Within You

Today we continue our series called ‘All About Love.’ We’ve spent the last 4 weeks looking at what it really means to love someone. We found first that love means helping someone grow spiritually; that’s the core of love. Then we looked at the special role of children, and how clear Jesus was about taking care of those who are weak among us. Next we saw that lying is not loving; we have to be true to the essence of who we are. Then last week we explored this idea of “loving yourself.” It can sound selfish, but ultimately when we put our focus on God and others the exact opposite happens. By caring for others we avoid a selfish kind of love and actually become better at loving ourselves. I think that’s a glimpse of the kind of life God calls us to.

Now we dive ever further into this idea as we explore what Divine love is. How do we get that? How do we live with God’s love in our lives? To get at this question Christine is going to share for us our scripture from Luke 17. Its a story where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus’ time and they want to know when the kingdom of God is coming. Some thought there was this set time, but no one on earth knew when it was. Others said the kingdom would come when all of Israel repented of their sins. They want to know the answer, but Jesus gives them an entirely unexpected one. I know we have guests with us today for our baptism, and normally I would not explore such a deep and difficult passage, but it is strangely fitting for our series so listen to the Gospel of Luke 17:20-37. Hear now the word of the Lord.

Luke 17:20–37 (NRSV)

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them —it will be like that on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.”Then they asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”

and from

Genesis 1:27 NRSV

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

This is the word of the Lord for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray as we begin: God, may we be an inclusive community passionately following Jesus Christ. draw our hearts to you, Lord, that we may experience your divine love. Open us up to your word and your ways. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Have you ever felt like the work you do is meaningless? It might seem like an outlandish claim, but there are actually plenty of people that feel exactly that way. One survey from a few years back said 37% of people felt their jobs “did not make a meaningful contribution to the world.” These “meaningless jobs,” though, probably aren’t the ones you’re thinking of. This isn’t retail, or custodial or fast food; this is the professional service sector. Its people working in human resources, public relations, lobbying, telemarketing. They are saying “if you eliminated my job today society would be no worse off.”

Take Eric for example. He is a history graduate hired to oversee a software project in a large firm. Eric only discovered after several years on the job that one partner had initiated the project, but that several others were totally against it and were actively trying to sabotage its success. His job — and that of a large staff hired beneath him — was a meaningless effort to put into place a change that most of the company didn’t want.

How about another example of a senior manager for a large accounting firm. He was hired by a bank to oversee the disbursement of funds for insurance claims. The company, this manager says, purposefully mistrained accounting staff and saddled them with impossible tasks so the work could not be done in time and the contract would have to be extended. So in other words, the job was intentionally set up to siphon off as much money into the bank as possible. Their impossible jobs existed solely to leach money from the contracted company.

I heard a podcast this week of a wager between a hedge fund manager and Warren Buffet. Warren Buffet had given a speech saying he could beat anyone’s investment with a simple indexed fund, which is just an investment in all the funds, rather than just 5 or 6 well researched ones. Buffet bet a million dollars on it and ten years later guess who won? The guy who did all the research and picked the best stocks out there, or Warren Buffet who just picked all the funds? Well if you picked against Warren Buffet you must not know he’s one of the richest people in the world and is called “the Oracle of Omaha.” He easily won, outgaining the hedge fund manager by almost 40% growth. Though I do not approve of gambling in any form, I am grateful that Warren Buffet took his million dollars in winnings and gave it away to a charity that built homes for foster children that age out of foster care. At least some good came out of it, but boy it must feel awful to be a hedge fund manager and lose to an indexed fund. What good is your work if you can’t beat the average?

Now I know some of the good folks in this church work in the financial industry. I know you are already writing in your heads an email to me, and I look forward to your letters that tell me why I am completely wrong about indexed funds, but the point still stands that plenty of people feel like their work is meaningless.

The same can be true not just in work, but in a person’s whole life. They feel like “what’s the point? What good is any of this?” And so life becomes about feeling good and doing good. Now that might strike you as strange, “feeling good and doing good.” Those sound like pretty good things; what’s so wrong with that? Let me explain. Years ago people started looking at the religious faith of Millenials compared to other generations and the overwhelming conclusion was that most people’s beliefs (not just Millenials, but most people) could be labeled as “moralistic, therapeutic, deists.” Instead of the Christian faith most people believed in (and I quote) "something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he's always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process.” For far too many people out there, that’s the way they think about God. He’s there when I need him. He’ll fix my problems if I ask him, but all the other time I just live my life the way I want.

