If you got your bulletin in the mail this week and decided to read the scripture lessons for today, you may have wondered what words in the lessons would cause me to arrive at my sermon title.  But you may also wonder just what in the world I mean by God staying in the box.  So, like Ricky Ricardo used to say to Lucy, I’ve got some ‘splaining to do!

Thanks to television, we’ve all heard about “thinking outside the box.”  That phrase means to think differently, unconventionally, from a new perspective.  It means to eliminate false constraints and usual assumptions when attempting to solve a problem.  It means that we can color outside the lines.  “Thinking inside the box” would mean that we limit our understanding to the way we’ve always done things before.  Someone has said that the last seven words of the church are, “But we’ve always done it this way!”  That is an example in inside the box thinking.

When we are in school, we have a math box, a science box, and a reading box up in our brains, and as we are promoted to higher grades, we keep putting new things into those boxes.  Sometimes new learning contradicts an old idea, and we have to toss that old idea out of our box.  My teachers worked diligently to cast words like “chimley” and “warsh” out of our language box!

We also have a box for God and our understanding of God in our brains.  That is where we place our expectations of how God deals with us and what he expects from us.  Logic guides us as we construct our personal theology, and we try to conform to the 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule, and the other things we place in our box.  It all goes well until something happens that won’t fit inside the box.  Catastrophe strikes, and that doesn’t sit comfortably beside our believe that God is all-powerful and all-loving.  Some folks toss out the box at that point, but those of us who want to keep our faith intact add new understandings to our box, things like how God is somewhat limited by human free-will.  That is how each of us develops our faith.

For many people, the belief and the hope that what they do will somehow effect God’s dealings with them is at the heart of religion.  Many ancient cultures practiced animal sacrifice in the hope that this would cause God to forgive sins.  Ancient Israel thought that being chosen by God as His people would cause God to always protect them from foreign invasion, and some Christian leaders seem to think that the same protection was afforded to the United States up until 9-11. The prophets tried to tell them that this was not so, that by worshiping other gods and mistreating each other they were courting destruction, and that God’s will might not always be what they expected, but these ideas did not fit inside their faith box.  But even more important to learn is the truth that religion is not about controlling or manipulating God.  It is about knowing God and fellowshiping with Him and about our ability to adapt ourselves to His will.  It is discovering that God just won’t stay inside the small boxes we build for Him.

That brings us to the scripture lessons for today that made my mind go down this path.  First, we have the story of Naaman the army general from Aram who had leprosy.  His wife’s slave was a captured girl from Israel, and she said that there was a prophet in Samaria who could cure leprosy.  So Naaman came to Elisha, but apparently Elisha didn’t even go out to meet the general.  Instead, Elisha sent a servant out to tell Naaman to go take a bath in the River Jordan and he would be healed.  This lack of hospitality angered Naaman.  “We’ve got better rivers than the Jordan  back home!” said Naaman.  “I thought that Elisha would come out to me and, while standing in front of me, call on the name of the Lord, waving his hand over the diseased skin and thus cure me of my leprosy.”  In Naaman’s mind, that is how a prophet had to act in order to get a response from God.  The prophet had to do things a certain way, standing a certain way, wave his hand a certain way while saying these special words: “In the name of the Lord God, be healed.”  But Elisha knew that there wasn’t a magic formula that made God act.  All that was required was trust and obedience.  God just wouldn’t stay in Naaman’s box!

Have you ever known people who thought that certain formulas and expressions were necessary to make God act?  Praying “in Jesus’ name” is a wonderful expression.  It means that we acknowledge that Jesus is our connection with God and that we are thankful for His work on our behalf.  It also means that if our prayer doesn’t conform to one Jesus would pray, then we will accept God’s will.  “In Jesus’ name” isn’t a magic formula that forces God to act.

Many times Jesus called people, using a simple invitation: “follow me.” Once he told someone to give everything to the poor and then follow Him.  But we don’t use that invitation much.  Only once did Jesus tell someone that they had to be born again, but we act like that is the only formula for becoming a Christian.  My religious experience is a testimony that God won’t stay in that box!

