No Longer Living to Impress God – Father’s Day
Indianapolis First Friends Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
June 17, 2018
Centering Down:
This morning as we center down and calm our hearts to hear from God, I would like us to ponder a query from the late Trappist Monk and author, Thomas Merton. It is a quote I ran across in the book, “Becoming Who You Are” by James Martin. Originally this quote was in the chapter titled, “Being and Doing” from Merton’s classic “No Man is an Island.” Just listen and ponder these words or queries of Thomas Merton:
Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?
Take a couple moments to ponder Merton’s queries for yourself as you center down this morning. (pause)
Galatians 2:17-21 (MSG)
17-18 Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.
19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
If you have never had a chance to read “No Man is an Island” by Thomas Merton, I would highly recommend it for some summer reading. The book is a quest to help one know and understand, and accept oneself. The line that probably most speaks to the overall thesis of the book is,
“We cannot become ourselves unless we know ourselves.”
And I would say the same is true about God – we cannot really know God unless we know ourselves. This reminds me of the scripture passage that reads, “Love God and love your neighbor….AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF.” You see, our relationship with God and our neighbors must be in light of us understanding how we love ourselves, how we know ourselves, even how we treat ourselves.
And I believe this is exactly what Paul was talking about in our text for today that was just read.
What I sense Paul was trying to describe in this text was what some may label, “Spiritual Maturity.” Now, I know Beth and John, while I was on vacation, both talked about other aspects of spiritual maturity – so in many ways I am continuing these thoughts. But this morning, I am going to focus on an aspect of spiritual maturity that is often a difficult hurdle to get over.
You see, many Christians, when they first become followers of the Jesus Way (especially if it is later in life) spend a lot of time with “rule keeping.” Actually, as one who has studied evangelism curriculums and evangelistic programs, a great deal of the material is riddled with “rule keeping and following.” It is what for some, Christianity is all about. Thus many are introduced to a rigid and often harmful Christianity from the beginning.
Some people (especially in our country) feel that Christians are called to live to some standard which must be enforced by rules and lots of them. Over the last couple of weeks, my family and I have been touring the southern states, I was keenly aware of how often this “rules-based religion” was seen, heard, and lived openly and the harm it produces.
Over the years, I have had many people, from college students to retirees, literally come apart in my office, breakdown, over not being able to follow or keep “all the rules.” Most of the time it is a family member, a parents or spouse, or even a former pastor or church who has taught this type of bondage to rule keeping.
Now, before we get too focused on this – I must remind us that this is nothing new – this is exactly what Jesus was fighting against and Paul is talking about in our text – this is what we call Pharisaical thinking.
Did you know that the name “Pharisee” – actually means “separatist” in Hebrew? That gives us a new perspective.
Pharisees are those who take great pains in separating themselves from people not like them. Those sinners. Those people. Those over there…. Pharisaical thinking is drawing a line making it “us vs. them.”
Folks, I think this is so ironic. Like Paul himself who said, “I am the chief of all sinners.” I personally cannot see how we have any right to separate ourselves from others, those people, the sinners.” Aren’t we all in the same boat? Aren’t we all created equal?
As soon as we stop believing this, we become rule-followers and rule enforcers and then we begin to do major damage to our neighbors and to our world.
Kim Harrington wrote in a blog post about Modern Day Pharisees, she said:
There is no greater turn-off than a Christian who acts self-righteous and condescending, as though it’s obvious he is better than you. Yet many of us act this way…all the time. It’s no wonder that they don’t have the time to listen to us when we try and explain some point of the Gospel to them!”
The reality is that you and I are no different than anyone else. Personally, I stink at rule-keeping. And the thoughts that run through my mind (especially in light of our current political climate, the lack of justice in our world, the poor social conditions our country seems to be creating and supporting) are probably just as horrible as any other person on this planet.
I sense to often the reason we feel we can separate ourselves from others, heap rules on those not like us, even treat people as less than us, is because we haven’t taken a good inventory of our own souls.
As our family, travelled the past couple weeks through the King Center and Birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, and the National Civil Rights Museum and Lorraine Motel in Memphis where King was assassinated, I could not stop asking myself what Martin Luther King Jr believed to be life’s most persistent and urgent questions, ‘What are you doing for others?’ and ‘Where do we go from here?”
