The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for July 3, 2005

Texts: Jeremiah 8:18-22/John 15:18

Title: “Great One-Liners” - Second Installment

              This is now the second in a series of sermons I am calling “Great One Liners,” the one-liners consist of a single verse from scripture that I believe effectively summarize a key theme, or themes, of the biblical tradition.  In this morning’s one-liner we hear John quoting Jesus to say, “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.” 

               I would like to treat the verse by beginning with a question.  And the question is this: Can Christian values survive in a world such as ours?  The question is being raised quite insistently these days. While persons of conscience may come out at different places on the question, most of us would agree that it is a valid question to be asking. Of course, first we would need specify what exactly a Christian value is. 

              On this eve of Independence Day I would suggest that that our Declaration of Independence articulates Christian values. While Jefferson, the principal author of that document, nowhere in that document refers to Christ, he does make plain that the endowment humanity enjoys—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness---are gifts we enjoy from the hand of the (capital C) Creator.   

                  Many of us would agree with those who argue that the principles emerging in our nation’s founding documents, and the values that support those principles, accord very nicely with the principles and values that are celebrated in Holy Scripture.  Our forbears established their case for independence, and crafted the nation’s Constitution, upon the bedrock of divine rights articulated in Scripture. Thus King George of England did not merely offend the popular will of a people seeking independence, he undermined the divinely constituted order itself.   

                Note please that I am not talking about the divinely constituted order as Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, or Catholics of the eighteenth century might have understood it, I am referring to the more generalized conviction arising across sectarian lines that God was in charge, and that God had a plan for the people who found their way to these shores. Scholars have a name for “blending of general religious values [and] practices…with those of a particular nation,” they call it civil religion. 

                 That we have a vibrant civil religion, this “blending of religious values with the values and practices of our nation,” is in evidence all around us, on our currency, in the oath administered in the nation’s courts, in the speeches and writings of our elected officials, and, of course, in our nation’s unofficial anthem, Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”  Though the legality of the “under God” clause in our Pledge of Allegiance has been challenged in the courts, don’t look for that reference to the deity to be dropped anytime soon.

                 Can Christian values survive in a world such as ours?  The question arises in a new form virtually every day.  On Monday of this past week the question emerged in two rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.  In the first case, a case arising in Kentucky, the issue involved the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in the county courthouses of that state. In the second the court ruled on the constitutionality of displaying a Commandment monument on the grounds of the state capital.  In the Kentucky case the display was ruled unconstitutional, while in the second, the court ruled for the state of Texas, arguing that the Commandment monument did not violate the Constitution because the Ten Commandments monument was but one of several monuments occupying the capital grounds.

                   Can Christian values survive in a world such as ours?  On Tuesday the Canadian House of Commons passed a bill to give same sex marriages the same weight as conventional marriages. Virtually everyday some new issue arises that prompts us to reflect upon the values that shape us.  Tomorrow, Independence Day, is certainly a day to reflect upon those values 

                  The vast majority of the citizens of the land, Christian or not, would owing to our nation’s history and the profound influence of Christianity on that history, have little difficulty identifying a Christian value.  Many citizens of the land, citing our religious heritage, argue that we are a Christian nation, and vigorously insist that that fact be respected. They look around and see their values under attack, issues like abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, and opposition to religious symbols arousing great passion. 

                While we may come out at quite different places, issues arising in the public domain challenge each one of us who refer to ourselves as Christian to assess, or reassess, what that identity personally means to us.

               Unfortunately, very little of that reflection is taking place.  I think that many of us feel a sense of loss, that the world in which we live is less and less accommodating to the beliefs and values we hold dear, but we don’t know what to do about it.

                We hear in the prophet Jeremiah’s lament this morning a yearning for help in similarly compromising times.  Decrying the suffering the Jews were being forced to endure, Jeremiah cries out, “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?” The prophet, of course, knew the source of the people’s dismay and what it would take to relieve it.  The people stood under God’s judgment, judgment harshly levied by the Babylonians.  Jeremiah was very aware that Israel’s identity as a people of God was imperiled, that the health of the beleaguered nation might never be restored. 

