"Hey Jude, Part 4: Hidden Rocks"
A faith without integrity will cause your ship to sink.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 8, 2003
Text: Jude 8-13
A colleague said to me not long ago, “Do you realize that the Church of Jesus Christ had a most ignominious beginning?” When you really think about it the first church, the first gathered community was not something that could be bragged about. After all, its senior pastor was executed as a criminal. The first chair of the board went around cursing and cutting people's ears off. The treasurer committed suicide. The other members of the board ran away in fear. The only ones to be faithful were a few ladies who belonged to the women's auxiliary. Has it ever changed.
The more I thought about what he said, the more I realized that looking from a worldly point of view at Jesus, Peter, Judas, the disciples, and the female followers, you would have to conclude that this was a rather motley group, and a rather shaky start.
How is it, then, that according to a census in the year 2000, on this earth 2.1 billion people confessed that they believe in that Lord who was executed as a criminal? How is it that the church of Jesus Christ is growing with great rapidity in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia? How is it that great and wonderful edifices like this still stand, and that on a day like today, we can baptize eight children and receive friends who have been away back into the fold?
To what should we attribute this change - this transformation? The answer, of course, is one phrase, one name: the Holy Spirit. For after Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, He made a promise that those who remained faithful to Him would be filled with a power, would be given a gift that would enable them to proclaim the Gospel, to live the Christian life, to support one another in the power of the Christian community, and to spread the word to all the world in every language.
This day, we celebrate that day - the day that the Spirit came upon the church. What better occasion than for all of us to be in one place, at one time, celebrating baptism and enjoying this great day. One of the symbols of that earliest Christian community that had received the power of the Holy Spirit was a gathering they called the “love feast.” I can't help but think of the love feast as so many of you will be gathering after this service, as for centuries Christian have gathered and dined together to celebrate their common faith and fellowship.
The love feasts for which the earliest Christians were known, were designed to further fellowship amongst the believers, and also to inculcate a sense of humility and the sharing of the gifts with one another by inviting the poor and the needy to take food and sustenance, as our food bank here at the church does every week. In other words, the love feast was an outward, visible sign of the power of the fellowship of the Spirit that the disciples had experienced. But within a matter of 30 years or so, people were attending this love feast and undermining its power and importance.
Ernie Mills read the text beautifully this morning but I'm sure you were all cringing at how hard it sounded. “Why has Stirling picked such an awful text of damnation when we're here to enjoy ourselves?” The answer is: Some came to this meal for the wrong reasons. They didn't understand the importance of the faith. They turned the eating into gluttony. They turned the fellowship into an exclusive club with some people who had a lot of money and wanted to stand out bringing their own food rather than eating what everybody else ate.
Some didn't want to sit at the same table as the poor and pushed them out so that they could have their friends around, enjoying the good food and wine that they had brought. They spread false teaching. They told people that they didn't need to worship Jesus Christ, that all they needed to be was spiritual, that Christ wasn't needed as their centre - or the Holy Spirit as their guide.
This group came into the church and Jude worried that all the things that the Spirit had produced would be lost. He described those who came to this love feast as “hidden rocks.”
Now, as many of you know, I grew up in Bermuda. One day we met some close friends who lived on Harrington Sound in the middle of the island. These friends told my parents that the only way that we could get to their cottage on the island was to take a boat. They asked my father if he knew how to handle a boat and my father responded: “Sure, I have no problem with that. I'm a minister, I can do anything.” Or something to that effect!
So they put my mother and father in a Boston Whaler and said, “Around evening time, come over to the island, but you must watch out for one thing: Keep your eye on the light on the island and steer around the buoys.” My father said: “No problem.”
We got in the boat and headed off. Suddenly we saw a light on this rubber thing and my father thought: “Oh, those must be the lights that give us direction.” So he steered towards it. There was this crunching sound from underneath the boat and an awful smell. My father thought there was something wrong with the transmission and kept going - to the next light on a rubber thing in the middle of Harrington Sound - and we hit that as well. The smell got worse, but added to that was the smell of gasoline and something burning. Finally, we hit the third one, again my father thinking they were there to give us direction. This time there was the most ungodly sound: crashing, grinding, and moaning and as we crossed over, we got within 100 feet of shore and the boat packed it in.
I got out my oars and rowed us to shore. The owner was going ballistic! He said: “Did I not tell you, avoid the buoys at all cost. You have completely wrecked all of the propellers on the boat. You have destroyed it! What were you thinking?”
My father said: “In England we call those boys not boo-ees. I didn't know where the buoys were, now did I?” In other words, my father hadn't heard the word correctly. And it caused us to hit the hidden rocks.
That's what those who came to the love feast were like. They were like people who had not heard the Word. They wanted the fellowship. They wanted to establish themselves, to use religion for their own good and glory, but they hadn't heard the Word. They did not understand that the true fellowship of the love feast was born not out of selfishness but out of the power of the Holy Spirit.
