CALVARY
BAPTIST CHURCH
Rev. Fred Weimert January 6, 2008
With Boldness and Freedom
Dwayne Cherry
who
most of you know
who comes to church here
Dwayne loves to
play golf…
maybe even more than I do.
And he is quite a bit
crazier about golf
than I am…
I
think.
He has golf memorabilia
all over his optometric store.
This week I received
several calls from Dwayne…
“Freddie,
only three more hours…”
“Three
more hours before what Dwayne?”
“Three
more hours before they tee off at Kapalua…
Three
more hours before the 2008 PGA season begins.
Are
You watching?”
“Not
now Dwayne… but maybe tonight.”
“You’ve
gotta watch…
It’s
going to be great.”
Now, I enjoy
watching golf…
and with the Golf channel…
I probably watch more of
it now…
but when I tuned in on Thursday
night
I discovered that this
new year…
was not
going to be any different than last year…
in
fact it may be worse…
because
they have a new kid commentator.
When I tuned in on Thursday night
to see the golf from
I
didn’t see people playing golf…
what
I saw was five or six golf annalists…
sitting
around a desk
prognosticating
about who might win…
considering
last years performance.
And
one fellow
with
a shaved head,
made
a remark which made me a little queasy.
Speaking
about last years US Open
at
the very famous Oakmont Country Club,
outside
of
This
shaved headed commentator said…
“I loved being at Oakmont.
The Members
were wonderful…
so
unpretentious.”
Unpretentious…
the
members of one of the most exclusive
and expensive
golf clubs in
Yes,
that is probably exactly the descriptive term
I
would have selected
to define the members of Oakmont…
or
any exclusive club…
unpretentious
Not only did
that man not have anything going
on top of his head…
He didn’t
have anything going on
inside of his head.
I grew up in a country club…
with a father who yearly
went to play at Oakmont…
and lots of
other exclusive clubs…
on
occasion he would even take me.
On
those occasions I would be briefed
prior
to my leaving the car…
“You’ve got to walk in here
like
you own the place.”
More
than once I was left in the car,
because
he was afraid that I
wasn’t
ready to play that role.
I
was such a disappointment to my father…
I
am not real comfortable in strange settings…
I
am kind of awkward in places
where
I feel don’t belong.
because
I’m not a member…
I’m
an outsider…
because
I really don’t belong.
I don’t know
whether Paul wrote the book of Ephesians…
many people say it was written by
someone else.
But whoever wrote the
book
wrote it in
such fashion
that
it sounds as if Paul was the author.
To get a feeling for today’s reading
one needs to have that sense
that these words
were Paul’s
words.
The
same Paul
who described himself in Philippians
with these words:
I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the
flesh,
I have
more:
circumcised on the eighth day,
a member of the people of
of the
tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew
born of Hebrews;
as to
the law,
a
Pharisee; (Philippians 3: 4-5)
Paul had been born
into a religion
Which gave him a strong sense of belonging
of his place.
Paul knew he belonged to Judaism
he
was circumcised
he was of Benjamin’s
tribe
a Hebrew
a Pharisee…
He knew he fit in…
He knew he belonged to
God,
And he could recognize
those who didn’t.
Paul’s early
experience of religion made it easy to define
who
was an insider
and who was outside…
as
it pertained to religion
Paul was pretentious.
His experience on
the
turned all that upside down.
This text is a is a
product of that calamity…
and all his
certainty
being turned inside out.
Ephesians
3: 1-12
This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for
Christ Jesus
for the sake of you Gentiles--
for
surely you have already heard
of the
commission of God's grace
that was
given me for you,
and how the mystery was made known to me by
revelation,
as I
wrote above in a few words,
a
reading of which will enable you
to
perceive my understanding
of the
mystery of Christ.
In
former generations this mystery
was not
made known to humankind,
as it has now been revealed
to his
holy apostles
and prophets
by the
Spirit:
that is,
the
Gentiles have become fellow heirs,
members
of the same body,
and
sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus
through
the gospel.
Of this
gospel I have become a servant
according
to the gift of God's grace
that was
given me by the working of his power.
Although
I am the very least of all the saints,
this
grace was given to me
to bring
to the Gentiles the news
of the
boundless riches of Christ,
and to
make everyone see
what is
the plan of the mystery
hidden
for ages in God
who
created all things;
so that
through the church
the
wisdom of God in its rich variety
might
now be made known
to the
rulers and authorities
in the
heavenly places.
This was
in accordance with the eternal purpose
that he
has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom
we have access to God
in
boldness and confidence
through
faith in him.
Here
ends the reading.
In a way what Paul
was saying
is that Oakmont had opened its
doors…
It had gone public…
everyone was
welcomed to play there.
