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<\/a>This is a marvelous sermon; read it through and you will rise up and call me blessed.<\/em><\/p>\nSermon on Romans 3:9-20.<\/strong><\/p>\n As many of you know, I do a lot of my work at Starbucks.<\/p>\n I have my reasons.<\/p>\n For one thing, I get more accomplished without Dennis pestering me to show him how his computer works.<\/p>\n But to be honest, the main reason I go to Starbucks\u2026is because I like to eavesdrop.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true. What ice cream and cheesecake were to the\u00a0Golden Girls<\/em>\u00a0eavesdropping is to me.<\/p>\n At Starbucks I\u2019m like a fly on the wall with a moleskin notebook under his wing.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been dropping eaves at coffee shops for as long as I\u2019ve been a pastor and, until this week at least, I\u2019ve never been caught.<\/p>\n This week I sat down at a little round table and started to sketch out a funeral sermon.<\/p>\n At the table to my left was a 20-something guy with ear phones in and an iPad out and a man-purse slung across his shoulder.<\/p>\n At the table to my right were two middle-aged women. They had a bible and a couple of Beth Moore books on the table between them. And a copy of the\u00a0Mt Vernon Gazette<\/em>.<\/p>\n The first thing I noticed though was their perfume. It was strong I could taste it in my coffee.<\/p>\n Now, in my defense I don\u2019t think I could properly be accused of eavesdropping considering just how loud the two women were talking. Like they wanted to be heard.<\/p>\n Their \u2018bible study\u2019 or whatever it had been was apparently over because the woman by the window closed the bible and then commented out loud:<\/p>\n \u2018I really do need to get a new bible. This one\u2019s worn out completely.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I\u2019ve just read it so much.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Not to be outdone, the woman across from her, parried, saying just as loudly:<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do if I didn\u2019t spend time in the Word every day.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I don\u2019t know what people do without the Lord.\u2019 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u201cThey do whatever they want\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0her friend by the window said.<\/p>\n And I said- to myself-\u00a0\u2018Geez, I\u2019ve sat next to two Flannery O\u2019Connor characters.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I assumed that since they were actually reading the bible there was no way they attended this church, but just to make sure I gave them a double-take.<\/p>\n They had perfectly permed hair flecked with frosted highlights. And they had nails in which I could see the reflection of their large, costume jewelry.<\/p>\n \u201cBaptists\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I thought to myself.<\/p>\n They continued chatting over their lattes as the woman by the window flipped through the\u00a0Mt Vernon Gazette<\/em>. She stopped at a page and shook her head in disapproval.<\/p>\n Whether she actually said\u00a0\u2018Tsk, tsk, tsk,\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0or I imagined it I can\u2019t be sure.<\/p>\n The other woman looked down at the paper and said:\u00a0\u2018Oh, I heard about that. He was only 31.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Did you hear it was an overdose?\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the woman by the window said like a kid on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s when I knew who they were gossiping about. I knew because I was sitting next to them writing that young man\u2019s funeral sermon.<\/p>\n \u2018Did he know the Lord?\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the woman asked.<\/p>\n \u2018Probably not considering the lifestyle\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the woman by the window said without pause.<\/p>\n They went on gossiping from there.<\/p>\n They used words like \u2018shameful.\u2019<\/p>\n They did not, I noticed, use words like \u2018sad\u2019 or \u2018tragic\u2019 or \u2018unfortunate.\u2019<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t long before the circumference of their conversation spun its way to encompass things like \u2018society and what\u2019s wrong with it,\u2019 how parents need to pray their kids into the straight and narrow, and how this is what happens when our culture turns its back on God.\u2019<\/p>\n After a while they came to a lull in their conversation and the woman opposite the window, the one with the gaudy bedazzled cross on her neck, gazed down at the\u00a0Mt Vernon Gazette<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and wondered out loud:<\/p>\n \u2018What do you say at a funeral like that?\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And without even looking at them, and with a volume that surprised me, I said:<\/p>\n \u2018The same damn thing that\u2019ll be said at your funeral.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n They didn\u2019t even blush. But they did look at me awkwardly.