CMLC 2024-09-08 Sermon

Howdy.

Well, you know, I was noticing the other day

there were a lot of different cartoons that I had growing up

and something that I had noticed when I was younger

is that I kept trying to figure out that there were two of them that seemed to have some of the same characters.

The Jungle Book and Robin Hood.

And I kept trying to figure out it's like you had a big bear in both of those named Blue.

He's named Little John in Robin Hood.

But then later on you end up seeing a snake in both of them and you end up seeing a lion that's in both of them as well.

And in my mind when I was a little kid, I actually thought that there were actual actors, little cartoon actors

that were going around and applying for different movies to be in.

So it was like in my head that these little cartoon characters had actually gone to try out for the role in Robin Hood

and that they had come out to try out for the Jungle Book.

And I don't want to admit how old I was when I realized that they were just cartoons.

But with that, the fact that they just reused the cartoons,

is that this idea of Robin Hood ended up being something that comes into our mind

because Robin Hood as a character, as a person,

is oftentimes someone that stands out in our myths, in our legends, in our collective psyche.

See, the story of Robin Hood has been around six centuries more or less.

Like since around 1400 AD.

And this idea of the rogue who rejects all of the upper class,

those who are in authority and steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

And you get to love, it's like, oh, what a charming criminal.

Oh, I love it.

And you see this character where you're like, oh, great.

He's kind of making things a little more equal for everybody.

But the reality is that the original Robin Hood story didn't really have him

stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

The focus was really more on his being a rogue, rejecting what others were doing around him.

It was more of the idea of pushing back and not letting anybody tell him what to do,

which frankly, that's a little bit more of what we really appreciate about the character.

You see, it begs the question, do we really look for things that are more equal?

But if we do, then why is it that there are so many things that are not equal in the world around us?

It begs this question, if we actually want equality, then why do we do so many unequal things?

Because in reality, is there a lot of ways in which James's letter applies to us

the same way that it applied back then?

You may be saying to yourself, you know, that's not really fair.

I try to do my best to do right by all people and to try to treat everybody equally.

I treat everybody the same. I don't see anybody any differently at any point in time.

But then you pause and you say, well, but yes, but why is it that sometimes we treat some people

a little differently than others? Well, there's good reasons for that.

Sometimes you have to deal with things from a practical standpoint,

or sometimes you need to look at the moral of the issue in front of you,

or you have to be professional in certain ways,

or frankly, I'm trying to stand for things that are just and good and right,

and then we still end up asking this question of,

why is it that sometimes we ignore some people and treat others with privilege?

You may be wondering, whoever does that anymore, everything in our society,

everything is built on merit and built on what you deserve.

But if that were true, then why is it that when applying for a job,

you could take the same resume and change the name on the top of the resume,

changing a name from someone who you might think looks one way

versus a name associated with someone looking differently,

and all of a sudden they get a lot more job interviews.

Or the times whenever we might think or see somebody as being wealthy,

we might automatically assume that they must be good and smart and right.

Instead of asking, are they just manipulative?

Or even more than that, are we willing to disagree with them if they were wrong?

What would we do in looking at if we have employees

and how often we're looking to see what can I get away with paying them

versus what should I be paying them?

Times whenever we make deals with people that we know might eliminate anybody else

having a chance to compete.

Times whenever we listen to the pretty people with the good smiles,

the ones that we think can pay for things in the first place,

look at every commercial or marketing employee that's out there,

or the times whenever we may be looking for easy money

at a time whenever we have a home and a car and food on the table,

and we have absolutely no interest in being concerned about the person

who is desperately just trying to find a way to exist.

There are so many times and so many ways in which we are in a world

where we treat people unequally,

but we keep looking for reasons to justify it

and keep finding reasons to allow ourselves to base off of appearance,

status, or trying to impress the people who are well to do.

We're not really that different from the people of James' time.

But maybe now a question to you is, are we even willing to admit it?

Because even now, I am sure how many of you are still, as you're hearing this,

still in the back of your mind.

No, no, I had a reason for why I needed this wealthy person to listen

and to be impressed because I needed them to donate money to my cause.

No, no, no, no, I really needed to make sure that I rewarded this person over here.

The other people weren't really doing enough to impress me.

Are we even willing to admit where our hearts and our minds are at?

But what's difficult is where this comes from.

You see, this gospel, sorry, this letter, this epistle, coming from James,

one of Jesus' disciples, became the epistle that Martin Luther hated.

He hated hearing from this particular epistle.

He hated listening from this letter.

It was this constant feeling of, how can you possibly question my faith?

The idea of faith without works is dead.

And time and time again, no, no, no, faith is free.

Faith is something without works.

You don't need to worry about your works because faith is something freely given.

Grace is something freely given.

We don't need to obsess about these things.

So then we become the same type and we say, how dare you question my faith

because of your social issues?

How dare you question what I believe just because of things happening in the world around me?

But you see, then we need to pause for a moment and maybe ask a different question.

Is to say, if we really believe that we are saved out of love,

if you really believe that you did not deserve God's love

and that he only saved you because he wanted to,

then why would you not want to love others the same way?

