August 10 sermon - Questions and Answers

Well, it wasn't really a sermon. I took questions from the congregation for 20 minutes. I do this three times a year. Briefly, here's what came up in this morning's Q&A at church (The questions and my answers, edited for space!)

- What kind of food do tapirs eat? (That came from a child. I think it was my favourite question.) (They're herbivores! Thanks by the way to my associate for googling that and handing me her phone, cause I didn't know!)

- What did I like to do when I was a kid? (Also from a child. Something I still like to do - riding my bicycle. In fact, I rode my bike to church this morning!)

- What do I think about mediums and talking to the dead? (The Old Testament was very against it, I'm generally against it because I think it prevents us from letting go and moving on and it shows a lack of trust in God to take care of our departed loved ones.)

- How did Jesus feed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fishes? (I believe in miracles!)

- Could I believe Jesus was divine if he hadn't done any miracles? (Yes - I could.)

- Why do bad things happen to good people? (Because God gives us free will, and when I do something "bad" my choice impacts on others around me.)

- Does everything happen for a reason? (Not pre-planned; God doesn't "cause" everything that happens. Free will again. I don't believe in pre-determinism. But everything that happens is used by God.)

- Is there a delay between when we die and when we get to God? (Paul says that neither life nor death separates us from God, so the answer must be no, since we're never separated from God. And the idea that we have to "get" to God when we die implies that we've been separated from God.)

- Why did Jesus curse a fig tree? (This incident happens just after Jesus entered Jerusalem. I think - knowing what was ahead - that Jesus often became emotional and frustrated. Cleansing the temple, crying in Gethsemane, asking God to spare him from the cross - and cursing a fig tree. These, to me, are signs of Jesus' human nature coming out.)

A Thought For The Week Of August 4

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." (Matthew 18:20) Here in Port Colborne, Sunday was a double whammy this past weekend, from a church perspective anyway. It's a holiday weekend, meaning lots of people are away, and it's Canal Days - our community's great annual festival, meaning some others may have been concerned about the traffic or getting parked and just decided to stay home. The end result was a pretty low (OK - a really low) attendance at our Sunday service. But it did get me thinking about this verse of Scripture, and what it tells us about ourselves. We do often obsess about church attendance. As if it's the one and only measure of health. And, yes, of course we'd like to see our churches filled with people joyfully praising God and being transformed into Jesus' image. Of course we'd like that. But - praise and transformation are the key, aren't they? Maybe it's not all about numbers after all. Maybe we worry about that too much, and put too much emphasis on getting people into the pews and not enough emphasis on the people who are already there. I often reflect on David running into trouble with God because before a major battle he took a census of Israel's fighting men. That seemed a reasonable thing to do, but it displeased God according to the story. Why? Because it showed David putting faith in numbers rather than God. Setting aside what are probably some moral concerns and even distaste about portraying God as one who wants to lead his people into battle - I think the point is that we're to trust God and not numbers. It should be the same on Sunday morning, I think. We should trust God to be present and to work in our midst, whether there are 2 people - or 200 or 2000. Being together as Christians and worshiping God - that's what it's about. Not counting the numbers and lamenting that they're too small or rejoicing that they're so big - because that puts our focus on the wrong thing. Remember God. Remember that no matter how many are there - when you gather with fellow Christians Christ is among you. That's all that really matters. Christ is with you today - and in all the days to come. So - have a great week!

August 3 sermon: Always For Others

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

(2 Corinthians 1:3-11)

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     It's always about the other. Setting overtly religious language and formal doctrine aside, if I were asked to say one thing about Christian faith that a non-Christian might be able to truly relate to and understand without a whole lot of explanation being required, those might be the words I'd choose - “it's always about the other.” It seems to me that's how Jesus lived, and that's how Jesus reflected the love of God and the presence of God to those around him. He always made “the other” the focus of whatever he was doing at any given time. It was never about him. It's not that he didn't have needs; it's not even that he didn't have wants. But he never allowed his own needs or wants to become the focus. He was committed to the mission he was carrying out on God's behalf, and his early disciples, for the most part, seem to have learned that lesson. They understood that the faith in Jesus they now professed needed to be displayed in the same way that Jesus showed his faith in God – that they had to be “always for others,” and never for themselves – at least not as a first priority from the perspective of faith. Paul, for example, learned that lesson. In the course of his life of faith, he faced many hardships and he received a lot of comfort (from God and from fellow believers) – and he understood that every experience of his life (every challenge he had faced and every piece of comfort he had experienced from God or from others) – was valuable, because they gave him the ability to help others. By being comforted and helped, he was empowered to comfort and to help. He refers to God as the one “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” The very principle of being “always for others” comes first from God, and we see that displayed throughout the Bible.

