“As if”
Wayne McLaughlin
Montevallo Presbyterian Church
January 24 , 2021
Third Sunday after Epiphany
Hebrew Scripture Reading: Jonah 3.1-5, 10 Common English Bible (adapted)
3 The Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and declare against it the proclamation that I am commanding you.” 3 And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s word. (Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days’ walk across.)
4 Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant…
10 God saw what they were doing—that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them and didn’t do it.
Psalm 62.5-12 (trans. of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi)
I face You God in silence
and set my hope on You;
You are my protector and helper,
the one who raises me
and supports me not to stumble.
O God, I rely on You
for my salvation and dignity;
the Rock of my strength
and my Refuge is with God.
My friends, trust God always;
pour out your hearts before Her.
God is truly our protector.
It is useless to rely on big shots.
Those with great bloodlines tend to deceive;
they are light weights, no more than a yawn.
Don’t rely on cheating;
don’t get involved in embezzlement.
Seeking to multiply investments
will only disappoint your heart.
God said only one word;
I could hear the whole message—
this is God’s strength.
You, Yah, are kindness itself;
You repay each one
according to their actions.
Epistle Reading 1 Corinthians 7.29-31 (New Century Version)
29 Brothers and sisters, this is what I mean: We do not have much time left. So starting now, those who have wives should live as if they had no wives. 30 Those who are crying should live as if they were not crying. Those who are happy should live as if they were not happy. Those who buy things should live as if they own nothing. 31 Those who use the things of the world should live as if they were not using them, because this world in its present form will soon be gone.
Gospel Reading Mark 1.14-20 (Common English Bible)
14 After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, 15 saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” 16 As Jesus passed alongside the Galilee Sea, he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, throwing fishing nets into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” 18 Right away, they left their nets and followed him. 19 After going a little farther, he saw James and John, Zebedee’s sons, in their boat repairing the fishing nets. 20 At that very moment he called them. They followed him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers.
SERMON TEXT:
Sex
I’ll bet there are people who have never read the seventh chapter of First Corinthians. Maybe the best known verse from this chapter is this one:
…for it is better to marry than to burn. (v. 9, KJV)
The version of the Bible known as The Message gives a clearer rendering. Let's back up one verse to get the context:
8-9 I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. But if they can’t manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single.
Opinion
In the seventh chapter of First Corinthians Paul gives a lot of advice on marriage. Some of it, he says, is the advice of Christ. But other parts, he says, is just his opinion.
Our reading today is a short passage toward the end of the chapter—just three verses. The context is pretty clear. Our reading begins like this:
Brothers and sisters, this is what I mean: We do not have much time left.
The three verses end by saying:
this world in its present form will soon be gone.
Paul believes that The End is Near. Time is short. This world is passing away. In light of this pressing crisis, how shall we live?
Crisis
I think we can relate somewhat to that crisis mentality, can we not? This last month we have been anticipating the End; that is, the End of a four-year experience of Chaos, pomposity, and lies. Many of us were expecting the imminent return of order, reality-based leadership, and competence. We were scanning the skies for an angel of empathy to announce the coming of someone to save us from a dysfunctional, dominating spirit. And as it approached there were apocalyptic moments; that is, moments when the veil was pulled back and the true nature of the old disorder was revealed.
The symbols of hatred and bigotry were displayed alongside Christian symbols, which showed how the Christian faith had been wed to racist and nationalistic ideologies—and from that union was born a bastard political religion of magical thinking and violence stinking of delusional hysteria.
Have you ever heard about the “dancing mania” that broke out in the year 1374? It started in Aachen, Germany. From there it spread across central Europe and as far away as England and Madagascar.
Hundreds, and sometimes thousands of people at a time, would dance uncontrollably for days, weeks, and even months until they collapsed from exhaustion. Some danced themselves to death, suffering heart attacks or broken hips and ribs. It was an extreme example of mass hysteria.
Something of that nature has been going on in our country for several years. Our era of social media has allowed thousands of people to become hypnotized by regular absorption of speakers who pretend to hear directly from God and to have “prophetic words” that reveal secrets of conspiracies. We see it particularly now in the QAnon movement.
I’ve been doing a little research by watching sites on YouTube where some of these “prophetic teachers” and “preachers of the prophetic word” regularly speak to audiences. They claim to have words directly from God—words that tell what is going to happen. All of their talk has an air of urgency and mystery. They ask their listeners to join the cause—the cause which will insure that democracy and Christianity will win the battle. To be super patriotic and to be super Christian is understood as one and the same.
The people who get caught up in this rhetoric and looking for security and certainty.
David Brooks, writing in the New York Times said recently:
You can’t argue with people who have their own separate made-up set of facts. You can’t have an argument with people who are deranged by the euphoric rage of what Erich Fromm called group narcissism — the thoughtless roar of those who believe their superior group is being polluted by alien groups… We have seen that unreason is a voracious beast. If it is not confronted, it devours not only your party, but also your nation and your church. [1]
I can empathize to some extent. I can empathize with people who want to serve a greater cause—to be caught up in something bigger than themselves. I can empathize with those who are searching for a sense of security. And I can empathize with people who want certainty. I want all of those things too.
