Manage Your Eyes, Not Their Lives

Sermon for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists for July 29, 2017

Texts: Isaiah 58:1-8, Matthew 5:27-30

So let's jump right into it. If a man can't keep his peeping eyes out of women's dressing rooms, he should have himself blinded. If a man cannot keep himself from groping women, he should cut his hands off.

This idea is not original with me. It's a straightforward paraphrase of what Jesus said 2000 years ago.

If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Jesus makes many extreme statements. It would be a bad idea to turn them into literal rules.

Jesus said, “Take no thought for the morrow.” Don't even think about your future. Obviously, we don't want our children to do that literally. First question of an evening on a school night is, do you have any homework for tomorrow? When we teach our children about money, one of the foundation principles is savings. Part of every pay check should go for the future. A future so far out there that our kids can scarcely imagine it.

Still we appreciate Jesus' caution about robbing ourselves of enjoyment today by fretting about tomorrow. We understand Jesus' words to be a poetic summons to practice trust in God.

Jesus said, “If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other.” None of us can imagine literally doing this. If he's bigger, when he strikes you on one cheek, RUN! If things are a bit more even, if he strikes you on the cheek, prepare to defend yourself.

We do not take Jesus words about offering the other cheek literally. But we do take them seriously. We cultivate an attitude of forgiveness. We recognize the futility, the foolishness, of thinking we can make life better by hurting those who have hurt us.

These extreme statements by Jesus capture our attention. They call us to rethink our “natural” ways of thinking. Aim higher. And higher. Jesus is the supreme Spiritual Cross Fit trainer, pushing us way beyond what we thought was possible.

Which brings us to today's New Testament reading:

If your eye gets you into trouble, gouge it out.

If your hands get you in trouble cut them off.

What is Jesus trying to tell us?

Let's start with the most obvious and simple. Central in the creation order is the glorious, fiery attraction between men and women. Part of this magnetism is the powerful allure of feminine beauty. For most men, female beauty is nearly irresistible.

It is a short step from our awareness of our desire to imagining that our desire for a woman is permission from that woman for us to enter her space. From there it is another short step to imagining that if my desire is illicit, it's all her fault. Men make women responsible for male desire.

Jesus emphatically rejects the notion that women are responsible for managing male desire. Men are responsible for their own eyes and hands. Female beauty is neither permission nor command for men to do anything. It is simply a glorious, lovely fact.

It is part of the charm of creation. It what makes the world go round.

But, Jesus says. Do not confuse your desire with permission or command to engage with the person I desire.

I am responsible for where I place my eyes. I am responsible for what I do with my hands. Morality begins and ends with my management of myself. In the religion of Jesus morality, goodness, integrity is rooted in our own hearts not in the outward circumstances.

When we embrace this ethic, it creates a wonderful freedom. Freedom for happy relationships between men and women. Freedom for women to engage freely in the full range of society. Freedom for them to achieve their highest potential, and in the process enrich our entire society.

When men and women cultivate respect for one another, acknowledging the special charms and unique allure without in any way confusing my desire for the other person's permission, we are creating a safe world. Safe for ourselves. Safe for our children. Safe for those among us whose gender and sexuality does not match the usual, neat binary divisions.

Self-restraint is the very foundation of a holy, happy, healthy community.

Because we are sexual beings, self-control and mutual respect go a very long way toward creating a healthy society. And this challenge by Jesus goes far beyond sexuality. It touches the foundation of all harmonious relationships. We do right because that's who we are. Period.

We don't refuse to murder because the person who has so provoked us deserves kindness from us. No. We do not murder because we are not murderers.

When we see a nice bicycle on someone's porch, we don't leave it there because we might get caught if we stole it. No, we leave it there because we are not thieves.

We do not mock our political opponents because we are not mockers. We tell the truth because we are not liars. We obey the law, because we are lawful people.

If our eye causes us to sin, let's not blame the person or thing we have seen. Let's deal with our own hearts. And maybe, just maybe, we should quit looking. After my sermon on not calling people idiots, several of you said to me, but when I watch TV news and I see such and such, I can't help myself. I explode with anger and ugly words—in my mind if not out loud.

Well, then maybe you should quit watching. I do not watch any TV news. I read, but I do not watch because of that emotional impact, which can often distort the facts.

