The Selected Sermons of Dr. Roger Bourland

Selected Sermons of Dr. Roger Bourland

Copyright 2017 by Joe Bourland

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Please address all inquiries to:

Joe Bourland

joe@bourland.com

ISBN: 978-1-543909-16-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932973

Published by:

Aviva Publishing

Lake Placid, NY

518-523-1320

www.avivapubs.com

Cover and Interior Book Design: Nicole Gabriel

Selected Sermons of Dr. Roger Bourland is also available as an e-book, audiobook, and as individual podcasts.

For additional copies, please email joe@bourland.com

For JoAnn Bourland

Contents

Biography

Introduction

Foreword

Section I: The Green Bay Packers

The Preacher of the Pack

Is Bart Starr Finished? By His Pastor

An Athlete’s Ten Commandments

Section II: Green Bay

Games of Disillusionment—A Sermon on Matthew 17: 1-8

Throwing Pearls to Pigs—A Sermon on Matthew 7:6

The Heights and Depths of Praise—A Sermon on Psalm 148

Belief in Christ—A Sermon on John 1:1-14

Psycho-Cybernetics—A Sermon on Matthew 6:25

Living Intentionally—A Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12

Now Concerning the Children

Section III: Omaha

Laughing at the Angels—A Sermon on Genesis 18:1-15

Secrets of Going to Church and Enjoying It Immensely—A Sermon on Psalm 122

Secrets of Christian Faith as a Growth Experience—A Sermon on 2 Peter 3:10-15, 18

How to Read the Bible—A Sermon on Psalm One

Secrets of Understanding the Bible—A Sermon on Psalm 1:2-3

How Do You Become Christian­—A Sermon on Luke 5:1-11

The Gift of Generosity—A Sermon on 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Waiting Is a Lively Art—A Sermon on St. Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness—A Sermon on Luke 3:1-9

The Trouble with Familiarity—A Sermon on Luke 4:18-30

The Temptations I & II—A Sermon on Luke 4:1-13

Being a Father Isn’t Easy—A Sermon on Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

At Dawn There Are Shouts of Joy—A Sermon on Psalm 30

When You’re Tempted to Run Away—A Sermon on Psalm 11

A Question of Worthiness—A Sermon on Psalm 24:3-6

The Good Confession—A Sermon on Psalm 32

Receive the Holy Spirit!—A Sermon on John 20:19-23

A Radically Positive Call—A Sermon on Luke 9:51-62

Organizing to Beat the Devil—A Sermon on Acts 1:15-26

The Key Is in the Story—A Sermon on Luke 10:25-37

When You Pray—A Sermon on Luke 11:1-13

A Time to Wait, A Time to Hope—A Sermon on Acts 1:1-14

Healing and the Christian Faith—A Sermon on Acts 3:1-10

Troubles that Come with Faithfulness—A Sermon on Acts 7:51-53

The Almost Christian—A Sermon on Acts 26

The Importance of Being Converted—A Sermon on Acts 9

The Foolishness of Preaching—A Sermon on Acts 18:4-5

The Lamb of God—A Sermon on John 1:29-37

Sermon on the Mount: The Beatitudes—A Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12

The Process of Christian Maturity—A Sermon on Philippians 3:1-15

When a Boy Becomes a Man

Section IV: The Controlling Force: A Global Radio Broadcast of Sermons on Galatians 5:13-26

