1 Corinthian 6:12-20
January 18, 2008
“All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, "The two shall be one flesh." But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
When I read this passage, I find it to be one of the more profound passages of scripture. The parts I find to be profound are not so much the parts where Paul talks about prostitution, fornication, and stuff like that. What really captures me is the last few sentences where Paul says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” Why is this so profound? To understand you really have to understand who Paul was writing to and why he wrote it?
To whom was Paul writing? He was writing to the Christians in Corinth, which meant that he was writing to people living in a city that was much like Las Vegas is today. Back then they very easily could have said, what goes on in Corinth stays in Corinth. The Greek city of Corinth had the reputation of being the most enticing or perverted (depending on which perspective you have) city in the Roman Empire. Why? The reason has to do with geography. If you’ve ever looked at a map of Greece, you’ll notice that it is a peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea. About 2/3rds of the way down the peninsula two long inlets carve into the peninsula, leaving a small isthmus connecting the upper peninsula with the lower one. Corinth lies directly on that small isthmus.
The residents of the city were very clever. They knew that during the winter traveling around the bottom of the Greek peninsula could be dangerous because of storms. So they created a system in which a ship could travel down one inlet, be literally pulled out of the water, placed on rollers, pulled for twenty miles, and then put back down in the other inlet. It was much like a rolling Panama Canal. So, it became a major transport city that benefitted from trade coming from the east and the west of the empire. The city quickly became rich, and with that wealth came access to all sorts of pleasures. The city became a center of prostitution and gluttony. It was a place where people sought to break the social conventions of the day regarding self-indulgence. Paul was writing to people who were used to having lots of overindulgence and little personal discipline.
Paul was offering theman alternative vision. He was using the Temple of Jerusalem as a model for how to live life, and especially how to treat out bodies. He was teaching them how to keep a mind, body, spirit balance. To truly understand his teaching, it helps to first learn a little bit about the Temple of Jerusalem.
To begin with the Temple was the center of worship for all the Jews. It was considered to be where God lived on earth. The very center of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, once housed the Ark of the Covenant, which was the throne of God. But there was more to the Temple than just the Holy of Holies.
The Temple itself was massive. The only part that remains today—it was destroyed by the Roman general, Pompey, around 70 A.D.—is what is now called the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall. This wall is one of the holiest sites of Judaism, and it is a place of prayer. A thousand years ago it was integrated into the Temple Mount, which is part of the complex surrounding the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim temple that is said to be built atop a rock where, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel. It is considered to be the third holiest site in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina.
Before the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed it was massive. It’s hard to get a sense of how large it was, but if it were plopped down in the middle of Zelienople, it would take up most of the town. It’s walls were about ten stories tall. It was a rectangle with a series of small rectangular courts and buildings forming concentric spaces toward the center, where the Holy of Holies was. The first court, the Court of the Gentiles, took up much of the area of the Temple. This is the space where the moneychangers were, who you remember from the story of Jesus turning over the tables. The moneychangers would exchange Roman coins for temple coins, since the temple tax could not be paid with Roman coins.
Moving toward the center of the temple one found interior enclosed courtyards that Gentiles were forbidden to enter. The outermost of those courtyards was the Court of the Women. Jewish women could gather there, but could go no further in. Since this courtyard was covered with a roof, but open along the sides, the women could see further in, but not go further. Moving again into the center, there was the Court of the Israelites, which surrounded the main Temple building. Jewish men could gather there. This courtyard was the place where sacrifices took place. Each Israelite was expected to offer an animal sacrifice at least once a year. The idea was that the animal was sacrificed in place of the person, who rightly should be sacrificed to God for not living life God’s way. Animals served as substitutes for humans. Only unblemished animals could be sacrificed, since their innocence had the power to take on human sin. Rising up out of that courtyard was the magnificent Holy of Holies. It was where the Ark rested. There were two bronze- and gold-lined chambers in the interior this magnificent building. There was the Court of the Priests, where priests would bring the cooked meat from the sacrifices, and then there was the interior Holy of Holies itself, where two large bronze cherubim sculptures rested. This room could be entered only once a year, and only by the high priest.
As you can see, the temple was a highly ordered space for making sacrifices and worshiping God. This is the model Paul uses for how our bodies are to be a temple. He is using this temple in comparison to us, saying that each of us is like this temple in some way, and that we need to treat our bodies like this temple.
So what does it mean that we should treat our bodies as a temple? I believe that there are at least four inherent lessons. First, he is saying, let worship take place in our temples (our bodies), but don’t worship our temples. In our culture this is a huge lesson. We are a culture that too often worships physical perfection. Who do we admire in our culture? Too often it’s movie stars and athletes. I have no problem enjoying their work, but their physical obsessions aren’t a model for people who want to live balanced lives. If you’ve ever read even one issue of People Magazine, you immediately understand the problem of looking to celebrities as models. They may be physically beautiful, but often their lives are a mess. They live in a culture of body worship, but we are called to live lives where worship takes place in our bodies. Worshiping our temples can actually keep God from living in our temples by preventing worship of God from taking place in our temples.
Second, we need to allow our bodies—our temples—to be healthy, whole, and holy spaces where God can live. I am a big believer in this. I truly believe that it is difficult to worship God if we neglect our bodies. I believe in a body, mind, and spirit balance, and too often we either neglect the physical, or we obsess about the physical. I am particularly sensitive to this because I have struggled with my health and weight pretty much my whole adult life. I became very interested in physical health starting in college, when, despite the fact I was athlete playing on one of the top lacrosse teams in the country, and was at the top of physical fitness, I had high blood pressure. I was put on what was then considered to be a good diet, which was a high carbohydrate, low fat diet. Ever since I have been somewhat obsessive about my eating habits and exercise. That doesn’t mean that I don’t lapse every once in a while, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
I exercise virtually every day, either lifting weights, or walking between 3 to 4 miles a day outside or on a treadmill. I’m limited in what I can do because I’ve had three knee operations on my right knee and now have arthritis in it. If I do any kind of impact exercise, my knee swells up like a grapefruit. For instance, three years ago I played badminton at our Calvin softball team’s picnic, and just doing that for an hour swelled my knee so much that I had to walk with a cane for a better part of a week. Thus, I struggle like everyone else to find exercise that is interesting.
