Word of Salvation – October 2015

 

Love Does Not Boast, Not Proud, or Rude

A sermon by Rev. Pieter Tuit on 1Corinthians 13:5

 

Some of you may have read the book or may have been watching The Slap. According to a newspaper review of this series, in a world that’s full with unbalanced people, the angriest man of all, Harry, slaps a child, Hugo. Hugo, like so many children, lives in an unbalanced household with few boundaries, or routines, and rare adult examples of consistency and self-control. He is absorbing confusingly mixed messages of love, possessiveness and disappointment, as well as bearing those ever-threatening outbursts of anger, self-indulgence, blame and booze.”

Stephanie Dowrick, the reviewer, talks about the Hugo factor and makes the following concluding observation: It would seem obvious that children learn primarily by example. Do our children see adults, and especially their parents, behaving in respectful, considerate ways? Do they feel safe and trusted? Does any caring adult in their lives understand that when children’s legitimate needs for security and affection are met, their demands for distraction and instant satisfaction will become far less urgent and hysterical? Children need parents who are willing to grow up. Where no adult is taking charge of his or her own behaviour, how can a child learn to consider other people? How can a child learn not to blame others for his or her misery?

How are we centered congregation and what gets us of center? What balances us and what can get us of balance? This the main question that Scripture confronts us with this morning as we continue to look at those holy habits that we need to develop if we truly want to follow Jesus.

We will be looking at three aspects this morning. Love does not boast, love is not proud and love is not rude. In other words this love of God in Christ in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit centers us. It balances us. And again, also without this love of God in our hearts we can be and do all kinds of things but in reality we are zilch, zero, nothing according to this Scripture.

Lewis Smedes in his book Love Within Limits explains that this love of God in us gives us poise. The word poise originally referred to the weight placed in the center of a sailing ship to help it keep in balance. This weight or ballast set the keel deep enough into the water to keep it from capsizing. Christians, who have the fruit growing Holy Spirit working within them are people with poise. They can sail well upon the sea of life. By ourselves, without God’s love in us we are too light at the center, we are like a ship without poise, without ballast, likely to capsize. We are like the adults in the child Hugo’s life in The Slap.

This love of God in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, gives us composure, dignity, self-confidence, bearing, deportment. Without it we become boastful, rude, arrogant. Without this love of God shaping holy habits in us, boasting, rudeness and arrogance become our character traits that act as external braces to help us keep balance. Only God’s love in Christ can give us that poise, that spiritual ballast, that centered weight inside that will help us to sail the seas of life in a positive way.

God’s love in Christ is the poise, the ballast, at the center of our lives. It provides the deep meaning and purpose for life that we need. Without it we are tempted to boast. Boasting is a way of trying to look good when we know we are not. Without this love we are arrogant. Arrogance is an anxious grasp for power when we fear that we are weak. Without God’s love to center us we become rude. Rudeness is putting people down in order to try to hold ourselves up. Let’s look at each of these aspects individually.

Love does not boast. Smedes calls boasting our private advertising business through which we try to publicize an image of ourselves. We boast for different reasons. Sometimes we boast because we suspect people will not care enough to notice our ordinary selves. Other times we boast because we know deep down inside that, who we are, and what we do, is not worth caring about. This is why we create an image of ourselves and put it up front in our ego display case and advertise it. People with an inferiority complex sometimes deal with this through becoming boastful, advertising that which is not there. One can see that boasting usually deals with talking about something that is not there or embellishing the little that may be there.

According to Scripture boasting is a serious sin. The psalmist tells us that the boastful shall not stand before God. Psalm 49 gives a warning to those who boast in their riches. Boastful people are called to repent.

It is interesting though that there are times that the Bible gives us permission to boast. This is not boasting about something that is not in us. No, it is boasting about that what God does in us. The psalmist says in Psalm 34 My soul will boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. Paul encourages believers in 1 Corinthians let those who boast, boast in the Lord. And in 2 Corinthians we even hear him boast about the Corinthian churches. Yes, pastors may boast about their congregations when they walk in the ways of Christ. I am grateful as your pastor that I can boast about you. Congregation let our boasting be about what God has done in Jesus Christ, in us and through us.