Introduction

Eight Parallel Biblical Texts

Week One: Sin and Grace

Week Two: The Gift of Love

Week Three: The Gift of Joy

Week Four: Coping With Our Sexuality

Week Five: Coping with the Sins of an Uncontrolled Appetite

Week Six: The Gift of Patience

Week Seven: The Gift of Kindness

Week Eight: Coping with the Sins of a Nasty Disposition

Week Nine: Coping with the Sins of the Religious

Week Ten: The Gift of Self-Control

Week Eleven: The Gift of Gentleness

Week Twelve: The Gift of Goodness

Week Thirteen: The Gift of Peace

Week Fourteen: The Gift of Faithfulness

Section V: The Seasons

Service of the Cross

The Promise of an Open Future—A Confirmation Sermon on Philippians 3:8-14

A Simple Marriage

Thanksgiving Sunday—Where Are the Others?—A Sermon on Luke 17:11-19

The Two Sides of Christmas—A Sermon on Luke 1:5-14

There Would Be a Fulfillment—A Sermon on Luke 1:39-45

What Mary Didn’t Know—A Sermon on Luke 1: 39-55

Section VI: The Scrooge Christmas Series

The Ghost of Christmas Past

The Ghost of Christmas Present

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be

The Conversion of Ebenezer Scrooge

Section VII: Closing Sermon

Living in the Light—A Sermon on John 1:1-7

Dr. Roger Bourland Biography

The Reverend Dr. Roger Bourland is a graduate of Oklahoma State University (’51) and of Garrett Theological Seminary at Northwestern University, Masters of Divinity (’54). He has also done undergraduate work at Vanderbilt University and Transylvania University. He was awarded the Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1974.

Upon graduation from Garrett, Dr. Bourland went to Oklahoma City where he established and served six years as minister of the St. Andrews United Methodist Church until 1960. He then went to the Methodist Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico as Senior Minister until going to Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1962. He served there for ten years before going to the First United Methodist Church of Omaha, Nebraska. He concluded his ministry after seven years as Senior Minister of Desert Garden, United Church of Christ, in Sun City West, AZ.

Dr. Bourland and his wife, JoAnn, have five children: Roger, Andrew, Elizabeth, Peter, and Joseph.

While in Green Bay, Dr. Bourland was widely know as Pastor to the Packers. A large number of the coaching staff and players of the Green Bay Packers worshiped in his church regularly during his years in Green Bay. He delivered the sermon for the Green Bay funeral of Vince Lombardi.

A pioneer in the Ecumenical Movement, Dr. Bourland and Father Alfred McBride conducted a vigorous Bible study course in a large department store in Green Bay. Nationwide publicity was provoked as the two clergy debated and taught some 400 persons each week.

Roger Bourland became Senior Minister of the First United Methodist Church of Omaha, Nebraska, in June 1972. In 1976, Dr. Bourland was given the prized Outstanding Preacher Award by the United Methodist Church. In 1976, he was the United Methodist preacher on The Protestant Hour, preaching on his fifteen sermon series The Controlling Force. These sermons were carried over 595 radio stations in the United States and over 800 globally, plus on the American Forces Radio Network and the Voice of America.

Dr. Bourland has done television series on Storytelling and Bible Study. He was selected by the College of Bishops as the preacher for the Annual Bishop’s Week at Mt. Sequoyah in Arkansas in 1985.

During his Arizona ministry, Dr. Bourland provided leadership as the Desert Garden United Church of Christ doubled its membership and tripled its budget. He was honored with the title of Minister Emeritus of that church after his retirement.

Introduction

I pulled the sagging, dusty, cardboard box from the shelf in the back of my parents’ garage. My parents had moved to Arizona twenty-five years ago after I left them with an empty nest. The box was that old. I opened the box and too many aged papers spilled easily onto the floor.

My father’s sermons. Hand-typed from manual, then electric typewriters, meticulously, by secretaries I could see in my mind and recite by name. Years of stories of faith yellowed with age and containing uncommon effect. I put them disheveled back into a stack and paged through them.

My mother was surprised. We still have some sermons? Dad threw most of them away.

My father was an accomplished preacher. He touched a lot of lives. Kids too often don’t think much of their parents’ achievements in real time. Mean on Sundays was the title of a book by Ray Nitschke, the great middle linebacker of the Green Bay Packers. I liked that title—my dad was mean on Sundays. Positively impacting those who heard his sermons on any given Sunday with his vision, uncommon empathy, mastery of scripture, and storytelling.

What I held in my hands was maybe a year’s worth of sermons. He had preached for over thirty-five years.

What do you do with what’s left of a great minister’s work when he just happens to be your father?

There was too much quality and intricate thinking here. I made the decision to take advantage of today’s technology: Paper to copy to PDF to conversion to MS Word to hours of patching and editing these 400-plus pages.

The first section in this book is composed of those sermons, articles, and speeches aligned with his time as Preacher of the Pack. Many of the Green Bay Packers from the ’60s Super Bowl teams attended First United Methodist Church of Green Bay where he preached.

The second and third sections are sermons preached while in Green Bay and then in Omaha, Nebraska where he served at First United Methodist Church. You can read how his preaching and thinking evolved.

