PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

First John 3:1-7                                                            THE MYSTERY AND MORALS

Sermon April 26, 2009:  People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

          When I was four or five years old I thought my daddy was some kind of hero.  I watched how he walked, and I tried to walk just like him.  I listened to him breathe when he tied his shoes (he had the beginnings of emphysema), and I practiced breathing the same way.  I wrote a little song about imitating my daddy, worked it out on the piano and played it for him.  When I got older that all seemed just a little bit silly—especially the song—until I heard Chet Atkins' sing a song titled "I Still Can't Say Goodbye."  It was better music for sure, but it said the same thing.  The last verse in Chet Atkins' song goes like this:[1]   

I guess boys do that kind of thing.  Most of the men, and a lot of the women serving on the Boston Police force are Irish-Americans, following in the footsteps of their policeman fathers, who were in turn following in the footsteps of their own policeman fathers—"Still trying to be like him."

          It works with fathers who were anti-heroes, too.  A boy grows up the son of the town drunk, goes to college, then to law school, becomes a judge, runs for governor.  The neighbors look at each other and say, "Of course!  Don't you know his father?"  The big word for it is "over-compensation," but the neighbors know all about that.  And they know all about the other son, too—the one who became the new town drunk; and they say, "Of course!  Don't you know his father?"[2]  Thank God many children of alcoholics are able to break free of those chains and find a life for themselves!  But our fathers influence us deeply.

          So do our mothers, and so do daughters respond to that influence—that mystique.  And it's amazing how a mother's personality can mold her son's personality.  We love our parents and grandparents, and we model our lives after them in many ways, even at the same time we're "leaving home" for ourselves.  So we understand when we read in First John: 

And then:

When I read that, that song I wrote as a child about being like my daddy comes flooding back into my mind.  But when we touch this love of God, the mystique of a daddy or a mother is replaced by Mystery.  This is the Mystery that appeared to Moses at the burning bush and sent him back to Egypt to lead the Hebrews out, and when Moses asked, "What is your name—who shall I say sent me?" replied, "I am who I am"—no name, no handle on God:  The Mystery.[3]  This is the transforming Mystery of divine love that has the power to change us into the image and likeness of which Jesus himself is the icon.[4]  And when it does change us, when it purifies our moral lives, when it pushes us to a deeper level of self-understanding, when it transforms our vision of who we really are, we call it "sanctification."  That word "sanctification" means that I have touched the mystery of God's transforming love, and it is changing me. 

 

          You know, 99 ⁴⁴/₁₀₀ %  of Christian moral teaching is very clear and straightforward.  Sometimes it's difficult to live up to.  Sometimes we want to argue with God about it—or with each other.  And it takes a life-time to work through the deeper issues of what drives us or holds us back.  But we discover as we go that Christian moral teaching has no power at all if we try to "be good" on our own steam.  That's what Paul wrote about to the Christians in Colossae when they tried so hard to live up to their own set of rules:[5]

What did he mean?  Forget the Ten Commandments?  Not at all.  He meant that Christian moral life flows from contact with the holy Mystery, and this is your source of power.  It is as the English writer Martin Thornton has said:[6]

This is the process of "sanctification."  First John is talking about "sanctification" in our text with these words:

          Why?  Because we want to be like our daddy and mother; and we are the children of God.  We have been touched by holy Mystery, and that Mystery is working on us. 

 

          Isn't this how life begins to make sense?  As we mature we realize we not only have to make sense of the words we speak but also of the deeds we do:  our lives have to make some kind of general sense.[7]  We want some moral sense in this crazy world; and this takes more than just trying hard. 

          In fact "trying hard" often leads us to realize just how little sense our lives do make, and we end up playing games of self-justification.  But we see through our own self-justifying games—we know what we're doing.  That lawyer, the son of the town drunk, gets elected governor, and on the day of his inauguration he looks at his wife and says, "I feel like somebody's going to find out my secret."  "What secret," she asks.  "That I'm a fraud!  I don't really know anything!  I'm just the son of the town drunk."  Do you ever wonder if everybody knows your terrible secret, and they're just being too nice to mention it?  Your real guilt?  Your real lack?

          Here is the holy Mystery:  the real secret about you—the secret that's bigger than these games we play:  the real secret about you is that you are the child of God.  God is your father and your mother:  the holy Mystery has come to you and lives in you.

          Where is the moral sense to come from?  After we see through our self-justifying games, and let our justification come from God, God's mystery begins the process of sanctification.  It means that I have touched the mystery of God's transforming love, and it is changing me. 

 

          So Christian morals flow out of the holy Mystery; and it's this that is beginning to make sense of our lives:  make sense of the work you do, make sense of the battles you fight with children and work and cancer and a bad marriage and money, and make sense of success and love and service to others and human kindness.  And yes, it even makes sense of that last nonsense, death; because the Mystery is about resurrection. 

          "Sanctification" means I have been touched by the Mystery, God's transforming love, and it is changing me.  And you.

AMEN