I’m a fanatic about eating healthy, which may seem surprising to some people because I am heavy. I’m what I would call a “healthy heavy,” although I’d much prefer to be a skinny healthy. I’ve struggled with my weight all my adult life, but at the same time, I very rarely ever eat junk food. I tend to eat grainy breads, lean meats, and lots of vegetables and fruits. In fact, people who have lunch with me often make fun of the fact that I’m always ordering a grilled chicken salad.
One of the things I’ve recently figured out, and it’s allowed me to lose over 15 pounds without dieting, is that we are a nation of fast-eaters and large portions. I’ve become convinced that the reason so many of us struggle with our weight isn’t that we are unhealthy or don’t exercise. That may be true to some extent, but a bigger problem is that our portions are too large and our eating is too fast. I’m basing this belief on the work of a British man named Paul McKenna, and I find his arguments compelling.
He says that one of the biggest contributors to all of our weight problems is the instructions we got from our parents. I don’t mean to put all the blame on our parents, since they were trying to raise us to be healthy. It’s just that growing up most of our parents told us to “finish everything on your plate—there are starving children in Africa.” Of course, most of us responded by saying, “Well, maybe we can send them some of our leftovers.” Still, the damage was done. Most of us now eat everything on our plates, even if we are full. The result is that we eat more than we should. How we eat as adults is very different from how most children naturally eat. Most children rarely finish their plates. They’ll eat ½ to 1/3rd of what we put on their plates, and then ask, “how many more bites do I have to take?” We now tell them, “Two bites of your vegetables.” When I was a kid, I was told, like almost everyone else my age, “Eat everything.” The result is that nowadays I feel guilty if I leave food on my plate. It feels like wasting. What makes this worse is that plates are now so big now. They are 1/3rd to ½ larger than plates from twenty years ago. By finishing off our plates, we now eat 1/3rd to ½ more food than we did twenty years ago.
We also all eat so fast. Two generations ago, meals took a long time. People weren’t in such a hurry to get here or there. The result is that people tended to sit longer at meals and eat slower, focusing more on the flavors. Today, we are in such a rush that when we eat we mostly gobble and gulp, rather than nibble and sip. McKenna talks about an experiment that showed this. A group of people were taken to a pancake house for a free breakfast. Their breakfasts included scrambled eggs, hash browns, a stack of pancakes, and bacon. Virtually every one of them ate quickly, eating everything on their plates. The same group was then brought back a week later and given the exact same breakfast. This time, though, they were blindfolded, which forced them to slow down. Every one of them ate only ½ of their meals, saying that they were too full to finish. By slowing down they ate less by giving their bodies time to tell their brains that they were full.
You can do a simple, observational experiment to test the theory about weight gain and speed of eating. Go somewhere like a the food court of a mall, and notice the different ways that heavy people eat compared to how thinner people eat. I’ve done this, and I’ve been amazed. I watch the thinner people eat, and they take smaller bites, chew longer, and take longer in-between bites. They also tend leave food on their plates. Heck, I don’t have to compare them to heavy people. I compare them to myself. I eat fast, chew quick, and always clean my plate. It’s been amazing to me that instead of dieting, and by simply slowing down my eating, focusing more on chewing slow and tasting flavors, and not eating everything on my plate, I lose weight. This is what I mean by being healthy not only in what we eat, but in how we eat.
Taking care of our bodies also isn’t just a matter of eating healthy, slowly, and exercising. I think it also means getting enough sleep, taking enough breaks, and giving our lives some pause and balance against a world that screams at us to rush here and there. We aren’t called to worship our temples, but we do have to take care of them.
The third lesson is that we need to let regular prayer and sacrifice take place in our temples. We were created to be in a relationship with God. Temples are created to facilitate that relationship with God. A temple is no good unless it puts God at the center. We are called to put God at our center—to make sure we take time to sacrifice our egos to God, to make time to pray, read scripture, read spiritual books, and do anything that puts worship at the center. We were created to be temples for God, to be places where God resides at the center, just like the Temple of Jerusalem.
Finally, we need to make sure that our temples have the right order. The Temple of Jerusalem had a definite order and discipline. Just as there were courtyards, walls, and sacred spaces in the Temple, we need to have disciplined and ordered lives that allow God to reside at the center. We need to install a kind of discipline to our lives that allows them to overcome the chaos of life in order to let God live in the center. For example, by reading this sermon, you are applying a certain order. When you worship each week, you are applying that kind of order. When you pray each day you are applying that order. Our lives can have too much order, but that’s rarely our problem. We usually suffer from a lack of order and priority.
The point of all of this is that our bodies are our temples—temples for God to reside. Our question is whether we take this seriously. Do we worship our temples or allow worship to take place in them? Are our temples healthy? Do they have the right structure and order? Ultimately, the real question is, “What takes place in our temples?”
Amen.
Baptized in the Spirit
Acts 19:1-7
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied—altogether there were about twelve of them.
Do you remember when you were baptized? Most of you probably don’t, since you were just a baby at the time, but some of you do. If you do remember, was it an amazing spiritual experience? Did you feel the Holy Spirit entering you? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Most people, even when they are baptized as adults, don’t feel the Spirit entering upon baptism. They feel that it’s an important occasion, they are happy it happened, and they feel wet, but not necessarily filled with the Spirit.
So, have you received the Holy Spirit? I’m not sure that just because you were baptized that it automatically means that you received the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t. It’s just that real baptism in the Holy Spirit means making a choice that many Christians never really make. It’s not that they don’t want to make the choice. It’s that most of us don’t know we need to make the choice, and so what happens is that we end up living less of the life that we are called by Christ to live.
How do we make sure people receive the Holy Spirit at some point in their lives? Some churches only baptize people when they are ready to make the choice to be baptized, with the hope that this choice will open the person to the Holy Spirit. In Presbyterian churches, like ours, we encourage teens to make this choice after confirmation class. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that. Many or most times the teens just aren’t spiritually mature enough to really make the kind of choice that lets the Spirit in. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they would become spiritually mature later in life. Many people never become spiritually mature enough to let the Spirit in, and some are very mature early on and let the Spirit in as children.