The reality is, to help our neighbors and share the Good News of the gospel with them, takes first knowing oneself. If anything our past, especially the Civil Rights movement, but also all that this going on in our world today, should have us taking a personal inventory of what we believe and how we are responding to our world today.
Where is my heart?
What do I want?
What do I believe?
What am I doing for others?
Where do we go from here?
Paul shared a little of his inventory in our text for this morning, he said,
If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.
19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.
How often have you and I made or thought Christianity or our religious path was about…
· Claiming to have more knowledge or skill than someone else.
· Being “holier than thou.”
· Keeping the rules.
· Working one’s head off to please God.
· Gaining a personal identity or impressing others.
Paul addressed this 2000+ years ago – and still today these are the top criticisms of being a Christian in our world. Sadly, not much has changed and looking back on our history, it is often that this lack of awareness and rule-enforcing has created some attrocities in our history – from slavery to treating people less than to even today separating children from their parents at our borders because we are following the rules of the bible.
Yet because Paul took a personal inventory…he stopped to reflect…he slowed down long enough to see the damage in the way he was living the faith.. and because he did this – he made a change – actually he became the change.
Paul rebooted his life.
· He quit being a “law man.”
· He studied Jesus’ life (how he lived).
· He began to identify with Jesus’ way (not just finding or being the answer).
· He put his own ego on the back burner.
· He no longer was driven to impress God or other people.
· He stopped repudiating (means: to reject as having no authority or binding force) God’s grace.
· He began to really live.
I wonder how much different our world would be if we did the same?
My greatest saddness over the last couple weeks was seeing the sights of the Civil Rights Movement, reading and hearing the stories, senseing the pain that our country has gone through from lynchings to having black men have to hold signs that proclaim, “I am a man” and yet looking around and realizing not much has changed when I turn on the news.
Have we not looked internally and taken an inventory of our own lives? Haven’t we asked ourselves the questions that need to be asked? Our refusal to look inside ourselves continues to bring pain to our world.
As you leave the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis there is a wall with the Gandhi quote – “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
To do that we must take some time for personal reflection and inventory of our own souls. Sadly, if we do not know ourselves, we will continue to repeat the atrocities in our world, whether passively or intentionally. To know ourselves is the first step in becoming the change.
In the book, “Becoming Who You Are” which I quoted earlier, James Martin says the following,
In the quest for the true self, one therefore begins to appreciate and accept one’s personality and one’s life as an essential way that God calls us to be ourselves. Everyone is called to sanctity [or what I would call a sacred life] in different ways – on often very different ways…And as we move closer to becoming our true selves, the selves we are meant to be, the selves that God created, the more loving parts of us are naturally magnified, and the more sinful parts are naturally diminished. As are so many other blocks to true freedom.
I began these thoughts this morning with two queries from Thomas Merton in our centering down time.
Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?
I believe we are in the same mind of Paul as he processed his obsession with rule-keeping. He was caught in a Pharisaical mode – maybe because he actually was a Pharisee at one time. If anyone knew how to “reboot” and get on another path, Paul did – and the reality was he could not do it without the help of God.
And neither can we. God not only shows us the way…God wants to nurture in us a “living relationship” (as The Message put it) where Christ’s life can be lived out through you and me. Paul proclaims, “Christ lives in me.” And the good news is that he lives in each one of us.
So to do a personal inventory – to do some true soul searching – is to allow Christ’s life to be made know in your life. If you turn to the back your bulletin this morning, you will find some queries – these are more of a personal inventory to help you process this. Let these queries be a beginning point to ask yourself some deeper questions and free you to be who God made you!
· What’s one joy and one struggle you experienced in your life, recently?
· How would you describe your walk with God this past year?
· Where do you feel you would most like to grow as a Quaker?
· What is something new about God you’ve recently discovered?
· How would you finish this sentence: I feel good about my journey with God when . . . ?
· What have been some of the ups and downs of your spiritual life since you began your journey?
· How has First Friends helped you on your spiritual journey?
· What do you need from this community to continue your maturity?