Sermon: With All Your Strength

PL 19

With All Your Strength

February 26, 2006

Cynthia O'Brien

Song of Songs 8:6-8

^{SS 8:6} Place me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

for love is as strong as death,

its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like blazing fire,

like a mighty flame.

^{SS 8:7} Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot wash it away.

If one were to give

all the wealth of his house for love,

it would be utterly scorned.

Lamentations 3:22-33

^{LA 3:22} Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

^{LA 3:23} They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

^{LA 3:24} I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

^{LA 3:25} The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

^{LA 3:26} it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

^{LA 3:27} It is good for a man to bear the yoke

while he is young.

^{LA 3:28} Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him.

^{LA 3:29} Let him bury his face in the dust-- there may yet be hope.

^{LA 3:30} Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,

and let him be filled with disgrace.

^{LA 3:31} For men are not cast off by the Lord forever.

^{LA 3:32} Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,

so great is his unfailing love.

^{LA 3:33} For he does not willingly bring affliction

or grief to the children of men.

First, consider this quote by Dr. Teilhard de Chardin, a French archaeologist and Jesuit priest:

“Some day, after we have mastered
the wind, the waves, the tide and gravity
we shall harness for GOD the energies of love;
and then, for the second time
in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire.”

It is pure coincidence that during the 2006 Winter Olympics our family is learning to ice skate. Somebody asked me, “Did you get a little skating outfit?” and then we both doubled up in hysterics. A couple of weeks ago, I skated out to the center of the ice and was immediately accosted by a couple of kids asking if I was a new trainer. It must have been that I was tall and wearing Adidas workout pants because it sure wasn’t my skating.

Anyway, everyone is really friendly there. I was trying and trying to do a backward swizzle with not much success. A girl came up to me and said, “Can I help you with that?” I said “Sure,” so she demonstrated how to do it right, nicely showed me how I was doing it wrong, explained about the position of the feet and the part of the blades to use and where to put your weight and so forth. Sure enough, when I did what she said, I could do it. I said, “Thanks, what’s your name?” She said, “Danielle.” I said, “How old are you, Danielle?” She said, “Six.”

Michael and Rachel and Laurel are doing very well. I’m making progress, too. I’ve gone from petrified to just awkward. But one benefit of learning during the Olympics is that when I watch the Olympians on TV, I appreciate just how dangerous it is out there. Hard enough to skate on one blade without having to lift a hundred pound partner, good grief.

Olympic athletes weren’t born strong. They focus. They train. A commentator during the Olympic figure skating noted that some of the skaters will come back to Vancouver in 2010, and they will train every day until then. He said, “You have to really love being out on the rink several hours a day for four years.”

One of Michael’s students at Portland Lutheran High School is often at the rink. Brittany skates beautifully, and she is so strong she can do a double axle. I don’t have to skate like Sasha Cohen, I’d be happy to skate like Brittany. But she didn’t get that strength in 12 weeks – she’s been training several times a week for 12 years.

So we are training ourselves, strengthening our legs and our ankles, improving our balance. It’s not easy. All four of us complain of bruises and sore feet and the occasional bloody gash from a collision with another skater. But I keep telling Laurel, “Just tell your feet that they are not used to ice skating, and they’ll get used to it.”

Pushing yourself beyond what’s comfortable makes you stronger. Whether your muscles are sore from adding weight to the weight training machines, or you are out of breath from running five miles, there is a price to pay for getting stronger.

It’s like singing. If you want to sing, you need to practice. Singing is one of the greatest things a human being can do. It lifts the heart to worship God. But many of us have been conditioned to think we can’t sing. In the worst cases, you were told in early elementary school, “Oh, Johnny, you can’t carry a tune, so you just mouth the words.” Your music teacher didn’t take the time to teach you, so now you think you can’t sing. That’s simply not true. Anyone can learn to sing. We have free voice lessons every Wednesday night at 7:30, not so that Marilyn can have a nice choral group to entertain you. This is why we offer it: As musicians of every age come through the music programs, from the little ones to the grandmas, they get stronger in a unique human ability – to worship God through singing – and the congregation is then strengthened.

During the offertory you will hear the Youth Bell Ensemble play a piece that looks easy. It’s not. It’s extremely difficult. They have been practicing for months – I’ve heard it every Wednesday. It’s possible because of their training.

