Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 21 April 2013
and Corp 614 Regent Park Toronto, 30 August 2015
Tim told me this story the other week. I am sure he will forgive me if I have any of the details wrong. For more information, I invite you to chat with him about this after the meeting (service) today.
Early on a Sunday morning – it may even have been Easter morning – there was a knock on the door of Tim’s new place. He had just moved in, I believe. He gets up, answers the door; it is a police officer. She asks, “Are you Tim?”
“Yes...”
“I need you to come with me.”
“Why?”
She tells him what it is that he has supposedly done. Tim doesn’t think that this applies to him at all. As far as he knows he has never been involved in this thing but “Okay.”
“Go get dressed”, she tells him. He does.
The whole time he is wondering, of course, ‘what is going on?’ As he is getting dressed, of course, he is thinking that there is something not right here; so as he comes out of his room, fully clothed, of course, he asks her again, “Who are you looking for?”
As they walk out the door, “Tim”, she says.
As they head out to the car, “Tim who?” he says. “What is the last name of the Tim you’re looking for?”
“You tell me your last name first”, she says. He does. “Show me your ID, please”, she says. He does. “Have a nice day, Tim”, she says. He does.
Apparently some other Tim – in whom the police were interested - used to live here before him; or the new landlord thought he was some other Tim who needed to be questioned by the RCMP; or someone thought they saw some other Tim moving into that place; or something else.
But anyway this was Tim’s excuse for missing church that day. I thought that was a good excuse. Mind you I didn’t check it out with the RCMP yet… (-:
This was a case of mistaken identity. In our texts today – especially the one from Galatians – we may have cases of mistaken identity as well. The pericopes that we read this morning are all passages from letters that the Apostle Paul has written to the Saints (a.k.a. Christians) in various communities that he knows well. He is writing these letters to some churches that he has planted himself. He is writing these letters – in the cases of Philippians and Ephesians – to people he loves and respects. And to the Galatians, he writes of their common problem, Galatians 5:19-21:
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
People who indulge in hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is pretty serious stuff. He is not talking about those who have not claimed that Jesus is Lord (See Matthew 7:15-27; see also Matthew 25:31ff.); Paul is writing this letter to and for people in the churches. Matthew 7:21, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Paul says that those in the Christian churches – that he himself knows and some of these churches he has actually planted himself – Paul says to his friends that those of us who live a life with hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy and the like will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is serious stuff (cf. TSA doc 10).
This can be quite a prevalent problem too. Paul had to write this similar sentiment in many of his letters, three of which we have read from today. Paul had to warn people who were meeting in the Christian congregations. Paul had to warn the saints in these Christian communities. Paul had to warn the good guys not to get drawn into this stuff or, he says, even they will not inherit the kingdom of God.
We know too that just as this was obviously a temptation for people in the Roman world of the first century, it is equally a temptation for people in the English-speaking world of the 21st Century. Who of us hasn’t seen or experienced hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like? And who of us ourselves hasn’t been tempted to consider indulging in hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like? Here then is the question for us pertaining to mistaken identity: have any of us been convincing ourselves that we are saints when conversely we regularly partake of hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like? And if we do this, what can we do about it?
These behaviours can pose such a temptation to draw us away from salvation and a loving relationship with God and a loving relationship with our neighbour, can’t they (cf. TSA doc. 9)? We have heard the analogy of yeast working its way through dough. When we are surrounded by all of this stuff, it becomes contagious. We have heard the expression, ‘one bad apple spoils the whole bunch’. This is true. Where one day no one is engaged in discord, dissentions, factions, and the like; one person indulges himself or herself in gossiping with another person who then huddles in a corner with a third person; who then tells someone on coffee row about all of their perceived problems with someone (which may or may not by this point too be true; it may be totally imagined!); and then they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on; and soon the whole congregation is full of cliques, factions, whispering, gossiping, fits of rage and the like. And that is not a good place to be. And that is exactly where some of the first century churches were and that is exactly where a lot of the 21st century churches appear to be and that is exactly where I would hope and pray that we would not ever find ourselves as a congregation – in this very real danger of – as Paul says, ‘not inheriting the kingdom of God’ (cf. TSA doc. 8).
