A Reading from Romans

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. (Rom. 13:8-14;)
 

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Let love be your only debt. That lovely advice from the Romans reading is something that should be included in every wedding service, and reiterated by every marriage counselor.

The writer is saying that if we love others then we have done all that is expected of us.

But then he admonishes us not to behave badly.   Which is a bit puzzling. Right after giving us the ultimate advice – do everything out of love  basically – we are now being told what we must or must not do – and reminded about the law – which we were told we would fulfill just by loving others.

Can that be because Paul knows that loving others, and consequently acting properly is not easy to do?

Could it be that wanting to love others, wanting to act properly is something that doesn’t come  – a change that doesn’t take place  – like lightning, but rather is an evolving thing?

We evolve into being good examples of  Jesus-followers – Christians.

I  have read about people being changed overnight, and I have met some. I myself came back to the church because of a change that took place in my own heart, seemingly instantaneously. 

Looking back later though, I could see that there was a number of  influences that gradually coalesced, and eventually guided me back to Christ. 

It didn’t happen just like that.

Rather, like you, I have become painfully aware that living a Christian life is a struggle. It isn’t something we can achieve right away.  

It helps that we are part of a church community. It helps that we consciously try to live better.

It’s a good thing if our partner is also trying to live as a Christian. One can help the other.

But boy, sometimes it seems like one step forward and two steps back.

On the good days, though, it is two steps forward and one step back. That’s how we like, it isn’t it?  

We become disciples gradually, as every day we try to be purer, calmer, more patient, more loving, than we were the previous day.

The trouble is, that immersed in this world, we sometimes absorb, by osmosis, it seems, the world’s ways of doing  things. 

It’s a fast paced place.

It needs people who can think on their feet, get things done.  Aggressive people!

The adjective most often used in advertising for executive positions is “aggressive.” 

You had better be aggressive if you want to be a manager, or a salesman.

But is aggressiveness  an ideal Christian trait? 

I don’t think so. The people I remember as being good Christians always seemed to have lots of patience. They were the opposite of aggressive.

But I  met an aggressive Christian once. He wasn’t from one of the mainline denominations. He knocked at my door one Friday when I was trying to write my sermon, and falling behind schedule.

When I answered the door, he said, “Good day, can we (he had a colleague) spend a few minutes with you to tell you about salvation?”

I said, “Well, I think I know about salvation, and I am very busy, and I don’t have time  to get into a big discussion about faith right now.”

“So you don’t want to be saved?” the other one asked.

“Well I think I am saved.” I said.

“I don’t think so,” said the first.” You need to listen to what we have to say.”

“So you are the only one who knows the secret?” I asked.

“ We have the key to salvation,” he said.

I said,  “Well, I don’t have time to dispute that right now, so would you please leave?”

The second one then leaned forward, (they made no attempt to leave) and said  something to the effect that I obviously didn’t care about what happened to my soul, and that I was headed for somewhere horrible.

It took me a long time to get them off my porch, I tell you. I was becoming aggressive myself, if you must know.

That young man may have been a salesman in his secular job, and he may have been using techniques that were valued in that job.   And which he felt should be used in persuading pagans to convert. 

He was determined to close a deal!

But that’s the point, isn’t it?   The things that are valued in this world are not necessarily what make a good Christian.

And yet we may have so slipped into the world’s ways without knowing it.

Sometimes, it may take another Christian to show us where we go wrong.

I will show you what I mean, by means of a I found a sketch on the web by Dave Marsh : I will play all three parts.  

It goes like this:

Jim was busy at work, his was a busy desk, and he had just taken a call from his minister, where they discussed livening up the Bible Study that Jim was leading at his church. 

He then began dictating a letter to his admin assistant, Donna, but was soon interrupted by a call from his wife reminding him that he hadn’t bought a gift for his father, whose birthday was coming up soon.

He was a little bit tetchy with his wife. She had already reminded him about his dad many times.  He finally told her to get anything she wanted and wrap it.

Then he got back to the letter, which was to a supplier. Jim was drawing their attention to the fact they had shipped two computers less than ordered and invoiced. 

Jim suggested to admin assistant  Donna that they should say the shipment was short shipped three.  Not two.   