     The prime example of this principle is probably John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave ...” God is a giver, and not a taker. That's important to understand. It is true that if you read the Book of Job you come across the famous line, “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.” I'm not sure, though, that Job really meant that God was actively taking things away. In the context of that story I think the message was that in both the things we receive and the things we lose, God is present. The whole point of the story of Job is that God sees Job through calamitous times and never leaves him in spite of the troubles that he faces; that God continues to bless him; that God provides for him; that God sees him through his difficulties. So even though Job may say “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” it's clear that basically Job understands God as the one who gives and who will continue to give, and so Job is able to stay firm throughout his troubles because he knows that God is a giving God who won't abandon him. And that's shown most clearly for us in the story of Jesus. “For God so loved the world that he gave ...” What did God give? “... his only Son ...” Understand the giving of Jesus and the cross as you will (because there are different ways of interpreting the message of John 3:16) but the point is that God not only gave – God gave that which was most precious! God is always for others – God is always for us. God doesn't hoard that which is precious and valuable. God gives it away – to the world! It's the way of God.

     Of course, “God ... gave his ... Son.” And his Son gave as well. There are all sorts of examples in the Gospels of Jesus being always for others. A few days ago, in some private reading of Scripture that I was doing, I was working my way through Matthew 14. There's a passage in this chapter in which Jesus seems to put himself and his needs first. It's the passage where we see Jesus, tired and in need of refreshment, setting off in a boat to go to a secluded place, presumably for some rest and relaxation. What's interesting in the passage, of course, is that it's questionable as to whether Jesus ever gets his R&R. Someone found out where he was going, and a crowd gathered to meet him when he arrived. It was difficult for Jesus to get a moment by himself. It was before the days of the paparazzi stalking movie stars and other celebrities just for the sake of getting a picture, but people with their own needs still followed Jesus everywhere. Jesus – at that moment looking for a secluded place to rest and commune with God – perhaps could have been excused had he seen the crowds waiting for him and simply turned the boat around to find some other place. But no. Jesus understood the principle established by his Father. Always for others. And the passage tells us that rather than being irritated by the demands that others were putting on him and rather than simply turning around and trying once again to leave the crowd behind, he was instead moved by compassion – and instead of withdrawing he stayed among the crowd and he healed them, in spite of his own need for R&R. Jesus is our example in every day terms of someone who gives ... and gives ... and gives. Who lives always for others, sacrificing himself. Jesus was always for others. When there was need Jesus met it, no matter how much he might have wanted to take time for himself. It's the way of God; it's the way of Christ.

     And Paul understood the concept. We can see that from today's reading. From Paul's perspective, not only everything that a Christian has but even everything that a Christian experiences is neither for our benefit nor for our hardship – they represent opportunities for us to learn how to be active in serving others.  Everything that we have can be sacrificed for the sake of others, and everything that happens to us gives us the ability to relate to and help others in the same circumstances. God “comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” God is the one who comforts us, and so from God we learn how to be a comfort to others. God is the one who is with us when we're facing troubles, so that we have the example of standing with others who face troubles. Everything about our faith pushes us outward into the service of those around us, rather than inward to be concerned about ourselves. It's how we live as Christian people, it's how we live as a Christian congregation – by always putting the needs of others before our own. Otherwise, faith can easily become a selfish thing, in which we focus only on what we need, which easily becomes a focus on what we want but don't really need. Too easily, we can start to perceive our faith as being useful only for what we can get out of it – but faith, to be meaningful, is about what we put into it and about how it moves us to touch the lives of others. It's the way of God; it's the way of Christ; it's the way of Christians.

