September 26, 2010
Clean & Sober - 1 Timothy 3:1-7
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadI injured my Achilles tendon not that long ago, so I have not been able to run lately, and likely will not run for one to six months. So, I have been riding my bike again. I used to ride my bike a lot, but I had a close call not long before Caroline was born and that put the brakes on my riding. Looking back on that, though, the reason that I had such a close call was that I was really drunk at the time. I was riding my bike, out in the country mind you, up this hill that curved to the right. I normally stay on the side of the road, but because I was drunk this time, I swerved out in the middle of the road while, at the same time, a big truck barreled up behind me. Fortunately, I was sober just enough to swerve back to the right and the truck was sober enough to swerve to the left and we missed each other.
Session is meeting immediately after this service, and before they put my drinking problem on their agenda, I need to get one thing straight. I was not drunk on anything alcoholic or illegal. I was drunk from exhaustion. I had been riding for a long time that particular day, and the wind was in my face, and that hill seemed to never end. When cyclists get tired, they often weave, especially going up a hill. If that hill has traffic on it, then you can see how that would be a problem. But you don’t think about the danger at the time. Actually, you don’t think at all. You just keep going, and the easiest way to keep going is to weave. I didn’t even know I was doing it. I wasn’t thinking straight, you see. I was so exhausted that I was – for all practical purpose – drunk. The lesson I learned that day is don’t ever ride your bike when you’re drunk. And maybe more to the point, don’t ever attempt to do on a bike what you’re not in shape to do. If your perspective is out of whack, if you can’t see or think clearly, if you’re drunk, then it’s best to stay home. In a way, all that is sort of saying the same thing.
On one hand, the early Christians must have been a rag-tag bunch if Paul had to literally tell his elders not to get smashed before they came to Church. I have had a number of interesting things happen on Sunday morning, but drunk elders has not been one of them. I was at a meeting with some of homeless people one time and the rule at the meeting was that if you were inebriated, you could only talk for five minutes at a time. It would be one thing if that meeting happened late on a Saturday night, but it was on Wednesdays at noon. Now that tells you something about who was at that meeting. And maybe Paul is telling us something about who the early Christians were.
But at least from the other things that Paul tells us, I don’t think the early Church was drunk on alcohol. I think they probably got drunk on a few other things. Don’t get drunk, Paul tells his leaders, and don’t get quarrelsome, and don’t fall in love with money. You should be able to manage your own household “decently and in order.” Don’t get too puffed up with conceit. If drunkenness blinds us to what is important or what is true, then all those things can make us – and often do make us – drunk. We are honestly having a session meeting in an hour, and I hope we’re sober. I hope that we can see and think clearly. I hope that we can see what is important. I hope that we understand the truth. I hope that we understand and believe in the Gospel and that we let that believe determine our decisions. I hope that we’re sober.
I have definitely come to believe that it doesn’t necessarily take alcohol to get drunk. I doubt seriously, for example, if I am the only one here who has gotten drunk on pride, which often manifests itself in opinions. My opinions, while valid, are not at all synonymous with the Truth. Or to put it another way, God is bigger than my opinions. God is bigger than my limited perspective to understand God. To tie God down, or to somehow or other fit God in my brain so that my opinions are by definition God’s opinions, is to be really, really drunk. It is not to see things as they really are. We know that God is bigger than we are. Surely we understand that. Why then do we sometimes act as if we are the sole arbiters of Truth? That is clearly not reality, and yet it is a commonly held belief on all sides of the theological spectrum. It’s a major problem in the Church. It’s sheer drunkenness.
Sometimes we get drunk on money. Money, we say, holds our future. Now, isn’t that something that only a drunk person could say? We, being sober and all, know better. God alone holds our future, just like God held our past. Our lives will not get any more meaningful with more money or more stuff. We might like more money and more stuff, but we don’t need it. We need God, and we have God, and God has us. So why does our money own us so much of the time? Paul specifically warned us against loving money too much. . Jesus, just to set the record straight, was majorly broke. I can’t possibly believe that any preacher can give the impression that by following Jesus, who was broke and homeless, that we will achieve financial wealth. That sounds like 100 proof white lightening talking. I’m not fond of hounding people for money, but I really think that the idea of a tithe is a good test. 10% hurts. If you can let go of 10%, then I think you have a pretty good perspective on money. If you can’t, then your money probably owns you and you are basically drunk off of it.
We Presbyterians get drunk on tradition. We are very traditional, which I think is good to a degree. God does not speak to us only through modern ways. We cannot divorce ourselves from how God worked in the past. If we did, then we would never read the Bible, and we would basically say that God is no bigger than we are. We don’t believe that about God. If we did, then we’d be drunk on modernity. But sometimes we Presbyterians get drunk on the past, and we refuse to see how God may be speaking in fresh ways. God is free to call our bluff on what we think is “right.” It has happened all the time in the past, which is why we pay attention to the past. But the past isn’t all that counts. Sometimes we have gotten very drunk off of tradition.
I really do think that more than anything, Paul is telling us to lay off the hard stuff. Especially if you’re going to be a leader in the Church, then lay off the hard stuff. Lay off all that stuff that prevents us from discerning the truth. I don’t know if you have paid much attention to Washington, but it’s messy. It always has been messy really, because any nation with 308 million people that is governed, “by the people, of the people, and for the people,” is by definition messy. Our nation governs by the consent of the governed, and it got that idea directly from the Protestant Reformation. In fact, in a way, America got that idea from Presbyterians. We elect elders to represent us on session. They serve three year terms, and then, if we want to, we re-elect them. We do that not because it’s in vogue, but because of what we have come to believe about God.
Presbyterians put a ton of responsibility on their elders, and also their deacons. It is vital, then, for those elders and deacons to be sober. They need to be able to think clearly and profoundly. They need to check their agendas at the door, whatever those agendas may be. Our agendas, after all, are not God’s agenda. The Church has conservative branches and liberal branches to it, and I believe that perhaps the biggest problem facing us as a Church is each side’s insistence that their agenda is God’s agenda. We know better than that. We need to see that clearly. We need to be clean and sober in every way. If we are not, then bad things happen. Think Jimmy Swaggert, or Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, or Ted Haggard, Anthony Jinwright, or Bishop Eddie Long (the pastor of a mega Church in Atlanta who allegedly lured four young boys into a sexual relationships), or that crazy pastor in Florida who successfully high jacked the country’s business by threatening to burn Korans. Every single one of them was ultimately completely inebriated. Sometimes it was literal alcohol and sometimes it was something else. Every time, it was devastating. Like it or not, the world judges all of us as Christians for what they have done. For somebody on the outside looking in, it’s what WE have done. We have sexually abused our children, we have taken money from people in God’s name, we have burned Korans.
When Paul wrote this letter, the future of the Church was not by any means guaranteed. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of movements like the early Christian movement in Rome. There was absolutely no reason to believe that Christianity would survive. In fact, anthropologist are dumfounded about that fact. Paul knew this very well. Paul knew, like we all know, that the reason the Church will survive is not because of our faithfulness, but because of God’s faithfulness. But, we have a role to play in that. And one of those roles, as simple as it sounds, is simple sobriety. This sermon is not a temperate, tee-totaling sermon. I’m not preaching just on the plight of alcoholism (although perhaps I should). I’m telling all of us, especially if we are leaders in the Church, to put our own agendas aside, to let our opinions rest, not to become to influenced by power, or money, or ownership. We need to realize what a privilege it is to serve the Living Christ. It’s God’s Church, and it’s God’s world. It is not ours. Yet God has shown us some grace. That ought to, if nothing else, make us humble, clean us up and keep us sober and faithful.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