So what does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit in baptism? I think it means making a foundational choice to give ourselves over to the Spirit and to willingly let the Spirit truly, deeply into our lives. It means letting the Spirit not only guide us to what God wants, but to let the Spirit move our lives according to God’s ways.
I think that for a long time I understood this concept in my head, the idea of receiving the Spirit, but I don’t know that I truly understood it from a deeper life-sense. Where I learned what it really meant was from a member of my previous church, where I served as an associate pastor.
This woman’s story is really fascinating, and shows the difference it makes in our lives when we truly become open to and receive the Spirit. The year was 1990, and I was preaching on the particular Sunday she visited. At that time I preached about once every five to six weeks. I was preaching about faith, and about how we needed it to give us purpose and meaning in life. Then I gave an example of what life without faith is like. I read the congregation a passage from a book that my wife, Diane, whom I was dating at the time, had given me. The book was titled The Search for Meaning, by Phillip Berman. Berman had traveled the country, interviewing people from all walks of life about what gave them meaning. He interviewed well-known people from all walks of life, as well as those who were unknown. Each chapter of the book tells of a different interview and a different perspective of meaning.
In my sermon I focused on an interview with one man, a man named Elisha Shapiro. In the book, Shapiro called himself a nihilist, which means that he didn’t believe in anything at all, not God, not meaning, not morality. Then I read a passage from the book in which Shapiro said, “But me, I call myself a nihilist. It’s part of my art to call myself a nihilist. There is no God, and I don’t feel like replacing him with anything, and I like it that way. It’s a joyful experience, not an angst-filled one. My basic belief, if you can call it that, is that there is nothing that’s constant, whether it’s a more or ethical tenet or whether it’s a physical law. Take for example the statement ‘the grass is green.’ That’s not always true. Nor is the sky always blue. Maybe that’s not true. We don’t know. Maybe it’s all a dream. I like the idea that everything that people cling to that’s comforting or gives them a grounding is subject to change. People change, and nothing is constant….
To me, there really isn’t any significance to life, none whatsoever. No significance. And I find that’s a comforting thing. You’re let off the hook that way. (Laughs.) People feel like that’s a terrible emotional deal. But there is no significance to my existing here. I’m a product of… if I were to try to figure out what I was a product of, the best thing I could guess would be billions of years of coincidences, dumb luck. I enjoy my existence as an animal organism—if I’m not just a figment of my own imagination. If I am in existence at all, I’m just this animal organism running by what makes it run, what coincidentally came along with this package.”
After reading that passage, I said to the congregation that I couldn’t understand how anyone could live this way; how anyone could live without a real sense of faith or meaning. At the end of the worship service the woman I mentioned before, who was visiting our church for the first time, shook my hand at the door as she dabbed away tears. She then asked if she could make an appointment with me. We went back to my office and made an appointment for the following Thursday.
Thursday came and she and I sat down to talk. She said to me, “I’ll bet you’re wondering why I had tears in my eyes on Sunday, and why I asked to meet with you.” I told her that the thought had crossed my mind, and that I hoped it wasn’t due to my giving a dreadfully bad sermon. She then went on to tell me her story. She told me how she had grown up in Southern California in a family that was part of the Four Square Gospel church, a fundamentalist church that was highly restrictive and regimented. Growing up, she felt as though she was never allowed to do anything the other children were doing, as though she was a prisoner of her parents’ religion. She couldn’t wait to get out from under her parents’ control.
She met a charismatic and dynamic man after high school—a man who promised her freedom and a life filled with adventure and excitement. She left home to travel with this man, along with a group of others who seemed to be part of his entourage. They lived an exciting life of drugs, partying, and experimentation. But then the life took a downward spiral. The man became more and more controlling. He enticed her to dabble in all sorts of sexual practices with other men, and he turned her into something very close to a prostitute. She found herself trapped in a nightmare. What made it worse was that because of this life, and diseases she picked up, her internal organs were scarred, leaving her with a working ovary on the right side of her body and a working fallopian tube on the other side.
It took her two years to escape his grasp. She moved back home and enrolled in college, majoring in psychology. After graduating she enrolled in a master of social work program so that she could become a counselor working with lost souls like herself. She eventually met a man, a psychologist, whom she married. They moved around a bit as he took on teaching jobs and worked in rehab centers. Their travels brought them to the town where I was an associate pastor. She told me that it had taken her so long to recover from the life with that man who had destroyed so much of her life, and that church was something that helped her tremendously, which is why, whenever she moved to a new town, looking for a new church was always a priority.
She then leaned forward and said to me, “You can imagine my surprise when I came here for church last Sunday, and you gave that sermon, talking about Elisha Shapiro. You see, Elisha Shapiro was the man I told you about.” She then said that she was still living the consequences of that life. All her life she wanted to have and raise children, but because of her internal scarring there was no way to become pregnant naturally. If you know anything about biology, you know that there is no way that an egg can travel across the body cavity to a fallopian tube on the other side. Her only option was in-vitro fertilization, especially since her husband was against adopting children.
She eventually joined the church and became a very active member, and one of our most prayerful members. Over the years she kept trying to have children via in-vitro, but after going through 12 or so treatments without success, at a cost of thousands of dollars, she decided that she couldn’t do it anymore.
A year or so passed. She and I talked over the year about her disappointment, and we even prayed for healing, but nothing seemed to work. She was disappointed and helpless to do anything about it. For a long time we didn’t talk about it. Then, one day, she walked into my office with a big ear-to-ear grin. I asked her what had happened, and she said, “I’m two months pregnant!” I said to her, “But I thought you quit the in vitros.” She said, “I did. This was a natural pregnancy.” I then asked her what had happened. This is the part that continues to inspire me.
She told me that about two months prior, in the midst of despair and sadness, she sat down with God and prayed, “Lord, you know how much I want to be a mother. You know how much I’ve wanted this my whole life. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. So, Lord, I give you my life. If you want me to become a mother, I will become the best mother I can be, and I will serve you as a mother. If not, I will serve you the best I can in whatever you call me to do. All I want to do is to be yours, so I will follow you and serve you however you want.” She said that it must have been during that week that she got pregnant. She was convinced that she became pregnant because she surrendered to God and gave up her demand that God make her pregnant. She gave up control over her life. It was her saying to God that she was God’s no matter what, and that she was willing to give up her dreams, that seemed to open her to God’s Spirit. Her miracle happened because of her surrender. Seven months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Two years later, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy. Both of these conceptions were pretty near physically impossible.
