3rd Sunday after Pentecost
June 30, 2019
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Galatians 5:13-25; Luke 9:51-62
This morning we’re going to talk about spiritual
maturity. It’s one of those odd topics, like humility, where if you say you’ve
got it, then you don’t actually have
it. You can’t claim to be humble, because that’s bragging and not being humble.
Likewise, only the spiritually immature will claim to have reached maturity.
The mature know that we are all still in the process of sanctification and
expect to reach it one day. But we know that we still mess up sometimes, that
we still fall short, that we are never not
in need of grace and forgiveness. We are still learning. We are still growing.
We are still going on to perfection.
Now, just to be clear about what we believe about this as
Methodists, prevenient grace is the grace that comes before we know we need
God. It’s God at work in our lives before we even recognize it as God.
Justification is the saving grace, it’s what Jesus did on the cross, atoning
for our sins, making us right with God. Yet the Christian life doesn’t stop
there, because then we move into sanctification, the grace that sanctifies us,
makes us holy, perfects us, continues to work within us to make us ever more
like Jesus. Along that path you become more spiritually mature.
While there are many descriptions of spiritual maturity,
we’re going to look at what our readings today can tell us about it. Last week
we read about Elijah receiving help in the form of a mentee, Elisha, someone to
train to become a fellow prophet, someone to pass the mantle to, literally. After
Elijah is taken up into heaven, Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle, which is
another word for cloak, strikes the water, and asks, “Where is the Lord, the
God of Elijah?” and God parts the water, just like Moses at the Red Sea. However,
before that, Elisha does a very mature thing. When Elijah discovers that he
can’t shake Elisha, that Elisha is determined to stay with him til the very
end, Elijah says, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.”
Elisha immediately replies, “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.”[1]
Elisha has his answer ready. He knows what he wants from his mentor. And it’s
not a material possession but his faith.
Our faith is what we are to pass down
to the next generation. Not necessarily our church buildings or property or
books or customs, but our faith.
Elijah agrees, Elisha can have it, as long as he stays around and watches when
Elijah is taken from him.
What Elisha does
that is so mature is that he knows he can learn from his mentor, from those
who have gone before us in the faith. He knows he doesn’t have to reinvent the
wheel, he doesn’t have to start from scratch. We stand on the shoulders of those
who have gone before us. We read their stories and learn about them and are
inspired by their lives, folks like C.S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, saints
whom you’ve known here at Lisbon, saints in your family, our ancestors in the
faith. We are not so presumptuous or arrogant to believe that we are so special
as to be first to have a relationship with God. We are the next in line and
there will be others in line after us. It’s good news that we’re not starting
with a blank slate but can learn about what our ancestors did when they were
troubled or struggling or sick or even how they celebrated the good times. We
don’t have to copy them; you know each generation does things their own way.
But we’re inspired by them, we learn from them, and we’re reminded that we’re
not doing this on our own. As Hebrews says, “we are surrounded by a great cloud
of witnesses” so that we can “run
with perseverance the race that is set before us;”[2]
not because our ancestors ran an identical race, but because we know they got
through their life journey and we can get through ours. Elisha didn’t have an
identical ministry to Elijah; they’re two different people. But Elisha was
still quite obviously Elijah’s successor as the main prophet in Israel.
Before we get to our Galatians reading, let’s jump over
to our Gospel. This is one of the harder of Jesus’ teachings. There are people
who want to follow him, yet Jesus at the beginning lays out the cost. “The Son
of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” “Let the dead bury the dead.” “No one who
puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This last
one is kind of curious reading it in conjunction with Elijah and Elisha because
when Elijah calls Elisha, Elisha also asks to go back to say goodbye to his
parents, and Elijah lets him. Yet here, Jesus says no looking back. There are
people who don’t follow Jesus because they don’t want to pay the cost. They
don’t want to give up their time. They don’t want to give their money. They
don’t want to have to recognize that they are dependent on God and not
self-sufficient or self-made. They don’t want to make any sacrifices or change
how they live or where they live. The
spiritually mature know the cost of discipleship and are willing to follow
Jesus, anyway. They’re willing to sacrifice, when that’s what Jesus calls
them to do. Sometimes we sacrifice when we’re not called to, in order to make
ourselves look good. “Look what I gave up, aren’t I such a good Christian?” Mature
people don’t draw attention to themselves. They’re content to let their
sacrifices go unnoticed because they know Jesus notices and they know they’re
following him. And they’re following him because Jesus is calling them, not in
order to look good or to meet a suitor or because they don’t know what else to
do with their lives. The spiritually mature don’t cheapen grace, to use
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s phrase. He wrote, in his book “The Cost of Discipleship,”
that “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the
preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church
discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without
discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and
incarnate.” It says “anything goes” because I’m saved. Yet John Wesley believed
that you could lose your salvation. He did not believe that “once saved, always
saved.” Wesley preached against backsliding, to be on your guard against it, to
not take your salvation for granted, which I think some of us do. Instead, we
have to be intentional about how we live, to make sure we are ever growing in
our faith, going on to perfection, being sanctified, rather than taking our
relationship with God for granted.
Finally, this morning we read that great passage from
Galatians that ends with the list of the fruits of the Spirit. The spiritually mature show the fruits of
the Spirit. Their lives have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. They recognize
Christ has set them free, not to live for themselves and focus on their wants
but free to serve and focus on others. They don’t live however they want but
live disciplined lives, using the spiritual disciplines to draw them closer to
Jesus, not for their own edification but trusting God to be in the process of
sanctification. And it is about trust. My daily devotional this past week
included this quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest in the
early part of last century, “Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are
quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We
should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the
way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may
take a very long time. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving
vine-dresser.” Sanctification takes time; it’s not immediate. Those fruits of
the Spirit take time to develop and mature; y’all know that. I’ve been watching
the corn grow for a few months now, and it’s at different heights in different
fields. We are all in different places along this journey, and your journey is
not the same as someone else’s journey, yet we are all committed to walking
together. We bear each other’s burdens. We help each other along the way.
That’s what the spiritually mature do. We know we’re in this together. You
can’t get through this life on your own. You can’t be sanctified on your own.
There’s a proverb in the Bible that says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person
sharpens the wits of another.”[3]
We are here to make each other better. To learn from each other, as Elisha
learned from Elijah. To hold each other accountable, so that we don’t cheapen
our salvation. And to help each other cultivate those fruits of the Spirit.
In light of the fact that we’re all in this together, the
whole human family, UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, has
offered a prayer for today for all the children who are suffering at our
border. When we feel frustrated and helpless, one of the things we can always
do is pray. Please join me in praying.
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A Prayer for Suffering
Children
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God of All Children
Everywhere,
Our hearts are bruised when we see children suffering alone. Our hearts are torn when we are unable to help. Our hearts are broken when we have some complicity in the matter. For all the times we were too busy and shooed a curious child away, forgive us, oh God. For all the times we failed to get down on their level and look eye to eye with a child, forgive us, oh God. For all the times we did not share when we saw a hungry child somewhere in the world, forgive us, oh God. For all the times we thought about calling elected officials to demand change, but did not, forgive us, oh God. For all the times we thought that caring for the children of this world was someone else’s responsibility, forgive us, oh God. With Your grace, heal our hearts. With Your grace, unite us in action. With Your grace, repair our government. With Your grace, help us to find a way to welcome all children everywhere, That they may know that Jesus loves them, Not just because “the Bible tells them so,” But because they have known Your love in real and tangible ways, And they know that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate them from Your love. Amen. |
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