A few years ago when I was in Boiling Springs, a very fine young man came to interview me and other pastors in the area to learn why we became pastors and what ministry in our denomination was like.  He was a very devoted Christian, but in his mind there was only one way that someone became a Christian.  There were four spiritual laws to learn. There was a sinner’s prayer you had to pray.  Then you had to be baptized a certain way.  I decided to have a little fun with him, using my spiritual journey to challenge the narrow constraints he had placed upon God.  I told him that there never had been a time in my life when I didn’t believe in God, that I prayed every night by the time I was three or four.  Then when I was about eight years old, I had asked permission to join the church through a Confirmation Class, even though I was a little young for this, and that I had stood in front of all those people in church and professed my personal faith in Jesus Christ.  “Was that when you were born again and baptized?” the young man asked, and I said no.  In fact, I had been baptized as a baby, and I had believed in God long before the Confirmation Class.  I could see his discomfort growing!  Then I told him about my freshman year in college and how I had experienced a spiritual renewal that resulted in a call to ordained ministry.  He said, “So, that’s when you were born again!” and I said, “No; like I told you, I have always believed in Christ.”  My Christian experience didn’t fit inside his God box.  I hadn’t said the right words or followed the right order of events, but I think I convinced him that I am a Christian none the less.  I’m sure I short-circuited his brain!

In Mark we hear about another man with leprosy.  By that time in history, lepers were placed in something like concentration camps.  They lived in the city trash dump, not allowed to leave that camp to ever return home again.  They depended on people bringing food and other necessities to them at the dump.  The fact that the man approached Jesus to seek healing was a violation of law, and the fact that Jesus touched the man was completely unlawful.  Jesus could have caught leprosy from this contact, but instead, the man had caught a healing!  Then Jesus instructed the man to tell no one about his healing or who it was who had healed him.  Instead, the man was instructed to fulfill the requirement of the Law by going to the Temple, showing himself to a priest, and offering a sacrifice.  Then the priest would certify that he could return to his home.  It must not have made any sense to this man that Jesus had told him these things, especially the part about keeping the source of his healing a secret.  That didn’t fit inside his theological box!  Surely God wanted him to go everywhere, telling everyone about Jesus!  And that is what he did.  Just look at the mess this man caused Jesus by his inability to think outside the box.

First, we are told that Jesus could no longer go into any of the towns.  His entrance into town would have created such a disturbance that he would have been arrested time and again for disturbing the peace.  There is no way He could have preached in town while being mobbed. Instead, Jesus had to stay outside of the towns, in lonely places without stores for food and places to lodge.  If anyone wanted to learn about Jesus now, they had to go to lots of trouble and travel some distance.  Because of this man’s big mouth, Jesus had to change tactics, no longer able to preach as He would have preferred.

Secondly, Jesus was no longer welcome in the presence of the priests and religious leaders.  Jesus must have hoped to work through the faith community, perhaps being allowed to minister with the blessings of the religious leaders.  Here was a chance for the man to show that Jesus wasn’t a threat to their religion.  “Go show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”  If the priest had been approached and helped the man with the sacrifice, as the Judaic faith required, the priest might have been open to working with Jesus.  Instead, it must have appeared to him that Jesus didn’t advise the man to see the priest; therefore, Jesus must not care about keeping the Law.  He must not be a good teacher!  How might things have been different for Jesus, at least for a while, if this man had realized that God didn’t always operate as he expected?

