The Social Network: Shine Brighter

Here is the last sermon in my series on community. This was preached 5/12/2013.
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The Social Network. What does your social network look like? To whom are you connected? Think for just a moment. How many people in this room do you know by first and last name? How many people in this church do you where they live? How many have you visited at home? How many people have you prayed with? Not just said – “I’ll pray for you” then gone on your way – but taken time to sit and pray with them. How many people here do you know you can count on in a crisis? Is there someone in the church who you can talk to about things with which you struggle? Is there someone who you know will call you out, in a loving and constructive way, when you’ve done something stupid? How many people in this room have you laughed with? Cried with? With how many people in this church have you shared your faith story? From how many have you heard their story?

I hope you can think of at least a few people who fit into each of those categories. That’s what a social network is supposed to look like.

I want to share an image with you. Have any of you ever used Friend Wheel on Facebook? It will show all of your friends and then show what connections you and that friend have in common.  Here is my Friend wheel. The dots around the circle represent the people I am friends with on Facebook. The lines between them connect those who are friends with one another. Just to give you a better idea of how it works, here’s another slide. In this one I highlighted one friend to show the mutual connections we have. This shows my connections to Misty, so these are all of the mutual friends we have. 

So these 240-something dots represent all of my Facebook friends, but If I were going to make a “friend wheel” of people like I mentioned earlier. Those with whom I am close. Those who will call me out when I do something dumb. The ones I can really talk to. That wheel would look more like this.  And I may have overestimated a relationship or two. The sad part of this wheel is not the small number of people on it, but the infrequency with which I meet and talk with those people, save one.

This is the connection I described earlier. This is the connection we need to have. This is the social network we need to build. A small network of people who will support us; who will pray for and with us; who will help us through our struggles. A group of people with whom we grow closer to Christ as we grow closer to one another.  

Our scripture this morning gives us some instruction about why we need one another. Jesus tells us to be salt and to be light. There is something distinctive about salt and light. By nature, salt and light are communal. Or at least they should be. I want to look at what being salt teaches us about our need for community and then what light teaches us.

Salt is an interesting substance. It has been in use since about 6000 BC. At one time, salt was even used as a currency because of its value. Our word salary was derived from the word salt. I don’t know how much truth there is to this, but if a slave was traded for salt, and performed poorly, we get the saying – “He’s not worth his salt.” In Jesus’ time and place, salt was a necessity. Salt was used to season food, but salt was also used as a preservative. 1^st Century Judea did not have refrigerators, but with salt, you could cure meat to make it last longer. Salt was used in some purification rituals. Salt was sprinkled on all offerings and sacrifices in the Jewish Temple.

Salt was essential in Jesus’ world and in that of his audience. They understood the importance of salt when he told them – “You are the salt of the earth.” The thing about salt, though, is that it is not useful to itself. It only has value in that it is applied to other things. It seasons food. It preserves meats. It is used to purify. Salt enhances the things around it.

In other words, if we are salt, we are no good by ourselves. Salt is not for itself. We are not to be kept to ourselves. To be salt, we must exist for others. To season and enhance all of those around us. If we keep to ourselves, we lose our saltiness – we lose our value. To lose our saltiness means that we become useless to those around us. We become so consumed with ourselves that we lose the connections around us. We no longer enhance or season our world.

I want to take a little break here to interject something. All of this talk about community and our faith being dependent upon being with and around other people does not mean that we should never spend time alone with God. Quite the opposite. We need time alone with God. Jesus tells us we should spend time in private prayer. In fact, when Jesus prays he almost always goes off alone to pray. Solitude is a good thing. For introverts like me, it allows us to recharge.

Maybe we can think about it in terms of salt. We spend time with other believers to get seasoned. That time we spend together enhances our time with God.

We spend time alone with God to become saltier. We pray and study so we can become more helpful to others. We spend time with God so that we can be salt for others. We spend time with others to get salted.

Jesus also says we are to be light. You are the light of the world. Light, just like salt, is meant to be shared. Scripture, again and again, refers to Jesus as light. Just a few verses before our the scripture read this morning Jesus quotes a passage from Isaiah in reference to himself. When he says that “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” The Gospel of John talks about the light of Jesus breaking into the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome the light.

Now Jesus says we are to be light. We are to reflect the light of Jesus for those around us. Jesus goes on to say that when someone lights a candle, they put it on a stand so that it will give light to everyone in the house.

This got me thinking about a couple of different images. The first is the power that light has over darkness. Have any of you ever been spelunking, or as we used to call it, cave crawling? As a kid, my dad used to take us to Collier Cave. Or Coffee Cave – which ever you want to call it – to go cave crawling. We would all put on some old clothes, get our Atlanta Braves replica batting helmets, and grab a flashlight to go crawl around in the mud 30 feet underground. I loved it!

One thing I learned in that cave is that you don’t understand dark until you are underground without a light. We would get to a certain spot in the cave, deep enough that no outside light came in, and turn off our flashlights. It was dark. It was a darkness that you could feel. We were in a room that was probably 100 feet in diameter with 20 foot ceilings but with the flashlights off it felt like the walls were right next to me.

Standing there in that blackness, my dad struck a match. One simple little match. And suddenly the room was huge again. That overwhelming darkness was no match for that tiny little light. Which shows us the power that light has over darkness. It brings to life that passage from John – the darkness cannot overcome the light.

