Dead Men (And Women!) Walking

Text: 2 Corinthians 4:6-12

Focus: Living sacrificial lives

Function: To help people embrace the idea that we are God's and God does with us as God pleases.

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

I guess as I get older, I realize just how much about God, Jesus and the bible I really don't know.

I actually love to write theology. I love to spend a day in prayer contemplating some Biblical truth, principle, or esoteric question about the nature of God, faith, humanity, justice, etc..

And again, the more I ponder, the less conclusions I make, and the more I wonder in amazement about God, humanity, and God's love for humanity.

In all these years, I have learned a few things. Two, simply. God loves us. I love God.

A lot has changed from when I was a young theologian who was convinced that no one really knew the bible and without me, they would remain in darkness.

I used to give three points, with a promise that if we learned, or avoided, or practiced some sort of truth or idea, we could improve ourselves as Christians.

Now, I realize that most of us have heard, if not every, then most passages of scripture expounded upon.

Charles Swindoll once said that the biggest challenge of the American Preacher was to give people something new from the text when they have heard it before also.

But we keep at it.

And we keep at it for good reasons.

1). The Bible is still always fresh and new to me.

2). We forget.

3). The Bible commands us preachers to constantly remind people to do good works.

Actually, I like the way the King James puts it: provoke one another to good works.

To Provoke means to get people emotionally involved in doing good works.

Sometimes we need encouragement.

But since the longer I minister, the more I realize that I don't know, the less dogmatic I have become.

Instead, I would share a way that I have experienced a passage of scripture with the hope that people can see some part of themselves in it in order to make a similar decision to do, or not do something.

This is a difficult passage in the sense that it sets itself apart, or it sets ministers apart, as people who live their lives for the good of others, even sacrificially on behalf of others.

Of course, with preachers, it may be that they all have a Messiah complex.

But this passage isn't talking about preachers, it is talking about us.

And it is talking about how Paul lived his life in service to others.

It almost seems that all the time he was considering his actions and their impact on others more than he was thinking about his own concerns or needs.

And the message he preaches is that at times he has been tempted to despair, he has been tempted to give up, he has been tempted to chuck it all away and take his own leisure.

I guess it all stems from verse 10: ¹⁰At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.

So, I titled this sermon, “Dead Men -and women- Walking.”

Ministers live a different life. And, we are all ministers. The classic Brethren Phrase on top of bulletins across the US today is this: Every member a minister.

So, how do we experience this “carrying the death of Christ inside of us?”

Dead Man Walking is the title of a movie that starred Susan Sarandon as a nun. It is a true story of Sister Helen Prejean ministry to a death row inmate as she provided spiritual care for him up until he was executed for murder.

The nature of the man's crimes were heinous. He was a racist that killed an interracial couple simply because he didn't want his kind with another kind.

And he was to pay the ultimate price for it.

Dead Man Walking became a phrase in that prison, in most prisons, for the condition of a prisoner who is on his final walk to the execution chamber.

He is heavily guarded and covered with bracelets on his wrists, shackles on his waist to prevent his arms from going to his feet and shackles on his feet so that they have to shuffle when they walk.

Because he is about to die, he really has nothing to lose in an escape attempt.

And he is a greater security risk, so they call out the phrase: “Dead Man Walking” in order to warn anyone who is about to encounter him that the man is potentially dangerous.

The movie depicts the sorrow the man who victimized others feels about his crime, his repentance, his reluctant acceptance of his very stiff penalty and the Nun's attitude toward the fact that she has to show Christ's unconditional love for a man that she, or at least me, would not have an hard time allowing myself to judge, even hate.

Human nature compels us to take sides create “acceptable prejudices” even though Jesus commands us to love everyone, even our enemies.

And the movie really got to me because in one sense, a big part of my life's calling has been to correct the racist narrative that indicates that somehow black people are less just because they are black.

It has been an huge part of my life.

So, I was alert during the entire movie.

And a few months after I saw the movie, I had an interesting thing happen to me.

A young couple asked me to marry them and they picked Wednesday for the wedding.

That particular Wednesday happened to be Christmas Eve. So, maybe it was for a special reason. I was thinking about the wedding anniversary celebration along with Christmas over the years and thought I would ask the couple about their choice of dates.

It might make the wedding celebration seem less when they had kids and Christmas season was focused on the kids, family, Church celebration and etc and perhaps their anniversary might become second place.

But she gave an entirely different reason for the wedding night. She said: “we are hoping my father does not come to the wedding.”

Now, there is a school of thought, especially when the parents are great, that boys marry someone like their mother and girls someone like their father.

But one thing I have learned in doing marriage counseling, is that good or bad issues with parents can come to the surface in a marriage.

And sometimes, a spouse can over react to something because although it is generally normal behavior, it may be a reminder of a problem in their own emotional development.

