I
For the last several Sundays we’ve been doing an exercise in listening to ourselves. We’ve put ourselves into Moses’ life and we’ve listened to what we feel about ourselves. I hope it’s been productive. It certainly has spoken to me. I hope you’ve been able to listen to yourselves under the authority of the Word of God and with the help of the wonderful Biblical character, Moses.
Today we conclude this series trying to listen to ourselves at the deepest of all levels. Today we are going to listen to ourselves at the subconscious level. That means we may hear some things that are not very pretty. We may have to listen to the ugly side of our personalities, the unpleasant and even vicious side. The hymn we’ve been using mentions this, "Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried. ... “ Buried feelings. Some of those buried feelings are tough to confront. But we must. The sermon may be a little painful today.
But I want you to hang in there. I do want to assure you that we will get to some good news. We will hear the gospel. In fact, I can give you a preview of that good news:
Colossians 3:5-11
Renewal, Christ is all and in all. That’s going to be the good news.
But first, stay with me while we confront some painful things, so that you can experience the new self and the renewal that will come.
II
We’re going to listen today for abuse. Abusive feelings. We’re going to take a little trip into our hearts and minds and look for the feelings that have the potential to destroy both ourselves and others. Listening for abuse.
Now I can hear your minds clicking off at two different points. There are at least two groups of folks who are right now saying, "Well, I can go back to sleep, because this sermon is not for me. Listening for abuse’? Don’t need it, don’t want it.”
One group is saying, "I don’t need to listen for abuse because I ‘m not abusive. I don’t beat up on anybody, I don’t hate anybody. I don’t need this." To that group I would say, stop and realize the power of the mind. The power of those deep-down hidden feelings is enormous. If you and I harbor any negative feelings toward others, the potential for abuse is still there. If you do not know what is deep down inside, you may think that you don’t hate anybody and would never harm a flea. But in a moment of duress, in a moment where you feel threatened, those negative feelings will come out and become abusive.
I’ve seen it again and again. Push some folks hard enough and the "N" word comes tumbling out. You know which "N" word’? It erupts when you never supposed it was even there. Negative feelings you don’t know you have will erupt into abuse.
In fact, sometimes, even when we think we are being positive instead of negative, we are putting someone down, and we are on the way to abuse. You know the kind of thing I mean? "Hey, that was not such bad good work for a...you fill in the blank: for a woman .. for a teenager.. for a black person, whatever." For a tarheel! Even what sounds like a plus can hide a minus. Abuse. We do need this message. We need this message because even a feeling that diminishes someone else, however subtle it may be now, is just a step on the road toward real hard-core abuse.
There is another group of us who do not think we need this message. They are the folks who are saying, "Oh, look. The pastor is going to be politically correct. He is going to attack the isms you read about in the newspaper every day. He is going to bash racism, which is neat and easy to do in this church. He is going to demonstrate his feminist opinions, which will help him with about two-thirds of the church. He is a PCP, politically correct pastor."
Well, I want to assure that group that what I say this morning has nothing to do with being popular, nothing to do with being trendy. It has everything to do with hearing and obeying God’s word. We must listen to ourselves and hear the judgment of the word of God, and then hear the forgiveness and grace of God. Almost all of us know how to get along in this world. We know what we are supposed to say; we know what we should not do. We know pretty well how to be politically correct. What we do not know is how to listen to and deal with the feelings that lie buried, down in the human heart. Those feelings that can easily become abusive. But the word of God does know how to teach us and how to relieve us.
So you are not hearing a political correctness speech today. You are hearing an exposition of the Word of God, which always measures our souls. All of us need this message.
III
So I want to explore with you a group of abusive feelings which you will readily recognize. They are very common. They are not the only abusive feelings, but they are the most common. And they are addressed directly and specifically in God’s word. The law given to Moses, contained in the book of Exodus, includes this brief but powerful statement: Exodus 22:21-23 [note word abusive"]
Racism. .sexism. .and ageism.