But the room was still dark. Then someone turned on a flashlight and we could see a little more. Then another flash light. Then another and another. Until finally we lit the entire room. It wasn’t bright, but it was lit. We could see the room, we could see each other.

Not only did I learn the power light has over darkness, I also learned that a light can shine through the darkness, but as we let our light shine together the light becomes brighter. The darkness recedes more and more until when we add enough light shining together, it doesn’t matter how dark it is, we’re illuminated.

It makes me think of the Christmas Eve candlelight service. We start ina dark room with a single candle burning. And that single light is all you can see. But that light gets passed from person to person until everyone in the room is letting their light shine. And together those candles light up the sanctuary. You can see everything.

That’s what being light teaches us about community. Your light may shine, but together we shine brighter. Together the light of Jesus is even more powerful. It lights our way and it is a light for the world.

And back to the cave for a moment. Another reason we come together is so that our light can be a help to those who are struggling to shine. I remember being in the cave a group of 6 or 8 of us and my flashlight died. If I’d been alone, I’d be done for. But there were 5 – 7 more flashlights there to help me get out of that darkness.

I want to put a practical spin on this series. I’ve talked a lot about community and about having a group of people to pray with and study with.

I’ve talked several times over the last few weeks about a quote from John Wesley about Christianity being a social religion. That wasn’t simply something he preached. It was something he lived and practiced. The Methodist movement started when Wesley was at Oxford University and he and his brother and a few more friends started what we would call a small group. They prayed and studied together. And they visited prisons and fed the hungry together. This led Wesley to start the Methodist movement as a movement of community. There were Methodist societies throughout England. Each society was broken down into bands which were then divided into class meetings. These class meetings were groups of 6-8 people who would pray together, check up on one another, care for one another.

Earlier this week, one of my professors posted a story on his blog about his daughter. This story gave a perfect example of what small groups are about. His 2 ½ year-old daughter came to him one morning with her baby doll and said it was the baby Jesus. After breakfast, he told her it was time to go to school. She told him that she was Mary and he was Joseph. “Ok, Mary, it’s time to go.” When they got to her daycare, he asked if she wanted to leave the baby in the car. She told him, No. Maybe I can share Jesus with my friends, and when they’re done they can give him back to me.” 

That is exactly what social religion is about. That is what a small group is about. It is a group where you share Jesus with others and they share Jesus with you. And together you grow more and more like Jesus.

The Social Network: We Do We Will

This is the third sermon in a series on community. This sermon was given on Confirmation Sunday, so it is a little shorter

A few weeks ago, I started a sermon series called “The Social Network.” The inspiration for this series was a couple of quotes from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. In one of his writings he said, “Solitary religion is not to be found [in the gospel of Christ]. ‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” In another sermon, Wesley explained that in saying that Christianity is a social religion he means that our faith cannot survive without being with and sharing with other believers. In other words, our faith is dependent upon community. It is dependent upon connection to one another.

We spent a couple of weeks talking about this connection that we call the body of Christ. In the body of Christ, we are connected to one another just as all of the parts of our body are connected to one another. Jesus talked about that connection, too. He said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” Today is a special day because we get to be a part of and to witness as new branches are grafted onto the vine of Jesus. This morning, we welcome new members into the body of Christ. And we get to witness some others making their first public proclamation of their faith and affirm their part in the body.

Now, I want to talk to our confirmands and those who will be baptized for just a few minutes. I hope the rest of you will listen, too, but I’m going to talk to you guys. Today, you will claim your part in the body of Christ. What does that mean, though? A lot of what it means will be addressed in the questions you’ll answer in just a few minutes. Do you reject evil and wickedness and repent of your sins? Do you accept the gift of God’s grace that allows you to resist that evil? Do you confess Jesus Christ as your savior? Will you be faithful members of Christ’s holy church? Will you support the church with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness? In those questions you see what it means to be a member of Christ’s body. It doesn’t just mean that you say you believe in Jesus. It doesn’t just mean that you come to church on Sunday mornings and maybe Wednesday nights.

Being a part of the body of Christ means that you are committing yourself to live as a follower of Jesus. It means that you are committing to live a life of the Spirit. To do the best you can, empowered by God’s grace, to live a life of holiness. To do good, to avoid evil. You are committing yourself to growing closer to Jesus day by day – by studying, by praying, by worshipping, by serving others. You are promising to be an active part of the body. Not a paralyzed arm, but an active working part of the body of Christ. Sounds hard, doesn’t it?

It is hard, but guess what. You don’t do it alone. First of all, it’s only by God’s grace that we can do good and avoid evil. It’s only by God’s grace that we grow closer to Jesus. But we have more help also.

I saw visual example used last week that I want to share with you this morning. As Christians, one of the symbols of our faith is the cross. In the cross, we are reminded of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. Jesus came to earth, lived as a man, and died so that our sins can be forgiven, so that for us death holds no power. Think about John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. So that whoever believes in him won't die, but will have eternal life. The cross reminds us of that gift. The gift of God’s redeeming grace, returns us to righteousness in the eyes of God. So you see that the cross connects us to God.

Looking at the cross, we can think about the vertical part as that connection to God. But the cross has two parts. Vertical and horizontal. This horizontal part is a connection as well. The cross connects us to God, but it also connects us to one another.

Now I want to talk to the rest of the people here, but I want you guys to listen.

