Authenticity vs. Showmanship
October 31, 1999
ORGAN PRELUDE
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CALL TO WORSHIP
Invitation to the Celebration
bang a gavel on the lectern. Then say something similar to this: "Theoretically, we're awake; and we're ready for a God-event, not only for ourself, but also for the community of faith. So, let's worship, in the Name of God, the Creator, Liberator, Sustainer, Energizer! And, all the people said, 'Tah-dah!' "
P: The call of Christ is not an easy one.
M: It is an invitation to self-giving humility.
P: It requires hard work in the face of disappointment.
M: It means going on when it seems as though everyone else has given up.
P: We will need to stop judging each other's faith and to support each other if we are to follow Christ.
M: We offer this support as we celebrate the life of faith, hope, love, together.
*OPENING HYMN Alleluia! # 460
*INVOCATION AND LORD'S PRAYER Forgiving God, we confess that we have been puffed up, self-important, too insecure to allow others to see our flaws. We have been guilty of pretense, of the deprecation of others as a way of elevating ourselves. Forgive us for this, O God, and grant us strength to be human and honest.
*GLORIA PATRI
SCRIPTURE READING Joshua 3:7-17
3:7 The LORD said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses:8 You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, 'When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.'"9 Joshua then said to the Israelites, "Draw near and hear the words of the LORD your God." 10 Joshua said, "By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites,Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: 11 the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. 12 So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13 When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap." 14 When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people. 15 Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, 16 the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17 While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.
RESPONSE Psalms 107:1-7+33-37
107:1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. 2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble 3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. 4 Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town; 5 hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. 6 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; 7 he led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town. 33 He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, 34 a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. 35 He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. 36 And there he lets the hungry live, and they establish a town to live in; 37 they sow fields, and plant vineyards, and get a fruitful yield.
MISSION MOMENT
OFFERING Humility is a quality we often question in others, but assume in ourselves. As Walter B. Knight says in the Gospel Herald, "Humility is elusive. It is such a fragile plant that the slightest reference to it causes it to wilt and die."
*DOXOLOGY
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION We pray, Lord, that these gifts of money represent our humble, rather than our self-righteous, relationship with You and toward Your world.
CHILDREN'S STORY TIME Recognition Sunday
CHORAL ANTHEM
PRAYER O Christ, the life, keep on waking us up; that we, confronted by your majesty, the nearness of your Kingdom, and the power of your truth, may rise, ashamed from dreaming about ourself, enter into life, serve your purpose, and celebrate your truth anew, in spirit and in reality, not only with our words, not only with our emotions, but with our whole life.
We Seek Forgiveness The Act of Recognizing Our Self-righteousness Where did we ever get the idea that we're not supposed to be disturbed? The Gospel disturbs us before healing us. If we read the Scripture carefully, and let God's Spirit interpret it for us, we will discover that all of us have the spirit of the scribes and Pharisees. (Two minutes of silence) Prayer of Confession O God of grace and power, you come to us in surprising ways with surprising messages, some of which we want to hear, and some of which we want to ignore. You call us to live in unexpected ways, performing unexpected tasks. We confess that we do not always welcome your surprises, or greet you with joy. We prefer the familiar, the comfortable, the usual; we prefer to think that we have the answers for others. From our resistance to your bringing to birth within us any new visions; for our attempts to reject your truth about ourself, because we prefer self-denial; for our desire to create you in our image, rather than to give ourselves to your new creation, forgive us. Forgive us, God, and bring to birth in us a new openness to your expected presence, and your surprising direction for our lives. The Act of Pardon for Our Self-righteousness You have given us a choice: We can refuse to recognize that in our own self-righteousness, which leads to hatred and hostility, we are God's enemy. Or we can choose to recognize that in our loving and accepting, we are God's friend. We make that choice in every decision, every relationship, every event of our life.
P: God in Christ accepts our humanity, every bit of it.
M: Despite our brokenness and I-centeredness and self- righteousness, we embrace our humanity, and the One who redeems and renews it.
P: God in Christ has set us free.
M: We are free! And we are responsible!
P: God in Christ allows us to experience newness, a new person, a new day, a new song.
M: We celebrate life in the risen, living Christ.
P: So be it!
*PREPARATIONAL HYMN Standing in the Need of Prayer
SCRIPTURE TEXT Matthew 23:1-12
23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father - the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
SERMON Authenticity vs. Showmanship
Maybe both the best and the worst of us in humanity are far better preachers than we are doers and deliverers of what we preach and teach. / Jesus, fully divine and fully human, loved and valued not just the right deeds, but also the right motives and attitudes. We, being fully human and ever spiritually in need of completion, will often settle for the right deeds and tolerate or overlook the improper attitudes and motives behind them. We do so, in part, because we ourselves are a contradiction in motion, either desiring to do right while we do wrong or overriding contrary emotions and attitudes and doing right anyway.
When one does what's right, but one's heart and mind are not fully in it, one is mastering showmanship. When one chooses actions that are first of all very rooted in certain valued attitudes and motives, one is practicing and demonstrating authenticity. To think one thing and to do another might at times carry its own validity, if the doing proves preferable to what the thinking might have otherwise called into action. But to do something good because your mind and heart are greatly convinced and committed to it is not merely a sign of congruency. It is also an authentic witness of a fully persuaded person, with all parts of himself/herself headed in the right direction.
In the Matthew text we are studying, Jesus counsels all followers indeed to do/to follow the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees (v. 3). That is an affirmative response, as far as it goes. But he also calls them, and all other religious types similarly minded in the centuries since, to be more than persons who preach and teach a good line but lack active follow-through (v. 3).