It is important for us to realize that while our mental faith boxes are helpful to us as we grow in faith, those boxes never quite contain all there is to know about God.  God never quite fits into our little boxes because our finite minds can never comprehend all there is to know about God.  When I was in seminary learning the great doctrines of the Christian faith, it was tempting to think that, once I mastered all of the great doctrines, I would finally completely understand God.  It was humbling to learn that my theology could carry me only part of the way to God.  If theology was a game of horseshoes, then it could get me close to the stake but it could never score a ringer!  I’m not sure that it even scores a leaner.  It led me to be able to see God’s shadow but not God Himself.  Once I understood this, I lost interest in arguing beliefs with people of other traditions.  Instead, I wanted to hear what they had to say because they might be able to shine some light on the dark spots on my path.  It turned out that theology was an inexact science and that God was always just a bit beyond my ability to understand.  As author Thomas Keating wrote in Manifesting God, “The Christian path is not about defining God but of enlarging our idea of God.  Even with the help of doctrine, ritual, good deeds, and moral certainties, without the experience of God’s mercy and forgiveness, we do not really know who God is.”

But there are some things we can know.  The God who won’t stay in the box has shown us that He is love, that His love is parental in nature, long suffering, merciful, desiring to help us, longing for us to know His forgiveness, giving of Himself to the point of death on a cross, longing for us to be with Him for eternity.  He speaks to the one who least expects to hear it, saying, “You are my child.  You are forgiven and accepted.”  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

We have this saying, “You can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.”  As far as I know, there is only one church member who could testify to the literal truth of this statement, and that is beekeeper Elmore House!  But metaphorically speaking, we all know the truth of this statement. By having the proper attitude of love and sweetness we can make friends with people who would never be won by sour, bitter attitudes.  Also, people are more likely to be changed by our loving ways than by harsh criticism. Critical, vinegar ways only cause people to become alienated and hardened in their ways; genuine love can transform the roughest, toughest heart.  This is good to remember because it seems that in life we are surrounded by people who are intent on stinging the fire out of us!  It just might be true that the reason they are out to sting us is that they’ve always been met with vinegar!  Love is a stranger to some folks, and it is our task as Christians to win people for Christ.  You can make more disciples with honey than with vinegar!

Both Jesus and Paul are examples of how to go about catching bees with honey.  Let’s begin with Paul.  Paul was one who received criticism from every side.  Since he was a Roman citizen, other Romans considered Paul unpatriotic because he would not worship the Emperor.  Since he was a Hebrew who believed that Jesus is the Messiah, his fellow Hebrews considered him to be unfaithful to God and the Law of Moses.  Christians were never sure whether Paul was really one of them or a spy out to catch them; this was especially true in the early years of Paul’s ministry.  Since it was the custom for pastors and apostles to be financially supported by offerings received in the churches, there were some folks who believed that the only reason Paul had converted was so that he could receive some easy money.  For this reason, Paul let it be known that he would  never receive any salary from any of the churches even though he had every right to do so.  Instead, he would continue making tents so as to be self-sufficient.

Paul goes on to give us further explanation of why he wouldn’t accept a salary for his ministry.  He says that if his preaching was done voluntarily, if it was his vocational choice, then he might deserve financial reward.  But for Paul, preaching was not an option; it was an obligation he owed to Christ who had died for him, whom Paul had spent some years opposing and persecuting.  He was too far in debt to Christ to expect any reward for living for Christ.  “Woe to me if I do not preach,” says Paul. So we see that even in answering his critics, Paul was gentle and not harsh.

Another criticism leveled against Paul was that he was wishy-washy, that his behavior changed depending on whom he was with.  For example, Paul met Timothy, a disciple whose mother was Jewish and whose father was gentile.  No one was a greater critic of circumcision than Paul was; he absolutely refused to insist that gentiles be circumcised before joining the church.  And yet in Acts 16 we are told that Paul wanted to take Timothy with him on his missionary journey, and since that journey would carry them into a Hebrew region, Paul insisted that Timothy be circumcised!  How inconsistent this seemed to Paul’s critics.  But again Paul answered his critics with honey, not vinegar.