<\/p>\n \u2018I hardly think so\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the woman by the window said, sizing me up and not looking very impressed with the sum of what she saw.<\/p>\n And so I laid my cards down:\u00a0\u2018Well, I probably won\u2019t be preaching your funeral, but I will be preaching his.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And then I pointed at her theatrically worn bible, the one resting on top of her copy of\u00a0A Heart Like His\u00a0by Beth Moore, and I said:\u00a0\u2018If you actually took that seriously you\u2019d shut up right now.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cNo one is righteous, not one.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sounds a little harsh, right? I mean, no one?<\/p>\n Just try filling in the blank of Paul\u2019s assertion. Think of the best person you can and stick them down inside Paul\u2019s sentence and listen to how it sounds.<\/p>\n No one is righteous, not one, not even Mother Theresa.<\/p>\n No one is righteous, not one, not even Gandhi.<\/p>\n No one is righteous, not one, not even your Mother.<\/p>\n When you hear today\u2019s scripture text the first time through it sounds like this is Exhibit A for everything people hate about Christianity.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s this God who made us and then made a measuring stick that was just a little bit higher than the best of us and a lot higher than most of us.<\/p>\n But to hear it that way is to miss who Paul is speaking to and where this falls in Paul\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n In case you\u2019re just tuning in, so far Paul has spent chapters 1 and 2 of his letter pointing out everything that\u2019s wrong with the world. Everything that\u2019s broken in God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n And in chapters 1 and 2, Paul makes his case by pointing his finger at \u201cthose people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThem.\u201d<\/p>\n Not the good, every\u00a0Sunday\u00a0people at church in Rome but those other people. \u2018Society.\u2019 You know, those people? The \u2018lost\u2019 people who don\u2019t believe in God, who don\u2019t attend worship, don\u2019t raise their children right.<\/p>\n Those people.<\/p>\n They\u2019re greedy, Paul says. Violent even. They\u2019ve got no morals or values.<\/p>\n \u2018Just listen to the way they talk\u2019 says Paul, \u2018all cursing and slander.\u2019<\/p>\n Those people.<\/p>\n They\u2019re broken the institution of marriage and the family. They just hop from one bed to the next, one mate to another, like people are just a means to an end.<\/p>\n Those people.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve got no commitment. No decency.<\/p>\n Paul spends chapters 1 and 2 pointing at \u2018those people\u2019 and ticking off their every sin and flaw.<\/p>\n And you can bet that with each and every indictment, you can imagine as the accusations build, the members at First Church Rome nodded right along with self-satisfied smiles on their faces.<\/p>\n You can imagine them saying to themselves:\u00a0\u2018That\u2019s right, that\u2019s exactly how those people are. Thank God I\u2019m not like those people.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And that\u2019s Paul\u2019s rhetorical trap because in chapter 3 he turns his aim at the good People of God, and he says: \u2018No one is righteous, not one.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Which is Paul\u2019s way of saying: not even you.<\/p>\n And then Paul hits them, us, with this battering ram of accusations about how we sin every day with our minds and our lips and our hands and feet, by what we do and by what we leave undone.<\/p>\n And Paul lifts those accusations, one by one, word for word, straight out of scripture.<\/p>\n And\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0Paul\u2019s point.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Paul\u2019s point when he says we\u2019re not justified by the law, by scripture.<\/p>\n You see, the takeaway from today\u2019s text isn\u2019t that you\u2019re a perpetual disappointment to God. If that\u2019s what you leave with then you\u2019ve missed what Paul\u2019s doing here.<\/p>\n The takeaway is that belonging to a religious community doesn\u2019t make you any closer to God than anyone else. Believing in the bible doesn\u2019t make you a better person than anyone else because that same bible indicts you too.<\/p>\n You may go to church every\u00a0Sunday\u00a0but the Book of Micah says God hates your praise if there\u2019s a single poor person in the streets.<\/p>\n You may be a good mother and love your kids, but the Book of Luke says if you don\u2019t love Jesus more then\u2026<\/p>\n You may be a clergy person like me, you might\u2019ve given your whole career to God, but the best the Book of Matthew has to say about that is that I\u2019m like a white-washed tomb, a hypocrite with lies on the inside.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t confuse your place in the pews with a place in God\u2019s favor- that\u2019s Paul\u2019s point- because the only advantage this (the bible) gives us is that it tells the truth about us.