As he was doing the letter with Donna, a pretty young woman, named Tina came in with a message, smiled, and complimented Jim on his tie.  “You look good today, Jim,” she said.

Jim reacted to the compliment from this pretty young woman, as you might expect, and had to be reminded to come back to the matter at hand by Donna.

When he had finished dictating the letter, he asked Donna to read it back to him.

This is what she read:

Dear Mr. Johnson. I’m writing you this letter in regard to the last shipment of Pentium machines. It appears that I  – am rude to my wife on the phone and that the shipment of July 1^st was in error. We ordered 17 Pentium 450 meg processors and our clerk Tina only received – inappropriate flirting from me – 15 processors – even though I’d like my assistant to lie and say 14. –  Please contact me with any questions. I expect the missing 3 – but really 2-  machines here on Monday. Best regards, Jim Davis.

Jim jumped up, “Donna?” he cried out, “Are you crazy? Don’t you know the difference between what you’re supposed to say and not say? Between the good stuff and the bad stuff?”

Donna said, “ Funny, I was going to ask you the same question.

Paul’s advice about coping with the world is to “Let the Lord Jesus Christ be as near to you as the clothes you wear. Then you won’t try to satisfy your selfish desires.”

And you will mind what you do, even if you don’t expect to be caught out.

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save their life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” ( Mt 16: 21-28)

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I was preparing to do a communion service at a hospital once, and as I waited for the chronically ill patients to be brought in, I found myself standing next to a man immobile, in a wheelchair.

I knew him as a retired United church minister.

Although he wasn’t able to move, I could see from his face that he was bothered about something so I leaned over to hear him whisper, ” Now you won’t leave me out there not knowing what is going on, will you?”

I wondered what he meant at first, then I realized that the noise and bustle of preparing the service, people talking, the organist quietly practicing a hymn – all these sounds had taken him back to when he was a minister.

And the feeling of having to participate. And of being unprepared!

It is everyone’s worst nightmare isn’t it,.to be in front of people, to have to address them, and to be totally unprepared.

In a study that was taken, the top of the list of what people feared the most, was speaking in public. The second item on the list was a fear of dying.

So people would rather die than speak in public.

At that moment, this man, he must have been ninety if a day, and a stroke victim, was ready – albeit nervously – to serve his God, as he had for goodness knows how many years, if only he were prepared.

The phrase `faithful unto death,’ comes to mind, doesn’t it?

Jesus says in today’s Gospel that those who want to become his followers must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him.

I imagine that old man had taken up his cross many, many years ago and never put it down.

You must deny yourself, Jesus also says.

To be a Christian means to deny what “we” want and do what “He” wants.

In my home town there was a woman doctor by the name of Dr. Skelly. She didn’t look like a doctor. She wore laddered nylons, and broken down shoes, and I imagine her car was older than she was.

Some people used to laugh at how she was, behind her back.

It turned out that Dr. Skelly only took out of her salary enough for the bare essentials. She gave the rest to those who had nothing. She didn’t care what people thought about her appearance.

That’s what it means to deny what “you” want, and do what “He” wants.

Then Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

When Matthew wrote this Gospel, the church was in the midst of a terrible persecution. Christians were being killed just for being Christians.

But you could save your life by renouncing Christ.

An eighty year old bishop of the church was told he was to be questioned the next day about his faith, and that if he didn’t deny Jesus, he would die.

His friends begged him to do as he was asked.

He said, ” In all these years I have known Jesus he has never let me down. I can’t let him down, now.”

It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? It’s something that we have never had to face.

But there are pressures in this world to renounce Christ. Admittedly not as extreme as those.

We can’t get children into Sunday School because of hockey, baseball, skating, or whatever. People can’t make church because of having to work on Sundays. A late night on Saturday, means missing church next day. You can’t fill a Bible-study class because people are too busy.

Television, movies on video, computer games, even the internet – I read somewhere the other day that the biggest problem with the internet is that there is just too much material available – there’s not enough time in the day, the article said.

A million things compete for our time, and call us away from Christ.

We just don’t see it. Because it’s just natural to do what everyone else is doing, isn’t it?

Jesus faced temptation to do what the world expected.

