Spring: If Anyone is in Christ,
There is a New Creation. . .
The Rev. Dr. Harold Weicker
March 21, 2004
Readings:Joshua (4:19-24);5:9-12
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:11-32
Yesterday was the official start of Spring. Winter is legally over! What a perfect time for our lessons today. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" What a ringing affirmation of hope and potential from a person whose life was abruptly turned around 180 degrees on a road to Damascus approximately 1950 years ago.
The problem with getting well by degrees, or slowly getting out of shape over the years, or any other changes that happen gradually, is that they can often go by unnoticed. Until one day, you wake up and are surprised about how great you feel, if you have been ill. Or you look in the mirror and are shocked by what you see, if you are out of shape.
It's the same dilemma as a life spent doing all the "oughtas, gottas and shouldas" to the detriment of one's dreams and aspirations. One day, towards the end, you realize that your hopes have gradually passed you by, one at a time, in the press of each day's demands.
The same can be said for all those with misplaced priorities- and this includes nations. I am thinking of the individuals and cultures who believe that irresponsible capitalism, consumerism and self-serving nationalism are the bearers of happiness and fulfillment- not a life dedicated to as much simplicity and service to others as possible. Moving at breakneck speed now, these life cancers had their seeds in the Industrial Age, matured in the Modern Age, and have metastasized now in these Post Modern times. One by one, thoughtful people are waking up shocked and scared. As the planet and its inhabitants suffer and nations are filled with fear, hatred and violence, millions are now asking in anguish, "How did we get to this point?"
This laundry list of erosion over time would not be complete without a brief word on the changes in the Christian religion. Having been warned by The Master not to judge the speck in our neighbor's eye when we have a beam in our own, the deadly forces of judgment have been steadily at work distorting Jesus' teachings over time. Having been told that "those who live by the sword will die by the sword," churches have destroyed millions of believers who experienced Christ in different ways- never mind the millions who came to God on different paths, or with different personal orientations. And God forbid those who lived out the truth that in Christ there always is a new creation. Tradition has gradually become more important than Jesus' teaching, and guess who defined the tradition? My mischievous side wants to say, "Old men in back rooms," but it was all of us who still today want to claim the status quo as Godly and try to suppress the dynamic, transforming truth of change. Paul's experience of new life in Christ reads well from the lectern, but it often does not play out so well in the pews. "If anyone is in Christ (and that includes the Church), there is a new creation!" The two great commandments of love don't change, but the times - and people's lives - do. The true gospel of Jesus is a living message that calls for a dynamic church. The greatest enemies of the Christian Church today and in the past are not the Godless but the comfortable who prefer liturgical and theological expression to daily practice. But today, the word of God calls for change and rebirth.
It has been said that if all we had of Jesus' teaching was the parable of the Good Samaritan, we would have enough on which to build a wonderful life and faith. This story is about all of us. How many of us have cashed out our Godly inheritance (our true self) for lesser living? How many of us often have not been in our right mind, made bad choices and wasted precious years in what the parable calls "a distant country" (places where we never felt at home)?
Having lived with destructive priorities, how many of us have found it difficult to believe that God still would accept us? We thought we were Godless. God was no longer an option for us- or rather, we believed we were no longer an option for God.
Thinking about life that abuses God, I was interested in reading a critique of the controversy over who killed Christ in Mel Gibson's new movie- was it the Romans or the Jews? The reviewer got right down to the truth of the matter. He said, with what I am sure was a sly wink, "There is no controversy, because no one has killed Christ."
Having abandoned their spiritual base - their spiritual "home" - like the Prodigal Son- many are in such pain now, they want to come home to their Father/Mother God in the hope that there just has to be a better way in a God based life. And when they turn around and take those first steps, they discover that the door to their true home was never barred. The loving arms were always there. The blessings were beyond generosity. "Seek and you will find. Knock and it shall be opened for you. Come to me all you who are beat out and I will refresh you." This has been, and always will be, the experience of a Christ who makes all things new for each individual who turns to him.
