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| Levi Ryan Gregg (our grandson) |
A baby. The singular most effective way
to change shopping habits. By the time a baby reaches its first birthday, parents
spend $7,500 at stores like Target. That is why retailers study purchasing
habits. If you are pregnant, retailers convince you through coupons and
specials to spend $7,500 in their stores. That said, I will examine habits in
light of our readings and Lutheran tradition.
Two weeks ago, I said John’s motive for
writing to his church was to warn members about the dangers of philosophies
that tempted them from following the Way, which is, the Person and Teaching of Jesus
Christ. In today’s passage, John encouraged Christians to persevere as true brothers
and sisters living in the world. He reminded them that not only the
secessionists, those who walk in darkness, hate them, but also the world hates
them because the world hated Jesus. The world hates Jesus’ followers.
Because the world hated Christians, John
exhorted them to love not “in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”[i]
He called them to lay down their lives for one another. Here, he
referred to a specific event in history, Jesus’ crucifixion.[ii] John echoed Jesus’ words
in the Gospel, “I lay down my life for my sheep.”[iii]
Jesus’ voluntary crucifixion was not
only the supreme sacrifice, but also the indispensable means of forgiveness.[iv] As we heard two weeks ago
and will hear next week, Jesus was the propitiation for our sins. Jesus is
propitiation and propitiator. He lovingly paid our debt with his own flesh and
blood.
John’s Christians expressed true love in
the supreme sacrifice of laying down their lives for one another and through
lesser, mundane means.[v] In John’s church, charity
did not always imply laying down one’s life, but it always involved helping
another at some personal cost. By cultivating such love in the community, John
strengthened the Church’s identity and severed malicious behavior at the root.[vi]
When John wrote, “If anyone has the world’s goods
and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s
love abide in him?” he referred to the heart as the seat and source of
love, sympathy and pity.[vii] Implanted in us to keep
us on the straight and narrow, the heart knows right from wrong. It prompts,
nags and condemns us. In Romans, we read, “[The Gentiles] show that the work of the
law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and
their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”[viii]
Yet, there are times when the heart
distracts, confounds, refuses to believe the truth or shuns all comfort and betrays
us.[ix] Jeremiah wrote, “The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand
it?”[x]
Who can understand the heart? … When
should you not trust your heart? John’s answer was: When the heart questions or
doubts God, who is greater than you, your heart is not your friend.
John knew unrighteous sinners walking in
dark shadows falsely accused Christians. Because Satan accused Christians day
and night, John offered a strong dose of encouragement to squash the inner
voices of anxiety and self-doubt.
He reminded Christians to approach God
as the One who knows everything about their hearts, and is still able to
forgive. God knows human folly and guilt, disgrace and shame, and thoughts and
words before one thinks or speaks them.
Moreover, Christ our Advocate stands at God’s
right hand. Through his intercession, God’s knowledge of human misery results
in the exoneration that the heart desires rather than the condemnation that the
soul fears.[xi]
To silence the heart, and refuse to
submit to its distractions, betrayals and condemnations, and to focus instead
on God and the sweet Gospel of forgiveness, is to turn the turmoil of trouble
to joy.[xii] John wanted Christians
to be confident enough to ask God for whatever they needed. This “whatever” was
not some magical thing by which they could twist God’s arm, forcing Him to
carry out some human wish that He would not execute. Rather, Christians could
ask for what they did not know or have. Having received it, Christians should
thank God who alone knows the needs of His children and provides for them.
Because God alone knows our needs and
provides for them, John’s Christians could love one another as God commanded
them. Their love for one another proved God abided in and among Church members.
About this passage, Martin Luther
taught, “If our conscience makes us fainthearted and presents God as angry,
still ‘God is greater than our heart.’ Conscience is one drop; the reconciled
God is a sea of comfort. The fear of the conscience, or despair, must be
overcome, even though this is difficult. It is a great and exceedingly sweet
promise that if our heart blames us, ‘God is greater than our heart’ and ‘knows
everything.’”[xiii]
Luther went on to say, “Although our sin
is great, … His redemption is greater.” Luther’s insight, as noted by the
renowned Catholic Scripture scholar, the late Raymond Brown, was resisted by
Calvinists and Catholics alike, but has won the day among most Christians.[xiv]
Our sin is great. His redemption is
greater. Basic Law and Gospel. The Law convicts us because we are guilty of
sin. The Gospel frees us because God is loving and merciful.
Our loving and merciful God abides in us
– as individuals and as church. How then, brothers and sisters in Christ, do we
show love and mercy to one another? To repeat myself from two weeks ago:
forgiveness. The mature Christian forgives habitually.
The mature Christian forgives
habitually. … How? By believing that our loving and merciful God abides in us,
and by practicing forgiveness.