The fourth section of sermons received national and global attention. Dr. Roger Bourland received United Methodist Church’s Outstanding Preacher Award in 1976. The basis for the award was the series of fifteen sermons he preached for the United Methodist radio series The Protestant Hour. According to a spokesman for the United Methodist Church, The Protestant Hour received over 47,000 letters and requests for his sermons, a response totally unprecedented in the thirty-year history of the program. These sermons were carried over 595 radio stations in the United States and over 800 globally, plus on the American Forces Radio Network and the Voice of America. The thinking and intellectual wrestling associated with Galatians 5 from those sermons resonate as much today, if not more, than they did then.

The fifth section is entitled Seasons. It includes sermons associated with certain times of year: a Good Friday sermon, a Confirmation Sunday, my wedding, and Christmas Sermons.

For a number of reasons, the sixth section stands out. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a timeless classic. My father took that wonderful body of work and married it with Isaiah 64:1-9. This was, as a result, his most requested series of sermons from his congregation in Omaha. Buried in that stack of sermons was a rejection letter from one of those big New York publishers, who greatly enjoyed the series of sermons on All the Ghosts of Christmas but didn’t find them right for publication yet.

I have now published them in this book, not from any familial duty, but with a desire to document and share them with those who seek inspiring sermons and those who seek to learn to write their own.

Enjoy.

Joe Bourland

Foreword

Forty percent of the U.S. population does not consider itself members of any church.

It is estimated that 80 million Americans are unchurched (J. Russell Hale, Who Are the Unchurched?). While the erosion in church membership cannot be ignored, there are actually two major trends happening today.

The first is the obvious growth in secularism. This may result from those people who have lost faith, ironically, in our faith-based institutions. Those who don’t believe. Those who have been pushed out by rules when they question. Those who are burnt-out on church. And those who just want to sleep in on Sundays.

The second major trend is the increasing number of devout people, according to Tim Keller, Founding Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

These binary trends also result in a big number of those lost in the middle. Selected Sermons of Dr. Roger Bourland is for those lost in the middle and those who preach to them.

The reality is church attendance offers much to one’s life. A meaningful faith in God. Hopefully, a loving church community. Quite often, stirring music. And great preaching.

Preaching that challenges you to commit, to take a stand, and to be bold in your faith. But, importantly, the many sermons in this book acknowledge the reality of the conflict between the two forces that could control a person’s life—self-indulgence versus the Holy Spirit—the difference they make and the question of which becomes life’s controlling force.

Dr. Roger Bourland was one of our country’s great preachers. He preached from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he was the Preacher of the Pack at First Methodist Church to First United Methodist Church of Omaha, Nebraska, to radio airwaves across the world when he was selected to share his sermons on The Protestant Hour in 1976.

His sermons on The Protestant Hour resulted in over 47,000 letters in a time without email, Twitter, or Facebook.

These sermons are now yours to enjoy and help you grow in faith.

Section I

The Green Bay Packers

First United Methodist Church

Green Bay, Wisconsin

The Preacher of the Pack

Last June, Bishop Ralph Alton appointed me as minister of The First Methodist Church of Green Bay, Wisconsin. I did not know very much about the church or about Green Bay. Upon arriving, I was deeply impressed by both. But the big surprise came when I discovered the love affair that exists between this community and its great professional football team, the World Champion Green Bay Packers.

Every team in the National Football League comes from a great metropolis, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas, St. Louis, etc.—every team, that is, save one—the Packers. Greater Green Bay boasts something slightly under 100,000 people. The boys of the team, then, are well-known personally throughout the community. Recently, one of them received a ticket for driving a few miles over the speed limit and the story made the headlines of the local daily, The Green Bay Press Gazette.

The interesting thing about the Packers is that they are gentlemen, and not infrequently, scholars. Their dress and their manners are impeccable. Coach Vince Lombardi would have it no other way. He is rigid regarding their conduct on and off the field. Pro football is not noted for its gentle qualities. The Packers are fined heavily for unethical roughhouse tactics on the playing field. I have observed (sometimes to my deep personal chagrin) players turning the other cheek again and again in games this fall. And yet, with rugged self-discipline, clean playing, and fierce determination, they have run up a current record of eighteen wins in their last nineteen games in the tough competition of National Football League play, a highly unusual feat in the history of pro-football.

So this great football team has approached the status of being a religion in this community. As a matter of fact, most of the Packers are deeply religious personally and attend church regularly, both when in town and when on the road. They are not really gods, but witnesses.

