​The King of Love
(Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:10-20; Luke 23:33-43)
 
Today, we are celebrating Christ the King Sunday.  It is celebrated on the last Sunday of the Christian year, which is the Sunday before Advent:  That’s right, the First Sunday of Advent is next Sunday, November 27!  During Advent, we “prepare the way of the Lord.”  Today, we will begin to “prepare the way of the Lord” by celebrating Christ the King Sunday.
 
As a good Baptist, I feel the need to admit to you that Christ the King Sunday was instituted by Pope Pius XI, in 1925.  Before I launch into the reason that Pope Pius XI felt the need to institute Christ the King Sunday, let me state that it is my position that we have something to learn from all the ways people express their Christianity – and there are many ways!  I view each of them as parts of a meal, the whole of which is Christianity.  Each part contributes its special flavor to the meal.  As Christians, we participate in the meal by getting sustenance from that part that satisfies us most completely.  So, for example, I became an American Baptist because the concept of soul liberty resonated deeply with the beliefs I already had from living my life.  Roger Williams’ insistence on allowing people the freedom to discern, with God, what is right and true, and his insistence that we not persecute others because of the beliefs they’ve arrived at through such discernment, rang true to me. 
 
Even so, I have learned much from the other ways that people live out their Christianity.  Even though I have chosen the American Baptist way of being Christian as the main part of my meal, I still taste the other parts, on occasion, and they contribute to providing me the sustenance I need.  For an exploration of Christ the King Sunday, I turned to Catholicism to enrich the meal.  And, today, I will give you a taste of what I learned from my studies!
 
Pope Pius XI felt, in the aftermath of World War I, that even though fighting had stopped, there was no true peace.  He wrote,
“Since the close of the Great War individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace. . . .  [T]he old rivalries between nations have not ceased to exert their influence. . . .  [T]he nations of today live in a state of armed peace which is scarcely better than war itself, a condition which tends to exhaust national finances, to waste the flower of youth, to muddy and poison the very fountainheads of life, physical, intellectual, religious, and moral.”[1] 
Pope Pius XI believed, emphatically, that true peace could only be found under the Kingship of Christ, who is the “Prince of Peace.”  He insisted, “For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example.”[2]  The Pope felt that Christians needed a reminder that their allegiance is not to a human ruler, but to their spiritual ruler in heaven.  Christ the King Sunday would remind Christians that Christ’s power did not derive from human power, but from loving and serving others.[3]
 
And, that statement brings us to the reading from the Gospel According to Luke today.  Why, far away from Good Friday, are we reading about Jesus’ crucifixion?  Why, on a day on which we celebrate Jesus as King, do we read about his shameful death on a cross?  We do so, my brothers and sisters in Christ, to remind ourselves where Jesus’ power lies.  It does not lie in domination or oppression or subjugation.  No:  It lies in the cross.  At his moment of utmost weakness, mocked and derided by those persecuting him, he stayed true to the way and the will of God and allowed himself to be a sacrifice for the redemption of creation – both human and nonhuman creation. 
 
While dying on the cross, Jesus was taunted by the leaders, the soldiers, and the criminal hanging next to him:  “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself” (Lk 23:37)!  Do you know how much strength it takes to not give in to the taunts of others?  Think back to a time when someone challenged you with a taunt.  I don’t have to think far back, because many people have been taunting each other since the election results were in.  Think about how tempted you were to respond, especially if you felt that the taunt wasn’t justified and that you were in the right!  Maybe you even responded!  Maybe you got into a verbal brawl with someone.  That’s okay; we’re human; it happens.  But Jesus wasn’t just human.  He was human AND divine, the son of God, the savior promised in Jeremiah:  “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (23:5).  In order to redeem the world, he HAD to stay true to his mission.  He HAD to reveal where true power lies.  He HAD to remain vulnerable to the bitter end, at which time he breathed his last and uttered:  “It is finished” (Jn 19:30).
 
