus on his own preservation or status – instead he became a servant to others.

What would happen to us and to the church if we stopped looking out for our own interests and really made an effort to take the interests of others seriously?

This would be a huge shift because in our culture the saying is “if you don’t look out for yourself nobody else will”. And so what happens is that we are holding long spoons with no one to feed us and we are all starving.

What would happen if each one of us focused on helping someone else get ahead? What would happen if we forgot about ourselves long enough to lend a helping hand to someone else?

What would happen to us and the church if we really regarded others as better than ourselves?

What would happen, I believe, is that we would become like the people in the parable behind the door of heaven who are happily feeding each other and enjoying one another’s company.

True humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of serving others. We crucify our pride through serving others.

The truth is – we can humble ourselves by serving others or we can let God humble us through our prideful failures.

Peter writes in First Peter 5:5-6 – “And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”

Good self-esteem comes from humility, not pride. And we humble ourselves by being willing to serve others.

I think we will always struggle with the deadly sin of pride, but the good news is that Jesus came to seek out and save pride-filled sinners like us.

Jesus said – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Let us pray

PMC
May 6, 2012
Pride and the poor in spirit
2 Chron. 26:1-5, 15b-16; Prov. 16:18-22; Phil. 2:1-11

Last Sunday we started a new sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes.

The Seven Deadly Sins were first articulated in the 4th century by the monk Evagrius Ponticus. He had gone out into the desert to get away from the temptations of this wicked world – only to discover that he continued to battle these seven sins.

Later on Pope Gregory the Great, Aristotle, Aquinas and other scholars developed these Seven Deadly Sins more fully and they became a way to look at those things that choked off our life with God.

Now, I said last week that these seven sins are identified as deadly because of their ability to generate more sin. They are seen as the source of all other sin.

I also defined sin as – missing the mark or straying from
God’s will for us. Sin always destroys shalom and ruptures our relationship with God.

These seven are called sin because of the way they choke off our life with God, one another, and destroy us from within.

So, each week we will look at one of the Seven Deadly Sins and one Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount.

I suggested last week that the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes offer us two sets of invitation.
Both invitations call to deep places within us to come and taste. Both present themselves as life-giving. But I said that only the Beatitudes give us a true picture of what it means to be human and faithful to God.

So each week we will name one of the seven deadly sins and then look at how to overcome it.

This morning, we are looking at the deadly sin of “pride” and the beatitude of “blessed are the poor in spirit”.

I want to begin this morning with a parable.

One day a man came to God and said, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”

God showed the man two doors. Inside the first door, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

They all appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”

Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful stew that made the man’s mouth water.
The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand.”

God smiled. It is simple – love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another with their long spoons. You have seen heaven.

This parable illustrates that heaven is communal and bent toward the service of others. The attitude of hell assumes everything exists for me – to benefit me and serve me because I am the most important person.

The ancients called this excessive self-focus pride and when pride takes over everyone starves.

But you may be asking – is it always wrong to be proud?
• Can you be proud of your children or grandchildren without sinning?
• Is it wrong to take pride in your work?
• Is it okay to be proud of your church or some organization you work for?

I certainly hope so. I think there is a good kind of pride.

When Jesus was baptized – God says “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”. Sounds like God was proud of Jesus.

Paul, at one point, says he is proud of the church in Corinth.
So, I think being proud of our children when they do something well is a good thing. They need positive affirmation.

If you are good at something – it is important to acknowledge the gift and appreciate it. There is no value in putting yourself down.

One thing we have to remember when we talk about the Seven Deadly Sins is that they all begin with something that is very good.
• Take gluttony for example. We all have to eat to stay alive. God gave us this desire to eat and enjoy food. So eating is good – it is overeating that is the problem.
• We also need to work to earn money to live. Work is a good thing. But when making and having money becomes the primary focus of our lives – then greed takes over.

And this is the way it is with all of the deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are all just a distortion of something that is very good.

So there is a good pride. We shouldn’t confuse blessing our children or encouraging another person or even bragging about what our church does with deadly pride.

Self love is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Jesus said one of the commandments is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. If you don’t love yourself and value your personhood – it is hard to love others.

Our problem is that too often we only take one part of that commandment to heart – love of self.
Pride that is deadly is simply excessive love of one’s importance. It is an obsession with oneself. It is making me feel superior or better at someone else’s expense.