I believe that her life shows what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. It means to surrender to God and to really, truly let God be at work in our lives. She showed me that the path to the Spirit is to let go of our demands on God, to let go of our requirements that we will serve God if such-and-such happens. She showed me that the way to receive the Spirit is to say simply and with conviction, “God, I am yours no matter what you call me to do, no matter how you call me to live, and no matter what happens to me as a result. I am yours.”
Amen.
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied—altogether there were about twelve of them.
Do you remember when you were baptized? Most of you probably don’t, since you were just a baby at the time, but some of you do. If you do remember, was it an amazing spiritual experience? Did you feel the Holy Spirit entering you? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Most people, even when they are baptized as adults, don’t feel the Spirit entering upon baptism. They feel that it’s an important occasion, they are happy it happened, and they feel wet, but not necessarily filled with the Spirit.
So, have you received the Holy Spirit? I’m not sure that just because you were baptized that it automatically means that you received the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t. It’s just that real baptism in the Holy Spirit means making a choice that many Christians never really make. It’s not that they don’t want to make the choice. It’s that most of us don’t know we need to make the choice, and so what happens is that we end up living less of the life that we are called by Christ to live.
How do we make sure people receive the Holy Spirit at some point in their lives? Some churches only baptize people when they are ready to make the choice to be baptized, with the hope that this choice will open the person to the Holy Spirit. In Presbyterian churches, like ours, we encourage teens to make this choice after confirmation class. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that. Many or most times the teens just aren’t spiritually mature enough to really make the kind of choice that lets the Spirit in. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they would become spiritually mature later in life. Many people never become spiritually mature enough to let the Spirit in, and some are very mature early on and let the Spirit in as children.
So what does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit in baptism? I think it means making a foundational choice to give ourselves over to the Spirit and to willingly let the Spirit truly, deeply into our lives. It means letting the Spirit not only guide us to what God wants, but to let the Spirit move our lives according to God’s ways.
I think that for a long time I understood this concept in my head, the idea of receiving the Spirit, but I don’t know that I truly understood it from a deeper life-sense. Where I learned what it really meant was from a member of my previous church, where I served as an associate pastor.
This woman’s story is really fascinating, and shows the difference it makes in our lives when we truly become open to and receive the Spirit. The year was 1990, and I was preaching on the particular Sunday she visited. At that time I preached about once every five to six weeks. I was preaching about faith, and about how we needed it to give us purpose and meaning in life. Then I gave an example of what life without faith is like. I read the congregation a passage from a book that my wife, Diane, whom I was dating at the time, had given me. The book was titled The Search for Meaning, by Phillip Berman. Berman had traveled the country, interviewing people from all walks of life about what gave them meaning. He interviewed well-known people from all walks of life, as well as those who were unknown. Each chapter of the book tells of a different interview and a different perspective of meaning.
In my sermon I focused on an interview with one man, a man named Elisha Shapiro. In the book, Shapiro called himself a nihilist, which means that he didn’t believe in anything at all, not God, not meaning, not morality. Then I read a passage from the book in which Shapiro said, “But me, I call myself a nihilist. It’s part of my art to call myself a nihilist. There is no God, and I don’t feel like replacing him with anything, and I like it that way. It’s a joyful experience, not an angst-filled one. My basic belief, if you can call it that, is that there is nothing that’s constant, whether it’s a more or ethical tenet or whether it’s a physical law. Take for example the statement ‘the grass is green.’ That’s not always true. Nor is the sky always blue. Maybe that’s not true. We don’t know. Maybe it’s all a dream. I like the idea that everything that people cling to that’s comforting or gives them a grounding is subject to change. People change, and nothing is constant….
To me, there really isn’t any significance to life, none whatsoever. No significance. And I find that’s a comforting thing. You’re let off the hook that way. (Laughs.) People feel like that’s a terrible emotional deal. But there is no significance to my existing here. I’m a product of… if I were to try to figure out what I was a product of, the best thing I could guess would be billions of years of coincidences, dumb luck. I enjoy my existence as an animal organism—if I’m not just a figment of my own imagination. If I am in existence at all, I’m just this animal organism running by what makes it run, what coincidentally came along with this package.”
After reading that passage, I said to the congregation that I couldn’t understand how anyone could live this way; how anyone could live without a real sense of faith or meaning. At the end of the worship service the woman I mentioned before, who was visiting our church for the first time, shook my hand at the door as she dabbed away tears. She then asked if she could make an appointment with me. We went back to my office and made an appointment for the following Thursday.
Thursday came and she and I sat down to talk. She said to me, “I’ll bet you’re wondering why I had tears in my eyes on Sunday, and why I asked to meet with you.” I told her that the thought had crossed my mind, and that I hoped it wasn’t due to my giving a dreadfully bad sermon. She then went on to tell me her story. She told me how she had grown up in Southern California in a family that was part of the Four Square Gospel church, a fundamentalist church that was highly restrictive and regimented. Growing up, she felt as though she was never allowed to do anything the other children were doing, as though she was a prisoner of her parents’ religion. She couldn’t wait to get out from under her parents’ control.
She met a charismatic and dynamic man after high school—a man who promised her freedom and a life filled with adventure and excitement. She left home to travel with this man, along with a group of others who seemed to be part of his entourage. They lived an exciting life of drugs, partying, and experimentation. But then the life took a downward spiral. The man became more and more controlling. He enticed her to dabble in all sorts of sexual practices with other men, and he turned her into something very close to a prostitute. She found herself trapped in a nightmare. What made it worse was that because of this life, and diseases she picked up, her internal organs were scarred, leaving her with a working ovary on the right side of her body and a working fallopian tube on the other side.