At that moment – at the moment of utmost weakness, when all appeared lost – creation was redeemed; redeemed, not through a display of subjugating power, but through the refusal to respond to violence with violence.  The destructive energy of violence and aggression met the redemptive energy of love and peace and fizzled out.  To those witnessing this supernatural battle, nothing appeared changed, but changed it was.  Jesus had broken the power of evil in the most unspectacular way:  by dying, shamefully, on a cross.
 
With all that has been going on in our country and in the world, I have turned to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., to gain strength and sustenance.  He is one of the most articulate preachers on the subject of the transforming power of love.  One of the videos I watched was of King preaching a portion of his sermon on loving your enemies.  The words with which the video began struck me and I want to share them with you because they fit so well into the celebration of Christ the King Sunday.  Here are King’s words:
“There is a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world.  But never feel that that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history.  Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity, and see the love of God breaking forth into time.  It is an eternal reminder to a power-drunk generation that love is the only way.  It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.”[4]
 
Why is Christ the King?  The Letter to the Colossians says it all and illustrates what King preached:
“[The Father] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (1:13-20).
 
On this Sunday before Thanksgiving, let us give thanks to God for Jesus Christ, our King, through whom we have been rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into God’s kingdom.  We have been rescued:  Let us give thanks!  Of course, while walking on this Earth, we will suffer, but let us consider how to respond to suffering by returning to Martin Luther King, Jr., one more time. 
 
As an African American man at his time in history, he suffered the injustice and oppression of systematized racism sanctioned by his society.   Of course, he wasn’t the only one who suffered; many did.  Rep. John Lewis, a longtime civil rights leader and Georgia congressman, just received a National Book Award for his book titled, March:  Book 3.  As a child growing up in pre-civil rights Alabama, he and his brother were turned away from the public library because it was for whites only.  It was a public library, but he and his brother couldn’t use it because they weren’t white.  He never went back to that library until 1998, when he was invited to hold a signing for his book, Walking in the Wind.  As a teenager, however, Lewis heard King preaching on the radio.  He was inspired.  He understood that he could make a difference by fighting injustice and oppression through non-violent resistance.  King had come to the conclusion that the only way a Christian could work against injustice and oppression was through non-violent resistance, and this is what King preached in his sermon on loving your enemies:
“But there is another way.  And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love.  It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future.  As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here.  We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love.  And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better.  Love is the only way.  Jesus discovered that. .  . ."[5]
 
Lewis marched with King and they – along with thousands of others who marched – changed the world.  When Lewis received the National Book Award, he became emotional.  He recalled the fact that he had been turned away from a public library in 1956 because he is African American, yet here he was receiving a national award for writing a book, a book that would contribute to libraries all over the country.  He said, with tears in his eyes and his voice shaking from emotion, “Thank you.  This is unreal.  This is unbelievable. . . .  To come here, receive this award, this honor – it’s too much.”[6]
 
Yes, we will suffer as we walk this Earth, but when we suffer because of injustice and oppression then we can do as King and Lewis did and resist with non-violent resistance fueled by love, because love is the only thing that redeems and transforms.  We know that because Christ our King has created us in love, redeemed us in love, and continues to teach us in love.  Let us remember, give thanks, and submit to his creative, redemptive, transforming rule of love. 
 
I would like to close with an adapted version of the prayer that King prayed at the end of his sermon on loving our enemies.  Let us pray: 
"Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas.  Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our . . . civilization.  Grant that all [people] will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems -- the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem -- let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus.  Give us this strong determination.  In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray.   Amen."[7]
 
Sermon preached by Rev. Amy Johnson, Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, Sunday, November 20, 2016, the Twenty-seventh Sunday After Pentecost.