As an ardent football fan and an incurable hero worshipper, it struck me with the subtlety of a thunderbolt when I looked out upon the congregation of The First Methodist Church and realized that I was pastor to a sizeable contingent of Green Bay Packers. There were coaches Red Cochran and Norb Hecker—there was the first string quarterback Bart Starr. There was end Lou Carpenter; defensive back Johnny Symank, and linebacker Nelson Toburen. They are community in the off-season and belong to the church. Several others, however, attend First Methodist Church when they are in town. These include Bill Forrester, great defensive linebacker; Henry Jordon, all pro defensive lineman; Willie Davis, another great defensive lineman; Jim Taylor, the sensational fullback who is currently leading the National Football League in rushing, and Willie Wood, defensive halfback.

And Packer wives are very much in evidence. They are active in teaching Sunday School, are active in the Women’s Society, study groups, the Bellin (Methodist) Hospital Auxiliary—and seldom miss church services. Without exception, they are charming and winsome.

The interesting thing about pastoring the Packers is not just the pride of having them in church. It lies in a more profound area—that of witness. The boys of First Church, including my own sons, will never adopt the fairly popular school-boy philosophy that church is for sissies—not as long as the memory of a 250-pound pro football player sitting next to them in church remains with them. Nor can the young marrieds of our community get the idea that Christianity is irrelevant to thinking and busy people when month after month these attractive couples join the church, baptize their children, and work vitally in it. Nor can the men of the church justify manly sloth by being all-football on the Sundays when the Packers play—not when the team members come to church two hours before they are working out before the game!

If you had asked me before coming here what influence a large number of pro football players would have on a local church, I would have suspected that they would have been something of a problem. I would have expected them to Lord it over everyone—to have been arrogant, rude, proud. Perhaps others share this prejudice. Let me clear that up right now. The most humble, sincere, and generous men I have met in Green Bay have been men of the Packers. When the Packers won the World Championship last winter, I am told one of the men gave a tithe of his championship money to the church before doing anything else. This is not unusual. A few of these fellows are quite dynamic. Some of them are rather shy. But every one of them has a deep sense of being in God’s house when he is in church.

Recently, one of the Packers was besieged by boys after a service. They wanted his autograph. He smiled gently and suggested they go outside together. The church is God’s house, he told them, and not the best place to sign autographs.

The only difficulty I can see about pastoring the Packers is that strange sickness that hits everyone on Packer game Sundays. Oh, the people come to church. But they keep glancing at their watches. They don’t seem to be concentrating on what is going on. In fact, the only ones who seem to be perfectly at home on a Sunday like that are the champions themselves—the men of the Green Bay Packers.

Is Bart Starr Finished? By His Pastor

People keep saying to me, I guess Bart’s all through now.

They mean, he can’t possibly come back from the two operations on his throwing arm, his being thirty-seven and having been pretty well banged up over the past four seasons and all. He can’t come back.

I look thoughtful and worried and wise. I’m his pastor. I’m his friend, too—and occasional speaking sidekick on the banquet circuit. We’ve been at it together for almost ten years now. We jog together in the off-season. We take our wives out for dinner together now and then. We share a long talk in the sauna from time to time. We share gifts periodically. Mine for him are of a spiritual nature, a new translation of the Bible or an exciting new religious type book. He generally surprises me with some shining pieces of athletic equipment—which is consistent with our unspoken gentlemen’s agreement that I am responsible for keeping his soul in good shape, while he makes every attempt to protect me from the physical flabbiness that can come with being in your forties.

In March, when his arm gets hungry for focusing and strengthening, and before someone who knows how to catch a football right gets back into town, we go over to the Packer dressing room and Bart lobs a hundred or so ten yard passes at chest level right into my hands until they turn red in protest and I start dropping balls that my grandmother could handle. We’re friends, and more than that.

I should know the answers. But I don’t. I grunt therapeutically to the eager questioner, shrug mysteriously, and look like Bart’s guru. My eyes wander off into the distance and the whole question takes on now something of a mystical quality. He knows something! No. I really don’t. But I don’t admit that when asked The Question.

Well, I really do know some things about Bart that are more basic, more important than the question people ask about his playing future.

An Athlete’s Ten Commandments

Thou shalt learn to work hard, but make things look easy. Bad athletes make the sport look hard or overly dramatic. Great ones always do things simply and well.