You will remember that in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan to take the way of power. ” Give them bread ,” he said, “Give them, sensation. Give them wonders and they will follow you.”

Jump from the height of the temple. You will live, and imagine how people will turn to you after something like that.

“Compromise with the world, reduce your standards, and they will follow you.”

Jesus didn’t give in to temptation, of course.

But when Satan ended his efforts to tempt Jesus, there in the wilderness, Luke said,” He departed from Him until an opportune time.”

Satan would be back.

And there were opportune times. I imagine.

Like in the Garden of Gethsemane.

When Jesus was looking toward the cross.

Let’s face it, no-one wants a cross. No-one wants to die.

And now not too long before that Gethsemane moment Satan uses Peter to try to talk him out of doing what his Father asked him to do.

I don’t think Jesus said, “Get thee behind me Satan,” in anger, but rather in sorrow.

But Jesus could call Peter, `Satan’ because anything that deflects us from the way of God….. is Satan – the Adversary,

Anything that makes us turn back from the hard way that God has set before us…… is Satan.

Any power which seeks to put human desires in front of wanting to serve God….. is Satan.

Satan used Peter’s love of Jesus to try and turn him away.

Peter wanted to protect Jesus, as we all want to protect the ones we love.

I am sure that most of us with grown up children have tried in our love, to protect them from the world, even if they are old enough to go out and look after themselves.

Real love encourages us to fulfill our destiny. Not to protect us unnecessarily.

What really wounded Jesus’ heart and what made him speak as he did was that the tempter spoke to him through the fond… but mistaken love… of Peter’s impulsive heart.

Jesus was going to give up his life and Peter wanted to stop him.

Brooks Philips was a man, famous for many achievements who was even better-known for the help he extended to many people – he was always there, and had always been there – a phone call away – and he died an early death.

Someone said that he could have lived much longer except that he gave so much of himself to others. They asked why didn’t somebody stop him so he could have a longer life?

The response was, “Ah but he would not have been Brooks Philips then, would he?”

You might say that Brooks Philips had taken up a cross, and never put it down.

Jesus talked about taking up a cross didn’t he? He didn’t mean it literally, of course, it means to take up a life of sacrifice.

Joel Osteen, the current popular television evangelist doesn’t preach a life of sacrifice. He preaches a life of good things which come from following Jesus. A prosperity Gospel!

Follow Jesus and you will be prosperous and happy, and so on.

But according to Jesus himself, the Christian life is a life of sacrifice.

Anybody who has been a warden, a treasurer, a Sunday School teacher, a fund-raiser, a group leader, and so on, knows that.

You have often had to sacrifice a quiet hour by the fireside, or time with family to do what had to be done.

It’s a good job there have been, and are, real Christians like that, ready to sacrifice, or many a church would have been gone years ago.

It shouldn’t surprise us, that the Christian way is the way of sacrifice, should it? After all, we are called Christians because we follow Jesus…… we follow our leader.

Do you remember that game we played as children, called Follow the Leader? You had to do everything the leader did. Remember that game? There’s a grown up version, did you know?

I remember once, standing in line in the service club, when I was in the Air Force. I played a silly game of follow your leader.

A young lady, standing behind the counter was talking to a friend and waving her arms as she talked. I copied what she was doing. And my friends laughed, waiting to see what she would do when she saw me mimicking her.

Isn’t that annoying, when someone does that? Mimic you?

But she didn’t get angry ……… she just struck a very sexy pose, and I of course, red-faced, didn’t mimic that in front of my buddies.

The laugh was on me!

There’s no fear of being caught doing something that’s not right when we follow Jesus.

But being a Christian does call for us to follow a leader who sacrificed all. We know that don’t we?

Was it the opportunity to sacrifice that brought you to your church?

And what about those who don’t attend church? What would attract them?

Should we tell them that yours is a nice easy church and you can sit back and don’t have to do much. Just show up on Sundays and drop your envelope onto the plate. That would be the extent of your involvement.

Or should we say: It’s a church where you are expected to attend, and, as far as you can, to make an offering to support your church, but that in addition, you will be asked to help in a ton of other ways: teaching Sunday School, reading, carrying a chalice, providing coffee hour, serving around the altar, right through to helping clean up the grounds.

