Made to boast…
We are always asking, along with Billie Eilish and her Grammy-winning theme song for the 2023 Barbie Movie, “What am I made for?” It’s an uncomfortable place to be. We’re unsure about some things. Where we belong, what next, what are we made for? I wish I could say those questions go away, but they seem to find their way in even when we do know where you belong, for now, and are happy with what we’re doing and where you are, in this season. These questions surface at different life stages, during loss, in triggers, through world changes. Sean and I are settled in Dandelion; we have our plans; and yet… where? with whom? how? We are constantly juggling, readjusting, pivoting, carving out, and coping with the unexpected. I needed Jesus to slice through all the uncertainty and speak to my heart.
Billie and I aren’t the only ones ;) I was delighted to be asked to preach at a very cool retreat at our seminary, Trinity Anglican Seminary. The retreat, called “The Call” offered chapel, plenary talks, and one-on-one sessions with Spiritual Directors to help people discern their vocation… what that means and whether they were called to vocational ministry. In the next few posts, I will share my sermons. I was writing to myself as well as to all who are asking these questions. They apply across the board, from puberty to end-of-life. Here’s what Jesus said to me and for you…
As Billie Eilish’s breathy chorus reverberates with that deep question in all of us - what am I made for? - there is one thing of which you can be certain. In fact, if God gives the grace, Christians would all die for, and in this certainty we boast. It is the one thing you will boast about in whatever God calls you to, and it is your mission in vocational ministry. It is your solid rock. At the end of his letter to the church in Galatia, Paul crescendos his finale: “See what large letters I’m writing to you by my own hand!” I gave my secretary a day off so I could write this to you myself! I logged out of my Artificial Intelligence writing app so this would be genuine and real! (Actually, I believe preaching the Gospel is the one thing A.I. will never get!) He writes that there are folks boasting in themselves all over the place—and in the church too, can you imagine?! “But far be it from me,” Paul goes on, “to boast about anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).
You are on solid ground because our Lord Jesus Christ chose you before you were born and set you apart to be his own (Gal 1:15).
He knows your sin more than you do; he took it himself.
He knows your wounds more than you do; he heals them with his own.
Water Cross, by Kate Norris and leaders from the Anglican Diocese of New England
We first met him in our burdens, at the cross. He returns us here again and again. At the cross is where he frees us from the relentless boast of the world, our sin, and the devil: Prove yourself, put your critics to shame, make them sorry. That is slavery. It will never be enough. It makes you focus on the wrong things. There’s one person you and I and your critics and those boasters out there need. He’s your Savior who knows you in your weakness and his forgiveness and grace puts that old way to death and leads you in a new way that is life. Our boast, new birth, and burdens. Those are my three points. We’re almost done with the first ;)
We are made to boast. But not in ourselves. Not in the things we are gifted in or even called to do. Not in our schooling – whether it shows our privilege or how tough we had it, not in our family name or the name we made for ourselves. None of what you’ve done or can do adds to your value or worth or importance. You are worth it to the Lord, just as you are. You are worth it to him that he should descend from heaven and be born in a stall (that probably needed to be mucked out) and grow up to give his life to save you and I from all the stuff we boast about but really means we are miserable. He crucified our sin once and for all so you and I might be free and live with him forever. We bring nothing to the Lord’s table except our sin. At it, we receive every grace we need for this life and the one to come.
… a new creation!
A new creation.
“For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6:15).
Jesus gives us what none of us can do – a new creation. Paul’s letter to the Galatians paints a picture of two natures inside a Christian. Before you are a Christian, it’s all “self.” After you hear and believe Jesus’ promise is for you, you have a “new” self. It’s the one that will enjoy God with all his family for eternity in heaven. We will get a new body for that. That new creation was born right here. Old you—new you; old self—new self; the flesh and the new creation. Martin Luther called it “at the same time justified and a sinner.” In fact, Article 16, in our Anglican 39 Articles of Religion, talks about how Christians will still have sin after their baptism (and Christians are lying when they say they don’t sin anymore) and there is grace for it.