In his breathtaking psalm, The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want (the Jews did not number the Psalms), deeply distressed from hiding out from his enemies, the word David uses is not "He restores my soul," as our translations read, but "He converts my soul." David knew that God does not patch up the old; faith in God makes the believer new.
The difference between David and the Prodigal Son is enormous. One man is degraded in the pain of his life. The other, no matter what his life circumstances, sees blessing upon blessing. It is not a matter of shades of difference in one's perspective on life. David does not see his cup as not being half empty nor half full; his cup runs over. And in a time of trial that threatens his very life, David knows he has not been abandoned. God has used the hard times to convert David's core person- to comfort and strengthen him. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation!"
When Carol and I were recently in Scottsdale, Arizona, we went with my sister to her church, St. Barnabus in the Desert. One of the priests, Fr. Carlson, preached a challenging sermon in which he referenced a book, Saints and Villains, written by an interesting soul, Denise Giardina. This is a fictional account recreating the life of the great German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Boenhoffer. (I told you about Dr. Bonhoeffer a few sermons ago- how he was martyred- stripped naked and hanged by the Nazi SS because of his resistance to Hitler.) Well, in Ms. Giardina's story, there is a conversation between his SS interrogator, Alois Bauer and Dietrich just before he is murdered.
Bauer asks about the atrocities of the concentration camps. "If it was wrong, why did God let it happen?"
Bonhoeffer replies, "How was God supposed to stop it? You are a free man, Alois. There are no invisible strings connecting you to God, directing your every move."
"But," says the interrogator, "If God is all powerful, God could intervene. God could find a way."
To which Dietrich responds, "And because God didn't intervene it was all right?"
"Yes."
"Too bad you do not believe in God then," says Bonhoeffer. "You've lost your excuse."
Bauer blinked. He looked away. "Perhaps I do believe in God," he said.
"Oh yes," Dietrich said, "God makes a convenient scapegoat. Or people always think God is absent when things are going bad for them. Things go better, and God is back. Well, I want to live in a world as if there were no God. That is the only way God can truly be with any of us."
"I want to live in a world as if there were no God. That is the only way God can truly be with any of us."
Shocking as this is, we, too, live in a world as if there is no God. In that visit to my sister in Arizona, I had the good fortune to visit for almost two hours with an old friend, John Thornton, the retired Bishop of Idaho. When I asked John what he thought the shape of the Church will be in the 21st Century, he surprised me by saying that the first thing we must realize is that Christianity is now a sub-culture- a fact that is both a blessing and a concern… a powerful aid, as well as a challenge.
The way this world has turned, God is no longer a given. God is a surprise. When we get passed all the rhetoric to the contrary, we share a world where peoples, nations and even religions operate ultimately as if there were no God. So, like Paul on the Damascus road, we are surprised when we happen on the uncontrolled, non-manipulated God. We might push this experience aside, but we can never forget it- because, in that surprising moment, we have been changed. Like it or not, we have become a new creation. Maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said that those who put their hands on the plow can not turn back. Once you have encountered the living Christ, you can no longer remain part of a world that lives as if there is no God, because you have found God for you.
So, the Father of the Prodigal says to his oldest son, who did his duty but never had been surprised into new life, "We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." Our patron saint, Paul, would have agreed. He, too, had been dead and now was living. In that moment, he knew that he had been lost, but now was found.
Spring has arrived and Easter is around the corner! A new spiritual guide and chief pastor will be coming. All of us at St. Paul's are Spring people, ready for new adventure, and, I believe, many of us here, and in the communities around us, want to come home and be reborn. Are we in the right place? If we are open to the surprises of God and (as our Prayer Book says) intend to lead the new life, following the commandments of God and walking henceforth in God's holy ways, our cup will run over. God will convert our soul and we will be new!
"If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything has become new."
Amen.
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