Resist Him, Firm in Your Faith!

A couple of people asked if I would post my sermon from Sunday, Feb 13th. Here it is:
Sermon, Matthew 5.21-37 Fr Scott Homer
In the Name of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

As you may know, I was on retreat with 12 men from the parish last Sunday. We had a very good time. We learned a lot about being Christian men.
I was a bit anxious to leave you on the Sunday following the dramatic bad news about the diocese but the retreat had been planned for a long time and I trust Denny, and so I decided that the trip ought to go on as scheduled.

On my way back last Sunday afternoon, I called Brenda and asked her how the services had gone here. She responded quickly and enthusiastically, “Fabulous!” …I was hoping for a positive response but not quite that positive! My competitive side felt a little stung. But I am thankful that we have Denny here and I suspected he would be fabulous, so thank you Denny for your great work and I really am glad to be back with you all this Sunday.

If you have not read the Bishop’s letter and my letter, you need to. We have been saying for three years that separation from the Episcopal Church was critical if we were going to preserve the faith and we did separate by a unanimous vote of the congregation two years ago. And we have been saying for three years that we may have to pay a high price for our decision, that the Episcopal Church will come after us, that they will challenge our ownership rights for this building, its contents and our bank accounts. And it now appears that day is immanent. Barring a miracle—and I believe in miracles—and I earnestly pray for a miracle in this case—barring a miracle we can expect a formal challenge from the Episcopal Church against Trinity, Beaver sometime in the next six months to a year. And so, we as a parish are now being called to stand, to be faithful, and to respond well to the day of trouble. It is a dangerous time for us as a parish—not because we may lose our building but because we could lose our fellowship. And so I would like to look at our readings this morning in light of how they instruct us to act, as we face our times of trouble.

Jesus makes a fundamental point in the Sermon on the Mount. He makes it over and over again. Each time he uses a different illustration but each time he is making the same point:

The real enemy is not without—the true and genuine threat to your well-being is within—the fox is in the henhouse. The spiritual battle that we are called to fight is the battle for the human heart—and not the heart of the guy at work who doesn’t believe, and not the person sitting next to you in the pew whose shortcomings are so obvious to you. It’s not getting your spouse to be understanding. It is not exerting your will to shape the world in a way that will cause God’s glory to shine. The heart that needs transformed is the one beating in my chest. The powers of light are battling the powers of darkness for your heart, and my heart. That is where the battle must be fought. That is where the victory must be won. Jesus is transforming the world one person at a time, and that one person is me.
So Jesus says, forget about killing someone. You are not innocent simply because you don’t have someone’s blood on your hands. Murder is just the outward and visible sign of a black heart—a person is dead because someone expressed in deed what they felt in his heart. The crime is sourced in the human heart. The human heart conceived it and the human heart gave it authority to act. It is the anger in our hearts and our willingness to grant anger authority over our actions that poses the real problem. And Jesus says, forget about committing adultery. Have you lusted after someone, have you looked longingly at dirty pictures, have you fanaticized about a relationship with that other person? Then you have already committed to real crime. You have allowed your heart to be possessed and consumed by evil. And yes, as our reading from Ecclesiasticus points out, sin is born out of our will, not God’s. So for Jesus, the battleground is not in the world around us. The battleground is in the human heart BUT it has real life consequences—the fruit of the heart manifests themselves in the behavior of man.

So Jesus tells us, for the time being, forget about giving gifts to God. Go fix your broken relationships. Go apologize and ask forgiveness of the person you have hurt. Go make peace with the people you have wronged. Don’t divorce except by reason of your spouse’s adultery. Instead of granting authority to the black heart and being governed by evil, give authority to God, choose out of the redeemed heart, act out of the heart that is being transformed by Christ. And, of course, Jesus is not just talking about murder or adultery. He means in every moral and ethical way. The examples he uses in the Sermon on the Mount are not exhaustive. As much as we would like to objectify sin, it is always internal, always about choosing darkness over light, always looking for blessing in the external world rather than seeking unity with God in our internal world. And the solution is always to choose God’s salvation as the source of our motivation and strength.

