Getting Closer to God: Doing Things for Each Other

The scriptures referred to are in the text. Most of the quotations are from the NET.

(To see the pillow mentioned, you can watch the Facebook Live video of Morning Prayer and this sermon on the Facebook pages of either St. Francis in the Keys or Lord of the Seas. I have been doing these videos since the COVID-19 lockdown and will continue them until my churches reopen.)

My mom was a very crafty lady. By which I mean, she was into just about all the crafts: needlepoint, chip carving, jewelry making, Japanese calligraphy, model Z trains, cake decorating, etc. Her problem was she would get into something, read all the books, go to the craft store, start making stuff, not quite finish and move on. Many were the Christmas Eves when instead of giving us our gifts she would show us the progress she had made and promise to deliver them when done. We finally asked her to stop making us new gifts and finish the old ones! Which is not to say she never finished anything. She made me a pillow when I was going away to college and it still looks great. And I love the saying on it: “What you are is God's gift to you; what you become is your gift to God.” 

When you love someone, you give them gifts. And you do other things for them. If necessary you make sacrifices for them. Love is putting others before yourself.

This Lent we are talking about getting closer to God. Last week we talked about doing things together. This week we are talking about doing things for the other person.

Gift giving is universal, so much so that most societies incorporate it into their cultures. On holidays and special occasions, like weddings and birthdays, gift giving is the expected response from loved ones and close friends. Among indigenous people on the northwest coast of the US and Canada, one's status is established by a potlatch, the giving away of wealth and valuable items. Coronations are often celebrated by the giving and receiving of gifts by the newly crowned monarch. Those gifts are mandatory, however, rather than spontaneous.

The nicest gifts are the ones that are not triggered by any special occasion but when someone says, “I saw this and I thought of you.” Often such gifts reveal just how well or how little the giver knows the recipient. It's very awkward when someone gives you what they think you'd want and with a fixed smile on your face, you thank them while thinking to yourself, “They thought I'd like this?!?” Many a sitcom has an episode where some relative is coming and a couple frantically tries to unearth some awful gift they were given by their imminent visitor. They put the old dustcatcher in a hastily set up “place of honor.” My favorite version of this trope was on the Dick Van Dyke Show when boss Alan Brady makes a rare visit to his writers' room and asks where is the picture of himself he gave them. Rob retrieves it from where it has fallen from the door, only to realize he must quickly remove the darts embedded in it.

A good gift is one that you know the recipient will love because you know them well. As the saying goes, “It's the thought that counts.” But when it comes to God, some “Christians” seem to be as thoughtless as the givers in those sitcoms. And usually these clueless gifts fall into one of three categories: self-promotion, empty rituals, and atrocities.

Not only in the Dick Van Dyke Show but in other sitcoms, the so-called gift is an act of self-promotion: a portrait, a life-sized cardboard cutout or even a statue of the giver. Now most of us love to get a school picture of the grandchild or a wallet picture of our loved one but you would be nonplussed if your co-worker or boss gave you a large picture of themselves for your birthday. Nor would you be happy if, for your birthday, your friend gave you a pen or coffee mug or tote bag or T-shirt, emblazoned with their business logo and phone number on it. That would smack of narcissism.

Yet there are religious TV shows and ministries which are named after the “evangelist” and not, say, God or Jesus. I once caught a few minutes of a TV evangelist's show where he asked the people in his stadium-sized megachurch if they had their Bibles. They yelled back “Yes!” And then he asked if they had the right Bible. They yelled “Yes!” I thought maybe he was talking about, say, the King James version which some people think is a divinely inspired translation. But, no, he was talking about the study Bible he had published with his name on it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!'” (Matthew 7:21-23) Jesus sees through those who do things “in his name” but are just aggrandizing themselves and publicly declaring their love of themselves, not of God.

Contrast that with another Christian's attitude. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who lived through the Second World War. Her whole family felt it was their Christian duty to hide Jews from the Nazis when they occupied her homeland. She, her father, 2 sisters, her brother and other family members were arrested and sent to the concentration camps for what they did. The Jews they hid, however, were safe and later found by the Resistance. Corrie's father and her sister Betsie died in the camp. Corrie was released due to a clerical error, just before her group of women were executed. Her book The Hiding Place tells her story. And ever since the war, she had traveled the world as an evangelist. She spoke at a chapel assembly at my college and when she was done, she left the podium for her seat. The chapel, which held thousands of students, erupted in enthusiastic applause. Corrie rushed to the mic, looking distressed and said, “No! Not Corrie! Only Jesus! Only Jesus!” Chastened by her humility, we students fell silent.

Then there are those whose attempts to do something for God are empty rituals, devoid of real understanding. God doesn't want worship that is insincere or done by folks who are not in sync with his Spirit. In Isaiah God says, “'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. You fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and to expect your voice to be heard on high.” (Isaiah 58:3-4) Remember what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well? That true worshipers worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. (John 4:23) If you aren't doing it in the right Spirit, you aren't really worshiping God. How can we say we worship a God who is forgiving if we do not forgive? (Matthew 6:12) How can we say we worship a God who loves sinners if we don't love sinners? (Romans 5:8) How can we say we worship a God who sent his son not to condemn the world but to save it if we condemn and do not seek to save the world? (John 3:17) To do so is hypocritical. And we all know how Jesus felt about hypocrites.

