"No Shame"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Text: Romans 1:8-17
Young people of the confirmation class, I saw something really strange a couple of weeks ago on a city street in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There was a guy dressed from head to toe in “No Fear” clothing. He had the “No Fear” board shorts on, the velocity fleece jacket, the “No Fear” angelos cap on sideways and he was walking around like he owned the place. It was the strangest thing; here he was with “no fear” written on almost every single part of his clothing imaginable and there was a woman standing on the sidewalk with a puppy. The guy looked down at the puppy, the puppy looked up at him and he was terrified. I think he was looking for the next manhole cover to open up and jump into he was so scared of this dog. He took something like eight steps backwards and the puppy, as puppies do, wanted to launch himself at the guy and lick him. So much for “no fear” I thought.
If you want the fame you can't have the shame and you'd better be prepared to play the game, right? Don't wear the stripes if you're not prepared to do the battle. That's what I think. So much for “no fear”.
I don't want to talk about fear at all this morning, but I do want to talk about shame. I want to say to you, “no shame.” By no shame I mean that today you are joining the church. In a little while you're going to experience the laying on of hands and you're going to make certain promises. There are certain symbols attached to this moment: There is the taking of Communion, the laying on of hands, receiving these beautiful Bibles we have for you. What I want to say to you today is that you should be proud of this moment, you should rejoice in this moment, you should celebrate this moment, and you should never be ashamed of this moment. If you are going to say, “I have no shame,” then you'd better understand exactly why we're doing what we're doing. I know Reverend Tamas has spent a lot of time with you. You have already written statements about the spiritual gifts you have been given. But today something really dramatic is happening: you are joining the Christian church fully. You are joining with people on every continent and in every country in this world who have made this confession for 2,000 years. From this moment on, you will be associated with the word “Christian.”
I say not to have shame because I think it is fair enough to say that Confirmation - what we are doing in a few moments - has changed a lot over the years. It's even more important today than it was 50 or 60 years ago. The reason I say that is because I think we are living in a different era. There used to be a time when belonging to a church was what they called “a rite of passage,” just something done socially. Nearly every organization would ask you what church you belonged to, every society and its systems were predicated on which church you belonged to and belonging to a church was like belonging to something that was important in society. I went back and found a fascinating statement. Just to show you how things have changed, let me read it to you.
A number of years ago, one of the world's great media institutions had this as its foundation: This institution (I'll tell you which one in a moment) is the temple of the arts and its muses and it is dedicated to almighty God. It is our prayer that good seeds sown may bring forth a good harvest, that all things hostile to peace or purity may be banished from our work, and that the people inclining their ears to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and faithful and of good report may tread the paths of wisdom and righteousness.
Those words were the founding words of the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1931. Just recently, the head of the BBC said, “We should never make any comment on matters of morality, or of truth, or of righteousness. Our job is to report.” This symbolizes how things have changed dramatically in 70 to 80 years. In other words, institutions that were founded on basic principles that you would generally call Christian are not necessarily so anymore. If that is the case, making a commitment to become a Christian, saying that you are going to join the church, is even more important today. What you are doing is a great statement of faith; a statement of what you believe to be true.
In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul said, “Do not be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe.” He was writing at a time when to be a Christian, to do what you are doing today - to have the laying on of hands and be confirmed - was one of the most dangerous things in the world. So much so that when Paul addressed people they made fun of him because he believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
I know we all like gory movies, or at least I do every now and again. This is a bit gory but it is the truth - it's no movie. Christians, people of faith, under the emperor Nero in Rome were burnt to light up garden parties (now, isn't that gross?) just because of their faith. During the time of Claudius, AD 47-54 people of Jewish extraction or belief, and that included Jewish Christians, were forced to flee Rome and give up their homes, all because they believed. Hopefully we never encounter that level of persecution. The point I want to make is that when the Apostle Paul said, “I don't want you to have any shame, I want you to understand how important our conviction in Christ is,” he meant it. The people who first made that confession put their lives on the line for it.
Even today throughout the world, and I know this firsthand, there are people who make the confession you are about to make whose whole futures and lives depend on making it. So to say, “I have no shame” is a statement of great faith and courage for two simple reasons. If you take nothing else from this service, I hope you will take these two reasons with you.