Paul explained that his one goal in life was to win as many people to Christ as he could, and to do so, he was willing to appear wishy-washy.  It is one thing to have waffling opinions in order to win elections and to become popular; it is a far different thing to adapt oneself to the ways of a community in order to earn an opportunity to share the Gospel.  When I began visiting in the homes of the people of Saluda, SC when I became a pastor there, I showed up in coat and tie.  Finally one of the men said to me, “Preacher, you are going to have to lose that tie and get a pair of overalls!”  I got the message, and so did Paul.  He was willing to adapt himself to new communities, even if it opened the door of criticism.  Even though he was a free man and nobody’s slave, Paul was willing to become anyone’s slave in order to win them for Christ.  His ability to live like a slave won many slaves over to Christianity.  We know of one famous slave, Onesimus, slave of a Christian named Philemon.  To Hebrews who lived very strictly by the Law of Moses, Paul became very strict in order to have the chance to preach Christ to them.  He was even willing to become weak if God could use his weakness to win people over to the Christian faith.  Listen to how Eugene Peterson translated this passage in The Message:

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose‑living immoralists,  the defeated, the demoralized‑‑whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ‑‑but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God‑saved life.  I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

I wonder how adaptable you and I are to people around us and whether we would be as willing as Paul was to become all things to all people so that by all possible means we might help some find salvation?

Jesus also used this same tactic in His ministry.  He used His God-given ability to perform miracles and to heal the sick as a way of getting people to open up so that they could hear His message and experience God’s love.  Even though He had resisted the temptation in the wilderness to turn rocks into bread, He did mysteriously and miraculously feed the 5000 with a small portion of fish and bread.  Don’t you know that this crowd listened to every word Jesus preached to them after that picnic?  Healing the sick also opened the hearts and minds of the people so that they could hear God’s message, but it was the preaching that Jesus considered more important.

We are told that Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.  Now, I just love mother-in-law stories!  Apparently, Peter had married a woman who agreed to marry him, as long as her Mama came along to live with them!  And don’t you know that she used to ride Simon Peter’s back about how he had given up a good paying job in the fishing industry and, leaving his wife – her daughter – at home, had gone chasing after this itinerant preacher who didn’t have two coins to rub together, much less an army to help Him become King?  Now Peter comes back home with Jesus and two other buddies, and they all want ma-in-law to cook supper for them!  I’d get a fever and go to bed, too!  She really was sick, however, and Jesus went in to minister to her, and soon she was up, out of bed, and waiting on the group of men.  Such is the impact of Jesus’ love on mothers-in-law!  After supper, people began to bring their sick loved ones to Jesus, and He cured their illnesses.  But what Jesus really wanted was to use His healing power as a place to begin teaching and preaching His message about God.  In verse 38 we hear Jesus say to His disciples, “Let’s go somewhere else so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come.”  Jesus was focused on preaching, not healing.

One of the great strategies of the Church across many centuries has been to send medical missionaries into countries that would not let preachers of the Gospel in.  After being healed of various diseases, people in those countries have become disciples of Christ through the gentle caring of the doctor.  We also send carpenters, construction workers, teachers, and agricultural consultants into countries where preachers cannot go, but those workers find that their work opens the door for Christian witness, and many people become followers of Christ because of their work.  You could even go on a short-term mission trip, either in our country or outside of it, and you would be surprised at the opportunities you have to share the Good News when you are making life better for these people. When we operate this way, we are just following Jesus’ example of using the gifts we are given to open the door for the proclamation of the Good News!  It is our reason to become involved in church-league basketball and softball.  There may be someone who becomes connected with the church after being involved in a ball game!  That is a way we can earn the right to share the Good News with them.

My friend Paul in Rock Hill remained involved with youth, even after he was retired.  In an effort to encourage youth to come to gatherings on Sunday evenings, Paul would give each one of them a bottle of Coke or Pepsi.  Someone criticized him for doing this, saying, “The youth aren’t coming for the right reason!  They are just coming for the drinks.”  Paul, a man who knew the power of catching bees with honey, responded to this criticism by saying, “If a drink will get someone to come to church on Sunday night, I’ll keep buying drinks until I totally run out of money!”