Thou shalt learn how to laugh—especially at yourself—but never at the expense of someone else. The world loves an athlete who doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Thou shalt look at thine coach realistically. He is human—has a multitude of problems, of which you are only one. Remember he is by nature a benevolent dictator. He is the boss.

Thou shalt be balanced in mind, body, and strength. No sport is limited to the merely physical. Blessed is that athlete whose instant reflexes and physical strength are soundly grounded on spiritual and mental foundations.

Thou shalt keep thy priorities straight. Vince Lombardi used to tell his teams that they were to have three top priorities: God, family, and the Green Bay Packers—and in that order!

Thou shalt constantly build up thy teammates. A great leader always builds up those who follow—giving them credit for victories—accepting blame for defeats himself.

Thou shalt remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

The most dangerous thing for any young athlete is not injury, but being overly pampered. Athletes receive more good things than anyone else in our society. Learn to give more good things than you receive. Learn thoughtfulness and generosity. Such disciplines make for real maturity.

Thou shalt not live by thy press clippings.

You are never as good—or as bad—as they say. To thine own self be true.

Thou shalt anticipate a transition—one day—to real life.

The games will all be over. Be more than a fine athlete.

Invest your life in things that will never wear out or grow old.

The best Ten Commandments are those of Moses—Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. Read them and live by them!

Section II

Green Bay

First United Methodist Church

Green Bay, Wisconsin

Games of Disillusionment—A Sermon on Matthew 17: 1-8

Six days later Jesus chose Peter, James and his brother John to accompany him high up on the hillside where they were quite alone. There, his whole appearance changed before their eyes, his face shining like the sun and his clothes as white, as light. Then Moses and Elijah were seen talking to Jesus.

Lord, exclaimed Peter, it is wonderful for us to be here! If you like I could put up three shelters, one each for you and Moses and Elijah—

But while he was still talking a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud:

This is my dearly loved son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!

When they heard this voice the disciples fell on their faces, overcome with fear. Then Jesus came up to them and touched them.

Get up and don’t be frightened, he said. And as they raised their eyes there was no one to be seen but Jesus himself.

(J.B. Phillips)

Here’s an intriguing idea. Peter took a holy experience, tried to keep it, or preserve it, or at the very minimum have a shrine that would say in days to come This is where it happened.

But the whole experience vanished like smoke. Only Jesus was left with Peter, James, and John—and the voice of God booming that Jesus was His beloved son, "Listen to him!" Sensing their fear, Jesus touched them, told them not to be afraid, and led them down from the hill, into the valley every day.

I’m so glad that Peter took that sacred moment and made the futile attempt to petrify it. The church has been doing this, much more successfully ever since. We’ve taken high moments, good ideas, and things very special and made them into institutions within the institution. It is one of Methodism’s favorite games. And we are not alone.

Take some good idea, develop it, work it, get known for it—first thing you know, you’re hung up with a shrine. The wrath of God begins to enter the picture here. Doubts and disillusionment crop up. Reformers, prophets, sometimes even martyrs make the scene. Chaos is come again as the church becomes purified of that which was never meant by God to be more than a good idea.

I feel a deep compassion at this point in history for our Roman Catholic brethren, who, with their incomparable capacity for taking their good ideas too seriously, are thrashing in the shallows of celibacy for priests, birth control, liturgical language, religious exclusivism, and several other issues with all the violence of a massive hooked fish.

Though Protestants (excepting Fundamentalists) do not have the ecclesiastical power to enshrine their high moments and good ideas to the degree that Rome does, each denomination has more than its share of skeletons in its closet.

A story is told of a discussion of ecumenical renewal among three clergymen—a Catholic, a Jew, and a Methodist. The priest said that in the very near future all Catholics who wished would be permitted to use birth control methods. The rabbi affirmed that, in his opinion, the traditional ban on pork for Jews would soon be a thing of the past. The Methodist, silent for a few moments, said that he felt that within five years Methodists would begin to drink...in front of each other!

It is interesting how, in negative contrast to Jesus turning water into wine, the church has reflected Peter’s genius for turning ideas into monsters. There is a pattern that appears in the process. In the event that you would like to remember it, compare the steps to the rungs of a ladder.

The first rung is the idea itself. Lord, exclaimed Peter, it is wonderful for us to be here! In the case of celibacy, it is an excellent idea that if a man wants to serve Christ full time, he should be as unencumbered as possible with worldly things—a wife, children, his own home, furniture—or however you wish to take the matter of priestly possession. In the case of abstinence from alcoholic beverages, it is only common sense that in the face of the admitted dangers of alcohol, if a man never drinks a drop, there will be no problem. Apply the same step to ideas that:

Get as many people on local church committees as possible and you’ll have an active church.