It took her two years to escape his grasp. She moved back home and enrolled in college, majoring in psychology. After graduating she enrolled in a master of social work program so that she could become a counselor working with lost souls like herself. She eventually met a man, a psychologist, whom she married. They moved around a bit as he took on teaching jobs and worked in rehab centers. Their travels brought them to the town where I was an associate pastor. She told me that it had taken her so long to recover from the life with that man who had destroyed so much of her life, and that church was something that helped her tremendously, which is why, whenever she moved to a new town, looking for a new church was always a priority.
She then leaned forward and said to me, “You can imagine my surprise when I came here for church last Sunday, and you gave that sermon, talking about Elisha Shapiro. You see, Elisha Shapiro was the man I told you about.” She then said that she was still living the consequences of that life. All her life she wanted to have and raise children, but because of her internal scarring there was no way to become pregnant naturally. If you know anything about biology, you know that there is no way that an egg can travel across the body cavity to a fallopian tube on the other side. Her only option was in-vitro fertilization, especially since her husband was against adopting children.
She eventually joined the church and became a very active member, and one of our most prayerful members. Over the years she kept trying to have children via in-vitro, but after going through 12 or so treatments without success, at a cost of thousands of dollars, she decided that she couldn’t do it anymore.
A year or so passed. She and I talked over the year about her disappointment, and we even prayed for healing, but nothing seemed to work. She was disappointed and helpless to do anything about it. For a long time we didn’t talk about it. Then, one day, she walked into my office with a big ear-to-ear grin. I asked her what had happened, and she said, “I’m two months pregnant!” I said to her, “But I thought you quit the in vitros.” She said, “I did. This was a natural pregnancy.” I then asked her what had happened. This is the part that continues to inspire me.
She told me that about two months prior, in the midst of despair and sadness, she sat down with God and prayed, “Lord, you know how much I want to be a mother. You know how much I’ve wanted this my whole life. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. So, Lord, I give you my life. If you want me to become a mother, I will become the best mother I can be, and I will serve you as a mother. If not, I will serve you the best I can in whatever you call me to do. All I want to do is to be yours, so I will follow you and serve you however you want.” She said that it must have been during that week that she got pregnant. She was convinced that she became pregnant because she surrendered to God and gave up her demand that God make her pregnant. She gave up control over her life. It was her saying to God that she was God’s no matter what, and that she was willing to give up her dreams, that seemed to open her to God’s Spirit. Her miracle happened because of her surrender. Seven months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Two years later, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy. Both of these conceptions were pretty near physically impossible.
I believe that her life shows what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. It means to surrender to God and to really, truly let God be at work in our lives. She showed me that the path to the Spirit is to let go of our demands on God, to let go of our requirements that we will serve God if such-and-such happens. She showed me that the way to receive the Spirit is to say simply and with conviction, “God, I am yours no matter what you call me to do, no matter how you call me to live, and no matter what happens to me as a result. I am yours.”
Amen.
What Others Dismiss
Luke 2:22-40
December 28, 2008
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too." 36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
I’ve just finished reading a book and it may be the best book I’ve read in years. That’s saying a lot because I’ve read a lot of great books over the past few years. It’s about a Russian Orthodox priest named Father Arseny. I came across the book after giving a talk to about 250 Methodist pastors in North Carolina. During my talk I spoke about how God seems to work through coincidence (or providence), and how many people of faith experience God in this way. While sitting outside with several pastors during our lunch break, one of them said to me, “What you are saying reminds me of Father Arseny.”
I asked him who Father Arseny was. He said, “He’s an Orthodox priest who survived a Soviet Siberian gulag for 20 or more years. During that time he had an amazing faith and cared for others in the camp, transforming their lives and opening them to God.” As I often do when people suggest books to me, I wrote down the information and, when I got home, ordered the book. It took me a while to work through my stack of other books, but once I read this book I realized that this man may have been one of the truly great Christians of the 20th century. And he was a man others dismissed.
Father Arseny was originally an art scholar who became an Orthodox priest. He ended up being sentenced to the gulag after writing several articles about the importance of faith even among communists. In Stalinist Russia, where atheism was the official religion and Christians were persecuted aggressively, to write pro-Christian articles in public papers and magazines was to speak out politically against the government. During Stalin’s reign, Christians were considered to be the worst of all political agitators because belief in God was a threat to the supreme rule of Stalin. As a result, something like 44,000 priests were killed during his reign, and over 150,000 monks and nuns. By the time Stalin died, only 200 priests remained. Remember that statistic the next time someone says that Christianity is responsible for more deaths than anything else. Under Stalin’s atheistic reign, over 25 million people were killed, and millions of them for being Christian. A significant number of them died in the gulags.
The gulags were designed to kill people slowly and with a lot of pain. In the winter, the temperature generally hovered around -15 or -20, and dipping at times to -30. During the summer, the water from the frozen ground was released, making it extremely humid, creating an Eden for mosquitoes, which spread disease. Either way, the majority of people sent to the camps did not return.
The camps were filled with both political prisoners (often highly educated scholars, artists, and reporters) and common criminals (thieves, murderers, psychopath). Both had nothing but disdain for people who were religious. The atheistic political prisoners hated them because they saw religious people as being willfully stupid and superstitious. The criminals hated them because they hated anyone with a sense of morality. The result was that both treated Father Arseny with contempt and brutality. Yet Father Arseny always responded with love, even when they abused and beat him. And I don’t mean that he responded with a weak-kneed love, but with a genuine love. He was a man who cared about people, and often his love brought about miracles.
Father Arseny was easily dismissed by others, especially by those who were smart, powerful, or just wanted to fit in. But being dismissed by others never seemed to bother him. All he cared about was serving God. After he died in 1973, stories about him were collected from those who knew him either in the gulag or elsewhere. That’s what makes this book so fascinating. They tell the stories of Father Arseny from the perspective of those who were transformed by him.
For example, one particular reporter, Andreyenkov, who was sentenced to the same Siberian gulag as Father Arseny, wrote about how Father Arseny saved his life and made him a Christian. Like most other prisoners, Andreyenkov was assigned to work in the quarries, breaking One day he unfortunately stepped on ice that broke, immersing his foot in water, causing his heel to freeze to the boot. His foot went numb, and eventually his body as hypothermic blood spread throughout his body. When he returned to the barracks, he was half-dead from exposure. He could not remove his frozen boot no matter how hard he pulled. He fell back on his bed, thinking that he would die overnight. As he swooned in some sort of daze, he could feel someone pulling on his boots. It must be one of the other prisoners stealing my boots, he thought. If he survived the night, he would be forced to go out barefoot, or in flimsy shoes, the next day, meaning certain death. Still, he could offer no resistance. He just lay there. Then he felt someone massaging his feet and rubbing a balm over the sores. He passed out.