Love the Lord with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Getting stronger takes training and practice.

2. Survival

Now there’s training, and then there’s survival.

Sometimes you get stronger, not because you exercised intentionally, but because you were trying to survive the trials of your life.

EX You get a job that turns out to have more heavy lifting than you counted on. But, because you need the job, you learn how to lift the weight and gradually you get stronger – not because you wanted to, but because you have to.

I visited a young couple who had just had triplets – the father had two cradled in one arm and the third under his other arm. No doubt he developed some biceps in the first few years. He got stronger because he had to be strong to survive.

Michael was associate pastor at a highly conflicted church in San Diego for five years. I remember several times sitting up long past midnight waiting for the Session meeting to be over, when they were fighting the whole time. When Michael left that church, it took almost a year to get over it. People took pot shots at the pastors all the time and had fights over things like whether the youth group would get to keep the donut money. It was awful.

But they say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

While Michael was being unintentionally strengthened, he decided one year that this would be the year he learned about conflict. He attended the best church conflict management training in the nation and spent that year studying the best books on the subject.

Now, Michael can go into a highly charged situation, or a dysfunctional situation where all the anger is beneath the surface, and he can manage it. It was a combination of having to survive, which he did, and being intentional about training and practice.

So we get stronger either by personal will and discipline, or through surviving what life throws at us, and often by a combination of both.

Let’s talk about spiritual strength. Is it possible to become spiritually strong?

Well, there are exercises you can intentionally do in order to become strong in faith.

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote about an experience he had of prayer and fasting:

The longer I fasted, the more I sensed the presence of the Lord. The Holy Spirit refreshed my soul and spirit as never before. Biblical truths leaped at me from the pages of God’s Word. My faith soared as I cried out to God and rejoiced in his presence.

Through a spiritual discipline, in this case, fasting and prayer, Bill Bright found a spiritual strength.

This month, in the Carillon, the church newsletter, there are many ideas for spiritual exercises that you could say increase your spiritual strength. Prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, good works, these are just some of the exercises that strengthen your faith.

What can you do with that spiritual strength? You can bear your burdens, the hard things that life throws at you. You can have compassion on others and help them get through their hard times. You can resist temptation. You can stand up for what is right.

Which leads us to the fact that becoming spiritually strong is not an option. I suppose there are some people who are weak their whole lives, where everything is a crisis and they need you to bail them out and make it better. But you don’t want to live like that. The world is a dangerous place.

The hymns we are singing later describe our challenge:

Lo, the hosts of evil round us, scorn thy Christ, assail his ways.

This world with devils filled should threaten to undo us.

But the hymns also nicely make my next point, which is that we cannot possibly make ourselves strong enough to love God and live the Christian life. It would be arrogant to think that. You can do all the spiritual disciplines, all the good works, live a pure life, but without God it’s worthless.

Martin Luther: Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right Man on our side.

That’s why we need to pray, as in this hymn:

God of grace and God of glory, on thy people pour thy power.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour.

Fortunately, God does answer our cries for help. God loves us and gives us strength. Even when it seems like we’re doing all the spiritual work here, remember that ultimately our strength comes from God. God is our trainer and the one who gives us the strength.

With the strength of God, there’s nothing we can’t do. Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I wonder what I could do, if I were to really love God with all my strength, that is, put every ounce of energy singlemindedly into loving God, and received the strength from God, what could I accomplish?

Even a better question: What could our church accomplish? Our stationery says “Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church: Over 100 years of Christian love.” So, what if we take our 115 years and 200 or so people, and we pooled our energies, combined our strength and focused it on loving God with all our strength and loving our neighbor? We have a lot of individual ministries we are involved in. Many of you are spending a significant amount of time making a difference for others, and that needs to continue. But what if we all focused on the same thing, one thing, any thing? What might happen?

“Some day, after we have mastered
the wind, the waves, the tide and gravity
we shall harness for GOD the energies of love;
and then, for the second time
in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire.”

Sermon: With All Your Mind

The Power of Love:

Love the Lord Your God With All Your Mind

Cynthia O'Brien

February 19, 2006

Romans 11:33 – 12:2

^{RO 11:33} Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

^{RO 11:34} "Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?"

