The Burden of Grace

Mark 8: 34-38
What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to “follow Christ?” Today, we examine a text with deep and meaningful implications for each of us, young and old, strong and weak, educated and ignorant, healthy and sick. There are no pre-requisites, no conditions for “readiness.” All we need is a choice… a decision, a willingness to follow. But I believe that before we can make this decision completely and adequately, we must both understand and carefully contemplate its requirements. For although Grace is free, its acceptance is not. Now, this may seem like quite the radical and heretical claim. But please, before you leave so early in the service, let me at least offer an explanation for such a statement.
We can begin with this: For the heart that is unprepared, Grace is a both a burden and a hindrance.

As we find in the Scripture, Jesus says: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

This powerful and transforming claim is not easily or readily accepted, in fact, how many of you considered these words when making decisions to follow Christ? How many of us actually said, “Yes, today is the day I will choose Christ over myself, hardship instead of ease, turmoil and pain instead of comfort and pleasure.”? If you are anything like me, you said, “Jesus, come into my heart so that I might have eternal life, so that I might be saved.” I might as well have asked God to save me from the fiery depths of Hell. I wasn’t committing myself to God, I was asking God to commit to me. I wanted, hoped, and desired for God to bring me the “golden ticket” to heaven. In the back of my mind I may have considered doing certain “churchly” things, but never did I focus on the sacrifice and dedication that this decision would entail. To me, loving God simply meant God rewarding me.

But today I must tell you all that God is already committed to us, God already loves us, and instead asks for us to commit to God, to Love God. We need not fool ourselves into thinking that we finally let God love us. Rather, we must consider our hearts ready to Love God. So, are we ready?

For me, this was a difficult and painful realization. To see through the eyes of pain and suffering was something I was unprepared for. So before we dive into the meaning and power of the scripture, let me take this opportunity to share with you some of my history, some of my experiences, a portion of my past. And maybe this will illustrate the power of today’s message.

I was born in Ashland, OR to the loving parents of Jeff and Mary K. My brother Phillip was born three years later and we both were very blessed to live in a loving Christian home. We were encouraged to be our best, do our best and simply succeed in whatever endeavor we chose to chase after. In 1989, Angela Rose Swartzentruber, the youngest of three children was born. Now I believe it is true that a Rose is symbolic of the beauty of life, and my sister truly reflected that aspect of her name. One of my favorite songs from the group Jars of Clay always reminds me of her, I think it captures her attitude of thankfulness and energy:

“In open fields of wild flowers, she breathes the air and flies away, she thanks to Jesus for the daisies and the roses…”

She was simple, beautiful, and joyful… full of life and love. Throughout her first six years she impacted many, especially me. It was impossible to ignore her radiant desire for loving God and loving others. She would continually ask for “her boys,” meaning my brother and me. She loved to play and enjoy life with others. She wanted to give, love and be loved. And the recognition of being loved was so no more evident than on that early Sunday morning, when my family walked from the parking lot to the church; and as we entered the building, Angela said these words: “I can’t wait until I am in heaven with Jesus.”

But its in these moments of comfort and happiness that we can easily overlook the call of the cross, the beckoning of God. And it was God, who beckoned my sister home only several weeks later at the age of six.

On a cool memorial afternoon in Oregon, at a local lake, my mother, brother and I underwent the tragedy of a loss that cannot be easily described. Angela went missing. One moment, all the children, including myself, were playing in the water. The next, Angela was gone. Naturally we wondered where such a young girl would want to wander off to, where she would begin to explore. But soon, we went from concerned to panicked about the disappearance of my sister, and then our thoughts turned frantic as we were forced to consider the possibility of a kidnapping. As it turned out, these fears were misguided, however they were not alleviated. Cars were searched and more police arrived, but divers also suited up. Several hours later, or at least what seemed to me to be an eternity, the divers discovered her lifeless body at the bottom of the lake, only several feet from where the kids of the church had been playing. Wedged next to the dock, she had drowned. In those waters, a young and vibrant rose had been plucked by the hand of God to be transplanted into the Garden of Heaven. Her wish to see God had been made real.