Last week Hanz talked about all the spankings he received when he was a kid. I got my share, but it sounded like he got more. If you are a parent and you are frequently spanking your child, the problem is not your child. Find a different and better form of discipline.

And if you are a guy who invades the space of women, stop it. Cut your hands off—metaphorically, of course—but still, cut your hands off. The problem is not the attractiveness of women. The problem is you. Fix it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was biking to an appointment in Ballard. I was peddling up a section of 50^th Street that is quite steep. I noticed a young woman running up the hill on the other side of the street. Her power moving uphill was impressive. She was a serious athlete. I stopped for a light and she crossed the street in front of me. As she ran in front of me I noticed she had beautiful, long legs. Once across the street, she turned and continued on up the hill moving crazy fast. The light changed and I stood on my peddles and did my own push up the hill. It was so steep that even though I was on a bike and she was on foot, I did not gain on the runner. In fact, she was pulling away from me. Finally the slope eased and I peddled past her. And again appreciated her amazing athleticism and her beauty.

I had already begun work on this sermon series. And as I continued on to my appointment I thought of the freedom she represented. In Saudi Arabia this young woman would have been forbidden to go running on a sunny afternoon in her shorts and T-shirt. In certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn dominated by Orthodox Jewish culture, she might well have been stoned. Some of us attended Adventist schools where she would have been called in by the girl's dean and admonished. But here she was free to luxuriate in the sun and warmth of a Seattle summer afternoon. Free to run like a gazelle. No one bothered her. No one grabbed her. She was free to run and dream of glory in whatever race she was training for.

The highest vision Jesus offers in the Sermon on the Mount is human living in the image of God. Jesus calls us to practice with one another the generosity of God. Our highest ambition is not to see how much we can seize, how much we can grab from others. Rather, responding to the call of JEsus, our highest ambition is to see how much we can give, how grand and magnanimous we can be.

For me that girl flying up 50^th Street is a picture of the beauty and freedom available when we embrace the principles of the kingdom of heaven. Most of us will never be able to run as strongly as that young woman. But we can delight in .her freedom and pledge ourselves to do all we can to ensure that the same freedom is there for our sisters and daughters and granddaughters. God gives freedom. We partner best with God when our generosity expands the freedom available to all God's children. This is the wisest, best use of our eyes and our hands.

Better Than Getting Even

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church for Sabbath July 22, 2017

I saw a picture on Facebook this week of Andrew Gagiu playing in a string quartet in a coffee house called Muddy Waters. The caption he wrote for the picture was “Sibelius in a coffee shop. Because why not?” When you're a musician, you make music. And a coffee shop is a venue begging for music.

Wednesday night I was at a meeting of the Green Lake Foundation. Frequently, in these meetings someone will point out the huge amount of volunteer service performed by someone else on the committee. And usually, the rebuttal to this affirmation comes when others on the committee point out that the person giving the commendations also makes heroic contributions of time and expertise to the work of the Foundation and more generally to the life of the congregation. Service, volunteering time and money and expertise, is a normal characteristic of being a member of this church. It's at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian.

The Gospel of Matthew has five teaching sections. The first, and most famous, is in chapters 5 through 7, and is called the Sermon on the Mount. I like to think of it as the constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven.

After presenting some foundational principles, Jesus lays out some rules for Christian living. His first rule is something everyone agrees on, Don't murder.

“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.”

As far as I know murder is prohibited in every human society. Even in a place like Saudi Arabia whose practice of the death penalty seems barbaric to us, even there, murder is prohibited. In Communist China, in liberal Sweden, even in places like Somalia, murder is regarded with repugnance. Murder is evil.

When Jesus stated, “You have heard that our ancestors were told, 'You must not murder.'” the crowd listening nodded their heads. Yes, we've heard that. We believe that.

I imagine Jesus asking the crowd, “Are you with me? Are you sure murder is wicked?”

“Yes.” The crowd called back.

He cups his ear with his hand, listening. “I can't hear you.

“Yes!” they call back good-naturedly.

“Good.” Jesus says. “So we're all agreed. Murder is evil. We shouldn't do it. So don't do it. Do not take the life of another.”