In our scripture today from Second Chronicles we have a good example of deadly pride in the story of King Uzziah.

King Uzziah started off well. He was crowned king at the age of 16 and he reigned for 52 years.

At first he sought after God. He was faithful in all that he did. God blessed him and even prospered him.

But along the way something happened to him. In verse 16 it says that “when he became strong – he grew proud.”

In other words, he became full of himself. He no longer remembered that it was God who gave him gifts and abilities to be king. He forgot that he was the creature – not the creator.

He was so full of himself that he began to mistreat others. He was so full of himself that he thought he did not need priests anymore.

In those days priests offered sacrifices and incense to God – not the king.

However, King Uzziah one day goes to the temple and decides to offer his own incense.

His thinking is – I am the king. I am not only the king – I am a very successful king – I don’t need priests. I can burn incense for myself.
His downfall was that he started to believe all the nice things people said about him. He thought he earned his success on his own. Because of his success – he thought the rules didn’t apply to him anymore.

The priest cries out – please don’t do this king Uzziah. Eighty priests try to stop him but he refuses to listen to them. He burns his own incense. He disobeys God.

So before he leaves the temple that day his body becomes inflicted with leprosy. His reign is cut short because of his pride and his son has to take over.

King Uzziah thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was above the law. He thought people were there to serve him. He thought the world revolved around him.

The bible is full of stories like this. This is why Proverbs 16:18 says “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Now, to be completely honest with you this morning, I am not sure it is possible to avoid the sin of pride. Most of what we do is a mixed bag of motives.

For example:
• When I read the scriptures and pray everyday – good things to do – pride is there to pat me on the back and tell me what a devout person I am.
• Or when I tithe regularly or fast during Lent – pride sneaks in to make me feel superior to the person who doesn’t.
• Or if I am not tempted by gluttony or lust or sloth – pride has a way of making me feel superior to those who struggle with these things.
• So, I think spiritual pride is a huge problem for most of us.

The more knowledgeable we are about the bible and the longer we have been Christians we can get “puffed up” around those who seem spiritually immature.

We think we have the right answers and if people only knew what I know – their lives would be so much better.

Denominations can feel superior to other ones. We can put other churches down to make us feel better.

Even our good deeds of justice and mercy can be sources of deadly pride.

As a good Mennonite, I try to be humble, but even in my humility there is a pride in being humble.

So, I think pride is one of those unavoidable sins. We are all guilty. But I think there are some ways to help us deal with the sin of pride.

1. I don’t want to be overly simplistic but one way is to be in right relationship with God. To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Jesus said: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

When Jesus says we have to lose our life before we find it – that means we lose our concern about ourselves, our reputation, how much money we have, how many things we own, how we look, and what advantages we have over others.

Jesus is inviting us to lose our life of self-centeredness and to center on God – and God’s will for our life.

When we seek God’s esteem – the focus is taken off of me and we can be at peace with the purpose of our life.

Our life gains meaning in Christ – even if our abilities, looks, and finances become diminished because we know we belong to God and our worth comes from God.

One of the reasons we gather regularly for worship is to be reminded that God is God and we aren’t. Here we are reminded that all we have is a gift from God.

The first Beatitude Jesus taught his disciples was – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus says here – that heaven is not occupied by those who think they have it all together. Heaven, Jesus says, is a refuge for the infirm and those who are hurting.
• All of us have broken places in our lives that just won’t heal right.
• Everyone hurts those they love the most.
• Everyone lacks the kindness and wisdom they ought to possess.
• We all lack in certain ways. We are poor in spirit.

For me, being poor in spirit is like being at an AA meeting where all the participants confess openly that their lives have become unmanageable.

Jesus says – it is those who acknowledge their spiritual poverty – who will experience heaven.

So, nurturing our relationship with God is a central way to deal with our deadly pride.

2. Another way we can deal with pride is by having close friends around us who keep us accountable.

Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator, tells the story of the time he was invited to be president of a college. He was struggling to know if he should accept the job or not.

So he called together 12 friends, in a clearance meeting, to help him discern what to do.

In his discernment meeting one friend asked him – “why do you want to become president of this college?”

Parker began by saying all the reasons why he wouldn’t want to be president.

Finally, his friend asked him again – why do you want to be president?

This time he blurted out – “what I most want is my picture in the paper with the word president beside it.”

