Standards

First draft of the sermon for October 1, 2011

North Hill Adventist Fellowship

On Monday, I walked into Valley Medical Center and signed a piece of paper giving the medical staff pretty much total freedom to do whatever they thought necessary. Since I was a little wobbly on my feet, they put me in a wheel chair and some one pushed me down the hall, into an elevator, down another hall to some distant department whose name I don't remember.

I crawled onto a bed and allowed total strangers to take over my life. There were two or three nurses. There was a really old guy who looked kind of funny. I don't think he was a nurse. He wasn't a doctor. I don't know what his title was. He went and got a warm blanket for me a couple of times.

Eventually, a doctor came in. I had met him for the first time earlier that morning at his office.

Once the doctor got there, a nurse gave an injection that I knew was going to make me unconscious. At that point I would be truly, totally at the mercy of strangers. They could have put me in a car and shipped me off somewhere else. They could have gone through my wallet. They could have walked away and left me there for hours. I would be absolutely incapable of opposing anything those people wished to do. I would be unable to remember anything they did.

It's kind of an interesting experience – putting your life in the hands of complete strangers.

But I wasn't worried. Why? Because of standards. Every step of the process was guided by standards of care. The paper work, doses of drugs, the way the various electrodes were attached, what they did with my shoes – everything was governed by best practices, by routines that have been developed over decades of hospital practice.

The doctor looked like a kid. But I wasn't worried. He was not inventing some new procedure just for me. He was not going to be creative. He was going to something is done thousands of times by thousands of doctors all over the country. I was being treated according to standards. And because of that I was completely at ease.

The procedure worked. When I went to sleep, my heart was beating irregularly leaving me weak and faint. When I woke up, my heart was beating with a steady rhythm. They called Karin. She came and picked me up and once the anesthesia had completely worn off I felt as good as new. I was ready run a few miles.

Standards are a wonderful thing.

Jesus talked about standards for church life:

If you cause one of the little ones who believe in Jesus to sin, it would better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and to be heaved into the ocean. Matthew 18:6

The first standard for church life: Don't hurt kids. It would be better to put on a pair of concrete boots and have a mafioso drop you in Commencement Bay.

This is not an ideal. It is not a dream we work, hoping some day we'll finally figure it. This is a standard – the minimum acceptable level of performance. Don't hurt kids.

If you are hurting kids, we will do everything we can to stop you. We will not allow you access to kids here at church. Don't call kids names. Don't berate them. Don't neglect them. (This is starting to get challenging.)

We can walk into a hospital, place ourselves in the hands of a bunch of strangers, people we have never met, and do so with confidence because of standards. Minimum acceptable levels of performance.

It should be the same at church. Our standards should protect people.

What are the appropriate standards for the church? What are the minimum acceptable levels of performance?

Don't hurt the kids is a pretty good place to begin. Expanding on this concern for kids,

Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray fort hem. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. Matthew 19:13-15

“Do not hinder them.” That's a pretty broad command. It's a challenge. Do our kids see church as a welcoming place, a welcoming community? Do we fuel their dreams or stifle them? Does our life with God entice them or repel them?

Do our rules help them or harm them?

A second standard:

If you will not forgive people who have wronged you, God will not forgive you. Matthew 6:15.

“ . . . this is how your father in heaven will treat you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. Matthew 18:21-35.

The church is to be a community of mercy. Love our enemies, do good to those who despitefully use us. On occasion Jesus could be stern, but that was not the dominant tone of his ministry. He was not a scowling condemner of evil people, but a generous savior. He was the Lord of the Second Chance as the song puts it. He regarded people with hope and good will. And so should we.

It is a horrible embarrassment that in the United States, self-described Christians are more vocal in favor of war and capital punishment than the general population.