[1] Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King

[2] Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King

[3] Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King

[4] http://www.jesuswalk.com/manifesto/king-love-enemies.htm

[5] Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King

[6] http://www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502573795/rep-john-lewis-looks-back-on-the-struggle-for-voting-rights

[7] Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King

Image is from ​http://www.standrewsayer.org/images/christ-the-king-large.jpg

Not One Stone
(Is 65:17-25; Gal. 5:1, 13-25; Lk 21:5-19)
 
Since the time of Abraham, the Israelites have had a relationship with the one God, who they called Elohim, El Shaddai, Yahweh Jehovah or Adonai.  That relationship has taken place in different places and in different ways. 
 
In the beginning of the relationship, God didn’t have a specific dwelling place – no tent, no building, no temple.  Instead, God was free to go where he chose, and he guided the Israelites on their Exodus journey out of Egypt and into the Promised Land as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:17-22).  When the Israelites wanted to make him an altar, God told the them that they need only make him an altar out of earth.  If they felt the need to make an altar of stone, they were to use only natural stones, because God feared that a manmade altar would be profane – that is, blasphemous (Ex 20:24-25).  As the Israelites became more organized as a people, God commanded them to build a sanctuary that could be moved at his command (Ex 25-30; 33:7-11).  And when the Israelites were finally established in Jerusalem, King David wanted to build a house for God, but God wouldn’t let him (2 Sam 7).  Instead, God decreed that it would be David’s son, Solomon, who would build the Temple, and, when Solomon became king, he did (1 Ki 5). 
 
As the Israelites became more established, God’s dwelling place became more established, until God only dwelt in the Holy of Holies, in the Temple, in Jerusalem.  Later, when Jerusalem was conquered and the Temple was destroyed, the Israelites were exiled, and they were thrown into chaos and confusion.  They asked themselves, “Where does God dwell now?  How and where can we worship God if not in the Temple in Jerusalem?  Is God with us in exile?”  They no longer had their Temple, or their certainty about God and the practice of their faith.  The stones of their Temple had been thrown down, and so had the stones of their faith.
 
The Israelites’ understanding of God and the practice of their faith had become centered solely in the Temple.  Whenever Jerusalem was conquered and the Temple destroyed by enemies, the Israelites would rebuild the Temple at the first moment that they could.  Imagine then, their anxiety and anger toward Jesus when he declared that the stones of the Temple would be thrown down, and that not one stone would be left upon another (Lk 21:6).  Jesus’ words challenged their attachment to the Temple.  In a sense, the Temple had become a prison for them.  Their sense of identity as a people and their faith were attached to the Temple and they were no longer free in their relationship with God.
 
We also build temples that become prisons for us.  Our temples are not usually physical buildings, however.  They are the ways we think or the things we do that we won’t let go of no matter how much they are hindering and hurting us.  But God doesn’t want us, or our faith practice, or our understanding of him to be set in stone.  God wants us to be free to respond to his self-disclosure at any moment, and if we, or our faith practice, or our understanding of him are set in stone we are not free to do so.  We must be listening for God’s call, not focusing on maintaining our temples.  If we focus on our temples rather than on our relationship with God, our temples become prisons for us.  Even though it’s human nature to want to have things set in stone, we must be willing to have our stones thrown down, even to the point where not one stone is left upon another and we are truly free before God. 
 
You may be asking yourself what are the prisons that keep us from being free.  They will be different for each of us.  But, they are those things that keep us from the “fruits of the Spirit.”  The fruits of the Spirit are listed in Galatians 5:22.  They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Any way we think or anything we do that keeps us from these fruits is a prison for us.
 
Let’s look for a moment at the opposite of the fruits of the Spirit:  The opposite of love is hate.  The opposite of joy is misery.  The opposite of peace is distress.  The opposite of patience is impatience.  The opposite of kindness is meanness.  The opposite of generosity is greed.  The opposite of faithfulness is fear.  The opposite of gentleness is roughness.  The opposite of self-control is rashness.  We can tell if we are imprisoned if we are miserable, distressed, impatient, mean, greedy, fearful, rough, and rash.  When we find ourselves falling into these ways of being, we realize something is off, and must ask ourselves:  What temple have we built that is keeping us from the fruits of the Spirit?  What temple have we built that is keeping us from the freedom that Christ has given us?  What yoke of slavery have we taken back onto ourselves?  What way of thinking or being has imprisoned us?
 