But the most tone-deaf way some people think they are doing things for God is to commit atrocities “in his name.” The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion, the conquering and colonizing of nations, the enslavement of people, the oppression of women and minorities, white supremacy and the unholy marriage of the commercial exploitation of the earth to Christianity, such as in the oil industry (click here), are just a few of the bad things “Christians” did and do and justify with bad theology.

Nor is figuring out how God would stand on these things unknowable. Jesus said that those who live by the sword shall perish by it. (Matthew 26:52) Paul asked church leader Philemon to free his runaway slave. Jesus taught women, something frowned on in his day, (Luke 10:42) and Paul let them pray and prophesy, provided their heads were covered. (1 Corinthians 11:5) In Jesus' own ancestry there are 4 non-Jews. And Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The labels and divisions the world puts so much store in are not important in the kingdom of God. Even if you construe certain people as enemies, Jesus said we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-45). God created all people. Jesus died for all. (2 Corinthians 5:15) We must love them all.

So what are the proper ways to do things for God? Strictly speaking, God doesn't need us to do things for him. But he does want us to do things for his creatures and especially for those made in his image. Thus picking up from Isaiah 58, God says, “Is this not the kind of fast I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to clothe him, and do not hide from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-7) He says in Micah, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

To act justly is to be fair with everyone. To treat certain people worse is injustice. For instance, even though they were divorced in the late 1950s and remarried in the early 60s, my mom and dad had to act as if they weren't married so my mom could buy her car and her home in her own name. A woman couldn't buy those things by herself but had to have her husband as co-signer. The government red-lined certain communities making it harder for African Americans could buy houses. While the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution supposedly gave women the vote in 1920, Native American women were barred until 1924. Chinese immigrants didn't get the right to vote until 1943, Japanese Americans until 1952, and it wasn't until the 24^th Amendment was ratified in 1964 that the remaining barriers to African Americans voting were removed. And in 1984, Mississippi became the last state to ratify the 19^th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

Right now some people are actually attacking Asian Americans, apparently thinking that the virus somehow has a preferred race as a carrier. Eugene Cho, the president-elect of the Christian charity Bread for the World, has seen 2 members of his family assaulted. And after 9/11 people attacked Sikhs, mistakenly thinking they were Muslims, and further confusing all Muslims with terrorists. I hope the assailants weren't calling themselves Christian because in Leviticus 19:34, just 16 verses after God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, he says, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” And in Matthew 25, Jesus includes the foreigner as one of the least of his siblings whose treatment is counted as the way we treat Jesus. Treating our fellow bearers of the image of God fairly is something we can do for our Lord.

We are told to love mercy. A strictly just society would be intolerant of any breaking of the rules, any unjust impulse or word. But we all screw up. And we all want mercy and forgiveness at those times...for ourselves. We tend to be less likely to forgive or ask for mercy for others, unless they are close to us. Yet in the prayer he taught us Jesus told us to ask God to forgive our failures to do what we owe him to the same extent that we forgive others their failures to do what they owe us. Do you ever forgive those who have failed to fulfill their social contract with you? Have you forgiven those politicians whom you rail at while watching the news or while scrolling through social media? You should. According to the Lord's Prayer, the unforgiving person is an unforgiven person. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) Showing mercy to others is something we can do for God.

Finally we are told to walk humbly with our God. How is that something we can do for God? For one thing, nobody likes being with an arrogant person. Don't you hate it when you have a client or a customer or even a relative who acts like they know your job better than you do? As the joke goes, those who think they know everything annoy those who actually do. And God actually does know everything! Yet we love to tell him how we think he should run the world. It's the ultimate in the Dunning-Kruger effect, the psychological phenomenon in which the less someone knows about something, the more they think they know. And if you think you know it all, you don't think you have anything to learn. I don't know about you, but I've never created a universe. So the proper attitude towards our Creator is to be humble and listen and learn.

And in this time of plague, one thing we can do is sheltering in place and social distancing. Quarantine is not new. It's in the Old Testament as a way of dealing with contagious diseases. (Leviticus 13:4) In response to a plague that was spreading during his time, Martin Luther wrote, “I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence.” Wise words. And unlike him, we can call others, Skype or Facetime with them, let them know we are thinking about them and see if they need anything. They may just need to talk to someone.

And we can pray. No matter what we can always pray.

When reconciling with Peter, who had denied him 3 times, Jesus asked him 3 times if he loved him. And each time Peter said he did, Jesus told him how to show that: “Feed my sheep.” What we can do for God is take care of one another. We can love one another. And if you truly love others, you are willing to make sacrifices if necessary. There are a lot of people right now who are doing that: truck drivers and law enforcement and those who work in grocery stores and pharmacies and doctors and nurses and researchers and 911 operators, some of whom are writing their wills ahead of time just in case they are called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I have been watching the Netflix documentary series Pandemic. And on IMDB, someone reviewing it complained about the sections that showed the family lives of the doctors and epidemiologists, and the fact that some were people of faith. But that is part of who they are. And that motivates them. I remember especially the small town doctor, who, during her 72 hour shifts, is joined at the local hospital by her husband, who sleeps there with her when she gets a rare nap. They read the Bible together and pray together. And you can see that this is what keeps her going. She is doing this for God. Because of what God has done for her. For all of us. Which we will look at next week.