I apologize to our faithful blog followers for the lack of blog posts in the past month or so. I am still trying to figure out a work-life balance after some recent shifts in our lives, including my February 1, 2012 appointment through International Ministries of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC) to Malawi, Africa for a two-year term.
I am grateful to God and all of the people in our lives who have nurtured us through this nine year journey to reach this next chapter. I will say at this point that I am very pleased with how these first eight weeks have gone. I am not as pleased, however, with the untimely and uncharacteristic cold/flu virus that has been part of my life for the past three out of four weeks! I am finally on the mend and plan to dedicate some time in the coming weeks to getting back to writing blog posts, with specific attention to my position and the programs I am working with.
I am grateful to Mike for picking up my slack and for preparing his recent blog post “The Cookie Thief…stolen with gratitude from Rhonda Reist”. This is a follow up to his post. Again, I wish to thank our friend, Rhonda Reist who was used by the Holy Spirit to straighten me out! Please check out her blog and her amazing work at http://www.believedreamlove.com/2012/03/are-you-cookie-thief.html.
Below is the sermon I delivered on March 17 2012 at our weekly Amayi Mvano worship service. Anyone who knows me, knows that it takes me weeks to write a sermon as I am never sure that it is good enough, so I work and re-work it. However, this sermon, took me very little time to write and I did not even start it until a few nights before I was to deliver it. Even Mike said to me with concern, “Are you sure you’re going to have enough time to prepare this? I know how much time you like to prepare for a sermon to feel good about it.” For the first time in my life, I just gave my complete confidence over to the Spirit to work through me and it turned out to be the most honest and real sermon I have ever prepared. It just felt right. My hope and prayer is that this message will make a difference with even one of you. **Please note I made changes to “The Cookie Thief” story to make it fit the context.
March 17, 2012 Sermon for Mvano – John 8:1-11
Every Saturday morning, we read in unison the “Cholinga Chake Cha Mvano” or the Aim/Purpose of the Amayi Mvano. I am always moved/struck by its direction for us to be strong Christian women, not alone, but together and to work for God amongst other Christian women. As Amayi Mvano, we then have a long, detailed prescription of 8 ways we are to fulfill this purpose. We were reminded at the opening of the Mvano that we have a call to serve God, to other Amayi Mvano, to the church, to our families and to our communities by carrying out our responsibilities. This is not an easy task. I feel that in order for us to be able to follow our aim and responsibilities, we also need to be reminded of what Jesus taught us about being strong Christian woman and how can we carry it out. While it is important to have roles, responsibilities and rules, sometimes we can become so caught up in the rules themselves and whether we or others are successful in achieving them that we lose sight of simply loving God and also loving, forgiving and accepting one another.
I wish to highlight a few of our responsibilities as Amayi Mvano. Our first job/responsibility is to spread the word of God and to convert others to follow Jesus. Well to follow Jesus means forgiving and teaching others, not judging them. He tells us in John 13:34 “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”. I believe this is how we can best fulfill this. Other responsibilities focus on caring for those that are sick, bereaved and lost, caring for our families, husbands and children, attending church and Mvano services and praying. Our sixth job/responsibility is to avoid following harmful practices and anything that is in opposition to the word of God. While I agree we must be committed members of the Amayi Mvano and we need to care about this work, we need to remember to think of the people, not the rules and to not be judging one another by how many hospital visits a woman does, whether someone isn’t in a choir or whether we’ve taught Sunday School for the past five years and our friend hasn’t. We all sin and we are responsible to God and to one another to love, forgive and teach, not to judge and condemn.
In the Gospel reading from John this morning, it opens with the Pharisees and scribes bringing a woman before Jesus who they claim has committed adultery. Verses 1 to 5 read 1 “but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” If we were to examine this story now and to react as the Pharisees did, we may turn to following the rules literally. We would be saying “Wow, yes, she is a very sinful woman. Not only has she broken one of the commandments ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’, but secondly if we were to look at the purpose of the Mvano, she is not living as a Christian woman or working together with other women for God. Maybe it was even one of our husbands she committed adultery with! Thirdly, if we look at our Mvano responsibilities # f) tells us we must avoid following harmful cultural practices and everything that opposes the word of God. Well this woman is definitely a failure on all accounts isn’t she? She needs to be following the rules. Come on lady, what were you thinking! She should be stoned to death, shouldn’t she? That’s what the Law says? I’m sure Jesus will agree.
