Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

8:30 & 11:00 traditional services – 6-2-02

by Gregory S. Kaurin, associate pastor

 

texts: Romans 1:16-17, 3:22-28; (also: Psalms 31:1)

 

 

Sermon:

The Color of Water

 

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Our second lesson this morning began with these words from St. Paul to the churches in Rome: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”  Let’s look at that passage, starting with the first phrase: “I am not ashamed.”  My question for you is if you feel comfortable or strong enough to say those same four words: “I am not ashamed.”

I have certainly prayed for and struggled to keep and model and live in that kind of life—one so that I could comfortably, honorably and authentically stand up here and say to you that I am not ashamed.  How can I say this?  Tell me, how can I say that I am not ashamed when there is so much of which I could be ashamed?  My life, family, friends, schooling, civic responsibilities, church, faith—I have blown it many times in all these things. 

One of our members here at Messiah turned me on to John Ortberg’s book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.  He opens the first chapter in a way that sounds devastating, but it grabbed me. 

 

I am disappointed with myself…with aspects of who I have become.  I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be.

Some of this disappointment is trivial.  I wouldn’t have minded a more muscular physique.  I can’t do basic home repairs.  So far I haven’t shown much financial wizardry.  [I was reading this to my wife and she interrupted and asked me, “Are you sure you didn’t write this book?”]

[Ortberg goes on,] Some of this disappointment is neurotic.  Sometimes I am too concerned about what others think of me, even people I don’t know.

Some of this disappointment…is…self-absorption.  I attend a high school reunion and can’t choke back the desire to stand out by looking more attractive or having achieved more impressive accomplishments…I am disappointed by my ordinariness.  I want to be, in the words of Garrison Keillor, named “Sun-God, King of America, Idol of Millions, Bringer of Fire, The Great Haji, Thun-Dar the Boy Giant.”

But some of this disappointment in myself runs deeper.  When I look in on my children as they sleep…I think of the kind of father I want to be.  I want to create moments of magic, I want them to remember laughing until tears the tears flow, I want to read to them and make the books come alive…I want to have slow sweet talks with them as they’re getting ready to close their eyes, I want to sing them awake…chase fireflies with them…teach them tennis…hold them and pray for them.

I look in on them…and I remember how the day really went: I remember how they were trapped in a fight over checkers and I walked out of the room because I didn’t want to spend the energy needed to teach them how to resolve conflict.  I remember how my daughter spilled cherry punch at dinner and I yelled at her about being careful as if she’d revealed some deep character flaw; I yelled at her even though I spill things all the time and no one yells at me. …I remember how at night I didn’t have slow, sweet talks, but merely rushed the children to bed so I could have more time to myself.  I’m disappointed.[1]

 

Ortberg goes on from there to talk about his embarrassment before God, that he shows his love for God so little and sins so much.

I can really relate to what he’s saying.  I’ve got this bag of guilt, mixed with all my huge desires for self-importance.  I remember things that I’ve said, and didn’t say, to people all the way back through grade school.  I remember all the things I did that made me look and sound stupid and foolish, or uncaring, or insipid. 

There are so many things I wish I could take back or change.  In spite of all the words of forgiveness and love and grace and acceptance that I’ve heard, all this stuff still rises up out of the murk to haunt and hang about me.

I am not the person, I am often not the husband, I am often not the pastor that I want to be.  That cursed slogan strikes my ear, “WWJD,” “What would Jesus do?  What would Jesus do?”  It’s like a huge gavel that falls against my heart, condemning me, a vicious voice that tells me how insufficient, weak and ineffective I am compared to Jesus.  Next to Jesus—the Word in the Flesh, the Perfect Son—next to Jesus, my perfect brother, what kind of son am I?  How can I possibly measure up? 

 

But this whispering shame, this vicious voice in my head, is not God telling me what a failure I am.  It’s not God telling me that I don’t measure up.  If you want to give it a name, that vicious voice is the whispering destructive voice of Satan.  He is my intimate internal enemy, telling me not to trust God’s love, not to trust his forgiveness, not to trust my worth and value in God’s hands.  That wicked voice keeps turning me away from all God’s blessings in order to embrace my curse: the curse of self-focus and shame.