This past year has been a tough one.  We in the United States have gone through what is being called one of the most contentious and vitriolic election cycles in our history.  Since the results of the election came in, people on both the “right” and the “left” have been freaking out in various ways.  Violent crimes have been committed against people considered to be the “other,” as people express the hatred that was already in their hearts.  Effigies of Donald Trump have been burned and protests against his presidency are being held, as people express the fear and loathing that was already in their hearts.  People are wailing and gnashing their teeth, literally and metaphorically.  It’s been a crazy week!
 
In other areas of the world, this past year has also been challenging.  The United Kingdom voted to exit the European Union and the UK is currently dealing with the fallout of that vote.  Other countries are struggling with how to handle over a million refugees escaping from war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa.  Some are welcoming them and some are refusing them, and there are consequences to both decisions.  Meanwhile, the refugees suffer.  Who will give them a room at the inn?  Who will let them rest in their stable?  Where will they sleep?  What will they eat?  How will they survive? 
 
Then there is the whole issue of climate change and sustainable energy and water supply and GMOs.  And, what’s with all the black bears in our towns and suburbs?  Are we encroaching on their habitat too much?
 
Should I go on?
 
In the Luke passage for today, Jesus states, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven” (21:10-11).  Personally, I am not one to try to predict when the end times will come or if they are present.  I don’t believe it is my job to do so.  Even Jesus, when questioned about this, said, “Of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the son, only the Father” (Mk 13:32). 
 
No, it is not our job to speculate about the end times.  It is our job, only, to remain faithful despite what is going on in the world.  Jesus says to his disciples, “But make up your mind not to worry . . .” (Lk 21:14).  We are not to worry.  If we worry, we are imprisoned, and imprisonment is not a sign of God’s kingdom!  Remember, Jesus came to set us free!  We are not to take on the yoke of worry and become enslaved.  That is not the way of the Christian disciple.


When we are yoked by worry, then we are not free to follow God, and God desires that we be free to follow the guidance of his Spirit and free to respond to it.  He desires that we be enlivened by his Spirit and moving into the future he has planned for us.  But when we are imprisoned in our temples, we are inflexible and his Spirit is unable to move among us and inspire us.  Then, God cannot do a new thing with us and our world!  And God always desires to do a new thing!  God declares, “I am about to do a new thing,” not, “I am about to do the same old thing” (Is 43:19).  He is the God who makes all things new.  He is the God who loves us enough to accept us as we are, and too much to let us stay that way, as Anne Lamott has said!  He is the God who loves us enough to accept our prisons, and too much to let us remain imprisoned by them.
 
The Isaiah passage for today witnesses to the fruits of the Spirit that are manifested after the stones of our prisons are thrown down and God is allowed to build something new in their place:
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
For I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. . . .
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. . . .
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord – and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox .  .  .
They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.  (Is 65:17-25)
 
It sounds wonderful doesn’t it?  The fruits of the Spirit are manifested when we allow God free reign in our lives, but the Isaiah passage is not the whole story.  The whole story can only be told in the conjunction of the Luke and Isaiah passages.  Yes, we will experience the fruits of the Spirit if we allow God free reign in our lives, but we will also suffer apocalypses on the way to the promise.  The stones of our prisons will be thrown down until not one stone is left upon another, and this will be uncomfortable at best and painful at worst.  Like the Israelites when Jesus said that the stones of their Temple would be thrown down, we may feel anxious and angry as the stones of our prisons are thrown down.  We may suffer a time of nakedness and vulnerability after the stones are gone.  There may be conflict, dissent, and argument as we react to the ensuing changes.  We will live, for a time, in the rubble and chaos that is the result of having the stones of our prisons thrown down.  We may not trust that the new heavens and the new earth will actually come, and when they do, they may feel foreign.  It will be a time that will require faithfulness and endurance, both in our relationship to God and to each other.  But out of the rubble and chaos a new thing, created by God, will come, and “the former things will not be remembered or come to mind” (Is 65:18) because we will be so caught up with the gladness and rejoicing that always comes when we trust in and wait upon the Lord long enough for God to do his thing.  As the Luke passage tells us, “By your endurance you will gain your souls” (Lk 21:19).
 
