Community Church Sermons

Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year C – September 30, 2001

"The One And Only Jesus:

The Power of Redemptive Love”

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

One of the truly healthy things that has happened in our lives during the course of the past several weeks has been that the terrible tragedy of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have not yet been responded to militarily. That day is coming, of course, but in the meantime, the horror of Tuesday, September the 11^th has been cradled in other arms – primarily, the arms of faith.

Instead of participating in parades and large-scale troop deployments, we have – for the time being – participated in services of worship. Not only have the news media covered briefings from the White House and the Pentagon, but they have had their cameras on at the National Cathedral, and in St. Patrick’s in New York, and at churches and synagogues and mosques all over the land, and all over the world. Instead of watching cruise missiles roar through the night sky, you and I have seen doves released from Yankee stadium, and we have heard the sound of the great hymns sung. We have not heard the cries of war, but calls to prayer from a host of different religious traditions.

The need to carefully prepare before employing military responses has provided the nation an opportunity to pause for a moment. To center itself spiritually. Of course, for some, this is not especially welcome. As one of my friends – a golf fanatic and an avid watcher of television whose long-awaited PGA tournament was preempted recently put it – “Oh no, not another CHURCH service on TV!”

But for others – and I am among them – the opportunity to wrap the arms of God around the wounds we have suffered has been an important and healthy thing.

And I don’t know about you, but I have two basic reactions to what I have seen and heard from the religious community. First, is a sense of great joy in seeing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others standing together and praying for healing and justice. There are certainly many things that divide us religiously, but we have somehow been able to clear those things out of the way for the moment by finding common ground through our faith in a God of love. Praying together is the best kind of theological dialogue there can be. I was moved by the Muslim cleric at the Yankee Stadium service who spoke so eloquently and powerfully about those who engage in such terrible deeds in the name of Islam as “no believers in God”, as he put it. And as an American Christian, I was moved to tears as I listened to a turban headed Sikh priest chanting a prayer I could not understand, and as he prayed, the camera cut away to a group of other turbaned Sikhs sitting in the stands, tearful eyes lifted to God in prayer, as they meanwhile proudly waved American flags.

I believe the faith community has helped bring us together as a people, and as a nation during these past several weeks. Through God’s children, the world has seen painted a portrait of God that flows with love, and healing, and hope! These past several weeks have been a time of great spiritual renewal in America.

But my second reaction to what I have seen and heard from the religious community during this crisis is not so complimentary. Some of our Christian brothers and sisters have scandalized our faith by insisting that the events of September 11^th are a judgment from God. A few days ago, I received from a relative of mine a copy of a sermon preached from the pulpit of an influential New York City church. It began innocently enough, with deep sympathy and feeling expressed toward the victims and their families. It was noted how members of the church have responded with beautiful acts of kindness and support. And for that, we should all give thanks.

But then the sermon took a turn. We don’t really get it, the preacher said. The events of that Tuesday were intended as a wake-up call to America – a wake-up call to repent from our sins and turn around and return to God.

And I read that sermon over and over again. You know, I like the idea of repentance and turning back to God. After all, I’m in the repentance business. Some of you like to ask me to pray for good weather for your family outing, or golf tournament, or other special event. And I always tell you, “No, I can’t do that because I’m in sales and not management!” My job is not to manage the weather, but to sell people on the idea of turning to God. So I like this repentance stuff - a lot.

But this “wake-up call” business really troubles me. Let me tell you why.

My dear wife Sandy, over the years, has needed to send me a wake-up call on many more occasions than I would even want to count. But as much as she has needed to get my attention to turn around and straighten out my act, she has never done it by killing our children. And, on one or two occasions during our 31 years of marriage, I have felt the need to send Sandy a wake-up call. But never have I resorted to blowing up my neighbor’s house to get her attention!

What would you think of a person like that – who tries to get people to love him by killing their children, blowing up their buildings, and destroying their lives?

If it was a human husband, we’d call him abusive and have him arrested and taken away. If it was a business woman, we would call her ruthless and we’d go find another job. If it was a religious leader, we would splash his story all over CBS’s Sixty Minutes in an investigative report, and denominational authorities would strip him of his credentials.

This is the personality profile of a dangerous psychotic.

