SERMON SERIES WEEK 3-LENT: A TIME FOR LOVE. LOVE IS NOT PROUD, IT DOES NOT BOAST
There’s an old fable about two ducks and a frog who lived in a farmer’s pond. The ducks and the frog were the best of friends; they played together all day long, splashing about and croaking and quacking songs together. But when the hot summer came, the pond began to dry up. The ducks realised that they would have to move. They could easy fly away to another place, but how would their friend, Frog, travel such a great distance in baking heat?
The ducks thought long and hard about this until one of them had a wonderful idea. If they each took the end of a stick inside their beaks, the stick would serve as a bar, which Frog could clamp on to with his mouth. That way they could carry Frog as they flew.
So that’s what they did. Not long after take-off, the farmer, in his nearby field looked up and couldn’t believe what he saw! Two ducks flying with a stick and the frog clinging on in the middle. “What a clever idea! I wonder who thought of that!” the farmer exclaimed.
Frog answered: “I did……….” losing his grip on the stick as he opened his mouth, and plummeted to the ground. As God teaches us in Proverbs 16 (v18) “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
The setting of last week’s Passion narrative was the Passover celebration, remembering God’s steadfast love and mercy to his people of old. On this night, Jesus instituted something new: he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Yet it is at this most holy table that Jesus revealed one of the disciples would betray him. Subsequently the disciples dispute among themselves who of them is the greatest follower of Jesus. The theme was envy last week, and we heard how there was a great deal of envy among those closest to Jesus, but tonight’s theme could have just as well applied—there was much confidence in their own achievements, pride and boasting, as they put their case forward to justify their place in the company of Jesus.
Various sins hurt others in so many ways, but pride and boasting actually hurts the self, like Frog who plummeted to death. A certain amount of confidence is important in life, even necessary—but exaggerating our strengths, achievements, or abilities makes one seem arrogant or selfish and often results in the breakdown of relationships.
In God’s family this is never a good thing. We have no grounds for boasting, and we can never self-justify our place as children of God. The purpose of boasting is to make a good impression on others to win their attention, praise, and affirmation. I’m reminded of the Gospel reading from Ash Wednesday, where, in Matthew 6 Jesus warns his disciples to not be like those who practiced their acts of righteousness in front of others:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full” (Verses from Matthew 6:1-5).
If you stop and think about it, that’s a chilling indictment from Jesus. Why did these religious people practice their so called ‘righteous acts’, giving and praying in such an exaggerated, overt manner? For the attention of others, winning their admiration, honour and praise. This wasn’t anything about honouring God; it was about honouring themselves. So they had already received what they set out to achieve. That’s what they wanted—nothing further from God, because they hadn’t sought that. Honouring the self is love of self, but not the way of true love. So too, when the disciples argued amongst themselves as to who of them was the greatest, their focus was on themselves and their own sense of self-importance. At that point, their hearts were far from God. They weren’t loving God, or one another. They were loving themselves.
That is why we need a Saviour—we need a saviour from sin—a simple explanation of sin is that sin really is loving ourselves above others and above God. Because all humans in our natural state begin from the point of self-love, no ordinary person could be the saviour of the world. Though he was innocent, though he is the Son of God himself –and had real reason to boast—Jesus himself took the way of love. Rather than being concerned with himself and boasting in his accomplishments and abilities, he humbled himself under his Father’s will.
Jesus shows the battle for our salvation was not a battle against flesh and blood, won in the normal human way—with weapons and armies and politics. No military might can conquer our sin, its wages of death, and the kingdom of darkness. These are spiritual realities that needed God to come down to earth, in the person of Jesus, to win the victory for us. To be victorious over such powerful adversaries, he needed not to fight, but to surrender. Jesus shows this in tonight’s passion narrative as Judas approached Jesus to betray him. Seeing what was unfolding before them, the disciples said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
In 1 Corinthians 13 God has shown us what true love is. Let’s read together: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
God’s word in proverbs teaches us: “Pride comes before a fall.” Yet Jesus was not proud or boastful and still took a fall. He took the fall—for you. He humbled himself under his Father’s will, by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. In tonight’s Passion narrative, cues from Luke tell us that that time is getting very close now. Jesus goes out to the Mount of Olives to pray: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” about ‘a stone’s throw’ away from the disciples. The mention of ‘a stone’s throw’ brings to mind the Jewish punishment for blasphemy—stoning the person to death. As Jesus prays, he is in anguish, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. The location of the Mount of Olives points ahead to Mount Golgotha, where Jesus will pray “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as his blood drops to the ground from the wounds of being whipped, nailed to a cross, and pierced in the side by a soldier’s spear.
In the opening sermon illustration, the frog had no right to boast, and lied by claiming that he had the idea of clinging on to the stick held either side by the ducks. This idea wasn’t the frog’s doing. It’s the human way to lie to make oneself look better before others, boasting where there is no right to boast.
A Christian has no right to boast either. To boast is to place confidence in human capacity, human affirmation. If our place in God’s family was based on human performance—on abilities and accomplishments to boast about, we would be caught in a scramble to climb to the top of the heap of who had measured up to God’s commands the best. But that wouldn’t even be possible, for us, who, in our natural condition, were spiritually dead, enemies of God helpless to help ourselves before him.
Human achievements will never measure up to the fullness of God’s divine requirement to love—only Jesus can fulfil that perfect standard for us. That is why God saved us by his grace in Christ. Paul wrote: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:4-10).
Christians do not need to boast to get affirmation, attention, praise and validation from others. We already have more of that than anyone else on earth could give us. God has saved us, and paid such a great price to do so—giving up his one and only Son to make us members of his family. He has done this for no other reason that he loves you. He has raised us up with Christ and seated him in the heavenly realms—because we have been united with him in his baptism, Paul speaks as though this has already happened. He has showered upon you the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Remember from week 1 love is patient love is kind—kind from the root word ‘kin’. To be kind—to love—is to treat one another as kin. In Christ, God has made us one of his own family, with the right to be called the children of God and a place of honour in his kingdom. He has given you a purpose: even the works we do are those God has prepared for us beforehand.
Your Father in heaven planned all of this from before the very foundation of the world, and brought his plan to fulfilment through thousands of years of history, for you. Jesus did not boast, but humbled himself. He humbled himself to allow himself to be betrayed by one of his own followers, arrested, and be handed over to death. That is ultimate love—God’s own love—for you.
May we join with the Apostle Paul in confessing what our faith means: “But far be it from me to boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14) Amen.