The effects of these things - hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like - are disastrous. It is like this. I was at an RCMP chaplaincy-training course last week in Edmonton. There were many good speakers. The Edmonton ERT (SWAT) Team Leader let us play with some of their ‘toys’ (their weapons) and he spoke to us about the importance of chaplains in his job when people are shooting at them and when they have to consider what course of action to take themselves.
The keynote speaker, Gerry Fostaty, is a fellow who has written a book, As You Were: The Tragedy at Valcartier, about an incident that happened to him when he was a teenager in military cadets. He was probably the age of Gloria here who is in cadets in town and he was a leader of younger cadets – probably Melissa, Violet, Rebecca, or possibly even Sarah-Grace’s age. They were at a cadet camp in Valcartier, Quebec. As part of the camp, they got to handle with weapons not entirely unlike us at the conference in Edmonton last week. The cadets (even more) learned how to use the weapons properly and how to take care of the weapons and how the weapons worked and all kinds of things like that. (Melissa, Violet, Gloria, do you girls get to do that sort of thing?)
In one class, the adult instructor was handing out dummy grenades for the children to examine. The dummy grenades you can apparently tell from the real grenades because the dummies are brightly coloured - orange, pink, blue – not the military green of the combat weaponry. The cadets, the children were encouraged to take apart these dummy grenades, put them back together, examine how they work, etc., etc., etc… Apparently and disastrously in with the orange, pink, and blue-coloured grenades was at least one green-coloured military grenade. The children were passing this live green grenade – along with the toy grenades – along the line of cadets in the class. They were taking the pin out and placing it back in and they were holding (I don’t know what the term is but…) the safety and they were disassembling and reassembling the green grenade along with the coloured grenades when one little boy pulled the pin and putting the grenade in the wrong place, or holding it the wrong way, or holding the pin out for too long… There was a loud noise.
The writer of this book was out of the room at this time; he ran in when he heard the explosion and found his little brother who was not seriously injured alongside the many others who were. One deadly green grenade had mixed in with the harmless coloured grenades and this one green grenade brought with it destruction and death.
The result of this green grenade in a room full of children is essentially the same as what results when hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like wind up in our churches. These are our green grenades. When we put ourselves first, engaging in selfish ambition instead of thinking of others as greater than ourselves (Philippians 2) the results are essentially the same. Just as the green grenade brings physical death when people handle it and it is passed about improperly; Paul reminds us that hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like, bring everlasting death to those who are consumed with them. Paul says that they will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So what can we do about this? Well, in the words of one wise man, “if we are acting this way, we should simply stop acting this way.” The Apostle Paul says, in essence, that we need to remove the green grenades from the box; we need to remove these things from the church. We need to, Ephesians 4:31-5:2a:
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us…
We need to remove the green grenades before they go off. Paul says, Galatians 5:16, 22-25:
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh… But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Remove the green grenades before it is too late. Paul says, Philippians 2:3-4 &12-13:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others... Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.
Friends, I remind us all today that selfishness, gossip, slander, talking about others in this way, pulling each other down instead of building each other up… these are the green grenades that can blow the roof right off the top of a corps or a church that has to that point been very actively fighting in the Salvation War. When we think of ourselves as equal or greater than others, when we allow ourselves to get worked up about what other people are doing or saying, when we start talking about others and when we start tearing each other down instead of building each other up; that is really our pulling the pin on a green grenade that the enemy has tossed into the Holy of Holies, this, the body of Christ. So today I challenge each and every one of us and today I encourage each and every one of us here “to be wholly sanctified, and that [our] whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (TSA doc 10) and so as Philippians 2:3,4 records, let us “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above [ourselves], not looking to [our] own interests but each of [us] to the interests of the others.”
Let us pray.
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