Sermons for the Month
The Sermon Theme That Will Not End
DATE: 12th Sunday After Pentecost
SERVICE: August 31, 2003
TEXT: James 1:17-27“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
(9:30 a.m. - At the beginning of the sermon note that four prayer shawls will be blessed during the prayers, and then passed through the congregation during Holy Communion for individual prayers. These shawls are for Gloria Boes, Betty Jacobs, Justine Molnar and Doug and Esther Winslow.) I believe I have hit upon the sermon theme that will not end. It's something like the song that will not end. You know that one, don't you? Sherry Lewis and Lamb Chop of long ago children's television fame used to sing it. "This is the song that will not end, it goes on and on my friends. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because this is the song…."
Well, this is the theme that will not end, it goes on and on my friends…." It has to do with a mirror - I actually brought one this week - and what we see when we look in it. For the fourth week in a row let me ask you. "What do you see when you look in this mirror?" I hope by now you are able to say, "I see a transformed child of God."
But, here's an interesting question. After looking in the mirror, what do we remember as we walk away? Who knows how many times I've read today's second lesson from James. Yet, verses 23 and 24 really grabbed my attention this week. "For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like." In other words, if we look in the mirror and see a transformed child of God - as every one of us should do - but we do not live a transformed life then we obviously have forgotten what we look like. We have forgotten who we are.
It so happened that I was reading something about this text, written by Mike Slaughter of the Ginghamsburg Church, and he used the movie "The Lion King" as an example. Maybe this will be familiar to those of you who saw that movie. The story line is that when Simba was a little lion his father was murdered. As the little lion Simba grew older and became a young adult he began to forget who he was. He began to take on, not the values of a child of a king, but the values of those around him - which happened to be the meercats and warthogs. (I guess I'm going to have to rent this movie.)
So, a priest shows up. (It just so happens that the priest is a monkey.) And, the priest - Rafiki - asks Simba an important question. "Do you know who you are?" Simba indicated that he used to know, but he had forgotten. So, Rafiki reminds him that he is the son of the King. Do you know what happens next? When Simba insists that his father, the King, is dead, he taken to a pond and asked to look at his reflection. When he sees himself he says, "That's not my father. It's just my reflection." And Rafiki says, "Look more deeply. Look, remember who you are!"
A little child in our congregation recently remembered. She was in a setting where other children were talking about their national heritage. You know how that goes. One person says,"I'm English", and another says, "I'm German", and someone else says, "I'm Swedish." Well, when it was this child's turn to share she proudly announced, "I'm a Christian." Her words claimed the most important heritage.
So it is that for the past three weeks the Holy Spirit has been leading me to remind all of us to look at our reflections in the mirror and to recognize who we are - the transformed children of God. And, today, the message is that the way to keep remembering who we are is to not only hear the word, not only to welcome the implanted word that has the power to save our souls, but to live out what we have heard. And, the promise of scripture is that if we are not just hearers who forget, but doers who act, we will be blessed in our doing.
Today's passage from James gives us a hint of what it means to be doers of the word. It means that we are quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. It means that we bridle our tongues. It means that we care for those who are in distress. And, it means that we do now allow the world's values to guide us and to define us.
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face as Christians is sorting out how to keep ourselves unstained by the world. Many things - how we live our lives, how we spend our money, how we use our time, how we interact with others - should be influenced by the fact that our lives are guided and defined by Jesus values.
Here is just one example. In the article that I mentioned earlier Pastor Slaughter talks about consumerism as one of the world's values that hovers near, always tempting us. It's common materialism, he says, and for most middle class Americans it's a real issue.
In a moment of self-revelation he tells about buying a 1960 Corvette convertible. He was lucky enough to pay cash for it, and justified it because he had given that same amount to the church during the last year. But no sooner did he get it home than he felt this internal conflict.
God, he said, was whispering to him. And the thing that God was whispering about didn't have to do with the money spent nor the flashiness of the car. Instead, it was about how "stuff" like that Corvette complicates a person's life. When you have a lot of stuff, you have to take care of it; you have to play with it to justify owning it. Stuff can take time, energy, and, yes, resources that might be put to better use. It can create stress. In fact, Pastor Slaughter said, it's possible to increase your standard of living and at the same time decrease the quality of your life - especially your Christian life.
He sold the car.
Does God want us to get rid of stuff too? I don't know. I guess we have to ask ourselves if it's getting in the way of living a transformed life.
The point is this. We are the transformed people of God. The gift of faith is planted within us. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live out that faith. When we fail to do so we have forgotten who we are. That's when God takes us by the shoulders and says to us, "Look more deeply. Look! Remember who you are! My child, remember whose you are." It is indeed a song, of love, that does not end as God transforms us to transform the world … may we sing it over and over and over again.
AMEN