SERMON
Robin Mathews-Johnson
1 Kings 3:6-28; Ephesians 6:10-20

Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

STRENGTH
What does strength mean? Think about it. What does it really take to be strong? Do you have to have rippling muscles and work out all the time at the gym, or can strength mean something different than measuring body mass and pumping iron? Look at all the hype about being so powerful and basically smashing all the competition. Strength seems to be only about blind success, and increasing performance potential. It's about power and force at the expense of all else. 

Listen to this excerpt from a muscle magazine ad. "Learn to be the man you were destined to be at the Internet's most provocative, most informative, and most fun-to-read website. . . The male of the new millennium is here. . .and his name is Testosterone!"¹ Great! 

Sometimes even churches can even get into the rut of thinking that this kind of worldly strength and power is what we're all about, too. 

Yet believers look at strength somewhat differently, I think. Sure, you should care for your body and eat right, but being strong in church is less about what we look like on the outside, and more about the strength we might need in on the inside. We must open our hearts to fight for good in the world, not just muscle up. Going God's way is a search for a different kind of power.

Perhaps it takes a little bit more finesse to get the "light" going than we would imagine. For instance, have you ever thought about how much strength it takes to change a light bulb? You don't have to be the hulk to get the job done. And aren't we a little too sensitive about whether we can bring on the light (so to speak) better than other church folks?

Churches have different strengths, too, but sometimes I think we get carried away by all the competition. We might look at light this way:
How many TV evangelists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but for the message of light to continue, send in your donations today. 
How many fundamentalists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one because anymore would be a compromise, and ecumenical standards of light would slip.
How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb? At least ten, as they need to hold a debate on whether or not the light bulb exists. 
How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb? Change???
How many charismatics does it take to change a light bulb? Only one since his or her hands are in the air anyway. 
How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb? None. They always use candles.
How many camp youth leaders does it take to change a light bulb? One, but soon all those around can warm up to its glowing.
How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? Ten: one to actually change the bulb and nine to say how much they really liked the old one.
How many United Methodists does it take to change a light bulb? You know this answer. We choose not to make a statement either in favor or against the need for a light bulb, however if in your own journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that's fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship to your light bulb and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long lived, and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence through Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we have strength when we have a little more flexibility, a little more tolerance, a bit more understanding about people who aren't always exactly like us. It makes sense doesn't it? 

I used to think that being really strong meant that you didn't cry, or show others your inner feelings. You can tell why I'd think that; a tough outer skin sometimes helps us to avoid feeling the pain we know in our lives during hard times, like when friends move away or die. It's one of the unwritten rules of our society that you should tough it out, don't feel it, and certainly don't express it. Being strong is being stoic and tough, not open or vulnerable, or is it?

And this ideal of strength isn't just a male thing either. Women are supposed to be hard-hitting, too. If you go with the worldly standards, you hold up power, wealth and status as the end alls to life. It seems so simple to many today. Just be richer or have more stuff or work without working like winning the lottery, or succeed at everything without even trying and somehow you'll get it all. Ha! 

Yet for believers, or seekers, or for those who question things, these simplistic standards of strength just aren't enough. 

DON'T THROW OUT THE BABY
Look at the two women in our Old Testament Scripture this morning in 1st Kings. I love this story. Here, Solomon decides the fate of a newborn baby claimed by two prostitutes. It's a wisdom story really, showing that even so called disreputable women can be strong and know the truth, too. 

One woman tells Solomon about what happened, describing a situation where each of the two had born a child within several days of each other. One claims that the other somehow laid on the baby, killing him, and then traded the dead child for the living one. The second woman disputes the story, claiming that the living baby is hers. 

Solomon the judge here is faced with a quandary. How can he tell? He devises the ultimate test, proposing to divide the living child by the sword in order to split him equally. This story not only challenges the stereotypes of women, it shows one woman's true strength in love by offering to give up her baby in order to save its life. 

Strength is something other than what just shows on the outside. Real strength is something that happens to us on the inside. It's about letting go, about opening up, and releasing. It's about accepting that sometimes things have to change.