^{RO 11:35} "Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay him?"

^{RO 11:36} For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

^{RO 12:1} Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

2 Corinthians 5:11-15

^{2CO 5:11} Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. ¹² We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. ¹³ If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴ For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Philippians 3:10 - 4:1

¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

^{PHP 3:12} Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

^{PHP 3:15} All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. ¹⁶ Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

^{PHP 3:17} Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. ¹⁸ For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

^{PHP 4:1} Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

Ignorance is bliss. Or is it?

Californian ignorance about Oregon is kind of a sad thing. Back in the spring of 1996, I met an Oregon minister at a conference and he told me that churches in Oregon were looking for ministers. I was seriously uninterested at first because of my misconceptions about the Northwest. Look at the life I might have missed if I stayed in my Californian ignorance.

American ignorance. I think it’s sad that so many Americans know so little of the world we live in. After 9/11, I was concerned about the country singer who sang that he didn’t know the difference between Iraq and Iran. I would rather that he had taken the time to learn some things about the Middle East nations and maybe he could have enlightened us instead.

There’s the ignorance that comes from lack of education, so charmingly promoted by Sam Cooke in his song, “Don’t know much about history”

Don't know much about history

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about a science book

Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you

etc.

And then the part that would upset my husband:

Don't know much trigonometry

Don't know much about algebra

Don't know what a slide rule is for.

But I do know that one and one is two…

There’s Christian ignorance, in which we hold to a limited understanding of Christianity and block out the rest of the world. I had a friend back in the early 1980’s who put a bumper sticker on his car. It said, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

For him -- what HE was trying to say was: I have enough information, I am not interested in your point of view, so don’t expect me to listen to you.

It’s true that the Christian faith can be accepted simply, even by children. But we are also called to pursue God with our mind, and to apply our intellect to our faith.

Think back to creation. God created male and female in God’s image. The ability to think and reason is a gift of God, and is to be used. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our mind.

Let’s think of it this way: First, We love God with all our mind when we use our intellect to pursue God. Second, We love God with all our mind when we use our intellect to carry out the mission of Jesus in the world.

First, use our brain to pursue God.

Many people I know are actively pursuing God with their minds. Our former pastor, Slider, always said that he was “going hard after God.” But I know a lot of people who do not seem to be in a pursuit of God, or else they have gone to great lengths to hide it from the rest of us. They don’t pick up a Bible, they don’t read inspiring books, they don’t go to church, they avoid talking about religion at dinner. They certainly believe there is a God, but they don’t seem to be pursuing God.

That would be just the opposite of the Apostle Paul, who said,

I want to know Christ ... and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

...Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on ...

Paul was a zealously religious person, first in following the Law, then when he was confronted by the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he became zealous in his pursuit of Jesus Christ.

Presbyterians have historically loved God with our minds. We have been the first to support public education and start colleges. We are very literate – just look how many words we give you to read in the Sunday bulletin, and even that involves a great deal of restraint. We’d love to write more.

It’s important to your church leadership that you become educated in your faith. That’s why there are so many classes. There are theological classes like Gail and Bette’s Wednesday group. There are devotional approaches, like Ruth’s study with Beth Moore. You can even learn by watching videos and eating a dinner that someone else cooks, which is how the Alpha Course works. We offer these opportunities because it’s important for each of us to pursue Christ with our intellect.

Loving God with all my mind means using as much of my brain as I can. You know, it seems to me that, for a lot of people, there’s a gap in our sequence of learning. We are on a steep learning curve when we are young, but there’s a gap between the time we graduate from college or grad school, and when in retirement we start doing the crossword puzzle to try to stave off Alzheimer’s. All of a sudden, late in life, we realize that we need to be exercising our brains. But what about these middle years?

It’s not easy to stay sharp, but many people do. I had a wonderful discussion with about a dozen thoughtful people last Thursday about the book The Kite Runner. We opened our eyes to Afghani culture, came alongside a deeply flawed character and tried to understand what life is like for recent immigrants to the United States. We took up issues of friendship, betrayal and redemption.

There’s one strange thing about this book, and that’s who’s reading it. The author, Khaled Hosseini, has said in interviews that he is surprised that for a book which is a brutal memoir about men in Afghanistan, that his readership is largely women. All the people in my discussion were women. I asked them if men don’t read or if men just don’t get together to discuss books.