     And if it's the way of God, the way of Christ and the way of Christians – then it should be our way too! It should be how we live our individual lives – in true love and compassion and caring for others, and seeking ways to serve those around us. It should be how we live our corporate life as a congregation – also in true love and compassion and caring for others, and seeking ways to serve those around us. Either way, we have to remember that what's important isn't what we get out of having faith; it's about what we give away because of our faith. And if we really adopted that way of living, then what would there be to hold us back? We'd be free of fear, because we'd be willing to give everything away. That's the way of true life, and it's the road to resurrection. Being willing to give everything away for the sake of those in need. Being always for others. The way of God; the way of Christ; the way of Christians. Our way.

A Thought For The Week Of July 28

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8) Last week I came across a video that was shot in Kenya. A baby giraffe was being targeted by an entire pride of lions. But the baby wasn't helpless - because the baby had its mother with it. The big mother giraffe managed to get her baby right underneath her, so that the mother was directly above the baby and on all sides of it. Every now and then a lion would start to creep toward her and the mother giraffe would rear up on her hind legs and then come crashing down on the ground, stomping the ground with her front feet - which immediately made the lions back off. The person who took the video said that this went on for about a half hour before the lions finally gave up and decided that they'd look for an easier meal. But it reminded me of the comparison Peter made between the devil and a lion. Make of the devil what you will. Some people believe that the devil (or Satan) is an actual evil being; others lean toward the idea that it's a personification of the power of evil. Either way, the point is that evil is a very real and powerful force in the world and sometimes in our lives. Sometimes it does seem to target you, and you wonder if you can pull through. And then, the gift of faith is the sudden realization that God is with you - above you and on all sides of you, ready to see you through whatever "evil" may be attacking you; whatever hard time may have come upon you. I suspect that the baby giraffe in the video was very frightened by the presence of the lions. But I also suspect that the baby giraffe had total trust in its mother, knowing that with its mother there, those lions wouldn't get it. After all, as often as the lions crept forward, the baby never seemed to panic or try to run away. It just stayed locked in its spot underneath its mother. There's a lesson in that video for us. If things are getting out of hand and trouble seems all around you - remember that God is all around you too. Trust in God, and you will make it through. Have a great week!

July 27 sermon: A Christian Emancipation Proclamation

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

(Romans 6:11-14)

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     There were times when I could be an irritating teenager. And before anybody says anything – yes, there are some (perhaps even some who are here today) who would argue that I've never really outgrown that! But I find myself reflecting back to Grade 13; way back in the days when there was a Grade 13. My English teacher that year was Mr. Arthur. Mr. Arthur also taught history, but he happened to be my English teacher. I used to get really good marks in history, though, and Mr. Arthur knew that so sometimes he talked about history with me, and one day – I don't remember why the subject came up – Mr. Arthur said to me, “Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.” “No, he didn't,” I said in reply. “Slavery wasn't ended until after the end of the Civil War.” “You're wrong,” he said, “it was Lincoln, and it was before the Civil War ended.” “I think I'm right, Mr. Arthur.” And we left it at that. Or so I thought. The next day, Mr. Arthur handed me a paper. It was a copy of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and he had highlighted the date on it. January 1, 1863. More than two years before the end of the Civil War. “Read that,” he said with a little smile. I took it home and read it. I then took out a pen and underlined the part that said that the people who had been supposedly freed from slavery by this document were people who were being held in slavery “in those states or parts of states currently declared to be in rebellion against the authority of the United States.” I then added a note that pointed out that this meant that no slaves were actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation because (1) those who would have been freed by it were in states that had rebelled and so the slaveowners wouldn't likely obey Lincoln, and (2) Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky were all slave states but the slaves there weren't freed by this because those states weren't a part of the rebellion. So – in that moment anyway – the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anybody. I also helpfully included a copy of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution (the amendment that actually did abolish slavery everywhere in the United States) and highlighted the date on it – December 6, 1865 - several months after the Civil War ended. Mr. Arthur said “thanks,” and said he'd look it over. But he never talked to me about the subject again. And, irritating though I may have been, I wasn't irritating enough to go back to him the next day and say “I told you so.” After all, Mr. Arthur controlled my Grade 13 English mark! So I've saved the “I told you so” for today – but unfortunately Mr. Arthur isn't here to hear it!