It is a good thing that a man should tithe (give 10 percent of his income to church and charity).

The church really develops in small groups.

You get the step—a really good idea.

The second rung is: Idea becomes discipline. This develops when someone in the church says, Well, let’s do it. Or, as Peter said, If you like I could put up three shelters, one each for you and Moses and Elijah.... The church gets excited, accepts the idea, develops a plan, and goes to work. The whole thing is exhilarating at this point.

The third rung is: Discipline becomes legalism. That is, we make it a maximum standard. It is something we all do. Somewhere along about here, the whole thing loses the element of joy and begins to become tradition. Jesus didn’t let things develop to this point.

The fourth rung is: Legalism becomes pietism. We not only all do it but also begin to be disturbed that everyone isn’t doing it. We become self-righteous about it, can’t imagine how any sincere person could disagree, get evangelistic about it to the point of sometimes even wanting to legislate it for the general populace, and say for all practical purposes, Do it, or be damned.

The fifth and final rung is: From pietism to idolatry. It is sacred. It may not be questioned. It becomes truly a shrine. It meets our needs. It gives us security. It becomes a god.

What starts as a good, inspiring, wholesome, and helpful thing to do becomes that which is despised by God, and abhorred by prophet and reformer. It leads to disillusionment and despair. Paul must have been thinking in these terms when he said to the Galatians: Surely you can’t be so idiotic as to think that a man begins his spiritual life in the Spirit and then completes it by reverting to outward observances?... Does God who gives you his Spirit and works miracles among you do these things because you have obeyed the Law or because you have believed the Gospel?

Why is the ladder inevitable in the church? Because the desire of so many of us is for security? For a religion to possess fully, to debate, and to transmit exceeds our depth of faiths, which cannot be possessed, debated, or totally communicated. So it is necessary that we erect our tabernacles, our towers, our Babels, and build our kingdoms.

But we were not meant for such security. Peter Bertocci has said, in his book Religion as Creative Insecurity, To flee from insecurity is to miss the whole point of being human.

We were made for faith. In our tent, God says Hoi to Peter’s projected program. Peter, James, and John are left with Christ alone. "This is my dearly beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him." No tabernacle. Just Christ. Faith, then, is response, relationship, and obedience. It is not the playing of favorite ecclesiastical games.

Jesus speaks of having faith as a little child. This has been strangely interpreted as meaning the simple acceptance of what has been told you. But no self-respecting child does that; I think Jesus here is speaking of a style of love.

I have a very beautiful thing going for me these days. It is my three-year old son, Joseph. Whenever I come home, he is there to greet me with hugs, kisses, and greetings. This really gets to me and makes every day a bit brighter.

Why does he do it? I believe he does it because he loves me. It is such a spontaneous, defenseless thing. Of course, Joe does not love me as intelligently as he will one day. There are too many things he doesn’t know yet.

He doesn’t know that sometimes I am not able to return his love in kind. Sometimes the experiences of the day have left me tired, worried, preoccupied, hurt, angry, or just terribly middle-aged. (More like a wounded bear than what he conceives me to be.)

One day, I expect that I will fail him at the door—because of something like that—and the whole thing will be over. Or if I don’t, he will grow up and forget it himself. This is human limitation; every rose must die.

It seems to me that in reflecting upon this, we come close to knowing what faith as a little child means, however. And our Father in heaven is completely faithful to us. He is not a wounded bear. It is on this relationship, nothing else, that our faith depends.

The open question before all of us is, "What constitutes the nature of our faithfulness? Everywhere God is telling us that it is not in any idea that has bloated itself beyond the discipline" rung. No legalism. No pietism. No idolatry.

The world today occasionally glances at our religion, notes these queer little shrines, and says, To hell with that. That type of religion is not the Gospel—only games of disillusionment, games churchmen play. Makes you long for Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity.

To whom shall we turn? Peter, James, and John are left cowering, frightened—with Christ alone. "Listen to Him!" The Christian faith is a matter of occasional confrontation and profound personal obedience.

If that makes you feel strange, think of how Peter, James, and John must have felt as they followed Jesus back down into the valley of responsibility—empty-handed. But possessed by all they would ever need.