As followers of Christ we have a responsibility to one another. Paul writes in Ephesians that, as the body of Christ, we have a responsibility to help one another grow closer to God. By praying together, worshiping together, studying scriptures together, and by sharing our faith stories with one another. In the scriptures that Anna Kate and Claire read this morning Paul and the writer of Hebrews reminded their readers that we are called to encourage one another.

Paul wrote of the Body of Christ again in 1 Corinthians 12. There he says that not only do we help one another grow, but we are also to care for one another. In verse 26, he says "If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad." This connection we have through Jesus Christ is more than a common faith. It’s more than believing in the same thing. It is a responsibility to care for one another physically and spiritually. Look around the room, each of us is connected to one another. Each of us has a responsibility to one another. Each of us, through the power of the Holy Spirit is connected by the Love of God and called to share that love.

Each of you in this room has a responsibility to these who will be baptized or confirmed this morning. Not only will they make promises and commitments, but so will you. Each of you will reaffirm your own commitment to live as followers of Jesus. You will also make a commitment to these young men and women. You will promise to proclaim and live the gospel as an example to them. You will promise to surround them with love. You will promise to pray for them. To support them, to help them as they do their best, empowered by God’s grace, as they grow in their faith. To help them become more and more like Christ.

That is what “social religion” is all about. That’s what it looks like to be connected to God and to one another. This afternoon, you, the confirmands, will be given a cross as a reminder of your decision to follow Christ. Let it also serve as a reminder that you are not doing this alone. You are connected to God and we are all connected to one another.

The Social Network: It's What We Are

Here is sermon #2 in my series on community. This was preached 4/14/2013.

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Last week we began a series called The Social Network. I said last week, that we are talking about a social network that has little to nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest, but everything to do with the person to your left, your right, in front of and behind you.

Last week I shared with you a quote from John Wesley that served as an inspiration for this series. Wesley wrote, “Solitary religion is not to be found [in the gospel of Christ]. ‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” In other words, the Christian faith is not something we can do on our own. Living as a follower of Jesus Christ has a distinctively social aspect. I also gave you Wesley’s definition of what he means that Christianity is a social religion. He said that our faith cannot survive without living with and sharing with other believers. In other words, our faith is dependent on community.

So during this series we are talking about the importance of community. And this is actually something we talk about all the time, probably without thinking too much about it. We often talk about being a community of faith, but what does that mean? We talk about being the body of Christ, but, again, what does that mean? That’s going to be our focus today. What it means to be the body of Christ and what it looks like to live as the body of Christ.

In our scripture this morning Paul talks about the body of Christ. Paul uses this metaphor again and again in his letters. He talks over and over about the church as the body of Christ. We read an example of that last week. In Ephesians 4:12 Paul we are all given gifts and have a responsibility to use those gifts to do the work of God to “build up the church, the body of Christ.” It is a metaphor we see throughout the New Testament. As the church, we make up the body of Christ. It is more than a metaphor, we are the embodiment of Christ. We are to be the eyes and ears, the hands and feet, the voice and the heart of Jesus for the world.

Through our baptism, we are initiated into the body of Christ. We become members of that body. But it’s more than membership in an organization. I read an article this week that talked about the church as an organism versus an organization. That’s the way we should think about the church. As a living organism. One point that article made is that an organization has many heads, the church has only one head. Ephesians and Colossians both talk of the church as the body of Christ and Christ as the head of that body.

So instead of members of an organization, we are members of the body, just as our hands and feet, arms and legs are members of our body. And just as we use our members – our arms, legs, hands, and feet – to move and work in the world around us, Jesus uses us the members of the body of Christ to work in the world.

There are three aspects of the body of Christ present in our scripture that I want to focus on as we think about what it means to be the body of Christ and how we live as the body of Christ.

The first of these goes back to the quote from John Wesley I read earlier. “Solitary religion is not to be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.” If we are a part of a body, the we are dependent upon one another. Paul speaks of the church in terms of a human body. The many parts make up one body – and so it is with the body of Christ. When we talk about the human body, we know that no part of the body can survive apart from the body.

When I was growing up I remember seeing a Michael Caine movie called “The Hand”. Has anyone else seen it? In that movie, Michael Caine’s character had his hand cut off in a car accident. Actually, I think he was sticking it out the window in a fit of road rage and it was knocked off. Well, for the rest of the movie, that malevolent hand tormented Michael and the rest of the cast.

In reality, if you were to lose a hand or a finger, it can be reattached, but doctors say that it must be within 6-12 hours because the tissue begins to deteriorate quickly. And, of course, the thing would not reanimate on its own.

The same is true for us as members of the body of Christ. We cannot survive apart from the body. Our faith, our growing closer to Christ is dependent on being with other Christians. It is dependent on being connected.

Jesus uses a similar metaphor to the body in John chapter 15. There he says that he, Jesus, is the vine and we are the branches. In other words, we are all connected through Jesus. He goes on to say in verse 4, “For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fuitful unless you remain in me.”

I know what some of you are thinking. “I can remain connected to Jesus without being connected to the church!” “I can feel just as close to God on the golf course or in a tree stand or running or hiking or”, you name it. I would argue that you cannot stay connected to Jesus without the church. On our own, we start to depend on ourselves instead of others. And that leads to depending on ourselves instead of depending on God.

And, as I mentioned last week, we are created for relationship. A defining characteristic of God is the trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is community. It is relationship. This is the image in which we are created. We are created to be in community. We are created to be in relationship with God and with one another.

