Facing the Fire: A Lenten Sermon

Do you know what’s the scariest part of moving? It’s passing the driving test in your new state!

When my wife and I moved to Raleigh some years back to become pastor of First Baptist Church there, we secured a copy of the dreaded North Carolina Driver’s License Exam booklet and began to study for the driver’s exam, otherwise known as the DMV’s idea of humility therapy. I understand that the man who wrote that book has other hobbies too – he tortures kittens for fun. We went down on the same day to take the exam. We both passed. But I had no more than gotten seated in the car and buckled my seat belt when she started with me: “I only missed one; how many did you miss?”

“Two, I missed two!” You happy now?”

Filled out a credit application lately? Bet you didn’t know there were right answers on those things, did you? They’re not looking for information; they’re passing judgment! I can’t believe the questions they ask on those things! “Do you brush your teeth up and down like the dentist told you, or are you one of those ‘side-to-side’ brushers?”

Life is a test! Everywhere you go you’re being tested, sifted, measured, evaluated. When you go to the doctor’s office, why doesn’t the nurse just say: “All right, go over to the scales and weigh yourself and then come back and tell me what it said”? Because it’s a test, that’s why! She doesn’t want you to cheat!

To be human is to be tested. To be human is to have options – options to do the better thing or the cheaper thing, to prove your mettle or to be devoured in the unforgiving flames. And though some “tests” stand out as more memorable than others, there is a sense in which we are “tested” every day of our lives. At every juncture we choose: to egress or regress, to become more than we are or less than we were. The choices we must negotiate are both constant and cumulative, and their effects terrifyingly real.

The New Testament has a word for it. It’s usually translated temptation, but that’s not what the Greek word behind it really means. The word in the Greek is peirasmos and if you listen carefully you can hear in the sound of the word its real meaning. Listen: peirasmos, “pyromania,” “pyrotechnic,” the “Fire.”

Jesus had to face the fire. We sometimes call it the “temptation of Jesus.” Mark describes it this way: “And immediately the Spirit flung him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days being tested (translate it ‘under fire’) by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him.” I take comfort in that: Jesus too had to face the fire. Like the People of God who for forty years were “tested” in the wilderness, Jesus too was tested in the wilderness. To be human is to be tested, to find yourself “under fire,” and the fact that he was God’s Son didn’t spare him from the Fire. No exemptions, no exceptions.

And so, whether we’re talking about Jesus, or you and me – and to talk about Jesus is to talk about you and me (that’s what “Incarnation” means) – to be human is to be “tested,” “tempted,” “judged,” call it what you will, but what it is, is “facing the fire.”

There’s a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon that I love, for reasons that will become apparent. It’s a picture of a spotted dog dressed in pulpit robe and standing in pulpit preaching to other spotted dogs. He’s frowning, pointing his paw at them, and saying: “Bad dogs! Bad dogs!” And underneath the caption reads: “Hellfire and Dalmatians.”

Any preacher worth his “spots” has to work with a little fire now and then. Especially during this time of the year when we’re taking a “Journey to the Cross,” called by some “Lent” – that 40-day period leading up to Easter when the church, remembering Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, sets aside a protracted period to “face the fire,” to put itself to the “test” to see if it measures up – especially at Lent we can stand a little “pulpit pyromania.” And contrary to popular opinion, it’s not just giving something up (like chocolate or pizza). It’s not about “giving up” at all; it’s about “giving in,” surrendering, submitting, repenting, saying “no” to self and “yes” to God, burning away the dross so the pure metal can show through. It’s about “Facing the Fire.”

I know, I know, “hellfire and dalmatian,” can be off-putting. “Give us something positive and upbeat! Judgment can be so, so…well, judgmental!” But let me say a word about it: Diagnosis is a necessary part of cure.

“You’ve got to have an operation.” Tell me, is that good news, or bad? Well, it depends, actually, on what preceded it. Suppose the physician said: “The report came back positive. You’ve got cancer. But we think surgery will take care of it. You’ve got to have an operation.” Now, is the statement good news or bad? You see? Diagnosis is a necessary part of cure.

That’s what C. S. Lewis meant when he said: “it is the essence of Love to perfect the beloved.” You see, if you really love someone, you call out of them their highest and best selves, even if that’s not what they want. And I have good news for you…and bad…God really loves you! And that means that while he will never let you go, it also means that he will never let you off until he has brought you, in the words of Paul, “unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” His goal is none other than your perfection, no matter how long it takes, no matter how personally painful it may be for you. Because you see, God really loves you!