But to the heart that is unprepared, to the heart that is unaware, to my heart, this loss was not just tragic, but unacceptable. And so began my journey into the world of Christianity. As I grew, I carried with me the torment of a loss so deep, that any reconciliation would not be easily attained. And thus, I went through the motions of Christianity, I sang the songs, learned the verses, heard the sermons. I was a “Christian” in every sense of Churchly understanding. I went, I worshipped, I left.

Only in high school did I ever confront my past. As a high school freshman I was assigned and instructed to compose a memoir, a short memory from my past. I chose the memory of the pain and agony that my sister’s death brought. But I also, for what seemed to be the first time, decided to approach her death in more than a negative light, and instead choose to search for the power of her presence, and the inspiration of her short but beautiful life. She was, as her name suggested, an Angel, a messenger of God, that although graced us so briefly here on earth, was meant for something so much greater. Her life, and also her death, were meant to be a motivation and a comfort. Not just to myself, but to others.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

The paradox of this verse is so profound, that a first reading is not enough. Imagine if you will, a church sanctuary, filled to capacity in remembrance of a 6 year old girl that had brought such joy and love to the lives of others that hundreds and hundreds of people showed up to pay their respects. Myself, I was overcome with grief, and did not recognize, at least at the time, the profound impact she had had upon this world in such a brief span of time. People we had never known, met, or knew existed attended her funeral, all having been touched by here life at least once in their lives… if not directly, in some way indirectly.

When I finally recounted those experiences, when I finally saw through the pain and tears, I began to realize that the finite time we have in this life can only be meant for the joy that love affords. The small opportunity we have to be more than who we are is many times overlooked. I know I had overlooked it. Angela, at a young age, embraced life and love, faith and kindness. She always smiled, always laughed, and in her death taught me what it means to give of my life. And this is truly the message today. Be more than who you are by yourself. Be a child of God. That is what our passage asks of us. To understand a new identity. Not to die a literal death, not to throw ourselves in front of a train or off of a cliff.

No, God asks that we would give of our entire being, and turn towards God. That is what my sister finally helped me see. Why did she impact so many people, why did I remember her love and energy? Because she was dead? I finally realized that her death only forced me to see what she was. Her death hadn’t been the impact itself. Instead it was a moment to recognize her life impact, to see what she had already been doing in her short time on earth. She had been loving people, and it had impacted them all because it was directed toward God. Because it was God’s. Angela was not her own, she was God’s. She recognized that, and so did the countless faces at her memorial service.

This is where you and I now re-enter the story. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means that we are a follower of Christ, but it also means that we ARE Christ’s. Our identity must be re-formed. We must remove our garments of selfishness and clothe ourselves with the righteousness of Christ. With God’s Love. We must be God’s Love. And if we are God’s Love, then as Jesus says in Mark 8:34, we will be forced to carry our crosses: To bear the burden of Love. We will experience Loss, Fear, and Pain, all of which are necessary conditions for Love. For what greater love is this, that Christ laid down his life for us, so that we, may lay down our lives for others.

The criterion of faith is commitment, determination, and a willingness to accept the difficulties of love. Grace is offered freely through the event of Christ, but we must understand and meditate daily on the sacrifice we are forced to make in accepting that Grace. We must choose a new identity. We must lose ourselves to gain Christ. And in gaining Christ, we gain the cross. Not only the Cross that brings the assuredness of forgiveness, but the cross that bears witness to the difficulties and obstacles of Love.

And so the message I gleaned from my sister, and the message I see in this passage is one and the same. I must see myself as God’s, as an instrument of Love. My identity is in God. And that re-formation, that re-identification requires a huge sacrifice: myself. And that sacrifice of self is only accompanied by the difficulties of love. Difficulties we have all experienced and will continue to experience. But these are the demands of God. And these are the blessings of heaven.

Love

Scripture to be read: Romans 5:5-8

Summertime brings bright sunshine and dark storm clouds. Summertime provides endless heat and the joy of cool, refreshing swims. Summertime offers moments of relaxation, but for most of us, it is anything but an entire season of vacation. In fact, summertime can be surprisingly busy. Many of you may know well just how busy summer can be: Grass needs to be mowed, weeds need picked, flowers need water, bills need paid, children need rides, and vacations need planning, organizing, and execution. As we approach the summer midpoint, it may become apparent that summer is not the season of quietude it often gets cracked up to be. I hear all the time, “I can't wait for summer, then I can relax,” and “All I need is a vacation.” And this is often true, a vacation can be a rejuvinating experience. But if I remember correctly, half of my summer vacations as a child seemed awfully tedious. We had to drive and visit relatives. We slept on foreign beds and ate strange food. Many times I would hear my parents talk about how tired they felt after our vacations.