“But let's think for a minute. You didn't need me to tell you not to murder. You knew that already. For most of you, murder would be impossible. It would never even cross your mind. If it did, you would be appalled, horrified. I could sleep in your house and not worry about getting my throat slit in the night. You're good people. You would never murder me. You wouldn't even murder your brother who ripped you off when your father died. You wouldn't even murder your husband if he cheated on you. Most of you would not even consider murdering your husband if he beat you black and blue. Murder is awful, ugly, reprehensible, repugnant, disgusting, repulsive, abhorrent, unthinkable. Right? Right. I know it is. And you are decent people, so I'm safe.”

Then Jesus takes it a step further.

What is murder? Diminishing someone else's life. Draining the life out of them. And while murder in the literal sense is the monstrous final act of taking life, there are other ways we diminish life. And the most common is words.

If someone calls you an idiot, especially if it's someone you respect or someone you depend on—a teacher, a boss, your husband or wife, your parents, your kids—wow. It sucks the life out of you. It leaves you feeling worthless, damaged.

If that's how you feel when someone calls you an idiot, then don't use the word yourself. Or any other word that shrinks the life of another.

Don't call people slackers or losers, or fool or idiot. Don't say words that diminish other people.

Just don't.

And don't share posts on Facebook that use words like this.

Given the way social media permeates our lives, it is more important now than ever in human history that we embrace the Christian discipline of avoiding words that cut and slice, words that wound and ridicule.

In response to my post on Facebook announcing this week's sermon someone responded,

I love your choice of the word "obliterate". I have lost count of the times I have seen violent and hyperbolic synonyms of "destroy" applied to persons in the political (and religious) arena as indications of intent or expressions of gloat. The short list includes: annihilate, axe, butcher, cripple, crush, decimate, demolish, devastate, eradicate, exterpate, mangle, mutilate, nuke, pulverize, ravage, ruin, shatter, smash, snuff out, thrash, trash, vaporize, and waste. I am sure there are a few others that I should have recalled, but didn't.

..I forgot a few: injure, massacre, murder, and terminate. One would think we were talking about a contact sport.

Let's be crystal clear: Abrasive, crude language is evil. It is not Christian, not if by Christian we are referring to our highest ideals and values. Crude speech is evidence of a crudeness of heart. This principle is indisputable.

Jesus explicitly labels demeaning language as a damnable evil. So let's avoid it.

Jesus does not stop there.

So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. Matthew 5:21-24

Jesus calls us far beyond merely avoiding sharp, demeaning language. Every week as we prepare for worship, we should examine our lives for unresolved conflict. If we think of someone who is angry with us, someone who thinks we did them wrong. If there is someone like that in our memories, Jesus urges his followers to go seek reconciliation before continuing with their worship traditions. First be reconciled with that person, that real, live human being, someone you can touch—be reconciled with that person then come and worship.

As I meditated on this passage this week it struck me that if someone considers murdering another person, they imagine getting rid of a bad person. When someone murders another human being, it's usually because the murderer imagines the other person has done them some great evil and they are merely getting even. The murdered person got what they deserved. That's what the murderer thinks.

It's the same when we call other people names. We holler at them because they have done us wrong. They have annoyed us or harmed us or cheated us or failed us. We have suffered some loss, some wound because of them, so we imagine they deserve to receive some of their own medicine. We get even.

But we need to be careful about this getting even. When we have gotten even with someone, we have sunk to their level. Getting even never means elevating ourselves or the people with whom we are getting even. Getting even means everyone ends up in a lower place. Retribution is like gravity. It always takes people down.

Jesus called us to something better. When we pursue the kind of reconciliation Jesus describes here in these verses, we rise. And if the person with whom we are seeking reconciliation responds, they also rise. Getting even takes everyone down. Pursuing reconciliation raises everyone. This is our calling as Christians.

Later in the chapter Jesus comes back to this theme. Love your enemies. Jesus says. Do good to those who harm you. Then this: Act like God. Be as generous as God.

It's a impossibly high standard, still it is our goal.

Because we are Christians. That's what we do.

Musicians make music.

Christians seek reconciliation.

We can't always accomplish it, but our goal of is reconciliation. That's who we are.