Amen.

Throwing Pearls to Pigs—A Sermon on Matthew 7:6

This morning’s text is one of the strangest texts in the entire Sermon on the Mount. It’s hard saying and a fascinating one. Do not give dogs what is holy. Do not feed your pearls to pigs. They will only trample on them and turn and tear you to pieces. This is a strange text, and it’s an unpleasant text. It repels us because it’s very obvious that Jesus is not talking about dogs or pigs.... He’s talking about people—probably the people who are insensitive and unreceptive to what the Gospel tries to say. It certainly runs against what we might call the contemporary Christian idealism of this day that says to us because God is love and loves all people, He is like a doting grandfather, indulgent of all people. But the God we find in the Bible is not an indulgent God.

We can catalog our protest to a text like this. We can say, for instance, It does not seem right that a loving God should call anybody pigs or dogs. After all, we are His creation. Or we can say, Surely this type of a text would not come from the tender lips of Jesus, but must have been added later by some editor a couple of centuries after Jesus. Or we can say, What does this have to do with our plan to evangelize the world? If we are not to proclaim the gospel to all people, how in the world can we win all the people? Or we could say, If we take this type of teaching from Jesus seriously, it would lead us to an awful degree of self-righteousness and ecclesiastical cliquishness. We don’t like what He says when He says to us, Do not throw your pearls before pigs. Do not throw holy things to dogs.

But we look at the Scriptures and we realize very quickly that this does come from the lips of Jesus and is consistent with His teaching. Take the text that was read this morning, for instance (from the tenth chapter of Matthew.) Jesus is telling His disciples how to present the good news of the Kingdom of God to other people. He tells them to go into someone’s home and proclaim the Kingdom of God to them. He says if they receive you in peace, then let them keep your peace and your word. But if the people will not listen to your words, if the people reject what you are trying to say to them, then as you leave the house, shake the dust off your shoes as a sign against them and move on to another village or another home. All the people will not receive the good news of the Kingdom of God—Jesus knew that just as you and I really know it.

It is not only consistent with the teaching of Jesus, it is consistent with our experience. I wonder whether you have ever felt what I have—that when you feel something very deeply, when something is precious, very real to you and most meaningful, even life-changing, that is the type of thing that you cannot just share with anybody. There is something about human nature, I guess, that blocks you off from being able to share the things that are most meaningful and most important. Everyone won’t receive them.

I think of a rather contemporary illustration. Remember Easter Sunday? I think you would probably have to be a preacher to fully appreciate this. It is an overwhelming pleasure to preach to an Easter congregation. Last week, we had about 1,200 people in this congregation; this week we have 750. You look out and proclaim this beautiful, delicate message of a Jesus who lives. Christ the Lord is risen from the grave. You look into the faces of people and see scattered here and there many people who are in church every Sunday, people who have been through a lot with you, and people who have paid the price of the Resurrection. They seem to sit on the edge of their seats, drinking in this good news that Jesus Christ is not dead, but lives (as if these were literally words of life and death, which indeed they are). And at the same time and in the same way, you look out—and see a scattering of people you haven’t seen before, people who are probably members of the church, but once-a-year Christians. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, you say, realizing that this is a delicate message, realizing it’s like a tender plant, realizing that it has to be nurtured with care, realizing that it is not a message for everybody. And you see people reacting to this holy word with an l couldn’t care less attitude.... Heads are bowed, eyes closed, perhaps even asleep as a life-transforming word is proclaimed in preaching, in song, in scripture.

Now I have a feeling that if we could talk with Jesus about this very intimately, He might say something like this to us (and I’m sure this sounds harsh), This is what I meant when I said on the Mount that you must not throw your pearls before pigs. It is almost too beautiful to share with just anyone. There are some things in life that are so sacred that you should not expect everyone to hear them, to understand them, and to receive them. No, you give me today’s congregation any day, or better than that, give me the congregation that will be here on July 12. That is the one that separates the sheep from the goats! These are the people who are united together in a fellowship of love and continued discipline that becomes meaningful as days go by and make the church what the church is. Sacred things you see, belong to you, and sacred things somehow do not belong to the masses....