Well, I’ve tied together the Epistle Lesson and the Gospel Lesson.  Let’s see if I can find a place for the Old Testament Lesson.  We are called to care for those who are as sour on life as vinegar.  So many people, including you and me, sometimes feel forgotten and forsaken by God.  Of course, we never are; we just feel like it sometimes.  Those people, and you and I, need to hear the message of God’s love again. Listen to Isaiah 40:27-31 as translated by The Message:

Why would you ever complain…, saying, “God has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me”?  Don’t you know anything?  Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts. For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

God’s love for us endures!  Let His love capture your heart!  Amen!

Arthur H. Holt

Did you happen to see pictures of the foods offered at last year’s summer Olympics in Beijing?  It was a rare offering of delicacies like starfish, silk worms, cicadas, scorpions, and beetles.  Yum!  Meanwhile, over at Zoar United Methodist Church, there is a Korean dinner after church each Sunday, and I am told that the aroma will stall your car if you drive by!  Now, I am a real picky eater, I’ll admit.  I do not eat any seafood, and possum is not on my diet!  But even though our human cultures have very different customs concerning food, none of us would fight over what we eat, nor would we quit coming to church because our fellow church members started eating silk worms or pickled pigs’ feet.

From the distance of twenty-one centuries, we look back on the early church, finding it difficult to believe that it was almost torn asunder by dietary disagree-ments. After the crucifixion of the Savior and His miraculous resurrection, we wonder why something as mundane as food would become such a divisive issue for the Church.  But it truly was!  The Christian faith was almost a casualty, not of science or math, but of the lunchroom!

Christians coming from the Jewish heritage brought with them their long Levitical list of foods to avoid.  Among other restrictions, ham was a no-no and shrimp would have been considered an abomination to God.  Jesus had grown up among folks who taught that one’s relationship with God could be destroyed by eating the wrong food, and Jesus angered some folks by suggesting that it is the words coming out of our mouths that defile us, not the food that goes into our mouths.

By the middle of the First Century A.D., the gentiles joining the Church were beginning to outnumber the Hebrews, and the gentiles were like American Cajuns: they would cook and eat most anything!  Raw foods didn’t bother them; Jewish Christians would have thought that eating uncooked foods was equal to drinking blood.  Christians in that century had another problem also.  Since the majority of citizens were pagans who brought the finest of their flocks to pagan temples to be sacrificed, and then they sold that same meat in the public market as food, what should a Christian do when shopping at the market?  Was this delicious char-broiled food O.K. to eat or was it possessed now by the spirit of the god to whom it was sacrificed?  At the same time, the early Church was still trying to unravel the mystery of how they were supposed to live in relationship to the Levitical Law now that they were free from the Law and no longer subject to it.  The fact that Paul had to address this issue a number of times in his letters lets us know just how pervasive this concern was.

Even though we don’t struggle with this same problem today, there are other issues that threaten to divide the present-day Christian Community into multiple factions, and the advice that Paul gave his friends gives us some biblical guidance on our issues of concern.  His first point is that we quickly become rigid in our opinions, feeling that we know more than our neighbors about the issue, and we go in search of facts to back up our opinions.  We then believe that our knowledge is superior to their knowledge.  We are right and, therefore, we won’t budge.  “We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions,” says Paul, and then he adds, “but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.”

We have a saying in our day that is attributed to author Isaac Asimov: “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”  Paul is saying the same thing to the Corinthians.  There were two sides that both thought they knew it all.  No one knows it all, and therefore, no dispute can be resolved by knowledge alone.  Only God knows all the facts.  We aren’t really very smart until we recognize just how much we still have to learn.  Humble, loving hearts are more likely to settle disputes, Paul says.  Unity does not come though minds agreeing on the facts but on hearts agreeing on the worth of each person.

