Good morning, Friends! I hope you’re all enjoying the Memorial Day weekend.
We have a lot of public holidays in the calendar every year. I sometimes think we need to try to get back to the original spirit of some of these holidays. Memorial Day, as I’m sure you know, wasn’t originally a day for big sales in the stores, or for eating a lot of potato salad.
Memorial Day started after the Civil War, when almost every family had lost someone, and when communities had lost dozens or hundreds of their men. It was originally a day to clean and decorate the graves of those who had died in the war, and not let their lives be forgotten. When I was a boy, it wasn’t even called Memorial Day. It was called Decoration Day.
When I was a boy, on Memorial Day every person in our small town in Vermont would walk up to the cemetery in a solemn procession. There were still quite a few men in our town back then who were sons of the soldiers who fought in the Civil War. These old men would give speeches about the war, and remind us that war between neighbors was a terrible thing. Overall, across the country, about 20% of the men of military age died – 1 out of 5. Our small town lost 114, from wounds or disease.
After the speeches, everyone would take flowers and put them on the graves of the soldiers who died. In that part of the country, lilacs were always in bloom at Memorial Day, so in my memory the day is always filled with the scent of lilacs.
I remember, one year we went up the mountain to my grandparents’ place to pick lilacs, and a moose had come by the night before and ate every lilac blossom! My mom was so mad – not only did we not have any lilacs, but it just had rained, and the lawn was muddy and soft. Moose are really big, and that dang moose left deep, giant hoof marks as big as a dinner plate, all over the lawn.
Here at Springfield, people suffered terribly during the Civil War. Quakers were pacifists, and believed that Jesus didn’t want anyone to fight and kill. Because of the draft, many of the Quaker men had to flee from their homes, and their families didn’t see them again for years. Families suffered, because the army took nearly all the livestock, and in many communities the army took all the iron farm tools to melt them down for cannon. Families struggled to survive. In the last days of the war, the army took over the home of the clerk of Springfield Friends to use as their headquarters.
Over next door in the Museum, we have a lot of souvenirs of the Civil War – cannon balls and grape shot, bullet molds and bayonets. They’re reminders of the weapons people make to kill each other. “War is hell,” as one of the generals in the Civil War said. I had people in my own family on both sides of the war. We mustn’t ever forget the cost of war, and how terrible it is.
I don’t want to spoil the holiday for anyone today. But I love our country, as all of you do. When I was in college, I studied our Constitution with some of the finest teachers in the country. I care about all of our rights. Many of the rights we take for granted, are ones which Quakers suffered to get.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble peaceably, the right to vote for all people – those are things we struggled for. Due process of law, no arrest without a warrant, a fair trial by a jury of your peers, freedom from self-incrimination, no double jeopardy – those are all guaranteed, against any interference by anyone, by the Constitution of the United States.
No more human slavery – that was a big one. Limited terms in office, and checks and balances on power. No one is above the law, and the Supreme Court is the final judge in all cases. These are things which are guaranteed to everyone. We can disagree about many things. But these are the fundamental laws that we live by.
I want to turn now, and talk about a different set of fundamental laws, ones which are in the Bible. These are things which the apostle Paul talked about.
Paul was trying to tell people about Christ, and he was trying to build up new churches. Just as Jesus said, there are really only two laws for Christians: “love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Paul said the same thing. He said, “If you love your neighbor, you’ve fulfilled every requirement of the law.” But as always, sometimes we need to hear things spelled out. So Paul wrote this letter, to help people really understand what he was talking about.
You can read along with me in your pew Bibles if you want. I’m going to be reading from a different translation, the one we use in our midweek Bible study. The language is a little more modern, but either translation is OK.
Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to offer all that you are to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That’s the most sensible way to serve God.
Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him.
I realize God has treated me with undeserved grace. So I tell each of you, don’t think you are better than you really are. Use good sense and measure yourself by the amount of faith that God has given you.
A body is made up of many parts, and each of them has its own use. That’s how it is with us. There are many of us, but we each are part of the body of Christ, as well as part of one another.