The moment he said it – Parker realized how foolish his motive was and how he was pursuing the presidency for all the wrong reasons.

I think we all need honest and loving people in our lives who can help us see our own blind spots and how we are easily driven by our egos.

At the same time this is challenging because prideful people have a hard time admitting their pride. Pride thrives in isolation.

Every story about a fall from grace is first of all a story of secrecy and hiding.

The “poor in spirit”, on the other hand, are those who know they need help and are willing to ask for it. We not only need God’s help, we need the help of a community of trusted friends to overcome our pride.

So, a second way to deal with pride is having a few close friends who know us well and know our deepest longings and desires and can help us puncture our pride.

3. A third way to deal with pride is through self-sacrificial service to others.
One thing that destroys community is this sense that I am better than you or more important than you – it is all about me and my importance. So, I think an important way to deal with pride is to take the focus off ourselves by focusing on others.

In Philippians 2 Paul writes:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant.”
Paul’s point here is that we are to shift our focus from ourselves to others by serving one another.

Jesus did not focus on his own preservation or status – instead he became a servant to others.

What would happen to us and to the church if we stopped looking out for our own interests and really made an effort to take the interests of others seriously?

This would be a huge shift because in our culture the saying is “if you don’t look out for yourself nobody else will”. And so what happens is that we are holding long spoons with no one to feed us and we are all starving.

What would happen if each one of us focused on helping someone else get ahead? What would happen if we forgot about ourselves long enough to lend a helping hand to someone else?

What would happen to us and the church if we really regarded others as better than ourselves?

What would happen, I believe, is that we would become like the people in the parable behind the door of heaven who are happily feeding each other and enjoying one another’s company.

True humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of serving others. We crucify our pride through serving others.

The truth is – we can humble ourselves by serving others or we can let God humble us through our prideful failures.

Peter writes in First Peter 5:5-6 – “And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”

Good self-esteem comes from humility, not pride. And we humble ourselves by being willing to serve others.

I think we will always struggle with the deadly sin of pride, but the good news is that Jesus came to seek out and save pride-filled sinners like us.

Jesus said – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Let us pray

PMC
May 6, 2012
Pride and the poor in spirit
2 Chron. 26:1-5, 15b-16; Prov. 16:18-22; Phil. 2:1-11

Last Sunday we started a new sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes.

The Seven Deadly Sins were first articulated in the 4th century by the monk Evagrius Ponticus. He had gone out into the desert to get away from the temptations of this wicked world – only to discover that he continued to battle these seven sins.

Later on Pope Gregory the Great, Aristotle, Aquinas and other scholars developed these Seven Deadly Sins more fully and they became a way to look at those things that choked off our life with God.

Now, I said last week that these seven sins are identified as deadly because of their ability to generate more sin. They are seen as the source of all other sin.

I also defined sin as – missing the mark or straying from
God’s will for us. Sin always destroys shalom and ruptures our relationship with God.

These seven are called sin because of the way they choke off our life with God, one another, and destroy us from within.

So, each week we will look at one of the Seven Deadly Sins and one Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount.

I suggested last week that the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes offer us two sets of invitation.
Both invitations call to deep places within us to come and taste. Both present themselves as life-giving. But I said that only the Beatitudes give us a true picture of what it means to be human and faithful to God.

So each week we will name one of the seven deadly sins and then look at how to overcome it.

This morning, we are looking at the deadly sin of “pride” and the beatitude of “blessed are the poor in spirit”.

I want to begin this morning with a parable.

One day a man came to God and said, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”

God showed the man two doors. Inside the first door, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

They all appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”

Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful stew that made the man’s mouth water.
The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand.”

God smiled. It is simple – love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another with their long spoons. You have seen heaven.

This parable illustrates that heaven is communal and bent toward the service of others. The attitude of hell assumes everything exists for me – to benefit me and serve me because I am the most important person.

The ancients called this excessive self-focus pride and when pride takes over everyone starves.

But you may be asking – is it always wrong to be proud?
• Can you be proud of your children or grandchildren without sinning?
• Is it wrong to take pride in your work?
• Is it okay to be proud of your church or some organization you work for?

I certainly hope so. I think there is a good kind of pride.

When Jesus was baptized – God says “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”. Sounds like God was proud of Jesus.

Paul, at one point, says he is proud of the church in Corinth.
So, I think being proud of our children when they do something well is a good thing. They need positive affirmation.

