Sermons

Jul 1 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor - Be Zealous

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

July 1, 2007 5 Pentecost
Be Zealous
Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

From listening to our readings from the New Testament today, you might think that Christians are supposed to become a crack team of self-disciplined Spartans, casting aside all worldly attachments and pleasures. Picture Lance Armstrong in a cloistered monastery.

Paul warns us that in order to inherit the kingdom of God, we should avoid self-indulgence, crucifying the desires and passions of the flesh. We are to exercise self-control and live by the Spirit. Jesus says to one who wants to follow him that he must prepare to become homeless. To another, Jesus says that he may not delay following the call even by 24 hours, the time it takes a Jew to fulfill sacred family obligations and bury his own father. And to the last, Jesus tells him that he can’t stop to say so much as a goodbye to his loved ones.

Self-mortification! Discipline! Commitment! Detachment! Religious zealots love this stuff. On the other hand, we Episcopalians prefer our more moderate British heritage. God doesn’t ask much of us, just that we go to church sometimes and try to be polite. Eat, drink, and be merry, and then chat with God over a cozy cup of tea by the fire. We don’t exactly have a reputation for being zealous. Someone said that being a lapsed Anglican is like having fallen out of a first-story window.

But here it is: Those who live by the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. If you follow me, you will have nowhere to lay your head. Let the dead bury their own dead. No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

There is clearly a call to be zealous for God, in order to really live our faith. Without commitment, how can we ever progress in anything? Without discipline, how can we learn a musical instrument, or a language, or make a family work well over time? Without applying ourselves, how can we learn the art of prayer and integrate the faith into our lives?

Often we think of discipline and commitment as an exercise of the will. We make a firm resolution that, by God, we’re going to finally lose those 20 pounds; we’re going to get up earlier every morning and pray; we’re going to be more patient and less harried. All we need to do is know what we should do, and do it.

But we know what happens next. Most of us can’t sustain resolutions of the will. I recently read somewhere the statement that people always do what they want. There is some truth to this. We may want to get out of debt, but what we want more than that is the things that money can buy. We’re committed to what we want.

But part of our complexity as human beings is that we have different levels of desire. Today I’m going to speak to the deepest level, where, underneath our compulsions and inconsistencies, there lies our most fervent hope. There lies purity of heart.

We may be out of touch with it; we may have covered it over with layer upon layer of obstacles. It may be inaccessible to us because we’re so damaged or confused. But I do believe that at the core, we are created good. We are created in the image of God. Every single person has, in the depths of their being, a desire for the good that has been implanted by their Creator.

And what is that good? It is the same as God’s will. It is what was revealed in Jesus Christ. It is what Paul spoke about in the second reading today, what he identifies as reliable signs of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness and self-control. That is who God is, it is who Jesus is, it is what we are made for, and it is, in fact, who we are. When we are not these things, we are not being ourselves; we are exiled from our true home.

We have a natural, inborn desire for this home. Our work as people of faith is to uncover that desire so that we can be committed to it. That’s what Jesus was talking about in the gospel. He wasn’t big on duty and obedience, you know. He was more interested in awakening in people the goodness that he saw in them, and encouraging it to become more dominant than anything else. He wanted them to live like him and follow God’s will not because they should, but because they wanted to.

And so the gospel today could be heard in this way. If you could really grasp the love, joy, peace, and generosity of spirit that I offer to you, you would not have a divided heart. You would want it so completely that you would be willing to leave everything right now, without hesitation, and follow me without any qualifications or guarantees.

A friend told me the other day that he thinks that many of us aren’t zealous, we aren’t passionate because we don’t take the time to settle down and get in touch with our deepest desires.

A couple of years ago when I was going through an intense time of discernment, I struggled with the various and conflicting things that I wanted in my life. One weekend I went off with our contemplative prayer folks to a retreat center, and I spent all my waking hours either opening myself in silence and stillness to the guidance of the Spirit, or writing about what I desired for my life.

At the end of the weekend it was very clear what I wanted, and I think it was also what God wanted for me: wisdom, peace, a sane and healthy lifestyle, time for prayer and study, friendship, creativity, connection to the land, meaningful work with others in a real community of faith, and generosity of heart. I took the time to listen carefully, and the desire that I found within was what guided me in the months that followed.

Some of us think that it is selfish to even ask what we want. We think we should just do what God wants us to do, which is obvious, of course. But that assumes that what we want is bad. It assumes that our will is always in conflict with God’s will. And it may be, on a superficial level. But if remove the barriers that keep us from having access to our soul – and this can take a very long time for some of us - if we take the time to ask for guidance and listen to the Spirit, we will eventually find that our deepest desire and God’s desire are one.

Desire is the source of our passion. It is the source of all commitment and discipline. It is the engine that drives our zeal. For we always do what we want. So what do you want? What do you really want? How can you remove those obstacles that prevent you from having access to your soul’s desire? How can you put yourself in the position of patiently, deeply listening? If you can, you will discover that you can easily be a zealot. Singleness of heart will be your commitment, and doing what you want to do will be your discipline.

In our second lesson today, before Paul speaks about how we shouldn’t live and how we should, he makes an astonishing statement. He couches it all in freedom. So really, this is not a list of “shoulds.” He says For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters. He says that living in the Spirit, we are finally free to choose the good. This choice must always be made freely; any attempt to choose the good from compulsion just won’t last.

And so, by that Spirit’s guidance, we are led from the slavery of things that we really don’t want, into the freedom of what we and God really do want. And we will be zealots, free to choose above all else love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness and self-control. We shall put our hand to the plow and not look back, headed for the kingdom of God.