John
7:1-18
January 12, 2014
After this Jesus went about in
Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for
an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So his
brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also
may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts
in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ (For not even
his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, ‘My time has not yet come,
but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me
because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival
yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully
come.’ After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had gone
to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. The
Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, ‘Where is he?’ And there
was considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were
saying, ‘He is a good man’, others were saying, ‘No, he is deceiving the
crowd.’ Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews.
About the middle of the festival
Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at
it, saying, ‘How does this man have such learning, when he has never been
taught?’ Then Jesus answered them, ‘My teaching is not mine but his who sent me.
Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is
from God or whether I am speaking on my own. Those who speak on their own seek
their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true,
and there is nothing false in him.
This week Rev. Frierson and I start a new sermon series
that’s actually a bit difficult for us. We decided to do a series on Christian
teachings that we rarely think about, which is hard because trying to figure
out what we don’t think about it tough. There are lot of reasons we rarely
ponder them, but the more common is that they are teachings that have gone out
of style because the religion has gotten so tied up with the surrounding
culture that people don’t think about these teachings. Yet these are teachings
that have been around for thousands of years. Most have been forgotten simply
because of Christian trends. In other words, Christianity and its surrounding
culture get so mixed together that the beliefs of the culture become dominant
in Christianity, and perhaps even lead us away from Christian faith. So, people
forget these other teachings, especially if they don’t fit with the surrounding
culture.
The problem of forgetting is true of our lesson for
today. It is a lesson taught for thousands of years in Christianity, but that’s
been forgotten by many of our modern Christians. I want to introduce our lesson
by sharing a story with you that I’ve been mulling over for thirty years. I
first heard it when I was in my twenties, and it’s led me to struggle a bit with
it ever since.
There was a woman who was in a terrible car accident and
had a near death experience. She was lifted up to heaven and stood before the
Pearly Gates. St. Peter looked at her and said, “Before you can enter, you need
to answer a question: ‘Who Are You?’”
The woman looked at him and said, “I’m the mayor’s wife.”
He replied, “I didn’t ask you who you were married to, I asked you who you
are.” She said, “Well,… I’m the mother of four children.” He shook his head and
said, “I didn’t ask you who you were the mother of, I asked you who you are.”
She looked down for a moment, and then said, “I’m a Christian.” He replied, “I
didn’t ask you what religion you were, I asked you who you are.” She said, “I’m
the one who went to church every Sunday and gave to the poor.” He replied, “I
didn’t ask you where you went to church, or what you did for the poor, I asked
you who you are.”
No matter what she replied, he kept hammering at her with
the same response. Finally, he told her it was not her time, and that she
needed to return to earth and discover who she was. And that made all the
difference in her life. Her life changed in amazing ways.
As I said, this is a favorite story I’ve been mulling over
for thirty years. I remember the first time I told it in a sermon when I was an
associate pastor. Afterwards, several people complained to the senior pastor
that they didn’t understand my stories. I understand. I’m not sure I understand
this story either, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not powerful and not one to
ponder. This story gets to the heart of a Christian teaching we rarely ponder.
Perhaps it’s because we rarely ponder it that people don’t understand this
story.
This story calls on us to define ourselves by who we most
deeply are, not by all the things we do. Unfortunately, our culture is big on
activity, accomplishments, and actions. We define ourselves by what we do. But
does God?
At your core, who are you? What’s your true nature?
That’s a question that most of us have a really hard time answering, and the
reason has to do with our false self. The term “false self” is actually a
psychological term coined in the 1960s, but it reflects a deeper spiritual
teaching that goes back to the story of Adam and Eve. They had a true purpose
that is brought out very early on in their story: they were to walk with God
and tend to the garden. Who were they? They were God’s companions and
caretakers of Eden But that’s not what they wanted for themselves. They wanted
more. They wanted to be what God was by gaining knowledge reserved for God. They
lost their sense of purpose and of who they were. The Eden story says something
about us. We also don’t generally know who we are.
Each and every one of us struggles between our true self, which is who God created us
to be, and our false self, which is
who we try to create ourselves to be. We all have an essential struggle: Am I the person God created me to be, or
have I let my pride, my fears, my hurts, my ambitions, my desires rule me and
turn me into something else?
A lot of times we let all that false stuff lead us astray.
Let me share another favorite story about another woman who met St. Peter at
the Pearly Gates. There was a woman who died and met St. Peter. St. Peter
reviewed her life and said, “You know, you weren’t a very nice woman? Did you
ever care about anyone but yourself?” The woman thought for a bit. She couldn’t
remember being nice to anyone.
St. Peter said, “If you can find one act of love in your
life, you can enter heaven. She thought
and thought, and finally said, “I know, I once gave a carrot to a beggar on the
street.” St. Peter smiled and said, “Because of the love invested in that one
act, you can enter heaven. So he gave her the very carrot she had given to the
beggar. Grasping it, the love invested in that one carrot began to lift her up
to heaven. A man walking by saw her rise and grabbed her leg, and he also rose.