Jesus tells a strange story. It is the story of two men. One of them is Dives. He is a very wealthy man and noted for two things: his clothing (he constantly drapes himself with purple and wine colored robes) and secondly, for his eating (he eats very well.) He has a big home, lots of servants and lots of dogs, and it was the custom those days after finishing a piece of meat, a bone or a scrap of bread, to throw it on the floor and let the dogs fight for the scraps. Of course, a couple of good dog fights make dinner a little more interesting! There is, however, living right at Dives’ gate, a poor beggar who is quite sick. The Bible tells us in vivid and somewhat sickening language that the beggar has awful running sores. He is a very repulsive individual. His name is Lazarus. Lazarus creeps into the inner court of Dives and crawls under the table, and actually goes to the point of fighting with the dogs for scraps that Dives throws on the floor. Well, according to Jesus, Dives and Lazarus both die. Strangely enough, Dives, the rich man, goes to hell; Lazarus, the poor beggar, goes to heaven...and in Jesus’ language, he is in Abraham’s bosom.

After a few days in hell, Dives becomes awfully hot and very thirsty (apparently there is no water in hell!) and he cries out to Father Abraham whom he sees, apparently at a long, long distance, Father Abraham, would you let Lazarus dip his finger in some water and stick it down here so I can lick his finger to have just one drop of water? Abraham points out to him that the difference between heaven and hell is considerable. It is a long, long way, and he replies, There is no way in the world for him to get to you or for you to get to us. It is impossible. You will have to stay thirsty. This makes Dives think. Later, he calls up to Abraham again, and he says, Father Abraham, I have living on earth five brothers. They are living just the kind of life I was living, high on the hog, and thoughtless. Is there anything you can do to prevent their having my fate? Can you send Lazarus the dead beggar down to talk to them? Father Abraham answers Dives, saying, Brother, they have Moses and the Prophets and the Law. What more do they need? Dives says, I had that and I did not pay attention to it. If you would just send a dead man back from death they would listen to him. And Abraham said, No. If a man will not listen to Moses, to the Prophets, to the Law, he would not listen if a man should be raised from the dead.

Now Jesus is saying in this rather strange little story that Dives’ brothers are hopeless. He is implying that because we too have Moses, the Prophets, and the Law—and even more than that: Jesus Christ Himself—that if we do not listen, if we have not received, then chances are that we too are hopeless...at least for the time being.

God’s reality, God’s truth is that some people are damned and are going to hell. I suspect it is of these people that He speaks when He says to the church, Do not throw your pearls before pigs lest they trample them under foot, unless they then turn and attack you.

What is the twentieth century meaning of a text like this? It means several things, but one thing that immediately occurs to us is that every man should have as a part of his makeup a sense of the sacred. I feel rather sorry for the person who does not have his pearls and his holy things. Let me apologize in advance for I am going to have to say some very personal things. I do not know how to talk about what is sacred without talking about what is sacred to me.

When I think of things that are especially sacred, they fall into three categories: my faith, my family, and my friendships. Your list would probably be similar. These are things that we need to understand as well as we can so that we may know what to expect from them and what to give to them. What is sacred? What is a pearl?

My faith is worth more than any pearl in the world. It is sacred; it is personal, and it is based on one thing—Jesus Christ. To me Jesus is the Christ. He answers all of my needs. I find Jesus Christ (and I found Jesus Christ) through the Holy Scriptures, searching them myself, and having other people help me interpret them. I find Jesus Christ through the church, for it is through the church that the Scriptures are proclaimed. And I find Jesus Christ through other persons who have met Him and know Him. I express my faith in Jesus Christ through my worship. I serve Jesus Christ through trying to live a way of life that to some degree reflects His.

I find there are certain disciplines that come to me because of my faith in Jesus Christ. There are certain things that I will not do, and there are certain things that I must do. I find in Jesus Christ the freedom that sets me free from my fears and my anxieties and many of my worries. There is something about Him that gives me security. I sometimes feel as though I am one whom Jesus Christ met and touched in his sickness and made whole. Perhaps a bit like the blind beggar or the lame man, who was lowered through the roof so that Jesus could talk to him, touch him, and make him whole. And this fellow jumps with joy and tries to find in his own awkward way new ways in which he can follow Jesus Christ. Everything is different now! It is as different as the night and day, or death and life. Jesus Christ…He is the center of my faith. He is the way. He gives me a way. He is the truth. And I know the truth. He is the life, and we discover life at His hands.

I changed my vocation because of my fascination for Jesus Christ. I became a minister because I found from experience that life can be transformed by the touch of this One. I believe this because the Bible says