The first is, as Paul said, “I have no shame in the gospel.” I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God. He uses a name in Greek which is dunamous, where we get the word dynamite. He was speaking in very clear terms about the dynamite of God and how important our faith can be.
I don't know about you, but there are a lot of things in this world that I wish I had the power to change. I wish I could change violent countries into peaceful ones. I wish I could change the environment with just the snap of my fingers and make all the problems in the world go away. There are many social problems right here in our own city that we would love to be able to change. There are things in ourselves that, the older we get, the more we actually wish we could change. We want the power to be able to change these things.
Paul says, “The Gospel is the power.” It is the power that changes us, and in changing us, hopefully changes the world around us. The Apostle Paul made a very clear distinction between the power of Rome and its military might and the power of Jesus. Everyone thought Jesus and his followers were weak because they believed in peace, cared for the poor, outcast and ill, told the truth, wouldn't bow down before the power of Caesar and the Roman Empire and believed in a Messiah who was crucified and raised. Paul said, “That is not weakness! That is the power of God!”
The power of God is different from the powers of this world. It is that power - to live as Christ lived - that transforms and changes the world. It is that force, that love of God that transforms and changes us. Today, when you come forward and have the laying on of hands, I pray that the power of the redemptive love of God will fill and inspire you, for the world needs powerful people. People who understand power as it is seen in Christ, not as it is often portrayed in the world.
Finally, I want you to understand the power of salvation. I don't know about you, but every time I hear about a Jordan Manners dying in a school, and when I hear about the violence, and guys who sometimes walk around wearing “No Fear” insignia on their clothes - and meaning it - it worries me. When one young person dies in this city for a cause like that, it affects us all. It is not about them and somebody else; it is about us as fellow citizens and a fifteen-year-old boy.
It can sometimes be hard, and life is sometimes fragile; we never know what our lives are going to be like. The Gospel tells us that we should therefore seek to follow Christ in this life and that in following Christ we find the path to salvation both here and forever; both in our world and in the world to come. In Christ, the salvation of the world is realized.
Today, you are confessing that very thing. The image I'd like you to take away with you it is this: David Galloway, a wonderful writer, tells a story about a boy who built a model boat. He spent hours and hours building this boat. One day he took it down to the lake to give it its first sail, and he kept a string attached to it so he wouldn't lose it. He sailed his boat watching it bob and weave on the lake. Suddenly the wind came up and blew the mast off, taking the string with it. The boat was carried out into the lake. He had lost it.
He had made it. It was his! His father had sat down with him and helped him make this boat. It was the most important thing in his whole life and it was gone. He said, “Its mine, and now it is gone!” Many months later, he went to a neighbouring town along the lake. It could have been Niagara-on-the-Lake for all we know, and he saw in a window a toy store. In that store, for sale, was the boat he had made. Someone had found it and decided to sell it.
The boy ran into the store and said, “I would like that boat! That boat is mine! I made that boat! It's mine!”
The clerk said, “I am sorry, it is our boat. You have got to buy it.”
But, the boy didn't have any money. So, for weeks, he mowed the grass, made sure he helped his parents and got some pocket money. He tried to do odd jobs around the community. He came to the local minister and said, “Is there anything I can do?”
The minister said, “Sure, you can preach next Sunday.” And the boy said, “No, no, I'll do anything but preach!” (That's my input into the story!)
The little boy did everything he could to try to get his boat back. Finally, he had enough money, and he went back to the store, and the clerk said, “Nobody else has bought it. You can have it.”
The boy handed over the money, held the boat in his hand, looked at it and said, “It is mine! But it is twice mine! I made it, and I have also bought it. It is mine!”
This morning, when you come forward and kneel, Jesus of Nazareth is saying the same thing to you. You are like his boat. He made you, and he has bought you again. He has not only created you; he has shown that he loves you and he has paid the price for you. That is what sustained those Roman Christians when they faced persecution. That is the power that Paul spoke of. No matter what happens in this life you now have no shame, but you also have, from this day on, no fear. Not because it is on a tattoo, shirt or cap, but because it is in your heart.
May the power and the salvation, and the love of God be yours and ours: No shame! No shame! Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.