                Christians who trace our roots to the God of Israel may not feel ourselves imperiled to the degree that Israel was, but we are troubled by the world’s increasing complexity, its increasing unfamiliarity. Even as global terrorism, a war, rising oil prices, the ascendance of China as a world economic power, and the recent regime change in Iran challenge us to respond, failing schools, a burgeoning murder rate, and economic stagnation in our city impose their own substantial challenges.

               Thoughtful people entertain all kinds of reservations about the future that their children and grandchildren will inherit, concerns that bear directly on our faith commitments. Those same thoughtful people are prompted to ponder the legacy they are passing on to their heirs.  Thoughtful Christians are asking, or should be asking, if Christian values can survive in a world such as ours.

                Thus far I have attempted to suggest that values derived from our experience as a people of God do exist, and that many Christians believe their survival is in jeopardy. 

                I would now invite you to consider with me the issue that Jesus places before us, namely that the “world” aggressively hates the values we uphold.  Recall Jesus’ words: “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.” 

                   From the question, can Christian values survive in a world such as ours, Christ challenges us to place that issue in a broader frame.

                   Hate is a strong word.  Hatred is a strong emotion. Jesus, however, was not shy about employing those words in expressing the opposition he faced in the world, and the opposition those faithful to his gospel would  face.    

                  We must attempt to understand that when Jesus is talking about hatred in the Gospel of John he is not merely talking about the animosity he prompted in the Jews, he is talking about hatred in the cosmic sense.  Just so, in the first verses of the opening chapter of John’s Gospel we read, “He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”  Already in those verses that open the Gospel, John wants to prepare us for what lies ahead. Yes, “his own” did not accept him---the Jews did not accept him---but more importantly, the very world that came into existence through him, the world itself did not accept him.

                To further enhance the cosmic significance of Jesus’ appearance on earth John tells us that Jesus appeared on earth as what?  I invite you to think with me here.  How does Jesus appear?  I know that a number of you are on to it.  Jesus appears as light shining in the darkness. 

                 John uses the motif of light and darkness to introduce the conflict that is at the heart of his Gospel. Two competing forces pitted against each other, Jesus introduces light into the world’s darkness, but the world, quote John, experiences light as an alien force, hatred the response to that alien force.

                  I began my remarks this morning by asking if Christian values can survive in our world.  The Gospel of John reframes the question, focusing the discussion in the more fundamental realm of life and death. The issue for John transcends what we might label as Christian values, values such as freedom, justice, and fair play. For John the issue is framed light and life versus darkness and death.

                  While John would heartily encourage us to adopt the values Christ taught, he challenges us to take seriously the forces of darkness that inspire and support evil in our world.  Though arrested, tried, and crucified by human agents, John wants us to take seriously the alien forces crouching in that darkness that inspired their actions. 

                “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.”  I doubt that any of us could point to a single instance where we experienced the world’s hatred. “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.” The statement can be very confusing if we don’t understand what the world signifies for John.  The world for John represents unredeemed creation, all that refuses to be illuminated by the light of Christ.  Light is alien to the world, for; as John goes on to tell us, “If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own.”

                  “The world can love only what belongs to it.”   If we reflect on that statement and are honest with ourselves we might well confess that we prefer the world’s approval, its love, to Christ’s.  The world, after all, has many rewards to confer. Moreover you and I can quite easily accumulate those rewards while at the same time living out values popularly defined as Christian. How convenient.  We don’t have to feel guilty about striving for the goods and opportunities the world offers, while at the same time preserving the reputation of a good upstanding Christian in the community.

                 So, must we experience the world’s hatred if we are to be true disciples of Christ?  That would be the implication, wouldn’t it?  But is that what we really want? 