The reading continues in with the first half of 6 “6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.” Well, perhaps many of you know what this verse means, but when I’ve read it, I haven’t really understood it or how they plan on accusing him, so I did some research. They were purposely putting Jesus in a difficult spot. Since Jesus had a reputation for befriending and loving sinners, if he continued in this way and didn’t condemn her, he would keep his reputation, but would be breaking Moses’ law, however, if he did follow Moses’ law and condemn her to death, then he would be as unloving as the Pharisees who so self-righteously condemned her. What a tough choice! We read on in verses 6b to 11a “But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
So, what have we learned from Jesus? Well, first of all, he doesn’t condemn her as the Pharisees did. Then he challenges them that they can throw the first stone at her if they’ve never sinned themselves. He doesn’t tell the Pharisees and the scholars go ahead stone her to death…she deserves it. Instead, he holds up a mirror to them and to us…asking: have you not sinned yourself…are you not a sinner as well? As tough as it was for them and for us to admit it, the answer is yes. In spite of the fact she sinned, Jesus loves her, he forgives her and takes the opportunity to encourage her and teach her to do better. Jesus has and continues to do this for each and every one of us. Don’t our fellow Amayi Mvano deserve that same love, forgiveness and teaching? This is what our Aim/Purpose IS. We are to live our lives as strong Christian women together. If we spend our time focussing on condemning and shaking our fingers at one another, we’re not living out our own purpose and we certainly are not living as Jesus taught us.
I wish to share a story with you a friend shared with me this week from an anonymous author. It’s called “the Cookie Thief”. It really made me think about judgment, forgiveness and love. I’m also telling this story to confess that I sometimes behave like the Pharisees in the bible story did. I judge and condemn others instead of loving and accepting them.
A woman was waiting at the airport one night, with a few hours before her flight. She bought a book and a bag of cookies/biscuits and sat down on a bench. She was extremely interested in her book, but quickly noticed that the man sitting beside her had taken some cookies out of her bag! She decided to ignore it and not create a scene. She read, ate a few cookies, and watched the clock, while the “cookie thief” continued to eat her cookies. As time passed, she started to get really mad, thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I’d give him a black eye!” With each cookie she took, he took one too. When there was only one cookie left, with a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, he took it and broke it in half. He offered her half, and he ate the other half. She grabbed it from him and thought, “This man has some nerve, and is so rude. He didn’t even thank me!” She was more angry than she had ever remembered. She was relieved when it was time to board her flight. She picked up her stuff and walked away refusing to look at or say goodbye to the “cookie thief”. When she got in her seat on the plane, she got her book out of her bag and gasped with surprise! There in her bag was her full unopened bag of cookies! She was filled with despair and guilt. She realized that the bag of cookies in the airport was the man’s not hers and all along he had been sharing his with her! She realized with grief, that it was too late to apologize to him and that all along she was the rude one, the ungrateful one, the “Cookie thief”, not him.
I was in a bad mood on the day I read this story. I was looking around at others judging them for what I believed they were doing wrong. I did not take a look in the mirror and see that it was me that was being wrong. After reading this story, I felt pretty guilty and immediately contacted my friend to thank her for how appropriate the story and its timing were for me. It shamed me into changing how I examined others, looking honestly at myself and changing my reaction to others instead of condemning others for their apparent “sins” and inability to meet my standards. It doesn’t take much to get caught up in justifying our thoughts, feelings and behaviours about or against another person. We can use rules, examples and even other people to uphold them. We get focussed on revenge, on competition, but this isn’t what we are encouraged and challenged to do…we’re to be united, we’re to be turning away from anything that opposes the word of God. So how do we do this?
I really like the words from the author, Joan Chittister. She challenges us that we are often busy being “religious” instead of busy being “righteous”? We get good at doing things “religiously” such as making meals, going to work, and going to church, but what about doing things that are “righteous”? Being righteous is doing what is Godly, decent and good and what Jesus would do. It’s about accepting people for who and what they are even if they don’t follow what many see as religious. Again, maybe many of us religiously attend all of the Amayi Mvano meetings, check, are present at many funerals, check, and teach Sunday School, check check check, but if we are gossiping about and judging others then we are not living righteously, we are not following Jesus and not living out the word of God. Other people’s sin can consume us so much that we are just like the Pharisees who were so ready to uphold the law, but condemn the woman to be stoned to death.
She also really struck me when she continues how consumed we have become with other people’s sins, the “deterioration” of society, the lack of moral behaviour and the failure of others to follow the rules. We have reacted with fear and have fought back with demanding harsher prison sentences, excommunicating sinners from our families, our churches and our communities and shunning other people socially whenever we see fit. I know if I’m honest with myself I have thought and behaved this way sometimes and I need to pay attention to her words. Maybe a few of you do too. She says that it’s not other people’s sins, too light of sentences and other punishment that are causing the world to fall apart, it’s the lack of love and listening we show one another. Fear and condemnation haven’t solved the world’s problems and made it a happy, safe place to live, but maybe love, listening and forgiveness will. So she challenges us “if (we ourselves) are without sin, (we should) go ahead (with the heavy sentences, condemnation, excommunication and shunning). There are people aplenty out there, straggling trying, hurting, failing. Feel free: Hunt them down…Grind them under…Count them out…Throw them away…(Laugh) over their shame…Go ahead…Throw the first stone…Now that would really be a sin”.
Jesus asked, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” Let us do the same. Amen.