The next morning he was awakened as the other prisoners scrambled to get dressed and line up in formation. He looked around for his boots, terrified that they were gone. He saw Father Arseny walking toward him with his boots, which had been dried along with his socks. He grabbed them from Father Arseny, put them on, and ran outside. The question nagged him, “Why would that ignorant priest have helped him so? What was his angle? What did he want in return?”
That night he collapsed again on his bead, weak from work and exposure. Again, he felt someone tug at his boots. He looked up. It was Father Arseny, who once again rubbed his feet and put a healing balm on his sores. Arseny did this for several nights in a row until the man was strong enough to care for himself. Father Arseny never said a word. Andreyenkov couldn’t figure out how Father Arseny was able to dry the boots each night. He knew that had he left them on the stove and went to sleep, the criminals would have stolen them. What he found out later was that Father Arseny had indeed dried them on the stove, and had stayed up for four night straights to guard them. And this despite the fact that Father Arseny also had to work each day. Why had Father Arseny done this? Out of love. Over time Andreyenkov was so transformed by Father Arseny’s love that he became one of his spiritual children and pledged his life to Christ.
Another time Father Arseny performed a life-saving miracle with a young prisoner named Alexei. Alexei was sentenced to the gulag at age 23. When the criminals saw him, they immediately made plans to beat the young man down. Young prisoners always fared the worst. Pretending to be his friend, they convinced Alexei to play cards with them, betting for clothes. They all colluded to cheat, and soon had won all the young man’s clothes. When they asked for them, Alexei told them that he thought they were kidding and that they wouldn’t relinquish them. Smiling, Ivan the Brown, the leader of the criminals, set upon him like a wolf on a lamb. He began to beat Alexei mercilessly, a beating that everyone knew would lead to Alexei’s death. Seeing this, Father Arseny (knowing that to interfere would lead to his own death) calmly walked over and grabbed Ivan’s arm, preventing him from hitting Alexei again. Ivan spun around to Father Arseny and said, “I’ll get to you soon, Pop” (“Pop” was a derogatory name for a priest). He pulled out a knife to slash Alexei, and Father Arseny hit him in the arm with a surprising force, thus causing Ivan’s arm to go numb and to drop the knife. Ivan didn’t know what to do, but he had lost face. Father Arseny picked Alexei off the ground and took him to the water basin to care for his wounds, telling him that no one would bother him anymore. Amazingly, he was left alone.
The next day the guards came in and grabbed Father Arseny and Alexei and sentenced them to 48 hours in the punishment cell. Ivan had falsely turned them in for fighting. Being put in the punishment for 48 hours meant certain death for both men. The cell was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and lined with sheet metal. There was one open window near the top with iron bars. Outside the temperature was -20, meaning that the temperature inside was very close to that. What did this mean in practical terms? A man might survive 24 hours if he managed to jump up and down for 24 hours, but no one could do this for 48 hours, especially an old man like Father Arseny or the half-dead Alexei. Didn’t matter. They were thrown in anyway.
What happened next was miraculous. Right away Father Arseny stood in the middle of the room and began mumbling something. Alexei asked him what he was doing. Father Arseny said, “I’m praying.” Alexei said, “What good is that, priest? We’re going to die here.” Father Arseny replied, “Well, if we are going to die then what better way to face death than with prayer.” Alexei didn’t know what to say, so he huddled in the corner and watched Father Arseny. Father Arseny prayed, O Lord God, have mercy on us sinners! Ever-merciful God! Lord Jesus Christ who because of They love became man to save us all. Through Thine unspeakable mercy save us, have mercy on us and lead us away from this cruel death, because we do believe in Thee, Thou our God and our Creator…. O, Lord our God, Jesus Christ! Thou didst say with Thy purest lips that if two or three agree to ask for the same thing, then Thy Heavenly Father will grant their prayer because, as Thou didst say, ‘When two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.’”
As Alexei watched him, he noticed that Father Arseny’s garments changed to the dazzling white vestments of a priest. Soon, out of nowhere, two others in white vestments stood on his right and his left as al three continued the prayer. Alexei then noticed that he was breathing easier and the room had changed. They were in a church. He wondered if he was hallucinating. He felt warm. Listening to the three praying, he found himself starting to repeat the same prayers. Aware that Alexei was watching, Father Arseny told him to rest. Alexei did, and as he did he felt his mother’s presence next to him, holding him (he later found out that she had died while he was in the camp).
He awoke to see the three still praying. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door opening and then shouts. Looking back at Father Arseny, he saw the other two blessing him and Alexei as they disappeared, and Father Arseny was once again dressed in prison garb. A major came in shouting, “How could you have sentenced them to 48 hours? We will be punished for their deaths! What were you thinking…?” He stopped short as he saw Father Arseny and Alexei, both still alive. He had the doctor check them, who felt under their clothes and said, “They are both quite warm. I can’t explain it.”
The two men had survived for 48 hours in conditions that would have killed either you or me in six or seven hours. As you can imagine, Alexei became a Christian that day and stayed under the guidance of Father Arseny, even after both were released.
What Father Arseny’s story really showed is how easy it is for people to miss both how God is present and what God is doing in our midst. Even though we may have a measure of faith, we generally have a hard time knowing what to think about people like Father Arseny. We think of people like him as being too good to be true. But what made him special wasn’t any inherent talent. It was just his willingness to devote his life to prayer. In that way he is just like Simeon and Anna from our story above. What made them able to tell that Jesus was the messiah, while others merely saw a baby? The answer is that both Simeon and Anna were part of a small sect of prayer devotes called the Quiet Ones. They were people who lived near the Temple of Jerusalem, devoting themselves to a life of prayer. They weren’t monks or nuns, but lived normal lives. What made them special was that they brought prayer into everything, just like Father Arseny. The result is that they were able to sense and see things that others dismissed.