Of course, sometimes when it comes to ministers, we're happy for change. It reminds me of the story about the minister, who having served the same church for many years, decided to transfer to a similar position in another church. Without telling anyone that he had made this decision, he waited until Sunday morning to announce his resignation in church. 

When he spoke to the congregation he said, "The same Jesus that called me to this church many years ago has now called upon me to leave and serve another church." Whereupon the choir spontaneously stood up and sang, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." 

Other times, having strength means facing much harder times. 

How do you have the fortitude to go on, when you're sick with a terminal illness? Talk to a Christian. How do you have guts when you are too young to know what to do in your life? Ask a religious friend. How do you show your real feelings when you are afraid? Try expressing them in worship. Crying and laughing are acceptable in this place. How do you have staying power when you're old and become weak and cannot get out of bed like Louise Mumby was before she died? I saw her falling back upon her deep faith. How do you have the courage that Rosalie and Bob have when you're moving away from the friends that you dearly love and know you'll miss? 

I'll tell you how. You give it to God. You understand that the Holy Spirit metaphorically walks with you each and every step of the way, no matter how bad things seem to get. It's the mystery of faith. You learn to believe that God is always present and will always help in some way, even if it's just to change your attitude. As one wise writer put it, "Faith is the ability to imagine something more." So, you imagine something more.²

Most of us think of ourselves without too much grandeur. We're just regular people living our basic kind of lives. We won't end up in history books or become famous outside our own circle of friends.³ Yet, Jesus taught that even the most insignificant of us has worth in God's kingdom. It's not that the strongest always prevail. Instead it's other values, harder principles really, that we've got to apply to see where we truly stand.

This is where the Ephesians text we read this morning fits in, too. The armor of God has nothing to do with contemporary military standards or external kinds of power. It's poles apart. The armor of God really has to do with a new way of living with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit. This kind of faith protects the vision of God in ways that typical armor just can't do. It's a special kind of strength, and some time or the other, we all really need it.

I'll tell you a story I've read, a true one, about a man named Benjamin told by preacher Bruce Thielmann.⁴ Benjamin was held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon for eighteen months. For fifteen of those months he was in solitary confinement. Yet, he didn't go crazy. 

In the tiny room where he was held captive, there was just a mattress on the floor and a radiator for heat. He couldn't move because his hand was handcuffed to the radiator. There was a window with Venetian blinds and no other furniture. There were some cracks in the walls, and three loose wires hanging from the ceiling where the light bulb had once been. There was oddly enough an old stuffed bird in the corner, but that's all. 

Yet, Ben used his inner strength. He describes it this way, "I began to use what was there to remind myself of the love of God. Those three wires coming down, well, they reminded me of the way God's hand comes down and touches the hand of Adam of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. You remember how the gift of life is given in such a way? This meant God's gift of life." 

He counted the various slats of the Venetian blinds on the windows, and he used them to remind himself that he was surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. The stuffed bird, though it was very old, he saw as the Holy Spirit, symbolized in Scripture by the dove. 

Each of the cracks in the walls and every place in the marred plaster were each identified by Ben with a particular Scripture. Daily he would repeat for himself passages that he had known long before, like, "May the peace of God which transcends all understanding guide your heart and your mind into Jesus Christ." Or, "Call upon me and I will do great and wondrous things that you know not of." 

Ben remembered all these things, and through this he kept sane for fifteen months alone. For him it was a long, strong remembering of God's love. He redefined the horror of his situation into God's terms. 

We need that kind of strength, too sometimes. We need it when our friends move on, whether in death or when they move to a new place. We must be strong in the faith, trusting that God is here, wherever "here" is. 

We must let our feelings in, accepting that life is hard sometimes, harder that we'd imagined. We know that loss is painful when you love. Yet we also believe, and this understanding helps us. Even in the darkest hour, there is a way that lights our way. Follow the light, and know peace in your hearts, each of you. Amen. 

Endnotes:
1 Ad for Biotest Grow products, page 45 in Mind & Muscle Power Magazine, June 2000. 
2 Aha! 
3 Richard Donovan, SermonWriter for Proper 16B, August 11, 2000, page 4.
4 In Pastor's Complete Handbook of Model Sermons, 1992, edited by L.Streiker, page 217.