Our
opening passage finds Paul speaking to the Colossians in a way that reminds us
that the lures of the past, even a past that could have been quite destructive,
are not as easy to walk away from as we pretend. Thoughts like, ‘I can quit whenever I want’,
and ‘I’m in control, I’m not being controlled’, ‘it’s just one (fill in the
blank)’, all derive from the fact that where you were is not as far away from
where you are as you like to think. That
being said, where you were doesn’t have to be where you’re going, but if you
aren’t diligent, it absolutely can be.
Paul is saying to the church, ‘where you were was killing you, maybe not in the temporal, but where you were, soaked in the ways of the flesh and wisdom of the world, was dragging you so far away from God that even the idea that you could get back into the good graces of the Almighty on your own was nothing more than a joke, and a bad one at that’.
But again that was where we were. Where we are now is washed in the blood of a lamb who has helped us to understand where true power and glory reside. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross we have been forgiven and set upon a rock that allows us to look to the future with eyes of faith. The scripture reads this way.
6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord,
continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and
established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
8 See to it that no one takes
you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition,
according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to
Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10
and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and
authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual
circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of
Christ; 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also
raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the
dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our
trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its
legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He
disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them,
triumphing over them in it.
Luke 11:1-13
11 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had
finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John
taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father,
hallowed be your name. Your kingdom
come. 3 Give us each day our
daily bread. 4 And forgive us
our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
5 And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and
you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of
bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set
before him.’ 7 And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the
door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get
up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get
up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his
persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 “So I say to you, Ask, and
it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who
searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is
there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake
instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a
scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts
to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him!”
With
television such as it is today, there is an outlet for just about anything and
everything. With our propensity for all
things reality TV, this means that a myriad of peoples, at times destructive,
difficulties will be recorded and put out there into the ether to see if it can
draw ratings. One of the areas that has
absolutely tapped into this vein are the shows that are revolving around
hording.
Initially,
many of these folks ended up on shows where their house needed to be cleaned,
or maybe organized. Of late, those
labels have been dropped in favor of highlighting just how all encompassing
these sorts of addictions can be.
One
of the first shows that I watched like that focused on a husband and wife who
had two kids. It was one of those
situations where if you saw them walking down the street you wouldn’t have
guessed how bad off they were, emotionally and spiritually.
The
wife’s mother had died about 10 years earlier.
Not only did this death deeply affect her, but they also acquired much
of her mom’s furniture, so everywhere she looked in her home, she was reminded
of a death of a loved one. The way that
she sought to deal with this pain, was by buying, everything. It didn’t matter if the family needed it, or
even if they could afford it, she would buy it.
When she did she said she felt ‘better’, even if better only lasted a
short period of time.
The
husband was someone who couldn’t throw anything away. They didn’t focus on why this habit
developed, but it was obvious that he had created an emotional attachment to
everything that he had, thereby not allowing him to part with any of it, even
when it needed to go.
This
combination of disorders is scary in and of itself. What made it frightening was that they had
two small children living in this environment with them. Imagine children climbing over mountains of
clothes, boxes, and junk to get into the space that constituted their
room. It had gotten so bad that child
protective services had been called. But
the couple was so stuck in where they were, that they couldn’t curb the
behaviors that had so clearly become destructive, both to them and their
family.
So
what did they do? They called a TV show
and asked for help ‘clean up their house’ so that they could keep their
kids. The house got cleaned up (which
meant the kids were able to stay), but that was where the show stopped. Where they got to was a new place, but
whether or not they’ll go to a better future or just fall back into some
variation of where they were, the national audience will probably never know.
Obviously,
this illustration is an extreme example.
But the reality is that how that couple was responding to their trials
was through the ways of the world. They
tried to fill the voids in their life with stuff. Others, who haven’t given in to wallowing in
self-pity and defeat, try and fill their respective voids with money, power,
influence, intelligence, or try and numb themselves out through some form of
self-medication. For many, these ways of
the world put a band-aid on a wound that feels like it can’t be healed.
That
is what Paul is trying to get across to his readers: where you were, grounded
in the ways of the world, was only going to leave you empty. You, you who have been called by the Creator
of all, you are now in a better place: a place where you are able to recognize
both how special you are to God, and also how reliant we need to be upon the
Almighty.
Why? Why do we need to stay reliant upon God? Because left to our own doing, we would fall
back upon the ways of the world, thereby continuing that state of being
separated from the God, and languishing in respective voids.