One woman said that in the years when her husband was working, he was too busy to read and too tired when he came home at night. Now, in retirement, he has discovered the reading that he had been missing those many years.

God gave you a brain to use.

We don’t just use our intelligence to pursue God, but we also use our minds for the common good.

As Christians, the more we understand our world, the more we can engage it and try to influence people for good.

One woman in the book group said that she had lived a very sheltered life. She wouldn’t normally read a book this far out of her comfort zone, but she felt it was important to know about other cultures and places, like Afghanistan.

I have seen Christians, like my “that settles it” friend, who try to insulate themselves from the culture as much as possible. They are very careful about where they go, who they make friends with, what they read, what movies they see, so that they are not polluted in any way. If that is what they need to do to keep the Christian faith, then that’s what they have to do.

But I have always admired those who engage the world head on, and follow Jesus’ call to be as “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

I had that experience several years ago one night after high school group. Colin McGeorge and Nathan and I were sitting around talking -- Colin was maybe a 10^th grader -- and we were talking about the school shootings at Columbine, and the documentary Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore. Colin’s parents, Steve and Barbara, had taken Colin and his older brother and sister downtown to see it, and Colin talked as intelligently as any adult about the issues. He had a depth of insight I wasn’t used to seeing in people his age.

Thinking back on that this week, I sent a message to Steve McGeorge where they now live in Washington, D.C., and reminded him of that conversation I had had with Colin. I told him that it had confirmed to me what I already knew about the McGeorge family, that they saw movies and read books that expanded their minds, that they listened to NPR and talked about issues at home. It seemed to me that this was a kind of parenting that I wanted to emulate, as opposed to trying to shield my children’s eyes from anything that might be objectionable.

Steve wrote back Friday and said,

Cynthia: I shared your message with Barb and it makes both our days! Hope all is well with our family at Smith- we miss you all.

Personally I 'm of the opinion that in today's information age its really impossible to shield anybody from anything disturbing, disgusting or objectionable. It is all out there and part of the world we live in. Censorship doesn't work.....You just have to deal with it, acknowledge it and be honest. If you have "trained your children in the way they should go" there is some measure of confidence they will understand the warped and sicko things in this world are just that, and unfortunately some can be fixed and others can't. There is evil in the world... ignoring it won't make it go away and taking a peek at it isn't always bad. Trying to ignore "the elephant in the living room" is unrealistic.

Steve McGeorge

Being aware of what is happening in our world is part of loving God with all our mind. Why? Because God loves the world. In fact, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...

I know many Christians, who are loving God with all their minds by using their superior intellect for good.

State Senator Rick Metsger represents Mt. Hood, Welches, Damascus and Boring in the Oregon Senate. (I don’t know if you knew that we had Senate parents in the church, but Rick belongs to Bob and Velma Hall.) Anyway, I read in this week’s paper that Rick was just named to co-chair a Senate Commission on Educational Excellence.

This will be a bipartisan, blue ribbon panel of parents, educators, business leaders, legislators and other school advocates. Their charge is to recommend potential solutions to improve the daily experience of Oregon students.

Remember what someone said about Tom Potter’s big education meeting the other day? Something about how we have all these smart people in the room, we should certainly be able to come up with solutions. I think Rick is one of those smart people.

I invited Rick for coffee a while back because I wanted to get to know him and learn more about what’s happening in our legislature, and to thank him for inviting me to Salem to pray at the Senate last year. We talked about taxes and policy, and bills that should go through but don’t, and bad legislation that somehow gets approved, and I learned a couple of things.

One is that he is smarter than the system allows him to act. That is to say, he has been doing this long enough to know the path to the solution, but the political system is so flawed that it prevents him from getting there. For example, there are big loopholes that excuse big corporations from paying their share of taxes. There was a bill that would close the loophole, and everybody should be able to agree that’s a good idea. But somehow, by the time it gets to the voters, it either includes an increase in the average person’s taxes, too, or it looks like it does, and the people vote it down.

