13th Sunday after Pentecost
September 8, 2019
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-18; Luke 14:25-33
In January of 2009 the big news story was what was called
“the miracle on the Hudson.” Does the phrase ring a bell? If not, how about
Captain Sullenberger? He became a household name that day. Captain Sullenberger
was one of two pilots flying a plane that had just taken off from La Guardia
airport when the plane struck a flock of Canadian geese and lost power in both
engines. Captain Sullenberger and his co-pilot safely landed the plan in the
Hudson River and everyone on board survived. Everyone deemed it a miracle and
the good Captain was called a hero. Hollywood even made a movie about it
starring Tom Hanks and directed by Clint Eastwood. But do you remember Captain
Sullenberger’s reaction to all the accolades? He said he was just following his
training. It wasn’t anything special. He was just doing what he had been
trained to do as a pilot. His attitude was a lot like what Jesus describes in
Luke 17:10, when Jesus tells his disciples, “When you’ve done all you should,
then say, “We are merely servants, and we have simply done our duty.” That was
Captain Sullenberger’s response to the whole thing. I simply did my duty; I did
the work I was trained to do.
The image we have from Jeremiah this morning is that of a
potter working at the wheel forming a clay pot. But it wasn’t coming out right,
it wasn’t taking the shape the potter wanted it to have. So, the potter kept
working, re-forming the clay and reshaping it until it turned out right. After
this description we learn that the potter is the Lord, and we are the clay. And
the Lord works in us and through us to shape us as God’s people. Yet we also
have free agency, and so we have to choose to be shaped and formed as God’s
people. Most of the things we do every day are out of habit. The numbers vary
depending on the study, but somewhere from 40% to 95% of human behavior is done
out of habit. That makes your habits and routines very important. It makes it
important that you have formed good habits. And not just physical habits like
eating vegetables and brushing teeth, but mental habits and spiritual habits as
well. You have to be intentional about forming those habits to take care of
your body. You have to be intentional about your spiritual formation as
well.
This is the basis for the Christian ethics that I learned
in seminary, which is different from what you will hear from other clergy who
trained in other seminaries. We were told that this understanding of virtue
ethics is part of what makes Duke Divinity School unique. You see, a lot of
ethics is a dilemma, right? You’re faced with a decision, like do you steal the
expensive medicine you can’t afford for your wife or do you let her die? Well,
what I learned from Stanley Hauerwaus and Sam Wells, who are the two big names
in this field, is that what matters is how you’re been spiritually formed. So, Christian
ethics are ethics that define us as Christians. It is how we act, think, and
respond because of who we are in Christ Jesus. We are people who have been
shaped by Holy Scripture and so our ethics are grounded in the life and
teachings of Jesus Christ. There is no decisional ethics and crisis moment of
deciding what to do. The choice was already made when we decided to follow
Jesus. We already chose the way of love, peace, and gentleness; therefore, we
will act, think, and respond in ways that are loving, peaceful, and gentle. In
other words, we will respond how we’ve been trained.
Christian
ethics are first concerned with the life that is made possible in Christ for
Christians. We look first to the transformation brought about in Christ and not
to society for the source of our ethics. Our ethics are formed by our habits of
communal worship, prayer, and reading the Bible. If ethics is about choice,
then the only choice that matters is God’s choice and God chose to be for us in
the person and work of Jesus Christ. So, Christian ethics are about people, not
decisions. Most people live their lives by habit, not by choice. If we are
formed in Christ Jesus and steeped in his Word, then we live lives that bear
fruit worthy of our calling in Christ Jesus. While good people can make a bad
choice, it is more important to shape our character appropriately so that when
a situation arises, we respond in a manner that is second nature. In other
words, we are trained on how to act and think in a Christ-like manner. Does
that all make sense?
I shared some about this a couple weeks ago after my trip
out to Oklahoma City. It was a worship planning retreat, and we went through
Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Lent. For Holy Week, we went to the Oklahoma
City bombing memorial. We toured the museum and then were allowed out on the
grounds. We shared communion, for Maundy Thursday, under the Survivor Tree. We
wrote short prayers on strips of cloth and held them as we sat vigil for Good
Friday – we were allowed to sit on the chairs that are part of the memorial,
one chair for each person who died. Then we tied our strips onto a chain link
fence where others had left mementos and tokens. Across the street was a statue
the Catholic Church had erected, called “Jesus wept.” It was very powerful. And
part of the power wasn’t just in the memorial but in the response for healing
and moving forward. And moving forward was about building character, especially
in our children and youth.
We
as adults already know the importance of building character muscles like
respect and kindness and caring and responsibility. This is what we teach our
kids. But sometimes as adults we don’t always act that way. We shirk
responsibility and say, that’s someone else’s problem. We talk about little
white lies that won’t harm anyone. As adults, we’ve gotten used to what we can
get away with, with minimal accountability, and some of the good character
traits we had as kids have gone by the wayside. But most of what we do is out
of habit. Which means we might have had better character as kids, when parents
and teachers were holding us accountable, than we have now. This is part of why
God’s not done with us yet, and why John Wesley believed you could lose your salvation.
That’s how the clay pot that starts off so promising starts taking a weird
shape, and the potter has to remold it back to the right shape.
Spiritual
formation affects how we live and our everyday choices. Or, really, I should
say, our everyday habits. The good news is that you always learn a new habit.
Old dogs can learn new tricks. So take a look at your everyday habits. Do they
include time set aside for prayer? Do you read your bible every day? Do you
work to cultivate patience and gentleness and peace? Those are some of the
fruits of the Spirit that grow when you allow yourself to be formed and shaped
by Jesus. Do you share what you have? Do you take care of the sick? Do you take
care of yourself? What influences you the most? Your number one answer ought to
be Jesus, so that was a trick question. What influences you second most?
Consider the merits of it. I hope it’s a good role model and a positive
influence, and if it’s not, then consider picking a better number two.
It’s
not me you have to answer to. It’s God. That psalm we read this morning is one
of my top favorite psalms. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You
know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” This
isn’t meant to be a creepy stalker psalm; this is the Lord, who made you and
formed you, who created your inmost being and knit you together. The Lord knows
you, because he made you and he is always with you and will never forsake you. Just
like clay pots, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You know, a few weeks
ago my son asked me how he was made. I wasn’t getting into the birds and the
bees with a 4 ½ year old, so I told him he was fearfully and wonderfully made.
And he looked at me, didn’t say a word, and went off to play. Actually, knowing
him as well as I do, he might still be thinking about it and I may not have
heard the end of it. But it’s true, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. The
question then is what are you doing with what God created you to be? Are you
becoming who God created you to become? And if not, the start of a new season
and new school year for our children is certainly a good time for a new start. That’s
the good news. Our spiritual formation and training is never completely over. The
potter is more than willing to continue the work in you that was begun at your
creation, if you’ll let him.
In
an interview, Captain Sullenberger said: “One way of looking at this might be
that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of
experience, education, and training. And on January 15, the balance was
sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”[1]
Are you making small, regular deposits in your bank of spiritual experience,
education, and training? They don’t have to be big, but regularity is important
in order for the habit to form, in order for the work to be done so that when
you’re called on, you’re ready. One of my seminary professors once said that
what we do in seminary is in case of an emergency. It’s training, just like
coming to worship regularly, reading your bible regularly, praying regularly,
so that when something happens and you’re called on to use your training, there
is no crisis moment or decision to be made. You’re already ready and you know
what to do.
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