I read about one defector from a White Supremacist group who was asked why anyone would join a hateful extremist movement. He answered with three words: meaning, belonging, and purpose. Which is what religious faith is supposed to provide, isn’t it? But if people don’t find healthy forms of spirituality, they will seek unhealthy forms of spirituality that takes the shape of an ideology. [2]
Doubt
I’ve just been reading Brian McLaren’s new book called Faith After Doubt. I’ve underlined lots of sentences and even paragraphs. But there was one sentence that jumped out at me such that I think I actually flinched when I read it. And here it is:
Only doubt can save the world.
He continues: “Only doubt will open a doorway out of hostile orthodoxies—whether religious, cultural, economic, or political.” [3]
The search for certainty, which is a form of security, is dangerous. If you think that you have found Certainty in the form of what someone else tells you, you have moved into perilous territory. It is such a sense of certainty that is sold by extremists of any kind. We need to teach our children to doubt.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, in the seventh chapter of First Corinthians, Paul does something refreshing. He says more than once, “Now, the advice I’m giving you doesn’t come from Christ himself; it is only my opinion.” Some people think the Apostle Paul was arrogant. Well, maybe he was at times. But here, in this seventh chapter, he writes in a way that makes me feel he is more trustworthy. He separates his opinion from the divine message.
I hope you realize that every time a preacher gets in the pulpit (or walks around as some do), that preacher is giving you his or her opinion.
I can hear some preachers out there says, “Wait a minute, Wayne. Don’t you believe that your preaching is the Word of God?” My answer is this: When I study and do research on a passage of Scripture, then get in the pulpit and tell you what that passage means for us, I am giving an educated guess. I am telling you my opinion as to what that sacred text meant when it was written or spoken; and I am offering to you a possible meaning for us in our time and in our context.
Now, if through a sermon I give, you receive the Word of God for you, then that’s a miracle. I believe that through the faithful exposition of the texts of the Bible the Holy Spirit can take my educated and prayerful interpretation, which involves my opinions, and like an arrow, shoot it into your heart in such a way that it becomes a transformative power in your life.
My words and God’s Word is not the same. That’s what extremist groups would like you to think. No, “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” says God through Isaiah. And when I preach, my words are my words, not God’s words. But—through my words, God’s Word might be heard, if I am in tune with the Spirit, and you, the listener, are in tune with the Spirit. But there must always be nuance and ambiguity. There is no direct line to God.
Only doubt can save the world.
Too much certainty means something has gone askew. Too much certainty ends up creating arrogance, and down the road, violence.
Urgency
Paul’s words in our reading this morning have an urgency about them. And I believe we all ought to live with a sense of urgency. Not because we believe that the world is about to end. But because life does end for millions of people every day. The world could end for me today or tonight or tomorrow. We never know. We can’t waste time. Everything we do matters. Every decision we make matters.
Of course we have to balance the urgency with God’s invitation to enjoy life, to partake of life’s pleasures, and time to rest.
Paul also says that in the context of the world’s passing away, people of faith should not live as if it is business as usual. If you are married, live as if you are not married. If you are in business, live as if your business is not the most important thing in your life. If you are happy or sad, live as if emotions don’t matter. He is telling the people to be detached from family, from emotional highs and lows, and from profit-making. Everything must become relative in comparison to the coming of Christ.
Nothing is absolute—except God. No absolute certainty; no absolute happiness; no absolute attachment to bloodlines; no absolute goal of making money. Everything is relative to the presence of God.
As If
To live by faith is to live as if.
To live by faith is to live by an hypothesis. Everyone lives by some hypothesis whether they know it or not. Many people are unconscious of their hypothesis. Others have thought about it, and agonized over it; and have chosen the hypothesis they choose to live by.
We who call ourselves Christians live by the hypothesis that Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End of life. In him we have already seen the End. In Christ, the End has already come. But it is a process. The End has arrived in Jesus, but its arrival has not been completed. That’s why we talk about Christ “coming again.” Because the process of his coming is ongoing.
We live in light of the End already having arrived. And yet we also live in light of its continual coming. That’s gives us an urgency, a sense of healthy detachment from cultural norms, and it gives us a life lived by the imagination of faith.
Our hypothesis is based on the person of Jesus, and what his life meant, and what it means.
Everyone lives as if.
Any time you have the word “if,” it means that some knowledge is missing. There is not complete certainty if there is an “if.” Our life of discipleship has an “iffy-ness” about it.
When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James, and John from their boats, their nets, their sails, and their fathers and mothers and children, they were being called into an “as if” life. They didn’t know where Jesus was going to take them or what risks they would have to take. They accepted the iffy-ness of discipleship and went with him.
Second
Because we live “as if,” and because we don’t know everything, we will make mistakes. We will mess up. We might even try to escape such a life of uncertainty. But when we do, the story of Jonah will be instructive for us. Today’s reading from the third chapter of Jonah begins this way:
The Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to Nineveh.”
With God there is always “a second time.” We have the opportunity to start all over. To correct our mistakes. To admit our errors. To be forgiven. The Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time.
To live as if is a risky way to live. But it’s the kind of life Christ calls us to live. Following Jesus is risky. There is a great deal of uncertainty. Certainty is the opposite of faith. We are called to live by faith.
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Notes:
1. Trump Ignites a War Within the Church - nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/trump-evangelicals.html January 14, 2021.
2. Brian D. McLaren, Faith After Doubt (New York: St. Martins, 2021), 110-11.
3. Ibid., 113.