But
we don’t need to remain there because where we are, connected to God, has shown
us that there is a better way. This
better way calls for us to foster our connection with God and with all those
who have recognized that where they were doesn’t need to be where they
are.
That’s
what the Lord’s Prayer is: it’s the reminder of the connectivity that we have
to have so that we don’t turn back to those fallen ways. “Father, hallowed (holy, blessed) be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves
forgive everyone indebted to us.” This
prayer reminds us of whom we need to lean upon, for everything. Who do we need to lean upon? It’s not the world, and it’s not ourselves:
it’s God. We need to lean upon God. If we
do this, the where we are going will be blessed, blessed because we walk with
the Lord, blessed because we are willing to go to the Lord with everything and
know that our needs will be met.
That
last part, knowing that our needs will be met, that’s where the whole faith
walk starts to feel more than a little insecure for so many of us, because too
often we simple believe that our wants … are actually needs. We pray, we go to God in prayer, we knock
upon that door, and it feels like no one’s listening …because our wants are not
being met. And when that happens, its
real easy to begin to think, ‘Well, if God’s not going to take care of me, then
I’ll take care of myself’ and we immediately begin transform where we’re going,
into where we were.
But
what does the parable teach us? Not that
the ones who go and knock on the door will receive whatever they want, but that
they will receive, “whatever he (or she) needs.”
Again what does the Lord’s Prayer remind us?: that we are longing for
God’s “kingdom [to] come”.
As a people of faith we were
never promised that where we may be at any particular moment will be easy or
without difficulty, let alone that all our wants will be satisfied. What we have been promised is that the Lord
of all is with us, that our needs will be met, and that our lives will be
blessed so as to allow us to be a blessing in the world. We need to go to God with everything that we
carry and trust that as we knock upon that door that all our needs will be
met. It may not be the easiest of
journeys, but it will be the most fulfilling.
John Newton was born in 1725 to a mother who was devoutly
religious and a father who had an oceanic shipping business who was anything
but a religious man. John’s mother
intended for her son to go into the ministry.
However,
she died at the age of six and from that point on, John’s life changed. He was then raised in a variety of boarding
schools and then ultimately a stepmother.
But John’s view of God had been tarnished, not just to the point of him
not believing but going so far as to rip apart anyone who did believe. He was considered to be an extremely vile
individual whose vitriolic language was only matched by his belittling of those
who trusted in God.
In
1748, at the age of 23, he found himself on a slave trading ship when a storm
came upon them and literally washed an individual off the deck. The spot where that man died was where John
Newton was standing just a moment earlier.
John and the rest of his shipmates worked for hours, trying to save the
ship. It didn’t seem to be working. It got the point that John called out, “if
this will not do, then Lord have mercy upon us.” He then strapped himself to the ship for an
hour, so as not to be washed over, before returning to the deck to do
everything he could to stay alive, all the while pondering what he had just
declared. They survived.
For
the following two weeks, John thought about what had taken place during that
storm and what he came to understand it as, was a message from God that He was
real, and someone who should be believed in.
From that point on, the direction of John Newton’s life began to
change. It wasn’t a Pauline sort of
transformation where he went from being separated from God to totally being
with and of God. He struggled. But his
direction had changed to the point that he ultimately became an Episcopalian
priest.
The
reason that I mention this story is because while you may not recognize his
name, you do know an articulation of his faith.
John Newton wrote ‘Amazing Grace’.
The story that hymn tells speaks of one man’s recognition of where he
was, through God where he was led to, and because of God, where he was
going. It was not an easy transition,
but it happened as one person learned to place their reliance on the
Divine.
We have heard in our
scriptures, and know from our own lives, that where we were, separated us from
God. However, because of a sacrifice
that was made on our behalf, where we are allows us to see the joy of new
life. The question is, will we allow
that faith to be lived out so that where we are going exhibits a life that is
utterly dependent upon the Creator of all?
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Give us each
day our daily bread. And
forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” This prayer reminds us of where we should be
going. Are you ready to walk upon that
journey
After Sermon Prayer
Lord,
walking with You, relying on You, trusting in You is the life that You have
Called for us to lead. Help us to do
that very thing, so that where we are never becomes where we were, separated
from You, but instead a wonderful testament to Your kingdom coming into being,
as we go with You knowing that You will supply our every need. Lord, hear our prayer and let it be so. Amen.