DR. JAMES C. HOWELL
Colossians 3
July 31, 2016
Paul says, "Set your mind on things that are above." And how incapable of that we may be in this day and age as instanced by … as I was writing the sermon I wrote a sentence for the sermon and I thought if I utter this sentence in front of you, half of you will be really delighted and the other half will be ready to exit the building. And that's an indication of how we don't know how to set our mind on things above. The sentence that I wrote goes like this. Hey, here was something good that happened at the Democratic Convention. Now half of you are thinking everything that happened at the Democratic Convention was wonderful; but the week before was unalloyed evil. And the others of you are thinking there was nothing but stupidity and craziness at the Democratic Convention; but the week before it was all wonder and light. And this shows how far we are from God. I discovered this this week I did something related to this. I saw President Obama speak the other night and so I put on Facebook these words. I said, "I so love and admire our President." Now picture a bunch of people saying, "Yes, yes James. I thought you were with us." And it drew also though quite a number of people who wanted to vilify not just me, but also President Obama. And this made me really sad because it reminded me of an older day when there used to be a better America and we had holier people.
My grandparents … I remember this very clearly. When I was very, very young, my parents had a photograph of their president in their den. Their president was the Republican Dwight David Eisenhower and they revered their president and their prayed for him each day. When he went out of office, they took the photo of President Eisenhower down and they put up a new photo of the Democrat John Kennedy. And he was their president and they revered their president and they prayed for their president. I would submit to you that was a better, holier, America than what we have now. It's just all or nothing; it's all black and white; we all talk past each other.
So with that preface, let me go back to the good thing that happened at the Democratic Convention. There was a guy that spoke and he was a clergyman from North Carolina. That got me excited cause I'm a clergyman from North Carolina and this guy I actually know a little. I think if he walked in this room he might remember by name; I'm not sure. I'll call us friends. I was proud though that a minister of North Carolina said this and he could have said it at either convention. And what he said was really cool. He said America has a heart problem. He did not say Donald Trump has a heart problem; he spoke more truly. He said America has a heart problem and he said when somebody has a heart problem sometimes somebody has to come with a defibrillator. He said, We are called to be the moral defibrillator of our country." And then he said, "We're going to shock them with love." Like I just love that, right. America's got a heart problem, clearly, and what are we going to do about it? We're going to shock the country with love. This is really Paul's strategy. Paul looks at a broken humanity that is confused and lost, and Paul says this world has a heart problem and Jesus came to shock the world with love. Fix your mind on things that are above.
The things that are below are pretty interesting actually. Here're the things that are below that we should not fix our mind on, but it sounds like what our minds are on all the time. Coveting, anger, malice, slander, foul talk. Coveting is pretty interesting actually, right? It's the engine of capitalism. If none of us coveted, capitalism wouldn't work any longer would it? We covet; we see something and we think oh, if I just had that then that would be really cool. Or if I just had that, then, or if I just … and we do this and we're always fawning after something that is not of God. Paul calls this idolatry and we tend to think in our day, there's no idolatry in our day. Nobody in our day is fool enough to bow down and worship a statue or something. But that's not really what idolatry is and Martin Luther said your god is whatever your heart clings to. Your god is whatever your heart clings to and our heart clings to a great many gods that are not the true God. And I would submit to you it's especially obvious during this election season. The primary idolatry in our day is this political ideology.
Democrats think if Democrats just get elected then the kingdom will dawn and all will be well, but if those others guys come in it will just be unalloyed; it will just be disaster. But then the other side thinks if we can just get the Republicans in then all will be well, but if the Democrats come … and it's an idol. It's not God. Those ideologies cannot deliver; they are not finally the kingdom of God. Paul says fix your mind on the things that are above. And then he goes on to explain how we're to put on a new nature; how we're even to put on this new clothing. He expands on it more in the passage that we'll have in next week; we're proceeding through Colossians and the text that we'll read next week is a real favorite of mine. It was the passage that was read during my wedding. I got married right here and we read from Colossians 3 where Paul talks about this new clothing that we put on. I'm looking forward to that; it'll be a very romantic sermon, trust me on that.
