The Way, the Truth, the Life

I got a strange robocall this week, saying Pastor, you need to urge your parishioners not to vote for Donald Trump because of his pornography problem, his problem with infidelity, that he does not have family values. It was some woman, a mother of 10 kids, who homeschools them all… Never heard of her before. Was all of this true? Or was it a ploy by someone to make sure that Trump didn’t do well in the caucus yesterday? Apparently, it worked, here in Kansas. But it’s hard to know what is truth and what is not, especially in this season of debates.

            Many people will tell you who to vote for. If you’re a Christian, they say, you’ll vote for this person. But let me tell you, it’s important that you first understand the overarching message of Christ’s word and teaching, and then vote in accordance. I’m never going to tell you who to vote for. It’s your job to come here and let the Word of God wash over you, transform your heart and mind… then go home and search scriptures on your own, and understand it’s about how we bow down to our God as the one and only, and how we treat our fellow humankind. All truth is from God. There is some truth in many things, but only God is fully truth. And at the heart of our beliefs is this: Jesus was and is the Son of God, not just some good role model. He died on a cross, in our place, for our sins, a death he did not deserve. And he was buried and he rose again. He came back to life. And he lives, still. He ascended or went up to heaven, where he is seated next to the Father. That is the heart of the Christian message. That is the Good News, what makes us different from other religions. That is the way, the truth and the life for us.

This week, I was thinking about all the conflict in the world, both at home and abroad, and I thought, what if the Lord has allowed all these differences in opinion, and culture, and language, and skin color, and classes, and education levels—just to see how we will get along with each other? Whether we will learn to coexist by wiping each other out, or by listening and getting along, respectfully. By learning what’s important to each other. By honoring the value of each other’s lives. By understanding how much we have in common. At the end of our lives, will he ask us, So, how’d you do? Did you learn to get along? Or were you fighting and bickering and finger pointing, all the time?

We could bully each other, as the politicians are doing. these days. Try to intimidate each other. Call each other names. I wonder what God thinks of that. It’s sad when people feel the need to go down into the gutter with someone, to get on their level. But that seems to be the way of the world.

For some time, now, TV has been filled with shows where people actually say what’s on their mind. There are no consequences, because it’s TV, not reality. We’re confused about what’s reality, and what’s TV. Reality shows are really very far from reality. Because you can’t just go out into the world and say whatever comes to your mind. God gives us a filter, called our conscience, and our brain, and hopefully we THINK before we speak. Because our words have consequences. Just as much as our actions do. I don’t see it anywhere in the Bible where it says, just blurt out whatever comes to mind.

Likewise, we can’t just assume we know what we believe, as followers of Christ. We’ve got to read scripture, for ourselves. Or listen to it, on CD or tape. Because it’s not the most easy thing to understand. Some things are straightforward. Others, are not. And we’ve got to listen or read a BUNCH of it… whole books of the Bible, at a time. To get the big picture. If we focus on one small part, one or two verses, we’re not going to get the the full intent. We may just affirm what it is that we already believe, on our own. Make God into our own image. Now that’s a dangerous prospect. I believe that if we read scripture, and it’s not challenging?? if it doesn’t stretch us, then we may not have not read enough. We need to keep reading.

And don’t take someone else’s word for it. Don’t just listen to someone on the radio, who tells you what you ought to believe. Read it for yourself, then make up your own mind. Or rather, let God make up your mind, for you. If you’re not convicted by it, if the Lord doesn’t tell you what you need to be doing more of, and less of, then you haven’t read enough. So keep reading. We’re never gonna know what it really means to believe and follow, and what the truth is, until we read it for ourselves. And we shouldn’t sit back and rely on what we read 5 or 10 or 20 years ago, because we have surely changed since then, and the Lord may wish to show us something different, this time around. There may yet be another way he wants to fine tune our hearts.

So, don’t grow complacent and let your mind be conformed to evangelists on TV and the radio; let it be conformed to the mind and heart of God, of Jesus. For he is our way, our truth and our life. Go to the source. And then when you hear and see these folks, you’ll be better prepared and armed to say, now that’s not quite right. Now that sounds about right, but this over here, this is just wacky. Become a better informed citizen of the kingdom of God. Spend as much time on that as you do, figuring out who you should vote for. And then you WILL know who best to vote for. You’ll possibly see how far away many of these folks are, from the Truth, even though they might say they are Christian, and of God.

This is why I don’t get too jazzed or upset about politics. It’s necessary, and we ought to be informed, active participants in the process. But so many times, the options we have, just come up so short. And why do they? Because, as we heard last week, the kingdom of God is not of this world. It’s up to us to seek and read God’s Word, to abide in it, to let it take root in our hearts. To understand that this, and things like Holy Communion are how God gives himself to us, through his Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit desires to affect, and infect us, so that we can receive it, and take it out into the world. We can’t be looking for the world to give us what we need, folks. For only Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Amen.

