By
Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat
Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Pentecost
7c, July 7, 2013
“…Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; (Col 3:16 NRS)
In the history of my home church in
Turnersburg, there was a time when the church took this text seriously and
actually did teach, admonish, exhort ,or warn its members when they were caught
in an intentional and public moral fault.
If the person did not turn from their sin and repent, they faced the
possibility of being admonished, disciplined, or worst, ‘churched’-- that is
ex-communicated from the church family and fellowship. The belief was that the personal
irresponsible behavior of the one should not jeopardize the witness of the
many. Such a judgment was never easy,
but it became especially difficult when family members stood with each other
rather than with the voice of the church.
After the loss of too many members, the admonishing and church
disciplined stopped. It had gone too far
for the church too continue.
Our text today calls us in the church to
‘teach and admonish each other in wisdom” This is
certainly a virtue or practice that has been lost in the church today. And to bring up such an issue could just as
explosive as firecrackers the 4th of July.
What are we to do with such a world in the culture of the church today?
A
PRACTICE THAT CAN BE ABUSED
Today we wear our feelings way too much
on our sleeves for such admonishing or warning today. Let the church issue an admonishment or
warning against someone, and there is likely too much grief, ensuing public
conflict, or maybe even a law suit.
Church discipline is out; silence is golden. We can’t afford to lose anyone. We can’t afford to say too much or go too
far. If any discussion goes on, it goes
on behind closed doors, behind the scenes or behind the back. There is little value in telling the truth
in the open. There is too great a fear
that someone is going to get their feelings hurt or that a mistake will be made
and it will come back to hurt the whole church.
When I became a pastor in Germany, the
German Baptist church still practiced church discipline. Once, one of our members, whom I did not
know and saw in church only once, got in trouble with the law. One of the leaders of the congregation asked
me to go with him visit the man in prison.
I was with him so far. Then he
told me he wanted me help him confront the man with his moral failure---not his
crime, but his sin against God and against the congregation. If the man was humble and repentant, he
would be retained on the church membership.
If the man resisted, the leader told me, it would be my responsibility,
as the spiritual leader of the church, to recommend that he be removed from the
church. That was not something I had
ever done, and was reluctant to be responsible for, especially cross culture. Fortunately, it never came about. I did not want to stand in judgment over
anyone. But the question is still very real in
the church today. We all know the value
of telling each other the truth in love, and we also know that the church will
eventually lose its ability to challenge the world and the culture, if it
always looks the other way or if it goes too far by trying to play moral
policemen. When we admonish too harshly
or we ignore the truth, we risk hurting others.
So, how do we overcome this virtue
deficit in the church of today? How can
we single out, isolate, or purge the sins that can so easily beset us, overcome
us, or damage our common witness to the world? And which sins are worth confronting, and
which sins are worth leaving alone?
Where will we draw the line and where will we let things go? And how do we distinguish the church from
our own family, and how do we distinguish the church from just another club,
where sometimes the membership rules are stiffer than our own? How do we hold the integrity of the church
together without tearing our relationships with each other apart? As you can clearly see, there are many more
questions than answers when it comes to the value and virtue of admonishing
each other at church.
THE
WISDOM WE ALL NEED
Recently, in a newspaper article spoke about Tom
Lambeth recent speech about North Carolina and her people; people who are often
as stubborn as they are good. One farmer
commented that ‘he didn’t have much formal education, so when he went to work on
the farm he had to use his head.” (From an article by D.J. Martin in the Statesville
Record and Landmark, April 30, 2013). Now, that’s the spirit of what Paul means
when he not only says, ‘teach and
admonish each other’, but he also says that if you are going to practice
teaching or admonishing you will need ‘sofia’ or “wisdom.” In other words, you’d
better use your head.
Wisdom has a long standing tradition in
Israel before Jesus came along. The
Wisdom teaching of the Hebrew Bible mostly came together after Israel’s moral
failure and exile in Babylon, not before.
It was through their failure that they learned what they never wanted to
happen again. The wanted to learn from
their mistakes and do whatever it took to avoid such failure. In order to this from happening, they
believed they needed not just human wisdom, but also divine wisdom. Israel
believed that reminding each other about what kind of life was ‘wise’ and what
kind of life was ‘unwise’ what was human wisdom and what has divine, might keep
them from failing God, failing each other, and falling into the trap of their
own personal failure which could lead to national failure.
When Jesus came on the scene, it is said
by many Bible scholars today, especially Marcus Borg, that Jesus himself was a
teacher, not just of righteousness, but a teacher of an alternative form of
divine ‘wisdom’. Jesus used short
sayings and short stories we call parables to teach a different way to look at
the world so that Israel would avoid great moral failure. The wisdom Jesus reveals is wisely centered
in God, not in the surrounding culture.
For example, instead of seeing God as a judge and lawgiver, God is forgiving
and gracious. Instead of measuring a
person’s worth by measuring up to certain moral standards, all persons have
infinite worth as children of God.
Instead of avoiding sinners and outcasts, everyone is invited to God’s
table of forgiveness and grace. Instead
of finding identity from social or religious traditions, persons are to know
themselves in their relationship with God.
The meaning of one’s life does not come in having it all, being first,
or saving oneself, but in giving, being last, and losing oneself for the sake
of others. (http://www.aportraitofjesus.org/wisdom2.shtml).