Maybe you can see the flaw right away in this thinking, but let me illustrate it. I have a family member who was really struggling with a problem. It got so bad this person finally went to God with their concern. They had a real “come to Jesus” moment and were in tears; the whole nine yards. So the next day the person wakes up and realizes the problem is still there. They were completely confused by this. Why hadn’t God fixed it? They came to God with their problem, they connected with God; this person was even sorry for what they did! How come God didn’t make the problem go away? Why wasn’t God their divine butler, serving up the healing they needed? Not only did they still have the same problem, now they also have a crisis of faith on their hands. They might even think ‘God doesn’t love me’ or ‘God doesn’t care, otherwise he would have helped me when I really needed it.’ The whole premise is all wrong, though. God isn’t here to serve us; its literally the complete opposite of that.

We see it in Luke 17. The religious leaders in Jesus’ time wanted to know when the kingdom of God would come, when people would stop rejecting God’s authority. Like I said at the start, some thought it was a specific set time, while others said when everyone repents, that’s when the kingdom of God begins. But Jesus said, “no you have it all wrong. Its not a thing you see; the kingdom is already among you.” Older translations say the kingdom of God is “within you.” The Bible was originally written in Greek and the Greek word there is “entos” which usually just means inside, so “within” makes sense, except when you are talking about a bunch of people. Then its not inside one person, it is among the people there. This is an important point, because Jesus is not saying the kingdom of God is inside the pharisees. Those religious leaders kept getting it wrong when it came to what God wants for the people. Jesus is not offering a happy-go-lucky Gospel that everyone automatically has the kingdom inside them. He is saying, ‘You keep looking for signs that the kingdom is here, but there are no signs or events that will prove it.’ There is no miracle to remove your problem that proves God’s kingdom is here. The kingdom is already among us. There are the pharisees (that’s the religious leaders), there are the disciples (who follow Jesus) and there is Jesus himself. Among that group, in a very real way, the kingdom is already there. He explains how he must suffer and die and even that is part of God’s kingdom.

Then Jesus starts to talk about a further off kingdom, that will come in the days like Noah’s. Noah’s generation was known for their evil, but its interesting that Jesus doesn’t list any evil actions taken by that group. He simply says they were eating and drinking and marrying; that’s when they were destroyed as Noah entered the ark. They were just living their lives, but their error was not so much in sin, but in simply ignoring the most important issue. Living life, feeling good and doing nice things for others doesn’t mean much when a flood is coming to destroy everything and everyone. The same thing is true for Sodom and Gomorrah. Nothing evil is mentioned here - eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. Those are all good productive things, but what they missed was that it was all meaningless.

You may be a bit rusty on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, so let’s brush up on it. Its in Genesis 19; Lot is the nephew of Abraham and lives in this lush, beautiful land, Sodom. Lot is told by some men to get anyone with him out; sons, daughters, any extended family and when Lot tells his family members, ‘come on, let’s go. This place is going to be destroyed,’ Lot’s extended family doesn’t listen. They act like he is just joking around. Only his wife and daughters flee with him. So when the city is being destroyed by fire Lots wife looks back, and as she does so, she is turned into a pillar of salt. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what Jesus is referring to when he says, “remember Lots wife.” She looked back; she longed for her home in Sodom. She wanted to go back and have all the things she had before and that led to her destruction. I’m pretty sure this is where movie directors came up that classic shot where the action hero lights a match and chucks it behind them. As fire rains down they coolly walk away without looking back. Don’t look back. Don’t dwell on the past. That’s the point here.

There’s one last part of this passage that might not make sense right away to you. It says “anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away…anyone in the field must not turn back.” Most homes back then had a flat rooftop and the stairs to get down were outside of the home. The idea here is that if you were up there and you saw Jesus the king coming, you have to come meet the king. You have to come down those stairs and come straight to the king. You can’t run inside and get your stuff. You can’t stop to get yourself ready. This is your one shot to greet the king. Similarly, if there was a disaster coming and you saw it from far off, you can’t go grab all your stuff. You flee! You run as fast as you can! That’s what Noah did and that’s what Lot did. So, essentially, be ready at any moment to meet your maker, whether its Jesus the king coming back, or a sudden disaster…be ready.

