Jacob Sahms

I’ve been reading a book lately called The Dinosaur Lords. Now, some of you who are scientifically organized are probably thinking, “oh, he must be learning about the T-Rex.” Actually, the book is about an alternative universe where humans and dinosaurs co-exist… and the humans are running the joint.

Seriously, have you ever seen a picture of a T. Rex? Pretty ridiculous!

The truth is, that we have plenty of things that are ridiculous that we accept on a regular basis. There are more than a few ideas we banter about that we don’t really mean but we say regularly – defying reality!

Like, “oh yes, this tastes great!” when the food is horrible.

Or, “I’ll call you,” when we have no intention of calling.

How about when someone, usually Southern, says “bless your little heart”?  Beware, they don’t really mean it.

The sad thing is that many of the subjects of our sermon series, Things Jesus Never Said, fall into that category of defying reason. But none is quite so egregious as “the Bible says it and I believe it.”

Let’s consider some things the Bible says. We’ll start with Leviticus because it’s easy pickings.

Leviticus 19:19: Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

Okay, so the mule is out – but who would notice. What about this injunction about two kinds of seeds? Does that mean that Carter’s Mountain is living in sin because it has several kinds of apples?

The reality is, if you’re wearing any piece of polyester or artificial fabric, you’re in big trouble per Leviticus 19:19.

Leviticus 19:27: Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

So, I’m good because I can’t grow facial hair – it comes in pretty spotty — but that whole hair thing? I’ve been shaving my head since I was in high school!

Leviticus 19:28: You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.

Have a tattoo? You’rrrrrrre out!

Leviticus 11:10: But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean.

Good to know: don’t eat bats.

Leviticus 19:30: Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary.

Ouch. Suddenly, Leviticus isn’t so ridiculous or funny, but we still have a hard time embracing it as our favorite verse. It’s not to say, ‘hey, there’s Sabbath over there!’ To ‘observe’ Sabbath means that we’re all in on worship – that it’s the most important thing about our day and it supersedes everything else. How many of us struggle to get to church on a weekly basis – and how many of us push the sovereignty and sanctity of God to the side? Isn’t it easier to embrace the way that Jesus was ‘fully human’ than it is to focus on how awesome God is?

But the awesomeness of God can sometimes get caught up in some of the material from the Old Testament that doesn’t jive with the absolute compassion and grace we’ve read about in Jesus. What do we do with all of the material where God said, “Go and kill all of these people?” Are we just giving God a pass, do we think God is bipolar? Check out this verse from Samuel:

I Samuel 15:3: This is what the Lord Almighty says… ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’

What are we going to do with that? I’ll admit that I have some thoughts on what to do with it but that’s not the point of this sermon. I don’t think any of these verses should be brushed aside – let me stop and make this clear: I hope this sermon will make you stop to pray and reflect on what it means to be a faithful follower of God.

But maybe you don’t have any problem with the image of God’s holy fire and brimstone. [My sermons about grace must really rub you the wrong way. But I digress…] Let’s get to the comic relief…

Paul makes this sermon ten times more entertaining, because he has some superior comments directed toward women. [Note: Paul was single. Maybe it was one of the following comments that helped him stay that way?]

I Corinthians 11:6: For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.

As United Methodists, this isn’t a line we pull out much. Of course, Mennonites, the Amish, and Quakers take it very seriously. Maybe less amusing…Apparently, Paul was really into fashion though:

I Timothy 2:9: Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments.

Now, I’m presenting some of these with raised eyebrow, but I’m going to assume Paul didn’t want appearances or money to distract people in church. That’s great. But I don’t want us to get too caught up on fashion.

I Timothy 2:12: I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.

I’m not going to roll out the couch here and put Paul on it, discuss his mommy issues, etc., but wow! For a guy who believed that sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ was so important, he’d actually reduce those who could share the gospel because of their gender?

Ephesians 5:22: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

Moving along, nothing to see here.

All jokes (or not) aside, it’s not like we can say, “but all that was true except for Jesus.” Check out some of the more “did he really just say that moments?” from the lips of Jesus.

Luke 14:26: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Matthew 18:9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

Matthew 10:34-36 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

As an English teacher, I’ll break in and say that Jesus had a strong sense of himself – and hyperbole. Jesus knew that what he was promoting was countercultural and he was willing to say so. Jesus knew that the gospel would be divisive because people were so used to doing things on their own. Let’s face it: Jesus came to shake things up.

Jesus said we needed to lose our life to find it (John 14:26).

Jesus said that if we were angry, that we were headed to hell (Matthew 5:21-22).

Jesus said it was adultery to get remarried (Mark 10:11-12).