Gaining our souls means that we are living the life that God intends for us to live and that we are helping others to do the same – even those “others” who are not like us.  (Remember those refugees?)   Perhaps then we will not feel the need to build new temples that we worship more than God and that become prisons.  Instead, our model will be the movable sanctuary of the early Israelites, described in Exodus:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. . . .  Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up.  For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.  (Ex 40:34-38)
While they had the tent of meeting, the Lord was before the eyes of the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.  They waited upon the Lord in order to know where to go and what to do next.  Although they had a structure in which God dwelt and on which they could focus the practice of their faith, none of it was set in stone.  There was not one stone to be thrown down.  May we be so blessed.  Amen.
 
Sermon preached by Rev. Amy Johnson, Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, Sunday, November 13, 2016, the Twenty-sixth Sunday After Pentecost.

Image from ​http://www.simplygod101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/30-devo-1.jpg

​Saintly Qualifications
(Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10, 13-14; Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17; Matthew 5:1-12)
 
This past Monday, Halloween was celebrated.  People dressed up and went door-to-door saying, “trick or treat” and receiving candy.  According to Wikipedia, “It is widely believed that many Halloween traditions originated from Celtic harvest festivals which may have pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, and that this festival was Christianized as Halloween.  Some academics, however, support the view that Halloween began independently as a solely Christian holiday.”[1]
 
The Christian name for Halloween is All Saints Day.  Again, according to Wikipedia, [the] “Christian celebration of All Saints' Day . . . stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (the "Church triumphant"), and the living (the "Church militant").”[2]  It is celebrated in honor of all the saints of the Christian faith. 
 
Does anyone here know what qualifies a person to be a saint?  Many people think a saint is someone whose life is an example of extraordinary faith.  For example, there is Saint Bernadette, who had 18 visions of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  During one of those visions, Mary told Bernadette to dig in the ground in a particular place.  As Bernadette dug, a spring of water began to flow.  The next day it continued to grow larger and larger.  When people used this water, miracles occurred.  Or, how about St. Francis of Assisi?  The son of a wealthy businessman, Francis gave up all his wealth and position to become a wandering preacher.  Eventually, he founded the Franciscan religious order, the mark of which was radical poverty.  The members of the order had no possessions, literally.  The lives of Bernadette and Francis are examples of what we think of when we think of saints.[3]
 
The New Testament, however, doesn’t define a saint in this way.  A saint, in the New Testament, is any disciple of Jesus Christ.  So, according to the New Testament, I’m a saint and you are a saint.  All of us are saints – and so is anyone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ.  A saint, then, is not a person whose life is an example of extraordinary faith; a saint is anyone who has recognized that he or she has been bound closely to God in love through Jesus Christ.  Sainthood, then, is not about our qualifications, but about God’s love.  We become saints not when we have acquired certain qualifications, but when we have accepted God’s love and pledged our love to God in return.  We become saints when we consciously enter into a loving, intimate relationship with God.  And when we enter into a loving, intimate relationship with God, we enter into one with each other, too – for we are all bound together in Christ.
 
We are all bound together in Christ, which is why we can speak of the “communion of saints.”  The communion of saints consists of all Christians from all times, living and dead, throughout eternity.  The life that we live on this side of the grave continues on the other side of the grave.  The Christian community that nourishes and sustains us in this life continues into the other life.  All Saints’ Day is the day we celebrate that great community, both the living and the dead, the near and the far.
 