<\/p>\n Who we really are.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2018No one is righteous. Not one.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The woman by the window actually did shut up for a moment, clearly trying to figure out how this had become a 3 person conversation.<\/p>\n And then it hit her:\u00a0\u2018Have you been eavesdropping on us?\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Of course not,\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0I lied.<\/p>\n \u2018Why don\u2019t you mind your own business\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0she scolded.<\/p>\n \u2018But that\u2019s just it\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0I said, \u2018it is my business. I\u2019m a preacher and so I couldn\u2019t help but notice that I had two Pharisees sitting next to me.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice:\u00a0\u2018Listen, young man. I\u2019ve been saved. I love the Lord, talk to him and read his Word every day.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Apparently you\u2019ve not retained very much\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I mumbled.<\/p>\n \u2018What\u2019s that supposed to mean?\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0she asked with mustered outrage.<\/p>\n \u2018It means you\u2019re no better than that guy over there\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and I pointed to a homeless guy who was nursing his coffee and muttering to himself.<\/p>\n \u2018In fact, you\u2019re not good at all. And neither am I. None of us is in a position to judge anyone else, and someone with a worn out bible should already know that.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I thought that I\u2019d just played a trump card. The end.<\/p>\n \u2018Well, isn\u2019t that exactly what you\u2019re doing right now?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0she asked me. And suddenly I felt the tables turning.<\/p>\n \u2018Uh, what do you mean?\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I asked.<\/p>\n \u2018Well, it sounds like you\u2019ve been eavesdropping on us for the last 10 minutes and judging us the whole time.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I felt myself blush:\u00a0\u2018Not the\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>WHOLE<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0time.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018I bet you started judging us before you even heard what we were talking about.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018I did not\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0I lied,\u00a0\u2018Don\u2019t forget you\u2019re talking to a pastor.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And I thought that was the end of it, but then she turned her chairs towards me, like we are all together, and she asked:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2018So, what makes\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>you<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0do it? Why are you so quick to stick your nose in other people\u2019s junk and judge them?\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I considered punting on her question, telling her I had work to do and leaving it at that.<\/p>\n But she\u2019d caught me eavesdropping so I thought I should balance out my vice with a little virtue.<\/p>\n I told her the truth:\u00a0\u2018Probably because I have junk of my own that I don\u2019t know what to do with.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Me too\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>she said, and suddenly she dropped her guard like we were fellow addicts at an AA Meeting.<\/p>\n She said:\u00a0\u2018I\u2019m constantly carrying around things I\u2019m not proud of, things I\u2019m ashamed of, things I try to keep locked and hidden away, because I don\u2019t know what to do with them.\u2019 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And then her friend, the one opposite the window, sipped her coffee and then said:\u00a0\u2018Me three.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a pastor long enough to know that if you\u2019d been sitting there you too would\u2019ve said\u2026<\/p>\n Me four.<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s true of all of us.<\/p>\n We condemn and we criticize and we label and we gossip and we judge.<\/p>\n We raise an eyebrow at other people\u2019s mistakes, other people\u2019s sins, other people\u2019s problems- because we\u2019re carrying around our own junk and we don\u2019t know what to do with it.<\/p>\n But Paul shows us what to do with our junk.<\/p>\n Paul shows us what to do with the worst secrets about ourselves that we carry around with us.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t forget that when Paul directs his attack in chapter 3 at religious people, the first person Paul has in mind is Paul.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t forget that when Paul levels the accusation that \u2018No one is righteous, not one\u2019 Paul\u2019s speaking in the\u00a0first person<\/em>before he\u2019s speaking about any other person.