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Sunday, September 17, 2017

The Numbe One Principle

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish Sunday, September 17, 2017.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 26:47-56.

            All of us have principles that we live our lives by.  Whether we could put them into words or not, whether we’re even aware of all of them or not, we all have these principles.  Ideally, at least, they’re good principles.  Things like honesty.  Integrity.  Love.  Kindness.  But whatever they are, whether they’re good or bad, we all have these principles, and they guide the way we live our lives.
            The thing is, though, that it’s easy to have principles in the abstract.  It’s easy to have principles when following those principles does not cost us anything.  It’s when there’s a cost to following our principles that we find out how much those principles really mean to us.
            Take honesty as an example.  Most of us would probably agree, in the abstract, that being honest is a good thing.  But have you ever been in a situation where telling the truth was really not a very convenient thing?  Have you ever been in a situation where being honest could get you into trouble, and where telling a lie or even a half-truth or even just avoiding telling the whole truth would make things a whole lot easier for you?
            I would think a lot of us have been in that position at one time or another.  And when we are, that’s when we find out how important that principle of honesty is to us.  That’s when we have the chance to prove that we really believe in honesty, as opposed to only believing in honesty when it’s convenient for us.
            When Jesus was on earth, he had principles that he lived by.  And one of those was non-violence.  Jesus talked about it several times.  He said, “Love your enemies.”  He said, “Pray for those who persecute you.”  Jesus said, “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also.”  Jesus said, “If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt.”  Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
            Jesus said all those things.  And I have no doubt that he meant them and that he lived by them.  But it’s easy to believe in non-violence in the abstract.  In today’s Bible reading, Jesus is in a situation where sticking to that principle of non-violence is going to cause him a lot of problems.  He’s in a situation where he had the chance to prove he really believes in non-violence, as opposed to only believing in non-violence when it’s convenient for him.
            Judas comes up to Jesus in Gethsemane.  The disciples are there too, of course.  But so are what’s described as “a large crowd armed with swords and clubs”, which the chief priests and elders had sent to come and arrest Jesus.
            Jesus knew they were coming.  We talked last week about how Jesus knew he was about to be arrested, tortured, and killed.  He prayed to be allowed to avoid it, but he prayed in the end for God’s will to be done.  And now, here it is.  The guys with swords and clubs are there.  And the disciples are there.  And some of them have swords, too.
            If you or I were there as onlookers, we’d have expected a fight.  The chief priests and elders expected a fight.  The disciples expected a fight.  That’s why there were all those people with swords and clubs.  Everyone there expected the arrest of Jesus to be a really violent thing.
            And it had to be tempting to Jesus to let it happen that way.  For one thing, it’s a natural human tendency to fight back when we’re attacked.  And again, Jesus was fully human as well as being fully divine.  He felt that desire to fight back just as much as you or I would feel it if we were in that situation.
            For another thing, the disciples wanted a fight.  Remember a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about how all the disciples said they would die rather than disown Jesus?  This is the kind of thing they were thinking about.  They were willing to die in a fight, in a battle.  They would defend Jesus to the death.  In fact, it sounds like it was one of the disciples who actually struck the first blow.  Matthew says, “One of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.”
            We don’t know what would’ve happened if there had been a fight.  Maybe Jesus’ disciples would’ve won.  Maybe, even if they’d lost, Jesus could’ve gotten away in the confusion.  Even if Jesus had been killed, at least he would’ve avoided the torture and died an easier death.
            It had to be very tempting for Jesus to allow the fight to happen.  But he did not.  And the reason why is what we talked about last week.  Jesus’ heart was aligned with God’s heart.  Yes, Jesus had a principle of non-violence, but there was something going on here that was more important than that.  Jesus’ number one principle was to do God’s will.  And Jesus knew that God’s will was not for there to be a fight.  Here’s how Jesus put it:
Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?
Jesus knew that the things that were happening were only happening because God was allowing them to happen.  In fact, they were happening exactly in accordance with what the Scriptures had said were going to happen.  If God the Father wanted to stop these things from happening, they would have been stopped.  Jesus knew things were supposed to happen this way.  If Jesus had allowed there to be a fight, it would have been a fight against God’s will.  And Jesus had determined that he was not going to fight against God’s will.  Again, Jesus had a principle of non-violence, but more importantly, his number one principle was following God’s will.  And he was going to uphold that principle, no matter what the consequences were.  He was going to uphold that principle even if it meant his own death on earth.
So here are the questions you and I have to answer.  Regardless of what our principles are, is our number one principle to follow God’s will?  And are we willing to uphold that principle, no matter what the consequences are for us?
It gets back to what we said at the beginning of this message.  It’s easy to say yes in the abstract.  It’s easy to say that our number one principle is following God’s will when following God’s will does not cost us anything.  It’s only when there’s a cost to following God’s will that we find out just how important following God’s will is to us.
Jesus tried to tell the disciples about that cost.  He did it many times over the course of his ministry.  He told them that anyone who followed him had to be willing to give up everything else.  He told them that anyone who followed him needed to be ready to take up a cross to follow him.  And the disciples all said, yes, of course, we’ll do that.  We’ll follow you.  But here, when the crunch came, they could not do it.  The last sentence of our reading for today says “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled”, just as Jesus had told them that they would.
            There was a cost for the disciples to follow Jesus.  There’s a cost for you and I to follow Jesus, too.  We may not be asked to give up our physical lives for Jesus.  We may be, though.  There are people who are, all the time.  There are places in the world where you can be killed just for saying that you are a follower of Jesus.
            Most of us probably won’t face that.  But I think there’s another sense in which we’re asked to give up our lives for Jesus.  It gets back, again, to what we talked about last week--following God’s heart rather than following our own heart.  Any time we do what we know God wants us to do, rather than what we would like to do, we’re giving up a bit of our lives for Jesus.  Any time we go where we know God wants us to go, rather than going where we’d like to go, or even just staying where we are, we’re giving up a bit of our lives for Jesus.  Any time we say what we know God wants us to say, rather than saying something else or just staying silent, we’re giving up a bit of our lives for Jesus.  And if we do those things constantly, consistently, over a long period of time, pretty soon we’ll discover that we have, in a sense, given up our lives, or a large part of them, anyway, to follow Jesus Christ.
            So again, we come back to those questions.  Regardless of what our principles are, is our number one principle to follow God’s will?  And are we willing to uphold that principle, no matter what the consequences are for us?  Are we willing to give up our lives, whether all at once or a bit at a time, for Jesus Christ?
            It’s not something to just answer now.  We need to answer that question every day.  Sometimes we need to answer it several times a day.  Because these chances to prove whether we believe in our principles come up lots of times.  Sometimes they come when we don’t expect it.  Sometimes they come when we’re not even thinking about it.  But we know those chances will come.  
Jesus showed us the way.  If our heart is aligned with God’s heart, our number one principle will be to follow God’s will.  And then, we will be able to give up our lives for Jesus, whether all at once or a bit at a time.


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