The second thing we learn about being the body of Christ is that in the body, we are all connected to one another and through that connection, no one part is more or less important than another.

One reason Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth was because of arguments among the members about who was more important. In verse 13 Paul attempts to settle this argument. “Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.”

In other words, in the body of Christ, we are all equal. It’s odd that in the 2000 years since this letter was written, these same issues are still lingering. We still deal with issues of race, gender, social status, economic status. All of these are things that divide us, things that in some cases turn us against one another. All of them are things that Paul tells us don’t matter one bit in the body of Christ. In Ephesians 3:6 Paul makes this same argument. He wrote,  “And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus.”

In the body, no part is more important than the other. And something else to remember. It’s not up to the parts of the body to determine who is and who is not a part of the body. Paul reminds us that some parts that seem the weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. It’s not our job to decide who is on or out of the body. It’s our job to work as one body. To be one body. Paul says we should be in harmony so that all of the parts care for one another.  

Which leads to the third thing we learn about the body of Christ. That when one part suffers, the entire body suffers. When one part rejoices, the entire body rejoices. Our passage ends with an emphatic statement – “You are the body of Christ.”  James Boyce says that in light of this passage that verse is more command than statement. He says, “we are meant to hear that this calls us not to some assertion of privileged status, but rather to the recognition of our responsibility for mutual care for the members of this body.” We are meant not to simply have sympathy for those around us, but to have empathy. Do you know the difference?

I’m going to show my geekiness. Is anyone a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Do you remember counselor Deanna Troi? Troi was an empathy. Her mother came from a planet of mind-readers, but her father was human. So instead of reading someone’s mind, she could feel their emotions. She was an empath. She literally felt what they felt. That is what it means to have empathy.

If we have sympathy, we feel sorry for someone. If we have empathy, we feel their suffering. When is the last time you had empathy? True empathy? When is the last time you suffered with someone. I saw it put like this. When I have an ear infection, the rest of my body suffers. But when Ms Eloise is widowed I don’t really suffer, when frank gets a cancer diagnosis, when the Smyth’s baby is still-born – occasionally I feel a pang of something. Maybe I breakdown and cry for a few minutes. But then I go about my life. I certainly don’t suffer with the suffering.

The best way to do that is going back to the second point. We are all connected to one another. But we tend to build barriers between us that keep us from truly feeling what the other is feeling. In the body of Christ we have to let those barriers go. We have to open ourselves to God and to one another.

To do that, you have to make your faith about more than 11am-12pm every Sunday. You have to make church about more than sitting in these chairs once a week surrounded by acquaintances and then going back to real life when the service is over.

To truly be the body of Christ, you have to know the rest of the body. You have to spend time together. You have to share with one another. In order to truly be the body of Christ, you have to make Christ the head of you. What does the head of a body do? It directs the body. Tells it where to go and what to do. It senses pain and joy from the different parts and lets the rest of the body feel that as well. To connect ot one another we have to first connect to Christ.

But then we have to connect to one another!

Amen.

The Social Network: The Social What?

A couple of months ago I preached a sermon series (titled The Social Network) on our need for community and its vital role in our faith. I'll post a couple this week and a couple next week. This sermon was preached April 7, 2013.
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Ephesians 4:11-16

New Living Translation (NLT)

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

The Social What? 

Today we are starting a new sermon series titled “The Social Network.” When we think of a social network, most of us think of social media. Things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. That’s not the social network we’re going to talk about for the next few weeks.

But the series title is a play off of that thought. When I began thinking about this series several months ago, I came up with some great sermon titles. Some ways to play off of social networking, and specifically, the names of some popular social media outlets. Here’s one:  “Get your face in the book” 

Nice, right? How about this one?  “Don’t Twitter Around with Jesus”. 

Even better, I think. Here’s another –  “Make Jesus your (P)interest”. 

And finally – “Get Linked In to Jesus.” 

Those are great, right? I’ll admit, they are purposely cheesy. And they really have nothing to do with this series of sermons. They have little to nothing to do with what I really want to talk about for the next few weeks.

We are going to talk about a concept that, like it or not, is vital to our faith. Community. The social network we’re going to talk about has nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter, but has everything to do with the person sitting on your right and your left, and in front of you and behind you. It’s about us.

The truth is, we need one another. We need community. The concept of community seems foreign to our modern sensibilities. Instead we are a society based on individualism. But there is still an innate need, and a longing for community. And here’s where social media will make a brief appearance. Because for many of us, Facebook has become our community. Actually, I should say: Facebook has become a substitute for community. In reality, I think it may have done more harm than good in terms of connecting people.

I’m going to get on my soapbox for a minute. Well, I guess that’s what I do every week, isn’t it.

Let me start by saying that I use Facebook. Facebook has some great features and some wonderful qualities. BUT – Facebook and other social media sites have developed what I would call a false community. It’s people offering impersonal happy birthday wishes and sharing either the mundane moments of everyday life or just sharing how wonderful their kids and husband and in-laws are. It has become our personal hype machine. “Look how great my life is.” But don’t ask me how things are going. Just “like” my status when I share the latest wonderful life event. I’ll tell you, I have kids. They are not always angelic and wonderful. Sometimes they are selfish and bratty. I’ve been married for 18 years. Misty will tell you that every day with me is not a walk through the roses. Maybe that’s a cynical view of Facebook, but it irks me a little that this is what we know as a social network – this is what some people call community. Being in community means that we live together. It means we share life. Good and bad. It means having a real connection to one another.

