Test Driving Theology

Admiral James Stockdale was the highest-ranking American POW held during the Viet Nam War.  He was a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton from 1965 to 1973 and during his imprisonment, was tortured over twenty different times.  

In an interview, Admiral Stockdale was asked, “Admiral, how did you make it?  How did you survive so long in such horror?” Stockdale answered him: “Well, I never doubted.  I never doubted not only that I would get out, and that I would prevail in the end; but that I’d turn the experience into the defining event of my life.”

After a long moment of silence, the Admiral was asked, “so…who didn’t make it out of the Hanoi Hilton alive?”  Stockdale replied, “Oh, that’s easy.  The optimists.”  “The optimists?  Why the optimists?  That doesn’t make sense, given what you just said.” 

Stockdale responded: “The optimists.  They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Then Admiral James Stockdale smiled, and said: “100%.  I never lost faith in the end of my story.  100%.”

100% faith in the end of his story.

This weekend, we bring our 3-week sermon series, “Trinity: Inside Out” to a close.  We have been focusing on the treasure that God has placed within us…God’s love and grace, which we receive in the waters of baptism, and which grows within us throughout our lives…and on how we share that treasure.

Two weeks ago, we talked about how our financial resources reflect the treasure of God’s love and grace.  Last week, we focused on how we invest our time; and how that reflects Christ’s love.  

Today, we are talking about how the gift of our whole selves…our very being…our lives…reflect our values as people who follow Jesus.  We are talking about what it is to be confident in the end of our stories.  We are talking about 100%

You see, in our Gospel reading, a lawyer was trying to trip Jesus up…trying to trap him with a trick question.  “What is the Greatest Commandment?” he asked, knowing that if Jesus selected any one of the commandments, he’d be breaking the law, and he could be arrested…because no commandment could be “greater” than any other.  But Jesus wasn’t taking the bait.

Rather than a commandment, Jesus gave a framework for all the law: 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Love God…love your neighbor.  That’s it.  And the lawyer was sent scurrying home in frustration.  

And while it may sound at first like loving God and loving your neighbor are two separate things…maybe even ranked #1 and #2, it doesn’t work that way.  When Jesus says, “On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets,” he is saying that these two things are connected.  They are inter-dependent.  You cannot have one without the other.  

It’s like how a door hangs in a frame on two hinges.  Both are equally important.  With only one hinge, the door won’t work.  In the same way, all of God’s law hangs on these two ideas:  Love God and love your neighbor.

And for God’s law to take root within you, Jesus is saying that you have to be you have to be all in…100%…on these two ideas:  Love the Lord your God…love your neighbor…with all your heart.  Not a 50/50 split…no…100% for each of them.

100%.

When a young Catholic monk in the early 1500’s began reading the Bible, he found inconsistencies between what the scriptures said, and what the church taught.  Martin Luther, after getting nowhere trying address these problems through proper channels, one day wrote his complaints… 95 of them…and hung them on the door of the church, which was like a public bulletin board.  In doing so…he lit a match…and the reformation began.

Luther had poked the bear; and the bear growled.  For three days, Luther was questioned in an ecclesiastical trial in Augsburg, Germany.  He wouldn’t back down.  He was forced to sneak away in the night to avoid arrest.  

There was a second debate…with theologian Johann Eck…where Luther said that neither the Pope, nor the church were infallible.  That didn’t go over well.  This was considered blasphemy.

And then in the city of Worms, Germany, there was a final trial, where Luther was ordered to reverse the things he’d said.  Instead, Luther doubled-down: “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand.  May God help me. Amen.”

100%.  Luther was all in.  Loving God…loving neighbor.

Luther was ordered arrested, but he escaped and hid under an assumed name at the Castle at Wartburg, where he continued to write, and to translate the scriptures into German, so the people could see God’s truth for themselves.

500 years later, we are here, the inheritors of Luther’s legacy of courage, and a willingness to put himself out there.  100%.  

The Apostle Paul’s words to us in our first reading today are really quite simple: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”

Here is the truth:  God is not asking for part of us…for a portion of us…and God is not asking for a portion of our love.  God wants 100%.  And that makes sense.

If I said to my wife, Lori, “honey, I love you almost completely…almost all the way…,” well…that wouldn’t be ok with her…or with me.  No.  Lori wants, and Lori deserves me to love her fully…100%.

• The same with our boys, Nathan and Sam.  There cannot be partial love.  My love of them doesn’t divide 50/50.  I love each of them 100%.
• The same with my family.
• And with my friends.
• And with all of you.

There is no such thing as partial love.  It’s 100%.  It’s always 100%,

It is this way because this is the kind of love that God has given to you through Jesus.  God loves you so much that in fact he let go of his Son.  He allowed his Son to experience death.  

And as Jesus went to the cross, he did so because of his pure, unconditional love for you.  100%.

When Admiral Stockdale spoke about his experiences, he said that he had faith in the end of his story.  He said that he wanted his experiences as a POW to be the defining events of his life.  Experiences that would shape him.

As people who follow Jesus, we know what our defining experience is.  It took place in the waters of your baptism.  

• It was the moment when your parents went all in on you…100%… promising to raise you the faith, bring you to the services of God’s house and place in your hands the Holy Scriptures. 
• It was the moment when your Godparents went all in on you, promising to walk alongside you, to tend to your faith and to remind you of the gifts God has given.  100%.
• It was the moment when the church went all in on you, promising to support you and your parents as you grew in the faith…to teach you in Sunday School…in confirmation…to give you opportunities to experience God’s goodness. 100%.
• Most importantly, it was the moment that God went all in on you.  Promising to love you unconditionally, to know you completely…to forgive you, to give you the gift of eternal life, and to make you a part of this community.  100%.

This was your defining moment.  This is what shapes you.  It is who you are.  And because of it you can live boldly.  You can give fully of yourself…your time and your possessions, signs of God’s gracious love. 

You can walk out of the church building today, knowing that through Jesus’ love, you are the church, and the church is inside out…you belong out there.  You are fed and nourished by Word and Sacrament…in here.  But you live and serve…out there.    

Be confident that your baptism is your defining moment.  And recognize that that the defining moment in someone else’s life…someone who doesn’t know God’s great love…just might be when they encounter you…at work….or school…or at the grocery store…and in you, they get a taste of the love and the goodness of God.

You, child of God…you can live this way because you’ve had your defining moment…God went 100% for you and because of that, you can be confident…confident in the end of your story.

Be the people of God.  Inside and out.  100%

Thanks be to God!

Amen.