This week is not quite as romantic though cause Paul says … this is so interesting. Paul says and the Bible says it over and over you've got to change; you've got to change. We wish the Bible said something else; I told you this recently. We wish the Bible would say to you you're doing fine, in fact you're probably a little too holy, back off a little. You're probably praying too much. Just, like, chill a little bit. You're doing too much in service; just chill. Go do something for yourself. But the Bible just doesn't do that. No, the Bible says you've got to change. You've got to change. You have a lot of serious change that you've got to engage in. The way Paul phrases it I love. It's he thinks about that Jesus was put to death and then he says if Jesus was put to death, then you need to put to death what is in you that is not of God. You have to put to death what is in you that is not of God. It's like there's some garbage in there and it's got to be taken out.
I thought about this; you do this at home, right? There's some garbage that accumulates in your house and once a week you take it out. At our house, this is my job; Tuesday night it's either garbage or garbage and recycling and I can never remember which one it is so I look to my neighbor. If she's rolled garbage and recycling out … she's always right … I roll the two out. One time she got it wrong and I rolled out the recycling unnecessarily. We gave her grief for like a month. So what you do each week is some trash has accumulated in your house and you haul it out to the curb. And let me suggest that's why you come to church on Sunday morning. You don't come to church, I hope, on Sunday morning to hear a good sermon or to hear some good music or to see some people or be in a pretty building. You come to church once a week cause some garbage has accumulated in your soul and you come here and you kick it to the curb and you go out clean. It's going to pile up again by next Sunday. And you come back and you say, Lord we confess our sins. Please forgive us. And God cleanses you all over again. We put to death what is not of God.
But then sometimes it's more serious. Sometimes there's something toxic in your house and you can't wait for the weekly garbage to come along. My daughter Sarah bought a house in Winston-Salem last year and she discovered recently there's something toxic in her kitchen. They're like ooh, it's dangerous; you've got to get rid of it. Somebody just came … we had this happen at the Howell house by the way recently. I was opening the pantry to make a sandwich and so I opened the door and there's my loaf of bread and as I looked to the bread I realized that we had a house guest. And this little mouse looked at me, I looked at the mouse; he scampered off. And when that happens you don't think I will wait 'til Tuesday and see if he runs out of the house. He's a mouse; he's chewing through our chips, eating our bread, right. So you get the trap and you start … I wiped out four of these guys. I mean we got a war in our pantry. Sometimes there is something toxic that is in you and you've got to get rid of it now. And let me suggest to you that beyond the usual kicking it to the curb that we do every week, we in our country, we've got something that's really toxic that's going to kill us if we don't deal with it. And what we've got in the soul of America, it's a heart problem; it's a serious heart problem. We have got bitterness and anger and cynicism and apathy and frustration and exhaustion and anxiety. It just is everywhere. It is the very air that we breathe. Paul says put to death what in you is not God. Put away all of those things that are earthly, the coveting, the anger, the malice, slander and the foul talk.
I'll close with this. Paul seems keenly interested in how we talk as if that's a big deal to God. What do you say? What comes out of your mouth? What do you talk about? What are the subjects that you talk about? What is the tone that you talk about? How do you talk about other people? How do you talk about the issues of the day? What comes out of your mouth? This is of great interest to God. Is it holy? Is it not holy? Is it of God? Is it not of God? And what Paul says is he says, "Do not lie." Do not lie. Now I don't know about you, I'm kind of intrigued by the fact checkers. You know after a politician gives a speech, we now have the fact checkers and they come check the facts. And you know how this goes by the way is if Hillary gives a talk and then you have the fact checkers … you know who loves that? It's the Republicans right? They can oh Hillary, they've caught her on five fact checks that were wrong. But if you're a Democrat you don't notice that really, but if you're a Democrat what you notice is when there's a fact checker after Trump has talked. And after Trump has talked it's oh, they caught him in five mistakes. You're like ha, yes, ha, ha. You see how this goes. And I for one … I'm the only person I'm sure … I like to give anybody talking the benefit of the doubt. I mean I don't know, I don't think in my heart that Trump or Hillary or any other politician stands up and says I'm going to blatantly deceive these people. I just don't believe that. I think what happens is they're trying so hard to get elected, that they get a little carried away and they exaggerate a little. And I'll give you an example. Sometimes I talk about Duke University and I'm giving you facts, but maybe I exaggerate a little cause I think … you know what I'm saying. Like you just get all carried away.