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Without this love of God in Christ in us, to center and balance us, we are tempted to be arrogant. Smedes defines arrogance as grasping for power that we fear we do not deserve. He finds arrogance more serious than boasting. Boasting is only a grasp for praise , covering for what we suspect is an empty inside. Arrogance, to the contrary, is a grasp or power we do not have authority to take. To be arrogant means to grasp for power that is not authentic to us. This can apply to many areas of our lives.

True authenticity gives true power. If we have authentic knowledge we have intellectual power. If we have authentic character we have moral power. If we have authentic skills of leadership, and a mandate to lead, we have power to lead. From this perspective authentically based power is good and is most often a force for blessing and something good.

Arrogant people assume power that is not really theirs. To do so they often use other people as stepping stones. Sometimes an arrogant parent wants the child to do well so that the parent can feel good about being a parent, and get recognition for the child’s achievement. However in the mean time the parent is manipulating the child. This is arrogance because the authority of parents does not include the right to manipulate the child in order to feel powerful. At the same time this parent is raising the child not in love but in manipulation. Consequently the child is learning that what counts is not who you are but what you can do to get control of people.

The root cause of arrogance is pride. And between arrogance and pride there is vanity. Pride leaves us vain, and vanity pushes towards arrogance. Of course there are good ways of being proud. A father can be rightfully proud when his daughter excels in sport because this makes him participate in the joy of her achievement. The same goes for a mother being rightfully proud of the academic achievements of her son.

However, the Bible is full with warnings against pride and especially a proud heart. The Bible wants us to be aware that behind a lot of pride is spiritual pride and is therefore a reflection of our relationship with God. Pride is even called idolatry.

Spiritual pride is at heart our arrogant refusal to let God be God. Pride is puffing ourselves up in God’s face. Spiritual pride does not make us want to pray for strength, ask for grace, plead for mercy, or give thanks to God. However, the fantasy that we can make it by ourselves as little gods leaves us empty at the center of our lives. Consequently we become arrogant because deep down we are afraid that we lack the power to become what our pride makes us think we are. And we force other people to act as buttresses for the shaky ego that pride created by emptying our soul of God.

The vanity that stands between arrogance and pride is emptiness. Vain people are people who are empty at the center of their lives and to make up for that vain people are usually also arrogant people. The consistently have to ask themselves by each new situation: what can I get out of this to support the need of my ego for power and applause. When it comes to people a vain person asks “How can this person contribute to my need for applause and power. Vanity creates the need to use people because we cannot keep our balance spiritually if we are empty at the center. I am sure we all have experiences with people like that. Do people also have experiences like that with us?

Experience shows that very often arrogant people are people who have no mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul’s needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting. In some cases where vanity creates arrogance it also creates a monster. Vain people can become dangerous when they have power. Vain people want power only because it puts them on top of other people. This means that other people are either support for their empty souls or are enemies to be demolished or at least kept small and under control. Power is used not to serve and make others flourish but as a means of keeping one’s own balance, staying on top, without having true spiritual weight inside which comes from being loved by God in Jesus Christ.

Sometimes this can make real havoc in marriage or family relationships. A vain and arrogant husband or wife will see his or her spouse only as a means to an end. The other partner needs to be constantly put down so that the one without a strong spiritual center can feel strong. It can make our workplace a terrible place to be. Arrogant church members can make experiencing the true communion of saints very difficult. An arrogant ,yet vain person, will always be fearful that somebody else will threaten his or her power and is ready to us any means to make his power more secure. Consequently we see rulers become tyrants, oppressors of their people. Yes, this is also the reason why ordinary people in a marriage relationship can become manipulators of sadists.

Without God’s love for us in Christ, centering us, we tend to be rude. Arrogance, boasting and rudeness often go hand in hand. A rude person is so determined to stay upright that in his anxiety he cuts and bruises anyone who threatens him. At the same time he will use anyone who can help him.