And yet, to some, this is what God is like.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

The earliest Christians lived in a similar kind of world. Both within and without their own community there was a religious culture that taught and reinforced the idea that God is set against the world – that people are sinful and unacceptable to God – and that God demands obedience, or else! And this notion has trickled all the way down into our world today. This is why, when you stole that candy from the store when you were 12-years old, you knew- you knew that God knew and that God was going to get you for it! This is why, when I was a kid and got caught by my sister stealing cigarettes from her room, and she chased me, and I fell down a whole flight of stairs – this is why, as I lay there in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the landing, she put her hands on her hips and laughed like a demon as she told me it was GOD WHO HAD GOTTEN ME! And I believed her. Spent my whole childhood looking behind my back, and checking around corners, knowing that – any minute now – God was going to give me my just desserts for any one of my million acts of juvenile delinquency. This is why, when the doctor told you about the cancer, you wondered what you had ever done to deserve this. This is why, when tragedy came, you couldn’t help but lift your eyes to heaven and cry out, “WHY???”

Some believe that God spends his life giving “wake up calls” to people this way. Birth defects. Illnesses. Famines. Earthquakes. Misfortune. War. Poverty. AIDS. Terrorist attacks on innocent civilians.

The great Christian apostle St. Paul also lived in a world that saw the brokenness and tragedy of human life as signs of God’s judgment. And Paul did an amazing thing! He stood up against it! He asked people not to look at themselves and each other in terms of their sin, but rather in terms of Christ – and Christ crucified. This is the central truth of Christian faith, Paul said.

And do you see why? What we Christians believe more than anything else is that the Cross is the sign of God’s forgiveness. We affirm – in some mysterious way that we cannot entirely fathom or describe – that Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world. Paul writes, “…the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one died for all; therefore all have died.”

And then Paul says, “Therefore, from now on, we no longer regard ANYONE from a human point of view…”

In other words, when you see Christ and Christ crucified, you can never look at yourself – you can never look at others - the way you used to! It used to be that the old way of seeing people was in terms of what’s wrong them, what’s broken about them, what’s sinful about them. But now, there’s a NEW way of looking at people. Here’s how Paul describes it:

“…God reconciled us to himself through Christ, and (now) has given US the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ (crucified), God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So, we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making his appeal through us…”

To live as a Christian is to see people as God sees people – not according to their sins, but according to God’s redemptive love! The Gospel is not a wake-up call to what is wrong with us, but to what has been made right with us through Christ crucified. We are invited to wake up not to God’s judgment against us, but to wake up to God’s LOVE and HOPE for us!

This is the message of the one and only Jesus!

And right now, in your life, there are some people who need to be awakened to God’s redemptive love and transforming hope!

I was talking with an old friend of mine the other day who is carrying the terrible burden of having a grown child who has made some very poor choices in life. Many of us can identify with that. And as I listened to him poor out his broken heart about this child of his – even blaming himself for some of the problems – it struck me that this is a man who needs not God’s judgment, but God’s love! And this is a child who will be won not by recrimination, but by redemption.

Now Christ crucified means in this man’s life that it is okay to own up to his own mistakes, and to do what he needs to do to correct those he can and make up for those he can’t. Sometimes, we need to tell our grown children that we’re sorry for the humanity of our parenting – for not always being there when they needed us – for being overwhelmed by the sheer awesomeness of raising children without knowing what the heck we were doing. “I’m sorry for the ways I may have let you down.” And just as importantly, we need to be creative in finding ways to express love to our children – that we see them not for what they’ve done, but for who they are. In the midst of criticism to find a compliment. “You know what I really like about you…?” In the face of the current problem, to find a joyful memory to share. “Do you remember the time…?” And most importantly of all, to gently invite our children to open their lives to God. “You know, when I’m going through hard times, I’ve learned to go to God for help and guidance…and God has never let me down.”

Christ and Christ crucified means that God does not count our sins against us anymore. So we are set free to love in Jesus’ name!

During tumultuous times like these, when the world is in chaos and filled with all sorts of confusion and distress, the most important thing we as Christians can do is to return to the center of our faith. The one and only Jesus.

For in Christ and Christ crucified, we find the way to bring healing to those who have suffered tragedy, and hope to those who are lost in despair, and power– power to live – and to triumph – and to overcome every evil that comes upon us.

So go this week, holding before your eyes the image of Christ crucified. And be an ambassador for Christ, appealing to others to come to the love of Jesus!