This is going to be an essential teaching for us as a community over the months to come. We, as people whose property is being threatened, and as members of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, whose faith claims are being challenged, are experiencing spiritual warfare. And we are being called to the battle—not just for building and grounds—but for our hearts, and the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Hang on to this teaching in the months ahead: Jesus is transforming the world one person at a time, and that one person is me. Our hope is in becoming more like Jesus through his grace and power, and acting more like Jesus by choosing Him over Barabbas. Jesus is fighting with us for the welfare of our soul and our challenge is to let him.

In a little while I want to talk about how a person might fight the good fight for their own heart. First though, I want to talk a little bit about the corporate aspect of this same principle—that our well-being depends less on the externals than it does on the internals, less on what happens around us and more on what we grant authority in our hearts.

St Paul writes to the church in Corinth. He writes out of a variety of lesser concerns but he writes for one overriding concern: There is division in the community. The church is taking up sides, struggling for power, and it is tearing the church apart. St. Paul recognizes the extreme threat this poses to the church’s future, and to its mission. And so, if this little community cannot find unity, it will most certainly be destroyed by the forces of evil that seek to silence the message of Gospel. And so, St. Paul writes a rather lengthy letter asking the people of Corinth to unite around the truth of God, to conform to the teachings He brought to them from God, and to choose to unite around Jesus Christ rather than create factions fighting for various points of view.

At first blush we may conclude that the challenge facing Trinity, Beaver is that someone wants to take our building away from us but that is not the real threat. The deadly threat we face is division that we will become like a pack of dogs biting one another’s backs until we finally part ways and Trinity Church becomes a distant memory. The real threat is that we will not find the courage to really love one another and that we won’t really rally to the love of God that he has placed in our hearts. The real threat is that we will begin honoring the differences that divide us over the love of Christ that unites us.

Have you seen this happen? A group finds themselves in a difficult fix. There is a lot of fear and anxiety in the community. It doesn’t look like there is anyway forward. And so, people start talking to each other—not as a united community—as little clicks of people here and there—they start lamenting—they start placing blame—after all somebody always has to get blamed—these little factions start making conclusions without the rest—they decide what ought to be done to fix it—which usually includes new people in power—usually the people making the plan. Other little factions form in the same way but draw different conclusions. The factions begin to exert themselves and it isn’t very long before the spiritual battle is no longer over our hearts but has spilled out into our lives and this is death to a church. You old timers have seen it happen in this congregation before over lesser issues. Little factions start arguing with the each other, or talking about one another behind each other’s backs, feelings get hurt, tempers flare, real battle lines are drawn and the community begins to unravel. Some people get indignant and stomp out vowing never to return. Some people start withholding their contributions until they get their way. Some people start a campaign to oust the leaders that they think are to blame. Some people just quietly disappear—they just want to avoid the conflict and Satan chuckles and says, “Well, that was easy. Who’s next?” Travel to the Middle East. You will see that it is full of the ruins of ancient churches that lost the spiritual battle. Is that the way it has to end? Do we have to watch this community be torn apart?

No, there is an alternative. There is a way through this battle that ends with our family united and with our ministry flourishing. And I call you to commit yourselves, each one of you to this alternative. The battle can and will be won if we can remember and apply these things to our lives:

1)The Battle is not for stuff. The battle is for each and every heart in this community. Home is not the house. Ultimately, the house doesn’t matter. Any house can be home. Home is the family gathered together. It’s the family’s love for one another. It’s the family’s celebration of our life in Christ, together as one body. As the old expression goes, home is where the heart is.