Rick was considering a run for governor this year, not necessarily because he thought he could beat Ted Kulongoski, but because there were issues he wanted to see debated and this would be a way to bring those issues to the forefront. He was ready to sharpen his intellect for debate, not to mention have to raise a whole lot of money, because he cares.

As a Christian, Rick is loving the Lord with all his mind. He is using the brain God gave him on behalf of you and me, to make the state of Oregon a good place to live.

The least that I can do to support Rick and the other faithful Christians in politics is to be an informed voter. The 6:00 news is not going to give me what I need in order to do it. If the Christians in the State Senate and House – Democrats and Republicans, Christians on both sides of the aisle – can come to agreement or compromise well enough to bring something to my mail-in ballot, the least I can do is be informed and get that ballot turned in on time.

I try to stay on top of the issues. In my car oftentimes I pop out my Pink Martini CD so I can listen to news analysis on NPR. I ask my friends for their opinions. I have friends who are extreme conservatives and extreme liberals, those who read the Wall Street Journal and those who read The New Republic.

One year, at our house, Michael was subscribing to The Weekly Standard and I was subscribing to Mother Jones. We figured we would totally mess up our FBI file if anyone cared to snoop on our politics.

But it was all about being a good citizen, which comes back to being a faithful Christian right where I live, which comes back to loving God with all my mind.

Sermon: With All Your Soul

"Love... With All Your Soul"

Psalm 42, Mark 8
Rev. Cynthia O'Brien
February 12, 2006

Psalm 42

For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.

^{PS 42:1} As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

^{PS 42:2} My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

^{PS 42:3} My tears have been my food

day and night,

while men say to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

^{PS 42:4} These things I remember

as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go with the multitude,

leading the procession to the house of God,

with shouts of joy and thanksgiving

among the festive throng.

^{PS 42:5} Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and ⁶ my God.

My soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you

from the land of the Jordan,

the heights of Hermon--from Mount Mizar.

^{PS 42:7} Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.

^{PS 42:8} By day the LORD directs his love,

at night his song is with me--

a prayer to the God of my life.

^{PS 42:9} I say to God my Rock,

"Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?"

^{PS 42:10} My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

^{PS 42:11} Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

Mark 8:31-38

^{MK 8:31} He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

^{MK 8:33} But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

^{MK 8:34} Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶ What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? ³⁷ Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? ³⁸ If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Love the Lord your God with all your soul

We think of our heart as the place of feeling emotion and romantic love, and our good feelings for God. We see the mind as the place of our intellect, decision making, where we understand theological concepts and believe in God. But the soul is the place of our deepest need and our purest motivations, where God meets us on the deepest level, where God forms our character.

Listen to these words from the soul:

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

We are used to hearing these words in a pretty song, but they are actually very desperate. It’s the difference between wanting a drink of water and having been lost in the desert for days. We don’t often speak to God in this kind of language. What is happening here?

Continue to read and you will see.

Verse 3 My tears have been my food day and night,

Verse 6 My soul is downcast within me;

Verse 7 waves and breakers have swept over me.

Verse 9 I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"

Verse 10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?"

These are desperate words spoken by a person in desperate circumstances. This is a person who could sing that praise song “Breathe.” I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you.

No wonder his soul thirsts for God. No wonder he pants for God. God, where are you? Why have you forgotten me?

He is in trouble, but I wonder why? Did he do something against the law and now he is being punished? Did he lose everything in a natural disaster? Perhaps he stood for righteousness and is being persecuted.

I believe that this is the suffering of someone who has made a painfully righteous decision, one that is unpopular with the ungodly people. I believe that because in the next verse, in Psalm 43, he cries out to God for vindication.

Many of the Psalms spring from the soul and speak comfort to our souls. The words of Psalm 22 came to Jesus’ lips on the cross when he cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Many people are comforted by the words of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd… He restoreth my soul.”

When you love the Lord your God with all your soul, you will not experience constant happiness and contentment. The love from your soul is the place where your deepest need and your worst suffering finds rest in God. This is where the peace that passes understanding touches you. This is where the green pastures and still waters bring comfort.