The wisdom Jesus came to teach is not a
wisdom that judges for the sake of passing judgment, but judges for the sake of
establishing God’s table for all who will come to God’s table of grace. By accepting the unacceptable and by
challenging the accepted, Jesus offered
the world a different kind of wisdom, which would create a new community, not community
based upon rules and regulations, but a community based upon relationships and
having its focus on God.
Only such a community with such
other-worldly wisdom can ‘teach’ and ‘admonish’ each other in love. This very way of positive way of wisdom,
warning and admonishing is clearly suggested in how the King James Version
translates this text. Instead of
following the literal Greek construct, the King James follows the spirit of the
text, saying, “teaching
and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Col 3:16 KJV). In this interpretation “admonishing”
each other is understood in quite differently than someone standing over
another person in judgment. Instead of any
kind of personal or problematic singling out and judging of the sins, the King
James version suggest that the judgment, warning, admonishing and teaching should
comes directly from the Lord through the songs, through the hymns, and through
the spiritual messages when we sing with grace in our hearts toward each other,
not through some Christian court proceedings.
If this is what Paul means, and I believe it is, then he is following the
very words of Jesus who told us when the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict and
convince people of their sins. Even
though the church still holds the keys of the kingdom and should make decisive
judgments about what is right and what is wrong, following the voice and vote
of the church body, it is the Holy Spirit who, through the joy of worship, the preaching,
the teaching, and witness of the church built on grace, who is to have the
first and final word. If the spirit is
allowed to do his work, then the admonishing and the teaching will come in ways
that are far more wise than we can ever know how to be in our own wisdom.
And when the Spirit speaks, Jesus once said, the Spirit can speak in very
convincing and convicting ways. I
recall several years ago when the church where I was pastor wanted to go
through a building program. Before we
got to that, the deacons and I were working on trying to shore up old church
roles. We have about 200 people
attending worship, but we had way over 700 and close to 800 still on church
roles. We needed to cut some of those
on the roll, not because they were delinquent, but because no one knew whether
or not they were still alive after so many years. But no one wanted to do the cutting. What if we cut the wrong person? What if they hear about us cutting them
out? No one wanted to be the bad guy nor
had the guts to make the first cut.
At least no one wanted to until we started our building program. We had hired a church consultant to come in
and advise us on how to build our building and to help us know how much
building to build. How much was this
consultant going to cost us? He was
going to charge us his fee based upon resident church membership rolls, not by
average attendance. When we heard that, you never heard of a deacon
board more ready to get on the phones and find out whose name they could take
off the rolls.
THE TEACHING THAT SAVES
When it comes to church discipline and admonishing each other in love,
perhaps the wisdom we need comes from another perspective we could be missing
in today’s church. This wisdom comes
from understanding shared accountability before God. When people come into church understanding
that they will one day be held accountable to God in the final judgment, they
seem to want to have others hold them accountable now. But when there is no real belief in final
judgment, or in giving a final account to God, who really wants to be held
accountable now? Only when we believe
in God’s final word of truth, will we want accept any kind of truth greater
than our own right now. We can get over
and grow from what others say to us now, but the judgment of God will be final
with eternal consequences.
Our gospel text, serves as an example of Paul’s words in the life of Christ. When you read Jesus harsh sounding
admonishment of the Pharisees, you certainly cringe at his direct and very dangerous
critique of their lifestyle and behavior.
But you must also take into consideration that these are not people that
Jesus hated, but they are people Jesus loved.
Israel was headed for grave trouble, and these religious leaders were
Israel’s only hope. Notice how some of
these Pharisees keep asking him out to dinner, even though he is speaking such
hard words. Some of these leader will
get mad enough at Jesus to side with other Jewish leaders who will eventually
sentence Jesus to death, but Jesus believes the pain is worth the sacrifice if
they redeem their ways and the nation is saved.
Of course, Jesus hope to change them didn’t work. Israel could have taken his admonishment to
heart and have changed, and even saved themselves from the judgment of God and
the wrath of Rome. Jesus showed them
the ‘things that made for peace, but they would not’ listen. That how it was with Israel, but that’s not
how it has to be with us. We can let
other hold us accountable, and it can make us better people for doing so.
In a Blondie cartoon, Blondie hands Dagwood the
broom. "Honey, I want you to sweep the cellar. And do it right this time or don't do
it." In the next frame
Dagwood is asleep on the couch, broom idle beside him. In the last frame a
disgruntled Blondie steers Dagwood toward the cellar as he protests,
"Well, I thought you gave me a choice."
Like Dagwood, we really don't have the choice about life to
"do it right or not at all." Life is here. We didn't ask
for it, but we've got it. This is no dress rehearsal. This is
it. Our choice is: what shall we do with our one life? Shall we do
it right? Shall we put our faith in Christ as Lord and live as Christians,
God helping us? Shall we come down on the side of doing right instead of
doing wrong? Shall we open ourselves to
the correction of the Holy Spirit and even the gentle corrections of the body
of Christ which wants to us worship God and come to our senses?
We don’t have a choice not to get our lives right. The choices we make must be right, and we
must help each other to get it right, because our rightness or wrongness determines
whether or not we face days of dread or coming days of joyful triumph. The
songs we sing to each other, and the wise and gentle teachings and admonishments
we give as we hold each other accountable, and as we also ‘let’ others hold us
accountable, should remind us that grace is on our side. Let us sing our way to doing what is right,
which brings us all hope, and turn from doing what can bring us so much more
pain, hurt and sorrow. AMEN
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