Somewhere in his writings, the great Christian writer George MacDonald uses this parable. He says to imagine that you are a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he’s doing. He’s fixing the drains and repairing the leaky roof. And that pleases you, because all those things needed to be done anyway. But he doesn’t stop there. He starts knocking down walls and taking out partitions, and it hurts terribly! What’s he up to? What he’s up to is that he’s building a very different kind of house from the one you had in mind – putting on a new wing here, adding a new floor there, running up towers and laying in courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace. You see, he intends to come and live in it himself, and he’s not going to live in merely a decent little cottage!

It is the essence of love to perfect the beloved.

And let me say another word about it. There is a faith on the far side of the fire that the glib and the giddy will never grasp.

Will Willimon tells a story about a contentious budget meeting he had been involved in back when he was at Duke. Everyone, it seems, was contending for his/her budget items not to fall to the budget axe, and of course emotions were on a razor edge. Everyone agreed the budget had to be cut, but no one wanted their program to suffer. During the rancorous debate that ensued, Will noticed that the Librarian was quietly sitting in the corner watching the chaos with apparent detachment and composure, seemingly unaffected by it all. Then, in a collected and quiet voice, he offered his own analysis of the budgetary problems as well as a potential solution. The group saw immediately the wisdom of his suggestions and very soon a consensus was forged where only moments before chaos had reigned. When the meeting was over, Will walked back to the library with this insightful man and on the way asked him: “Jerry, how is it that you could be so calm and composed in there with all that shouting and chaos?” The Librarian said: “I had open heart surgery two years ago.” Will said: “I didn't know that.” “Oh, yeah. Two years ago it was now. You know, Will, they stop your heart. I died for about five minutes on that operating table. My heart was stopped and was not beating on its own anymore. And while I was lying there, I could have sworn I heard a Voice say: ‘Peace. Be still!’” Will said: “You’re kidding! That's remarkable. But what's that got to do with your composure during the budget meeting?” And Jerry said: “It's a funny thing, you know, but when you've died and been raised, they can't do anything to you anymore.”

Have faith in the fire!

One thing more. What if, having faced the fire, you find your faith failing? It happens! Remember, even Jesus wasn’t done with the Devil in the desert. Gethsemane may have looked like a garden, but it was a desert. It’s a long way from Lent to Easter, and only they who daily face the fire will make it through the desert.

Do you know the story about the medieval peasant who was walking down the road one day and came upon a monk? Stopping him, the peasant asked the monk: “You know, I’ve always wanted to ask you, what do you holy men do all day long way up there in that monastery so high and so close to God?” The monk, full of wisdom and grace, said: “What do we holy men do up there so high and so close to God? I’ll tell you what we do. We fall down, and we get up. We fall down, and we get up. We fall down, and we get up!”

Of course. Of course.

Dealing With the Dirt

I have an Ash Wednesday confession. I have always had something of a “clean fetish.” My childhood tormentors (read “siblings”) took notice of this and made up names for me – “nasty nice” being the most memorable among them. That’s not to say that I didn’t run and play and get dirty like other kids; I did. I just couldn’t wait to get the dirt off when the day was done. Not sure why. Perhaps because where I grew up dirt was…well…just dirtier than the normal dirt. The region around Lake Okeechobee where I grew up was known for its rich, dark, black organic soil called “muck.” It would grow anything, but it also was virtually indelible when it came in contact with human skin.

When I was about fourteen, my dad got me a summer job working on a sod farm. He had, I suspect, multiple motives – to help me earn a little extra spending money; to learn the value of hard work and dollars earned; to help build my self-esteem as well as my fourteen year old frame which, at that point, was mostly long, lanky, and lean with an Adam’s apple at the summit; and finally to help me get over my dirt fetish. It was hot, dirty work, and by day’s end it showed. I still remember getting into the car at the end of the day when dad had come to pick me up. I glanced at myself in the side mirror and was horrified at my appearance. I reached in the back seat of his company car and took a rag and began to wipe the grime from my face. He got in the car, sat down, looked at me frantically wiping the muck from my mug and said: “Son, you’ve gotta learn to deal with the dirt.” Indeed.

