Community Church Sermons

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year C – September 16, 2001

"The One And Only Jesus:

At The Crossroads Of Good And Evil””

Romans 12:1-2; 9-21

During this time of great national difficulty, we turn to God for comfort, and strength, and guidance. I know that my own inner resources are very low right now, drained by the constant input of tragedy and concern. And on Friday night, when we gathered for our Service of Hope and Remembrance, I could see the intensity of your emotions, too. They were written upon your faces. They made your tears glisten against your cheeks in the soft glow of candlelight.

Life is so much larger than we are, although we sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that we are the general managers of the universe, capable of making life go the way we want it to go. And then something like these terrorist attacks happen, or cancer comes, or a loved one betrays us, or an addiction overwhelms us, or a child makes hurtful decisions, or we come face-to-face with the impossible reality of poverty, or racism, or injustice.

And, all at once, we encounter the vast limitations of our own humanity. And there is nothing we can do, but to cry out for God. Along with the tragic turning of events this past week has come what I believe is a genuine turning to God. And God – the ever faithful One - is with us, and will give us comfort, and strength, and guidance to bring us through.

Our sermon theme during this time – although it was not planned with these events in mind – is The One And Only Jesus. And I cannot think of anything more important to preach about given the circumstances that have befallen us.

You know, we Christians can argue until we are blue in the face about who has the truest view of the Bible, who has the right understanding of theology, and who sings the best songs. But sooner or later, life hits us smack in the face – like it did this week - and all those religious things become meaningless in the face of our profuse tears and our deepest fears.

Christianity is not about what you believe about the Bible. In fact, some Christians never had a Bible to believe anything about. Christianity is not about some 19^th century theologian’s interpretation of what the New Testament says about pre-millennial, mid-tribulational dispensational eschatology. Believe it or not, most of the Christians who ever lived never even heard of such stuff, and those of us who have heard of it certainly cannot even spell it. And Christianity is not about contemporary praise music versus traditional hymns written to the tune of northern European marching music. No, wherever Christians are found, they sing in the genre of their native culture, whatever that might be. The hymns Jesus sang did not sound at all like the ones we sing. The earliest hymns of our faith have the sound of the ancient Middle East. Listen to the chants of Hasidic Jews, or to the calls to prayer sung from the minaret of an Islamic mosque. Then you will have an idea of the kind of music that filled the ears, and thrilled the heart of Jesus!

You see, the greatest danger confronting Christianity in our time is the propensity we have to major in what is minor, and to minor in what is major. We make unimportant things far more important than they have the right or need to be. And meanwhile, the truly important things of faith get lost in the shuffle.

That’s why I believe so strongly in this movement of ours that dares to say that we want to be a church whose only label is Christian, and whose only head is Christ.

For when you finally cut through all the manmade superficialities and trivialities that fallen and shortsighted human beings have constructed around our faith, you eventually get to Christianity’s true heart and soul.

The one and only Jesus.

If you want to find your way to faith, if you want to find your way through life’s difficulties, if you want to find your way to your true purpose and destiny, you have to find your way through all that secondary stuff until you come face to face with the one and only Jesus.

St. Paul, speaking about this very challenge, told the Corinthians that the whole of the Gospel can be reduced to one key foundation – Christ and Christ crucified.

So that’s where I want to invite you to come, especially during this time of trial. To Christ. To the cross. To Christ crucified. For it is there - in the man who went to the cross for us, and in what took place there - that we find the key to abundant and triumphant living.

I heard once about a little boy who came home from Sunday School all excited. He was excited about the songs. He was excited about the classroom experience. He was excited about the other students. And he was especially excited because his Sunday School teacher was none other than Jesus’ grandmother!

The boy’s mother looked at him a little curiously, and asked him how he knew his Sunday School teacher was Jesus’ grandmother.

He said, “Because all she does is show us pictures and talk about him!”

Now, I’ve seen many of you do the same thing about your grandkids. And Sandy and I intend to do the same next April – show you pictures, and tell you all about OUR GRANDKID.

And in a similar way, one of the most important things you can do as a Christian, and we can do together as a church, is to hold up before our own eyes and the eyes of all, pictures and stories of the Lord. And the most important picture of all is the image of Christ …crucified.

Now on this particular Sunday, as we continue to reel from the terror of the past week, and the violent onslaught of evil against all that is right and good, the cross is an appropriate, and important gathering place.

You see, the cross of Christ means so much more than is captured in the simple idea that Christ died for us. What does that really mean? How does that really apply to our lives? What does that have to do with the frightening world in which we find ourselves living just five days after the horrors of September 11^th, 2001?

I want you to come deeper today – past the Sunday School jingles – beyond the trite little idea that all the cross means is that we’ll go to heaven someday when we die.

Come back to Good Friday with me, and notice what’s really going on. A cross is being raised at life’s most important intersection - at the very crossroads of good and evil.

You see, it is here, at the cross, that the power of evil attempted its most vicious attack against good in the history of the world. The most beautiful man who ever lived – a man who knew no language other than love, no touch other than healing, no embrace other than one that includes everyone and excludes no one – a man who was so good that he is described as the only man who ever lived without sinning – this most beautiful man who ever lived was overtaken by the forces of evil. He was betrayed. He was arrested. He was falsely accused. He was unjustly convicted. He was beaten. He was tortured. He was spat upon. And when they had inflicted upon him every evil thing they could imagine, they made him carry his own cross to a hill, and there they put him to death through crucifixion.