Under the Influence

 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’--Luke 17:20-21

            It’s been five years ago that I sat on the steps in Miller Church and gave a sermon. A tornado had ripped through the town just south of them, the night before. Under the darkness of night, when it happened, it was only partly obvious what destruction had taken place. It was only in the light of a new day that it would become apparent, all the damage that had been done. I wanted, somehow, to comfort them, but also to impress upon them that something major had happened. Soon, they would drive over and see what had happened. It was probably going to be a shock to them. And it was going to take awhile before things got back to normal.

            Today feels a lot like that day. Only there are a few more miles in between us and Hesston, and Newton, for that matter. We have had a day or two to let the shock sink in. But tragedy has come near, and it is unsettling.

            Amazingly enough, it does fit quite well with the scripture for today. Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God. How it is among us, within us. The Kingdom of God came near when Jesus came to earth, a little baby boy, grew up, became a man, worked and served among us. He brought the Kingdom of God near. And when he left, ascended to heaven, he and the Father sent the Holy Spirit to keep being here, with us. Something miraculous happens, when the Holy Spirit becomes a part of us. We take the Kingdom of God and we spread it around. It grows like the mustard seed. It leavens the flour, like yeast.

We get the Kingdom of God inside of us to take out into the world, several ways. We come here, and we hear the scripture proclaimed. Hopefully it doesn’t just bounce off our minds and hearts. Hopefully it goes inside, and stays there. We receive Communion, and the blessed elements of bread and juice physically go inside us. We pray, and the Holy Spirit rises within us. We sing the music that teaches and reminds us of the awesome power and love of our God, and it goes inside our hearts.

            We go home, and hopefully we continue to receive the things of God—things that lift our hearts and encourage us, give us strength. We continue to read the Word, to pray, to listen to music that glorifies God. The Kingdom of God is within us. And we carry that out into the world, and we share it with others in how we love, in how we conduct ourselves, what we say to people… and we become the yeast that leavens the flour and makes it rise. We become the one little mustard seed that ends up growing branches for others to rest in.

But you see, we’ve got to be intentional about placing the Kingdom of God there, inside us, in the first place. You eat peas and carrots, and you’re going to be full of them. You drink pop, and you’re going to be filled with that. Whatever you ingest on a regular basis—whatever crosses the path to your heart and your brain—this is the Kingdom that is within you.

            You could say that whatever you ingest on a regular basis—spiritually, mentally, emotionally, even physically--becomes what you are under the influence of. So the question today is, “What are you under the influence of?” Whatever we regularly feed our hearts and minds can cause us to do things, say things, act in certain ways. 

When they went to the trailer home of the man who decided to go up the highway from Newton to Hesston with a couple of guns this week, they found a few things lying around, that we can guess he was under the influence of, at the time: An empty bottle of liquor. The case for a Special Ops video game, which probably meant he was, in his mind, visually going through rooms or places with guns, and mowing down people indiscriminately, before he actually went out and did that. We also know there was loud music playing, when law enforcement got to the site. I’m going to guess it wasn’t the kind of music that makes you feel soft-hearted and tender. I’m going to guess it had some rather aggressive music and words. I don’t know. I could be wrong. But I know that, at times, I’ve been under the influence of music that made my mind, my mood, go places that weren’t positive and helpful. Music is a powerful, powerful thing. It can be like a mind-altering drug.

            I’ve heard from a number of people that video games don’t cause folks to go out and shoot people. But when you look at what this man was under the influence of—alcohol, violence, aggression anger-- coupled with the trigger of new legal problems, it appears that everything worked together quite negatively, like a toxic cocktail, and provided the fuel for him to drive back to work and do the unthinkable.

Whatever you are under the influence of, will determine your attitude, your mood, even your actions. It will determine how you see things that happen to you, affect your whole perspective on life.  Is it good? Is it bad? Will it get any better??

Jesus says the Kingdom of God is not of this world. That is why we have to receive it, and take it OUT into the world.

            On the other hand… on the other hand, what were some of the people under the influence of, who were victims? Did you see some of the video that was taken, on Friday? A young man shot four times, twice in the chest, who said it was a God thing that he was still alive. One of those bullets could have easily hit his heart. Instead of anger for the man who shot him, he had sadness. It broke his heart, he said, to think that this was the only thing that the shooter thought he could do to make things better. Instead of his heart being pierced by his attacker, it was broken. It’s easy to see how the Kingdom of God was within this young man, who was shot. "God should be in the spotlight."

            Time and time again, I listened to interviews of the people who had been injured. They all attributed their survival to divine intervention. The grace of God. Nothing short of a miracle. And so for the whole world to see--because it did make national, even international news--the Kingdom of God was near, there in Hesston, in the hearts and minds of those who pointed to their God as the reason for their survival. True, a few did not make it. But it could’ve been so many more.

            So it all comes down to this, on this day: we’ve got to decide what we’re going to be under the influence of. We have a choice, what we put into our bodies, our hearts, our minds. We have a choice, what we will live under the influence of. And what we will take out, into the world, to give to others.