Forgiveness is not an ideal. It is not something we aim it. It is a standard. It is a minimum acceptable level of performance. If we do not practice forgiveness, we are not Christians. (In the Q&A time, we can talk about the experience of forgiveness. The experience is frequently messy and difficult. This standard was not given by Jesus as a barrier to participating in his kingdom. It was given to safeguard the kingdom from becoming a hideout for people who use “righteousness” as a cover for anger, bitterness and resentment.)

A third standard:

If you call your brother a fool, you are in danger of hell fire. Matthew 5.

In the church, God's church, we are required to show respect for those we disagree with. Jesus forbade us from calling those who are in error, idiots. It is always tempting to demonize those we disagree with. We assume any one with a modicum of intelligence and integrity will see things the way we do. It is so easy to dismiss those who see it otherwise as being idiotic or perverse. Jesus established the standard: If you call your brother a fool, you are in danger of hell fire. So don't do it. And don't listen to those who do.

One of the dangers of talk radio is getting sucked into the scorn and derision that characterize so much of it. Don't spend time listening to scorn and derision. It is toxic to spiritual health.

The most famous list of standards is the Ten Commandments. Lying, stealing, killing, philandering are not permitted. Period. Don't do that. Sabbath-breaking and trashing our parents are not tolerated among us.

Jesus stated emphatically that he had no intention of relaxing that standard. Instead, he raised the standard.

Here are North Hill, I'm advocating that we add some standards.

Adventists have long made not eating pork a standard in our concern for health. I want to add a new standard:

Exercise every day. Once a day do something. If you go to the store, park an extra fifty feet from the door. If you can't walk, do curls with a can of beans or a jar of jelly. If your arms don't work, stretch your neck and work on range of motion, side to side. Do something, every day.

If you didn't do something yesterday, do two somethings today.

In the area of money, Adventists have echoed the Bible teaching of devoting ten percent of our income to God. I'd like to propose an additional standard: I want everyone to have a $1000 dollar emergency fund. As Dave Ramsey advocates, get an extra job, sell something, fast. Do whatever it takes to set up a $1000 dollar emergency fund.

Why because life works better that way.

Do you need $1000 for God to love you? No. Do you need $1000 in order to be saved? No. Do you need $1000 in order to qualify for membership in the church? No.

But when you have a $1000 dollar emergency fund, it eases the stress of life. It smooths things out.

Of course, there are exceptions for every rule. Jesus and his disciples carried a lot of money around with them. At the last supper Jesus instructed his disciples to carry a money bag. But at least once during their training Jesus sent the twelve out on the road with no money, no food, no extra clothes. Standards are made for ordinary situations. They are made for most of us most of the time.

And most of us, most of the time, should have an emergency fund equal to a month's rent, or a major car repair, or the cost of replacing the refrigerator or furnace in our house. Having that emergency fund protects us from the onerous cost of pay day loans and the terrible burden of worry.

But if you've been out of work for a long time, or you have some other exceptional situation, this may be completely irrelevant. But for ordinary life, for young people who are building their lives and creating the habits they are going to pass on to their children, having a $1000 emergency fund should be regarded as a standard. It is something that smart people do.

The same with doing some exercise every day. It is not a condition for getting God to love you. Failing to meet this standard will not damn you. It will increase your risk for being sick and in pain. Failing to meet this standard will decrease your quality of life.

And God wants to increase your quality of life.

Its the same with Adventist standards on tobacco and alcohol. These arise from our desire to help each live well. Smoking causes cancer and emphysema and accelerates aging of the skin on your face (Most people will interpret that as being less beautiful.) So don't do it.

Alcohol use is associated with domestic violence and, of course, alcoholism. Not everyone experiences these dire consequences, but enough people do that we want to create a society where avoidance of alcohol is part of the culture.

I am here today, healthy and vigorous because the doctors and nurses at Valley Medical Center practiced the standards of care for people with Afib.

God created the church as a hospital for people like us – regular people with checkered histories who need the assurance of forgiveness, the promise of a better future and help living well here and now. Let's make sure that our standards of care for one another and for the strangers who bless us promote hope and health and healing.

It's what we're here for.