Preached on Sunday, November 26, 2017
Scripture readings: Matthew 6:19-24; James 1:2-12.
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| Walking along Priest Rapids Lake, Columbia River Desert Aire/Mattawa, WA November, 2017 |
I remember one of those summers during my college career. It
was the summer of ’73. Summer was just beginning, and I had a farm job starting
soon.
I had to get ready. I was rummaging around the garage
looking for my farm gear. I found my work gloves, and I found my hat, and I
found my lunch box and my water jug. (Those are really important.) And I found
my work boots.
Now, my body was still growing in those days; taller not yet
wider. And I guess my feet were growing too. Those boots fit me just fine the
summer before; but now they were a little bit tight. They were just a half-size
too small.
I told myself that they would be all right. And the reason I
was working was to save my money, not to spend it (even before I made it) on
new boots.
But I learned fast that it just isn’t worth it; to wear
boots that don’t fit. It was horrible, and I bought those new boots just as soon
as I could. I was amazed then, as I always am, that such a seemingly little
thing can make you so miserable. I didn’t realize how important my feet were.
I’ve learned to be always amazed at another thing too…what I
a big baby I am about a little bit of pain, a little bit of inconvenience, a
little bit of frustration.
I get mad: mad at the car, mad at the computer, mad at the
plumbing, mad at my own brain when I have to go into the house two or three
times before I get in my car, because my brain won’t remember what I tell it to.
I get whiny. I want to inflict feelings of pity, and guilt,
and misery on others; over the slightest things.
Then I get mad at myself: not just at my brain but at my
heart. And I say, “Dennis! What’s the matter with you! You’re a Christian!
Where is your sense of perspective?”
Most of the things that make me mad or miserable are
nothing, or next to nothing. How on earth is that work boot going to ruin my
life? What does it matter if it takes a little patience, and time to get into
that darn car?
Maybe, sometimes, the thing that makes me mad or miserable isn’t
so small, after all. I have had some big troubles, and some huge failures.
Still, other people have had worse than I have.
And what about Jesus? He was rejected, and whipped, and
beaten, and spat upon, for me, and for you, and for the whole world. Jesus
carried a cross, and died on it, for the whole world, and for me, and for you.
Knowing what he’s done; how could I ever be mad? How could I
ever be miserable? The truth is that I have more blessings to count than I have
troubles: many, many more blessings than troubles.
Actually, the Bible lets us get mad. Paul says: “Be angry,
but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.” (Ephesians 4:26) By
which he basically means: “OK, if you are going to be mad, don’t let it make
you crazy or stupid. Let go of it fast. Don’t hold onto it.”
But then, James says: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when
you meet with trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2) “Count it all joy.”
Well, that’s what I try to do.
Then I discover another very interesting thing about myself
in the light of God’s word. I find that I am what James calls, “a double-minded
man, unstable in all his ways.”
At least, that is what I think I am. And if that is what I
am, then I am in real trouble, and maybe you are too.
But, I think we make ourselves hopeless only when we
misunderstand what James is talking about, in the first place. Because,
sometimes we read James as if he were saying, “God will not answer any prayer
of a person who is conflicted (double-minded) about anything.”
But that’s not what James is saying. He’s saying that what
the double-minded person won’t get from God is the wisdom they need in order to
see their way through their trials and troubles.
This is not because double-mindedness makes God mad. The
problem is that double-mindedness makes us blind; well, it makes us see double.
No good parent wants that for their child.
We make ourselves spiritually cross-eyed. God hates it when we
do that to ourselves, and he will not cooperate with us to let us go on doing that.
We will not see God’s wisdom about our life and our
situation. We will not see God’s wisdom about our trials and our troubles, only
because we are spiritual cross-eyed. When we can’t see beyond our anger and
misery, when we can’t manage to settle down in a single-minded faith, then we’re
in danger of being spiritually blind or deaf: blind and deaf to God.
Sometimes the Christian life has been called “peace with
God” Now this peace with God comes from God, alone. Peace with God comes from
the infinite and faithful love of God that is revealed in Jesus, on the cross and
in the resurrection. Jesus is God in the Flesh; God come down to our level, as
a true human: a tremendous mystery.
Somehow, on the cross, God himself bought us, owned us, and carried
us. God carried, on the cross, all our sins: all that divides us from him, and
from others, and from ourselves; all that lashes out against him, all that
hurts ourselves and others.
On the cross, God himself carried all our human nature, everything
that we call bad and everything that we call good. He carried us completely so that
we could become completely a new creation.
On the cross, God, himself, carried all of our potential.
God carried our potential for future everlasting joy, and peace, and fulfillment.
In Jesus, God carried all of our potential to live life with him now.
But on the cross the Lord also gave up everything else for
us. The Lord even lost himself, and he cried, “My God, my God! Why hast thou
forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)
Our peace comes from God who, on the cross, had nothing left
but us, and us alone. God carried us on his shoulders. God carried us, bleeding
through his wounds.
Our peace comes from having nothing but God on the cross,
nothing else and nothing less. Our peace comes from one single source. Our
peace comes from one single place: God, alone.
Otherwise we become what Jesus said that his disciples could
not be. We become souls with two masters. (Matthew 6:24)
We have two masters whenever our peace comes from more than one
place. Is our peace double-minded? What if we were like Job, in the Old
Testament, who lost everything that gave him peace, except God?
When we read about Job, we can find that he was double-minded
for a while. He wanted his day in court with God, to demand answers. “Why are
you doing this God? Why is this happening to me?”
And the mystery is that God didn’t do anything to Job, and
yet God had a reason for it all happening, and once Job could make a
single-minded contact with God (or when God finally got through to Job), then
Job was satisfied. Job was satisfied without ever having received any answer to
his questions: because God only answered Job’s questions with more questions.
The only answer that Job received was God himself. He was
satisfied by simple seeing God as God is in himself. Job said, “My ears had
heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5) It was enough to have
God.
Job didn’t need an answer anymore. If he had, he would have returned
to the state of mind of being a man whose peace was double-minded; a peace that
came from receiving answers that met with his own personal approval, not from
having God alone.
God wants us to have his peace, which came when he carried the
cross for us. Our peace comes from the place where God had nothing at all but
us alone. God wants us to be his children, who have a life that comes from him
alone.
But what if our life, or our meaning in life, or our peace,
comes from our work? What if it comes from our physical strength, and ability,
and good health? What if it comes from our brain-power? What if it comes from
our senses: our sight and hearing? What if it comes from our money or our toys?
What will happen to us then?
When being a child of God means having your life come from
God, alone, and not from all these other sources, God may have to claim us by
cutting off all those other sources. Do we dare to hope otherwise?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the German theologian who was
imprisoned and executed for his involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate
Hitler) once preached these words. He said: “There are many Christians who do
indeed kneel before the cross of Jesus Christ, and yet reject and struggle
against every tribulation in their own lives. They believe they love the cross
of Christ, and yet they hate that cross in their own lives. And, so, in truth,
they hate the cross of Jesus Christ as well, and in truth despise that cross
and try, by any means possible, to escape it.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Treasures
of Suffering”, in Meditations on the Cross, p. 41)
When we get mad and miserable, and we have every good reason
to do so, we still need to ask, “OK, Lord, please give me wisdom about just
this one thing. Where does this anger tell me that my heart is? Where does this
misery tell me that my treasure is?”
This is what it means to pray, “God, I don’t want to be
double-minded anymore. Until now, I have wanted things both ways. Now I am
ready for your way.”
Now, that is the prayer of faith that God will always answer.
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