CHRISTIANITY 101
February 2, 2014, The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Micah 6: 1-3, 6-8; Matthew 5: 1-12
Michael L. Lindvall, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York
Theme: The core of Christianity is the ethics of relationship.
Let us pray: May your word in scripture burn in our hearts, O God. May it warm
hearts grown cold, may it soften hearts grown hard, may it comfort troubled
hearts, may it discomfort hearts fallen into too easy comfort. And now may the
words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
I don’t often tell jokes in sermons, but I’ve got one today. Once upon a time, a
Chinese emperor gathered the greatest scholars in his kingdom and asked them to
collect all the wisdom of the world and write it down so he could read it and be
himself wise. They came back 10 years later with a library of 10 volumes – all the
wisdom of the world. The Emperor was aghast at the prospect of reading so many
books; he told his experts to condense it to something more manageable. They
came back five years later with a single volume. Still too long, the Emperor
objected, “Condense it.” So the scholars disappeared for a few months and came
back with a single page – the wisdom of the world in 500 words. The testy
Emperor was still not satisfied and sent them back to whittle it down yet more.
They came back with one sentence.
Now, when you tell this joke you can insert whatever single sentence you want at
this point. But for it to work, that single sentence has to be unexpected, maybe
ironic or even cynical. The version of the joke I heard had the scholars bring back
this single sentence for the Emperor: the wisdom of the world reduced to eight
words. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
That may or may not be true on Wall Street, but I have to tell you that, at a spiritual
level, it’s precisely NOT true. With all my being, I trust that God loves me, God
-1* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
loves you, God loves this ragged old world simply because God loves, indeed God
IS love. We don’t earn it; we can’t deserve it; it’s a gift, it is free.
This business of condensing things, summing wisdom up in a few words, radical
digesting of truth, is both important and dangerous at the same time. It’s important
because people really do want and need the short of it. People ache for the bottom
line; they want to know the core truth, the sum of it. On the other hand,
condensation is dangerous because as soon as you condense, you run the risk of
reductionism. You’re in danger of oversimplifying that which is inherently
complex. When you squeeze the truth down too small, it can become just that –
too small.
Now that I have offered that caveat, I can tell you that the Bible often does
condense truth down to manageable size. In fact, in today’s service of worship
there at least seven places where the core of the Christian faith is effectively
condensed to a few sentences. You might want to look at your programs as I walk
you through these instances of condensation in today’s service.
First, in words from the 15th Psalm that are today’s Call to Worship, the Psalmist
asks a bottom line question, “Oh Lord, who may abide in your tent?” Condensed
answer, “Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right.”
Next, at the bottom of the left column of today’s bulletin, there’s “The Reading of
the Law.” As a part of that rubric, Kira read two passages from the Bible, the Ten
Commandments and Jesus’ “Summary of the Law.” You might say that the Ten
Commandments are the short version of the 613 commandments traditionally
counted in the Old Testament. That second passage Kira read is Jesus’ answer to a
condensation question that he was asked one day, “Teacher,” he was asked, “What
is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus answers by reducing the entire
Torah to two core commandments: “Love God,” “Love others.”
Next, both of today’s lectionary Bible readings, the first read by Isabella and the
second read by her and sung by our Junior and Youth Choirs, are also essentially
condensations. Each one slims truth down to a lean core. First, the Prophet Micah
answers his own rhetorical keep-it-simple question, “With what shall I come
-2* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
before the Lord? His ten-word answer? “…Do justice, love kindness, and walk
humbly with your God.” The second Bible passage we heard read and sung is the
first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’
description of how things ought to be in the world, that is to say the “Kingdom of
Heaven” would look like. In the part of the Sermon on the Mount we heard today,
Jesus “blesses” what he’s fundamentally calling people to become. His list
includes humility of sprit, mercy, purity of heart, zeal for peace and hunger for
righteousness, that is, “to do what is right.”
Finally, at the very end of this service, I’m going to send you out into the world
with the charge and blessing I use many if not most Sundays. It also is essentially
a condensation of Christian faith. It’s gleaned from several passages in the
writings of the Apostle Paul: “Hold fast to that which is good; return no one evil
for evil; strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak; help suffering; honor all
people…”
So…. in just one Sunday morning service, there are no fewer than seven
“Christianity 101” summaries of the faith. Each one is shaped differently. Each
employs distinct language. Each makes use of unique rhetoric, but…here comes a
condensation of this sermon…they all have one thing in common. One thread runs
through them all.
Every one of them is about how you treat other human beings. Each of these
condensations of Christian faith insists that at the hot core of our faith is the ethics
of relationships. Mercy is not an add-on. Justice is not incidental. Compassion is
not an option. Love is the hot core of the faith. Oh, what we believe matters; how
we worship matters, the loveliness of the building matters, Bible studies matter,
Sunday School matters. But nothing matters like how we actually treat other
people. As the old camp song has it, “They’ll know we are Christians by our
love.” Hopefully.
In the first sermon I ever preached at Brick, eleven-and-a-half years ago now, I felt
that I owed it to you to let you know what your new minister thought was most
important. So on the 8th of September of 2002, I preached a sermon rather like this
-3* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
one. It was called “The Bottom Line.” I ended that sermon with a story that I’m
going to tell you again today. It’s a story about what matters most.
Ryan White was a teenager from Indiana who was infected with HIV from a blood
transfusion. He developed AIDS and died in the 1990s. He co-wrote an
autobiography in the years after his illness began and called it Ryan White: My
Own Story.
In one chapter, Ryan talks about going to his church.
“Then came Easter Sunday. Normally, at our church, the whole
congregation says, ‘Happy Easter!’ to each other in this way: Our minister
steps forward to the front pew, shakes a few parishioners’ hands, and says,
‘Peace be with you.’ Then those people turn to their neighbors and shake
their hands, and so on, all the way to the back of the church, where we were
sitting.
The family in the pew in front of me turned around. I held out my hand – to
empty air. Other people’s hands were moving every which way, in all
directions away from me. No one in the whole church wanted to shake my
hand and wish me peace on Easter.
My family and I filed out of the church in silence . . . Grandpa said grimly,
‘I’m never going back.’ And he didn’t.
It wasn’t over yet. As Mom, Andrea, and I turned out of the church parking
lot, our transmission died in the middle of the traffic lane. Grandpa and
Grandma had already gone, so Mom tried to flag down some other cars
leaving church. But no one would stop. A half hour or so went by, and then
finally a man in a truck pulled away from the auto parts store across the
street, nosed up behind us, and pushed our car over to the side of the road.
Our rescuer climbed out of his truck and asked Mom, ‘Need a lift home?’
-4* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Mom took a deep breath and said, ‘First, I better tell you who we are,’ and
she did. The truck driver shrugged. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ he said. He
drove us home. A couple of months later he stopped by and invited me
hang-gliding.”
A lot of things mattered in that church in Kokomo that Sunday 25 years ago. The
flower arrangements mattered. The integrity of the liturgy mattered. How good
the sermon was mattered. But nothing mattered nearly as much as how people
acted toward that vulnerable child of God that day.
Christianity 101: The physical condition of the church building is important. It
matters that the church’s budget is more-or-less balanced. Fine liturgy matters
very much. Good music is so important. Faithful theology is critical... But
nothing – nothing but nothing – matters like simply doing the right thing to other
human beings: love, justice, mercy, kindness, compassion. Christianity 101.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
-5* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.