     I thought about that incident (and about the Emancipation Proclamation) when I read the last verse of today's passage: “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” And it struck me that here is a classic difference between the ways of the world and the way of Christ. Abraham Lincoln was a great president. Many people think he was the greatest president the United States has ever had. But he was a politician – and, you know, sometimes the promises and rhetoric offered by politicians don't always match the results we see. We don't have that problem in Canada, of course, but Lincoln? He was a politician. His Emancipation Proclamation was important, and it was the first step perhaps toward ending slavery – but it didn't end it. In fact, it didn't free a single slave when it took effect. In the immediate moment, the promise didn't match the result. And there's the difference between the ways of the world and the way of Christ. With Jesus, the result always matches the promise! And, one of the things that Jesus promises us is freedom. Perhaps not quite the same kind of freedom Lincoln was promising slaves in the American south – but freedom nevertheless.

     I've been speaking for a couple of weeks about the new life in Christ. How it happens, the outward characteristics of it, how we gain new life and how we display that new life to those around us. Today, just briefly, I'd like to think about the practical benefit of the new life in Christ to us. We should never make ourselves the first thought. It's always more important to think of how our faith impacts others than on what it does for us (otherwise, faith can become a selfish thing – a theme I'm going to explore a bit next week) but still faith does have an impact on us as well. And I believe Paul summed up that impact very well when he wrote that “sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” What Christian faith promises us is freedom – and not in a future-oriented “some day” type of way that we have to wait for. The promise is freedom in the here and now. The promise is that with Christ we can live a life of real freedom. According to Paul, freedom from a Christian perspective means that we rejoice in two things: that sin is no longer our master, and that we live under grace. I just want to finish up this mini-series by reflecting on those two ideas.

     As I said a couple of weeks ago, “sin” is simply anything we do that isn't consistent with what God wants us to do. Often, those things become habits or addictions, and it's hard to break away from them. They begin to control us, and we lose the ability to conquer them. You know the old saying that “quitting smoking is easy: I've done it lots of times.” Back to Paul in Romans 7 that I mentioned two weeks ago: he said that he kept doing the things he knew he shouldn't be doing, but he wasn't able to do the things he knew he should do. That's what happens. We know we're doing something we shouldn't be doing, but we can't stop. We allow the addiction, the behaviour, the sin to have control over us. The reality is that quitting a habit or a sin can be one of the hardest things to do in life. Not impossible, but hard. But Romans 6:14 says, “sin shall no longer be your master.” A lot of people read this and think it's a command. They think we're being instructed to make this happen, or else. But in reality it's not a command - it’s a powerful promise from God! Rather than reading it with a sense of fear and foreboding - “Oh no, I better make sure that sin isn't my master or I'm in big trouble with God!” - we need to read it as a promise that God is going to back up. “Sin isn't going to be my master, because God has promised that and will help me.” Right there you gain a new perspective on life. It doesn't mean that sin will never reappear, or that we'll conquer the behaviours perfectly. It does mean that Jesus will free us from sin's tyranny and allow us to live a life of freedom, because we “not under the law, but under grace.”

     Sin comes from law – and law both proscribes behaviour and prescribes consequences. To be no longer under the law means to be freed to live in love and without the fear that we haven't done it well enough for God to actually love us. It means that while we may not be able to be all that God would like us to be, God will accept us with all our faults and all our limitations and all our weaknesses and even all our sins; that God will accept us as all that we're able to be in spite of those things. This is living under grace. “Grace” is how we speak of the generous love and mercy of God shown in Jesus. Grace is a gift given freely by God. Those “under grace” don't have to try to earn God's approval by living a righteous life and performing all sorts of acts of service. To live under grace is to live a life of gratitude and love. But that doesn't mean that we get lazy and simply take it easy for the rest of our lives. There are still consequences that flow from our sins and weaknesses – but they affect those around us and the relationships we have with them and we have to deal with that. But grace assures us that nothing affects our relationship with God; that God loves us with a love that will never end. That means we don't have to be worried about whether we've done the minimum required of us by God. Instead, living under grace, we should want to give our maximum to reflect God to the world, because without fearing that we have to do enough, now we're free to do what we can. And that's a huge difference.