All of those rub us the wrong way, but too often, we fail to stop and think about what the ramifications are, and what God wants from us in the long run.

Because Jesus also said,” Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42).Wait, what? Give to the beggar and the guy who borrows but never gets back? Now, he’s not just messing with our relationships or our expectations but our money.

But I’ll tell you this: no matter how annoyed or frustrated or even apathetic these verses made you feel, it boils down to Jesus trying to teach how to behave, based on the main thing.

In his interaction with the rich young ruler, Jesus tells the man that there’s a main thing he should focus on, that none of these other peripheral things matter. “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).

Whether you like football, or polyester, you’ve been divorced, or you struggle with anger, whether you forget to show up for church or you withhold money you should be giving to God, Jesus boils it down to this one thing (well, one thing in two parts): Love God and love others.

That’s my baseline for evaluating Scripture. You can take the Wesleyan quadrilateral (Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason). I’ll take the Jesus filter.

Jesus, the Word of God in the poetic Gospel of John, is literally God’s word personified. He’s the word that God uses to create in Genesis, he gives life to all things, he’s the light in the darkness that illumines and inspires. Jesus, the Word of God, is the name by which we can be saved from our sin.

Jesus. That’s the bottom line for me.

Jesus, the one who took all of the theology packed in the Bible and all of the do’s and don’ts and lived them out. Jesus, fully God and fully human.

That’s where I am when it comes to understanding the Bible. The Bible was compiled by Councils of faithful Christians who worked to discern what God wanted to be in the canon, to be included. Some things were excised, some things were kept.

If we’re going to live out the fullest life we can to the glory of God, I think we should adopt Jesus’ greatest command – to love God and to love others. We need to read and study the Bible. We need to wrestle with it and pray over and seek to understand it. We need to go back to trying to live each day to be more like Jesus. To follow.

I’ll stake my life on that.

Having spent nearly a week in Canada this summer, I have become interested in Canadian history in a way that I was not before. To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty ignorant of the history of the country just north of us, and some of it is stunning.

In the 1750s, as the United States was moving toward independence from Britain, the British and French were fighting over the Canadian territories. A British commander, Admiral Philips, was sent to hold the port of Quebec. He was not to engage in active confrontation but to wait until the army of British soldiers arrived, having traveled over the land to approach Quebec.

As his ships lay anchored in the harbor, the admiral became irritated somehow by the statues of saints atop the nearby French church, so he ordered his men to fire at the statues to knock them down. It’s unclear how accurate the ships’ cannons were or how many of the statues were actually damaged, but when the army arrived for the attack, the admiral’s ships were powerless to help.

The ships had fired of all of their ammunition at “the saints of Quebec.”

Today, in our scripture reading, we are warned not to ‘fire at the saints.’

Now, Paul is often accused (and rightly so) of being hard core in the way he diagnoses problems. He’s passionate about the love of Jesus Christ, and he struggles at times in his writings with people who don’t get it. But periodically, a shift in his tone seem to show us a different way he is considering things, and we see his compassionate side.

Paul lays out a series of points about church dynamics that make sense thousands of years later, even if we might put them differently.

#1 Accept those whose faith is weak. For all of Paul’s talk about standing strong in the faith and pursuing what God is calling us to, he seems to be acknowledging that not everyone’s faith will get to the same point. We might think that someone who just met Jesus for the first time would not believe in the same way, or as strongly, as someone who has known him for a long time but Paul’s reflection on the strength of faith isn’t about chronology. No, Paul says that those who ‘get it,’ who are fully bought into what Jesus is calling us to, should do everything we can to support and encourage those who are not there yet. Isn’t that mentorship? Isn’t that walking alongside someone who is asking questions about faith and serving as a friend and guide? Of course, that means we have to find people who aren’t Christians and befriend them…

#2 Don’t argue over disputable matters. What do we argue about in church? Which of those things are non-negotiable? Which ones are debatable thanks to Scripture and experience? Which ones are … ridiculous? It hasn’t happened in quite some time but I remember when we used to debate things like what music we could use in service or whether someone was a member or not. It’s like getting in an argument with your spouse about something, even when you know that they’re at least a little bit right. But what do we see happen on television in someone else’s worship and assume they’re doing wrong? Hands in the air during prayer? Talking back to the pastor? Incense in worship? Paul is basically pointing out here that we all become accustomed to our way of doing things and we assume it’s the “right” way. On the other hand, if you want to tell Paul that Jesus isn’t the Son of God or that he didn’t die on the cross for our sins, well, then you’d have a problem.