Would you like to have this kind of life? Would you like to sense and see God in everything? Would you like to be able to see and understand things that other dismiss? You can, but it takes a desire for four things:
First, we have to always make time for prayer no matter what. The truth is that no one is ever going to walk up to you and say, “Here, have some time for prayer.” Your kids won’t say that to you, your boss won’t, your co-workers won’t, your friends won’t, and your spouses probably won’t. You have to make and take time for prayer. And I don’t mean periodic prayer. I mean constant prayer, speaking to God as often as possible about whatever is going on in your life. If you are able to do this, it leads to the next step.
Second, we need to seek God’s will in each moment to the best we can, even if we aren’t sure what that will is. It’s the seeking that matters, even more than the finding. God wants to guide our lives, but we have to want to be guided.
Third, make worship central to our lives. I don’t know how much this resonates with people anymore. There are so many people today who call themselves spiritual but not religious, or Christian but not attending. Worship is central to the spiritual life. Why? Because worship, even when we find it boring, centers us in God. It is an activity that aims completely at being God-focused. Over time it opens us to God.
Finally, let this kind of prayer and worship lead you to act always in love. Prayer, devotion, and worship are not good if they don’t lead us to act in love.
All of these put together lead us to see and be what others dismiss. So here’s what I want you to do. Reflect on your life and ask a question: are you able to see and do what others dismiss? If not, why?
Amen.
December 28, 2008
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too." 36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
I’ve just finished reading a book and it may be the best book I’ve read in years. That’s saying a lot because I’ve read a lot of great books over the past few years. It’s about a Russian Orthodox priest named Father Arseny. I came across the book after giving a talk to about 250 Methodist pastors in North Carolina. During my talk I spoke about how God seems to work through coincidence (or providence), and how many people of faith experience God in this way. While sitting outside with several pastors during our lunch break, one of them said to me, “What you are saying reminds me of Father Arseny.”
I asked him who Father Arseny was. He said, “He’s an Orthodox priest who survived a Soviet Siberian gulag for 20 or more years. During that time he had an amazing faith and cared for others in the camp, transforming their lives and opening them to God.” As I often do when people suggest books to me, I wrote down the information and, when I got home, ordered the book. It took me a while to work through my stack of other books, but once I read this book I realized that this man may have been one of the truly great Christians of the 20th century. And he was a man others dismissed.
Father Arseny was originally an art scholar who became an Orthodox priest. He ended up being sentenced to the gulag after writing several articles about the importance of faith even among communists. In Stalinist Russia, where atheism was the official religion and Christians were persecuted aggressively, to write pro-Christian articles in public papers and magazines was to speak out politically against the government. During Stalin’s reign, Christians were considered to be the worst of all political agitators because belief in God was a threat to the supreme rule of Stalin. As a result, something like 44,000 priests were killed during his reign, and over 150,000 monks and nuns. By the time Stalin died, only 200 priests remained. Remember that statistic the next time someone says that Christianity is responsible for more deaths than anything else. Under Stalin’s atheistic reign, over 25 million people were killed, and millions of them for being Christian. A significant number of them died in the gulags.
The gulags were designed to kill people slowly and with a lot of pain. In the winter, the temperature generally hovered around -15 or -20, and dipping at times to -30. During the summer, the water from the frozen ground was released, making it extremely humid, creating an Eden for mosquitoes, which spread disease. Either way, the majority of people sent to the camps did not return.
The camps were filled with both political prisoners (often highly educated scholars, artists, and reporters) and common criminals (thieves, murderers, psychopath). Both had nothing but disdain for people who were religious. The atheistic political prisoners hated them because they saw religious people as being willfully stupid and superstitious. The criminals hated them because they hated anyone with a sense of morality. The result was that both treated Father Arseny with contempt and brutality. Yet Father Arseny always responded with love, even when they abused and beat him. And I don’t mean that he responded with a weak-kneed love, but with a genuine love. He was a man who cared about people, and often his love brought about miracles.
Father Arseny was easily dismissed by others, especially by those who were smart, powerful, or just wanted to fit in. But being dismissed by others never seemed to bother him. All he cared about was serving God. After he died in 1973, stories about him were collected from those who knew him either in the gulag or elsewhere. That’s what makes this book so fascinating. They tell the stories of Father Arseny from the perspective of those who were transformed by him.
For example, one particular reporter, Andreyenkov, who was sentenced to the same Siberian gulag as Father Arseny, wrote about how Father Arseny saved his life and made him a Christian. Like most other prisoners, Andreyenkov was assigned to work in the quarries, breaking One day he unfortunately stepped on ice that broke, immersing his foot in water, causing his heel to freeze to the boot. His foot went numb, and eventually his body as hypothermic blood spread throughout his body. When he returned to the barracks, he was half-dead from exposure. He could not remove his frozen boot no matter how hard he pulled. He fell back on his bed, thinking that he would die overnight. As he swooned in some sort of daze, he could feel someone pulling on his boots. It must be one of the other prisoners stealing my boots, he thought. If he survived the night, he would be forced to go out barefoot, or in flimsy shoes, the next day, meaning certain death. Still, he could offer no resistance. He just lay there. Then he felt someone massaging his feet and rubbing a balm over the sores. He passed out.
The next morning he was awakened as the other prisoners scrambled to get dressed and line up in formation. He looked around for his boots, terrified that they were gone. He saw Father Arseny walking toward him with his boots, which had been dried along with his socks. He grabbed them from Father Arseny, put them on, and ran outside. The question nagged him, “Why would that ignorant priest have helped him so? What was his angle? What did he want in return?”
That night he collapsed again on his bead, weak from work and exposure. Again, he felt someone tug at his boots. He looked up. It was Father Arseny, who once again rubbed his feet and put a healing balm on his sores. Arseny did this for several nights in a row until the man was strong enough to care for himself. Father Arseny never said a word. Andreyenkov couldn’t figure out how Father Arseny was able to dry the boots each night. He knew that had he left them on the stove and went to sleep, the criminals would have stolen them. What he found out later was that Father Arseny had indeed dried them on the stove, and had stayed up for four night straights to guard them. And this despite the fact that Father Arseny also had to work each day. Why had Father Arseny done this? Out of love. Over time Andreyenkov was so transformed by Father Arseny’s love that he became one of his spiritual children and pledged his life to Christ.
