My sermon titles always seem to sound like—well, sermon titles. I wish that I had the gift that Lewis Grizzard, a late southern humorist had in coming up with catchy titles. He wrote song titles like “My wife ran off with my best friend and I miss him.” It is especially hard in the summer time. After the celebration of the Trinity, the Sundays after Pentecost seem to stretch to infinity. It’s no wonder that many pastors resort to a sermon series during this time.

 

The church year falls into two pieces. The first, starting at the end of November or beginning of December with Advent tells the story of Jesus Christ. We learn of his birth, his life, and with Lent and Easter his suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. The message is clear. This is the grace of God, which is not earned, but given as a free gift.

 

This is the portrayal of the seriousness with which God views human sinfulness. It reaches beyond a human understanding which views sins in terms of actions—things that we do or things that we should have done. Rather, it sees sin as the brokenness of the world into which human beings are born.We might divide our actions into mortal or venial sins—greater or lesser—but that is only a description of consequences. In God’s eyes sin is sin and results in a disruption of the relationship between ourselves and God. It isn’t something we can work our way out of. We are powerless to earn God’s favor. Instead, God says I’ve done it for you. That is the powerful message of justification by faith—simple trust in something that God has already done. That is the story of Advent to Easter. That is the core, the central thought, of the Christian Faith. But then comes the Ascension.

 

Jesus withdraws his physical presence and says to his people, “Go.” Go into all the world. Go and make disciples. Go and baptize. Go and teach. And Pentecost adds the ability, the power of the Holy Spirit to make the going effective. But then

the question arises, how are we to live, what are we to be like on the way.

 

St. Paul has an answer to that. Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. It’s on page 827 in the pew Bible. Put your finger on chapter one, verse three. Now run your finger all the way down to verse fourteen. That is one single sentence in Greek, and it describes the core of the Christian faith. God has been thinking about you and me, St. Paul writes, from before the foundations of the earth were laid. He recognized the fact that we were going to make a mess of things, and so he predestined us to be his children. This predestination or choosing takes place through Jesus Christ. In one incredibly complex sentence St. Paul lays out the basis, which he subsequently explains in chapter two. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”

 

And just in case we missed the point, St. Paul says “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works. Then comes the “therefore.” St. Paul is big on “therefore.” Since this is true

—that we have been saved by grace through faith—then we should lead a life worthy of our calling. What does that look like? We shouldn’t live as the Gentiles, that is the surrounding society, live. Then St. Paul enters his mother mode. Mothers are always quick to tell us about things that we should not do.

 

Listen to St. Paul. Therefore, “Don’t lie.” If you lie, then you have to remember what you said and to whom you’ve said it, because sooner or later you are going to trip over it.We need to be truthful to the people around us. Therefore, be angry, but don’t sin. That’s a tricky one. Stop and think about what really makes you angry. I can’t speak for you, but in my case it usually involves something that I have interpreted as a slight to myself. And I build it in my own mind. It’s like the story of the fellow who had a flat tire late in the evening on a country road.

 

He discovered that he didn’t have a jack, but he saw a house a half mile down the road. He thought maybe he could borrow a jack from the people there. As he started walking, he started thinking. It’s late. Those people have probably gone to bed. They won’t be happy to have someone disturb them. And then he thought, but I really am stuck and I need to borrow a jack and why wouldn’t they be willing to help? And the more he thought about it, the more he thought about his need and their possible reaction to being disturbed,the angrier he got. By the time he reached the porch, he pounded on the door and when the door opened he shouted “you can keep your stupid jack!" and stormed off.

 

Have you ever done that—built slights and hurts up in your own mind?How many times do we get angry on behalf of other people? I’ve discovered that my righteous anger tends to support my own prejudices.

 

How angry do we get about structural injustice that targets a segment of the population on the basis of skin color or a job in which the pay is so low that a person has to hold two or three jobs to support his or her family?

 

Do we get angry about injustice to someone else?

 

Therefore—it all goes back to the basis of our faith, that God has made us his own. Therefore, don’t let the sun go down on your anger. That’s good advice for a married couple, but most of us have long memories. When we get cross-grains with our spouse

or anybody else, it is so easy to dredge up hurts from the past.

 

“Be kind to one another,” St. Paul writes, “tenderhearted, forgiving one another.” Forgiveness starts at home, because there it really matters. St. Paul also writes, “Watch your mouth.”

 

Words can be devastating weapons and can slice a person to pieces more effectively than the sharpest razor. Therefore, thieves must give up stealing. Finally found one that doesn’t apply to us.

 

We don’t steal money.

We don’t steal things.

We steal time.

We steal time from our children, because we don’t want to be bothered now.

We steal time from our spouse.

We steal time from our friends.

We steal time from work.

 

St. Paul writes that we should work hard, not so that we would have a stockpile, something to hoard for ourselves. We should work hard so that we have something to give to others.

 

As a senior Navy Chaplain, I was once involved in an ethics project for the Navy. The Chief of Naval Operations, the highest uniformed officer in the Navy, sent back a note on our submission: “After you’ve told them to be good, then what?” Lots of good advice from St. Paul in his mother mode, but there is more to it than that. St. Paul is big on the “therefores.”

 

We are to forgive one another because God in Christ has forgiven us. We are to be imitators of God not because God commands it, but because we are part of the family of God. Our response is that of beloved children. We do the therefores because Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.