#3 Don’t judge others – they, like you, are servants of God and he is the master. Maybe the whole thing could boil down to this, right? Don’t judge. In the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that we’re all guilty, all behind the eight ball, all in need of someone’s mercy (God’s, at the very least). All of these could boil down to this but it’s interesting that Paul goes out of his way to say it directly. Maybe it’s because he judged others as a Pharisee for so long, or maybe it’s because he’s being judged constantly by Christians and Jews alike. Paul knows we don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to critiquing someone else.

#4 All Christians stand/exist/succeed because God makes them stand. None of us is ‘doing life’ on our own but we exist and survive because God makes it so. You can breathe, eat, talk, walk, limbo, jog, work, love, etc. because God says so. Paul says that should give us a whole, new philosophy on life.

#5 The things we consider sacred are things we are convinced of in our own mind. Nothing is ‘not sacred’ by itself but it may be for someone else. What does that look like to us? Some people become torn up over space or a way of doing things; some people get caught up in the way that music is performed in church. It’s a lot like point number three, but it asks a bigger question: what if everything God made is holy? What if we’re supposed to recognize that we should see God in all things? What would happen if you tried that for a week?

#6 None of us live or die for ourselves alone, but we live for God and are accountable to him. The life we live isn’t ours but Paul says we actually owe God for how we use it, that God will judge what we’ve done with our lives. Whew, that one is heavy! I recently had a moment – I was on the treadmill at the gym – and I realized that I had become caught up in a way of looking at my life that wasn’t the best way. I was concerned with the wrong things, worried about the wrong perceptions and ideas. And on mile 4 of the workout, amidst sweat and heavy breathing, I thought, “You’re supposed to do everything for the glory of God.” In this chapter of Romans, Paul is reminding us that we should do everything for God’s glory, not our own, and that we should use our gifts to the best of our ability because they are God’s gifts in the first place!

#7 Don’t cause someone else to stumble. Hey, you’re a role model! No matter what you think, you are watched by someone else who is taking cues from you. Somehow, Paul ends up back at the beginning. What you do shouldn’t be for other people, but you have to remember that you’re in community and your actions influence other people.

Paul’s “Seven Rules For People In Church”? I hope we’re grading on a curve!

What points do you think Paul makes? What does he miss? 

I must admit: I like going on vacation. But there’s something about vacation that I don’t like, and it’s similar to what I don’t like about Christmas [which I, general speaking, love.] I can’t stand packing, even more than I dread the abundance of work that comes when you get home from a week away and have to do all that laundry and figure out where all of the bags you got out to pack in actually came from.

Packing takes planning, and thought. Especially if you’re going with someone who wants you to wear more than a swimsuit and t-shirt.

You’ve got to have the right pants, shirts, belts, shoes, socks, etc. You have to have the medicine, the shampoo, the toothpaste, etc.

Some people might even say you need a list.

My mother has a list like that – saved on her computer. Yes, it’s editable, but for the most part, she knows what she’s going to be taking with her. She knows the essentials.

The twelfth chapter of Romans is a crash course in what it means to be filled with grace, to be a loving representative of the Creator God, to be a Christian. It’s like the basic essentials of being a Christian.

Consider that for a minute: twelve chapters into the book of Romans, Paul lays out what a Christian looks like. It’s really that simple.

Now, he breaks the chapter up in three parts: there’s the introduction to grace, the way that followers of Jesus should treat each other, and the way that followers of Jesus should treat people who don’t claim to be followers of Jesus.

A classic, three-point sermon for you!

Let’s unpack.

#1 Paul tells his church in Rome that they should be willing to live as a sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. He says that’s what real worship is. Think about that for a minute: Paul shows it’s valid, justifiable, worthy to live a life of sacrifice. Too often, we seem to focus on sacrificial death for faith and downplay someone who lives humbly, quietly even. First question today: what would it look like for you to live a quiet life of faith as your sacrifice to God?

#2 He says they should not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Somewhere along the way, Protestant Christianity read this phrase and said, “whoa! We’re supposed to completely pull back from the world. No culture, alcohol, films, books, etc. Only ‘Christian’ stuff.” That’s not what Paul said. He said we should be different, changed as our minds become more Christlike.

What do you take for granted? What do you assume is true? Is it really trye, or hasn’t been handed down culturally? [For instance, we don’t actually know how many wise men there were but most people would say there were definitively three. More contemporary to today, many people assume whatever their favorite news station says is true. Just saying…]

#3 Once you are transformed, you will be able to know God’s will. A little tricky, no? How do we know God’s will if it relies on us being transformed? How can we be sure? Remember the whole ‘journey’ motif? Seems like we’ll always be in process.

It’s that process that leads to the second section of Paul’s twelfth chapter: the love of those within the body of believers. It’s not enough to love people who believe like us (even if we don’t always agree and if we don’t always like them.)

