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"With God, It's Personal"
June 15, 2003 The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower
Even though it's mid-June, I've been giving a lot of thought to our fall stewardship campaign and I've decided that once a month between now and then, beginning this morning, once a month I'm going to present a sermon related somehow or other to the question of stewardship, to the question of presenting ourselves to God, all we have and all that we are. So once this month, and then once again in July, and once again on into the fall.
And we're going to begin this morning with a quote from H. L. Mencken. H. L. Mencken, at the first half of the 1900s--that is, the twentieth century--was probably the most famous newspaper editor in the United States. He seems to have been a fairly delightfully grumpy kind of a guy. Whenever he found something that he thought was ridiculous, he was only too happy to ridicule it. So he has given us lots of famous quotes, and one of the more famous is his definition of Puritanism. According to H. L. Mencken (and you may be familiar with this one), "Puritanism is that haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy."
Now, in this message I'm going to say Mencken was wrong in a way, but right in a more important way. I'm going to say that actually he's wrong to relate that just to the Puritans. I mean, the Puritans were wonderful believers in Jesus and they are certainly not the only ones guilty of coming under that feeling--"that haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy"--with an eagerness to get involved. The Puritans are really not the best examples of having an unhappiness in myself that I want to inflict on others. If we find it there, we need to be prepared to see where else we can find that exact same phenomenon. It's the phenomenon that I refer to as IPD--Intrusive Personality Disorder. And every one of us may be tempted by IPD from time to time, that desire to take the unhappiness that I have and kind of spread it around: "You're not as unhappy as I am, so I'm going to see what I can do to help with that." And religious people can--this is going to shock you, I know, but it's true--religious people can, from time to time, as in the quote from H. L. Mencken, suffer from IPD, and I want to give you an example.
A number of years ago I met a neat guy. His name is Gary. He's a Christian psychologist. Gary told a story about himself. He grew up in a non-Christian family, had no Christian influence in his upbringing. In ninth grade he suddenly converted, became a devout follower of Jesus, and then he was very disturbed, as a ninth grader, about his older brother. Because, see, his older brother was not religious in any way and Gary didn't think that he could do anything about that. But his older brother smoked and Gary thought, "Well, I don't think I can do anything about the fact that he doesn't love Jesus, but maybe I can do something about the fact that he smokes." So this is what he would do. Gary shared this. He used to wait and when his brother was gone, or in the shower, or whatever, he would sneak into his brother's room and he would take his brother's cigarettes out of the pack and write Bible verses on them and then slide them back in, so that every time his brother went to take a smoke, a Bible verse would pop out. Now, Gary confesses that so far as he knows, that never had a redemptive influence on his brother, and his brother continues to smoke to this very day. Now that's an example of IPD--Intrusive Personality Disorder.
I want us to ponder that temptation that many of us are under from time to time as we look at our text this morning, which is Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Just one verse--Romans 12:1--where Paul writes this:
Now, to understand this passage, you have to know that the letters of Paul all tend to fall into a two-part kind of writing, a two-part epistle. There's the "understanding" section, which is always first, and then there's the "standing under" section. The "understanding" section--that's where Paul tells us the things that are true that we need to know. The "standing under" section--that's when he tells us, "OK, now on the basis of what you now understand, here's how to stand under that, here's how to bring your life in line with that."
So doctrine is first and then ethics is second. You could call it the "wherefore" section and the "therefore" section. This is the first sentence in the "standing under" section. Prior to this, he has been telling us about the various things that are true that we need to know. In Romans 2, verse 1, he says, "Therefore you have no excuse. If you judge others you are guilty of doing the exact same thing." A very important truth. In Romans 5:1 he says, "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ." In Romans 8:1 he says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." These are all of the things that we need to understand. Now, once we understand all of that, once we have that foundation laid, then he turns and in this sentence he begins telling us how to stand under what we understand:
Now, the use of that term "body" is troubling to some. See, he's talking about presenting your bodies and the Greek word for "present" is "peristeme." It simply means "lay alongside." It means "devote." It means "consecrate." It means "set aside for special use." And so he's saying "devote and consecrate," but he says, "your bodies." And some preachers have sort of struggled with, "Now, why does he say 'bodies'? After all, it's possible for someone to present their body without presenting their heart, or their mind, or their soul, or their spirit." You may have even had the experience of being physically present with your body in a worship service while your mind or your heart is someplace else. (Not this morning, of course, but you may have had that experience.)