If we cannot get our minds around that,

then is it any wonder that we may struggle with that part of reaching out and doing for others?

Because sometimes we just sit there and we're like, why do anything at all?

I don't need to really be worrying about this stuff.

Why is it important to emphasize doing anything at all?

Faith is so simple, grace is ours, we're done.

Why even worry about all this other stuff that's here?

The thing is, is that it shouldn't have to be something to be explained, but we'll do so anyway.

See, the thing is, is that if you were to truly believe that God's grace is what saved you,

if you were to truly realize that you have nothing that God would ever be impressed with,

that in God's omnipotence, in God's omniscience,

in God's overall looking at the world, that you are genuinely so worthless in comparison,

and yet God would still do whatever it took, even letting his son die for you in order to help you,

then wouldn't you want to be so grateful that you would do the same thing for other people?

But you know what, maybe, maybe that's not enough.

Maybe though, what if we were to still look and realize just how much we still struggle?

And sometimes the way that we may feel like we're struggling or that we're in some level of poverty,

sometimes it might be kind of like on the surface, and we're like,

oh man, you know what, I couldn't upgrade my car like I wanted to because I've got to save up for vacation.

Oh man, what a struggle. I feel so poor today.

I might not be able to supersize my fries. I don't even know how I'm going to survive in this world.

And then we even end up seeing though, what about the times when we actually do struggle?

The times whenever you discover that you lost your job and weren't expecting it,

nobody wants to buy what it is that you're selling,

or that for whatever reason the rent went up really high

and you can't do anything to convince the landlord to change it,

or even that you found out that someone runs into your car

and for whatever reason the policy isn't covering it because they said you were somehow at fault,

even with the other person going the wrong way down the one-way street.

The thing is, is that what's so funny about Martin Luther not liking the epistle of James

is that Martin Luther was that rejected person time and time again.

He was the one that was mocked by other theologians as the short drunk monk

that essentially nobody needed to listen to.

He was the one who time and time again is laying in his room,

crying out, thinking that God is about to throw him into hell

and that Satan is not willing to let him go.

He knew what it was like to feel poor and downtrodden.

If anybody could or should have been the one to stand by James too,

wouldn't it have been him and shouldn't it be us as well?

But maybe we still need to get back to the gospel.

Okay.

But how are we to then give a testimony to the world that God's grace is freely given

if we're not even willing to give grace to people around us?

If God of the universe can take a moment to look at you

and to say, I love you, then how is it that we're going to get anybody to believe that

if God's people can't even act like that themselves?

How can we get anyone to hear the gospel if we can't even live it?

But maybe finally, why would we even want to do what the rest of the world does?

Think about it.

The whole world acts like this.

They give the people who are wealthy more to have.

They respond to people just because they're pretty.

They want to time and time again be able to let those who are oppressed be forgotten and ignored.

Even when maybe all you have to even do is just put in a good word for somebody.

And we can't even bother to do that sometimes.

Or even just to sit with them for a few minutes and say,

I know that you've lost everything.

Could I at least give you coffee for a few minutes and you could breathe

and maybe feel safe enough to go and find what you need?

Do we really want to be like the rest of this world?

Or don't we want to be a little bit different?

Don't we want to be unique?

Don't we want to be changed?

Do we really want to act like all the other so-called Christians in the world

that keep doing the same thing as everybody else?

See, that's the thing about our life is that our whole life is God's.

Our whole life is not just this one hour where maybe I can squeeze in 20 minutes,

maybe 21 if you're not noticing, and try to get into your head something worthwhile

and that maybe something will latch on and maybe you'll catch something.

And then later you're like, oh yeah, he said something about Robin Hood.

Yeah, that was great.

And that's the entire week, 24 hours a day that is meant to belong to God.

Because that's the thing about this is that believing means trusting God with our whole life

even when we need to change for it.

See, that's the thing about this.

Are we willing to change our minds and our hearts?

Because that's what it is that God wants from us.

I was in my first year of college and it was the last week and I was about to head back home.

And I may or may not have spent, bless you, some of my money that was supposed to go toward food on CDs.

I may or may not have spent some of that money on other things that were not to feed me.

And there I was, sitting after church on a Sunday at lunch with one dollar bill in my hand.

And I was like, I have no idea what I'm going to do this week.

And what my thought was is I could try to go and beg my parents to let me have some more money

even though I already had everything in the bank account and I had spent it all.

And every single day that week,

there were people who had extra meals, extra food, extra of so many things.

I ate the entire week, three meals a day.

And I got back to Sunday morning after church and I sat down like a Steppenwolf song.

And there I am with that one dollar that had lasted me the whole week.

And put it in the offering plate.

Because that's the thing, you guys.

We've been given everything.

And the fact that God wants to see our faith, are we willing to trust Him

to know that we do not need to pander to the people who have everything.

We can just trust God and say, God, I'm going to love every person you have in my life to the best that I can.

I must stop trying to pretend with everybody else.

Are we willing to let our faith have legs and walk us forward by faith?

Because our whole life is lived in poverty.

But it's been given everything by the God of the universe.

May we show that to one another every chance we get.

Thanks be to God.