One reason to celebrate All Saints Day is to recognize all who have passed on to life on the other side of the grave in the recent past.  Another reason to celebrate All Saints Day is to remind ourselves that we belong to a particular part of the communion of saints, the community of saints that is the Canton Community Baptist Church.  As people join and leave this part of the body of Christ, we are reminded that the body of Christ is fluid and malleable.  It is a living thing that moves and breathes and changes, and yet it also stays constant.  Whether we are here in Canton, or there in Cheshire; here in the United States, or there in South America; here on this side of the grave, or there on the other side of the grave, we are the body of Christ, members of the communion of saints, bound in love to God and to each other, even as we move from here to there, wherever “here” and “there” are.
 
Some of our lives will be examples of extraordinary faith, a faith that never wavers, like Bernadette’s and Francis’.  Some of them will be examples of ordinary faith, a faith that wavers and waffles, like Augustine of Hippo’s and Kathleen Norris’, both of whose faith wavered and waffled repeatedly.  But they will all be examples of saintly faith, for we all desire to accept the love of God, and we all desire to return it, and we all have moments of doing both of those things.  Even beyond that, in the midst of doing those things, we might be the vehicles through which others come to desire such things, through which others enter the community and become one of the saints.  Who knows when a Bernadette, or a Francis, or an Augustine, or a Kathleen will walk through our doors, a saint-in-the-making, needing only our welcome and our embrace to complete their conversion?  We need only ask them what their names are and how they’re doing, and we just might witness a resurrection; we just might see the birth of a saint.  Amen.
 
Sermon preached by Rev. Amy Johnson, Canton Community Baptist Church, Sunday, November 6, 2016, the Twenty-fifth Sunday After Pentecost.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints%27_Day

[3] Information about St. Bernadette and St. Francis of Assissi is from www.catholic.org. 

No Spiritual Rigor, Please!
(Lk 18:9-14; Joel 2:23-32)
 
The sermon title for this week – “No Spiritual Rigor, Please!” – may seem a bit odd or confusing.  Most of us think of rigor as a good thing.  When we’re rigorous we’re disciplined; we’re toeing the line; we’re working hard – we’re acting in a way that is usually considered admirable.  So, we would think that spiritual rigor would be a good thing.  Spiritual rigor calls to mind the monks of the Middle Ages, who would get up in the wee hours of the morning to pray, then go to work, then pray again, then work again, then pray again, then work again, breaking only for meals, until it was time to go to bed, only to get up the next day and do it all over again.  They displayed what we think of as a rigorous spirituality.
 
But there’s another definition of rigor, and that is the one I’m using.  It’s the physiological definition of rigor, which is:  “A state of rigidity in living tissues or organs that prevents response to stimuli.”  We see this in its most extreme form after death, when a body has rigor mortis, which, in its original Latin, means “stiffness of death.”  After death, all of the tissues and organs of the body become rigid.  So, we could say that a sign of death is rigidity in the body.
 
If we apply the physiological definition of rigor to our spiritual lives, the definition of spiritual rigor would be: “A state of rigidity in our spiritual organs that prevents response to God’s stimuli”.  Now, you might be asking what our spiritual organs are.  The answer to that question is found in what Jesus said is the greatest commandment:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37).  Our spiritual organs are our hearts, our souls, and our minds.  When these are spiritually healthy and functioning well, they are flexible, and are thus able to respond to God’s stimuli.  But when these are spiritually unhealthy and not functioning well, they are rigid, and are thus not able to respond to God’s stimuli.
 
A well-known example of a person with spiritual rigor is the Pharaoh of the story of the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt (Ex 6-12).  Whenever Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh on God’s behalf to request that he let the Hebrew people go so that they could worship God and Pharaoh refused, he was described as having a hard heart.  In other words, he had a rigid heart.  He would not listen to God and do what God required of him.  He suffered from spiritual rigor.  And, I might add, if you remember, he paid the price for it.  Egypt and its inhabitants suffered numerous plagues, while the Hebrew people were freed to leave Egypt and worship God.
 