Another man grabbed his leg and rose, too. Soon, fifty people were rising
heavenward in a chain, each one grabbing the other’s leg.
The woman, too enraptured by the power of the carrot,
didn’t even notice the heavenward procession being lifted by her carrot until
she looked down. When she noticed them, she was horrified. “Off! Off, all of
you! Let go of me! This is my carrot, not yours. You can’t come with me!” With
that, she let go of the carrot to pry them off of her leg, and all tumbled back
to earth. A twig of love in her heart had lifted her to heaven, but the root of
selfishness—pride—plunged her back to earth.
The woman had love buried deep in her, but she wasn’t willing
to let it live through her. Ultimately the problem all of us share, and that
pulls us away from who we most deeply are, is pride. And pride is the worst of
all sins because it hides and pretends to be something else. Pride is our false
self that keeps us from truly becoming who God created us to be.
Each of us is created in God’s image, but the question
really is what we do with that image. The Eastern Orthodox faith has a
wonderful concept that I think we Protestants could adopt. They say that we
were created in God’s image, but our lifelong task is growing into God’s
likeness. It’s not enough to have an image. We need to reflect God throughout
our lives because that is deeply part of who we are. Pride causes us to
diminish God’s likeness in us by leading us to create false faces that cover up
our lack of confidence in who we truly are. We all do this. We build layer and
layer of falseness to cover up pains, fears, struggles, and more.
We are like Russian nesting dolls. You know these dolls.
They are large dolls that pull apart to reveal an exact, but smaller replica
inside. That replica pulls apart to reveal a smaller replica. And that pulls
apart to reveal a smaller replica, which pulls apart to reveal a tiny doll
inside. Our true self is like that miniature doll inside that is covered over
with larger, but hollow, false dolls. We don’t tend to let people know who we are
at our deepest levels, so we present false faces. The Christian ideal is to let
that deepest person become who we truly are on both the inside and outside.
This doesn’t mean that if you are crabby on the inside, it’s
okay to be crabby on the outside. Crabbiness is not part of our true self.
Think about why you get crabby. You’re tired. Your family is talking to you too
early in the morning. People aren’t doing what you want. The central factor in
all that is Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. It’s pride. Crabbiness comes out of our false
self. It’s a manifestation of a need to be in more control. If you are constantly
crabby, you’ve let pride grow too strong.
Pride is the falseness that hides the truth, and it is
what causes us to be critical of others, self-protective around others, scared
of others, overly compliant with others, dishonest with others. You name a
problem in this world, and I’ll show you pride at its center: politics, greed,
envy, addictions, insensitivity, war, ignorance, neglect, vanity, selfishness,
and sooooo much more.
Let me close out the sermon by sharing with you a few
other stories that capture the conflict between our true and false selves.
Max had been married to Millie for over 55 years. On
Millie’s birthday, she sent him to her best friend’s house to personally
deliver a piece of birthday cake. Max, who walked with a cane, walked over a
half mile to deliver the cake. He rang the doorbell and the friend answered.
Max said, “Millie wanted so much to share her birthday cake with you to
celebrate her 86th birthday.” The friend was touched, and replied,
“This is so nice of you. Thank you. Please let Millie know how happy I am to
see her live such a long life—all the way to 86!” Max thanked her and walked
home.
About two hours later an exhausted Max rang the friend’s
doorbell again. When she opened to the door, Max said, “I’m really sorry to
bother you again. Millie sent me back to tell you that really she’s only 85.”
Pride. Control. Letting out too much of the false self.
A conductor was furiously running the orchestra through
its final paces for their major performance on Saturday evening. He conducted
with passion and intensity. Meanwhile, in the background a man on the set
construction crew hammered away at a piece of scenery. Eventually the conductor
couldn’t stand the distraction. He bellowed for the orchestra to stop, and then
put his hands on his hips while glaring at the man. The man stopped his
hammering, looked up, and said, “Oh,… don’t worry. Your music isn’t bothering
me. Please continue.” Pride.
Finally, there was a scientist who realized that he could
cheat death if he used his cloning talents to make exact copies of himself. He
knew that if the Angel of Death couldn’t tell which on was he, he could live
forever. So he made twelve exact replicas of himself. They were perfect. Not
one flaw.
The Angel of Death came to collect him one day, and came
across the scientist and his twelve replicas. The angel was stumped. He wasn’t
allowed to collect anyone whose time wasn’t due. The angel looked at all
thirteen of them and walked away dejected. Suddenly the angel spun around and
gathered the thirteen together. He praised the scientist for his work, saying,
“You are amazing, whichever one you are. You have done what only God could do.
I bow before you and your brilliance. Of course, you know there is only one
flaw.”
With that the scientist jumped out and said, “No there
isn’t! Where? Where? I demand to know!” That’s your flaw: your pride in
yourself.”
Ultimately the image God created us in is an image of
God’s love that God calls us to live out in a unique way only we can live. The
question is, will we let that person become you in real life.
Amen.
