SPECIAL DAYS: March 23, 2003, Third Sunday in Lent

Lessons: Exodus 20.1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2.13-22

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INTRODUCTION:

1. Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep!

1. Two girls were playing with an auto keyless remote switch.

2. They wanted to know what the red button was for.

3. I told them it was a panic button to help you find your car when you had misplaced it in a large parking lot.

4. So they began to play with it.

5. I kept waiting for the owner of the vehicle to come running, thinking that someone had broken into his new van.

2. I have a -panic button on one of my software programs that will help you gather resources for study group when you do not have time to prepare.

1. I had not used it until I prepared for this sermon.

2. I wondered what it would do.

3. It works rather well.

3. Life is full of Conflict, Chaos, and Confusion

1. You look for peace and there is conflict

2. You look for order and there is chaos

3. You look for clarity and there is confusion

4. We live in a world that has them all

1. We look inward and we find them nesting waiting to birth the consequences.

2. Because the conditions all exist we need to find ways to creatively meet them.

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MAIN BODY:

1. CONFLICT is a necessary struggle with contrary elements.

ILLUSTRATION:

Sign on subway wall: "Life is one contradiction after another."

Underneath sign is written: "No it's not."

1. Struggle can be over contrary opinions

2. Struggle can be created by conflicting ideologies.

3. Struggle is biblical.

1. We contend with dark forces.

2. We struggle with human opponents.

3. We struggle with internal conflict

4. Conflict demands an assessment of your position.

5. Conflict requires a clarification of your position.

6. How are you going to clarify conflict?

7. Some would appeal to the use of law, especially the Ten Commandments.

1. Law is the means to help us define sin.

1. Law provides knowledge of sin.

2. Romans 3:19 through Romans 3:20 (NRSVA)

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. ²⁰For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

2. Law could make nothing perfect.

1. Hebrews 7:18 through Hebrews 7:19 (NRSVA)

¹⁸There is, on the one hand, the abrogation of an earlier commandment because it was weak and ineffectual ¹⁹(for the law made nothing perfect); there is, on the other hand, the introduction of a better hope, through which we approach God.

2. Hebrews 10:1 through Hebrews 10:11 (NRSVA)

¹Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. ²Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? ³But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. ⁴For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ⁵Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; ⁶in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. ⁷Then I said, 'See, God, I have come to do your will, O God' (in the scroll of the book it is written of me)." ⁸When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law), ⁹then he added, "See, I have come to do your will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ¹¹And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.

3. Law is a school master to bring us to Christ

1. Galatians 3:23 through Galatians 3:29 (NRSVA)

²³Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

4. The Ten Commandments are God's attempt to define love for a primitive people who had spent may years in captivity in Egypt.

5. We are in constant conflict with the law.

6. The only way to reduce conflict, for we will never, in this life, overcome it, is to see the law in all its powerful beauty.

7. The basis of the Ten Commandments is love.

1. The first table, commandments 1-4 defines love for God.

2. The second table, commandments 5-10, defines love for the other, neighbor, spouse, family.

7. The law in all its beauty provides a flash of divinity as Jesus Christ seeks to help us develop into his image.

2. CHAOS is a condition in which we live, but a necessary one for the development of creativity.

1. MIT economics professor Lester C. Thurow points out a number of "new rules" for individuals, companies and nations, including this one: No society that values order above all else will be creative; but without some degree of order, creativity disappears. ⁽¹⁾

He tells the story of China at the beginning of the 15th century, a tale that is a particularly prophetic parable for the 21st-century church. Half a millennium ago, China's curiosity, its instinct for exploration and its drive to build had created all the technologies necessary to launch the Industrial Revolution -- something that would not actually occur for another 400 years.

China had it all: blast furnaces for making steel; gunpowder and cannon for military conquest; the compass and the rudder for exploration; paper and movable type for printing; rotary threshing machines and mechanical seeders for agriculture; the decimal system, negative numbers and the concept of zero for sophisticated mathematics. Seven major Chinese expeditions explored the Indian Ocean with ships four times as large as those of Columbus.

But the Chinese rejected and forgot the technologies that could have given them world dominance. The geographic conquests and the industrial revolution that COULD have happened did not occur. They blew their big chance.

Why? It's simple: They became uncomfortable with chaos. New technologies were perceived as threats, rather than opportunities. Innovation was forbidden. Imperial rules and regulations prohibited the building of new oceangoing ships that would take people away from the Chinese coastline. Membership in Club Chaos became strongly discouraged. By the end of the 15th century, the demand for ORDER had overridden intrinsic human curiosity, the desire to explore and the drive to build.

2. Chaos is dealing with the money changers.

1. Money changers exchanged the foreign coins for the temple coinage that was necessary to pay the temple tax.

1. This was two Greek Drachmas or one-half Israeli Shekel.

2. The money changers had no thought for the worshipers.

3. They were only out to make money.

2. On top of this were the sellers of sacrifices from bulls to grain or flour for the richest or the poorest

3. It was into this situation that Jesus entered.

1. His house would not be a house of commerce, but a house of prayer.

2. We are not here to make or collect or save money.

3. We are here to help all who are in physical or spiritual need, who will allow themselves's to be helped.

3. In the meantime we live with chaos.

3. The clarification of CONFUSION begins with an evaluation of your thoughts, opinions, and values.

W. Edwards Deming, who died two Christmases ago (1993) at the age of 93, has been described as one of the few genuinely mythic heroes of modern times. The one person largely responsible for Japan's economic resurgence was ignored in the United States until 1980, when the NBC-TV documentary "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" come out. Wherever Deming went to lecture, and he lectured into his 90s in 20 cities a year, the 6-foot-2-inch Deming began each speech with the story of the 5-year-old girl who, with her mother, had sewn a costume for a Halloween party contest.