If you are good at something – it is important to acknowledge the gift and appreciate it. There is no value in putting yourself down.

One thing we have to remember when we talk about the Seven Deadly Sins is that they all begin with something that is very good.
• Take gluttony for example. We all have to eat to stay alive. God gave us this desire to eat and enjoy food. So eating is good – it is overeating that is the problem.
• We also need to work to earn money to live. Work is a good thing. But when making and having money becomes the primary focus of our lives – then greed takes over.

And this is the way it is with all of the deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are all just a distortion of something that is very good.

So there is a good pride. We shouldn’t confuse blessing our children or encouraging another person or even bragging about what our church does with deadly pride.

Self love is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Jesus said one of the commandments is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. If you don’t love yourself and value your personhood – it is hard to love others.

Our problem is that too often we only take one part of that commandment to heart – love of self.
Pride that is deadly is simply excessive love of one’s importance. It is an obsession with oneself. It is making me feel superior or better at someone else’s expense.

In our scripture today from Second Chronicles we have a good example of deadly pride in the story of King Uzziah.

King Uzziah started off well. He was crowned king at the age of 16 and he reigned for 52 years.

At first he sought after God. He was faithful in all that he did. God blessed him and even prospered him.

But along the way something happened to him. In verse 16 it says that “when he became strong – he grew proud.”

In other words, he became full of himself. He no longer remembered that it was God who gave him gifts and abilities to be king. He forgot that he was the creature – not the creator.

He was so full of himself that he began to mistreat others. He was so full of himself that he thought he did not need priests anymore.

In those days priests offered sacrifices and incense to God – not the king.

However, King Uzziah one day goes to the temple and decides to offer his own incense.

His thinking is – I am the king. I am not only the king – I am a very successful king – I don’t need priests. I can burn incense for myself.
His downfall was that he started to believe all the nice things people said about him. He thought he earned his success on his own. Because of his success – he thought the rules didn’t apply to him anymore.

The priest cries out – please don’t do this king Uzziah. Eighty priests try to stop him but he refuses to listen to them. He burns his own incense. He disobeys God.

So before he leaves the temple that day his body becomes inflicted with leprosy. His reign is cut short because of his pride and his son has to take over.

King Uzziah thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was above the law. He thought people were there to serve him. He thought the world revolved around him.

The bible is full of stories like this. This is why Proverbs 16:18 says “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Now, to be completely honest with you this morning, I am not sure it is possible to avoid the sin of pride. Most of what we do is a mixed bag of motives.

For example:
• When I read the scriptures and pray everyday – good things to do – pride is there to pat me on the back and tell me what a devout person I am.
• Or when I tithe regularly or fast during Lent – pride sneaks in to make me feel superior to the person who doesn’t.
• Or if I am not tempted by gluttony or lust or sloth – pride has a way of making me feel superior to those who struggle with these things.
• So, I think spiritual pride is a huge problem for most of us.

The more knowledgeable we are about the bible and the longer we have been Christians we can get “puffed up” around those who seem spiritually immature.

We think we have the right answers and if people only knew what I know – their lives would be so much better.

Denominations can feel superior to other ones. We can put other churches down to make us feel better.

Even our good deeds of justice and mercy can be sources of deadly pride.

As a good Mennonite, I try to be humble, but even in my humility there is a pride in being humble.

So, I think pride is one of those unavoidable sins. We are all guilty. But I think there are some ways to help us deal with the sin of pride.

1. I don’t want to be overly simplistic but one way is to be in right relationship with God. To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Jesus said: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

When Jesus says we have to lose our life before we find it – that means we lose our concern about ourselves, our reputation, how much money we have, how many things we own, how we look, and what advantages we have over others.

Jesus is inviting us to lose our life of self-centeredness and to center on God – and God’s will for our life.

When we seek God’s esteem – the focus is taken off of me and we can be at peace with the purpose of our life.

Our life gains meaning in Christ – even if our abilities, looks, and finances become diminished because we know we belong to God and our worth comes from God.

One of the reasons we gather regularly for worship is to be reminded that God is God and we aren’t. Here we are reminded that all we have is a gift from God.