I think most people want to avoid suffering. That’s why I keep painkillers in my purse, in my car and in my office. We want to avoid suffering, but we may ignore the soul in order to do it. Peter certainly was in that situation. When Jesus said that he would be killed, Peter took him aside and said, “Don’t talk like that.” This provoked Jesus to say “Get behind me, Satan!” Satan meaning “adversary, one who opposes.” Why would Jesus talk this way? Because Peter was trying to avoid suffering at any cost. He was thinking of the concerns of this world. Preserving Jesus’ life was most important to Peter, but that was not Jesus’ mission.

This prompted Jesus to say …

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶ What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? ³⁷ Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Here we are, talking about the soul again, but instead of a soul’s longing, this is about the difference between gaining the world and preserving one’s soul. Apparently, you cannot have both.

Has anyone seen the new movie Nanny McPhee?

In the movie, a widower cannot control his seven children, unlike the captain in the Sound of Music. They have chased off 17 nannies since their mother died. Nanny McPhee appears like Mary Poppins but not as pretty. With magic and wisdom she begins to bring them under control. But when the father is ready to remarry, the oldest son, Simon, approaches Nanny McPhee and begs her to let him chase off the bride to be.

“Please, Nanny McPhee,” he says, “will you let me do whatever it takes to get rid of her, and not interfere?”

She responds, “Are you willing to accept the consequences of your actions, whatever they might be?” She knows what Simon doesn’t: that scaring away the bride will mean the destruction of their family. But she says she will not interfere with Simon’s plans.

When Simon succeeds, and the bride is gone, then he finds out what a terrible mistake he has made. His success was fleeting – now the consequences will ruin him.

What good is it to gain the whole world, yet forfeit one’s soul?

This is what the book The Kite Runner is largely about. The Kite Runner, as you know, is Multnomah County’s choice for this year’s “Everybody Reads” program. The idea is that when everyone in town is reading the same book, we can talk about it at work, in coffee shops, at school and in church. Let me tell you the beginning of the story.

The book is told from the perspective of Amir, a 12 year old boy whose mother died giving birth to him. Amir lives with his father, Baba, who doesn’t like Amir very much. All that Amir wants is for Baba to love him.

It is time for the annual kite contest, when Amir and the other young people send up kites on glass strings and use their kites to cut other strings until only one kite is left in the sky. Amir enters the contest with his kite. Baba sets up his chair with the other spectators on the roof of the house. Amir wants nothing more in the world than to win. Not so he can win bragging rights, but so that he will win Baba’s love.

Amir does win the contest, but before he can get home to his father’s admiration, his best friend, Hassan, is assaulted, and instead of standing up for him, Amir runs away. He would rather pretend that nothing happened, so that he can preserve his moment of glory with his father.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting his father’s love, but Amir is so desperate for it that he makes a decision that not only ruins his best friend’s life, but ruins him as well. He has to keep the terrible secret, and live with the increasing pain of what he did. For the glory of winning the contest and receiving Baba’s temporary admiration, Amir has paid a terrible price.

That’s why the book begins with these words:

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking nito the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, page 1

What good is it to gain the whole world, if you forfeit your soul?

One mistake at age12 affected this man all the way into adulthood. His character could have been shaped differently – he could have become a righteous person, but he took the cowardly path in many small decisions, trying to win the world’s approval, until the moment when he sealed his fate as a tortured soul.

You know people who are living with compromised souls. They are so concerned with having what they think they need, with winning people’s acceptance, that they keep making decisions that take them further from God.

A TV commercial for a cellular phone service shows a top executive sitting at his desk in his high rise office. He shows his assistant his new phone and praises its features and its value. He says, “It’s my way of sticking it to the man.” The assistant says, “But you are the man.” The man says, “Yes I am.” “So you’re sticking it to yourself?” “Maybe.”

This is a dead end, and people who attain the world find an emptiness at the top.

This is not a new feeling. Lucius Septimus Severus died in the year 211. Before he died, he said: I have been everything and everything is nothing. A little urn will contain all that remains of one for whom the whole world was too little.” In David Lodge’s novel Therapy, the main character’s therapist asks him to make a list of all the good things about his life in one column and all the bad things in another. Under the good column he wrote: “professionally successful, well off, good health, stable marriage, kids successfully launched in adult life, nice house, great car, as many holidays as I want.” Under the bad column he wrote just one thing: “feel unhappy most of the time.”

There is a longing there, among those who are losing their souls. They may not know it is a longing for God. But there is a natural void in us that only God can fill.

