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“The Healthy House of God”
Ephesians 4:17-5:2
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
All Saints Day,
On Tuesday, I was one of the 20,000 plus people who gathered at the Williams Arena to pay our respects and remember the lives of Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy, Marcia Wellstone Markuson, Sheila Wellstone and Paul Wellstone. I was not lucky enough to get inside, so with a number of UBCers, I stood outside for four an a half hours, rocking to music, trying to stay warm, hearing tributes and memories, getting myself introduced to those six people through the stories their loved ones told of them. While it got partisan at times, the event was a fitting tribute to the passion each of them shared. What the event showed was each person’s willingness to give of themselves so that other people could have a voice and live a better life. I hope people will say that about me when I’m gone from this world.
Paul, Sheila, Marcia, Will, Tom and Mary seemed to live the words of the writer of Ephesians: “Therefore putting away all falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with their neighbor, for we are all in this together. Be angry but do not sin: don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Let the thief no longer steal but let the former thief do an honest day’s work so that she or he can give to those in need. Let o evil talk come out of your mouths, rather impart grace for all to hear…let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice flee from you. Instead, be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving, for that’s how Christ acts today. Inasmuch as you can, be imitators of God. Walk in love.”
On All Saints Sunday, we remember the people who have gone before us. We remember the noble and the normal as we try to discern how we are supposed to exist in this world. It’s hard to re-vision ourselves when those we love have gone on to a world beyond this one. But that is nonetheless our work as faithful people. We are to carry on the work of those who have gone before.
The most moving thing I heard on Tuesday did not come from the loudspeakers. I heard it only because I was standing outside. We saw cameras and a small crowd gathering around a tall African American man. We walked over to see what the commotion was and there was Jessie Jackson speaking to a news reporter.
We got real close and I heard him say that Paul Wellstone was welcomed to heaven by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He was then ushered into Williams arena, but he stopped as he passed me, shook my hand and said, “hello, friend.”
I’m not a personal friend of Jessie Jackson and had never really met Paul, Sheila, Marcia, Will, Tom or Mary. I like to think I am a friend of Jesus. Maybe that Baptist preacher was imparting to this Baptist preacher some wisdom which needs to be shared today. I don’t know. What I do know is that I could not get that simple statement out of my head: “Gandhi and Martin Luther King welcomed Paul Wellstone into heaven.” Think about the implications of this statement: a Jewish man welcomed into heaven by a Hindu and a Christian. All three were voices for the voiceless. All three were advocates of nonviolence. All three were persecuted for their beliefs. All three gave hope to those in need.
It makes sense. But what about all of this theology around how you get to heaven? Isn’t it a bit heretical to say that a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian are all in heaven?
I believe that some of the worst evil in history has been done in the name of a religion that says “my way is the only way to salvation.” It’s where legalistic fundamentalism rears its ugly head. It believes in a violent God and in its extreme interpretations justifies violence toward non-believers as sacrosanct.
As a spiritual discipline, I have spent part of the past year reading all ten of the books in Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind series. It’s part of what my Soulforce buddies would call “voluntary redemptive suffering.” I read these books because they represent the face of popular Christianity. And they very clearly state that only believers in Jesus w8ill get to heaven. All others will feel the wrath of an angry violent God. The adherents of this kind of thinking would take exception to Jessie Jackson’s statement that Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Paul Wellstone were all in heaven. But I take exception to any violent theology that breeds intolerance toward another faith tradition.
Now this might sound heretical to you, but personal salvation isn’t very important to me. I believe in an afterlife, sure, but the reason I am a Christian and live my life the way I do is not so that I can receive some selfish reward at the end. That is narcissism and is the opposite of the Gospel. I live my life as a faithful person, trying to live as Christ would have me live, on behalf of other people—trying to follow Jesus’ example, so that we might all have life and have it abundantly. That is a salvation which goes beyond just myself.
It is a form of salvation which affects this world.
It is a form of salvation which saves others from themselves and from the world.
It is also a salvation that saves people from legalistic and judgement laden religion in the guise of Christianity.
Whenever Jesus was given the choice between legalism and compassion, Jesus always chose compassion, even when that compassion went against biblical teaching. We see it in Mark’s Gospel time and time again. We are to be compassionate people who live by the teachings of God. A small portion of those teachings deal with heaven. A whole lot more deal with how we are to live our lives here and now.