2)The reading from Ecclesiasticus makes an essential point for us. God does not choose evil. Human beings have the ability and the right to choose. The outcome of our battle depends on our free will—that is, our willingness to cooperate with God and with one another in order that God may save us. God wants us to succeed. God will provide for us. But as He fights for each of our hearts and for our common life in Christ, you are given the power to fight to advance his goals or fight to impede them. The question I need to ask myself is will I be a part of the solution or a part of the problem? Each one of you will decide if this community draws closer or divides—every time you choose not to speak ill of someone, every time you choose to listen and understand rather than insist on being understood. Every time you forgive you cause the community to draw closer. But it involves choice and sometimes making the right choices feels very difficult indeed—when the chips are down, when your heart feels like it is breaking, when all seems lost, when you doubt your leaders, when you feel fed up with it all, or like it would be easier to just walk away--choosing to stay, choosing to love, choosing to be honest about your feelings, unwilling to hold a grudge, and quick to admit we were wrong, these are the hard choices that will support God’s work in redeeming us. In other words, we are being called to be Christians, not just in word but in deed, not just with our lips but in our lives, not just when it is comfortable but most especially when we are called to suffer for the Kingdom. Of course, none of this is possible apart from God’s power and grace.

3)God is saving this community through his own strength. Even though we cannot see His mighty hand at work, even though, through human eyes our future may look uncertain, God is saving us. The cross of Christ stands as living testimony that nothing can prevent God’s good plan for our lives becoming a reality. Even death is, in the end, an imposter. Nothing can He will make our way clear to us—as a community—one step at a time. Be strong and courageiosWe simply must accept the fact that God is revealing his will for us—not me, us—and that if we remain faithful to Him and to one another—God’s power, God’s authority and God’s mighty purpose will show forth in our lives. We will know God’s salvation, in the land of the living. And the day is not too far off when we will sing his praises for parting the Red Sea for us, for vanquishing our foes for us, for bringing us into a land flowing with milk and honey.

We like concrete things. We like things that we can grab hold of, especially, especially when we are threatened and we feel afraid. That’s why we have doors with locks on them. That’s why we spend billions of dollars on a strong army. These concrete forces provide us with a sense of security—they allow us to swallow our fears and get on with living. It’s good to have a hospital just up the hill—most of the world doesn’t have that. It’s reassuring to have 24 hour grocery stores, just in case—most of the world doesn’t have access to any grocery store. And that steeple that rises high into the sky over at 4th and Beaver Streets, it’s good to know that God has established a fortress here in Beaver, that even if we can’t hear him in our prayers, or know him relationally, at least we know where to go looking for him. And the threat of losing the concrete things that shield us from our fears calls those fears forward. Have you seen the way a child reacts to having a bandaid removed? It’s just the same thing. Take away my hospital—what will I do if I have a medical emergency? Take away my grocery store—where will I find food to sustain me? Take away my church—where will I find the Lord?

“The Church is what remains after the building burns down.”

But concrete things can never really assuage our fears, nor can they satisfy our needs. A photograph of a loved one is a poor substitute for actually being in their presence. Home is not the building in which we dwell. Home is where the heart is—it is where the loving relationships happen. It is where we are able to be ourselves and be accepted for who we are, and not the caricature that we have created to put a bandaid over our fears of being rejected by others. And the church must be our spiritual home. It is anyplace where Christians actually experience the love of God and their love for one another. Church is meeting a Christian friend in the store and spending a moment catching up, perhaps praying with one another. Church is a group of Christian men or women gathered around a picnic table in the woods somewhere, sharing Holy Communion with one another. Church is in jail, in a room full of handicapped guests, in a shelter at 2 Mile Run, out in the courtyard, under a tree somewhere. The where doesn’t really matter because the Church is us, joined together by a common bond—a loving God who casts out our fears, who encourages us to share the love we have received, who leads us and guides us through life’s uncertainties, always reminding us the Kingdom of heaven is right here, right now, in the midst of us—AND the Kingdom of heaven is also forever—AND that you, by virtue of your faith in Jesus Christ are residents of the Kingdom of heaven!

Fear divides but love unites. St John says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. “ (1 John 4.18)

If you have ever prayed the service of Compline at the end of the day, you may recall reading a passage for 1 Peter: “Be sober. Be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.” This passage has been edited because of its uncomfortable content. They actually had to sever a verse in half. The whole of verse reads “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world.” (1 Peter 5.8-9) Amen.