Listen again to the word of God: "YOU shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien". In other words, you shall not hurt someone just because he is different, foreign, strange, or unusual. "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien." Let’s read that, "You shall not look down on some other group."
And, "you shall not abuse any widow", you shall not buy into what society does to women, who are thought of as fair game, if they don’t have a man taking care of them. "You shall not abuse any widow .” We can read that, and broaden it, “You shall not discount women, even if, especially if, you are one.”!
And finally, "you shall not abuse any orphan. You shall not brush aside children, who are vulnerable, dependent, impressionable. "You shall not abuse any orphan. We’ll translate that one for our day, too: "You shall not toss aside young people.”
For, says God’ s word, “If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry.” The word of God’s judgment is clear. You shall not abuse.
IV
Now, for us to begin listening to ourselves on racism, sexism, and ageism. let me ask you a series of questions, based on what I’m going to call the hot car syndrome". I want you to picture in your minds a hot car: you see someone driving an expensive, classy, new, "hot" car. It’s got everything. It’s powerful, it’s fashionable. it’s fast, and, most of all, it’s expensive. Got that picture?
Now, who did you see driving the car? I’m going to invite you to picture several possible drivers of that car. Listen to yourself when you picture who is driving that hot car, and see if you can find out where there are some buried feelings.
The first driver is a middle-aged white male. Who is he? What comes to mind? What would you guess he does? Did you think,
"successful businessman, professional man, maybe a lawyer"?
Well, change the picture. Now the driver of that fabulous vehicle is a middle-aged black male. Who is he? What do you think of now? Did you think, “hustler? trickster? uppity? maybe a preacher"?
Change the picture again. Make the driver a woman, a white woman. Who is she? How did she get that car? Wife of. . Wife of a businessman, wife of professional man. Not her own person, exactly, but a "lady".
Change that to a black woman and does your deep-down picture change? What is the cultural image, deep down, of a black woman, of any age, in an expensive car? Kept woman? Walked the streets , maybe? Stay with me, now, don’t get wiped out. I’m talking about those deep-down images that we carry subconsciously. We say we don’t believe them, we say that they are usually wrong. But even the word "usually" is a dead giveaway that whether we are men or women, whether we are black or white, we still carry around some images. We still have some feelings, some prejudices.
Who else could be driving the hot car?
Well, picture a young driver, late teens, early twenties. Young white man? Daddy’s junior partner, being pushed up the ladder of success with Daddy’s money. Young black man? Admit it now; does it become, "Drug dealer? Out to par-tay?"
Young woman, white or black? Daddy’ s princess. All fluff , out to break hearts and catch men .
Images. Pictures. And on the way to abuse. Do you see what I am saying? I am taking the risk here, I know, of being very badly misunderstood. I am assuming that you trust me and that you believe me when I tell you I am trying to hear God’s word and not just my own.
I am trying to say that when we really listen to ourselves, that "down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried." And those feelings can easily become abusive.
Oh, and don’t miss the subtlety of this. The subtlety of it is that even those who are victims of abusive thinking carry around some of the same feelings as the oppressors do. When I was a chaplain at Howard University, the only white person in the chapel ministry there, the other chaplains would send me to the university administrators when they needed to get something done. They could send me to make the speech and get results, not because I was more eloquent or more competent than the rest, but because I had this white skin.
That’s abusive thinking, even among the victims. By the way, I’m not particularly proud of cooperating with that and would hope I would never do that again.
Oh men and women, adults and children, Caucasians and African-Americans, listen to ourselves, and know that we are capable of holding down inside of us feelings about superiority and power that are very dangerous indeed. It is only a few steps from feeling negative, either toward someone else or toward ourselves. ..only a few steps from such feelings to actual abuse. And that God’s word says He will judge.
V
Is there a way out? How are we going to deal with those feelings that lie buried? How can we stop ourselves from becoming abusive?
Two things will help. Two ways to banish racism, sexism, and ageism.
