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Scripture Lesson: 1 John 3: 1-7
Dr. Matthew S. Brown
It struck me as, well, rather
funny, enough so, that the offhand comment has stuck with me for some 20
years. I had agreed to chauffeur a
couple of middle school students to a youth group activity and was pulling out
of one student’s driveway somewhere off of
Now, I was new to this whole
ministry “thang” and was feeling totally, or I should say “like totally” (That
was the way you said things in the mid-eighties). So, I was feeling “like totally” inadequate
for the task, but some inkling of some lesson I was supposed to have learned in
seminary filled me with the sudden intuition that it was my high calling to
engage these children of the church, these conspicuous consumers of Clearasil,
these Dorito addicted disciples in conversation. So, flipping through the small-talk manual I
passed over “How ‘bout this weather?” or “How ‘bout that new Madonna video?” (Especially since I had not seen the new Madonna video). I finally settled on the usually fail-safe
question, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Of course, I was keeping my eyes on the road and
therefore could not see the inevitable rolling of the eyes, but one of the
students without any hesitation, with complete earnestness, with no hint of
self-doubt, matter of factly said, “Well, I’m either going to be a neurosurgeon
or a fashion model.”
How do you respond to
that? Vera Wang meets Marcus Welby. She had no sense of how disparate,
disconnected, and schizophrenic that sounded.
And there was something in the way she said it that sounded incomparably
self-assured, as though there would be no obstacles in her path, as though
attaining these vocations would be no more challenging than choosing what side
item you wanted with your Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, as though her beauty and
smarts were so self-evident, I should have guessed it before I even asked the
question. “Duh, like I’ll either be a neurosurgeon or
a fashion model.”
Of course,
how obtuse of me. It’s been twenty years,
I wonder what she is doing today?
“Hi, I’m Dr. Young and I’ll
be repairing your herniated disk today while wearing a daring red chiffon
backless halter from the Donna Karan Haute Couture Summer Surgical
Collection.” “Nurse Jones, cancel my
I guess it could happen. Big dreams. Outsized expectations. Olympic flames, after all, are sparked by the
fire and drive burning in individual hearts.
Your first grade teacher reads The Little Engine That Could, planting in
your developing self concept that all important word - possibility.
And what was it that Dr.
Seuss said?
Oh! The places you’ll go
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great
sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because
you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang
and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be
the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top
all the rest.”
Big dreams
and outsized expectations. Instilling in our minds and hearts the seeds
of possibility.
Certainly, the voice of the
church joins the chorus, affirming the goodness of what God created in
you. We too, wouldn’t want you leaving
today without thinking about what is possible tomorrow.
But what about those times
and places where our self-confidence has slapped down our humble spirit,
trespassing into a territory that is God’s alone.
The church always faces the
daunting challenging of balancing the concepts of possibility and
humility. For when those fall out of
balance, pride pulls us from God and neighbor, and life becomes all about
me. Look at me! Admire me!
Honor me! Pay attention to
me! We broadcast our strengths and
ignore or deny our weaknesses.
Have you ever been involved
in a job interview? Why is it that we
can’t bring ourselves to express our weaknesses? Have you ever noticed that? The interviewer says, “You’ve told us about
your strengths. Now, tell us about your
weaknesses.”
Why can’t we be honest with
this question? Why do we inevitably, at
this point, seek to make any weaknesses sound like strengths - “I probably work harder than what
could be considered healthy.” “I
probably try to accomplish too much.”
“I’m too hard on myself.” “I just
don’t like to disappoint anybody.” “I
haven’t learned how to say no.” “I
expect too much from myself.”
We can’t bring ourselves to
expose any weaknesses for fear that the possibility of the job will disappear.
But in the context of the
Christian faith, possibility is not about whether or not we have weaknesses,
for we all have weaknesses. Possibility
is about Christ overcoming our weaknesses with his strength.
Can we achieve? Can we accomplish? Can we attain? Yes, we can, but not by our own strength,
only through the power of Christ at work in us.
“I can do all things THROUGH him who strengthens me,” Paul says, and
elsewhere, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one
may boast.”
Do you see the shift
here? From self
confidence to confidence in Christ?
Years ago, when new members
made their profession of faith, they were asked this question. “Do you believe you are a sinner in the sight
of God, justly deserving his displeasure and without hope except in his
sovereign mercy?” In other words faith
is never our accomplishment, but Christ’s gift to us. Faith is humility and possibility joined
together through the love of Jesus Christ.
It is important to understand
this as we approach a most curious, confusing, and perplexing statement in
John’s epistle. Following a wonderfully
phrased expression of God’s love for us, to which we’ll return in a moment,
John makes this statement: “No one who abides in him (meaning Christ) sins; no
one who sins has either seen him or known him.”
At first, I thought maybe I
had misread this, so I read it again, “No one who abides in him sins; no one
who sins has either seen him or known him.”
Is that true to your
experience? It’s certainly not true to
my experience. And I would be most
suspicious of anyone who claimed it was true to their experience. It makes the practice of faith sound like the
middle school student who thinks that becoming a neurosurgeon is “no
sweat”. “No sin? No problem, haven’t done it in years anyway.”