When I first read
this reading the word boldness
stood out to me…
it kind of sounded like
my father’s
“I
want you to walk in here like you own the place.” boldness.
However, as I
looked longer
there
were three phrases which stood out:
in boldness and confidence
What really stood
out for me were those words:
prisoner & servant
and then boldness
They appear to be so
contradictory.
In a
theological dictionary
the
word boldness is described
as
the freedom a citizen of a state has…
it also went
on to say:
“At the height of Greek democracy the full
citizen alone has the right to say anything publicly in the assembly ( )…
Aliens and slaves have no such right.”
G. Kittel,
Theological Dictionary of the NT., v. 5 pg. 872
The boldness which
we enjoy as Christians
is that thing which is described in
the text, as:
the
mystery of Christ.
It
is about a citizenship which is for everybody…
Jews/Gentiles.
and it is a
citizenship which give us a sense of
freedom
or boldness…
but
it is not a pretentious boldness
because
it belongs to everybody,
but
not everybody knows that
or chooses that…
It is very confusing
because while it is a freedom it also involves
our becoming slaves/prisoners/servants…
but we are enslaved by one
Who’s eternal nature is love.
I came across a little
book by Henri Nouwen…
Fr. Nouwen died years ago,
but this book Heart
Speaks to Heart
was just re-released in 2007.
I have included some passages in the bulletin
which speak to our ambivalent feelings about
and understandings of God’s love:
The quotations reflect Roman Catholic theology
about the sacred Heart of Jesus,
But
the ideas are worth our hearing.
The first quotation
reads:
“It
is so hard for me to believe fully in the love that flows from your heart. I am so insecure, so fearful, so doubtful and
so distrustful. While I say with my
words that I believe in your full and unconditional love, I continue to look
for affection, support, acceptance and praise among my fellow human beings,
always expecting from them what only you can give.
I clearly hear your voice saying, ‘Come to
me you who labor and are overburdened...for I am gentle and humble in
heart,’ and yet I run off in other
directions as if I did not trust you and feel somehow safer in the company of
people whose hearts are divided and often confused.” pgs. 21ff
The second quotation addresses
that incarnation
Which the Magi…
the Wisemen…
the gentiles from the east…
sought.
God’s love in a human heart…
a heart which would not accept the boundaries
which had been set on God’s love…
But your Father’s love was so unlimited that
he wanted us to know that love and to find in it the fulfillment of our deepest
desires. So, he sent us you, with a human heart big enough to hold all human
loneliness and all human anguish. Your
heart is not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh; your heart of flesh is not
narrowed by human sin and unfaithfulness, but is as wide and deep as divine
love itself. Your heart does not
distinguish between rich and poor, friend and enemy, female and male, slave and
free, sinner and saint. Your heart is open
to receive anyone with total, unrestricted love. For anyone who wants to come to you, there is
room, You want to draw all people to yourself and offer them a home where every
human desire is met, every human longing comes to rest and every human need is
satisfied. pgs. 23ff
Take
those words with you.
Take them to heart.
so that our hearts
may become like
Christ’s
of
flesh…
but also
of God.
The invitation here is to an unpretentious boldness,
which may confuse the world
that loves clear boundaries
but it doesn’t confuse
us
who know the
boundless love of God in Christ. Amen.
**********
Heart Speaks to Heart: Three Gospel
Meditations on Jesus,
by Henri Nouwen
1.
“It is so hard for me to believe
fully in the love that flows from your heart.
I am so insecure, so fearful, so doubtful and so distrustful. While I say with my words that I believe in
your full and unconditional love, I continue to look for affection, support,
acceptance and praise among my fellow human beings, always expecting from them
what only you can give.
I
clearly hear your voice saying, ‘Come to me you who labor and are
overburdened...for I am gentle and humble in heart,’ and yet I run off in other directions as if I
did not trust you and feel somehow safer in the company of people whose hearts
are divided and often confused.” pgs.
21ff
2.
But
your Father’s love was so unlimited that he wanted us to know that love and to
find in it the fulfillment of our deepest desires. So, he sent us you, with a
human heart big enough to hold all human loneliness and all human anguish. Your heart is not a heart of stone, but a
heart of flesh; your heart of flesh is not narrowed by human sin and
unfaithfulness, but is as wide and deep as divine love itself. Your heart does not distinguish between rich
and poor, friend and enemy, female and male, slave and free, sinner and
saint. Your heart is open to receive
anyone with total, unrestricted love.
For anyone who wants to come to you, there is room, You want to draw all
people to yourself and offer them a home where every human desire is met, every
human longing comes to rest and every human need is satisfied. pgs. 23ff