Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 24
November 19, 2006
(Pledge Sunday)
W. Gregory Pope
PROVOKING ONE ANOTHER TO LOVE
Hebrews 10:15-25
[CHBC Choir sang "He Never Failed Me Yet"]
It is because of God’s never-failing love and mercy that we, even in the midst of our doubts, can hold on to the faith we want to confess and risk ourselves for God’s purposes in the world. For the God who has promised to carry us and sustain us is faithful. Thank you choir for that reminder.
In preparation for the sermon today, I turned to the lectionary texts and read the passage from Hebrews. I was instantly drawn to a phrase I don’t believe I have ever noticed before. I am quite familiar with the phrase that follows it: “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together,” as King James put it. It’s the text we preachers use to get you to come and listen to us. But the preceding phrase was new to my awareness. It reads: “ let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” So that’s what I want us to do this morning: consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
I think what is so striking about this phrase is the joining of the word “provoke” with the aim of love. We are perhaps most familiar with the biblical admonition to parents not to provoke their children to anger. But here, the call is to provoke one another to love.
Many of us have the gift of provoking, especially within our own families. And it is usually not a provoking to love. We know those within our family well. We know what gets their goat. And we exercise our gift of provoking to anger, frustration, and irritation.
Christians within and among churches can be the same way with each other. Robert Benson tells how his three best friends from childhood were inseparable by the time they reached high school. They never fought over anything, he said, except religion. One was a Southern Baptist, one was a United Methodist, one was Christ of Christ (the un-united branch), and one was a Nazarene. Benson writes:
"Any discussion among the four of us about the perceived bedrock elements of the faith could be counted on to set off an argument as to the state of the particular souls in question. Whenever two or three of us were gathered, someone got painted into a theological corner. We knew we were Christians by how mad we could make each other." (Robert Benson, The Body Broken, Doubleday, 2003, 22-25)
This morning I want us to take a look at this text in Hebrews and consider not how mad we can make each other, but how we might go about provoking one another to love. It is an especially fitting aim, I think, on this day when we make the promise of our offerings of love to God through the church budget and our renovation project.
This text begins with a word about covenant, quoting from the prophet Jeremiah, through whom God says, “I will make a covenant with them. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
Jeremiah can see a new covenant on the way. Covenant, as you may know, was the agreement laid out in the Law of Moses as to how God and God’s people would relate to each other. It is quite detailed. Everything with a purpose. Every area of life marked by God’s intention. Much was required. It was a way of distinguishing ancient Israel from the world around them.
Through Jeremiah God is seeking to get Israel and us to understand what God is really after in our relationship with God and our lives in the world. God wants God’s law written on our hearts and minds. Before it is something that we do, our covenant with God goes deep into the heart of who we are.
And the first word of that new covenant is forgiveness. The first ink marks of the new covenant written on are hearts are those of grace.
God says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
One of the purposes of the writer of Hebrews is to inform the first readers who were Jewish that there is no longer any need for sacrificial sin offerings. Through his life and teachings, death and resurrection, Christ has opened for us a new and living way. Christ is our great priest who continually blesses us and bestows upon us God’s forgiveness.
This is a most crucial word to all of us. Because before we can embrace a community of faith, living in love together, we must first be grasped by God’s grace. Until we know ourselves to be the forgiven and beloved children of God, it is almost impossible to love and forgive those with whom we are in relationship.
However, to realize there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, to know that our most stupid and cruel and sinful actions are remembered by God no more, having the word of grace written upon our hearts softens our hearts to love and forgive each other.
When we act in judgmental self-righteousness, it is a sure sign that we have forgotten our own sin and God’s forgiveness of our sin. Washed clean and pure in the waters of God’s grace, we are then free and eager to love and forgive each other.
In reading this letter to the Hebrews one is struck by the urgency within it. It seems that people were growing apathetic, neglectful, leaving the church, drifting away from the faith. Philosophers and theologians call it “sloth,” a lack of caring. It has found its way into the family of the seven deadly sins.
So we find an urgency in these words to hold on to the faith we confess, to provoke, irritate, pester one another to love and good deeds, to acts of compassion and generosity, and never neglect to meet together, encouraging one another until the Day of Christ’s return.
Let us not, says the writer, neglect to meet together. For without the encouragement and provocation of the faith community, it becomes too easy to live for ourselves and give up on the hard work of loving one another. We must gather often and encourage one another to keep the faith, to live in extravagant love toward one another and in the world.
I hope we would all be provoked to good and generous giving by the story Bob Hieb shared with us at last Sunday’s luncheon.
A few days ago the son of a family friend came out to Bob and Roxanne’s farm to hunt. He saw Bob working and asked what he was doing. Bob told him he was preparing something for the Fellowship Hall renovation of our church. The next day, this young man, with no ties whatsoever to our church, who is actually a member at Southeast Christian, knocked on Bob’s door and said that he and his wife wanted to contribute to our renovation project. He gave Bob a check for five thousand dollars.
Such a generous gift from someone who is not even a member of our congregation should provoke and irritate and pester us to love and generous deeds as we consider our financial commitments in this place.
A couple of weeks ago I was seeking to provoke Barbara Knight to love and good deeds. One good deed in particular - I wanted her ticket to see the Louisville-West Virginia football game. It was actually a gesture of love on my part because it was going to be so cold that night, and as her pastor I was concerned for her health. It wasn’t working.
Then the night before the game, we were here at the church on Wednesday evening, right in the middle of a budget discussion, and Barbara’s phone rang. She answered it. It was God telling her to give me her ticket to the game. She did not listen. I’m going to have to do more provoking, I think. (Barbara was actually very gracious to me when I arrived in Louisville, giving me a Louisville sweatshirt and polo shirt. I’m just greedy.)
Last Sunday evening my wife and I were the beneficiaries of generosity from two other church members who provided us with fourth row tickets to see James Taylor at the Palace. It was marvelous. God will bless them for it. Though JT did not sing it at this concert, one of my favorite songs he sings is entitled “Shed a Little Light.” It has the markings of a spiritual. The lyrics provoke us to love and good deeds. They call us to . . .
. . . recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women
Living on the earth
Ties of hope and love
Of sister and brotherhood
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become
A place in which our children
Can grow free and strong
We are bound together
By the task that stands before us
And the road that lies ahead
We are bound and we are bound
...................James Taylor, "Shed a Little Light" in New Moon Shine, 1991.
.................................................(99cents at iTunes)
.................................................(free audio at 1998 NPR site honoring Martin Luther King)
It is true of the world. It is even more true of the church. There are ties between us, sisters and brothers in Christ, ties of faith, hope and love that bind us together. We are bound together by the desire to see the world and the church become a place where our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us - to be Christ to each other, and to be the Body of Christ in the world, to take what we’ve been given and through this place share it with the world, beginning here in Crescent Hill. We are bound together by the road that lies ahead - a road we cannot see, but the road Christ calls us to walk together with him.
With all that we are called to do, we can make church life quite complicated. But the heart of our calling is simple - to love God and love one another. May we give ourselves and our possessions to live that calling in this place. May we open our chests and let God write a new covenant in our hearts, a covenant of forgiveness, love, and community. And may God’s imprint open our hearts in gladness and generosity. Amen.
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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