When our hearts, souls, and minds become rigid and are unable to respond to God, we suffer from spiritual rigor.  As was stated above, rigidity is a sign of death.  Rigidity in our spiritual organs is thus a sign of spiritual death.  If we’re unable to respond to God with our hearts, souls, and minds, over time we die a spiritual death.  Eventually, we have spiritual rigor mortis – in Latin, “stiffness of spiritual death.”
 
I don’t think any of us want spiritual rigor or spiritual rigor mortis!  We want to be spiritually alive, not spiritually dead.  So we need to learn what the symptoms of spiritual rigor are so that we can recognize when our hearts, souls, and minds are becoming rigid and we are on that slippery slope toward spiritual death.  The parable that Jesus tells in the gospel passage for today reveals to us the symptoms of spiritual rigor.
 
Jesus tells the parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt” (18:9).  His teaching is directed toward the self-righteous, the proud, and the arrogant.  The parable is about a Pharisee and a tax collector.  The Pharisees were a group of particularly observant and influential Jews, while tax collectors were considered ritually unclean by Jews because they had contact with Gentiles.  The taxes they collected were for the Roman Empire and so they had to deal with Roman officials – that is, Gentiles.  Tax collectors were also known for their tendency toward theft, fraud, and corruption; after all, they handled money and we all know that money easily corrupts.
 
The parable begins with the Pharisee and the tax collector going to the temple to pray.  One of them is righteous (the Pharisee); the other is not (the tax collector).  The righteous one stands by himself, away from the tax collector so that he will not be polluted by him – remember, the tax collector is ritually unclean – and he prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people:  thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector”(Lk 18:11).  And then he lists his spiritual accomplishments:  “For I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income” (Lk 18:12).  He is extremely pleased with himself – one might say overly pleased.
 
The unrighteous one, the tax collector, prays very differently.  He won’t even look up to heaven.  His eyes downcast, he beats his breast in anguish and prays a brief prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Lk 18:13).
 
Jesus concludes the parable by saying, “I tell you, this man” – the tax collector – “went down to his home justified rather than the other” – the Pharisee – “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted” (Lk 18:14).
 
Jesus makes it clear that the essential ingredient in our interactions with God is humility, not righteousness.  The dictionary definition of humility is:  “The quality or condition of being humble; lack of pride.”  And the dictionary definition of humble is:  “Marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit; showing deferential or submissive respect; unpretentious.” 
 
Humility is essential because it keeps our spiritual organs flexible and prevents them from becoming rigid.  It enables us to receive and respond to God’s stimuli.  The tax collector was humble and so was open to God.  Humility is both the vaccine that prevents us from contracting spiritual rigor and the antidote to it once we’ve been infected.
 
The Pharisee was clearly infected with spiritual rigor.  He had already decided, by himself, that he was righteous – he just wanted God to confirm what he thought he knew about himself.  Instead of coming to God in prayer to hear what God had to say to him, the Pharisee told God what a wonderful religious person he was.  His heart, soul, and mind had become rigid in a posture of self-righteousness, pride, and arrogance.  He couldn’t receive or respond to God’s stimuli.  He was on that slippery slope toward spiritual rigor mortis.
 
The symptoms of spiritual rigor – which, unchecked, lead to spiritual death – are self-righteousness, pride, and arrogance.  I’ve given you the definition of humility so that you can foster it in yourselves and remain spiritually healthy.  It’s only fair that I give you the definitions of self-righteousness, pride, and arrogance so that you can recognize them in yourself and root them out.  Here they are:

• Self-righteousness:  “The state or quality of being piously sure of one’s own righteousness; moralistic.”
• Pride:  “An excessively high opinion of oneself; conceit.”
• Arrogance:  “The state or quality of being overly convinced of one’s own importance; overbearingly proud; haughty.

