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The Offensiveness of the Gospel ***Sermon worksheet found at the end of this sermon**** Help us lord to be so connected to you that we might become the servants of others… Take our lips and speak through them, And take our hearts, and set them on fire. The story is told of an atheist lecturing at an American university on the topic of: “the offensiveness of Christianity.” At the end of the talk, the meeting is opened for questions. After a short pause, a student well known on campus as a former alcoholic, but who in recent months had become a Christian, steps to the front of the auditorium, goes to the microphone, and then takes an orange from his pocket and proceeds to peel it, all the while, saying nothing. The speaker is getting more agitated by the second, and says, “State your question please!” But the man still says nothing. Instead, he continues to peel the orange and then eats it. When the student finishes, he asks the dumbfounded speaker, “Was that sweet or sour?” “How should I know? I didn’t taste it!” replies the atheist. To which the student replies, “How then can you know anything about Jesus Christ if you have never tried him?” My friends, let me ask you this morning… Why is the Christian gospel so offensive to the world in which we live? Why does the world by and large despise the claims of Christianity? Further, why does cultural Christianity, That is, those who have been around churches a long while, But have lost the foundation of faith… Why does cultural Christianity even despise some of the claims made by Jesus Christ himself? In fact, let me give you an assignment. This week, take a poll of your un-churched friends, and ask them, “What keeps you from an active faith?” Email me, let me know! Luis Palau, in his book called: God is Relevant: Finding strength and peace in today’s world, writes with great clarity …that
But I believe the chief reason people are offended by the gospel is that it presents a worldview that stands in stark contrast to that of the culture in which we live. Bishop Salmon, of the diocese of South Carolina, led our vestry retreat last month. He nailed this concept on the spot when he said, We live in a world of relativity, where your truth is as good as my truth. Relativism says that everything is contingent upon something else, every truth is negotiable. Take for example stealing. Relativism might say, “Don’t steal if it will hurt anybody.” Relativism suggests that everything is true; and if so, then truth becomes determined by what I believe it to be. Why is it that we can say that in the realm of religion but not in the world of medicine or law? Can you imagine going to your doctor with that attitude? If the doctor misses, you’re dead! Or in the law, where one slip-up means you’re paying the suit? We understand within every arena that truth is not relative until we come to the church, and then we pour syrup on it. And the fruit of that is that we have no place to stand. If Adolph Hitler were alive today, a relativist would say, “Well, that’s his truth.” If you want to agree that’s his truth, then look at the fruit of his truth, and you find where it falls short. We are in a culture that says let’s just all get along, a culture more and more antagonistic to the gospel because the gospel is not relativistic. It believes that Jesus Christ is the true revelation of God, and our culture despises anyone who believes that a definitive truth exists! Our culture is absolute on the fact that there can be no absolutes! It shudders when it hears those words out of Acts 4:12, where Paul says that salvation is found in no one else, there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved! Or John 8, “I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death!” Do you see the strong edge of the Christian gospel? Even our prayer book is offensive to the culture of our day. We begin each baptismal service with these absolutes:
What we often hear in return is… …it might be true for you, but it isn’t for me… But you know, back up the clock a bit, and we will find Jesus dealing with the same issues. Because while the world changes, the human condition does not. Jesus goes back to his hometown not just to rest and get some home-cooked food. But because he’s with his disciples, he’s there to evangelize; he’s there to spread the kingdom. And sure enough, he goes to preach in his hometown synagogue and people’s eyes and ears are opened! Some are amazed! Others deeply touched! Still others we’re told are offended. Those are the expected responses to gospel preaching today aren’t they?
If you’ve never been offended by the gospel, I haven’t done my job! But here in this gospel there are 3 major reasons why the people are offended. The first involves what I’m calling intellectual snobbery because of his genes and job! “Jesus, how dare you speak in such a way, who do you think you are? After all, look at who you are related to!” Simple intellectual snobbery. “This guy is a carpenter!” Not a scholar, not a rabbi, he’s a handyman. How could he know anything? Applying that today, does our own intellectual snobbery sometimes prevent us from hearing what we need to hear: some simple gospel truth? We find ourselves saying that’s much too simple, and we become offended that our intellectual ears are hearing such basic things. The second reason for their offence comes from this old adage. The most brilliant speaker at any conference is always the one from the farthest away… Distance somehow adds integrity! Imagine, being a sibling of Jesus. What would your response be to his claims? Couldn’t we even say that familiarity breeds boredom? This can be certainly seen in the context of marriage. Boredom can set in, and if steps aren’t taken to engage more deeply, we can be easily seduced away. Can’t that happen in issues of faith? I think here of Beth Roberts. She lives in State College, Pennsylvania, and was deeply shaken by the events of 9-11, She found out the Dalai Lama was going to speak at the National Cathedral, and attended his visit there. After hearing him speak, she began taking classes in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. One year later, she took refuge vows expressing full commitment to the Buddhist path. Thank you, Cathedral… Now, I don’t know Beth, and I don’t know if she grew up as a Christian. But sometimes we can miss out on truth because we are so close to it. We can be seduced by those things that are simply different, because they might be seen as exotic! As Paul says in his letter to Timothy, “The time will come when folks won’t put up with sound teaching, but instead, will gather people around them who will say what their itching ears want to hear!” And this can happen to each one of us my dear friends! We are so familiar to the gospels that we may easily lose the sense of wonder and awe, and forget the hard edge of the gospel! We are so familiar we have put away such controversial ideas as sin and redemption, right and wrong, good and evil. And we have stripped the identity of Christ into being simply a nice man, with very little to teach us… Are we any different from those chastising Jesus? And this leads to reason number 3 which is based on all the above… Cynicism. We hear the people say, “This guy claims miracles?” I am reminded here of the scientist David Hume who said that belief can be justified by probability and that probability is based upon the uniformity of nature. In other words, anything that is supernatural is to be rejected! Do you see the deeper and historic reasons for people’s offensiveness toward the gospel?