There is, of course, the dirt we wear on the outside, and then there is the dirt we wear on the inside. Christians call the latter “sin” – “soul soil.” For Christians, sin is not merely some unfortunate, no-fault, mindless mishap for which one is neither accountable nor responsible; it is intentional, willful disobedience to the One Who makes appropriate and legitimate claims and demands upon us. For the Christian, “sin” is not merely an “oops” or an “uh oh,” it’s a stubborn, intentional, recalcitrant “no!” that sets in motion irrevocable consequences and inescapable outcomes.

The solution for dealing with this kind of dirt is what Christians call “repentance.” It is owning the dirt so that we can disown it. It begins with a mea culpa (“I am guilty”), and it ends with a kyrie eleison (“Lord, have mercy”). And that, chiefly, is what Ash Wednesday is all about. We own the dirt so that we can, with God’s help, disown it. As C. S. Lewis said: “[Repentance] means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death…. And remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.”

Repentance – dealing with the dirt. It takes at least 40 days of preparation, examination, confession, and contrition to get ready for Easter, because there can be no resurrection until somebody dies, no atonement without “coming clean” and dealing with the dirt.

And so, when you see folk today wearing cruciform ashes, little “soil signs,” on their foreheads, remember, they’re wearing their dirt on the outside so that they can be reminded to deal with the dirt on the inside.

As David, who knew a thing or two about “soul soil” once prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God!”

The Paradox of Power

Power doesn’t usually get good press in the Christian world, as in the phrase “principalities and the powers” of Paul’s writings, or Jesus’ words to James and John when they requested to sit next to him when he ascended to the “seat of power,” – “You know that those appearing to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their ‘great ones’ dominate them; but it is not so with you” (my translation). At least in part, that’s because of two fundamental qualities of power: (1) it turns means into ends; (2) it’s addictive. People don’t covet money or fame or high political office in and of themselves; rather, they covet them for the perceived power they bring. And, of course, no amount of power is ever enough. The Faustian vision of limitless power is both ubiquitous and universal. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Lord Acton.

But without a measure of power it would be difficult to achieve anything worthwhile, even in the church. Pastors, for example, must possess a certain measure of power within their congregations in order to be effective in their ministries. That power typically takes three different forms: positional, relational, and functional. Positional power is the kind of power one has by virtue of the office or position. You get that kind of power walking through the door. CEO’s and presidents possess positional power the day they arrive. Relational power, on the other hand, is earned through trust developed over time in relationship with those with whom you work and serve. Functional power is accrued because you know something or can do something someone values. Functional power is the kind of power your surgeon has over you.

Pastors who are competent and diligent develop relational and functional power fairly quickly. Hospital visits and effective preaching will accrue the pastor a measure of relational and functional power with most congregations in fairly short order. But while most laypeople believe that the pastor also possesses a measure of positional power the day he arrives, in most Baptist churches that is more perception than reality. Most Baptist churches already have well-established and firmly-entrenched power structures (church staff, deacons, key committees, well-heeled members who know how to “get things done,” etc.) that a pastor ignores at great peril. The paradox is that while most laypeople believe that the pastor possesses positional power and hold him accountable for achieving whatever agenda they deem essential to the church’s “success,” many pastors have virtually no positional power and are left to try to achieve their goals solely through the judicious exercise of relational and functional power. Holding a pastor accountable for things over which he has, in reality, little if any control is a recipe for frustration…or disaster.

Which brings me to my point. Churches need to grant their pastors an appropriate measure of positional power if they intend to hold the pastor accountable for the achievement of the church’s goals. Is there a danger here that the pastor might abuse that positional power? Of course. Remember Lord Acton? But that’s precisely why it’s so necessary and important for the congregation to do its job well at the front end, when they call the pastor. If he understands ministry as a vocation (calling) rather than merely a profession (job), he is unlikely to use power in a self-serving way. If your pastor is a person of integrity, he can be trusted with an appropriate measure of positional power. Sound paradoxical? Sure it does, but we’ve got to expect that kind of thing in the Kingdom of God, don’t we.

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I call this blog a "conversation" about things theological, and that's what I want (and hope) it to be. A conversation, however, is always three things:

(1) a first word rather than a final word. I never claim to tell you "all the truth," just "all the truth I know right now."
(2) a dialogue rather than a monologue. I learn more from my readers, I suspect, than they ever learn from me.
(3) a transparent discussion between myself and the reader(s), and that means that I must know with whom I'm speaking.

For that reason I do not post comments that are unsigned or anonymous (including clever pseudonyms). I really do welcome your comments; however, I only post comments from those who are willing to put their name to them.

Thanks for your understanding, and let the conversation continue.