In this passage, Jude uses two terms to describe what these hidden rocks are like. He says that these hidden rocks that cause people to move away from the faith are like, first of all (and this is the most important description) empty clouds. Clouds that appear in the sky and seem wonderful but don't produce any rain. You see, Jude was concerned people had come into the church whose only real concern was wealth or education. Their only desire was to put themselves first and make themselves look important. They didn't care at all for the community of the Gospel.
In other words, the church of Jesus Christ was nothing more than an institution, just a frame for them to be able to demonstrate their own skills, intellect and wealth. Not a place to really serve Jesus Christ. What characterized those hidden rocks, those empty clouds overhead was that they lacked integrity.
I love how British travel writer Colin Thubron once described integrity: “I imagine integrity as a quality of light, a kind of gray translucence - sunless. It is not at all beautiful, but it makes other lights seem disfiguring.”
You see, integrity comes from within. Integrity comes from faith. It is not always noted. It is not always seen. It is not always beautiful. Integrity is born out of faith and faith is actually what reveals truth for what it is. That is why Jude was concerned that there were those who wanted to put on a big show. They were clouds but they gave no rain to the barren land. They lacked integrity and substance. Because of that they were a danger to the church.
My friends, I make an appeal to you, I make an appeal to the families of the children who are here today: Educate your children wisely that they may be learned. Encourage them to be successful that they may do well. But above all, give them the most important thing of all - a faith that is of substance. A faith that has integrity. A faith that looks beyond itself to the good of others and the world. That is what the early Christian community had and what the love feast was all about.
Jude uses a second phrase. He says that these rocks are like raging waters or wandering stars. In other words, they shine brightly for a moment but quickly phase out.
On Friday I conducted a memorial service. After the memorial service, still dressed in my clericals, I went to a local bookstore. I looked at the new releases and there was this bright, big, pink book that really caught my attention (those marketers are brilliant). I picked it up. It was titled, “Seven Lively Sins: How to Enjoy Your Life, Dammit,” by Karen Salmansohn. So, I started to read it. I thought, “I should know what the opposition is saying, right?”
As I'm standing there in Chapters with this bright, pink book, a man walks by and says: “Pastor, can I help you find any other books like that?” I said to him: “No, I'm enjoying this one just fine, thank you very much.” And I started to read the “Seven Lively Sins” and it sounded wonderful, I must say. I'd never really thought sin was that good before.
I continued to read it over lunch - I couldn't put it down. I finally closed it up and I was a little depressed. I thought: “Seven Lively Sins: How to Enjoy Your Life, Dammit,” then something struck me: This book sounds really good when you read it on your own, but if everybody else were to practise what's in this book, we'd have hell on earth. Why? Because the book is all about finding your own pleasure, finding your own joy, sustaining your own vision - with no thought or consideration of the world around you. “Enjoy your life, dammit” is the theme. But enjoy it, I wondered, at whose expense?
You see, these things sound good for awhile, but they are like a shooting star that looks bright and glorious but has no substance. They look wonderful to those who give a casual look, but they lack depth. Why? Because the Holy Spirit, the God who made us, is our source of joy. The Holy Spirit is our source of fellowship, integrity, substance and the Holy Spirit is what brings us together rather than drives us apart. That is why Jude was concerned that these shooting stars had broken into the church, flaring up brightly with wonderful ideas, but only promoting themselves and not the Body of Christ in the power of the Spirit.
That is why, my friends, I believe that the Christian faith is not just about bright, shining stars, not just about one simple moment where everything looks wonderful, but about a lifelong commitment. The Christian faith, as many of you are showing here, having been in this church in the 1940s and 50s, is an institution that carries the good news that is timeless and, because it's timeless, has a power all of its own.
As I was watching a baseball game yesterday I was thinking about the 1908 pennant played between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants. In the final game of the series, the score was tied, there were two out and two on and the Giants were at bat. On first base was a young rookie who had little experience, this was the biggest day of his life. So, on the pitch, with two out and needing to score to win, the batter hit the ball. It went far enough for the third baseman to come home and it seemed like they would win the game. The only problem was the rookie on first base still had to run the bases. On his way to second base, the crowd was so overwhelmed and overjoyed, it roared. He never made it to the base. He just ran away out of fear of everything that was happening.
The Chicago team, knowing that every player had to touch the base, realized that if they could get the ball and stand on second base, they would win. But the Giants, so thrilled, threw the ball into the crowd. Two Cubs players ran to retrieve it. After they did so, players from the Giants tackled them and tried to grab the ball. The Cubs were tougher, they threw the ball back to second base and then jumped up and down. The rookie was out! They'd won! The game was lost for the Giants. The young man who had not touched second base was known as Merkley. And the famous Merkley's Boner, as it was called, would always stand, for the rest of his life, as a symbol of incompletion.
My friends, this is the day for us as Christians to dedicate ourselves to going all the way around the bases, to maintaining our commitment and our faith to Jesus Christ, to continuing to run the race so that we're not like rocks in the water, we're not like clouds with no rain or waves that splash and roar or stars that shoot across the sky then burn out. But that we are as the Holy Spirit calls us to be, faithful all our days, to Christ who is our foundation. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.