January 29, 2006 (Jimmie Johnson)

I Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Mark 1:21-28

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

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I really like the way gospel writer Mark gets in our faces by telling us of the time Jesus went to church and did not cut us much slack. Indeed, one of Mark’s theological points is that resistance to the word of God will, unfortunately, turn up in the religious house. I would inflate that metaphor of the religious house to mean the church, the mosque, and the synagogue. The resisting, oppressive voice of fear can erupt in the midst of any congregation and its pulpit, too.

You see when the gospel was being written, the controversy between Jew and Christian was heating up. Most certainly this is a caricature on gospel writer Mark’s part to portray the resistance of Jewish leadership and their house of worship to the ministry and work of Jesus--a Jew himself. It is a tried and true propaganda move: talk about “them,” whoever you need “them” to be, in order to make yourself and your side look good. But, the beauty of the New Testament is that empowered by the Living Spirit of Christ, we are to use the document, not to slam others but to come clean with our own Christian selves and congregational relationships.

One of the really imaginative, powerful ways of reading the gospels and New Testament letters is to substitute the word “Christian” for Jew and “church” for “synagogue” and minister for “rabbi” and “elder and deacon” for scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees. It will be incendiary and beautifully provocative unless, of course, you are seeking always to use the Bible to confirm you in your personal idolatries.

God’s people have never been quite sure they want to live for God and God’s mission more than their own agendas. There never has been an innocent, pure time of the church even in the days of New Testament formation. They were as goofy and full of pretending then as we are now. God has always had a full day’s work on God’s hands.

Just because any issue or controversy has the religious crowd and institutions “amening” their stamp of approval doesn’t make it right, and neither does religious history reveal that religion’s condemnation is right or moral. Too often, whether it has been science, human rights, or justice issues, the religious institutions, the leaders, and the constituencies have always been on the wrong side, choosing their fears and prejudices over risking on the side of the powerless or sinful.

At the very least, the gospel reading for this morning reminds us that Jesus will not always find friends in the pews and pulpits. Often he will encounter angry resistance from oppressive forces whom he must remove. A proper humility should always characterize us when we say we are on Jesus’ side. As I have told you many times, our Christian morality or moral stance is a lot like the profile of the giraffe: we may be standing tall and lofty up front, but we are dragging a whole lot behind.

Here is the theological juice of this text: never fight evil as if it is totally without. Never frame your reality so that you think the darkness is always in the other’s point of view and behavior. Sure, as people of faith we must never join the forces that would put us down or destroy us. But a passage like this one of Jesus experiencing resistance from within the religious community is purposely crafted to remind us that those negative forces that so rile us up are more often within us than outside us. It is so much easier to fight the shadows and dimensions of darkness outside us rather than living into the spiritual discipline of “repentance” which invites us to see the darkness within us.

Jesus’ side most often has proven in religious history to be opposed to ours for one reason only: his love “for all” has backbone. He will not be intimidated into silence or abandoning behaviors. His “arm around the shoulder” is always being extended to the hurt and the despised. His being known as the “friend of sinners” is intended not to fill us with sentimentality but to shock us that Jesus is serious about lending his name and self to those we don’t like.

Sometimes a minister has to decide what would be the straw that would break the camel’s back. What would be the issue that would bring about one’s resignation? What would cause a pastor to say to a people: “I resign.” I think for me there has been only one principle that has guided me for thirty years of ordination. If the church ever said, “You cannot go and stand by the side of whoever is currently being labeled the sinner either publicly in the community or within the church,” then I would resign. It has never happened here.

Over the years you and I have come to the place where we understand my role is to be pastor to whoever needs a pastor whether he, she or they have your approval or not. So I salute you for your willingness to allow me the freedom to reach out to those who fail, to those society says are not acceptable, nor our kind, and to those who suddenly are overcome by their shadow side and lose all including their reputation. If Jesus is the friend of sinners, so should church leaders be even if it causes the temperature in the kitchen to get red hot.

It seems to me that St. Paul, who wrote I Corinthians, understands the fierceness of Christian love. His whole thirteenth chapter delineates the mission of the religious. The calling of our baptism, which is the visible sign that the invisible grace of God in Christ has chosen us as God’s friends, is the calling to pass on God’s love. This love behaves toward others so as to assist, to enhance, to honor, to express care, to stand by when no one else will and as long as needed.

What more than anything got Jesus killed was his threat to Rome’s civil order by Jesus’ constant inclusion and identification with those considered “unclean” to the religious crowd. Jesus’ refusal to be domesticated and conventional when it came to granting religious approval meant Rome’s control was threatened if it could not keep the house of the Lord properly submissive and tame. Caesar really didn’t want the religious to have the nerve to say, “There is a new sheriff in town. Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.” Fierce love and the expression of friendship to whoever the sinners are are dangerous to the political status quo.

Lastly, do you want to die well? Then learn to love bodaciously. Learn to love generously. Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man or woman all wrapped up in himself or herself. William Sloane Coffin writes in Credo (2004): “Look, too many religious people make faith their aim. They think ‘the greatest of these is faith’ and that faith is defined as all about infallible doctrine and beliefs. These are the dogmatic, divisive Christians, more concerned with freezing the doctrine than warming the heart. If faith can be exclusive, love can only be inclusive.”

Be always more occupied with the integrity of love than the purity of doctrine. Christ’s love is messy. If you choose to love sinners, then you can’t be much concerned about being perceived as pure or proper. Being agents of friendship and mercy toward the “disapproved of” will always keep your reputation somewhat dicey among all believers who want to believe most of all in themselves.

Well, doesn’t someone need to stand up for what is right and against those who sin? Let me tell you something. There will always be a long line of applicants for that position. The line with the fewest in it will be those seeking to be the friend of sinners. Keep showing your backbone, First Presbyterian; let love be your aim even if it is messy. We will all live better and die more peacefully for it and then To God Alone Will Be Glory!