The first Beatitude Jesus taught his disciples was – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus says here – that heaven is not occupied by those who think they have it all together. Heaven, Jesus says, is a refuge for the infirm and those who are hurting.
• All of us have broken places in our lives that just won’t heal right.
• Everyone hurts those they love the most.
• Everyone lacks the kindness and wisdom they ought to possess.
• We all lack in certain ways. We are poor in spirit.

For me, being poor in spirit is like being at an AA meeting where all the participants confess openly that their lives have become unmanageable.

Jesus says – it is those who acknowledge their spiritual poverty – who will experience heaven.

So, nurturing our relationship with God is a central way to deal with our deadly pride.

2. Another way we can deal with pride is by having close friends around us who keep us accountable.

Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator, tells the story of the time he was invited to be president of a college. He was struggling to know if he should accept the job or not.

So he called together 12 friends, in a clearance meeting, to help him discern what to do.

In his discernment meeting one friend asked him – “why do you want to become president of this college?”

Parker began by saying all the reasons why he wouldn’t want to be president.

Finally, his friend asked him again – why do you want to be president?

This time he blurted out – “what I most want is my picture in the paper with the word president beside it.”

The moment he said it – Parker realized how foolish his motive was and how he was pursuing the presidency for all the wrong reasons.

I think we all need honest and loving people in our lives who can help us see our own blind spots and how we are easily driven by our egos.

At the same time this is challenging because prideful people have a hard time admitting their pride. Pride thrives in isolation.

Every story about a fall from grace is first of all a story of secrecy and hiding.

The “poor in spirit”, on the other hand, are those who know they need help and are willing to ask for it. We not only need God’s help, we need the help of a community of trusted friends to overcome our pride.

So, a second way to deal with pride is having a few close friends who know us well and know our deepest longings and desires and can help us puncture our pride.

3. A third way to deal with pride is through self-sacrificial service to others.
One thing that destroys community is this sense that I am better than you or more important than you – it is all about me and my importance. So, I think an important way to deal with pride is to take the focus off ourselves by focusing on others.

In Philippians 2 Paul writes:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant.”
Paul’s point here is that we are to shift our focus from ourselves to others by serving one another.

Jesus did not focus on his own preservation or status – instead he became a servant to others.

What would happen to us and to the church if we stopped looking out for our own interests and really made an effort to take the interests of others seriously?

This would be a huge shift because in our culture the saying is “if you don’t look out for yourself nobody else will”. And so what happens is that we are holding long spoons with no one to feed us and we are all starving.

What would happen if each one of us focused on helping someone else get ahead? What would happen if we forgot about ourselves long enough to lend a helping hand to someone else?

What would happen to us and the church if we really regarded others as better than ourselves?

What would happen, I believe, is that we would become like the people in the parable behind the door of heaven who are happily feeding each other and enjoying one another’s company.

True humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of serving others. We crucify our pride through serving others.

The truth is – we can humble ourselves by serving others or we can let God humble us through our prideful failures.

Peter writes in First Peter 5:5-6 – “And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”

Good self-esteem comes from humility, not pride. And we humble ourselves by being willing to serve others.

I think we will always struggle with the deadly sin of pride, but the good news is that Jesus came to seek out and save pride-filled sinners like us.

Jesus said – “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Let us pray

We are continuing our sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes.

The Seven Deadly Sins – pride, envy, sloth, lust, anger, gluttony, and greed – were developed in the 4th century and became a way for the church to teach about how these sins choke off our life with God.

Each week we are looking at one Deadly sin and one Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount.

This morning we are looking at the Deadly sin of envy and the Beatitude – “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”.

I want to begin with an ancient Chinese tale about a farmer who had a horse that was exceptionally beautiful, strong, and fast.

The farmer’s neighbor told him he envied him, for having such a great horse. The farmer replied, “Who knows whether I should be pitied or envied because of this?”

The next day the horse ran away into the hills, and the neighbor’s envy turned to pity. The farmer said, “Who knows whether I should be pitied or envied?”

A few days later the horse returned with a mare which was even more beautiful, strong, and fast, and now the neighbor envied his two horses.
But the farmer said, “Who knows whether I should be pitied or envied?”

The farmer’s son tried to ride the new horse, but the horse reared, and he fell off and broke his leg, so the neighbor pitied the farmer again. But he said, “Who knows whether I should be pitied or envied?”

Then the general of the emperor’s army came to draft the son for a dangerous mission, but the son was rejected because of his broken leg, and the neighbor’s son was drafted instead, so the neighbor envied him again.

