A CHARGE IN FIVE PARTS
Texts: Colossians 2:6; 3:12-17 (NRSV)
and John 1:14, 16-18; 8:31-32 (NRSV)

I had planned a sermon on Judas today. It became too big a project for a Communion mediation. Somehow Judas being split open and his bowels spilled on the ground didn’t seem to go too well for this day, despite the thrill factor for pre-adolescent boys. So that sermon will happen July 2.

Today I want to expand the one-minute charge I gave to graduating seniors last week: “A Charge: In Five Parts.”

I

First. Seek the truth wherever it leads without fear, for God is the author of all truth.

If God is the creator of all that is we can explore truth in all its dimensions - - scientific, spiritual, psychological, historical - - without fear. We humans can never know anything perfectly, but what we best can know should not threaten our Christian faith. A faith threatened by the truth is an inadequate faith. It may be a dangerous faith.

We’ve witnessed of late a political battle between proponents of evolution and intelligent design. Faith and science should not be seen as opponents. Scientist Stephen Jay Gould writes of science and religion as, in his words, “non-overlapping magisteria” that is, non-competing realms of knowledge and authority. I love the title of the book which develops this: Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fulness of Life.1 Albert Einstein saw no conflict, for both were part of the mystery of God. “Subtle is the Lord,” he once said, then explained: “Nature hides her secrets by her essential loftiness but not by means of ruse.” “I’m  not an atheist,” he said, then added: We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books yet doesn’t know what it is.2

The universe is a vast library of books in many languages. We area just beginning to understand them. To paraphrase Proverbs, the beginning of wisdom is wonder.

II

Second. Learn to distrust any claim for truth that is not truth united with love. This is from Paul Tillich, and I’ve carried it with me since college.

If God is love, as well as the author of all truth, then truth and love are united. We hear claims for truth that are vicious in spirit. Learn to distrust them.

“Speak the truth in love,” said Paul. If you can’t speak the truth in love maybe its not all the truth you think it is!

III

Third. Make Jesus the center of your spirituality - - who he was, what he taught, who he is now in his spiritual presence.
Many people take their preconceived notions of God and use them to picture who Jesus is. That’s why we have so many disparate and conflicting pictures of Jesus - - from gentle Jesus meek and mild, to the greatest salesman who ever lived, to political revolutionary, to spiritual guru.

Instead we are to take Jesus, who he was and what he taught, and use him to picture what God is like. As some wag put it: Jesus is the answer to God’s bad reputation.

The gospel of John says: “No one has ever seen God. It is the son, the one close to the Father’s breast who has made God known.” (John 1:18) I like, by the way, the male and female mixture of images in the phrase “close to the Father’s breast.”

I think we all are tempted, liberal and conservative alike, to base our theology and ethics on some other foundation than the life and words of Jesus.

The value of our Jesus in the 21st Century program is that it takes seriously the historical Jesus and helps keep us from projecting our own notions about Jesus onto Jesus.

The danger is that it can fit all too easily into our modern cafeteria style approach to religion where we take what we like about Jesus and throw away what we don’t like, so that finally Jesus is not Lord of our lives but rather servant of our likes and dislikes.

IV

Fourth. Befriend the “least of these.” Jesus made this central to our spirituality: “As you’ve done it to one of the least of these you’ve done it unto me.” Befriend one of the least of these and you become a friend of Jesus.

Who are “the least of these?” They are at the ones forgotten or despised by the world. They may be someone forgotten or despised by you. Jesus named them: The hungry and thirsty, the sick, the naked, the prisoner. How many ways are there to be hungry and thirsty, naked and ashamed, sick, imprisoned?

The “least of these” include our youngest children, so parenting is a ministry of Christ, to Christ.
We don’t need to look far to find them. They are always near. And the calling is to befriend, not to give handouts. It is to be in relation, to give and receive as friends.

Friendship with the least of these is an important spiritual practice. If the least of these are not at Table with us in church, it is not the Lord’s Table.

V

Fifth. Develop the grace-gifts which form our character. I name five:

1) Compassion: To feel deeply with another. Our 1943 Founding Covenant put it this way: “We will participate in each other’s joys, and endeavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other’s burdens and sorrows.”

2) Kindness. Henry James once said to his young nephew. There are three main things in life. The first is kindness, the second is kindness and the third is kindness.
Kindness begins in you as you receive the kindness of the Lord. You learn kindness for yourself and then you become kind to others. I know you. Some of you are kinder to others than you are to yourself.

3) Reverence. This is the capacity for wonder. It bows before Another. It recognizes one’s human limitations. It confesses “God is God and I am not.”

4) Honesty, with self and with others. You become less interested in being right and more interested in being truthful. Honesty is finally liberating, for hiding the truth or running from it is exhausting. As Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free!”

5) And last, joy! The joy of the Lord is our strength. If there’s no element of joy in your faith, something of the gospel is not getting through. Faith without joy is like a 4-day-old diet soda.
Sometimes joy is giddy, other times it is contentment, other times a deep sense of well-being. Things feel “right.”

Do you know God joys in you? And has since your birth. And now we joy in God.

“Fear not little flock,” Jesus said, “Do you not know that it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom?” (Luke 12:32)

That includes joy!


1 (New York: The Library of Contemporary Thought, Ballantine, 1999).
2 From George Will, “100 Years Ago Einstein Saw the Unimaginable,” Charlotte Observer.