In verses 1 and 2, notice first the informal gathering of the crowds and disciples around Jesus. If you and I could imagine ourselves in the midst of such a gathering, I suspect we would consider Jesus being the only one in an esteemed position of authority. The rest of us, regardless of our life-stations before or after the gathering, are merely attentive spectators. Verse 2 notes that they "sit on Moses' seat," that is, wherever they might travel, sit, or stand, they have an authoritative air about them that often also carries a kind of arrogance that wants to demote the stature of others nearby. Their humility before God is darkened by their pride and arrogance before others.
The scribes and Pharisees are an interesting mixture of personhood. They are the religious legalists of the day, knowing religious Law down to its every detail. They've trained their minds to carry a vast knowledge of the Law, and their hearts and wills reveal a very deep dedication or burning devotion to God. One might call this mixture of personhood legalistic lovers of God?
What is it that incurs Jesus' anger, recognized in and between the lines of verses 3b-7? I think it has to do with his unwillingness to allow showmanship to pass for authenticity and congruency. Through much of the Gospels, we seldom see Jesus expressing anger and frequently see him teaching truth, sharing insights, expressing compassion, and performing miracles. When anger is expressed, its goal is not destruction of a person, but confrontation and correction of that person. For Jesus, anger is expressed from his love of God and others. In this particular passage, Jesus simultaneously counsels the crowds and the disciples not to be content with developing showmanship, but to be committed to walking one's talk. In verse 4, the phrase "heavy burdens, hard to bear" more than likely has to do with the scribes' and Pharisees' rendition of the Law going well beyond reverence for God and respect for others, to tens of thousands of rules and regulations. People with conscience and religious sensitivities would no doubt feel a significant but unnecessary burden to being law-abiding, as they looked up to and endeavored to follow these religious authorities. I suspect that one of two things happened to those people who took the Pharisees and scribes very seriously: 1) They would eventually feel disheartened and discouraged by unending rules, and thereby discount and distance themselves from the religious enterprise; or 2) they would become the kind of devotees who would be a sort of sub-college or group, just a couple steps below the status and station of scribe and Pharisee. They would fashion their own sense of security, set their own level of life station, and thereby have their own airs of superiority over others Ironically, though all this Law-devotion was to bring people closer to God, it actually made it difficult for many to experience God. As Dr. Carl Jung, who was far more spiritual in his understanding of the human being than was Freud, once said, "One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God."1 Our means to God, whether it be Law or something else, must never become an end in itself, for God and loving Him must be our constant end. The Pharisees and scribes, in their teaching and keeping of the Law, caught a spiritual disease called pride. That pride blinded them and misled others who were well-meaning as well. The phylacteries mentioned in verse 5, according to Barclay,
are like little leather boxes, strapped one on the wrist and one on the forehead .. inside .. there is a parchment roll with .. four passages of scripture on it -- Exodus 13:1-10 and 13:11-16 and Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 .. The Pharisees, in order to draw attention to themselves .. wore especially big ones, so that they might demonstrate their exemplary obedience to the Law and their exemplary piety.2
The fringes or tassels referred to the borders of the Pharisees' garments, serving to remind them of God's commandments. They too could be made large enough to display piety all the more. Many a scholar will say that Jesus is concerned in these verses with the scribes and Pharisees drawing attention to themselves through the size of these objects, as well as the choosing of places of honor at banquets and synagogues (v. 6), expecting respect in the marketplaces (v. 7) and being called rabbi publicly (v. 8). In response to this overgrown pride and pandering for public recognition through public acts of piety, Jesus reminds the crowds and disciples that there is only one true teacher, Christ, and one true Father, God (v. 10). In contrast to the Pharisees' predilection toward public show, Jesus teaches humility and privacy, so that the one glorified is not a person, but God. Our Lord concludes in verses 11 and 12 that servanthood is not the same as ostentation, and humility is not the same as self-exaltation. Majoring in ostentation and self-exaltation reveals the play-actor, or hypocrite, in all of us. One pastor has written regarding this, "A hypocrite, then, is one whose character ultimately is determined not by what people see on the outside, but what God finds on the inside. Those two things don't always coincide."3
In the last analysis, what the people saw at times publicly in the Pharisees, they saw outwardly. Jesus' critique here reveals that -- whether one is a Pharisee of the first century, or a pastor and layleader of our concluding twentieth century -- what he sees inwardly is not congruent with the great outside show. Only genuine humility and authentic servanthood (vv. 11 and 12) can be the proper spiritual retardants to pride and ostentation.
One pastor tells of his excitement of bringing into parish membership a university professor. The pastor endeavored to prepare and to deliver better sermons from the pulpit, as this prospective member continued to attend worship. Later, while reflecting with the professor after he joined the parish, the pastor found that the professor's joining had less to do with the sermons he heard and more to do with an elderly woman who consistently made him feel so welcomed and valued. That was what moved him into Christian community.4 Hear this: the Christian spirit of hospitality outdid scholarship. Servanthood over showmanship wins hearts in many, many places.
1. Stanislav Grof, "Spirituality, Addiction and Western Science," Revision 10:2 (Fall 1987), pp. 5-8.
2. William Barcley, Matthew, Volume II, Westminster Press, p. 286.
3. Evan Howard, "Ingenious Christians," Lection Aid, Volume 4, No. 4, year A and B, October-December, 1996, p. 23.
4. Dynamic Preaching, November-December, 1996, Volume XI, No. 9, p. 14.
*INVITATIONAL HYMN Thanks to God for My Redeemer # 587
*BENEDICTION How will we avoid the religion of the scribes and Pharisees this week, as we remember that a critic is one who points out how imperfectly other people do that which the critic does not do at all?
ORGAN POSTLUDE