But he said, “Who knows whether I should be pitied or envied?” And the story goes on and on.

Envy and Pity – are the natural results of living around other people. And the things we envy can turn out to be the cause of bad fortune as much as good fortune.

Last week, in the sermon on pride, I suggested that there is a good kind of pride. That we can be proud of our children, our church, our community or the things we accomplish without pride choking off life with God.

We can also ask the same thing about envy. Is there a good kind of envy? I suppose there is.
” Procrastinators may envy someone who always gets things done ahead of time and this can spur them on to do better.
” Or when you and your co-worker have to go to conferences in January – you to Chicago and your co-worker to the Bahamas – a little envy is in order.
Expressing a desire to have something someone else has,
can be a way to compliment them on their good fortune.

So, there can be a light-hearted envy that is not destructive, but the envy that is sinful insists that we transform into something we are not.

True envy has the ability to distract my heart and mind from who God has made me and to focus instead on the gifts, status, talents, and joys God gives to others.

The bible is full of stories of how the deadly sin of envy led to destruction and exile for God’s people.
” In Genesis, Adam and Eve wanted a status that was reserved for God alone – the knowledge of good and evil. Their envy of God led them into being removed from the Garden of Eden into exile.
” In the story of Adam and Eve’s children, Cain wanted to be esteemed like his brother Abel. Cain envied the status Abel received – so instead of caring for himself he kills his brother. Envy led to murder and murder led Cain into exile.
” Later on in Genesis we read the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob envied the blessing his father was going to give his older brother Esau, so he steels the blessing from him.

Jacob’s envy led to betrayal and his betrayal led him to flee his homeland into exile.

” Joseph, the boy with the many colored coat, was sold into slavery because his brothers all envied his special relationship with their father. This led to his exile and his brothers exile.
” Later on in the OT we learn that the whole nation of Israel started envying other nations around them. God alone was Israel’s king, but Israel wanted a human king like the other nations.

Israel didn’t want to be its own unique self – a people led by God and called to bless all the nations.

Their envy of other nations led them to reject their identity and when they no longer knew who they were – the nation split and the people were conquered and taken into captivity.

So, in the bible, each time people have to flee or are sent into exile – it always begins with envy.

Envy leads to exile because it always separates us from who we were made to be and the life we were made to enjoy.

So, envy is a deadly sin because it inspires us to say to God – “the life you have given me just isn’t good enough. I need to have a different life with different perks.”

The deadliness of envy led Socrates to call envy “the ulcer of the soul”. It is a green-eyed monster that attacks us where we feel we are most lacking and destroys us from within.

Of all the Seven Deadly sins – envy is the only one that really offers us nothing but pain and misery. The other ones may offer us some gratification – if only for a moment – but there is no pleasure in envy. This is why envy is seen as the saddest sin.
To help us understand envy better and how it impacts us I want to describe some of its common symptoms. See if you can identify with any of these.

1. The first symptom of envy is that we compare ourselves to others.

Now, I said two weeks ago that these Seven Deadly Sins were first identified in a monastic community.

It was in close relationship with others that envy reared its ugly head the most. Close communities are especially susceptible to envy.

Aristotle claimed that, “Envy grows naturally in a relationship between equals.”

Kierkegaard called envy a “small-town sin.” By that he meant it was a by-product of living close to others and comparing yourself to them.

Generally, we don’t envy those who are much, much greater than us. We don’t compare ourselves to Bill Gates, or Sidney Crosby, or Martha Stewart because they are far above our possessions, abilities or achievements.

Their worlds are practically irrelevant to ours. Instead, we compare ourselves to those most like us.

Envy attacks those closest to you – your fellow church members, your neighbors, your co-workers, your siblings, and even your spouse.

When you compare your life with others – envy makes you feel small and inferior. It makes you feel uncomfortable living in your own skin.
And when you are not comfortable in your own skin you begin to compare yourself more and more with other people and you are envious of their life and what they have accomplished.

So, when you catch yourself comparing yourself to others – its time to examine what is lacking in your life or envy will take you into exile – far away for yourself and God’s best for you.

2. A second symptom of envy is – I want what others have. You not only compare yourself to them – now you want what they have.

Envy can creep up on us when we ride in someone’s new car, eat at someone else’s house, watch a movie on their big screen TV, or hear about where they recently went on vacation.

