A Fourth Church Sermon by John A. Cairns

September 25, 2005 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Knowing God: Round One

John A. Cairns
Dean, Academy for Faith and Life,
Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 78:1–8
Philippians 2:1–13

The leading thinkers [once] hoped that life in a modern democratic order
would shift the focus of Christianity from a faith-based reality to reality-based faith.
American religion is moving in the opposite direction today,
back toward the ecstatic, literalist, and credulous spirit of the Great Awakenings.
Its most disturbing manifestations are not political, at least not yet. They are cultural.
The fascination with the “end times,” the belief in personal (and self-serving miracles),
the ignorance of basic science and history, the demonization of popular culture,
the censoring of textbooks, the separatist instincts of the home-schooling movement—
all these developments are far more worrying in the long term
than the loss of a few Congressional seats.

Mark Lilla

Come, Holy Spirit, move among us that we may hear God’s word—
and hearing might respond with boldness and faithfulness today and every day.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I heard it again the other day, that oft-repeated piece of advice and counsel, that promise doled out to those who are looking to discover a guiding philosophy for their lives. You’ve heard it too, I would venture. Probably heard it dozens of times, and probably found some real comfort and assurance in its solid direction. It’s the biblical injunction that is never preceded or followed by chapter and verse because, as a matter of fact, it is not to be found anywhere in the pages of scripture. What I heard, what you’ve heard, is “God helps those who help themselves.”

It’s a wonderful phrase because it sounds so authentic, sounds like it came right out of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. But it has no such pedigree. It cannot be attributed to Jesus—or to Moses or David or Isaiah or Peter or Paul. It is simply the result of an industrious culture finding a way to bless its own industriousness. It’s the sanctification of the Protestant work ethic.

I have nothing against hard work and diligence, but I do have a significant concern about our biblical ignorance and our relative comfort with not improving our state. What caught my attention recently was this line in the August issue of Harper’s Magazine: “While 85 percent of us Americans call ourselves Christian, 75 percent of us believe the Bible teaches ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ That is neither biblical nor Christian.” The writer of the article is Bill McKibben, and he titled his piece “The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong.” And we do! We often get Jesus wrong; get the Bible wrong, twist Christianity in an inappropriate direction.

You can perhaps begin to see where McKibben and I are going. If we are part of a Christian community that has incorporated into its basic operating philosophy a series of counterfeit concepts, are we more committed to the concepts than we are to the faith they misrepresent?

To say it another way, if a study of the Christian scriptures reveals no clear evidence that “God helps those who help themselves,” would that cause you to be a less enthusiastic Christian? Would it cause you to rethink your church membership? How many faith maxims could you shed before you’d begin to question whether or not you would regard yourself as a Christian any longer?

Let’s think about this. I am obviously concerned that we might have people in our midst who are shocked to find that upon entry they didn’t get the straight story; that they were somehow misled, that this Christian community is trying to pull a bait-and-switch move: blessing personal industry and accomplishment on one hand and then turning around and saying that is not what we are about on the other. When we depend too much on clichés, I worry about our authenticity and faithfulness.

By contrast, I worry about those who are not at all upset by the news that a popular maxim has now been branded a heresy. I worry because their casualness may reflect a lack of concern for what the church actually professes. I worry about people who have no interest in doctrine, in faith formulations, in biblical study, in creeds and confessions. Their church is only about friendship and feelings, not about study and substance. They’ll be here as long as the doors are open and the organ is playing; just don’t press them about what they believe.

Our scripture lesson for this morning is one of the core pieces of Paul’s writing. In this letter to the Philippians, he urges his readers to “be of the same mind” as Jesus. To Paul, that meant not trying to be like God, but in humility committing yourself to being open to God, to knowing God. Then, for emphasis, he puts it another way: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” knowing that God is always at work in you.

It is at once both a clear instruction and an overwhelming challenge. And given the pace and the demands of life these days, it becomes very easy to leave that challenge unaddressed because there is already too much on our plate. Working out our own salvation probably requires more than one Tuesday night a month, but that’s the only clear space on the calendar. How can we cram this work into an already full agenda? Isn’t there another way? Isn’t there a prepackaged, CliffsNotes, bumper sticker, instant, no-assembly-required phrase book and membership card kit that we can take home and put on the coffee table to show that we’re “in”? No, there is not.