So what's this emphasis on "present your body" instead of . . . I mean, doesn't God want us to give our heart, and our mind, and our spirit? Well, see, that's the wrong emphasis. I believe that that's reading this passage the wrong way. I think that he is not saying, "present your bodies." I think he's saying, "present your bodies." Not somebody else's. Don't think that God made you to present somebody else in place of you, instead of you. I think that here Paul is saying, "present your bodies." You. You're the one that you have responsibility for. God is asking you to offer you to Him, not to fix somebody else for Him. Do you see?
Do we find anything like this anyplace else in Scripture? Well, as a matter of fact, we do. This is the point of Jesus' parable, Luke 6:41, where Jesus says, "Why are you worried about the speck in your neighbor's eye and you're ignoring the log in your eye? Deal with the log in your eye first." What is the log in my eye? The log in my eye is IPD--Intrusive Personality Disorder, that tendency that I have to go and stick my finger in somebody else's eye when I can't see well enough to do that because of my Intrusive Personality Disorder.
Do you remember at the end of John's gospel, in John chapter 21, Jesus is saying to Simon Peter, "Come and follow me." And Peter turns and he sees John, the beloved disciple, and he says, "Well, Lord, what about him?" And in so many words what Jesus says is, "Hey, John is responsible for his relationship with me. Peter, you're not responsible for John's relationship with me. You're responsible for your relationship with me."
You see, he's saying, "I beseech you, I implore you, I appeal to you, by the mercies of God, give God you, not somebody else. Give God you."
Now, returning to the H. L. Mencken quote that we began with, we do want to recognize that there is such a thing as that "haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy and that I need to fix that, I need to, out of the unhappiness I have in myself, I need to try to make as many other people unhappy as I can." You see, the influence--whatever the influence that Jesus Christ wanted my friend Gary to have on his older brother--it was probably not very well understood in writing Bible verses on the brother's cigarettes, OK? That's my friend Gary trying to present his brother to God.
Now, when I have done that, when you have done that, why is it that we do that? Well, it's because it gives us a substitute. Feeling God's claim on our lives, we try to find someway else to deal with that claim other than just resting in it, other than simply saying, "Here am I, Lord, send me."
So, yes, Mencken is really on to something by identifying that and he wrote in the 1920s and '30s and maybe at that time it made sense to identify that with the Puritans and, along with the Puritans, to identify it with conservative Christianity per se. But time goes on and we change. And one of the things that is abundantly clear today is that if conservative Christians have been guilty of IPD in the past, conservative Christians today are not the chief offenders in that particular way.
If we look at all of the places where political correctness rules--on university campuses and in the media, and all of the other places. "Political correctness." What is that? Well, you know, "political correctness" is the conviction that you have to watch what you say, what you think, where you go, who you associate with, how you dress, and that somebody else is going to be watching you. Someone else is going to be watching what you say for signs of how you think. Someone else is going to be checking out where you go. And in America at the present time, I mean, let's just go ahead and say, "Yes, it is the case that conservatives have been guilty of IPD, but at the present time let's just say Intrusive Personality Disorder is an Equal Opportunity Employer. And when conservatives are in charge of a particular area, we can be guilty. When liberals are in charge of an area, do we have a day when its like, "anything goes," "whatever." Well, no, as a matter of fact. Far from it! There is as much Intrusive Personality Disorder from the puritanical left today as there has ever been from the puritanical right in the past.
Now, what does that mean? It means that I'm making all of you mad right now in one way or another . . . and it means that we all have the same basic problems. It is not the case that there are some sins that conservatives and only conservatives commit, or that there are some sins that liberals and only liberals commit. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And if it looks to you like a group that you don't like is the chief sinner in a particular way, just wait. Because sooner or later, what you're going to see is that political alliances are going to shift, political climates are going to change, and the group that you were sure would never commit that sin--now there they are. They're in charge and the puritanism that you associated over there--hey, here it is over here. . Now, God's Word is the same to us wherever we locate ourselves on any particular spectrum. God is saying, "Don't worry about presenting someone else. Present you. Don't worry about where somebody else is. Present you." You're the one that God is interested in. You're the one that God has given responsibility for you. So let it be you that you offer God, not a substitute, not someone else. Not someone that you say, "Well, at least I'm not like . . ." You know. Forget about where everybody else is. In your relationship with God, let your relationship with God be about God and you.
