Living Dangerously (2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6)

(Preached at First Baptist Church, Columbus GA, on June 3, 2018)

Do you give much thought to what it means to live as a Christian in our present context? I do. It’s something we should always think about no matter what our circumstances are. And as we determine what it means to live as a Christian, we should always be doing something about it.

Questions we should ask ourselves include: how do I best follow Jesus? How do I best bear witness to the God that Jesus revealed to us? How do I in my unique life have Christ-like motives, think Christ-like thoughts, say Christ-like words, and carry out Christ-like actions? It is vital that as we develop answers, we act on what we realize. It is also vital that as we live our lives, we continually adjust and adapt in light of our continuing reflection and our experiences.

So do you give much thought to what it means to live as a Christian in our present context? We really should.

Here’s another question: do you give much thought to how you can be as safe as possible? I do.  I live in the woods outside of Yatesville—and we have a security system. But that’s not the kind of safety I’m talking about. What I mean is this: do we try to practice a kind of Christianity that keeps us safe and secure? One way we try to keep ourselves safe is to avoid doing anything that attracts attention. “If they don’t notice me, they won’t bother me, so I’ll be very, very still,” we think.

Here’s a variation on that: if I do good, I’ll be fine. After all, people get rewarded for doing good. And only bad behavior gets negative attention. And we tend to define “good” as “what’s expected.”

The only problem is that none of that is true.

We have an odd situation in the world in which doing good—or even advocating for doing good—produces pushback. It’s disheartening when the pushback comes from Christian folks. It has saddened me over the years to have many Christian people have a knee-jerk reaction against the mere suggestion that the church do something to address the many “isms” that afflict our society.

The truth is that doing good doesn’t always result in approval or reward from people, including religious folks. The further truth is that sometimes doing Jesus things in the Jesus way is dangerous, because Jesus’ way is the way of the cross.

Back during Holy Week, the church we attend when I’m not preaching somewhere else offered the Stations of the Cross. One station included some small crosses. We were invited to take a cross and give it to someone going through difficulty. The instructions also invited us to send a note “to the person receiving the cross.” I understood the positive nature of the exercise. If someone who was struggling or suffering received a cross and an encouraging note, they might realize or remember that Christ suffered for them and joins them in their suffering.

But I am haunted by the phrase “the person receiving the cross.” What does it mean to receive the cross? What does it mean to bear the cross of Christ in your life? That’s what Paul and his missionary partners experienced. They had received “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6), but they had received it in fragile, broken vessels. In fact, their experience of the glory of God through Jesus contributed to the brokenness of their lives. He said they were “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies” (v. 10). Experiencing the life of Jesus leads us to carry the death of Jesus so that other people can see his life in us.

Paul said to the Corinthians, “For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (vv. 11-12). Think about this, though: once the Corinthians experienced that life, they too would be called to take up the cross, and in faithfully doing so, they would make the life of Christ visible and available to others. And so it has continued down through the centuries until now, it has gotten to us. And now, “death is at work in us, but life in [them].”

So much of what it means to follow Jesus is to practice love that shows itself in compassion. When Jesus showed compassion to someone on the Sabbath day, it caused some religious authorities to start planning to kill him. Jesus’ good and compassionate efforts that went against the grain of accepted religious practice contributed to people wanting to get rid of him. It’s dangerous work. It’s risky business.

It’s not that Sabbath observance was or is a bad thing. It’s not; Jesus said it is a gift for our good. The problem was that it had developed into a rigid requirement with little or no room for flexibility when human circumstances called for it. Jesus valued love over rules and compassion over conformity.

One of our favorite television programs is “Father Brown Mysteries.” Father Brown is a priest in an English village who is also an amateur detective. His activities put him in constant contact with murders and other criminals. In episode after episode, he follows the traditional and accepted approach to their situation. He advises them, “God will forgive you if you truly repent. And then you need to turn yourself into the police.” But every once in a while, the particulars of a situation will cause him to take a different approach. He’s even been known to let someone get away if he thought that was the just and compassionate thing to do.

Sometimes, following Jesus means practicing radical compassion. It’s risky business. But is the way of Christ. It is the way of grace, love, and mercy. It is the way of the cross.

Don Marquis was a newspaper columnist who in the early part of the twentieth century invented a character named Archy the cockroach. Archy had the soul of a poet, and at night he would sneak into Marquis’s office to type his stories (which were in all lowercase letters because he couldn’t press two keys at once). One night, Archy had a conversation with a moth.

the lesson of the moth

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

Now, I’m not saying we should want to fry ourselves. But I am saying this: for a follower of Jesus, nothing is more beautiful than the grace and love of God that we see most fully in Jesus Christ. And I’m also saying that to live a beautiful life is to practice Jesus’ radical compassion. I’m also saying that to live his beautiful kind of life is risky and dangerous business.

But it’s worth it. It’s worth it for us. But when we look at it at Christians, what really matters is that it’s worth it because of what it means to the God we serve and to the people we touch with God’s grace and love.