God has given each of us different gifts to use. If we can prophesy, we should do it according to the amount of faith we have. If we can serve others, we should serve. If we can teach, we should teach. If we can encourage others, we should encourage them. If we can give, we should be generous. If we are leaders, we should do our best. If we are good to others, we should do it cheerfully.
Be sincere in your love for others. Hate everything that is evil and hold tight to everything that is good. Love each other as brothers and sisters and honor others more than you do yourself.
Never give up. Eagerly follow the Holy Spirit and serve the Lord. Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble and never stop praying. Take care of God’s needy people and welcome strangers into your home.
Ask God to bless everyone who mistreats you. Ask him to bless them and not to curse them. When others are happy, be happy with them, and when they are sad, be share their sorrow.
Be friendly towards everyone. Don’t be proud and feel that you know more than others. Make friends with ordinary people. Don’t mistreat someone who has mistreated you. Try to earn the respect of others, and do your best to live at peace with everyone.
Dear friends, don’t try to get even. Let God take revenge. In the Scriptures the Lord says,
“The Lord has written a list of their sins and locked it in his vault. I am the one to take revenge and pay them back. Suddenly they will slip, and total disaster will quickly follow. (Deuteronomy 32:34-35)
The Scriptures also say,
“If your enemies are hungry, give them something to eat.
And if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
This will be the same as piling burning coals on their heads, and the Lord will reward you.” (Proverbs 25:21-22)
Don’t let evil defeat you, but overcome evil with good.Romans 12
We are citizens of two worlds. We are citizens of our country, and our country has all different kinds of laws.
You can be a citizen of our country and be grouchy, or ugly, or impatient. You don’t have to be a nice person or a loving person to be a citizen of the United States. Many people are not. And that’s OK. As long as people live peaceably within their own rights, and respect the rights of others, that’s all our country requires.
So, Christians belong to our country. And so do people of many other religions, or people with no religion at all. We are all citizens, together. But Christians also belong to another country, to the kingdom of God, to the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We have dual citizenship.
The one kind of citizenship, you get simply by being born here. Or, if you come from somewhere else, you can become a citizen by learning about our country, and by agreeing to our Constitution.
The other kind of citizenship, citizenship in the kingdom of Christ, is a choice. You can be born into a Christian family, you can be surrounded by Christian culture. But really, we all have to choose to belong to the kingdom that Jesus talked about.
There’s no compulsion to be a Christian. No one twists our arm behind our back and forces us to be one. But if we say yes to Jesus, we need to know that there are some different laws that Christians have to follow.
The basic ones, of course, are love God, and love your neighbor. But if we want to do that whole-heartedly, if we want to live and love to the full, then, as Jesus said, we need to take it to a higher level, or to a deeper level.
In today’s letter, Paul says, “Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think.” Or, in a translation that may be more familiar to you, “Don’t be conformed to this present age, but be transformed. Let your mind be changed and renewed, so that you can discern what God wants.”
And then Paul spells it out. He says very plainly how Christians are meant to live.
“Don’t think you’re better than you really are. . .” Be humble, in other words. Remember that God has been very good to you. You have been forgiven so very much.
We all have faith. Some people have more faith. Some have less. Jesus once said that we should live up to the faith that we have, and we’ll be given more. If you don’t live up to the faith you have, you may lose what you’ve got.
We’re all different, Paul says. We’re like the different parts of a single body. But we’re all part of each other. Then Paul lists some of the different gifts that people have in the church – the ability to speak plainly about how God sees what’s going on. That’s the gift of prophecy.
The gift of service – that’s caring for people in practical ways. People who put good food on the table, people who fix things, people who help others. We need you!
The gift of teaching – and we desperately need teachers, not just in our schools, but in the church. We need teachers at every level, from children and youth to adults. You don’t have to know everything to be a teacher. But you need to be able to say a few things with faith and love and conviction.
Paul says some people are gifted as encouragers. We need you! It is so easy to get discouraged and tired. If you can lift other people up, if you can bring some hope to them, that’s a precious gift.
We need givers. Not just big givers. We need cheerful givers. We need people who can share the joy they feel, when they give more, or when they discover something special God gave them, that they can share.