Another time Father Arseny performed a life-saving miracle with a young prisoner named Alexei. Alexei was sentenced to the gulag at age 23. When the criminals saw him, they immediately made plans to beat the young man down. Young prisoners always fared the worst. Pretending to be his friend, they convinced Alexei to play cards with them, betting for clothes. They all colluded to cheat, and soon had won all the young man’s clothes. When they asked for them, Alexei told them that he thought they were kidding and that they wouldn’t relinquish them. Smiling, Ivan the Brown, the leader of the criminals, set upon him like a wolf on a lamb. He began to beat Alexei mercilessly, a beating that everyone knew would lead to Alexei’s death. Seeing this, Father Arseny (knowing that to interfere would lead to his own death) calmly walked over and grabbed Ivan’s arm, preventing him from hitting Alexei again. Ivan spun around to Father Arseny and said, “I’ll get to you soon, Pop” (“Pop” was a derogatory name for a priest). He pulled out a knife to slash Alexei, and Father Arseny hit him in the arm with a surprising force, thus causing Ivan’s arm to go numb and to drop the knife. Ivan didn’t know what to do, but he had lost face. Father Arseny picked Alexei off the ground and took him to the water basin to care for his wounds, telling him that no one would bother him anymore. Amazingly, he was left alone.
The next day the guards came in and grabbed Father Arseny and Alexei and sentenced them to 48 hours in the punishment cell. Ivan had falsely turned them in for fighting. Being put in the punishment for 48 hours meant certain death for both men. The cell was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and lined with sheet metal. There was one open window near the top with iron bars. Outside the temperature was -20, meaning that the temperature inside was very close to that. What did this mean in practical terms? A man might survive 24 hours if he managed to jump up and down for 24 hours, but no one could do this for 48 hours, especially an old man like Father Arseny or the half-dead Alexei. Didn’t matter. They were thrown in anyway.
What happened next was miraculous. Right away Father Arseny stood in the middle of the room and began mumbling something. Alexei asked him what he was doing. Father Arseny said, “I’m praying.” Alexei said, “What good is that, priest? We’re going to die here.” Father Arseny replied, “Well, if we are going to die then what better way to face death than with prayer.” Alexei didn’t know what to say, so he huddled in the corner and watched Father Arseny. Father Arseny prayed, O Lord God, have mercy on us sinners! Ever-merciful God! Lord Jesus Christ who because of They love became man to save us all. Through Thine unspeakable mercy save us, have mercy on us and lead us away from this cruel death, because we do believe in Thee, Thou our God and our Creator…. O, Lord our God, Jesus Christ! Thou didst say with Thy purest lips that if two or three agree to ask for the same thing, then Thy Heavenly Father will grant their prayer because, as Thou didst say, ‘When two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.’”
As Alexei watched him, he noticed that Father Arseny’s garments changed to the dazzling white vestments of a priest. Soon, out of nowhere, two others in white vestments stood on his right and his left as al three continued the prayer. Alexei then noticed that he was breathing easier and the room had changed. They were in a church. He wondered if he was hallucinating. He felt warm. Listening to the three praying, he found himself starting to repeat the same prayers. Aware that Alexei was watching, Father Arseny told him to rest. Alexei did, and as he did he felt his mother’s presence next to him, holding him (he later found out that she had died while he was in the camp).
He awoke to see the three still praying. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door opening and then shouts. Looking back at Father Arseny, he saw the other two blessing him and Alexei as they disappeared, and Father Arseny was once again dressed in prison garb. A major came in shouting, “How could you have sentenced them to 48 hours? We will be punished for their deaths! What were you thinking…?” He stopped short as he saw Father Arseny and Alexei, both still alive. He had the doctor check them, who felt under their clothes and said, “They are both quite warm. I can’t explain it.”
The two men had survived for 48 hours in conditions that would have killed either you or me in six or seven hours. As you can imagine, Alexei became a Christian that day and stayed under the guidance of Father Arseny, even after both were released.
What Father Arseny’s story really showed is how easy it is for people to miss both how God is present and what God is doing in our midst. Even though we may have a measure of faith, we generally have a hard time knowing what to think about people like Father Arseny. We think of people like him as being too good to be true. But what made him special wasn’t any inherent talent. It was just his willingness to devote his life to prayer. In that way he is just like Simeon and Anna from our story above. What made them able to tell that Jesus was the messiah, while others merely saw a baby? The answer is that both Simeon and Anna were part of a small sect of prayer devotes called the Quiet Ones. They were people who lived near the Temple of Jerusalem, devoting themselves to a life of prayer. They weren’t monks or nuns, but lived normal lives. What made them special was that they brought prayer into everything, just like Father Arseny. The result is that they were able to sense and see things that others dismissed.
Would you like to have this kind of life? Would you like to sense and see God in everything? Would you like to be able to see and understand things that other dismiss? You can, but it takes a desire for four things:
First, we have to always make time for prayer no matter what. The truth is that no one is ever going to walk up to you and say, “Here, have some time for prayer.” Your kids won’t say that to you, your boss won’t, your co-workers won’t, your friends won’t, and your spouses probably won’t. You have to make and take time for prayer. And I don’t mean periodic prayer. I mean constant prayer, speaking to God as often as possible about whatever is going on in your life. If you are able to do this, it leads to the next step.
Second, we need to seek God’s will in each moment to the best we can, even if we aren’t sure what that will is. It’s the seeking that matters, even more than the finding. God wants to guide our lives, but we have to want to be guided.
Third, make worship central to our lives. I don’t know how much this resonates with people anymore. There are so many people today who call themselves spiritual but not religious, or Christian but not attending. Worship is central to the spiritual life. Why? Because worship, even when we find it boring, centers us in God. It is an activity that aims completely at being God-focused. Over time it opens us to God.
Finally, let this kind of prayer and worship lead you to act always in love. Prayer, devotion, and worship are not good if they don’t lead us to act in love.
All of these put together lead us to see and be what others dismiss. So here’s what I want you to do. Reflect on your life and ask a question: are you able to see and do what others dismiss? If not, why?
Amen.
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