“Formed By God, Loving God, Keeping God’s Commandments” Easter 6 April 27, 2008

(First, read the texts for this sermon: Acts 17: 22-31; John 14:15-21)

Why should you and I live as God has created us to live? (I mean the God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. That God.) I ask because, in the spiritual landscape of our culture, the answer is not clear!

In the first place, there are many competing gods. There is the god of busyness. (The worship book for this god is your date book.) There are the gods of materialism and consumerism. (There are several worship books for these gods: your check book and your car payment and house mortgage coupon books.) There is the god of professional advancement. (The worship book for this god is very short: just a page or two of resume.)

In the confusion of our culture, there is a tremendous hunger for what’s called “spirituality.” Multiple polls by the Barna Group and other organizations that measure religious beliefs report that nearly 80% of Americans consider “spirituality” to be very important. So, here is great opportunity for us and our work in the mission field! But what is “spirituality?” The idea is amorphous in our culture. It can include crystals and self-help books and the like. And polls reveal that only a small minority of people think of a local congregation as the place to engage in the spiritual journey. That’s especially true for young adults.

But to illustrate the spiritual hunger out there in the mission field, just think of the Pope’s recent visit to our country. There were tens and tens of thousands at each stop – most of whom are not at all interested in living according to the Pope’s version of the faith! Even among Catholics, very few follow the Pope’s teachings on contraception, for instance, or the prohibition against sex before marriage. Very few agree with his pacifism, or his condemnations of economic structures which cause poverty around the world.

But still, there’s something about what the Pope evokes! In the great excitement, in the huge crowds, there is much spiritual hunger!

In fact, our culture is very similar to the ancient culture that St. Paul encountered in the enlightened and cosmopolitan city of Athens, only a few decades after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. That’s the setting for this morning’s passage in Acts. Here’s what we read: Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

Isn’t that cool? The Athenians are hungry for what we would today call “spirituality.” In fact, they are worshiping a pantheon of gods (small “g”). The problem is that they are not worshiping the God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. This is “an unknown god.” And Paul sees his missionary task to be to name God! Paul sees that the people are “search[ing] for God and perhaps grop[ing] for [God], though indeed [God] is not far from each one of us.” (v. 27)

The very same holds for those inside and outside the church, in our culture. There is great hunger for God. There is great searching for God – even when we don’t know that it is God for whom we are searching.
And so, gathered together in this community of faith named for St. Stephen, our first task is to name God to be Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Then, the purpose of our life together, in this community of faith, is to be formed by God the Holy Spirit, so that we will come to love God more and more deeply as we journey into conversion. Out of that love, then, we will want to move outward in mission. In other words, (here’s another way to say it), out of that love, you and I will want to follow God’s commandments! You and I will want to live as God created us to live!

A few minutes ago, we read these words as from Jesus, in the gospel of John: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In fact, God’s commandments are rooted in God’s love!

I understand that those who have not been formed in faith, who think of the commandments as strait jackets, would be surprised to hear that. But, for instance, when teaching the Ten Commandments, Luther explains that “You shall not murder” means we are to love others by helping and supporting them in all of life’s needs. “You shall not steal” means that we are to love others by helping them to improve and protect their property and income. Luther explains that “You shall not bear false witness” does not simply mean refraining from telling lies. Instead, we are to love others by coming to their defense, speaking well of them, and interpreting everything they do in the best possible light! (That’s got to be the hardest of the 10 Commandments to obey!)

How in the world can you and I be transformed, so that we love others in that way? It can only happen as we are formed in the life of faith, by God the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, here are words as from Jesus, in this morning’s reading from John: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

The Holy Spirit is presented here as advocating for God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, in the spiritual/religious mix of a culture, among people who are not sure what they are hungering for spiritually; and who are confused about who God is! The Holy Spirit forms us to live in love – because that is who God is; the God who is most fully revealed in the person of Jesus the Christ.

As we live in that love, we become missionaries – just by the way we live! We become so different from the ways of the world that we attract others into the way of the Christ. We attract others into this community of faith named for St. Stephen. This becomes a community of transformation, as the Holy Spirit works on us through our practices of the faith: through our worship, through our prayer and study of Scripture, through our care for each other, through our hospitality so that no one is an outsider, through our work for justice, through our generosity!

The purpose of our life together, in this community of faith, is to be formed by God the Holy Spirit, so that we will love God more and more deeply as we journey into conversion. Out of that love, we will want to move outward in mission. In other words, out of that love, you and I will want to follow God’s commandments!
What joy there is in that!

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia