April 14, 2002
Numbers 14: 26-35
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I Corinthians 10: 1-13
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“A Way of Escape”

Just when I have had it with Paul and his shifting values, I find some gem of truth that grasps me and seems to ask what about this?  Such is the passage of today.

Paul is speaking to the Christians in Corinth, who are a divided and tough lot.   This Corinthian Church, which Paul founded, was constantly squabbling and arguing.  They were, seemingly, always testing the limits of the faith and seeing how far they could go and still receive the blessing of God.

Corinth was a crucial seaport city in ancient Greece.  A narrow isthmus, just 4 miles wide, joined the Southernmost part of the country to the mainland.  That was the site of Corinth. As such, it attracted a huge amount of shipping traffic, as well as hordes of sailors, merchants and thrill-seekers, coming to participate in the rowdiness of a seaport town. Corinth was a vibrant city, filled with temptations.

Because of its cosmopolitan nature and its makeup of people from all over the Mediterranean area, many Gods were worshipped or revered in Corinth.  One of the common practices was: when a party, such as a wedding reception, was held, it was common to cut some of meat off the roast being served to the diners, and present it to the deity or idol where the event was taking place.

Paul asks the question, “Is it proper for a Christian to eat meat which has been offered to Idols?  The inference here is: if you eat of that meat, are you compromising your faith, because you are not standing up as a Christian?

I understand everything very well to this point, but now, this passage confuses me.  The Corinthian Church is made up primarily of Gentiles, yet Paul addresses the Corinthians as if they knew the stories of old and were heirs of the Old Testament Israelites. 

Either this congregation contained some former Jews, or Paul has taught them that, as Christians, they are the spiritual heirs of the ancient Israelites.  Paul says, “I don’t want you to forget your history.  Remember, your spiritual parents were about to enter the Promised land, but because they disobeyed and made idols, and the men were immoral –– succumbing to the enticement of the women of Moab –– they had to wander around for forty years until the doers of the deeds were all dead.

Even though these people knew that God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, fed them, provided water for them and had united them to Moses –– by providing the sea crossing and the comfort of a cloud during the day –– they still disobeyed God.

Therefore, says Paul, “Don’t think for a moment, because you have been baptized into Christ, that you will not be tempted.”  He said this because there were some who said, “We have been baptized into Christ; therefore, we are part of the Kingdom, and we can do whatever we want.  It doesn’t matter whether or not we eat meat dedicated to idols, because God has accepted us.

Paul turns their attention right back to the Old Testament stories and says, “The stories were written as a warning to you about the age to come.”  In essence, he is saying, “You are going to be tempted.  But no temptation coming to you is any different than that which comes to all.”

Then Paul adds these words: “God is faithful and will not tempt you beyond your strength, but with the temptation, will also provide a way of escape, so that you will be able to endure the temptation.

I know how Paul may have felt. I grew up in a town of 300 people.  One day, when I was in high school, a friend of mine, who was no longer in school, invited me to come to stay for the weekend in his apartment in Vancouver.  Wow!  I saw things that I never even heard of, in my little home town.  Talk about temptation!

I don‘t think, in my case, that I escaped because of my knowledge of God; I think it was sheer, naïve fear on one hand, and the knowledge of how disappointed my parents would have been if they ever learned I had succumbed.

As great and relevant a subject as temptation in general might be, I want, today, to talk about temptations which occur right within the life of Churches.  I want us to focus on the temptation we have to erect idols in our Churches.  Yes, you heard correctly, idols that we erect in our Churches –– maybe, even, this Church.

An Idol is a thing or an idea which causes our focus to be misplaced, and one example is the temptation, in Churches and by Christians, to understand God.  We all want to worship God, but some want to understand God.  That is a prescription for anxiety.  You can’t understand God!  God is beyond human understanding because God is greater.  I believe that God is Ultimate Reality: the very ground of all being.

I think that I experience the reality of God in many walks of life.  I can testify to my faith in God.  I can argue about the reasonableness of God and the fact that other definitions of Ultimate Reality are less satisfactory.

I can testify to you what God means to me, but I cannot understand God.

Neither can you.  That is the leap of faith; “in the beginning, God.”  Let’s stop making people feel guilty, because they don’t understand God.  Let’s embrace the fact that we worship a God who is greater than our understanding.  I don’t know about you, but I want to worship a God who is greater than my ability to understand.

Another temptation which some of us have is to make an idol of the Bible.  Now, I’ve got to be careful on this one, because I want to be understood correctly.  Quite obviously, the Bible is the consummate document for Christian believers.  The temptation to which I am alluding, is considering the Bible to be as important and as unquestionable as God.

The clear command of God is, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”  There are some however, who have elevated the Bible to such status that to question it from an historical, literary or source viewpoint is considered wrong.

The Bible is an accumulation of stories about how people and societies have been impacted and changed by encounters with God.  It is such stories that make the Bible real and powerful.  It is also such stories that cause the Bible to not be a cohesive and systematic book.  In the stories about God, people in various areas, at differing times, facing divergent circumstances, have written about how they acted or thought or were changed by an encounter with the living God.

The Bible points us to God.  But it points us to God through a variety of personalities and happenings in which others have testified to God’s power.  The Biblical stories were written over hundreds of years, and in that time-span, both thinking and events changed.  The understanding of God changed.  Yet some try to prove the most detailed of theological concepts by the Bible without any consideration of the historical, cultural, literary or sociological happenings of history.

Interpret the Bible metaphorically.  That’s the only way that makes sense to me, yet, some people say, “You are not a true believer.”  We read the Bible, study the Bible, love the Bible, not because it is divine or infallible, but because it points us to God.  The Bible reveals to us the errors which humans have made in their cultural times, and it inspires us to let God be our God, instead of a host of others things which try to be our God.

It is the Bible that tells us that anything –– anything, even if it is religious –– anything that takes the place of God as the source of our worship and being is wrong.  So, let me ask you, “What is your Ultimate Concern?  What is it that concerns you ultimately?”  That is your God.  That is the message of the Bible.

Another Idol, in some Churches, is The By-laws.  Forget about spontaneity, dedication, or a willingness to work for God through the Church.  It has to be “according to the by-laws.”  What if Jesus and his little group had had by-laws?  When the woman reached out and Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” and she said, shyly, “I did, I want to be healed,” then Jesus might have said, “We’ll have to send that to the Deacons for a decision, and then the Care Board will follow up.”

Many of the growing Churches of today have scrapped their by-laws.  Last Wednesday, we heard from the pastor of our NACCC Church in Gurnee, Illinois.  They have jettisoned their by-laws.  They have a coordinating group and a whole series of ministry teams.  Anyone can sign up for a visitation ministry team, or a music ministry team, or a financial ministry team, or whatever ministry which interests you.  It doesn’t matter whether there are 4 or 40 on the team.

Each ministry team selects its leader, when it will meet, and how often, and how they will perform their ministry.  Their minister said they have over 100 people signed on to be greeters on the “Welcoming Team.” You can’t get in that place without somebody welcoming you.

We’re slaves to by-laws, and we spend hours tweaking them and making sure we are adhering to them.  Wouldn’t it be great for people to be able to sign up for what they want to do in ministry?  Of, course, it isn’t going to happen quickly, because as things are, some won’t sign up for anything.  But how refreshing it would be for more involvement, a greater sense of ministry in the area of your interest, and the freedom to just do it, instead of having a group somehow make the decisions about who can or should be doing something.

It’s easy for me to say that.  I’ve only got two sermons after today, and I am gone, but I will give you fair warning: Steve Peay was at the same convocation.  It’s something to think about.

The last idol I want to address today, is the idol of tradition.  Whether we like it or not, how we worship and how we function, will be altered somewhat by the culture of the day, or we will cease to be relevant.

The thing that has made this Church great, in my opinion, is that it has shifted with the times, yet clung to that which is inspiring and powerful.  For example, I went to the archives, and I found out that when Dr. Henry James Lee was your minister, this congregation repeated the Apostles’ Creed every Sunday.

So, when I hear people say to me, “First Congregational Church has always been a liberal Church,” I just smile.  Yet, my friends, on April 2, 1942, 60 years ago, 91 people joined this Church, and of that number, 4 are still members.  Some are here today.  Something right was happening.  What they were doing was authentic and appropriate for that time.

Now religious sociologists are telling us that we are in the midst of a fourth generation recycling.  That is, those who are now in their twenties are more likely to reflect the attitudes and values of the people in their seventies than those of their own parents.  How does that impact our future?

Robert Webber, a leader in worship renewal, advises us that the style of worship with which we are familiar, ceased to be effective, to younger people, in 1960.  I need not remind you that the 60’s were the years of disruption and cultural change.  The 60’s were the time of the hippie movement, the sexual revolution, the civil rights movement, secular humanism, political turmoil, the breakdown of the family, and the feminist movement.  This was the age when people were not willing to commit to anything.

Churches all over the place turned to contemporary worship.  Worship became entertainment –– and popular, because without involvement, there is not commitment.  Now, we are told, contemporary worship emphasis is dying.   It began in 1990 with the post-modern era.  To be sure contemporary worship is still alive, but it is attracting the boomer generation age group, not the younger twenty-something group.

What do these younger people desire?  First off, they are ready to commit to God and the Christian faith.  They back up their idealism with commitment to serve or to work for their cause.  They are spiritual people, not just religious, but spiritual.  They are attracted to mystery and ambiguity.  Knowing God is what they want, not knowledge about God.  They want authenticity or honesty; not pretense, and they loathe worship as entertainment.

But, and we need to be aware of this, they are not captives to a print age.  Bulletins, orders of worship and hymnals are not important.  They want interaction and participation.  They are products of the channel-surfing era and they know and love audiovisuals more than they do the printed word.  And they are comfortable with mystery, like liturgy and variety.

Do you see the huge opportunity we have?  This Church is well positioned to seize the future.  Stick with quality.  Stay with excellence.  Strive to be authentic and engaging, and explore ways to build on the twenty-something desire for interaction, audio/visuals and change.

Churches that are alive will not make an idol of tradition.  Rather, they will cloak the traditional in some changes that will make the proclamation of the gospel real and graspable to all who worship.

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to all humanity,” said Paul.  “God is faithful and will not let you be tempted beyond your strength.”  No one is asking this Church to be Pentecostal or a spiritual nightclub act in style.  Just be real, honest, sincere, authentic, not afraid to say “I don’t know,” and dedicated to God and the Church.

“With the temptation, God will also provide the way of escape.”  Information is as essential as inspiration and sincerity.

The future is now for this Church.  Don’t fail to seize it!