     A part of why it's a huge difference is because the way of Christ is so different from the ways of the world. As great a president as he may have been, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anyone. Those desiring freedom had to wait. But when Paul, under divine inspiration, writes that we “are not under the law, but under grace” that's a promise that gets put into effect right away, without delay. It's one of the great things about being a Christian. We're free – free to be all that we can be without having to fear that it isn't good enough. That's a Christian Emancipation Proclamation!

A Thought For The Week Of July 21

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52, NIV) It's Vacation Bible School season in many churches. This week, it's my own congregation's turn, so our church will be humming with the presence of little children having fun and learning more about God. It made me think of this verse from Luke's Gospel. Even Jesus had to grow in wisdom. At this point in Luke, Jesus is about 12 years old, and this comes right after his encounter at the temple in Jerusalem with the teachers, whom he had amazed with his questions as he sat listening to them. As a child, Jesus obviously was curious. Perhaps not fully aware of who he was and what his mission was, he had a thirst to know more about both God and the Scriptures, and to discern what he had been called to, and in spite of the amazing knowledge he already had for a child of that age, he found opportunities to learn more. I hope the children in our church and in churches all over at this time of year are growing in both wisdom and stature as well: coming to know God better and becoming more of what God wants them to be. But I also hope that we don't think that learning about God is only for children or for adults who are new to the faith. Let's face it - there's always more to learn about God. I suspect that's one thing Jesus meant when he told his disciples that they should become "like little children." Those who follow Jesus should have a never ending thirst to learn more and more about God and to know God better every day. I'm constantly amazed when I read Scripture, for example, that no matter how familiar the passage I'm reading may be, there always seems to be something new that I can take from it, something I've never noticed before that causes me to want to go deeper. If we are like little children, then this is one of the ways we should show it: with a never ending and never satisfied thirst for knowledge about both God and Jesus, and the faith we are called to. Have a great week!

July 20 sermon: The Look Of The New Life In Christ

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

(Romans 6:5-10)

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     Last week, if you recall, I worked with Paul's comment in the verses preceding what we just read that we had “died to sin,” and, by extension, that if we had died to one life then we must have begun to live a new life. Last week the focus was on the process; it was on how we set aside the natural instinct to be concerned with ourselves, and to concentrate on our own needs and wants and desires, and instead begin to live for Christ, and to live by what I suggested was a summary of the Christian ethic as I see it taught by Jesus in the Gospels: love God, love your neighbours, love one another and even love your enemies. Love is the ethical heart of the Christian faith. The song we sang a few minutes ago is an old one. “They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” That doesn't mean that people who aren't Christians can't be very loving people, but it is, I believe, trying to say that as followers of Christ, we follow someone who showed a unique and passionate love directed to those around him, and especially directed to those whom society had deemed unlovable, or at least unworthy of being loved. Jesus reached out to such folk. He welcomed them, he included them, he gave them dignity by how he treated them. Followers of Christ are called to do that. How, after all, could we follow Christ if we don't seek to do the things that Christ did, and Christ's life and ministry was always directed away from himself and toward those who, generally through no fault of their own, found themselves in desperate need of someone to truly love them unconditionally. Christ did that. Our calling is to do that. Such is our new life. But I've noticed over the years (and it seems to be an increasing sense in recent years) that the very concept of new life is becoming difficult for Christians to grasp in an era where the church seems to struggle for life more than it claims new life for itself or offers new life to others.

     That seems basic to me. If we want to be able to claim the new life in Christ for ourselves then we have to believe in the new life in Christ – meaning that among other things we have to believe in transformation; that we are moving always forward from what we are into what God wants us to become. That's the way it was with Christ himself: always forward. No matter the risk; no matter the circumstances; no matter the distractions. Always forward to the next call God had placed up on him. Always forward: forward to Jerusalem, forward to Gethsemane, forward to Pilate, forward to the cross. All journeys that could have caused him to turn away; to say “I've done enough.” But journeys Jesus made because he trusted. He trusted God. He believed himself in new life. He knew himself that death would not be the end. He understood that resurrection (new and transformed life) was ahead. Here's what the church needs to claim before we can live our own new life in Christ – hope in resurrection. If we can put our hope in resurrection, and live in resurrection hope, then we will not fear, and we will be transformed, and we will be freed to live the life Christ calls us to. Paul wrote “we will ... be united with him in a resurrection like his.” And so we will – and that hope should lead us to the new life in Christ right now, today. So, what does it look like? How do we live it? What is the look of the new life in Christ? I want to suggest a few characteristics that people should see shining from us, and that should identify us as a community living the new life in Christ.