How can you avoid compromising and even losing your soul? Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me.

In just two weeks, on Wednesday, March 1, we will have our Ash Wednesday service and begin the season of Lent. The colors in the church will change, the songs will be different and our focus will be to draw near to God and cultivate the soul.

In the book of 1 Peter, Peter shows he has learned a lot since the day Jesus rebuked him.

1 Peter 2: Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. ¹² Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Every decision you make, every action you do, shapes your character and your soul. That’s why the Bible recommends that we practice spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, fasting and studying the Scriptures. The season of Lent, 40 days before Easter, has been set apart since ancient times for us to get back on track, to deepen our connection with God.

Start thinking now about what it will take to preserve your soul. I recommend a daily discipline, something that will remind you of God every day. Perhaps you will pray every morning. Tape a note to your bathroom mirror or your car steering wheel. Maybe you’ll read the Bible every morning – Put the Bible on your breakfast table. You might give to the poor – Put a jar next to where you usually put your purse or wallet at night, and drop money into it every night after work.

And what will you have to give up to make room in your life for that discipline? Maybe you’ll turn off the television at 9 p.m. instead of watching until midnight. Or turn it off during the day when it is just filling the silence. Or turn it off altogether.

By practicing a spiritual discipline, you can put yourself in a position to draw closer to God. To fill the emptiness inside. To preserve your soul for eternity. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, have mercy on our souls as we struggle between the things of earth and the ways of heaven. Satisfy the longing of our souls, through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

HYMN: Take time to be holy

Sermon: With All Your Heart

Love... with all your heart
Rev. Cynthia O'Brien

Feb 5, 2006

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

^{DT 6:4} Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Mark 12:28-34

^{MK 12:28} One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

^{MK 12:29} "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: `Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. <sup>30</sup> Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' <sup>31</sup> The second is this: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

^{MK 12:32} "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. ³³ To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

^{MK 12:34} When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

A boy named Mike was raised in a religious family in San Francisco. As a child, he was not too interested in spiritual things. He was more interested in a pick-up game of touch football, and dreamed of someday wearing a Niner jersey.”

He came to an active faith at a Billy Graham crusade, and still, all he wanted to do was play football. He got a scholarship with the USC Trojans, but injuries sidelined him. He was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals but cut after 4 weeks. He was picked up by the New York Jets, but during the preseason they let him go.

A girl he had met at Bible camp came back into his life. Kathy strengthened his faith, and Proverbs 3:5-6 became the personal line of scrimmage at which I dug in. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

They were married. Then a job opened up in Utah. Mike says, “Some of our friends questioned our judgment in accepting it. But Kathy and I viewed my position as assistant coach at Brigham Young University as a unique opportunity. We wanted to be an evangelical witness to the players, coaches and students on this predominantly Mormon campus. God blessed our motives.”

As his family grew with four daughters, so did his career. He joined the staff of the San Francisco 49ers. He said, “Less than five miles from the Cow Palace where I had responded to Billy Graham's message, Candlestick Park became the stadium where I expressed my faith in God in the course of my job as offensive coordinator.”

When the media began to speculate that Mike would be offered the head coaching position of an NFL team, he prayed diligently.

He says, “When the offers came, it seemed obvious to us that the needs of our daughters must take precedence over my career. I opted to decline the contracts and stay with the Forty-niners. Sportswriters and colleagues scoffed at my reasoning. They said I'd never be approached again.”

But one year later he was ready for it and he was hired by the Green Bay Packers to carry the mantle of legendary head coach Vince Lombardi.

Now the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Mike Holmgren still trusts in the Lord. He is as passionate as ever for football, and for God. And when he thinks about winning, he remembers the salvation that Jesus Christ won for him on the cross.

Lest you begin to think that the Seahawks are God’s choice for today’s game, the Steelers coach goes to Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church and he makes it to the early service every Sunday that he is in Pittsburgh.

So have you heard the one about the football game where both teams were led by Christians and both teams prayed before the game? A fan seated next to a rabbi asked the rabbi what he thought would happen if both teams prayed with equal faith.

“In that event,” replied the rabbi, “I imagine the Lord would simply sit back and enjoy one fine game of football.”