Tell me if I am wrong. Most Christians
do not practice forgiveness
habitually. I start with me and look no farther than our church doors. If I am
wrong, correct me, but I am willing to bet most of us do not practice
forgiveness habitually.
We practice ruthlessness, blame,
cruelty, hatred, indifference and numerous other bad habits – sins – that are far
from Christ’s supreme sacrifice and lesser, mundane ones like having the
world’s goods at our disposal and opening our hearts when our brothers and
sisters are in need.
What does it take to replace bad habits
with good ones? To replace blame with forgiveness, cruelty with mercy, hatred
with love? To help answer my question, let’s go shopping.
In 1984, a UCLA professor set out to
answer a basic question: Why do people suddenly change their shopping routines?[xv] A year of research
revealed that most people bought the same brands of cereal and deodorant week
after week. Habits reigned supreme. Except when they didn’t.
The professor discovered what has become
a pillar of modern marketing theory: People’s buying habits are more likely to
change when they go through a major life event. Marriage, divorce, buying a new
house and changing jobs alter consumers’ buying habits. And the biggest life event
for most people is having a baby. Parents’ habits are more flexible at that
moment than at any other period in an adult’s life. Target and other retailers capitalize
when you change your spending habits.
Retailers benefit from your change in
spending habits after you experience a life-changing event like having a baby.
My question is: Has the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – a
life-changing event – changed your habits? If the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead changed your habits, let’s take this conversation 50 miles west
so you can show me proof.
Let’s examine our habits in light of our
reading and our Lutheran tradition. John wrote, “We ought to lay down our lives
for the brothers. … Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. …
We have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because
we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment,
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another.”[xvi]
The application of God’s Word is easier
read than practiced, easier discussed than done, easier heard than lived. Living
God’s Word is easier when life’s breaks go my way rather than against me.
Easier when I receive God’s grace rather than sinners’ scorn. Easier when I
have hope in God rather than despair. Nevertheless, as Luther said, “Despair
must be overcome even though this is difficult.”[xvii]
Satan prefers you never overcome despair
and hope in God. Satan prefers you never overcome your old habits. Luther,
John, Jesus and His Church prefer you overcome despair and bad habits. What do
you prefer? Do you prefer being your sinful self or would you prefer being a
loving and merciful person? Will our world be a better place if you respond to
your brothers and sisters with a closed heart or with a Christ-like heart? Do
you want to be a chump for Satan or a champion for Christ?
“Champions don’t do extraordinary
things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking. … They
follow the habits they’ve learned.”[xviii] So said Tony Dungy
when he interviewed to become a head coach in the NFL. Dungy turned the Tampa
Bay Buccaneers, perennial losers, into winners. He did it by getting men to
replace old habits with new ones. He did it by getting men to believe in
themselves. Dungy says, “Belief is the biggest part of success in professional
football.”[xix]
We can say the same about our lives as
Christians. We believe God is greater than our hearts. We know the Resurrection
changes lives more than marriage, divorce or the birth of a baby. Touched by
God’s merciful love, we know we can change, but when life is tense and tough,
we return to comfortable old habits.
Too often, saved Christians, resort to
vulgarities, lies, blame, denial, violence, gossip and other sinful habits when
challenged, chastised or confronted. We return to comfortable, sinful habits
when life is tense, tough or tempting.
We must believe change is possible to
change our habits permanently. Usually, that belief emerges with the help of a
group. For Christians seeking to replace old, sinful habits with new, loving and
merciful habits, change will happen when we, the Church, hold one another and
ourselves accountable. We will do that when our love for God the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit and His children motivates every thought, word and deed. We will do
that we realize that God Father, Son and Spirit loves us as His children, His
babies.
If people can stop smoking and drinking;
if people can lose weight and perennial losers can become champions, we can
change our sinful habits because God loves us and through the Church, the Holy
Spirit gives us the means to make it possible. We have the means to make it
possible, if only we live God’s Word and Sacraments. For those you love and for
the world, live God’s Word and be God’s Sacrament. Children of light, pray to the
Holy Trinity for that grace. In Jesus’ Holy Name, we pray. Amen.
[i] 1
John 3;18
[ii]
Bruce G. Schuchard, 1 – 3 John. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (2012),
382.
[iii]
John 10:15
[iv]
Schuchard, 382.
[v]
Ibid, 383.
[vi]
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: Third Edition.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2010) 502.
[vii]
Schuchard, 389. See fn 337.
[viii]
Romans 2:15
[ix]
Schuchard, 390
[x]
Jeremiah 17:9
[xi] Schuchard,
391f. See fn 354
[xii]
Ibid, 394.
[xiii]
Ibid, 391. See fn 348.
[xiv]
Ibid. See fn 350.
[xv]
Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks (2012),
191ff.
[xvi]
1 John 3:16-23
[xvii]
Schuchard, 391.
[xviii]
Duhigg, 61.
[xix]
Ibid, 86
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