June 13, 2021 Return- In Person Worship
6 So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
14 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Welcome Home! Welcome back to our spiritual home as a church family. Welcome back to the space that we feel God dwell and the place we gather as the body of Christ. It feels wonderful to be in the sanctuary together. To sing with Don playing the organ, to pray and actually be in person, and still have our friends with us on Zoom. Some of us are sitting in our old familiar pews, right back where we have sat for years, maybe decades. We have anticipated this homecoming for quite a while and I am sure it is a great comfort, a relief, to be able to worship together. I hope you get to wander into Thomas and see the improvements made to our space, that next week you will pick up your eggs and take some home to your neighbors like you have been doing for this past year. I hope we will revel in singing and hearing others sing around us, even if that brings a few missed notes. Such a sweet sound to lift our voices together in praise to the Lord.
Our passage speaks to being home or away. Something I might have overlooked on any other Sunday. But when I read, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please (the Lord) I knew it was the passage for today. It grounds us in our homecoming and challenges us to look at how we have faired in this year away. First let’s look at the context. Paul is speaking about the push and pull of being at home- at home in the body meaning at home in the world, at home in the ways of the those around us, at home in other people’s ideas of right and wrong. He is contrasting this with our confidence in being at home in the Lord. That our faith comes before our social standing or our other priorities. Paul is asking where do you feel at home? Are you more at home when you are out in the world, following the rules of society, getting ahead, creating a good life, taking care of yourself?
Or are you more focused on God’s call on your life and following Christ and that is where you feel at home.
I have recently returned to online dating. The question is asked, “Where do you feel most at home?” It really gets at where your comfort level is and your priorities are. But I am also tickled when people simply answer, “at home.” They don’t go any deeper into that question. They feel most at home, a home. Yet some wonderfully insightful answers are shared if they take that question to a deeper level. When they ask where does your heart sing, what values do your follow? Or what locations just feel right, like you are at home. Sort of like I hope you are feeling right now. Paul does all of this to remind us that how we live our lives has consequences.
We all will face a judgement seat-a place where our actions are judged. The Greek word for this is bema. William Barclay tells of how justice is rendered during that time.
Greek men were liable to serve as judges or as we would say on the jury. Each one is handed two identical discs, but one was hollow and that stood for condemnation, and one was solid and that stood for acquittal. On the judgement seat, the bema, stood two urns.
One bronze was called the decisive urn, and the judge dropped the disc which stood for his verdict. The other urn was wood, and there the judge would drop the disc he did not need. At the end, the jury dropped into the bronze urn either the acquittal disc or the condemnation disc. But to the onlooker no one could tell the difference. (Corinthians, p. 206). One day we shall await the verdict of God. As we return to our home it is a good time to take stock.
Paul shares two things that will help with this. First do we walk by faith, or do we walk by sight? Walking by sight often means we judge with eyes of the world, and not seeing our life through the eyes of God. Sara Claudia Tillman is a young blind woman who wrote on this passage. She suggests keeping moving even when we cannot see where we are going. Quoting Martin Luther King Jr who said, Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” We certainly did that this past year. We could not see how this pandemic was going to end but we continued to turn to God and our faith to get us through. She also suggested trusting God even when we could not see him working. Tillman writes, “I’ll admit, I was very disappointed at first when I did not receive physical healing. I knew God had the power to do it, so why was he doing nothing? It took me time to realize that he was working in my life, just not the way that I wanted or could see at the moment.
He was working on my heart, healing me spiritually.
He was making me more patient so that I could wait for a new purpose.
He was making me more confident, despite my disability, so that I could share what he had done in my life with others.” (araclaudia.com/home/what-it-means-to-walk-by-faith-not-by-sight)
So I ask you, have you kept moving, and are you trusting in God even when you can’t see God? When we walk by faith and not by sight, we are placing God’s plan for our life above our own and leaning into our faith with new conviction.
Secondly, we grow into a new creation. Paul is making the case for reconciliation and uses the immensely powerful and familiar promise of us becoming new creations.
Pastor Gibson Stroupe preached a sermon on this text sharing how he was raised in the south as a white male to illustrate this human point of view and becoming new creations. Raised Presbyterian in the 50s and 60s he was taught that “that white people were superior, that men should dominate women, that the Native American Indians living on the land were not human beings like them, and that slavery and segregation were ordained and established by God.” He continued, “I believed that the God I knew in Jesus Christ had established white supremacy.” I have to admit I was shocked when I read this, yet it helped to explain so much. Both about our world right now and this idea of the human point of view. The human point of view vs the way God sees us and how we can grow into being new creations.
Stroupe continues, “Paul announces here that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a radical, reductionary approach — the distinctions of the human point of view are no longer valid. Many white churches in the nation had to face this razor in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.” I would add many Christians are facing this in 2021. He asks, “Will white folk continue to worship race, or will we see black folk and others (and ourselves) as new creatures in Jesus Christ? Paul notes here that we often answer our longing for home with the idols of the world. White folk often answer our longing for home by turning to racism.” Let me say that again. White folk often answer our longing for home by turning to racism. Stroupe continues, “Paul reminds us in verse 17 that such an answer is not valid in Jesus Christ: “So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” He put it another way in his letter to the Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). (Sermons.com).
We have a home in God’s kingdom where we are new creations and where we can walk by faith and not by sight. That’s good news— good news that will often require us to re-examine our lives and our categories to discern where we are captured by the human point of view. Our hearts are restless. The African theologian, Saint Augustine, was right. Our only rest will be found in our true home: our creator and redeemer and sustainer, the God we know in Jesus Christ. To God be the glory! Amen.