     The first characteristic should come as no surprise. It's love. God islove, and Christ livedlove. That's what we see most powerfully in the life of Jesus himself: love on display; love lived out; love poured out. Christ's very life was a sign of love. The incarnation of God shows love – that God, who had no need to come close to us, would choose to come close to us; that God, who created, would choose to become a part of the creation; that God, who is eternal, would choose to experience, through Jesus, both the highs and the lows of human life – including betrayal, pain and death. This is love. That one who has no need to stand in solidarity with us chooses to stand in solidarity with us. Or, as the New Testament puts it, “this is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us ...” We are called to a life of love for all those around us. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in love, and if we cannot live a life of love, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.

     Another characteristic is service. What did Jesus himself say? “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” We as followers of Christ are called to a life of service. That implies a lot of things. Maybe most importantly, it tells us that we can never allow ourselves to become insular, looking out only for ourselves, wondering what's going to happen to us. The love lived out by Jesus that I just spoke of wasn't an emotion, as we usually think of the word. It was a love characterized by deliberate action. It was a love demonstrated by Jesus emptying himself for the sake of others. It was a love characterized by the great paradox: that God is both ruler and servant; that God is both shepherd and lamb. As followers of Jesus and children of this God, we are called to service. The church sometimes forgets that and seeks to “lord it over” the society around us. The church sometimes tries to control and dominate. The church sometimes seems to assume that it has a right to get its way. In other words, the church sometimes doesn't act like Jesus, who gave himself up, while the church too often tries to save itself and its position and its influence. But Jesus said, “whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.” This is a call to service – a call to be outward looking. By doing that, we show the look of the new life in Christ. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in service, and if we cannot live a life of service, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.

     Yet another characteristic is compassion. Love is fine, and service is wonderful, but both have to be filtered through a lens of compassion, so that our love and our service are extended to those who find themselves needing these things the most. Too often, we love only those we deem worthy of our love, but “God so loved the world.” God's love wasn't only for the good, pious and faithful ones. It was for the world. It's easy to love the people who love you back; the people you think are deserving. The rubber hits the road when we find ourselves confronted by those who, for one reason or another, strike us as unlovable. Too often, we serve only those who we expect will be able to pay us back in some way. But, as Jesus said, “if you lend ... only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?” The challenge comes when we're asked to give for the sake of those who have nothing to offer in return. Somewhere along the way Christians even came up with an excuse for not showing real compassion: “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” It sounds so biblical – but it's not. It doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. The principle actually comes from Aesop's fables, which means that it predates Christ by about 600 years – and Christ not only never said it, he lived a life that contradicted it; a life that said not “the Lord helps those who help themselves,” but rather, “the Lord helps those who cannot help themselves.” Real compassion means to willingly love and serve those from whom we expect nothing in return. Jesus did that – by washing feet, by healing the sick, by feeding the hungry, by sitting and eating with and befriending those considered by society to be sinners, by bringing the outcast in. This is a call to compassion – to be there for those who have lost hope that anyone would ever be there for them. By doing that, we show the look of the new life in Christ. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in compassion, and if we cannot live a life of compassion, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.

     The good news is that we can live this kind of life. Oh, maybe we won't do it perfectly. Jesus was Jesus, after all – and we're not. But we are his body; we are called to do his ministry; we are equipped and gifted by the Holy Spirit – and that means living by love, by service and by compassion. And it means also accepting grace when we find ourselves not living in those ways (because God's grace is always upon us to give us a new beginning) and it means extending grace when we see others not living in those ways (because God's grace is always upon them to give them a new beginning.)

     “... if we have been united with [Jesus] in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” That resurrection life we're called to live is a new life, characterized by love, characterized by compassion, characterized by service – and always lived by the grace of God, and with grace toward others.