I found a couple of definitions of community that I want to share. The first is a sociological definition. It says that community is a social unit larger than a small village that shares common values. Yawn. That is little more that a group of people in proximity to one another. That doesn’t sound like a community to me.

The other definition comes from biology. It says a community is a group of living organisms interacting and sharing a populated environment. OK, that sounds like my idea of a community. Not simply living near one another, but interacting, conversing. Living together.

The way I see it, something like Facebook doesn’t promote community. It promotes individualism. It’s not about living together or interacting. It’s about me and what I want to share and how I feel and what I think is important. Again, I’m being a little cynical. I know there are other aspects to social media that are helpful in connecting us. But our true connection should be real. It should be face-to-face. It should be with people, not websites.

I shared part of a quote from John Wesley with you last week. I want to repeat it this morning. This is part of the inspiration for this sermon series. In the preface to a book by John and Charles Wesley called Hymns and Sacred Poems, Wesley wrote “Solitary religion is not to be found [in the gospel of Christ]. ‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.”

The last sentence, and especially the last phrase, of that quote has been taken out of context and misused for a long time. You will often hear ‘no holiness but social holiness’ as a call for the church to be involved in social justice issues. There might be a connection to make there, but it’s a stretch. What Wesley is really talking about is Christianity as a social religion. Wesley went on to explain that phrase in a sermon later in life. He said that by social religion he means “it cannot subsist at all without society, without living and conversing with other [believers].” In other words, our faith is meant to be lived out in community. Not only that, but our faith depends on community.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that thrives on individualism. Individualism is the idea the individual is of primary importance. It emphasizes the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence. It’s a concept and an attitude that has been taught for a long, long time in this country. And there is a lot of good in the concept. Individualism promotes self-confidence. It promotes the idea that you are a person of worth and importance. Individualism should promote equality of all people. It allows us to have our own opinions and allows us the freedom to share those opinions. Individualism tells us that we can be successful, that we can accomplish things.

But there is a flip side to individualism. Individualism also teaches that we should rely on ourselves. Instead of equality, it sometimes goes to the extremes of “I’m the most important, so I’m better than the rest.” It creates people who, to contradict Barbara Streisand – who don’t need people, but still consider themselves the luckiest people in the world. Individualism teaches us that we can do it on our own, which leads to the attitude that we should do it on our own. That if we can’t, then we are a failure. And those who can’t succeed, they’re just not trying.

And this attitude of individualism seeps into our church life. Maybe it’s less “I can save myself” than “I can be saved alone.” But still it’s an attitude that believes in self. Church becomes about me and what I need. I go to church to save my soul. I go to church so I can feel better about myself. I go to church for me. For my needs. For my soul.

I love how the Holy Spirit works. I’ve been planning this series for several months now. But this week, one of my professors said this: “We are much more interested in an individual faith – ‘Getting my soul right with Jesus’ – than we are with notions of talking about the community of the church. We need to reclaim the notion that we are never Christians alone, but we are only Christians and we are only faithful, insofar as we are faithful to God with one another in the community of the church.” This is exactly what John Wesley means when he says that our faith cannot survive without being with, talking to, and learning from other believers.

If all we have is individualism, we end up, well, we end up as idolaters. Ayn Rand wrote this is her book Anthem. “And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”

In her book, Because He Loves Me, Elyse Fitzpatrick talks about the idolatry of individualism. She writes about our need for community, and specifically our need for people of faith to whom we can confide and expect to be held accountable. People with whom we can talk about our faith and our doubts, and who talk to us about their faith and their doubts. That sort of relationship, she says, flies in the face of our individualistic society. She writes this: “This idolatry of privacy and individualism is one of the greatest detriments … in the church today. God has placed us in a family because we don’t grow very well on our own. It’s still not good to be alone. We need the encouragement, correction, and loving involvement of others who are willing to risk everything for the sake of the beauty of his bride.” His bride, referring to the church, the bride of Christ. In other words, what’s important, what the church should be about, is not “getting my soul right” but the act of being together. Worship together. Learning together. Growing together.

I want to make an important distinction between individualism and individuality. Individuality means that we have our own identity. We are who we are and we remain that way. That is what Paul writes about in our scripture this morning. He says we are all created with certain gifts, and all of those gifts are important to the life of the church. He also says that we are given those gifts with the responsibility of using them to do God’s work and build up the church. Don’t think of building up the church as simply growing in terms of numbers. But growing in faith, helping one another grow more and more like Christ. Our scripture wraps up with a sentence that is one of the most important sentences you’ll hear today. Paul is talking about the body of Christ and the part each of us plays in that body. “As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” Our faith depends on community, on being together – worshiping together, learning together. We are created to be in community.

Next week we’re going to talk more about the Body of Christ and what it means to be a part of that body.

This morning we come together to celebrate that community – the community of the Body of Christ.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here or not, but several years ago when we lived in Kentucky, Abby, my youngest, was about 3 years-old. She loved communion. She got so excited on communion Sundays. One Sunday we were driving to church, and it happened to be the first Sunday of the month. From the back seat Abby asks, “Dad, are we having community today?” We laughed because it was cute, then I thought, you know, we are. And I answered, “Yes, Abby. Yes we are.”

Today we are going to have community. Holy Communion is community. It is the gathering of the community of faith around the table of Christ. It is meaningful to us as individuals, but it is much more than a personal event.