Wednesday evening I had an hour before the quarterly meeting of the Green Lake Foundation, so I went for a run around Green Lake. I had just started running when I saw a couple of familiar faces coming my direction. It took me a second to place them. It was Matt and Betsy. We hadn't seen each other in awhile so we stopped and chitchatted a bit. Matt runs hundred mile races. Last October he ran the 120 mile Big Foot Race between Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens. They asked about my running and made happy noises about the race I completed in April. I asked about their running. Betsy was slightly apologetic. She had planned to run the Big Foot 100K this weekend, but then decided she had not trained adequately. So instead of running she and Matt volunteered to operate an aid station that is a seven mile hike from the nearest road.

They told me about a thirty mile loop in the mountains east of Enumclaw.

This is what runners do. They imagine trails. They talk about trails. When they can't run, they h elp other runners run. Every achievement becomes the foundation of a greater, faster, farther dream.

It's the same for us as Christians. We have a holy ambition. We aim to use words as agents of reconciliation and healing. If our words were helpful yesterday, we hope they will be even more helpful tomorrow. If we managed to accomplish some work of reconciliation, that success fuels our ambition for even greater accomplishments in the cause of justice and peace.

Our ambition is nothing short of becoming like God.

When a runner stumbles in a race, he or she gets back up and starts running again.

If we stumble so badly we cannot continue in the race, we dream of another race.

And if we cannot run in another race, we volunteer to help someone else run.

We take great delight in the community of running. We experience the triumphs of the greats as our triumphs. Their victories are the victories we would win if we had their genes and their opportunities. They run. We run. It's what we do.

So in Christianity.

We use healing, life-giving words. We offer encouragement, consolation, hope. It's who we are. It's who we want to be. Just like God.

Sweet Dreams

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists for Sabbath, July 15, 2017

Texts: Jeremiah 31:15-26; Luke 15:1-6. 

Maurice was worried about his youngest son. His oldest son, in his early thirties, had a major position with Sprint. He was in charge of bringing on line some new technology that I didn't quite understand. The minister's daughter was an architect and in her first year in her firm won a national design award. She was doing very well, thank you.

But it was the youngest son, Maurice was worried about. He had started out at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, then enrolled in aeronautical engineering at the University of Alabama with the plan of completing both degrees. This younger son had finished his degree at Oakwood but was still four classes short of completing his degree in engineering at the University of Alabama. Part of the reason he had not yet finished his engineering degree is that he was already working as an engineer going to school only part time.

Our conversation happened while we were at a conference last week. Over a couple of different meals, Maurice described his efforts to talk sense to his son. The son had been offered a job by another firm there in Huntsville. It offered $17,000 more a year. The son wanted to take the new. Maurice and his wife were trying to persuade their son to decline the offer and finish his degree. Remember he was only four classes short. If people were trying to recruit him now, without the degree, there would be more offers after he finished his degree. And it would never be easier to finish his education than now.

After awhile, Maurice's wife joined us. The kids get their brains from Mom, Maurice says. She's an IT genius. The three of us shook our heads together as we commiserated about the short-sightedness of young people. We understood the allure of $17,000. But we were sure that this younger son would some day be very glad he had buckled down and finished that degree. And together we hoped he would be willing to stay in his current job long enough to graduate.

An abiding characteristic of parents is a hunger to see our children succeed.

When our little one starts pull herself up and standing on rocking legs, we eagerly watch for her first steps. We listen for first words. We brag about first songs.

We take pictures of kids holding books pretending they are reading. And if our kid is one of those early readers, we take soul-filling pride in their accomplishment.

And if our kid is preparing for his comprehensives or getting ready to go on stage for her masters recital, we hold our breath, hoping they will wow their professors and the rest of the world. (And we laugh at ourselves for thinking of them as “kids” when they have so far surpassed us. Still, we cannot completely forget that we changed their diapers and cleaned their vomit out of the carpet.)

It is the very essence of being a parent to dream of our kids' success. At some point in our lives, our highest ambitions transfer from anything we might imagine for ourselves to what we imagine for our children. And no matter what they achieve, we dream of something higher and brighter.

This hunger for the success of our children never goes away. No matter how successful they are. No matter how messed up they are.

I visited with another denominational executive. Jack also has three kids. His daughter, the middle kid, is making him proud. She's married working for the church. Doing well. The youngest, well, he's an artist, and therefore starving—well, between jobs. Just got laid off from the nonprofit he was working for, saving the world, because that what dreamy artistic kids do. The nonprofit figured out they could get unpaid interns to do the work they had been paying Jack's son to do. He's a good kid. Dad just holds his breath, hoping he'll land well. The conversation went elsewhere, but I brought it back. Jack had mentioned his eldest earlier in the conversation, and I noticed the current evasion. I had to ask. “Your eldest, is he doing okay?” I saw the pain on Jack's face. I felt the hesitation. “We're praying.” he said. And waiting, I added in my head. Waiting and hoping and aching.

There were no details. That was left to my imagination. Drugs? Unemployment? Mental illness? Crime? Relational messes. There are a thousand ways children can break our hearts. There are only a couple of ways we can respond. We hurt. And we long for something better.

And if some night in our dreams, our son gets a job or our daughter goes to rehab or our kid is released from prison, it is the sweetest dream. And when we wake, we say “My sleep was very sweet.”

With this background, let's consider our Old Testament reading from the prophet Jeremiah.

A cry is heard in Ramah--deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted--for her children are gone."

The setting for these words is the failure of Israel. The nation of Israel had been conquered by the kingdom of Babylon. The initial military defeat turned into complete obliteration. The Babylonians deported the entire population en masse. Huge numbers of people, especially young men, warriors, were slaughtered.

The nation, personified as the mothers, wept. Inconsolably. How do you find tears enough to grieve the loss of an entire generation?

The prophet Jeremiah had predicted this disaster. More than that, he had tried to avert the disaster. He had begged and cajoled and scolded the people trying to persuade them to take the necessary actions to avoid this calamity.

He had preached against idolatry and its immoral sequelae . He had railed against the oppression of the poor, the failure to provide for the widows and orphans, the perversion of justice which turned the courts into agencies for the protection of the privileged. He denounced the use of religion as a ritual of national self-affirmation. He thundered. He implored. And watched helplessly as the nation failed.

A cry is heard in Ramah--deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted--for her children are gone."

This lament, this awareness of doom, dominates the book of Jeremiah, but here in the vision of chapter 31, this doom is background. It is not the last word. After recording this lamentation, Jeremiah writes,

But now this is what the LORD says: "Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you," says the LORD. "Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy.

There is hope for your future," says the LORD. "Your children will come again to their own land.

You children will come home. They screwed up. Disaster happened. But that is not the final chapter. They will come home.

In the vision, Jeremiah hears this command:

Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Mark well the path because your children are coming home. I will bring them back. They will live together in peace and happiness. I will give rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing."

Jeremiah ends the passage with these words:

I woke up and looked around. My sleep had been very sweet. Jeremiah 31:15-26

Sweet, indeed.

Jeremiah's sweet dream is a picture of God. God's dream for humanity is success. Plan A is a straight line from birth to success. Plan B is a straight line from wherever we are to success. The vision of God is the triumph of his children. And that vision always begins at the point where God's children currently are. There is no place any human can reach that does not have a path from there to triumph, from there to joy. This is the central conviction of theism. God has good plans that include us and every other human being.

And when we help one another toward wholeness, toward holiness and health, toward happiness and nobility we are participating in the happiness of God. 

Our New Testament reading is the story of the Good Shepherd. One sheep from his flock of a hundred gets lost. After securing the 99 in the sheep pen, the shepherd goes looking and keeps looking until he finds the lost sheep and brings it home.

And when he returns with the sheep on his shoulders, there is great rejoicing.

I shared lunch on Tuesday with Brianna, a friend of one of my daughters. She taught this last year at a small Adventist high school in New England. She told me stories of heart breaking human dysfunction and her sense of inadequacy as she gave a listening ear to these kids who came from places of domestic chaos. She talked of her hunger to see them succeed, to transcend the messes of their childhood and go on to lives of happiness and doing good.

Listening to her, I saw a vision of God. Affection for her kids. Ambition for her kids. Devotion to her kids. I imagined God watching her at work and telling himself, now that is a woman after my own heart. That's my idea of a perfect human being. And God smiles. And if God takes a nap in afternoon after watching Brianna at work, his sleep is very sweet.

The world offers many reasons to lament. We ache for the failure that haunts the human condition. But we can also participate in the sweet dreams of God. We can be shepherds finding lost sheep. We can be teachers cooperating in the work of God, helping his children succeed. This is our highest calling.