So, let’s back up a step. What Paul was urging on the Philippians—what Jesus insisted on throughout his ministry—was knowing God. The God who is the center of our worship has a personality and an identity. Now to suggest that our faith journey is in fact a journey to discover this God is an easy conclusion for us to buy into. We want to know God; we want to know who God is and how God operates. We want to know God’s patterns and preferences, God’s expectations and enthusiasms. So gathering information about God—insights into God’s nature, ideas about God’s will—is something we can be positive about. But will we ever get around to it?

Our problem is that we are not only short on time; we are also short on skills, short on understanding and method. We want to know God but don’t know how to how to do it, how to sort out fact from fiction. We want to know God, but our eagerness can easily become naiveté. There is a lot to sort through. Almost as much as there is about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes! And some of what we hear about God is as trustworthy as what the tabloids at the checkout line have to tell us about Tom and Katie!

Sadly, we may have a more difficult time sorting unfounded gossip from certain truth in the area of faith than in the world of film stars. But as theologian Joe Jones reminds us, this is a critical activity: “At stake in all of this is who you understand God to be. Who is the God who is being talked about here? The common assumption that we all know who God is and that we just disagree about minor differences is one of the great obfuscations of contemporary discourse” (Vital Theology, June 2005, p. 4). Our answers to the God question matter. Again and again we are encouraged to praise or blame a god concocted out of wishes and bits of string, while a strong and faithful God stands ignored on the sideline. We need a plan—a plan for how we will get to know God, a plan that will guide us through the fear and trembling associated with gaining the mind of Jesus, with working out our own salvation. And this is where my final sermon from this pulpit moves in a direction you may have anticipated. Knowledge of God does not come by osmosis. It is not related to the amount of time you’ve spent sitting in a pew. It has to be sought with diligence and assimilated with care. At the heart of such a process is a commitment to study and learning in a context that is disciplined and trustworthy, that is faithful to both the word and the one to whom that word points.

In his Harper’s article, Bill McKibben points to the fact that America’s brand of Christianity has not produced many evidences of the kind of gospel-driven life we have supposedly embraced. “Americans have hijacked the teachings of Jesus,” he says. Those teachings “call for nothing less than a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love.” That’s not what McKibben is seeing. Instead, he observes, our consumer-oriented religiosity “undercuts Jesus, muffles his words, deadens his call, and in the end silences him.” We need to find a way to hear that voice.

It’s time for us to make a commitment to get serious about this faith we so easily claim and so blithely ignore. If we are to be Christian, let’s understand the Christ whose name we carry. Let’s examine his life as the best means we have to get a fix on who God is and what God wills. Let’s become familiar with what the Bible actually says so we are not so easily confused or led astray by anything that seems to have a biblical ring to it or by pronouncements shouted at us from the TV screen by a man in a white suit.

Some of you have shied away from Bible study because you’re afraid it will turn you into an obnoxious fundamentalist. Well, I’ve spent my life doing Bible study, and while I am obnoxious, I’ve not become a fundamentalist!

What Paul was trying to convey to the Philippians—and what his words still convey to you and me—is that our Christian faith cannot be regarded as a casual dimension of our lives as if it were inherited or carried in a backpack or noted on a business card. It needs to be real, to grab hold of us. Something to touch a nerve, excite our passion, awaken us to a whole new way to live. It is about reordering our life. No wonder Paul suggests we do it with fear and trembling.

Friends, every week we gather here on Sunday, on the first day of the week, to remind ourselves that Jesus rose on the first day of the week. We are here today as Easter people, resurrected people who have a new life in and through Christ Jesus. Do you believe that? Do you believe it more than you believe “God helps those who help themselves”? Our Sunday worship, indeed our whole Christian faith, is about “new life,” not about getting ahead. And this new life is what Bill McKibben says is built on a radical reordering of relationships based on the principle of love. It is scary business to risk your life, your whole way of living, on a matter of faith, on the proposition that “knowing God is more important than hard work; that relying on God’s faithfulness is the way we find our true identity.” We better get this straight! This is far-reaching stuff. You don’t want to head down that road blindfolded.

So, here is the plan: Dig into this Jesus. Get to know God. Grab hold of the truths the Bible sets before you. Study. Take a class! Check out the Academy catalogue. Make a beginning. Don’t expect that you can put down roots just by walking through the field. Work on understanding and apprehending your salvation. Make study as much a part of your life of faith as worship and service. And if this seems like fearful territory, remember you are—and always have been—surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have walked this road before you. And remember in the midst of your fear and trembling, God helps most those who cannot help themselves. Thanks be to God. Amen.