One way is simply exposure. Exposure to other people. Simply choosing to live in a multicultural way. Simply choosing as men to value women and choosing as women to understand yourselves. And exposure, too, to young people, embracing them and enjoying them. One way to deal with abusive feelings is to be exposed to others.
Think about Moses. Moses was an alien in his own home. You could see that he was a Hebrew, yet he was living in an Egyptian royal palace. Knowing privilege and yet able to identify with his own race, and their need. When Moses listened to himself, did his background help him grasp "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt"?
And more. All the key figures in Moses’ early life were women. The mother who set him adrift in the bulrushes and then nursed him anonymously in Pharaoh’s palace. Miriam, the sister, who hovered over him and protected him; who, when he led the people of Israel through the waters of the Red Sea, sang history’s first victory song. The Egyptian princess who sheltered him and raised him as her own. Women, strong women. When Moses listened to himself, did he hear their voices so that it became possible to hear God’s command, "You shall not abuse any widow "? You shall not discount women."
And then there is Moses, the infant. What a lovely story, and yet what a horrible story. Did Moses know, as he grew up, that he was the only Hebrew baby boy of a certain age? Did he know the story of the slaughter of scores of innocent boy babies? And if so, did that make tender his heart so that he could truly hear, God’s command, "You shall not abuse any orphan."? "You shall not toss aside young people."
Exposure is a place to begin. Choosing to live with the tensions of diversity. But there is more.
For one day a new Moses came. One day there came one whose word surpassed even Moses’ word, and whose habits of the heart were more sensitive even than Moses’ heart.
One day there came one who is able to take the human heart, with all its twists and tangles, and straighten it out. Jesus the Christ is able to listen to your heart and mine, with all of its subtleties, all of its complexities, and all of its brokenness. And He is able to change it. He is able to renew it.
I want you to know this morning that Jesus the Christ can take every bit of our prejudice and our racism and can trash it. He is able.
He is able. For in Him there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. He is able. He is able to take every ounce of sexism and destroy it, for in Him there is neither male nor female. He is able.
He is able to deal with every shred of ageism, commanding, "Except you become like a little child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven." He is able.
"Now you must get rid of all such things --anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. .You have stripped off the old self ..and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed. ..In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free; but Christ is all and in all !" He is able!
VI
In the year 1748 a 23-year-old Englishman had been forced to go to sea. He was on a slave ship which had delivered its cargo to Brazil and was heading back to England by way of Newfoundland. A tremendous storm threatened to destroy the ship, and he had to pump all night long, afraid that he would drown. On that night John Newton listened to his heart and became a Christian. You see, Christ is able. Christ is all and in all.
However, the young Mr. Newton did not yet listen deeply enough. He became himself the captain of a slave ship, trafficking in human flesh. But he kept on studying his Christian faith, he kept on listening to his heart, and so one day gave up his notorious, abusive occupation. You see, Christ is able. Christ is all and in all.
As a dock worker for the next ten years, John Newton listened to himself yet more; yet more he struggled with those feelings that lie buried down in the human heart. And Newton began to preach, to preach a heartfelt, simple faith; to preach the unbounded love of God; to preach and to persist until in the year of his death, 1807, largely under his influence, Parliament abolished forever the slave trade in all British dominions. You see, Christ is able. Christ is all and in all.
"You must get rid of all such things. .anger, wrath, malice. .abusive language. .you have clothed yourself with the new self.” The man’s tombstone says, "John Newton. ..once a servant of slaves in Africa was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.” Christ is able. Christ is all and in all.
Earlier this morning you sang Newton’s own words, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found , was blind but now I see."
There is hope. There is a way to deal with our hidden, ugly, abusive feelings. Christ is able.
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"Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace. .amazing grace .. can restore; touched by a loving heart, wakened by Kindness, chords that are broken will vibrate once more. ..Jesus is merciful , Jesus will save. " He is able. He is all in all.
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