A rude person is someone who is empty inside. This is why attention needs to be called to oneself. The emptiness needs to be filled. Smedes remarks that arrogance drives us especially to be rude to people who have nothing to offer us, who do not help us look good. At the same time we use tactics of boasting on those who may have something to offer us. When vanity and emptiness is at the center of our lives it leads us to see life as a trade-off. In other words what I can get out of you determines what I will give you.

First Corinthians reminds us that God’s love in us does not boast, is not proud and is not rude. God’s love in us overcomes arrogance and boasting. It does so because God’s love in us makes us humble. This humility which God’s Spirit works within us helps us to accept our true relationship between us and God. This means that we may see ourselves as invaluable, responsible and creative creatures, who at the same time exist by the grace and the energy of God.

This humility also helps us to accept ourselves as sinners before God.This humility helps us to admit our spiritual emptiness and our need for God’s forgiveness. At the same time this humility makes us see God in Christ as the source of forgiveness and salvation.

This humility gives us a realistic and at the same time centered and balanced view of ourselves. It helps us to admit our personal emptiness so that that empty center can be filled with the Spirit of Christ. This means we can admit weakness and strength at the same time. The result is that we have no need to boast or be arrogant because there is no need to fill our inner emptiness with other people’s praise or our own power. It is Christ who fills this emptiness.

This humility, given by God through his Holy Spirit makes us lowly of heart and at the same time high-minded. No not high-minded in the sense of sinful pride but because of the potential that God gives us. A person who sets her lowly and humble heart on great things is high minded. This person recognizes her own God given potential and will work hard to actualize this potential towards achieving good and important things. Such a person does not fear recognition or despises honor and will not refuse honor out of false modesty.

People who are lowly in heart and at the same time high-minded will also appreciate power. But not because they need to feel powerful over other people. No they want power because there are many good things one can do when one has power. This is why it so important that we have centered and balanced people study for and move into positions of power. A teenager in this congregation who says that he or she wants to become prime minister of this country does not need to be seen as arrogant or proud. It is possible that he or she is lowly of heart, yet at the same time also high-minded, and has already a realization of what good can be done when one has power. The same applies to someone wanting to set up a new business, excel in the field of law, literature or music.

If we desire after those things to fill up an unspiritual emptiness inside the danger to become arrogant rude and proud is definitely there. However, one can aspire after these things while at the same time being humble and lowly in heart. There is a difference between arrogance and high-mindedness. Love is not arrogant but love can be high minded.

Congregation, by ourselves, without God, we are too light at our center. We are like a ship without ballast. We are ready to capsize. We are like the family of little Hugo. We become rude, arrogant and we boast. We need to do this with the hope that praise from others and power over others will give us that support we need because we do not have a God’s love in Christ ballast or weight at the center of our lives.

When we have this weight or ballast at the center of our lives we discover something interesting. We discover that this ballast, this weight which centers us, is not heavy. We discover that God’s love does not make us heavy. We discover that God’s love makes us light. It makes us light not because we cannot fail and will always get it right. No, it makes us light because God’s love in Christ assures us that when we fail and do not get it right he will make it right again. Yes, he will make us right again.

When our own inner emptiness is filled with God’s love for us in Christ we experience that we can forget about ourselves and our own wants and needs and move to the other person. This makes us practice the second great commandment which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. We also experience that , as long as we love, the promise that makes us centered and balanced is sure as 1 John 4: 12 reminds us God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Amen!

Let us pray

Father in heaven, we confess that as we sail the seas of life we do not always have poise. We are not always balanced or centered. And this has consequences, especially for those close to us. We confess that this happens when we have other things at the center of our lives except your love for us in Jesus Christ. Lord, we repent of this and we pray that your love for us in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit may indeed be perfected in us. May the love of him whose yoke is easy and his burden is light center and balance us.

Help us also to show to a world where many people are of centered and unbalanced and therefore arrogant proud and rude the blessedness that comes from sailing through life with your love as our poise , our ballast.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen!