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Sunday's Sermon
April 22, 2007

1069
TRANSFORMATION 2
The Rev. Dennis Posno

 

Words. Don’t you just love them?

A preacher, who shall we say was "humor impaired,"
attended a conference to help encourage
and better equip pastors for their ministry.

There were many well known and dynamic speakers.
One of them approached the lectern
and gathering the entire crowd's attention, said,
"My wife and I just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary,
and I just want to say that some of the best years of my life
were spent in the arms of another woman!"
The crowd was shocked! Stunned!
But he followed up by saying,
"Yes, sir, some of the best years of my life
were spent in the arms of another woman,
and that other woman was my mother!"

The crowd burst into laughter.

The preacher thought it was a good story, too.
So the next week he decided he'd give the joke a try.
As he approached the pulpit that Sunday morning,
he tried to rehearse the joke in his head.
Parts of it were a bit foggy to him
but he was determined to try it anyway.

Getting to the microphone he said,
"My wife and I have been married for almost 40 years,
and I just want you to know that some of the best years of my life
were spent in the arms of another woman!"
The congregation was horrified.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “spent in the arms of another woman.”
And his wife, if looks could kill, had him dead and buried.

But his mind had gone blank.
He searched for the words of the punch line but couldn’t find them.
He was lost for words.

After standing there for what seemed an eternity,
and still searching for the lost punch line, he said,
“Yes sir, some of the best years of my life
were spent in the arms of a woman other than my wife …
and for the life of me … for the life of me …
I can’t remember who she was!!”

Words. What trouble they can cause.
Today I want to look at a word I talked about last week.
That word is religion.

Last week I began the message by saying,
“I’ve got religion. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.
I learned it at my mother’s knee.
I discovered it at my church.
I experienced it in the lives of others.
I have attempted to live a ‘religious life’ since I was a child.”
I’ve got religion.

A young man, fresh into his teens,
devoted to his faith,
yet believing, because he had been taught,
that those of another faith and culture ~
Christianity and the West ~
and those who collaborate with them
were infidels and would be better dead than alive,
strapped explosives around his waist,
walked undetected into a market square in Baghdad,
and ignited the explosives.

He lost his life as his body was blown to pieces.
Twenty others ~ woman and children and men ~ lost their lives, too.
And what was left after the broken bodies are cleared away and buried
were broken hearts and shattered lives,
grieving for the loss of those they had loved, and loved still.

That young man had religion.
His religious life meant everything to him.
He believed that the God of his faith was pleased
and that the God of his faith would be reward him in the life to come.

A little girl named Ruby Bridges lived in New Orleans.
It was a frightening time in that southern city in the 1960’s.
White people were scared.
Black people were scared.
Everyone was scared.

A federal judge had ordered the city
to open up its segregated schools to African American children,
and the parents of that school decided
that if they had to let African American children in,
they would keep their white children out.

And they put out the word:
any African American children who came to school would be in trouble.
So the white children stayed away;
and for fear of trouble the African American children stayed away.
Except for one little girl: Ruby Bridges.

Her parents sent this little six-year-old to school.
She was the first, and for a time, the only African American child
to be taught in the white New Orleans school system.

Every morning, through a heckling and threatening crowd,
this little six-year-old walked alone into an empty school.
White people lined up on both sides of the entrance,
shaking their fists at her.
They threatened to do terrible things to her
if she kept coming to their school.

But every morning, without fail, at ten minutes to eight,
Ruby Bridges walked straight through the mob ~
head up and eyes ahead ~
as four U.S. Marshals escorted her,
two ahead and two behind her.
She spent the days with her teachers ~
the only student inside the school.

When asked about what went into the making of the courage
of a little six-year-old girl, her mother said …

“There’s lots of people who talk about doing good,
and there’s lots of people who argue about what’s good and what’s not good,
and then there are those
who just put their lives on the line for what’s right.”

A white teacher observed this about the little girl …

“A woman spat at Ruby but missed; Ruby smiled at her.
A man shook his fist at her; Ruby smiled at him.
Then she walked up the stairs, and she stopped
and turned and smiled one more time.
You know what she told one of those U.S. marshals?
She told them she prays for those people, the ones in the mob,
every night before she goes to sleep.”

One young man’s religious faith
led to commit murder and take his own life.
Another girl’s religious faith led her to stand up for her rights
and the rights of others.

An American evangelist calls those who are Muslim
and who embrace the faith of Islam, godless.

Another leader of the religious right,
in speaking about HIV/AIDS in the gay and lesbian community,
proclaims that it is the judgment of God on their immoral lifestyle.

Another evangelist stated that because a particular school district
had turned down a petition to teach the theory of intelligent design
along side evolution,
that if lives were lost
in an ensuing hurricane that was predicted for the area,
it, too, was the judgment of God.

Many who claim to embrace the faith proclaimed by Jesus
are pro capital punishment
pro war
and anti-just-about-everything else
including those who do not believe as they believe.

Their religion, often, has made them judgmental and unloving.
Their religion is based, in many ways, on an eye for an eye.
Still, Jesus is their Lord and Saviour. They’ve got religion.

Mother Teresa tells how one night a man came to their house in Calcutta, India,
to tell her that a Hindu family, a family of eight children,
had not eaten anything for days.
They had nothing to eat.

So she took enough rice for a meal and went to their house.
She could see the hungry faces,
the children with their bulging eyes and bloated tummies.
The sight could not have been more dramatic!

The Hindu mother took the rice from Mother Teresa’s hands,
divided it in half and went out.
When she came back a little later, Mother Teresa asked her:
“Where did you go?
What did you do?”

The mother answered, “They are also hungry.”
“They” were the people next door,
a Muslim family with the same number of children to feed
who did not have any food either.

That mother was aware of the situation.
She had the courage and the love
to share her meager portion of rice with others.
In spite of her circumstances,
Mother Teresa thought she felt very happy to share with her neighbors
the little she had taken her.

A Christian nun, a woman of religious faith,
gave rice to a Hindu mother to feed her family.
She, too, was a woman of religious faith.
The Hindu mother divided the rice in half
and gave it to a Muslim mother, who was also a woman of religious faith,
because, like hers, her family was hungry.

All of them had religion.
But like so many of the words we use,
we can sometimes lose them as that preacher did …
lose sight of what they really mean …
sometimes never really understand them at all.

Religion, as defined by The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, means,
“1 the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2 the expression of this in worship. 3 a particular system of faith and worship.”

And to be religious is to be “devoted to religion; pious; devout.”

To understand “religion” in this way alone, though,
is to miss the challenge of your religious faith
as it is to miss the rich beauty of it.

So what is its challenge? And what is its richer and more significant meaning.
Religion is so much more than just believing
certain things about God in a certain way.
Religion is about living a life that is pleasing to God ~
that is in keeping with God’s will and purpose.

“The Latin word ‘re-ligio,’ (from which our word is derived,)
means to re-link ~ to reconnect.
To help people reconnect, re-link, and restore people to relationship
with one another and to the divine
is at the heart of religion’s intended purpose.”

Isn’t that astounding!
“To help people reconnect, re-link, and restore people to relationship
with one another and to the divine
is at the heart of religion’s intended purpose.”

And, as I said last week, as my faith pushes me,
it should push us all to ask questions.

When it comes to our religious faith,
are we journeying in such a way,
and thinking differently about the way we are journeying,
that our lives are, indeed, in step with the lives God would have us live?

When it comes to our religious faith,
if God, or Christ, has made a difference, the difference for us,
do we live differently because of it?

To be sure, to be a Christian
is to be a person transformed by Christ’s living presence;
but surely to be a Christian
is to be a person who transforms the world around him.

And let this be clear: we all do.
We transform it negatively
or we transform it positively.
We transform it in hurting ways or we transform it in healing ways.
We transform it by our hatred or we transform it by our love.
We transform it by our judgmentalism and intolerance
or we transform it by our tolerance and understanding.
We transform it by our self-righteousness
or we transform it by our righteousness.
We transform it by building walls or we transform it by building bridges.

We transform it in ways that break God’s heart
or we transform it in ways that cause God’s heart to rejoice.
But let there be no doubt:
one way or another, in the corners of the world where we live,
we transform it.

“To help people reconnect, re-link, and restore people to relationship
with one another and to the divine
is at the heart of religion’s intended purpose.”
Paul wrote:
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is ~
God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
Paul also wrote:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come.”
It was Jesus Himself who said:
“A new commandment I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this will all (men) know that you are my disciples,
if you love one another.”
It was John who wrote:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
It is loving God and loving others
that is at the heart of religion’s intended purpose.
It is loving God and loving others
that transforms the world, our worlds,
in ways that cause God’s heart to rejoice.
For the God who holds the hold world in His hands
holds the people of the world, lovingly, in His heart.

Religion. That’s the word.
May we be so transformed by it
that the world around us is transformed ~ for good and for God.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

SCRIPTURE

Paul wrote:
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is ~
God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come.

It was Jesus Himself who said:
A new commandment I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this will all (men) know that you are my disciples,
if you love one another.

It was John who wrote:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

And finally, it was Paul who wrote:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Follow the way of love …

 

 

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