Now, we don't do that because we don't understand the mercies of God. Which, as we said, the entire doctrinal foundation of Romans was about the mercies of God. The reason that we try to find a substitute, the reason that we point fingers someplace else not realizing how many fingers point back here, the reason that we try to present somebody else instead of ourselves, the reason that we write Bible verses on cigarettes and slide them back into the pack, is because we don't understand the mercies of God and so we don't know how to stand under the mercies of God. If we knew how good God was, we wouldn't be afraid to present our bodies--not always trying to find somebody else that we could present. If we knew the goodness of God, we wouldn't try to present somebody else's body. If we understood, we'd be ready to stand under. And let's just say it's a universal human temptation not to regard God as merciful, not to regard God in a trusting way. It is a universal human temptation to regard God suspiciously and therefore, because I'm regarding God suspiciously, not to be willing to just freely and innocently yield myself to Him.
Now, let's just come to one more thing and ask, "Does this have anything at all to do with stewardship?" You don't think I can do it, do you? Well, let's see! Number one, we are stewards of all we have and all we are, and God is asking us to present all we have and all we are to Him. Stewardship tends to get misunderstood as the way that the church raises money in the fall. But I'm beginning with these sermons through the summer in order to try to disabuse us of that and in order to say, "You have been designated by God as a steward for everything that you are responsible for."
Now, what is that "everything you have been responsible for"? Sometimes we misunderstand what God is asking of us and fall prey to Intrusive Personality Disorder. And I'm asking us to remember that at its bottom, what stewardship is all about is what God has for us in this verse: "Present your body, " not somebody else's. Present you, not someone else.
Let me tell you a story. This was two--I was the interim pastor at a church two interims ago. A wonderful church. I won't tell you which one, because I want to tell you a story about it. One of the men--one of the terrific men in this congregation (he was 76 years old and he raced race cars--quite the active person). But one Sunday he took me aside and he said, "Now, Will, I just want you to know I support the needs of this church very, very generously when it's a particular cause like a new roof, or a particular missionary. You know, I designate. I never contribute to the general fund." I said, "Well, that's very interesting. Why not?" He said, "Because of Angela Davis."
Now, some of us don't remember who Angela Davis is, and that's a good thing! And if you don't remember who Angela Davis is, I don't need to explain it to you now and I don't think I can explain it to you now. Just suffice it to say back in 1970, there was a political radical named Angela Davis that the Presbyterian Church nationally became associated with. Shall we just kind of leave it at that? Is that good enough? It was very, very controversial. It made some people hopping mad, so that just a couple years ago I'm talking to somebody and he's saying, "You know, I don't contribute to the church's general fund because of what the national church did in 1970." And then he said, "But, see, I think that's OK because my giving is just between me and God."
Now, of course, as you know, I'm a very gracious guy in one-on-one conversations, so I didn't challenge him. That's not necessarily my style. But I walked away and I'm going, "He says that his giving is just between him and God. No, it's not. It's between him and God and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1970! He's got a three-way thing going: Him, God, and Angela Davis. And because of Angela Davis, everything about how he responds to the call of God through this particular church is influenced." And right now I'm not even saying "influenced to the good" or "influenced to the bad," because some of us remember Angela Davis and you may be in exactly the same position. You might say, "Hey, Will, you were talking about me. I don't give to the general fund because of Angela Davis," in which case I would want to say to you, "Well, I don't give because of Angela Davis, either. I give because of Jesus."
That's not what I would say, but I'm not asking us to decide whether this is a beneficial or a malignant influence. I'm just asking us to notice that some of us have not a two-way you-and-God situation, but a you-and-God-and-whoever-the-Angela Davis-is-for-you. Whatever that other thing that prevents you from just standing in the presence of God and saying, "Lord, I understand. I'm here because I want to stand under."
I think we choose our Angela Davises sometimes. And forgive me for saying it this way, but in his mind, Angela Davis was a terrible, terrible person. Let's not debate that. Sometimes we choose our terrible, terrible people, not because they're so terrible, but because we don't understand how good God is. And if we understood how good God was, we'd kind of let those Angela Davises go.
Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we confess we don't understand. We don't stand under because we don't understand how good you are. Lord, we ask that you would set us free. Enable us, by your mercies, to present ourselves freely and innocently. And it's in the strong name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[Transcribed from an audiotape of the worship service on June 15, 2003.] |
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