It being Independence Day weekend I thought I’d share a couple stories of military valor that humble me.  On April 8 of this year Petty Officer and Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor, and on June 2 Specialist Ross A. McGinnis each received posthumously the highest military decoration possible, the Medal of Honor.

 

I mention these young men not only because it’s appropriate to honor those who have died for the cause of freedom, but mainly because behind each medal stood a young man who valued his life less than his commitment to a sworn oath and to his friends.  For Specialist McGinnis his oaths were tested when a grenade landed in his HumVee and rather than flee for his life he pinned the grenade against the radio console with his back until it exploded, killing him but saving his fellow soldiers.  For Petty Officer Monsoor his words to protect at all costs and with any violence to self necessary were tested when a grenade bounced off his chest and landed in front of him.  He could’ve jumped to save himself, but instead he fell on it and took most of the lethal damage into his own body thus protecting his fellow SEALs.  For these men, there wasn’t a difference between saying a vow of commitment and living it.

 

What humbles me about McGinnis and Monsoor is that in these young men I see life-sacrificing commitment to an oath that while important, is far less significant than the oath I’ve taken to the Lord.  Yet, like the sheep that I am, my actions don’t align with my words nearly as often as I’d like.  Each Christian takes an oath to exhibit faith in Christ alone and to live in holiness because Jesus is supposed to be the Lord.  It’s an oath that means constant sacrifice, can mean discomfort, and submission to God’s design.  But, how often have I complained when things don’t go my way?  Or how quick am I to be impatient with God over the things I think are important?  How often have I pushed God off the pedestal, and taken the reigns of life firmly in my own hands?

 

Fortunately, scripture gives us a lot of examples of people who’ve failed as miserably as us, yet God has called them righteous.  Abraham and Sarah followed God’s leading from the comfort of Ur to a strange land among people whose language they didn’t speak.  They had a son late in life and then Abraham offered him to God, again out of obedience.  Moses and Miriam led the descendants of Abraham out of Egypt to an unknown and treacherous land based simply on a promise that God would be with them.  Rahab, a prostitute, gambled against her life that Joshua was leading God’s people into Jericho.  Esther risked her life by standing up to her husband the king for the justice of God’s people who were being swindled and abused by Haman.  Daniel prophesied and continued to worship God even though it meant certain death that in doing so he was disobeying the king’s edict.  Prophet upon prophet in our Old Testament withstood the scorn, scourges, and sadistic scrutiny of kings and people when out of obedience to the Lord they bore a message that said basically, “What you’re doing is wrong, now get back on track with God.”

 

Then there’s Mary who rather than hide her pregnancy from Joseph and her friends let the cat out of the bag because she believed that what God had done in her was worth any scrutiny she’d receive.  Or think of the centurion who came to Jesus at wit’s end when his servant was dying.  He gambled his security and status among his soldiers against the gut instinct he had that Jesus was the Lord and could heal the servant.  We know nothing about his life, but the words Jesus said about him have run throughout history:  “A greater faith in Israel I have not seen.”  An apostle we don’t hear much about is Bartholomew, whom John identifies as Nathaniel.  Evidently he was so obedient to Jesus’ great commission that he took the gospel to Armenia and even further east to India.  In his famous Sistine Chapel mural The Last Judgment, Michelangelo preserves the tradition that Bartholomew obeyed the Lord and fulfilled the great commission at the cost of having his skin flayed from his body and crucified upside down.

 

The sacrificial aspect of faith continues from generation to generation, even during a century as civilized as the 20^th.  Christians had been venturing into China as missionaries many years by the time the Boxers rose up against foreign influence in China in 1900.  History records that missionaries and Chinese Christians bore the brunt of the assault, and they didn’t wane in their faith.  When it became apparent to Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Hitler was doing the unthinkable he put his faith first and without calculating the cost of discipleship attempted, along with  many other German Christians, to end Hitler’s life as well as help Jews escape Germany.  His cost for gospel obedience was execution.