We need leaders. We need our present leaders. They do so much. But we also need fresh leaders. We need people in every part of the church who have vision and faith, who sense where God is calling us, and who can put that leading into words and actions.
Is any of this making sense? We are citizens of the world, but we are also citizens of God’s kingdom. God wants more from us than what the law requires. If we are good Christians, we will be outstanding citizens. We will be incredible citizens.
People will look up to us, and they will ask us, “Why do you do the things you do? What motivates you? Where do you get your passion and energy from?”
Actually, they may not even ask us. They’ll see us, and they’ll know we are Christians, because actions speak louder than words.
“Be sincere,” Paul says. “Hate everything evil, and hold tight to everything good. Love each other as brothers and sisters, and honor others more than you do yourself.“
See, that’s the thing about Christianity. If God is our Father, then we are brothers and sisters. If Jesus is your brother, then Jesus is my brother, too. We’re a single body. We’re a united family.
“Never give up! Eagerly follow the Holy Spirit, and serve the Lord!”
Wow. That’s a whole sermon, right there. Don’t give up, no matter what. Keep your faith, wherever you are. Always hope, no matter how dark it seems. Always love, because Jesus did.
“Let your hope make you glad!” We need more joy around here. Christians are joyful! We can find reasons to give thanks, no matter where we are.
Joy is like a fountain. It overflows, and it makes thirsty people glad. The world is thirsty for joy. If we don’t have it, we need to go back to kindergarden and learn it again. Kids are joyful. They laugh and shout about the craziest things. Jesus once said that unless we become like little children again, we’ll never get it – we’ll never enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Be patient. Never stop praying. Take care of those in need. Welcome strangers to your home.”
This is basic Christianity, folks. This is Christianity 101. Return to go, start over, these are things we do.
“Bless everyone, even people who mistreat you. Ask God to bless them. If they’re happy, be happy with them. When they’re sad, share their sorrow.”
“Be friendly with everyone. Don’t be stuck up. Make friends with ordinary people. Earn their respect, and do your best to live at peace with everyone.”
Jesus used to say, “In the law it says, love your friends, and hate your enemies. But I tell you, love your enemies, and pray even for people who persecute you. . .If you only love people who love you, what good does that do? Even horrible people do that. You are called to be children of your heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:43-44)
Paul says the same thing. “Don’t try to get even. God will pay them back. If your enemies are hungry or thirsty, give them something to eat or drink. It’ll be like piling burning coals on their head!”
I’m not so sure about the burning coals thing. I think that’s a metaphor for the guilt and shame people feel, when they know they’re doing wrong. Our job isn’t to rub it in. Our job is to welcome people, the way we want to be welcomed ourselves, the way Christ welcomed us.
As I was writing this, I remember a story that Allen Jay told from the Civil War. He was a young Quaker farmer living in Indiana, and there was a military draft going on. Quakers could be excused from the draft, but they had to pay a fee of $300 in order to pay someone else to take their place.
$300 may not seem like much to us now, but back then $1 a day was the average wage for a working adult man. So, $300 was LOT of money!
The draft officer came to the Jay farm and told Allen he had to report. He said that he couldn’t serve, as a matter of Christian conscience. So, the draft officer told him to pay the $300 fee. Allen replied that if it wasn’t right for him to fight, it wouldn’t be right for him to pay someone else to fight, either.
The law was, that if you didn’t pay the $300, they would seize your farm animals, your tools, anything of value, and auction it off to pay the fine. So, the officer started making up a list of what was going to be seized and sold. By then it was noon, so the Jays invited him to join them for lunch. They didn’t talk about what the officer was doing, and finally he said, “If you would get mad and order me out of the house, I could do this work much easier, but here you are feeding me and my horse while I am arranging to take your property from you. I tell you, it’s hard work!” (Autobiography of Allen Jay, p. 77)
We are citizens of the world, with rights and responsibilities, with laws and limitations. But we are also citizens of a different kingdom. Inside, we march to a different drummer. Christ has changed our minds, as well as changing our hearts, and we do things a different way, because of our dual citizenship.
“Love one another, because God has loved you. Don’t let evil defeat you, but overcome evil with good.”