The old nature is what keeps Christians humble and relatable to the rest of the world. It hurts non-Christians and Christians alike. The old nature, or the flesh, as Paul calls it, loves hearing commands because it thinks it can do them without Jesus or anyone else—but especially not Jesus. Paul paints a vivid picture of the old self, the flesh. It reaps corruption, it thinks she is something when she is nothing, it compares herself to others versus testing her own work, and it always wants to save her own skin by pleasing other people. To the old self, forgiveness and grace is wasteful and a license to get away with anything. It never boasts in the cross of Christ. God sends us into the world to people who only have the old self in them. They have not yet met Jesus. They have not yet been forgiven for a big thing. They’re in denial with how bad good people can be, how mean nice people can be. You and I have a boast - we’ve been loved out of ourselves and into Jesus. Once and for all, and over and over again. They need that grace too.
The only thing that silences the old nature is the cross of Christ. It says, I know how bad you can be. Yet you are worth this to me. I have the love you need. I came to give it to you. I have a way of forgiveness, grace, and guidance that you cannot create. I promise myself to you. I awake the new creation in you with my promise. The new creation in us does not get her importance from her accomplishments because every moment is flooded by the grace of Jesus. The Spirit awakens our eyes to see all the people he has put in our life, all his perfect timing, all the Scriptures that were written just for you or me on this day. The Spirit awakens our ears to hear his promises to us. The old creation hears only the Law. The new creation hears only Christ’s promises and boasts in them. Look at what he did for me. We encourage our hearts by looking back and seeing how he provided, guided, redeemed in the past. If you don’t have a story of redemption, that just means that you are in the midst of it. He has given all of himself to you. He will again. He is in your burden and we are with you.
Now onto my third point: our burdens. Jesus will use all of you, all of your story, for all of us. That’s why the fruit of faith is to bear one another’s burdens. It doesn’t say bear one another’s successes (though often that’s harder to do… rrrrr, I’m so happy for you!). Bear one another’s burdens because that’s where we need to hear his grace and love and faithfulness. We need the boast of the cross in our burdens… that you also have been through a similar loss. You also have had patterns of sin and found a healing community. We “fulfill the law of Christ” when we do that. Paul opens his letter defining that “Law of Christ”: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Gal 1:2) and he closes the book with it: this is the boast of the cross. Paul gives us the words we need to give each other: this is what Jesus has done for you.
I will close with a story on myself ;) As I was preparing this sermon, a fellow clergy friend reached out to me saying that her friend, and church leader in the Pittsburgh area, want to get in touch with me. I said oh yes of course. And as I waited to hear what it was about—and I’m writing this sermon—I started to fantasize that the leader might want me to speak at her church. I started to think, wow, I’m finally getting recognized and asked to speak places. My little old nature had me picking out my outfit, planning my next interview on a television talk show… Well, that church leader texted me and asked if she could connect me with a friend in her church who needed recovery. She wondered if I would share my story of initial healing and ongoing healing from my eating disorder. An eating disorder that brought me to see that I needed the grace of Jesus Christ just as much as the next person. I needed his cross, his love, his grace in my pain. And I have it. That is the law of Christ—he knew my suffering long before I did. At the right time he showed it to me, when I was surrounded by his wise people who could give his grace and truth to me—in the same moment he showed me my sin I knew it was forgiven. He untangled me from all the codependency that the old-self loves where you get to be everyone else’s savior but are starving yourself. He continues to. Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Jesus put another nail in my old nature. I was reminded of the grace he showered on me. I was renewed with the boast of the cross. I was encouraged that that same God who saved me then is still with me in my problems now and yours too.
Mother’s Day art project - we had local kids and moms alike smash plates and remake them into a new creation to show this is what [Jesus’] Love does for us…
We share the grace of Jesus in our burdens. He has met us in our weakness; he will again. You are on solid ground and in good hands. Jesus brought us here to speak to us. You have a boast of Christ’s mercy that our burden needs to hear.
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