SETTING THE CONTEXT

Corinth was a busy, important city in the Roman Empire. It was a transportation hub for both land and sea travel and a leading center for trade, agriculture, and industry. It was a cosmopolitan center hosting many athletic events and gladiatorial games and theater productions. And Corinth was a religious center for the Roman religion with its many gods and goddesses. There were a number of temples in the city including the Temple of Aphrodite which employed about 1,000 temple prostitutes, which explains why Paul teaches about sexual morality in the Corinthian letters. Corinth was a city with a reputation for gross immorality.ⁱ The Christian Church in Corinth had many pressures from outside as well as inside the congregation. Paul through the witness of his life and the lives of his associates was trying to help the Corinthians to walk the way of Christ, a very different way than they saw around them. In turn, the people around this church would be watching to see if this Jesus truly made a difference in how the Corinthian Christians lived.

Read 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark is a great place to start reading the Bible. It is an action packed gospel portraying Jesus’ life in straight forward, dynamic stories. Jesus reveals himself in this gospel more by what he does than by what he says. Our passage today takes place as Jesus’ work really begins to take hold and as he starts to face resistance. He has done a number of healings and appointed the twelve to go out and continue his work. Jesus taught in parables about the kingdom of God, a very different kingdom than the one everyone knew. Should people believe what he was teaching? They were watching him.

Read Mark 4:35-41

THE SERMON

Studies indicate that 7% of communication happens in the meaning of our words, 38% happens through the tone of our voice and 55% happens through our physiology, through our facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc.ⁱⁱ So that means that 93% of our communication comes from how we are and what we do as opposed to what we say. People learn more from us through watching us than through listening to us. And I bet you will agree that we believe what people show us through what they do and how they are more than by what they say.

Today is Father’s Day and I want to acknowledge the importance of fathers and grandfathers. Children learn from what they see for good or for ill. Fathers can make such a difference in the future of their children and through that they make a difference in the future of our world. For example, there was a four year old boy staying in a battered women’s shelter with his mother. One morning the shelter worker found him standing in a hallway alone, swinging his arms wildly in the air. She stopped and asked him what he was doing. He replied, “I’m mad at my mom because she won’t let me go out and play right now. But I’m not big enough to hit her yet.”ⁱⁱⁱ This young child had watched his father and learned that beating his mom up would get him his way. A classmate of mine while I was at school this month told us about her father. He and his wife live in South Texas and the two of them have been very involved for many years in a ministry for the poor just across the border into Mexico. The ministry is called Casa Esperanza or House of Hope. He recently bought a new car and specifically chose a truck capable of serving the needs of this ministry. At 85, he continues to drive down much needed supplies to this house of hope. It is obvious that his daughter watched him well for she is deeply involved in ministry along the border on the opposite side of Texas. My classmate and the church she pastors are very involved in serving their poor and orphaned neighbors. Her area of emphasis at school is mission and evangelism. She watches her father and learns compassion. I can remember my own grandfather telling me again and again, “there are two people in this world that I seek to emulate” (now you see where I got my vocabulary). Any way, he’d say “there are two people I want to emulate (or imitate) in my life, they are my father and Jesus of Nazareth.” My great grandfather was dead before I was born, but judging from the man my grandfather was he must have been a very good man. I watched my own father and learned about self-responsibility, tenacity, thrift, a deep sense of right and wrong and of self-integrity. I must say that the men I deeply admire are those who have fathers who failed them yet who chose to break the cycle and be better fathers to their own children – they are heroes in my book for they change the course of generations. Fathers and grandfathers, your role is a sacred calling for God has entrusted you with children who rely on you, who watch you and who learn from you. You are so important. They’ll be watching you.

The disciples of Jesus were very familiar with kingdoms and with men of authority. The Roman emperor who lived thousands of miles away made demands and people in far flung regions complied. Anyone who opposed the power of the Roman Empire, the kingdom in power, was crucified usually along public roads and outside city gates so that everyone saw what happened to those foolish enough to resist their control. So here comes Joseph’s child talking about a different kingdom, the kingdom of God and he has started to gather followers and send them out to spread the word. This is a very dangerous business. What authority does he have to make such claims and to do the things he has been doing? The people are watching. The story we read in Mark of Jesus stilling the storm tells everyone who hears it that this man has power from God. He can even control the elements. Just as God brought order out of chaos in creation, Jesus stills the storm and the sea (the sea was a common symbol of chaos) with a word. And his question rings in the ear, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” They were watching him and saw the power of God.

Years later Jesus’ message and power are continuing to spread through Paul. People are watching him as a church that now includes Jewish-Christians and non-Jewish Christians tries to understand what it means to live in Christ in this new kingdom of God. In Corinth, they are surrounded by one ethic and trying to learn this new one. Paul urges them to apply this grace of God in how they live their lives. He shows them that even though he and his associates have endured suffering and hardship they hold on to the character of Christ: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech and the power of God. Their weapons are not made of metal, but of righteousness. He tells them of the paradox of life in Christ. We look one way but in truth we are the exact opposite: treated as impostors but are true, treated as dying yet are alive, as sorrowful yet are rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything. I like the way the Message Bible paraphrases his appeal to them. “Dear; dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”^iv The Corinthian Christians were watching Paul and the people of Corinth were watching the Christians, was this Jesus someone to be believed?

Many of you know by now that I enjoy country music. A song went through my head over and over as I thought about Father’s Day and about this sermon; it’s called “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins. The song is about a father of a 4 year old son. As they are driving through town the dad had to hit his brakes and mumbled a word under his breath. His son’s happy meal went flying and guess what came out of his 4 year-old’s mouth? That 4 letter word! The Chorus goes, “He said, I’ve been watching you, dad ain’t that cool? I’m your buckaroo, I wanna be like you. And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are. We got cowboy boots and camo pants. Yeah, we’re just alike, hey, ain’t we dad? I want to do everything you do. So I’ve been watching you.” In the next verse, Dad goes to the barn to pray, “Lord please help me help my stupid self.” That night he sees his son pray, talking to God like he was talk’n to a friend, and he asks him, “Where’d you learn to pray like that?” And then the chorus starts. “I’ve been watching you.”^v

I want to encourage all you men in the congregation to be good role models for the children and youth of our church. We are blessed to have a number of men involved in the Sunday School, Sidewalk Sunday School, and youth programs here. I encourage any of you to get involved. I think it is especially important to boys to see men of faith and to have that model for their lives, but as we heard last week it is important to girls as well. We heard Beth Rambikur mention some of the Sunday School teachers who deeply impacted her life and three of the five of them are men. Our children are watching you to see what it means to be a Christian and to be a Christian man. So whether you are a father or grandfather or one who nurtures like a father or simply one who follows the Heavenly Father, we’ve got to watch Jesus then be like Jesus for whether we know it or not people are watching us. Is this Jesus to be believed? They’ll be watching you. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on June 21, 2009.