October 15, 2006
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Living
the Life
Mark
10:17-31
The story goes that: “A young soldier and his commanding officer got on
a train together. The only available
seats were across from an attractive young woman who was traveling with her
grandmother. As they engaged in
pleasant conversation, the soldier and the young woman kept eyeing one another;
the attraction was obviously mutual. Suddenly
the train went into a tunnel and the car became pitch black.
Immediately two sounds were heard: the ‘smack’ of a kiss, and the
‘whack’ of a slap across the face. The grandmother thought ‘I can’t
believe he kissed my granddaughter, but I’m glad she gave him the slap he
deserved.’ The commanding officer
thought, ‘I don’t blame the boy for kissing the girl, but it’s a shame
that she missed his face and hit me instead.’
The young girl thought, ‘I’m glad he kissed me, but I wish my
grandmother hadn’t slapped him for doing it.’
And as the train broke into the sunlight, the soldier could not wipe the
smile off his face. He had just
seized the opportunity to kiss a pretty girl and slap his commanding officer and
had gotten away with both!”
It’s brilliant, isn’t it? You
break all the rules and you come out of it smelling like a rose.
It would be something if it really worked like that, wouldn’t it?
I think the way things usually work, the soldier would have stumbled and
kissed the grandmother in the dark, and hit the officer just as the light came
back into the train. The girl would
have said, “Why did he kiss my grandmother and not me?
He must be some kind of perv!”, and slapped the soldier.
But, like the soldier, we still keep hoping that can really get by with
something. We want to have our sins
forgiven, but we don’t want to stop our sinning.
We want Jesus to be our loving Savior, but we don’t want him as our
Sovereign Lord. We want to be
thought of as a good soldier, while doing things in the dark that are not what
we should be doing.
I think that there are many Christians who are not really living the
life, because they are not willing to wholeheartedly follow Jesus, especially if
things get difficult. Part of the
problem is that we have a distorted idea of what it means to live the Christian
life. For many, it is only about
being forgiven and going to heaven. It
is almost as if many Christians think that what they do doesn’t matter.
Or if it does matter, God will simply forgive them.
A lot of people live as though the Christian life is only a matter of
rules. But it is not about rules, it
is about a whole new way of life — not just a new way of acting, but a new way
of thinking, a new way of feeling, a new way of seeing the world.
It is a new way of living with God and other people.
It’s about a new way of treating the people in your family.
It’s about a new confidence in life, because you know that this is
God’s world and he has not given up on it.
Living by rules often keeps us from seeing Christianity as a way of life.
I often hear people who are very concerned about the fact that prayer is
not allowed in school. I have to
admit that I have very little concern over that.
What concerns me is that there is no prayer in our homes.
I am not so concerned over the fact that Bible reading is not permitted
in our schools as I am the fact that there is no Bible reading in our homes.
I am not so concerned that the schools are not teaching creationism as I
am the fact that we are not engaging our children in spiritual conversation at
home. We don’t change the culture
by changing its laws. We change the
culture by changing people — and it must begin with us.
So when you don’t pray with your family or read the Bible together, you
have lost your right to complain about it not being done in our schools.
Live the life, and don’t expect someone else to do what is your
responsibility. Somehow we think the
rules we want to impose on others don’t apply to us.
The Scripture says, “If you are convinced that you are a guide for the
blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a
teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and
truth — you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?” (Romans
2:19-21).
Legalism is so easy to see in others, and not so easy to see in
ourselves. We understand it in the
Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They
loved rules, and they were always making new ones.
The problem is that they did not just make rules for themselves, they
wanted everyone else to follow their rules.
Be clear that I am not talking about major moral rules that are from God
and clearly outlined in Scripture, I am talking about man-made rules that had
very little to do with a person’s relationship with God — although they
insisted they did.
Jesus was incensed at those who made these kinds of rules and said,
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin.
But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice,
mercy and faithfulness. You should
have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
You blind guides! You strain
out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe
to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of
greed and self-indulgence. Blind
Pharisee! First clean the inside of
the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but
on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.
In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on
the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23:23-28).
On another occasion, the Scripture says, “The Pharisees and some of the
teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw
some of his disciples eating food with hands that were ‘unclean,’ that is,
unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the
Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to
the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat
unless they wash. And they observe
many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, ‘Why don’t your
disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their
food with “unclean” hands?’ He
replied, ‘Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is
written:
These people
honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of
men” (Mark 7:1-8).
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day turned living for God into living
by a set of rules. They said it was
all about how you washed your hands, how you washed cups and dishes, how you
tithed herbs, what you did on the Sabbath — how far you walked, the weight of
what you carried or whether what you were doing on the Sabbath could be
considered work. They walked around
looking for people who broke the rules and condemned them.
But Jesus defined living for God in terms of a relationship.
Listen as the Bible describes one scene: “One of the teachers of the
law came and heard them debating. Noticing
that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the
commandments, which is the most important?’
‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind and with all your strength.” The
second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
There is no commandment greater than these’” (Mark 12:28-31).
The most important rule, Jesus said, was about a relationship — it was
about loving God. We are still
making man-made rules, aren’t we? Over
the years I have seen Christians make the Christian life all about how you
dress, whether or not you wear jewelry, whether you play cards, watch movies,
smoke, drink or dance. You may not
do any of those things, but what about your relationship with God?