Paul gives us a few pointers about what it means to be disciples representing Jesus in the world.

#1 Don’t think more highly of yourself than you should. Paul knows we have value because we’re created in the image of God. We were bought with the blood of Christ on the cross. But we ourselves are not to put ourselves above anyone else – even those who we deem not to know God the way we do – or in a position to judge others as God himself.

#2 Recognize that you have special gifts the community needs, and that so does everyone else in the community of faith. (The corollary is that no one is as gifted in every aspect.) This one works both within the church and outside of it: if you’re not in your community (church or otherwise), you’re withholding the blessing of your gifts to that community. If you disregard someone else, you miss out on the way that those people bring something special and powerful to your community, too. Don’t assume that someone else isn’t important to God or to the community of faith.

#3. Love sincerely; live in peace with everyone (as it is possible). Raise your hand if you know someone who is fake or ambiguous or two-faced or duplicitous. Raise your hand if that person is you (just kidding). Paul tells us that we need to love sincerely in and outside of the faith community. That guy you don’t like at work, learn to love him. The homeless person panhandling at Walmart every day who tells you he doesn’t want to get a job, learn to love him. Love takes time and work, right? Paul says, “don’t fake it.”

#4. Hate what is evil but focus on the good. Whew, the church has really grabbed onto this one over the years. Remember the Crusades? Or the way right for life groups treat abortion clinics? Somehow, we get that we’re supposed to oppose evil but we forget to put humility, and sincere love, and the worth of other people first.

#5. Be devoted to each other in love; honor others above yourself. Devotion. It’s normally a word with associate with our dog, or puppy love, or really, really old wrinkly people. But if you’re devoted, you love that person more than yourself and seek to lift them higher. You want their best, their wellbeing more than your own. Paul says we should be devoted to be outside of our community, who are opposed to our ideals, who are not like us. Paul says we should want their good.

#6. Be passionate about God and God’s kingdom. I don’t know about you, but even as a pastor, I sometimes wish there would be easier ways to say “Hey, God loves you,” than actually walking up to someone and saying that. It can be intimidating, can’t it? And that’s with people we know love us! Paul says we’re supposed to be bold, courageous, powerful, excited about the way that God is working in our lives.

#7. Be joyful in hope, patient in suffering, faithful in prayer. Hello! Those are pretty hard core. It might as well just say “be more like Jesus.”

#8. Practice hospitality. Welcome everyone.

Welcome the pacifist and the militant.

Welcome the poor and the rich.

Welcome the Republican and the Democrat.

Welcome the Muslim, and the Jew, and the Christian.

Welcome in your friends and your enemies.

Whew, that’ll wear you out.

Are you tired yet? Should we come back to how to love people outside the church next week? I’m sure I have work to do on how to love you let alone people who don’t agree with me… at all! My list of “what to pack” is getting longer and longer, because I haven’t mastered these yet.

Last week, I read the story of a guy who gets it. His name is Justin Forsett and he’s the running back of the Baltimore Ravens. He wasn’t featured in ESPN’s article about Arian Foster, the running back for the Houston Texans, who said in the article that he was an atheist.

Foster talked about all the ways he’d been confronted, even verbally abused or ostracized by Christians, who challenged his atheism and disengaged when they couldn’t persuade him. But then there was Forsett, who asked him questions, who shared from his experience and understanding of the Bible, and who repeatedly said he was praying for Foster without recrimination.

Of all the Christians Foster knew, Forsett was the one he was still in relationship with, the one he still couldn’t ignore.

And then Paul says: Bless those who hurt you; in fact, want what’s best for them.  Don’t take revenge.

I’ve got to admit that I have a hard time, not with necessarily taking bloody fisted revenge but with my words. I want to lash out. I want to defend myself or even one-up the other person. I want to win.

When were wrestling with all of Paul’s other instructions, we sometimes lose fight of letting God work on people’s hearts, because it’s our job to work on our own hearts and shard our experience. It’s not our job to change them.

But Paul says that if we want to really be Jesus-following people of faith, we have to do all these things.

In all this, Paul says we will overcome evil with good. Then we’ll show people something to hold onto.

What evil would you overcome if you practiced these essentials?

What would your life, your family, your neighborhood, our church, look like if you and I practiced these things?

It takes grace to believe that this is the way we should live, to follow it through, but it’s that sacrifice that Paul knew helped us to grow to be like Jesus.

By our life lived, gracefully and sacrificially.

By loving ourselves. By loving each other. By loving those who seem unlovable.

Think about it like the journey we’re traveling on, and we’ve got to get packed.

A little grace, a little patience, a little love.

It’ll be worth the trip.