And the way we get ready is not with more stuff or more possessions. We can’t be ready with a ho-hum life just bumping along, eating, drinking and marrying. The only thing that prepares us for that sudden day is putting our trust in Jesus, putting our faith in God, and building up that relationship of divine love. If we come at God thinking of him in “moralistic, therapeutic, deistic” terms, thinking of him as our divine butler, we are not in relationship with God. We are just trying to use God to get what we want. God wants us, God wants a loving relationship with us.

Martin Buber was a philosopher in the early 1900’s who made the point that often we relate to people as an ‘it.’ The I-it relationship sees someone else as an object. They are not valuable as I am valuable; they do not matter the way I matter. There is no dialogue. They are simply a means to an end, giving me what I want. He says the goal is not an I-it relationship, but an I-thou relationship. I-thou is real relationship. Its real encounter, seeing people as they really are. We can have this kind of connection with people - often its with a spouse or a best friend or even strangers when you really pause to consider who they really are. But, perhaps most important, is that you can have this relationship with God, not treating him as a means to an end, doing your bidding, but, instead, as a real being, where love can be known and shared. Here’s a quote from Martin Buber, who confirms that staring back at Sodom does us no good,

“To look away from the world, or to stare at it, does not help a man to reach God; but he who sees the world in Him stands in His presence.” - Martin Buber. When we see God for who he really is, and stop trying to use God as a way to get what we want, that’s when we are in the presence of God. The root of feeling like work or life is meaningless is when our relationships with other people and with God are stuck in the ‘I-it’ dynamic. True connection in an ‘I-thou’ manner means the kingdom is among us, and God’s divine love pours forth from us into one another.

I learned this lesson the hard way, after my children were born. I had the chance to travel to the community of Taize, an ecumenical group that welcomes all people to reflect on the scriptures, hear beautiful, inspirational music, and to sit in silence. That last part is the kicker - 15, 20, 30 minutes in total silence with thousands of other people is a unique experience. For some it makes them very uncomfortable, but for me, it was a revelation. Some of my most profound connections with God have come gathered with others in the silence. So when I finally had the chance to go to Taize for myself, I was excited! Emily, my wife, was not particularly happy about it, because she was going to be home alone with our two young children. I told her I would line up friends and family to be with her through the week and a half that I was away and she begrudgingly accepted.

When I was in Taize, I was anxious for my time of silence. What would God say? How would God speak into my life drawing me deeper into an I-thou relationship with the creator of the universe? As I waited in the silence day after day I kept wondering what profound thing I would hear. By the end of the week I started to wonder if I’d hear anything at all. Maybe Taize wasn’t all it was cracked up to be? Maybe I knew everything I needed to know already? And then, at the point where I had basically given up, God spoke. Not audibly, not with an angel or a vision from heaven, but straight to my heart. I can’t share exactly what was spoken, but I can tell you the essence of it. God said, “You are a father, now. Act like it.” And in an instant I saw how selfish I had been in coming to Taize. I saw how, with my children, I kept wanting to do things the old way, to keep things how they had been before they were born. I didn’t want the inconvenience of changing and adapting. I hadn’t embraced my own children and the crazy, ridiculous adventure that parenting is. I was turning back looking at the years before kids showed up, longing for that old life.

I’d like to think that since that moment I’ve been a better father. Not just doing good things for my children and helping them feel good, but I now look at them with joy, encouraging them as best I can to be their best selves. I’m not perfect; I’m nowhere near it, but I have moved decidedly away from an ‘I-it’ relationship with my family, trying to get what I want, what I “need” from them, and, instead, I choose I-thou. And I have been richly blessed for it. In them I see the image of God. In them, I see God’s love poured out for me and for the whole world. I know divine love because I have opened myself to my family and the people around me. I see God when I stop ignoring the most important thing - that God is here, that God loves us and that God calls us to the best version of ourselves. Amen? Amen.