Do you love him? Do you love
other people? You may believe all
the right things, but are you mean and surly, judgmental and cross?
You are obeying all the religious rules, but are your relationships are a
mess? You have all the minor things
down, but you find it hard to forgive. You
read the Scripture, pray and attend church, “But you have neglected the more
important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness.”
You are “straining out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
I really wish it was about a few rules; it would be so much easier.
If it were simply a few things I should avoid, I could do that.
But it is much more difficult to seek the
kingdom
of
God
over my own little kingdom, love my neighbor, forgive my enemy, live as a
servant, have a pure mind, practice kindness, and love God with all my strength.
I wish it was all about what I should not do, rather than what I should
be doing like being selfless, putting others first, letting go of grudges, and
overlooking insults — the kinds of things Jesus actually talked about.
It would be a lot easier to stop going to movies or watching TV, than it
is to have a passion for God, seek the kingdom with my whole heart, long for his
righteousness, and live with joy and enthusiasm because of a deep, abiding faith
and trust in God. Those are the
things I find difficult. Kingdom
living is far more difficult, I find, than keeping a few rules.
Two stories this past week have captured the attention of the media.
The first is the story of hypocrisy, and the second is the story of
authenticity. At the height of the
Monica Lewinsky scandal, a young Republican congressman from
Florida
condemned President Clinton on moral grounds for having a relationship with a
White House intern. He said,
“It’s vile. It’s more sad than
anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain
because of a sexual addiction.” The
congressman who made that statement to the press was Mark Foley.
He has served six terms in the Congress, and has been known for crusading
against sexual predators and Internet pornography.
But he has now resigned in disgrace because of reports that he sent lurid
e-mails and instant messages to teenage boys who served as congressional pages.
Everyone dislikes a hypocrite, and unfortunately, we have plenty of them
parading as Christians — people who say one thing and do another.
It is the number one reason people say they do not come to church.
But there are many genuine and authentic people as well.
The second story that toped the media headlines this week was the
execution-style murders of five Amish school girls in Nickel Mines,
Pennsylvania
. I watched as reporters struggled
to understand the families and other members of the community who said that they
forgave the shooter — 32-year-old Charles Roberts.
And it was not just words, for they not only sent word to Robert’s
family that they had forgiven him, they went to Roberts’ funeral, invited his
family to their community and started a fund for his children.
Ann Curray on NBC’s web site reports on the incredible faith of the
Amish people. She says, “This
forgiveness seems especially incredible, coming on the same day the coroner is
being reported to have counted almost 20 bullet wounds in the body of a
7-year-old girl. An Amish woman told
me perhaps the good that might come of this tragedy is, ‘We can tell people
about Christ and actually show you in our walk that we forgive, not just say it,
but in our walk of life. You know
you have to live it, you can’t just say it.’”
Ann Curry ended by saying, “I realize I did not know what forgiveness
was until now.” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15134112/)
I am sure the Amish families who lost their children wish that living the
Christian life was only about wearing home-made clothes, riding around in
buggies and living without electricity. It
would be much easier if that was all it was about, rather than forgiving someone
who had committed an atrocity against your child.
But living the life the way Jesus taught transforms us from the inside
out. It not only changes what we do,
it changes who we are.
Ravi Zacharias recently wrote: “In the novel The
Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde describes an exceptionally handsome
young man so captivating that he drew the awestricken adulation of a great
artist. The artist asked him to be
the subject of a portrait for he had never seen a face so attractive and so
pure. When the painting was
completed, young Dorian became so enraptured by his own looks that he wistfully
intoned how wonderful it would be if he could live any way he pleased but that
no disfigurement of a lawless lifestyle would mar the picture of his own
countenance. If only the portrait
would grow old and he himself could remain unscathed by time and way of life.
In Faustian style he was willing to trade his soul for that wish.
One day, alone and pensive, Dorian went up to the attic and uncovered the
portrait that he had kept hidden for so many years, only to be shocked by what
he saw. Horror, hideousness, and
blood marred the portrait. The
charade came to an end when the artist himself saw the picture.
It told the story. He pled
with Dorian to come clean, saying, “Does it not say somewhere, ‘Though your
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’?”
But in a fit of rage to silence this voice of conscience, Dorian grabbed
a knife and killed the artist. There
was now only one thing left for him to do; he took the knife to remove the only
visible reminder of his wicked life. But
the moment he thrust the blade into the canvas, the portrait returned to its
pristine beauty, while Dorian lay stabbed to death on the floor.
The ravages that had marred the picture now so disfigured him that even
his servants could no longer recognize him.”
Ravi
closes by saying, “We too, face Dorian Gray’s predicament.
Sooner or later, a duplicitous life reveals the cost.
The soul is not forever invisible. But
there is one who can cleanse and restore us.
The Scriptures give us extraordinary insight into this subject of our
soul-struggle, and God deals with the heart of the issue one life at a time.
Indeed, hear the words of the prophet Isaiah to which Oscar Wilde
alluded: ‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD.
‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though
they be red as crimson, they shall be like wool’ (1:18).
So come, friend, willingly and obediently, and find God’s rejoinder to
the marred portrait within. The
greatest artist of all speaks even today.”
Rodney
J. Buchanan
October
15, 2006
Mulberry
St. UMC
Mount Vernon
,
OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Mulberry
Street United Methodist Church