Add them up and today, it equals relativism, where everything is negotiable…
It’s all negotiable; everything is truth. Case in point: I think of the story of a student at the University of Vermont. He was speaking to a group reporting this gospel of our age saying, “Whatever is true for you is true for you, and whatever is true for me is true for me. If something works for you and you believe it, that’s great. But no one should force their views on another since everything is relative. At that, one of the students leaves the room, and on the way out, unplugs the speaker’s microphone and starts out the door with it. The speaker protests, “You can’t do that!” The student replies, “You’re not going to force the belief on me that it’s wrong to steal your stereo, are you?” You see, this relativistic mindset has to shift into the absolute when someone violates their rights! The “that’s just your interpretation” mentality is dropped rather quickly. In fact, there is one question that destroys a relativist’s argument every time. And that’s this… Is your philosophy of relativism absolutely true for everyone? You see, Jesus in his ministry and teaching is giving people a whole new paradigm. Teaching with authority, speaking in ways that would upset, using absolutes. That his love is meant for every single human being without exception! For the first time, people are hearing you can be a non-Jew and experience salvation! He wants everyone to come to him; his love is unconditional and absolute! No matter where we’ve been, or where we’re headed, it is absolutely available! You see, an absolute is not contingent on anything else, no ifs ands or buts. It isn’t relative to time, place, nation, class, culture, race, gender, or group; it’s universal. It’s not relative to opinion, thought, belief, desire, feeling, or any subjective consciousness. Our love for each other must be an absolute! It is believing that even when things don’t make sense, even when things are too simple, too familiar. One of the reasons I’m opposed to murder of any kind is that the gospel of Jesus Christ demands I be whether I like it or not! Believing right through our own cynicism… Take for example that absolute that Jesus himself gives us. “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but by me.” To the modern ear, that is the most offensive statement in all of scripture! Bishop Salmon told your vestry that in that passage, we find that God chooses to identify himself through Jesus Christ. It’s not possible to know God or ourselves until we know Jesus. It’s impossible to know God loves us and is willing to die for us, except by knowing his son Jesus. Here is the simple truth… Jesus is the way to God because that’s the way that God chose to reveal himself! You can’t get it out of a book. This is the truth, not because this piece of information is better than another piece of information, but because God chose Jesus to live and die for you and me. There is no way we can know god as person unless we’re willing to know Jesus and be known by him. And in the process of finding the Christ, we find ourselves! There is nothing more offensive than someone else telling me who I am; it is offensive to be defined by someone else. Think about it…what gives you the right to tell me what to do? But yet, again, it is only there we find our salvation! Jesus is the way to god because that’s the only way that god chose to reveal himself! And as biblical illiteracy increases in our churches, and as authority of any kind--including biblical authority—is more frequently relativised, we will continue to see cynicism, skepticism and buffet-style religion both in and outside the church! And my friends, let me tell you, this mindset is dangerous to your health. In today’s gospel, we’re told that because of their cynicism, Christ could do no miracles there. When the attitude of individuals, or even when the attitude of entire churches turns to relativism, it becomes a kind of unitarianism, as has happened to such a significant part of the Episcopal Church. We begin then to talk about how lovely the architecture is, and the amount of social outreach, but we will never find any major work of life saving redemption. Because of familiarity and skepticism, churches can so easily over the years become simply chapels to culture. No mighty work can be done in a church not possessed by faith that its Lord Jesus Christ is both the alpha and the omega. Again, that old adage, “you can’t have what you don’t believe.” If we in our cynical spirits think Jesus isn’t capable of transformation, or healing, then chances are out of his respect for own free will, we will be neither healed nor transformed. If we have a relative mindset about forgiveness for instance, and it’s always contingent on someone else, chances are we will never experience the freedom that comes from forgiveness! My friends, hear the good news! I invite each one of us, to lay aside our cynicism of each other and the gospel, and fully embrace the absolute love of Jesus Christ and his transformational power! Notice in our reading that where there is belief, and conviction, there is healing. There were a few sick folk who believed, and it is they who were healed! My friends, no matter where you are, what mindset you have, realize this: God isn’t surprised when we struggle with cynicism. He grieves over our sins more than we do. All he asks us to do is believe despite our unbelief. Like C. S. Lewis, who writes: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else…” Back to the beginning of this sermon, with the man peeling his orange. Like peeling away that orange skin, it’s time to peel off our own intellectual snobbery, peel off our over-familiarity and our cynicism. As your summer reading take some of the titles from the sermon worksheet this morning. Peel those things my friends, and find the Christ who loves you absolutely. Amen. The Offensiveness of the Gospel: Sermon Notes
Great summer time reading:
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