                It seems to me that many today are making a great fuss about preserving Christian values, values they will readily delineate, values to which they with a pure conscience subscribe, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the world killed Jesus because his message forced them to re-examine the substance of their faith commitments and values.

              The Gospel of John, and the verse I highlighted this morning, prod us to take a closer look at the Christian values issue. I’m just asking, but should the fact that the world does not hate us signal that we have missed something in the message Christ brought?    

                There is great consternation expressed in some quarters that Christian values are eroding.  Many actively lobby to have Christian symbols displayed in the public square, and to retrieve the right of the school child to openly lead prayer in the classroom. They lobby the legislature to prohibit same sex marriage. Those may be important defining issues for some, but are those the issues for which Christ died?  Jesus incurred the world’s hatred because he turned its so-called Godly values on their heads. To the woman caught in adultery he brought forgiveness.  To the marginalized and broken he brought acceptance.  Yes, he ate with sinners and tax collectors. He came announcing that the first shall be last, and the last first. He came to incite revolution.

               He taught the most unconventional things and he gave his name to that teaching---Christian.  No one is likely to criticize us if we choose to live in conventional ways.  Did Jesus, however, teach us the conventional ways of living, or does he challenge us to risk the unconventional even at the risk of incurring the world’s hatred?  I’m just asking. AMEN

PRAYER  

              Jesus, light of the world, who invites us to walk in light, we pray that the eyes of our hearts may perceive thy holy radiance, and our faith, awakened by what we have seen, may respond with praise worthy of your name. Preserve in each one gathered here an openness to your call, for the world makes insistent demands on our time and our attention, and we so easily forget that it was your sacrifice for us on the cross that purchased our freedom from sin and death. And grant, O Christ, that the magnitude of that sacrifice so command our lives that we may find within us renewed fervor to take your liberating word of hope to the world. 

              O God, you made freedom an endowment for all humankind, but as we prepare to celebrate our freedom and independence as a nation we are aware that freedom is withheld from many.  Ruthless dictators and despots using threats and intimidation deprive millions of their freedom, and in so doing offend your holy will.  We pray with those who seek justice today, the subjugated, who so desperately yearn to breathe free. May judgment fall hard on those who so coarsely abuse the rights of their fellow man. 

              Even as we acknowledge the abuses of freedom, we call to mind our forbears who counted freedom such a treasure that they were willing to fight and even die to gain and preserve it.  We thank you for Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Madison and each man whose name is inscribed on the Declaration of Independence. With gratitude we thank you for those who in each generation of this American experiment have surrendered time, treasure and blood to secure and preserve the rights we hold dear.

              Lord, we confess that we too readily follow the most expedient route, even though that most trodden path may lead us far from thee.  We are enamored of the material gifts and advantages the world can bestow, while ignoring your call to surrender our lives that we might have life. Wading in the shallows of commitment, we have little appetite to test the depths of commitment.  Grant us courage, O Christ, to risk our time and treasure for thy name’s sake and to seek life where it may truly be found.

             Enrich your holy church, O Christ, with a more perfectly formed sense of its mission and its opportunities.  Imaginations stunted and closed to innovation, we who represent the church to the world struggle to define who we are and what we are called to do amid the new challenges that so relentlessly present themselves.  Lord, unbind our minds and so free our imaginations that we take advantage of opportunities to be the church that we might otherwise have missed.

              O God, who knows the longings of the human heart, and how those longings are often perverted in ways that do harm to ourselves and neighbor, be merciful to all who struggle with errant thoughts and ambitions.  Some lack the will to change, others the courage, still others grope in the dark for the door they can’t find.  May the light of your holy countenance, O Christ, reveal to the lost a passageway out of harm’s way that leads to the safe harbor you have prepared.

              For all gifts we derive from your hand, for the communion meal of which we will soon partake, for family, friends, food on the table, shelter and great expectations we give you thanks, O God, melding our voices with those who have submitted these special petitions….