Oh, the cross is more than pretty jewelry that we wear around the neck. It is more than elegant decoration that we display in sanctuaries. No, the cross is the symbol we wear, the symbol we hold up to remind ourselves and the world of the monumental battle between good and evil that was waged through Christ crucified.

And for a moment, it appeared that evil had won.

Where was God on Good Friday? For that matter, where was God last Tuesday? Where was God when evil touched your life last month, or when tragedy swept upon your family last year? And where is God today as we face these evil times?

When William Sloane Coffin was pastor of the Riverside Church in New York, his 24-year old son Alexander was killed in an automobile accident in which the car plummeted into a river, and Alexander was unable to get out.

Ten days later, Bill Coffin preached a sermon at Riverside in which he addressed the question of God’s whereabouts in times of tragedy. He thanked the members of his congregation for their love and countless expressions of support. Then he told them this:

“When a person dies, there are many things that can be said, and there is at least one thing that should never be said. The night after Alex died I was sitting in the living room of my sister's house outside of Boston, when the front door opened and in came a nice-looking, middle-aged woman, carrying about eighteen quiches. When she saw me, she shook her head, then headed for the kitchen, saying sadly over her shoulder, "I just don't understand the will of God." Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her. "I'll say you don't, lady!" I said.

For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around this world with his fingers on triggers, with his fists around knives, his hands on steering wheels. ”

Then Bill Coffin went on to say that the one thing that should never be said when someone dies is that it is the will of God. Never do we know enough to say that. Then Bill Coffin continued:

“My own consolation lies in knowing that it was NOT the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

Where is God when evil comes?

God is WITH US in love! God is weeping with us, agonizing with us, pacing the floor with us, tossing and turning with us at night! Whenever a human being suffers a broken heart, God’s heart breaks first of all.

Where is God when evil comes? He is with us in love.

And what is God doing?

God is at work.

We see it so clearly in Christ crucified. Tears and agony and commiseration are not enough for this God of ours. The crucifixion of goodness cannot be allowed to stand! Evil must not win the day!

And so there at the crossroads of good and evil where Christ is crucified, God engages the powers of evil in the greatest struggle of all time.

And, on the third day, Easter comes!

What does it mean that Jesus died and rose for us? It means that God included all humanity – even you and me – in his victory over evil at the cross. Knowing Christ – and Christ crucified – is knowing that whatever evil you are facing today, God is on your side, fighting for you, and as Luther powerfully assured the people of his day, God will win the battle!

So how shall we then live?

First of all, we must live as people who are not afraid to discern and confront the powers of evil wherever they are found. Someone on the television this week said something along the line of, “Who are we to say that the religious belief that called these terrorists to do what they did is wrong?”

Well, if we are not able to recognize the difference between good and evil, we are in serious trouble. I don’t care what fancy name you give to whatever motivates people to kill innocent men, women and children – call it Jihad, call it the Crusades, call it the Final Solution, call it White Supremacy or something nice-sounding like Separate But Equal – it is, at its heart, nothing less than the religion of evil. And Christian people are called to discern it, and to oppose it, and to stick up for those who are its victims.

In the same way, there are many people of Middle Eastern descent living among us – many of them followers of Islam – who will be stereotyped, and ostracized, and persecuted by our own neighbors. And we must stand in the way of it.

To be a Christian is to dedicate your life to confronting evil wherever it is found, and standing up for what is good and right. This is the message of Christ crucified.

Second, we must live as people who bring people to God, and point the way to God’s love, when they are going through difficult times. We need to take those six little words that we and others have spoken in the midst of our own and other’s tragedies – “It is the will of God” – and throw them away never to be used again in the face of human tears. Instead, we must be people who reassure others that God is steadfastly against the evils that have drifted into their lives – that God is with them – that God is on their side – that the first heart to break over their loss, their tragedy, their difficult burden, was the heart of God. Our message is that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. And when we bring that message to others, we make available to them powerful spiritual resources that will help guide them through the darkness. This is the message of Christ crucified.

And finally - although we could go on and on with this – the message of Christ crucified is that God promises that good will ultimately overcome all evil things. And that gives us marching orders to be people who practice doing good.

You know, in the 21^st chapter of Revelation, we are shown the future vision of a new heaven and a new earth. And then we see a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

I like to imagine that when we see the Holy City that day, when evil is fully conquered, and only good prevails – when the kingdom comes - we will look up at its mighty walls and notice that the stones of the wall have names on them. And your name will be on some of them. And my name, too.

And we will say to the Lord in that moment, “Lord, how is it that MY name is inscribed on the stones of the walls of the kingdom of God?”

And the Lord will say, “Do you see that stone there? That is the time you spoke a word of comfort to your grieving friend. And that stone there? That’s the day you fed my hungry children at the Knox Area Rescue Ministry. And there are the stones you brought the day you forgave the person you hated, and the day you befriended a lonely neighbor, and the day you stood with black neighbors and sang “We shall overcome!” There’s the stone from when you made a casserole and brought it to a shut-in, and there’s another for the help you gave a stranger, and there are stones all over the wall from when you prayed for others, and for strength to make a difference in the world!”

And on that day, we will fully understand the message of the cross – the message of Christ crucified: the Kingdom of God is being built not out of massive boulders too large for us to handle, but out of all the small stones human beings bring forth through acts of kindness, and generosity and good. This is the message of Christ crucified!

So come today, and gather around the one and only Jesus – Christ crucified. For here, standing at our own crossroads of good and evil, we find strength and hope and guidance.

God loves us! And God is at work! Don’t be afraid! Come and join God in overcoming evil with good!