"So much fun," Deming said about the kids at the party. "So curious. So eager to learn. Boys and girls having such a good time..." His voice would quiver and trail off. Then he would lean forward and sneer: "Until a prize was offered for the best costume." Whispering the words, "The children were crushed. Came home crying," he would end the story every time with this cry: "Why does somebody always have to win?"

1. We live in a culture that has glorified competition.

1. We so very often see ourselves as winning or losing, as winners or losers.

2. Christ does not speak a word of winning or losing.

3. There ought to be no winners or losers in the church.

4. We are equal before God coping with many similar conditions and circumstances in our lives.

2. As Erma Bombeck has said in her commencement address at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, a few years back:

1. "Never confuse fame and success.

2. Madonna is one. Mother Theresa is the other."

4. So the question is, How do we being to learn to live with Conflict, Chaos, and Confusion?

There was a mother mouse who felt it was time to introduce her children to the larger world. So she gathered up her brood of little mice together and set out for a walk. They walked down the hall and made a turn to the right. Then they went down the hall and made another turn to the right. And then it was, quite by surprise, that they came upon the family's cat dozing in the sunlight. Well, the mother mouse was scared. But she didn't give in to her fright. So she crept forward, ever so slowly. Just as she was about to get past the cat, however, the cat's eyes popped open and she raised her paw. What would the mother do? Well, right before the cat's paw came down, the mother mouse looked the cat right in the face and began barking like a dog. And do you know what? The cat was so frightened that it jumped to its feet and ran away! And then the mother mouse gave her kids an important lesson. "Children," she said, "sometimes it's good to know a second language!" ⁽²⁾

1. A second language.

2. The language is wisdom.

5. Wisdom is more than language it is a way of life.

1. Plato has written that "Perfect wisdom has four parts, viz.,

1. wisdom, the principle of doing things aright;

2. justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private;

3. fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it; and

4. temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.

2. Samuel Southard, Theology and Therapy: The Wisdom of God in the Context of Friendship ⁽³⁾ has examined four of the characteristics that will reveal a true wisdom keeper and a genuine guide for the spirit.

3. He presents these in the more structured realm of Christian counseling and therapy, in his book , but the traits are obviously guideposts useful for all of us.

1. The first biblical concept Southard identifies is that of parakaleo, COMFORT.

1. This common thread runs through the prophets, Paul and the Gospels: comfort.

2. Parakaleo means the ability to connect with those who are hurting and to strengthen them in word and deed.

3. In Paul, parakaleo means one's awareness of God's abiding presence even in the midst of affliction.

4. Those who can point that out are the wisdom keeping paracletes in your life.

2. Secondly, Southard speaks of the gift of oikodomeo, to BUILD UP.

1. This is the ability for one to engage in edifying conversations with companions and friends to "build up" (oikodomen) maturity and faith.

2. Those who teach folly instead of wisdom will inevitably be revealed here by their ability to foster quarreling, gossip, slander and jealousy.

3. In contrast, a wisdom keeper, such as Barnabas (Acts 4:36), brings the "joy of encouragement".

3. The third identifying mark of a wisdom keeper is that of hypotasso, an ATTITUDE OF COOPERATION, first towards God and then towards others.

1. A wisdom keeper lays aside defenses and risks vulnerability for the sake of others.

2. It is so easy to recognize the imperfections in others, but it takes painful honesty to admit one's own brokenness, to humble oneself to the limitations placed on all of life.

3. The lamp keeper is caught up in the rays of the light raised to guide others, thus making the lamp keeper particularly vulnerable to attack.

4. Part of the lamp keeper's gift is to wield the light anyway, despite the risks.

4. Finally, Southard recognizes the concept of the noutheteo, THE COMPETENT TEACHER AND GUARD AGAINST FALSE DOCTRINES AND FEELINGS.

1. This is a kind of self-definition of a true wisdom keeper.

2. Because of the unity of hypotasso and oikodomeo in the soul of the wisdom keeper, however, authentic noutheteo will be recognized by its dependence on mutual instruction.

3. Wisdom keepers are always gathering new wisdom to themselves, the lamp keeper must always replenish his or her oil, and the most learned teacher is always a student.

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CONCLUSION:

1. Where can wisdom be found?

1. Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 again:

1. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

2. [19] For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

3. [20] Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

4. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

5. [21] For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

6. [22] For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,

7. [23] but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

8. [24] but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

9. [25] For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

2. Where can wisdom be found?

1. Christ is the power of God.

2. Christ is the wisdom of God.

3. What do you need to make a good cup of tea.

1. The best tea you can afford.

2. A tea is of little good unless it is steep in hot water.

3. This is the process which creates a good cup of tea.

4. To get wisdom you select the finest source that you have available.

1. We need to steep ourselves sin Christ.

2. Then wisdom may be found in each of us.

3. With this kind of wisdom we can create and grow a life and a community.

1. "Building Wealth," The Atlantic Monthly, June 1999, 63

2. Dr. Hal Brady, sermon, "Having a Clue", St. Luke United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ga., May 31, 1998.

3. Theology and Therapy: The Wisdom of God in the Context of Friendship (Dallas: Word, 1989), pp. 220-227.

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