And yet, I know that sin is
not only crouched at the door, it’s invited itself in and has started picking
out draperies. Whenever I hear someone
pointing out and mocking the sin of others without acknowledging the sin within
them, I just know his or her mirror needs a good dose of Windex.
So what are we to do with this
text in 1 John? One scholar wrote that
the preacher might want to find another text on which to preach this week. Well, I wish I would have known that on
Monday!
This text is an important
argument for allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture. “No one who sins has either seen him or known
him?” But in this same letter isn’t it
also written, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is
not in us.”
Remember also, it was no less
than the apostle Paul who said, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do
it. For I do not do the good I want, but
the evil I do not want is what I do.” In
addition, who can forget that it was Peter, one so close to Christ, who denied
Christ three times.
And lest we forget, throughout his ministry Jesus reserved his severest
warnings and harshest judgment for those who regarded themselves as righteous
and without sin.
We know or at least we should
know that our confessions of faith do not free us from the struggle with
sin. In Christ, we are forgiven; in
Christ, for the first time there is the possibility that we might not sin. But there is no one, from the pious to the
profligate who does not struggle with sin in this life.
So what is it we are to take
from this curious statement in 1 John?
Maybe John is seeking to make a clear distinction between Jesus and
sin. Our sin is never a product of faith
and our sin is never prompted by Christ.
Indeed, Christ working faith in us creates the possibility that we may
not sin, and when we do resist sin, that is not our doing but is the Spirit of
Christ at work in us, which takes us back to the idea that faith is humility
and possibility joined together through the love of Jesus Christ.
It is this understanding that
makes the opening words of our text today so powerful. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we
are.”
Can we even begin to
comprehend the height, depth, width, and breadth of God’s love for us? A love that regards us as
righteous and wiped clean of sin though we have done nothing to deserve it. A love that looks beyond who we are, what
we’ve done and receives us as if we’re actually
worthy.
Taking an honest,
unflinching, and objective look at the record of our lives, anyone would see
we’ve been living on the up and up. Right? Screwed up,
messed up, and fouled up, ignoring the purpose of God, the needs of the
neighbor in the relentless, tunnel visioned quest for self-satisfaction and
self-importance. Yet, our Lord still
sees something in us like the mother who will not forsake a nursing child, like
the father who runs to welcome the prodigal home. See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.
Maybe you’ve heard Fred
Craddock’s story of his vacation encounter with an elderly man in a restaurant
outside
Isn’t it one of life’s little
joys that first vacation meal, the meal you don’t have to rush through to get
to the next meeting, the meal during which you’re not distracted by the
challenge of thinking through some work issue or how to respond to the
colleague or employee who’s pressing you to make the decision you are not
prepared to make, that meal where nobody will bring their troubles to you, that
meal where no deadlines loom? You sit
down in that cushioned seat and can literally feel all that stress flowing out
of you.
Well, for Craddock on that
evening, before the stress could find its way to the pores of his skin, an
elderly man looking for conversation came up and started with the
questions. Where are you from? Are you on vacation? What do you do?
Well, when you tell a
stranger you’re a minister you are either going to get a story, a discourse on
what’s wrong with today’s church or society, an awkward look and the 33 reasons
this person isn’t able to get to church, or a political monologue based on the
wrong assumption that you would naturally agree with him.
The elderly man pulled up a
chair. He had a story. And I’ll bet Craddock was getting a headache.
I owe a great deal to a
minister,” he
said.
I grew up in these
mountains. My mother was not married,
and the whole community knew it. I was
what was called an illegitimate child.
In those days that was a shame, and I was ashamed.
The reproach that fell on
her, of course, fell also on me. When I
went into town with her, I could see people staring at me, making guesses as to
who was my father. At school the
children said ugly things to me, and so I stayed to myself during recess, and I
ate my lunch alone.
“In my early teens I began to
attend a little church back in the mountains called Laurel Springs Christian
Church. It had a minister who was both
attractive and frightening. . . chiseled face... deep
voice. I went to hear him preach... However, I was afraid that I was not welcome
since I was, as they put it, a bastard child.
So I would just go in time for the sermon, and when it was over I’d
[slip] out because I was afraid someone would say, ‘What’s a boy like you doing
in church?’
“One Sunday some people
queued up in the aisle before I could get out, and I was stopped. Before I could make my way through the group,
I felt a hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand.
It was that minister... I trembled in fear. He turned his face around so he could see
mine and seemed to be staring for a little while. I knew what he was doing. He was going to make a guess as to who my
father was.
“A moment later he said,
‘Well boy, you’re a child of...’ and he paused there. And I knew it was coming. I knew I would have my feelings hurt. I knew I would not go back again.
He said, “Boy, you’re a child
of God. I see a striking
resemblance...’ Then, he swatted me on
the bottom and said, ‘Now, you go claim you’re inheritance.’”
The elderly man said, “I left
that building a different person. In
fact, that was really the beginning of my life.” (Craddock Stories)
Craddock, who had at first
been perturbed, was now moved and intrigued and he asked the man his name.
He said, “Ben Hooper.”
And Craddock somehow recalled
his father telling him when he was just a little boy how the people of
Faith is humility and
possibility joined together through the love of Jesus Christ. See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we
are. Amen.