For others of us, envy begins speaking to us at the checkout lane when we see air-brushed bodies of celebrities or we are exposed to the newest gadgets in the Sunday paper.

In the church, we sometimes have “gift envy”. We see what others do well and we want their gifts and abilities.

But no matter what it is – envy always makes us want what someone else has.

And even worse, isn’t it amazing how envy always points to the good things other people have – while hiding the difficulties they face. Envy always distorts reality.

Envy insists that everyone is happy but me – and no one else hurts or struggles like I do.

Envy makes us see the world as though God had not given us everything we need. It makes us believe that more money, more toys, more vacations, more sleep, more success, more gifts would make us happier and better and more useful.

So, when you start wanting what others have – it is time again to examine what is lacking in your life or envy will take you into exile.

3. A third symptom of envy is we want others to envy us.

One way we do this is by dropping names.
” Names of important people we know.
” Names of schools our children went to.
” Names of celebrities we know or have seen.

We drop names or brag about things to make us feel important or to get noticed. We want other people to look up to us – to envy us.

We also hide things about ourselves to keep up a good appearance. We’re afraid to let people know our vulnerabilities for fear they will reject us.

So, when we do things to be envied – it is also time to examine what is lacking in our lives or envy can lead us into exile.

4. A fourth symptom of envy is we secretly want others to fail and we delight in their misfortunes.
I remember hearing cheers from quite a few people, when it came out that Sarah Palin’s daughter was pregnant outside of marriage. People rejoiced at her misfortune.

Or when Martha Stewart, this wealthy woman who kept her house cleaner than we kept ours went to jail, there were many folks who delighted to see her fall.

One author I read said “eighty percent of our criticisms of others have their roots in envy”.

Because envy doesn’t allow us to appreciate other people’s success, it always finds a way to degrade them.

For example:
” Those of us who are not particularly wealthy console ourselves by thinking all rich people must be miserable.
” Or children who struggle in school – condemn those who do well as “those nerds”.
” We say our neighbor has a nice lawn – but he has nothing else to do.

Envy has a way of giving us pleasure in the demise of others. It can’t appreciate the good in others without tearing them down.

So, when we want those around us to fail or we can’t appreciate their successes – it is time to examine what is lacking for us or envy will take us into exile.

Do you identify with any of these envy symptoms? Does the green-eyed monster ever get you?

I think all of us struggle with envy to some degree.

So, is there any hope for us in overcoming envy? Is it possible to tame this monster?

This is where the beatitude – “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” comes in.

Envy and mourning are both responses to things we lack or to losses in our lives.
Both those who envy and those who mourn are in positions of want.

Our wants, our losses, our pain in life can lead us into exile through envy or we can find comfort in our losses by grieving them.

Learning to mourn our losses, whether from a tragedy or a personal failure, is important because if we don’t – envy will take us away from God, ourselves, and others.

Envy thrives in an environment where we isolate ourselves from others and bury our pain. When we aren’t at home with ourselves – we compare ourselves with others and we want what they have and we can’t appreciate other people’s success.

Comfort, on the other hand, comes to us through confession – where we share our hurt and pain and failures with others.

This is why James writes – “confess your sins to each other?so that you may be healed.”

When we mourn we expose our pain, we confess it, we allow others with ointments and bandages to see it, and in those spaces there is healing.

Mourning our losses leads to comfort. Envy leads to sadness.

So, one of the ways we overcome envy is by learning to mourn our losses and confess our sins. When we experience forgiveness from sin and healing within we don’t need to compare ourselves with others.

We don’t need what others have.
We don’t delight in other people’s failures because we know the pain in our own life.

When we are secure in God’s forgiveness and love, then we can weep with those who weep. The good of the other becomes our good. The joy of the other is also our joy and the success of the other is our success.

This is why Paul can write in I Corinthians 13: 4-7 that
“Love is patient; love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing,
but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.”

Envy can’t survive long in the context of genuine love and kindness.

When we are oriented toward God and others in sacrificial love – it is hard to harbor envy in our hearts.
And when we are part of a grace-filled community that practices patience and kindness with one another – envy does not have a place to germinate because we confess our faults to one another and we are praying for God’s blessings on each other..

So, the invitation this morning is to learn to mourn your losses and confess your sins, so that envy doesn’t gain a foothold in your life.

Jesus said – “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Let us pray.