That notion of community noticeable in the liturgy used in observing communion. The prayers and readings use plural pronouns. We, us, our. For years when I participated in Communion, I would pray I, me, and my instead. I didn’t realize the communal nature, probably until Abby asked that question almost 10 years ago. We gather as one body. Paul wrote in 1^st Corinthians that “because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” So we gather as one body to share in the grace of God and to celebrate our one faith. 

Tempted: Deliver Us

We’re wrapping up our series on temptation today. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at what scripture teaches us about temptation. The first week, we saw from James chapter 1 that temptation is really a result of our own desires or passions.  James 1:14 says, “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.” I shared with you that same verse from The Message, it says that we can only blame “the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust.”  We talked about the way to control these passions is to make sure that Jesus is Lord of your life. Then our desire is only God’s will.

Last week we looked at the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. I said that the temptation Jesus faced there is the same temptation we face; to put our trust somewhere other than God – to let something else sit on that throne. Temptation is often a matter of trust. I trust in stuff, in money, in what I can see and feel. I trust me. Instead of trusting God’s will, trusting the way of Jesus. So instead of Jesus sitting on the throne of our heart, money is there or people or our stuff or ourselves.

Today, I’ve titled the sermon “Deliver Us”. That title probably sounds familiar to you. It’s from the Lord’s Prayer. When pray that prayer, we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

I ran across a video this week that I want to share with you.

I love that. But not just because it’s funny. Look at their slogan,

“Once you shake ‘em you can’t shake ‘em.” Now that says a lot about temptation. Temptation is hard enough to resist, but once you give in it becomes that much harder. I saw an article from a couple of years ago on Psychology Today’s website. In that article, Dr. Rebecca Gladding says that when we give in to temptation we teach our brain that this is an important action and should be repeated, so the brain starts sending cravings. She uses the specific example of chocolate. She wrote, “As time goes on, my brain begins making eating chocolate a priority and I find that I am craving it day and night.” Once you shake it, you just can’t shake it.

We talked before about our desires leading to temptation and temptation leading to sin. Paul liked to talk about being a slave to sin. Dr. Gladding seems to be pointing to just such a thing. We give in to temptation which leads to sin and we start to crave it. We can’t live without it. We become a slave to sin. Once you shake it, you just can’t shake it. Once you start, you just can’t stop. Which brings us back to “deliver us from evil”.

Resisting temptation is not our natural human response. And once we’ve given in, it’s just that much easier to do it again and that much harder to resist. So we pray. As Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us.”

In the garden of Gethsemane, just before Jesus was arrested, he told his disciples to “pray so you won’t give in to temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As we saw last week, this is something Jesus knew from experience. Jesus also knew that temptation would come.

In a letter to the church at Corinth, Paul told them that temptation is inevitable. He wrote this:  “¹³ The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

There are a couple of really important things this passage tells us about temptation. 1) We’re going to be tempted. There is not any notion here that we will not be tempted. 2) We can resist temptation! “You will not be tempted more than you can stand.” But we are human, we are flawed. 3) God will deliver us. God will show us a way out.

A couple of weeks ago I introduced the 5Rs of resisting temptation. Adam Hamilton, who is the pastor of Church of the Resurrection (a United Methodist church in KC), came up with these a few years ago. He used them again in a sermon a couple of months ago. I think they offer some wonderful advice for resisting temptation.

I gave you the first one a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll cover it again. These are things to do when you feel tempted.

1)    REMEMBER Who You Are – You are a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ, a leader in the church, a leader in the community. You may be someone’s husband or wife, someone’s mother or father. Is the thing you are struggling with consistent with who you are?

2)    RECOGNIZE the consequences of your actions. Maybe you could ask yourself: will I feel better or worse after doing this? Will I be proud or ashamed? Will I be more free or will I be enslaved by doing this? Who will be hurt by my actions? If the thing becomes known, what will happen to the people who trusted me? What will they think of me?

3)    REDEDICATE yourself to God. In prayer ask for God’s strength. Maybe a really simple, easy to remember prayer like: “Lead me not into temptation, deliver me from evil!” It’s also a chance to remind yourself who is on the throne of your life.

I shared this tweet with you a couple of weeks ago:  “Temptation is coming today...and every day. The question is whether Christ is on the throne of your heart now? Will He be your Lord today?” Is Jesus on the throne of your heart? Or as I asked it last week: Do you trust in Jesus? 

4)    REVEAL your struggle to a trusted friend. Part of the power of temptation comes from its secretiveness. When you tell the secret to someone holding you accountable, it loses some of its power. This is why James tells us in 5:16, “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you might be healed.” Maybe it’s not the healthiest or most effective motivator, but it also adds some guilt to the situation, and guilt is a great deterrent. If eating donuts is a sin…well we’re all in trouble… But just as an example… If eating donuts is a sin I struggle with and I tell Bill, and I know Bill isn’t going to judge me but will help me be accountable – he’s going to ask me if I’ve been eating donuts – those donuts lose a little of their power over me.

5)    REMOVE yourself from the situation. When Jesus speaks about sin in the Sermon on the Mount he tells us that if our eye causes us to sin, we’re to pluck it out, or if our hand causes us to sin, we’re to cut it off. He is using hyperbole but he’s seeking to make this same point—remove yourself from the situation. We saw this in the video of the “Marshmallow Test” two weeks ago. Those 4-5 year-old kids who really did not want to eat the marshmallow would just ignore it. Pretend it’s not there. Pretending won’t always help, but leaving a situation will. Keeping yourself out of tempting situations will. Back to our donut example, I should never go near the donut table. If I walk in and see donuts I should probably leave.