 
Regardless of when in history we are alive on the Earth, there are threats to our well-being.  Each time in history has it’s own challenges.  Currently, we are in a historical period marked by terrorism and the War on Terror.  Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, faithful people of all religious traditions have been plagued with serious spiritual questions, the answers to which are not always obvious or forthcoming.  Personally, I’ve been torn by questions about just war vs. pacificism; forgiveness vs. retribution; grace vs. justice; and the kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of this world. 
 
I am acutely aware that I worship a messiah who chose to die rather than return evil for evil – and in so doing defeated evil – and I wonder what that means for how I, personally, and we, collectively, should respond when evil is at hand.  I worry that though we may fight and win the physical war in which we are engaging, we may lose the spiritual war that is constantly raging in each of us and in the world as a whole.  I wonder how it is we are to contribute to the building of God’s kingdom on earth rather than to its tearing down.  The larger question that hovers over all of my questions is:  “What would God have us do at this time and at all times?”
 
The only way that we can be assured that we are doing the best that we can to discern God’s will during a time when it is difficult to do so is to remain open to God.  And the way to remain open to God is to be humble.  We are not to go to God in prayer and tell him what wonderful religious people we are, how sinless we are, how much we deserve his approval, as did the Pharisee.  Instead, we are to go to God with the awareness that we fall short of what he requires of us all the time; that, sometimes without even knowing it, we contribute to the pain and suffering of his world in countless ways; that, often, we are unsure of what we are to do; and that we beg him for his mercy and guidance, as did the tax collector:  “Deliver us, O God, from our own sins and the sins of others.”  Or, as we say in the Lord’s Prayer every week, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”  The kingdom and the power and the glory are not ours – they are God’s, and we must turn to God for deliverance and guidance.
 
Martin Luther King, Jr., during another difficult time for America, when our nation was struggling with its sin of racism in the form of segregation, asserted that, “God is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.  This is our hope for becoming better men and women.  This is our mandate for seeking to make a better world.”
 
God is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.  God is able to do that.  And the way that we allow God to do that is to keep our spiritual organs – our hearts, souls, and minds – healthy and flexible.  We must recognize the symptoms of spiritual rigor and root them out:  self-righteousness, pride, and arrogance.  It is when our hearts, souls, and minds turn to stone that we are in trouble.  A stone is hard, and God can’t fashion it into what he wants it to be.  When God is faced with a heart of stone (like the Pharaoh’s heart), he must break it open and begin again, and that is a painful process.  But when God is faced with a living, breathing heart, he can breathe his Spirit into it, fashion it into his instrument, and give it to the world as a gift.  The prophet Joel reports God as saying:  “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old people shall dream dreams, and your young people shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).  We are always in need of those dreams and visions, at this time and at all times.
 
Many atrocities have been done throughout history in the name of religion because people suffered from spiritual rigor:  the Crusades; the Inquisition; the acceptance and support of slavery; the acceptance and support of apartheid; the attacks of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks that have followed – the list goes on and on.  During the thick of a battle it is difficult to keep our vision clear and our minds open in order to see and understand the bigger picture.  But the bigger picture is God’s picture, and it is the only thing that will save us.  We need to see it and we need to understand it so that we can participate in it and contribute to the building of God’s kingdom on Earth. 
 
And so, I beg you:  no spiritual rigor!  We must exercise our spiritual organs and keep them healthy with humility.  We must approach God with a flexible heart, soul, and mind.  Then God can breathe his Spirit into us and make us his instruments and give us as gifts to the world.  Perhaps, then, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, tomorrow will be a brighter day.  Amen.
 
 
Sermon preached by the Rev. Amy Johnson at the Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, Sunday, October 23, 2016, the Twenty-third Sunday After Pentecost.