Oh, and not to mention providing a casserole when a family needs help.

Or to drive someone to the doctor’s office.

Because church is family, and everyone in a family helps, don’t they? It’s not much of a family where no-one helps.

I wonder which type of church would bring in more people? The one which doesn’t ask for that sort of commitment or the one that does?

I know what that old minister, in the wheelchair would say, if he could. Even at ninety years old.

I think he’d tell us that that the church which has expectations of its members is one that breeds commitment. And that commitment breeds growth.

So, pray with me, that we can follow Jesus in a life-long… and life-giving…. commitment. Sacrificing, and following, and resisting the temptation to take the easy way.

“For the Son of Man is coming in great glory and he will repay everyone for what has been done.”

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew

 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others,

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter,^[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades^[b] will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be^[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[d] loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. ( Mt. 16:13-20)

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Some missionaries in the Philippines set up a croquet game in their front yard. Several of their Agra Negrito neighbors became interested and wanted to join in the fun. The missionaries explained the game and started them out, each with a mallet and a ball.

As the game progressed, opportunity came for one of the players to take advantage of another by knocking that person’s ball out of the court. A missionary explained the procedure, but his advice only puzzled the Negrito friend. “Why would I want to knock his ball out of the court?” he asked. “So you will be the one to win,” the missionary said.

This short-statured man, clad only in a loin cloth, shook his head in bewilderment. In a hunting and gathering society, people survive, not by competing, but by sharing equally in every activity.

The game continued, but no one followed the missionaries’ advice. When a player successfully got through all the wickets, the game was not over for him. He went back and gave aid and advice to his fellows.

As the final player moved toward the last wicket, the affair was still very much a team effort. And finally when the last wicket was played, the ‘team’ shouted happily, “We won! We won!”

That’s how Paul tells us the church, the body of Christ should be.

A team. We all play and we all win together.

Paul’s favourite thought is of the church as a body. The members of the body neither argue with each other, nor envy each other, nor dispute with each other as to their relative importance.

Paul was sure that was what the church should be like. Each member has a task to do and it is only when each contributes  the help of her own task, that the body of the church functions as it should.

We are urged first to know ourselves, and our gift: to assess our capabilities honestly, without conceit or false modesty.

Then we are urged to use the gift that God has given us. 

Paul is saying that even if the contribution we can make is going to be unseen, without praise, and without glory, that we should still make it, and that without the offer of that gift, the world, and the church, can never be what they are meant to be.

Because whatever gift we have comes from God. And it comes for a purpose.

Paul  calls a gift from God charismata.

Some people have charisma.

You could practice playing the violin for a lifetime and yet would never be able to play like Yehudi Menuhin. He had more than practice going for him. He had something plus. Charisma  – a gift from God.

Similarly, you might toil for a  lifetime and still be hopeless in the use of wood and metal – like me, and yet, another person fashions wood or metal effortlessly. The tools become a part of the artisan. A gift from God. A charisma.

You might practice speaking for ever and a day, and never acquire the presence and the special something that makes people listen to you. A gifted speaker, on the other hand comes to the podium and soon has the audience in the palm of her hand.

Try writing.  You can try and put words onto paper and never get them right, whereas someone with the gift of words, can see his thoughts take place, flowing effortlessly from  mind  to  paper.

My thoughts flow effortlessly from mind to paper, or rather computer, then I need someone with gift of translation to correct all the typos.

Everyone has their own charisma. Their own gift from God.

It may be for writing sermons, for building houses, gardening, fashioning wood, working with figures, playing the piano, singing songs, teaching children, playing football, or golf.

And gifts are not given to be used solely in the church. They are given to be used in a wider context.

The gift of healing, for example.

A physician who has studied, and has found the balance between medicine as a science, and medicine as an art, is truly a healer.  Using that gift for healing, that charisma, to make the lives of people more bearable, is truly serving God.

At the other end of the scale, my mother was a relatively uneducated woman. She left school at age fourteen. She worked as a maid for the local vicar.  

Later, as a married woman, with four children, she didn’t have much time to develop whatever gifts she might have had.  But there was one gift she had in abundance. Compassion.

I remember her going to the homes of two elderly members of our church and getting down on her hands and knees, and  cleaning their homes.  Regularly. And no thought of being paid.