<\/p>\n Paul cursed and condemned Christians. Paul\u2019s encouraged executions and stood by smiling while Christians were stoned to death.<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s the one whose\u00a0throat was an open grave.<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s the one who used his tongue to deceive and had venom on his lips.<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s the one whose mouth was full of bitterness, whose feet were swift\u00a0 to shed blood.<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s the one who knew not the way of peace\u2026\u00a0until he met the Resurrected Christ.<\/p>\n And after he meets the Risen Christ, Paul is free to own up to all of it.<\/p>\n All the junk he would otherwise want to hide and deny and push down and repress and keep locked and hidden away.<\/p>\n Paul shows us what we can do with our junk.<\/p>\n Paul shows us that if we\u2019re more convinced of God\u2019s grace than the sin we\u2019re convinced we must keep secret from everyone, then we can open up this junk we carry around with us and we can say:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2018No one is righteous, no one, especially not me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Look at what I\u2019ve done.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 This is who I was.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 These are the words I spoke in anger that can never be taken back<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 This is the relationship I pretended was fine until it unraveled away.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 These are the kids I took for granted until they were grown and gone.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 This is the person I see in the every mirror every day and have never learned\u00a0 to love.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 This is the addiction I always insisted didn\u2019t have the better of me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 This is the insecurity that masks itself as cynicism.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 These are all the people I refused to forgive.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 This is the person closest to me I cheated on\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 But God\u2026God forgives\u2026all of it.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Paul shows us that our worst junk can become a living, breathing example of what God\u2019s amazing grace can do.<\/p>\n Which is kind of a shame.<\/p>\n Because I\u2019ve been a pastor long enough to know that most of you pretend you\u2019re not so desperate as to need a grace that\u2019s anywhere near amazing.<\/p>\n Most of you pretend you\u2019re not actually carting this junk around and have no idea what to do with it.<\/p>\n For many of you, church is the last place where you\u2019re really\u00a0you<\/em>, and\u00a0Sunday\u00a0morning is the time of the week you\u2019re the least open about who you really are.<\/p>\n Church is where you grin and pretend like it\u2019s all good and you\u2019ve got your ______together.<\/p>\n Many of you have come to church for years so determined to not let anyone find out what\u2019s going with you that you\u2019ve never trusted Jesus Christ with it either.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s a shame.<\/p>\n Because Paul shows us- the things we\u2019re most burdened by are the things the world most needs to hear.<\/p>\n Paul shows us that if we open this up and admit that no one is righteous, not even me\u2026and here I\u2019ll give you a \u2018for instance\u2019<\/p>\n Paul shows us that if we can say that then what someone else can hear is: \u2018If God\u2019s grace is for them\u2026then it\u2019s even for me\u2026\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Yesterday afternoon nearly 500 gathered to celebrate that young man\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n We sang\u00a0Amazing Grace<\/em>.<\/p>\n We heard a reading from Paul\u2019s Letter to the Philippians. It was different words but the same meaning. And I preached, the Gospel.<\/p>\n The same message I\u2019d preach at any of your deaths.<\/p>\n After the funeral, I was walking past the receiving line, which started here at the altar and snaked its way to the other end of the building, and one of the deceased\u2019s friends grabbed my elbow and said to me:\u00a0\u2018If what you said is true for him, then it\u2019s true for me too\u2026right?\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 And I said: \u2018Yeah.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>And he let go of my elbow and said,\u00a0\u2018Thanks for sharing that.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This is a marvelous sermon; read it through and you will rise up and call me blessed. Sermon on Romans 3:9-20. As many of you know, I do a lot of my work at Starbucks. I have my reasons. For one thing, I get more accomplished without Dennis pestering me to show him how his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n