And it wasn't that I want to talk them out of it, it is just that issues with parents will play out in the children's lives and it is beneficial to get these things out in the open so that when they say “For better or worse” they can acknowledge that they considered that when they said “I Do.”

So I asked her what the problem was with her father and her answer floored me.

She said, “My dad, and his dad were grand dragons in the KKK.”

Now, you got to know Madison County, Indiana. For years, the KKK was headquartered there for the whole nation. Indiana Governor Edward Jackson was the national head of the KKK in the early 1920's.

Bad things were done by bad people.

I told her that I understood and she said: “Oh no! It gets worse!”

My parents have been divorced for over 10 years and my mom remarried several years ago to a black man.

She was actually afraid that there would be violence at the wedding and reception.

As it turned out, the husband of the maid of honor was a sworn officer and he came in uniform to the wedding, stood at the back and kept his eyes fixed on this woman's own father and grandfather.

That, was unsettling.

After the wedding, everything got busy. The reception was in the basement of the Church. There was no assigned seating. I was busy and when I finally got to sit down, there was only one seat left in the entire fellowship hall.

And it was directly across the table from the father, grandfather and grandmother.

I need to describe her.

She was china white. It looked like she never ever went into the sun. She was dressed in gaudy diamonds and she carried herself with a haughtiness that set something off inside of me.

I literally looked up into heaven and asked God if God has some sort of sense of humor to make me sit there.

And slowly, as I walked to the seat trying to figure out how I was going to get through the next 30 minutes without losing my job because of what I wanted to say, I prayed for help.

And wouldn't you know it? The image of that nun, Sister Helen Prejean, came to my mind.

It was like God was showing me that God loved that man who was now the victim of the state.

And, God reminded me to put aside myself and my own ideological prejudices and be the love of God to these people.

Sister Helen Prejean won the heart, for Christ, of this murderer by showing him Jesus' love.

This scripture came to mind.

This scripture tells me something important: It isn't about me. In this world for us, Christ-Followers, we have to put ourselves aside in order to love others.

I was really reminded of it again when I was back in the prison.

There are 15 team members, we call ourselves: “Their brothers from outside the wall” who serve 30 residents, or “brothers from inside the wall.”

Ideally, if we can make a close, mentoring bond with 2 residents, odds are, everyone resident someone to care for them.

God gave me two men. One was a Nazi.

He was not a Neo-Nazi. He was not part of the prison gang “the Aryan brotherhood.”

He was a real live Nazi, born in Germany.

During the weekend, along with other work by Christians in the prison, he was realizing that Nazism was not at all consistent with this Christian faith to which he was being called.

He was definitely repentant about his former crimes. But he told me something that I just can't get out of my mind.

He told me that his uncle still has the a framed piece of human skin with a Nazi Tattoo that he collected during WWII.

It was really hard to keep my composure when he told me that.

I didn't know if I should call international authorities or throw up. My head actually got dizzy when I contemplated the significance of that statement.

And again, the Lord reminded me of this Scripture and that movie.

Jesus' love can and will save anyone.

And again, I was reminded to put my own “offense” aside and care for this man.

When Jesus said, “Love your enemies, He wasn't just talking about Geo-political enemies, He was also talking about people whose lives represent something that contradicts our faith.

Carrying the death of Jesus is a mindset that says to us and everyone we meet, God's love is powerful enough to make us allies.

It happens when God's Holy Spirit touches the heart of anyone, melts it, and causes that person to give back the same unconditional love that won us to Christ in the first place.

Love covers a multitude of sins.

Now, let us get practical with our own lives and attitudes.

In these last few weeks, a lot of stuff has hit the news.

Both the right and the left were attacked and backed into corners by people, enemies from the other side, who are crying out “foul” as they expose the hypocrisy of the other side.

Let me just say that pointing out the hypocrisy of the “other side” does not imply moral superiority. We all need a Savior. Everyone of us.

Bruce Jenner changed his body to reflect his sexual orientation and a lot of people are upset about it.

Josh Duggar, a world famous Conservative Christian was exposed for molesting several young women.

And the “sides” either loves or hates both of them.

Everyone is taking sides on the validity of their choices, lack of repentance, lack of values, or whatever.

The media have turned these two people into lightning rods for the way people exclude and choose to stop loving others.

But brothers and sisters, we are Christians and we do not have that luxury.

If Christ's love can transform a Nazi, a Neo-Nazi, me and you, it can transform anyone. And if we put ourselves aside for Christ, we can be instruments of that love.

Jesus loves both men. Jesus loves Josh's victims and I do not want to make light of that since I too am a victim like his sisters were. It is horrible and some people never recover from the emotional trauma.

But I am reminded of this, Jesus loves them and we have no other choice but to “carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.”

Caitlyn Jenner, Other marginalized people need us to love them. Josh Duggar is as much of a victim of his own perversion than the girls he victimized.