No-one at the church knew what  she did.

It was what she could do, and her use of that gift – of compassion for others – was just as important in God’s scheme for the world, as the use of the gift of healing by the physician.  And it had nothing to do with the church.

All of us are gifted by God, and He expects us to use our gift.  Because in using our gifts we are acting as members of the body of Christ.

Imagine if Jesus were here now.

Wouldn’t he be healing people?

Wouldn’t he be helping the old and infirm? 

Wouldn’t he be teaching? 

Wouldn’t he be feeding people? 

Wouldn’t he be teaching us how to forgive?

If he were working in a company, wouldn’t he be trying to make sure that the business of that company was done honestly?

If he were working in a job that involved meeting people, and handling their complaints, then wouldn’t he be loving and understanding?

Of course he would, if he were here.

But he is not here.

He is not here in body.

He is here in Spirit. And he is here in the gifts that we have.

So doesn’t it make sense for us,  in whatever job we have, or in whatever way we live, or in however we work for our church, or in whatever we do, to act like him? To be his body here in the world?

And being members of his body here in this world, each doing what we are gifted with, and called to do, we don’t fight with each other, or expect to be placed higher than another, or envy what others do.

It’s kind of like – it is like – being on a team.

Isn’t it?

You know we don’t always act as if we are on a team – at least not as if we are on the same team.

There is sometimes dissent. There is sometimes disagreement. There is rivalry. Because we are human. And we haven’t all reached a state of perfection.

But you, know, the church at large will never be a church that effectively reaches out to those who are lost, if we shoot our wounded, and enter into big battles about small things.

Instead of becoming fishers of men, we are, as often as not, keepers of a shrinking aquarium.

Next Fall, when you see geese heading south for the Winter, flying along in a ‘V’ formation, you might be interested in knowing what science has discovered about why they fly that way.

It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in ‘V’ formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater  flying range than if each bird flew on its own.

Christians who  share a common direction, and a sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they travel with the  shared strength of each other.

Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of those immediately in front.

When the lead goose gets tired, he or she rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.

It pays to take turns doing hard jobs with people in church, just as it does for geese flying South.

The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

What does it mean when we hear honking from behind?  

Finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded by a shot, and falls out, two geese fall out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with the wounded goose until it is either well enough to fly, or it dies.   And then they launch out on their own, or join another formation going in the right direction.

If people outside knew that we would stand by them like that in church, they would be pushing these walls down to get in.

You see, all we have to do to attract those who are missing out, is to demonstrate to the world that here at church, we have as much sense  – as geese!

That seems a small enough price to pay to win the lost and minister to each other.

Even a goose knows it makes sense to work as a team.

Amen.

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew.

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:
 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”

Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”
Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.
For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” (Matthew 15: 10-20.)

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A priest visited another church during his vacation, and was impressed that at the very beginning of the service everyone turned around in their seats and greeted other worshippers seated nearby.   He liked this. And thinking about it, he decided that his own church was a bit stuffy, and that he would introduce the practice there.

The first Sunday he was back, he told the congregation that the following Sunday they were going to initiate this custom.

At the close of the service, a man turned around to the lady behind him and said, Good Morning.”  She looked at him with shock at his boldness, and said, “I beg your pardon!  That friendliness business doesn’t start until next Sunday!”

Now next week she was going to be real friendly, as her priest requested, and no-one – except the unlucky fellow who had started too soon, would know the difference.

This woman from next week on, would greet someone sitting nearby with a lovely smile, and a cheery good morning, but in her heart of hearts wasn’t nearly so friendly as she would appear to be.

In fact in her heart she could be just poison.

Jesus in his discourse in today’s Gospel is making a point about the same stuff – what’s on the surface, as good as it may seem, isn’t nearly as important as what’s in the heart.

The example he chose to make this point was the food laws. And he held up to ridicule, Pharisees because of their devotion to the food laws.

In the statement he makes  – “The food that you put into your mouth doesn’t make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean.” – this statement attacks the way then Pharisees parade their righteousness, and cancels all the food laws in the Old Testament.

Some of the  laws could still be valid in terms  of health and hygiene, and common-sense and medical wisdom,  but they could never again be valid as part of religion.