I believe that God does judge us, but not so much by whether we have said a certain formula which is a get out of death free card. I believe God looks at our lives and asks if we have done good.
Martin Luther King once wrote,
“If I can help somebody as I pass along.
If I can cheer somebody with a word or song;
If I can show somebody they are traveling wrong;
Then my living shall not be in vain.
If I can do my duty as a Christian ought;
If I can show salvation to a world once wrought;
If I can spread the message as the master taught;
Then my living shall not be in vain.
I know this is sounding like works-righteousness, but do we really believe that God will ban people from heaven because of their faith tradition? I think God is bigger than that, and I trust God to work it out in the end.
Robert was a man with AIDS whom I
visited every few weeks back when I was in
In his mind, all he needed to do was walk the aisle, publicly proclaim membership in the church and be accepted. I assured him that God loved him and because of his faith, he had membership in God’s family. But his belief was that he couldn’t get to heaven without church membership. He had integrated that legalism into his very being.
I was shocked and moved to tears when he mustered all of his strength, all of his friends and his supporters and they pushed him down the aisle of the church one Sunday morning. I of course welcomed him and publicly affirmed his faith in Christ, and the assurance of his peace. The church welcomed him. He had proclaimed how his life had changed. He witnessed to his faith, perhaps for the first time in his life. He wheeled out of the church, relieved, content. Twelve hours later, he died. Regardless of the legal requirements, his feeling of connection, or membership in God's family and its’ representative body here on earth granted him the release to die in peace.
The ugly epilogue to this story is the fact that some in the church, invoking restrictive legalism and a touch of a number of phobias tried to not let Robert’s funeral take place at the church building, since he was not truly a member of the church. The funeral did happen there, thank God. But it points out how prone even we church people are to choose legalism over compassion in the name of Christ.
Human organizations are fallible. We do our level best to create mechanisms by which to model what Jesus would have done. But church life runs the risk of acquiescing to the way of the world, rather than being transformed by the renewal of our minds. Organized churches are institutions which try to put a structure on the charismatic movement of the Spirit of God. And if we are not careful, the institution becomes more important than the movement.
Paul says in Ephesians and in Romans, that we are members of one another. That means we are connected with each other. We are responsible to and for one another. It means that no one can be left out. No one must forfeit or be denied his or her voice. We are all parts of the same body, as Paul says in First Corinthians 12. Therefore, since we are all members of one another and accountable, then there are ways that we need to be with one another. This goes for our personal lives and our national lives. Hear again Paul’s advice for how we are to live as a human family:
“Putting away all falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. (that means if I harbor some anger at someone, healthy relationship requires me to not let that sit, but honestly try to confront and work out that anger, so that it doesn’t get the better of me, or worse yet, so that I lose respect for the person I’m angry at.) Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear…Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave Christ’s self up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 4:25-5:2)
These are important words for us to be reminded of. They are basic tenets of being a community. And these basic tenets are so unlike the world, that it takes faith, prayer, hope, honesty, accountability and perseverance to live them out.
Our student minister Lynn Welton mentioned in a forum a few weeks back that we are a healthy congregation. I like to think we try to be. A healthy congregation is not one that agrees with each other all the time. It is not one where we all make nice-nice with each other. It’s not even a place where everything is always positive. A healthy house of God is one where we laugh, we cry, we challenge each other, we correct each other, we celebrate with and for each other and when there is a hurt, we all hurt together.
Remember, we are part of something larger than ourselves. We are part of a group of believers here at this church who have gone before us, and have gone to be with God. We give thanks for all of those saints, those angels who look upon us and see our fallible selves trying to eke out an existence worthy of their memory.
We seek to be members one of another with all of that honesty and challenge which true Christian community requires. When we are connected to God and to one another in that kind of love, then the movement of the Spirit is alive in a way that brings salvation to us and to those we touch. And that is good news. For we are united with all the saints who have gone before us, with those in this room, and with those who will follow us. All of us, members of one another.
I do so hope that I can be a friend to those in need. I do so hope that one day I might be welcomed not only by the likes of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Paul and Sheila Wellstone, but also by Fred and Thelma and Earl and so many that we hold dear. May our lives be worthy of their lives so that all might have a taste of a world that is better because we have been here. May it be said of all of us that we have made a difference; that we have helped people be more healthy, more whole, more hopeful. For when we do that, then these saints live on. And we find new meaning for our lives.