This is so interesting … Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about what does it mean to tell the truth and what does it mean to lie. And he suggested that theologically, telling the truth isn't merely saying things that are in fact true and lying is in fact saying something that is false. He says it's way more complicated than that. He says sometimes you lie when you're telling the truth. What? And the way that works is something that I see in marital counseling. Sometimes couples come in to me and if anything they're telling the truth too much. They say stuff like you've gotten fat, or you don't make enough money, and you just go on and on and on. On the one hand they're saying things that are factually true, but Bonhoeffer would say they're lying because what they're doing is they're ruining a relationship with their words. How do we use our words truthfully which would mean that we build up relationships instead of destroying relationships. Sometimes the way to tell the truth is to exercise a little bit of restraint. You don't say something that is true out of love, out of holiness. Bonhoeffer has this other rule that I really like. I've shared this with some of you before. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had this rule for the young seminarians he was training back during World War II. He said this, he said, "Never talk about somebody who is not in the room." Now this would revolutionize our lives if we just did this, right? You cannot talk about anybody. Like if I'm not in the room you can't say I don't like that James Howell's sermon. I'm not in the room; can't do it. You see what I'm saying? See how that works? I, James Howell, have an improvement upon Dietrich Bonheoffer's rule. Bonhoeffer said don't talk about somebody who's not in the room. The James Howell improvement is this … don't talk about somebody who's not in the room unless you choose to praise them. If someone is not in the room and you wish to praise them … let me look around here. I don't think Lauren Stines, our Youth Director, is in the room. Lauren is amazing and she is wonderful. See, you can do that. Don't talk about somebody who's not in room unless you are praising them. This is what Bonhoeffer says it means to tell the truth. How do we use our words to build up?
That gets me back to the heart problem in our country in closing. When Paul talks about using our words to build a bridge; when Paul talks about using our words to build up relationships he talks about reconciliation. And reconciliation is what the world just knows nothing about. That is when people are hopelessly at odds with each other, they're angry at each other, they are hurt by each other but they say we can't, we can't let that be. Because of Jesus Christ who was at odds with us, he didn't let that be. He came down; he died on the cross, he was raised from the dead so that we can be reconciled to God. If that is the case then we have to be reconciled to each other so you've got to do that hard work of coming together with somebody that you disagree with. You have a fractured relationship with and you bring reconciliation; you listen; you talk; you ask for forgiveness; you show some mercy; you're humble; you're willing to say ehh … maybe I was wrong, sorry. You learn. You love. You embrace. There is this person I know talking about politics and religion in America, former Republican Senator John Danforth? And what John Danforth says is that the gift that the church has to give to America and the political realm is this gift of reconciliation, cause our world has no clue. But we know this is in our wheelhouse. How do you reconcile with people with whom you differ? If the Christians in America got serious about that, this would be a different country. We would be different people.
So we're going to give you some opportunities to work on this. There're some programs coming up, I really want you to come to them. September 12th, I'm going to have conversation with Molly Barker. I've known Molly for 25 years; we were neighbors up in Davidson. She founded Girls on the Run. She's done some awesome, amazing things and over the past couple of years, Molly, she's pretty amazing. What she told me is that she found herself being puzzled by people. You probably find this all the time; like those people out there are so puzzling. And what she started doing instead of being puzzled by them or instead of sitting in her living room thinking what is wrong with those people, she decided just to go have a conversation with people She'd call up people she didn't even know and say let's have a cup of coffee; let's sit down and talk. So she's had talks with a lot of interesting people. She sat down with some Muslims for instance and said like, "You grew up as a Christian, but you became a Muslim. Why'd you do that? What's it like for you living in Charlotte? Why is there so much violence in Islam?" I saw her one day walk up to an African-American policeman … she didn't know him, he didn't know her … and I watched her. She just said I'm really interested in what's going on with the police. Would you have coffee with me sometime? I want to ask you what's it like to be a policeman here in Charlotte? What's it's like to be a Black policeman here in Charlotte?