No wonder the Scribes and Pharisees were shocked. He was undermining their whole theological rationale, the whole way in which they lived their lives.

They identified pleasing God with the observing of rules and regulations which had to do with cleanness and with uncleanness, with what a person ate and with how they washed their hands before they ate. Jesus tells them these rules have nothing to do with religion.

In fact he says, that Pharisees and the people who followed them were like the blind leading the blind and they could expect to fall into a ditch.

Their way – the way of the Pharisees – was too easy. It was much easier to refrain from eating certain foods, and to remember to wash their hands before meals, than it was to love the unlovable, and to help the needy at the cost of one’s own time and money and comfort.

For us, the lesson is that  coming  to church, and giving liberally, and attending Bible study, are all essential as a path toward religion. But they are not religion.  Religion consists in personal relationships and in our attitude toward God and our neighbour.

Like you don’t want to confuse the externals with the internals.

There are lots of people who have faultless lives – externally – but whose hearts are filled with evil thoughts.

Jesus was telling his listeners that all the observances in the world cannot make up for a heart that is dominated by pride and bitterness.

We can all put up a good front, but there has to be substance behind it.

I am reminded of the story of two Texans who were trying to impress each other with the size of their ranches.

One asked the other, “What’s  the name of  your ranch?”

The other replied, “The Rockin R, ABC, Flying W, Circle C, Staple Four, Rolling M,  Rainbow’s End, Silver Spur Ranch.”

The other guy was really impressed with this, and said, “Wow, that’s sure some name. How many head of cattle do you run?”

The rancher answered, “Well, not too many. Very few survive the branding.”

Putting up a good front is alright, but if there is nothing real behind it, then you might as well give up trying.

It is clear from what Jesus is saying that what matters most in our relationship with God is what is in our hearts.

What matters to God isn’t what we do so much as why we do it.

Thomas Aquinas explained it this way, “Man sees the deed, but God sees the intention.”

Here’s the scary thing.  We can’t declare ourselves good because of the external things we do – obeying the rules – careful about regulations – making sure that we look right – look good to everyone – we can only call ourselves good when our heart is pure.

That’s the end of all pride, isn’t it?

That’s why God has to live in our hearts.   

It means being vigilant about the attitudes of this world, and the demands of living in a consumer society, and the effects of less than wholesome media messages that are aimed at us daily.

It means knowing that there are influences in society that gradually and insidiously work to lessen our awareness of what is evil.

It means being aware of being under attack by the dark forces of this world.

You know, I don’t think we are alert to how much things around us gradually erode our sense of what is right and what is wrong.

I don’t think that most of us are aware of how our mind-sets may have changed. We don’t know how much we have absorbed of this world’s foolish ways. How much do we tolerate now compared with some years ago?  And is that right?

The way to know this is to examine your heart, your beliefs, the way you are in the world,  and ask, “ Is the way I am, OK with Jesus?”

“If  I were to face  Jesus right now, would I be comfortable with who I am?”

Is  there room in my life for Jesus?

Because if  I allow things in my heart, and in my life that I just can’t reconcile  with following Jesus; – even if no-one else knows about them – then just maybe I have allowed those things to crowd God out.

It is infinitely easier to obey a few rules than to make drastic changes in the way my heart works.

It is easier to go through the motions,  than to actually open myself fully to God’s will.

It is easier to look good than to be good.

That’s why each and every one of us can say only, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

It’s when we make that plea that false pride falls away, and our heart can be emptied of all that distracts us from knowing God.

It’s when we can begin to be humble, and genuine, and have room in our hearts only for God.

There is a time in the marriage service when rings are exchanged.  First the husband, places the ring on his bride’s finger, and says these words, and then the wife places a ring on her husband’s finger and says the same words, “ With all that I am, and all that I have, I honour you in the name of God.”

That is a holy moment. It is when the couple give themselves wholeheartedly to each other. 

With all that I am and all that I have.    Those are beautiful words aren’t they? 

That’s how we need to come to our Lord.  With a heart and a life completely open to his will.

“Lord Jesus, with all that I am and all that I have, I come to you, a poor sinner, and accept your gracious love. Live in me and make me wholly yours,”

Amen.