So those are the 5 Rs of resisting temptation, but what if we don’t resist? Because, let’s face it, we’re not always going to resist. I don’t mean that to be taken as a defeatist attitude. It’s just the truth. Sometimes we will try to resist and fail, sometimes we just fail. Luckily it’s not the end of the road.

There’s another part of the Lord’s Prayer I want to remind you of: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgive our missteps, our stumbles, our failings, our sins. We are reminded of this throughout the New Testament. 1 John 1:9 tells us if we confess our sins, God will forgive us and cleanse our wickedness. Colossians 1:13-14 says this  “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.”

Now, that’s not a “get out of jail free” card. It doesn’t mean I can walk in and say to myself, “I can eat all of the donuts I want now, because I can just ask God to forgive me!” That attitude embraces sin. There’s no repentance there, confessing our sins means we repent. To repent means to turn the other way. I read Colossians 1:13-14, but look what leads up to that scripture about forgiveness: 

¹⁰ Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

¹¹ We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, ¹² always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.

We are called to live in the light, to live in a way that honors God – that pleases God. That doesn’t mean we won’t mess it up. It means we’ve got to try. It means we’ve got to do everything we can to resist temptation. Thank God, we have a savior who delivers us from temptation!

There are three things I want to stress as we talk about being “delivered from evil”.

Two of them come from the passage in Galatians that was read earlier. First, it says we should nail our desires and passions to the cross. In other words, we are to die to our old sinful self. Paul says we should live by the Spirit. As we live by the Spirit, we are renewed. We are changed into a new creation. As we trust and follow Jesus, through prayer, reading scripture, growing closer to God, the Holy Spirit works to change us. Sin loses its grip. Our desires and passions lessen, and God’s will becomes our desire.

Paul gives us another tip for how we are delivered from temptation. In verse 2 of chapter 6, Paul says we should share each other’s burdens. I love verse 3. “If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.” Help one another! This goes back to our 4^th R – reveal your struggle. Be ready to help others and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

The third thing to remember about being delivered is that through the life, death, and resurrection we are delivered. We are delivered not just from temptation, but from the penalty of sin. Because of Jesus sin no longer binds those who believe, who call on him as their savior.

We are delivered in those 3 ways. Jesus delivers us from the penalty of sin. The Holy Spirit working in us delivers us from the power of sin so that it no longer holds us captive. And lastly, God works through each one of us to help one another, to love one another, to share our burdens. 

Tempted: Lead Us Not

Luke 4:1-13

New Living Translation (NLT)

4 Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ² where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.

³ Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

⁴ But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’”

⁵ Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.⁶ “I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please. ⁷ I will give it all to you if you will worship me.”

⁸ Jesus replied, “The Scriptures say,

‘You must worship the Lord your God
    and serve only him.’”

⁹ Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! ¹⁰ For the Scriptures say,

‘He will order his angels to protect and guard you.
¹¹ And they will hold you up with their hands
    so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”

¹² Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’”

¹³ When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.

I saw this quote several places last week, but I could never find a source.  “Temptation will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” There’s a lot of truth there. I think I might change one word, though. I would change “will” to “can.” I mentioned this last week, but I wanted to reiterate the point this week.  Temptation does not equal sin. Temptation can lead to sin, but it is not the same as sin. 

We are continuing our series of sermons on temptation. We are in the midst of Lent. Lent is a season of reflection, a season of repentance. Traditionally, it was a time when new Christians would prepare themselves for baptism. In the early church baptisms all took place on Easter. So Lent, the season leading up to Easter was spent preparing those new converts, spiritually and theologically. It was a time of learning, a time of fasting, and a time of prayer. But not just for those catechumens, as they were called. The early church, just as we do now, saw the baptismal covenant as a 3 party covenant. It is a covenant between the person being baptized, God, and the church. And each time someone is baptized, we renew our own baptismal covenant. So, Lent was a time of preparation for everyone, not just for the new converts.

Lent consists of the forty days leading to Easter, not counting Sundays. This number is not by coincidence. Those forty days of fasting, prayer, and reflection are meant to echo the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness – fasting, praying, preparing for his coming ministry; and being tempted.

This scripture is traditionally read on the first Sunday of Lent. It’s used to begin Lent in order to remind us of those 40 days Jesus spent fasting and praying and preparing himself for his ministry as we begin a time of fasting, prayer, and preparation. It is also meant to remind us that, as we read in Hebrews 4:15, Jesus can relate to us, can sympathize with our weakness, because he endured every temptation we experience, except he did so without sin.

So, as we continue our series on temptation we look to the example of Jesus and this series of temptations to try to answer some of our questions about temptation. What is temptation? How do we resist temptation?

First, I want look at what this text teaches us about temptation. Then I’ll make some observations about this passage.

There are 3 things we learn about temptation from this passage.

1)    Temptation does not go away, even when we are at our most faithful. The opening verse of this passage tells us that Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit. But still he faces temptation.

2)    Temptation doesn’t go away, even when we’ve conquered it. The last verse, after Jesus shoots down all of the Devil’s temptations tells us that the Devil “left until the next opportunity came.” He’ll be back.