The truth is vacations are only a brief absence of the usual stresses. Vacations are not void of all stress or hardship: Motels must be booked, flights planned and bags packed. Kids have to be rounded up and alarms must be set. And through it all, the money we spend is never far from our minds. We still must keep a watchfull eye on our wallets to ensure we don't fall victim to a vacation that produces new and uninvited debt.

So here we are amidst the busyness of summertime. The sun is shining, the days are hot, and the air conditioning is running as fast and hard as it can... in fact I have had several air conditioners pass me on the interstate as I travel. They were being run so hard they actually left altogether. But seriously, summer is here and stress is not entirely relieved, if at all. Responsibility does not cease at the beckoning of a season. Rather it fluctuates to demand new responses from us. We don't have to pay for heating, but the cooling bill sure isn't fun. We don't have to shop for christmas gifts, but the summer activities of the kids seem to require as much or more preparation, transportation, time, and effort.

Maybe this is not how you have typically seen summer. We all experience our days in unique and distinct ways. But my summer has been this way. As you may know, I have been working at a summer camp in Indiana; as much as fifty hours a week. I have few days off and yet travel in my spare time to Perryville to begin the transition process to student pastor of this church. There is housing to be taken care of, cell phone coverage to switch, substitute teaching applications to complete, graduate school research to be undertaken, and much, much more. What ever happened to the quiet summer of work and play I had envisioned during spring? It dissipated as visions of grandeur often do when confronted with reality.

My summer has been busy. Yours probably has been too. In fact, if you judge your summer by the academic schedule, halfway was quite some time ago. Summer went by quickly. And as summer has raced by I have found myself in ever increasing need of peace and tranquility. The desire for solitude and quietude echoes in my heart. It may do so in yours too. Don't you find yourself in those busy moments wishing you could escape to the peace of silence and self-reflection? Sometimes I'm so busy I don't have even have time for those thoughts to spring up. Have you had summers like that?

I hope you can identify with me as I paint the background of this morning's message. I believe this is not unfamiliar territory. I sense that many of you are or have been right here with me. At this juncture it is important to explain that the busy, chaotic, and hectic nature of the summer is not an inescapable imprisonment. We create and construct the conditions that bring chaos, stress, and endless streams of activities into our lives. We are concerned with all our life-dreams, goals, and aspirations that we pack our lives to the brim with an unending number of things. These things are the events, activites, and plans that will turn all our dreams and desires into accomplisments and achievements.

Accomplisments and achievements are not bad in themselves, they are great. But the American way of life has created a society and a culture on the “go.” We are on the move, tackling one task, then another. Moving from responsibility to responsibility, chore to chore, errand to errand, task to task. This is where I have been... this is where I have lived. This is where many of you have been. This is where many of you are. And for some, this is where you will be soon enough. And as I drove to Perryville this week thinking to myself what message I would bring before you all, God tapped me on the shoulder just hard enough to get my attention. And God said: “Michael, I Love you.”

Now this may not seem that profound or amazing. I have known since Sunday School as a small child that God loves me. I have given lessons about God's love and enjoyed songs celebrating the endless Love of God. But for that moment, in the middle of a busy and stressful summer, God said “I Love you” and it struck me.

“Wow.” I whispered outloud to myself. And after those words registered... I stopped. I had just pulled into the driveway here at church, and I didn't get out to unload my stuff. I didn't think about all the things I had to accomplish in the few short hours ahead. No, I just stopped. I didn't try to relax, I didn't make plans to have no plans. And I thought about what it meant for God to say “I Love you.” And I think that this is what God wants for you to hear today: “I Love you.” So take a moment to stop. I mean let's all just stop. Right here. Right now. Everyone close your eyes and listen to God as he tells you: “I Love you.” Let those words sink in. Let God speak to you and truly listen. God is saying: “I Love you.” You don't have to do anything for this Love. There are no strings, fine print or further details. It is always available and never ceases. God Loves you.