 

These are the stories of God’s unpolished elite, people just like you and me, who learned commitment to God by failing forward.  They didn’t always get it right, but they were remembered because eventually they did.  This is the essence of Paul’s encouragement in Philippians.  In Philippi there were many organizations called collegia, which were voluntary organizations people joined.  There were minimal fees and some generous patrons who were well-to-do society types.  Collegia gave people who didn’t have means the ability to afford certain things.  The Christian church in Philippi started as a collegia focused most likely on funerals, providing people not only with the ability to afford funerals, but also to meet without scrutiny.

 

But that’s not all people did in the Christian collegia, a.k.a. the church.  People without power in society could experience having authority in collegias, and could hob-nob with people of means. Christians weren’t immune to this and they used the church to gain notoriety among wealthy patrons in order to gain power outside the church.  Contrary to all that nonsense, Paul reminds the Christians in Philippi that the church is foremost about revering Christ, not ourselves or our agendas or thinking about what our gain can be.  At one time Paul thought that same way; he remembers the boasting, the pride, being a keeper of the keys so to speak, but eventually he realized life as a believer isn’t about all that.  So he writes, “whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ...I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus my Lord.”  What’s more, he’s writing as one staring at the possibility of death for the sake of his faith in Christ.  Paul’s saying, “Hey, it’s not about me or my comfort.”  It’s entirely about following Christ no matter what the cost.  It’s about Christ’s lordship, not about ours.

 

That’s at the heart of Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees.  They’d studied the law more than anyone else, they knew it backwards and forwards, but they’d forgotten that embedded in the law was life itself.  Sabbath laws in particular were meant originally to give people a break from labor so that they could celebrate life, even if just for a day.  But, by the time Jesus had come to earth there were so many Sabbath regulations that Sabbath had lost all sense of what God designed it to be.  Jesus reminds his disciples and even the Pharisees about the heart of Sabbath, by reclaiming life--plucking grain as a snack during a leisurely walk through a field.  But, the law keepers didn’t see life, they saw Jesus threatening their control over the law.  They were committed to control rather than life.

 

I wonder how often God asks Himself, “What are they doing?”  We’re so busy piling up our achievements and kudos as if they mattered a blink.  God wants a committed heart, which compared to anything else makes our grand pedestals seem puny.  Christ, who by the way is the Lord of the Universe, wants us to get off our pedestals and give Him the reigns.  Most of us know this, but we also have to admit that we get locked into, rocked, and divided by squabbles that come from nowhere else than pride.  When we feel or think we’ve got the right answer and if it’s not something about which scripture speaks unequivocally that’s when pride sets in.  And the way God works is that when our pride gets in the way God’s not always going to force His way; in fact, He may let us stuck for a while in the consequences of choosing our way over His.

 

My time with you as your Interim Pastor is about up.  And the things that I’m saying now are the things closest to my heart for you.  If you want to know the secret to commitment that God’s unpolished elite have learned, then do what you’re passionate about doing.  It’s easy to commit to the things that we’re passionate about.  So, find your passion and commit it God’s use rather than your own trophy case.  What’s your passion?  It’s that one thing that’ll keep you energized no matter what.  My daughter’s most passionate about drawing and she’ll do it till 3 a.m.  A friend of mine is passionate about making numbers work for people and he’ll zoom in on that angle every time.  Maybe you’re passionate about children, knowledge, travel, music, art, organizing, or solving problems.  Whatever your passion is, ask yourself how you can turn this passion into something God-glorifying.  The limit is your creativity; the tragedy is that you’d let your passion go uncommitted to God.  God has given each of us a way to energize our commitments to Him, and it’s through our passions.

 

When we’re on our pedestals all we can do is look down at other people, but when we’re off our pedestals we’re forced to look up to a Lord Whom alone should be our vision and the object of our greatest commitment.  So, as God’s unpolished elite, let’s stop erecting pedestals of achievements and pride, and start discovering our passions.  And when we’ve discovered those passions, let’s turn them over to God, expecting God to use them in ways that will astound, mystify, and excite us into an all out, robust, crowd drawing commitment.  That’s the Central Presbyterian Church I see on the horizon.  So go for it.  Hallelujah.  Amen.