 

But this is what happens when we stop in the middle of Paul’s sentence.  Look again, Paul said, “I am not ashamed …of …the …gospel.”  And he defines the gospel news as the power of God for salvation—the desire and ability of God to save everyone who believes.  You can say it this way, “Because of God’s gospel—because of God’s ability and desire to save me—I am not ashamed.”

Nothing describes that old idea that I am always a saint and a sinner at the same time better than today’s lesson from Romans.  When I look at myself, when I focus on me, me, me—then I am ashamed, maybe I should be.  Here, I see flaws, failures and sins.  And if I don’t see this, then I see self-congratulations, pride and arrogance.  I am a sinner…all the time.

But when I focus on God—when I focus on his desire to forgive me, how he willingly clothes me with Christ’s goodness, how he gives me a new life, to redeem and save me—now I am not ashamed.  God places me alongside Jesus, my perfect brother, but he doesn’t measure me against him.  Instead, God measures me alongside of him.  God declares me a saint, a forgiven sinner, a saint.  In that moment God has freed me to live the life he’s always planned for me, even if it means making mistakes and spilling my cherry punch. 

As a man, as a husband, a pastor, neighbor and friend, I can say that I am not ashamed.  Why?  Because I know my Jesus.  And because of Jesus I know my God.  What would Jesus do?  I’ll tell you what he does.  He spreads his arms out wide.  He lets our sins nail them open like that.  He forgives.  He dies in our place.  He rises, and gives us his life.  I know my Jesus, and I am not ashamed. 

 

That is the new life described by our Baptism.  It means we can be very brave Christians.  We can live our faith with a kind of bravery that is not arrogance.  It’s not self-assurance, but God’s assurance.

James McBride wrote a book titled, The Color of Water; A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother.  In the middle of the book he describes his mother’s courage, which gave her strength to raise twelve very successful children in the middle of Harlem.  What was her secret?

As the twelve children were going away to college, she wouldn’t hear of them attending a college nearby.  McBride wrote, “ ‘Go away,’ she told us, ‘and learn to live on your own,’ as she wiped the tears from her eyes.”

And then there was her deep faith: 

 

Ma was utterly confused about all.  [With twelve children you can certainly understand her confusion.]  Ma was confused about all but one thing: Jesus.  Jesus gave Mommy hope each and every Sunday.  No matter how tired, depressed or broke, she got up, dressed in her best, headed for church.  Jesus pressed her forward.  She taught us that God was not black, God was not white, but God was a Spirit and a Spirit is the color of water.[2]

 

God, the Holy Spirit, is the “color of water.”  I find that to be an incredible image and realization.  Water, you might say, has no color of it’s own.  But you might also say that water takes on the color of whatever it’s in or on.  In Baptism, we use water; we splash it on and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  We say that in Baptism “God clothes you with Jesus’ righteousness,” and that we are “washed clean in Christ’s blood.” 

We are clothed in the color of water, and the color of Spirit, and now we can see ourselves in an entirely renewed way.  Water and Spirit take on the appearance of whatever or whomever they are on.  Now, when I look in the mirror, I can say, “I am not ashamed,” because I can see myself through the waters of my Baptism and through the loving and powerful eyes of God’s Holy Spirit.

 

This morning a number of our young men and women will be affirming their Baptisms.  —To understand what it means to “affirm your baptism,” take it literally.  “Affirming” means that you agree with and you accept what God has done for you.  You accept the way that it was done.  And you are saying that you want to live out this new life that God has always wanted for you. 

“Affirming” means that you are not ashamed.  You are not ashamed of your God.  You are not ashamed of your religion.  You are not ashamed of your relationship with Jesus Christ.  You are not ashamed.

 

You are Christian and you are not ashamed because of the gospel.

 

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