And its funny, I had been thinking about what message could speak to you this morning. I was so concentrated on finding a topic that would be transformative and profound, and God said “stop looking for what everyone else might need... because what I have to give, you need as well.” And then I decided to share with you what God shared with me... the simple and beautiful words: “I Love you.” Think about that: God Loves you.

And here are some verses to illustrate how some responded to the realization of God's Love. This is how they describe it:
Psalms 36:5
Jeremiah 31:3
Ephesians 2:4-5
Romans 5:5
Romans 5:8
Psaml 100:5

And then there are these words, which we probably all know by heart. They are famous words from the Gospel of John. But I am not going to read all of them, just the first part of this famous verse:

John 3:16

Guess what? You and I, we are that “World.” And here is the amazing thing about God's Love: It is absolute, unconditional, endless. We don't have to ask “why?” There is no reason attached. There is no justification that needs to be made. God just Loves you. The verses talk about a ceaseless, powerful Love, that pre-exists all of our insufficiencies. It doesn't matter what we do, God still loves us. In fact, the word unconditional is only understood in terms of the absolute. An unconditional Love is one that is absolute. Love is there no matter what conditions exist. We can be as terrible or wonderful as anyone in the world, and God still Loves us. There is nothing we can do, no place we can hide, nothing will ever blockade the Love of the Most High God. God IS Love. People have tried to grasp the nature of God's existence. How did God come to be? Or how is it that God can just be? One thing we do attest to: God is. Some of us don't know or have an explanation for how God exists. We just affirm: God is there. God just IS. And because God is Love, Love is just there. We don't know how it got there, but it just is. God simply Loves us.
There is a story about a man from San Diego I recently read about that speaks about the very nature of God's Love for us:

Every single day, Art hears some kind of gay joke or comment made by the people he works with. This may not bother some, but as a 26-year veteran of the police force, Art says he doesn't appreciate the comments nor does he tolerate it - especially coming from those sworn to protect everyone. "It just tears me apart to hear those things from my peers because now it's about my daughter," Art says.

Believing that he was open-minded and accepting of all kinds of people, he was put to the test two years ago when his wife, Pamela, told him that his oldest child is gay. "My wife was helping Michelle move home from college when I got, 'the call,'" Art says. "I was up all night...in turmoil...thinking what had I done wrong? Maybe I was too hard on her...all these things about me". Art says when he realized that this wasn't about him but about his daughter, that's when the acceptance began. "I picked up the phone and told her, 'I don't understand this, but I love you.' It was important that my daughter knew that I loved her no matter what."

The father of three, went on to say that having a child doesn't mean you can place conditions on how to love them. "When I had my daughter, I didn't say I am going to love this child as long as she is this, this and this," Art says, "I saw her and I knew that I loved her more than anything else in the world. Just because she is gay, it doesn't change anything. "My daughter is a beautiful girl who is entitled to be who she is. I'll support her until I am not around, and I am not going to apologize for that. I love her and I always will."

This is not a story about the morality of homosexuality. This is a story about a man who didn't want his daughter to be something that she became, and then, Loved her still.

God entitles us to be who we are. It is the simultaneous Gift and Burden of Free Will. But despite how we fall, despite becoming people that God may not want us to be... God still Loves us.

This simple Truth is an easy one to overlook. Busy schedules and hectic, stressful lives can cloud our minds from the animating reality of God's unconditional Love. But today, I ask that you would reapproach the concept of God's Love. Let God saturate you with the Unconditional Love that God offers. Let the Love of God resonate in your heart, and let it bring you to a place of peace, quietude, tranquility and self-reflection. Re-evaluate yourself in the light of God's Love. You have endless worth to God because God endlessly Loves you. This is a revitalizing and stimulating Truth, one that needs our attention. So I hope this morning your minds have been focused on the Love of God. I hope and pray that this reminds you of the unconditional worth you have as children of God. Art realized that his love was not dependent on whether his child would be this, this, or that. God too does not care what you are or have become, he simply Loves you regardless.

May your summer be colored with the Love of God. May your lives be filled with God's Love and may it overflow to the people around you. May you be re-energized by the value and worth God finds in you as God places God's Love upon your entire being. As you leave here this morning and return to the busyness of summertime, remember: God Loves you. And if necessary, as I know it was for me... just stop. Just stop and hear God tell you: “I Love you.”