3)    Temptation lies! Look at all the devil promises. He says he has power and can give it to Jesus. I saw an interesting observation about this passage. Look at the number of words the devil uses to tempt versus the words Jesus uses to turn him down. It’s almost 3 to 1. Misty and I watch a lot of detective shows. I’ve heard more than one of them say that when questioning a suspect, they know that the more words equals less truth.  

Here we have something that is actually unusual for the Bible. We have the personification of the Devil. The Old Testament typically talks about “satan,” which is a Hebrew word that means “opposer” or adversary. It is a noun used to refer to people and sometimes to divine beings. The book of Job and the third chapter of Zechariah talk about “ha-satan” or The Adversary. The notion of Satan as the personification of evil, doesn’t show up in the Old Testament Even when Satan is personified, he’s more a provoker than evil. In the New Testament, which is written mostly in Greek, we read about satanas, which is presented as more of a proper name. And we read about diabolos or the Devil. Diabolos means slanderer or false accuser.

This is closer to the modern conception of Satan. This personification of evil. This one evil guy who sort of runs the show trying to make us do evil things. Are you familiar with Flip Wilson? Flip Wilson was a comedian in the 70’s  he had a character named Geraldine. Her catchphrase was “The Devil made me do it.” She would do or say something questionable and when asked why, “The devil made me do it.” And that is the danger of our modern conception of Satan.

I’m not going to go into the reality or symbolism of Satan. Are there evil forces in the world working against us and against God? Yes. Does that mean we can make the Devil responsible for the bad things we do? I think that’s a cop out. I read this from a pastor in Minnesota, “People do evil things all the time for all kinds of tragic reasons. It hurts and it is hard. I don’t think it helps to blame the devil.” He wondered if “The Devil” serves as a hindrance to really understanding evil. The danger comes when we blame our wrongs on someone other than ourselves. We talked last week about temptation coming from our own desires, our own passions. That doesn’t mean that something external doesn’t ignite those desires. Maybe that is Satan, presenting us with tempting circumstances. But the true fight is with our own desires as Jesus demonstrates.

Which leads to the second observation I want to make. Jesus answers each temptation with scripture. But just like with the Devil, don’t think about this too simplistically. Knowing scripture verse for verse won’t lead you out of temptation. Notice in our passage, the devil himself quotes scripture. David Lose, a professor of preaching at Luther Seminary, wonders if Jesus “not so much quotes scripture to deflect temptation as it is that Jesus finds in scripture to words to give voice to his trust. Because at the heart of each reply is Jesus’ absolute trust in – and dependence on – God for his identity and future.” Which leads me to wonder, do I have that sort of trust? Is scripture something I use to prove my point or justify my actions, or is it something I use to see God in whom I place my trust? This passage comes down to that very word – Trust.

You may hear this story and feel completely unconnected. After all, this is Jesus being tempted in person by Satan. It’s not something many of us can relate to. And look at the temptations. “Turn these rocks into bread. I can put you in charge of all the world’s kingdoms. Jump, and prove God loves you.” Again, not exactly things we can relate to. Well, I disagree. I think these are the exact temptations we face day in and day out.

What tempts you? By what are you tempted? It’s Lent, a time of reflection, well, let’s reflect. What tempts you? You know how I’m tempted?

I’m tempted to write a sermon. I’m tempted to open my laptop and start typing. I trust in my mental capacity and my ability to write, so I can write a fine sermon. I’m tempted to panic when some unexpected need pops up. I trust in money. I trust stuff. “Turn these rocks into bread, then you won’t be hungry anymore. You can do it yourself.”

I’m tempted to do everything I can to make sure my world runs the way I want it. I want to be in control. I’m tempted to tell Bill what songs we should sing, I’m tempted to tell Sarah how the altar should look each week. I’m tempted to have control, to have power. I trust me, my instincts, my rule. “I can put you in charge of everything you see. It’ll be yours to rule and control.”

I’m tempted to wallow in my sorrow and pity. Sometimes people say hurtful things. Sometimes things don’t work out the way I want them to. Sometimes people I love die before I’m ready. Sometimes life is not as perfect as I think it should be. I trust in what I see and feel. “If you are a child of God, God will protect you. You’re hurting, are you sure God loves you?”

Aren’t those exactly the things Jesus is tempted to do and to feel? Trust in stuff. Trust in you. Trust in what you can see and feel. The temptation is to trust in me, to be in control, to do it myself. Instead of trusting God. The temptation is to forget who we are. Satan tells Jesus, “If you are the Son of God” trying to cause doubt about who he is. That is the temptation we face. We are tempted to forget our baptismal identity as a child of God.

Are there other temptations? Of course. We’re tempted to lie, to cheat, to steal, to kill. Name a commandment, and we’ve probably all been tempted to break it. But our call is not to adhere to a list of rules. Ours is a call to faithfulness – faithfulness to the purposes of God. We are called to trust in Jesus. I love that old song. “‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take Him at His word; just to rest upon His promise, and to know, ‘Thus says the Lord!’ Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more!” So, I ask, do you trust in Jesus? Or do you trust in stuff, or in you, or in the world? When temptation comes, none of those will do for long.

Last week I introduced the first of 5 Rs for resisting temptation. Remember who you are. You are a child of God. You are a follower of Christ. To remember that, and to trust in that identity as a child of God, a follower of Christ, that is what leads to eternal life. And it won’t matter what temptation comes your way; you’ll know and trust that Jesus, who endured temptation is with you and will help you through yours. Do you trust in Jesus?