Next, Paul tells us his position on the idol food.  Since there is only one God, idols have no real existence.  The very word “idol” means a thing whose main characteristic is that it is not.  It isn’t like the meat was sacrificed to a real entity, a divine being.  It was sacrificed to nothing.  Therefore, nothing bad happened to meat offered to idols and it cannot hurt us any more than the same meat grilled at home.  But it is not enough to know these facts, and Paul does not demand that everyone agree with his position. Again Paul returns to his earlier theme of how loving each other is more important than knowledge: “Knowing isn’t everything. If it becomes everything, some people end up as know‑it‑alls who treat others as know‑nothings. Real knowledge isn’t that insensitive. We need to be sensitive to the fact that we’re not all at the same level of understanding in this.”  He goes on to say that it will take some folks a very long time to get over the beliefs that they have learned over a lifetime of living.  Those who once believed that eating meat sacrificed to idols was a way to achieve unity with that god and a way of allowing that god to live inside of them might not be able to change their minds overnight.  Therefore, we must be patient with each other as we allow one another to grow in Christ at our own pace.  This is very good advice in any age as the church ponders any problem.

The next thing that Paul does in his letter is to re-frame the debate.  Re-framing is a wonderful tool that I learned from some of my counselor-friends.  It means to put something in a different context and see it from a different perspective.  It is how we see things differently when we put ourselves in someone else’s place, when we proverbially walk in another persons shoes for a while.  Maybe the real issue isn’t that little Johnny is mad at the world and starting to behave just like his father; maybe he is tired and just needs a good nap.  Maybe the boss isn’t really upset at you or displeased with your work; maybe he just got his son’s first semester college grades and is upset about that! Being able to re-frame an issue and put it in a different context sometimes helps us find common ground for understanding it.

What if eating meat offered to idols isn’t a matter of right or wrong, good or bad?  After all, food isn’t the standard that God uses when He judges us.  “God doesn’t grade us on our diet,” Paul says. What should be the context of our decisions regarding food offered to idols or anything else for that matter is how our actions affect others.  That is what God really cares about.  That is the correct frame of reference!  An action as harmless as eating delicious food might confuse someone for whom eating that same food would be going against their conscience.  It could be possible that by eating the bread of idleness or the meat of idol worship that we could cause one of God’s children to fall away from faith in God.  Christ gave His life for that person who might get confused by our actions.  Therefore, we must weigh our actions on the scales of what offers help and strength to others, not on what is right or wrong or based on the correct facts.

I know a group of very close friends who did their share of partying during college.  One of the members of that group became addicted to alcohol and later put himself in a treatment program.  Because the other members of that group really care about each other, they make sure that whenever they get together now, they do so at places that only serve soft drinks and coffee.  Because their friendship is more important than their food and drink, they make this sacrifice for their friend.

I was in Spartanburg when the video poker and state lottery issues were boiling.  Even though the United Methodist Church was heavily invested in the anti-lottery and anti-video poker camp, I really didn’t have all that much personal emotion invested in those issues, although I tried to faithfully represent the position of our church.  But then one of my members stepped forward to tell us how he had lost over $200,000 playing video poker and how he feels so tempted whenever he stops for gas at a convenience store.  Now he gets gas only at stations that do not sell lottery tickets.  It would have been insensitive for me to stop at a convenience store if he was riding in the car with me.  The lottery was suddenly much more than an issue of right or wrong; it was an issue of helping or hurting one of my faithful church members.

That is how Paul re-frames this argument.  It isn’t about who knows more or which opinion is right and which is wrong.  It is about doing those things which build up and do not trip up the faith of those for whom Christ died.  It isn’t a matter of becoming very strict with ourselves or rigidly legalistic.  It is just a matter of taking seriously the level of maturity of our brothers and sisters in Christ as we live our lives as Christian disciples.  It is also a matter of remembering that each of us has someone who looks up to us and considers us wise and mature and who will copy our example.

It is not a matter of the head but of the heart.  Debates should not be settled on the basis of superior knowledge but on the basis of what helps our brothers and sisters in Christ to grow stronger in the faith.  As we follow the example of Christ, let us remember that others look to us as examples of faithful living.  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

(All scripture quotations are from The Message paraphrase of the Bible.)