--

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

It’s right in the middle of the Old Testament law, and in the middle of the wisdom of Jesus. It’s central to the Bible and central to our faith. Love the Lord your God with everything that is in you, and love your neighbor.

How do you love with all your heart?

In premarital counseling, it’s not unheard of to see a couple who are so completely infatuated that they believe they will be head over heels every hour of every day for EVER. You show them a graph of the growth of a marriage:

Romantic Infatuation. Dissolusionment. Mature Love.

and they say, “Oh, we’re definitely at Mature Love” when they haven’t begun to feel the stresses and strains of a normal long marriage.

How do you love with all your heart?

Over dinner, wife says to husband, “I thought about you all day,” and bats her eyelashes at him. At that point, he has a choice: Say he thought about her too, or tell the truth and confess he didn’t think about her at all. It’s not that he doesn’t love her, but he just didn’t think about her when he was paying attention to his work.

At Bible study, one woman clutches her Bible to her heart and says, “I just love the Scriptures, I read in the morning, I read at noon, and I read at night. I can’t get enough of God’s word.” Another woman who reveres the Scriptures all of a sudden panics and thinks, maybe I’m not spiritual enough, what am I doing wrong?

David Roche is a humorist and speaker who has a severely disfigured face from a birth defect. He has acquired such wisdom through his life that he now goes around the country speaking and encouraging people who are facing changes and challenges.

His signature piece is called “The Church of 80 Percent Sincerity.” He says,

"Look, 80 percent sincerity is about as good as it's going to get. So is 80 percent compassion. 80 percent love. So 20 percent of the time, you just get to be yourself."

Presbyterian writer Anne Lamott described him this way:

When David insists you are fine exactly the way you are, you find yourself almost believing him. When he talks about unconditional love, he gives you a new lease on life, because the way he explains it, you may for the first time believe that even you could taste of this; because, as he explains it, in the Church of 80 Percent Sincerity, everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but has a shelf life of about eight to 10 seconds. So instead of beating yourself up because you only feel it fleetingly, you savor those moments when it appears. "So we might say to our beloved, "Honey, I've been having these feelings of unconditional love for you for the last eight to 10 seconds." Or, "Darling? I'll love you til the very end of dinner."

[For Anne Lamott’s whole article and a picture of David Roche, go to

http://www.davidroche.com/lamott.htm

or http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/col/lamo/1999/05/27/sincerity/index.html?sid=67603

Those are encouraging words. There are times when we don’t feel love like we think we ought to. Not only for people, but also for God. It’s not something to feel horribly guilty about. It’s something to acknowledge. It’s OK to be where you are.

But I’ll be honest with you: you don’t want to stay there, because loving God with your whole heart is a commandment, the greatest commandment. So here’s how you move forward. The more you are hearing God’s word, the more you are listening to God in your prayers and not just talking, the more you soak up the Scriptures, the more you pay attention to God, the more you will know that you are loving the Lord your God with all your heart, as the Scripture commands you to do.

And when you act on godly principles, you will be enacting your love for God. What does the Lord require of you, said Micah, but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God? When you help those in need, you are loving God with all your heart. It felt really good to bring a bag of food for SnowCap today. It’s a tangible way of showing love for God and neighbor.

One other thought on loving with all your heart. As a parent of young children, I am often told by older parents, “Enjoy this time. It goes too fast.” None of us can truly appreciate that until the time has gone by, but I do try to heed that advice. And one of the reasons I do is that I am with people at the other end of life, when I officiate at a funeral, and we stand up there with our cup of coffee and a homemade cookie and we say, “I wish I had known him better,” and the widow and the adult children and grandchildren kick themselves for all the lost opportunities.

At the end of your life, what will you wish you had spent more time doing? When a loved one dies, what will you regret not having done or said? We don’t know what tomorrow holds. It can all change in a moment.

So God calls us to love with all our heart. It’s not easy – you may feel it only fleetingly. But inasmuch as it is in your power, love with everything that is in you. In doing so, there can be no regrets.

Let us pray.

Loving God, in our weakness, you have given us a great capacity to love and to receive love. Open our hearts and make us strong enough to love our family, to love our community, and to love you with everything that is in us. We pray in the name of Jesus, who taught us what love looks like. Amen.