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From the four offices upstairs there are four distinct views. In Elaine's office, she can see out to the backyard and down the street into the neighborhood with houses and trees all around. Becky has a view of an apartment complex and the parking lot of Ted Drewes. I can see mostly the athletic field of the high school across the street; there's already been some football practice happening. And Sue...well, come to think of it, mostly what Sue can see from her window is...the dumpster. Hmmm. Guess she should have been more specific!
As human beings, we all tend to live our lives in "a room with a view" - a confined space with a fixed perspective. Our lives are often insular and our perspectives are limited. This week, in Time magazine, our President is quoted as saying, "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - [well] - I believe what I believe is right." Much to my dismay, the truth is: he's speaking for all of us!
Our challenge this morning is to consider the possibility that we might need to change our perspective on things and expand our view. In the movie, "The Dead Poet's Society," Robin Williams plays a teacher in a boys' school. In one scene he is trying to encourage his students to see things from a different perspective. And so he tells them to, literally, stand up on their desks and see things in a new way. We are challenged to do far more than that.
"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."
These words are calling us to take on the transcendent, eternal perspective of Christ. Now that may sound just a tad too ethereal for the practically-minded among us. Like an old farmer said once about church people: "Some folks are so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good." But today's reading flips that thought around: "Some folks are so earthly minded that they're no heavenly good."
We are being told that our true life is not confined to this earthly plain of existence but is held in trust for us in Christ who exists eternally in God...therefore, we should live now as if we are already a part of eternity - because we are. Heaven is not a "some day, out there." It's here and now. But only a transcended existence...a wider perspective than we have ever had before...will allow us to truly see that and live that.
For most of us, in our culture, it's one thing to talk about "spiritual" things. Spirituality is all the rage. But to live an existence that reflects a spiritual perspective that is greater than our physical attachments...well, that's a whole other thing.
Most of us are a lot like what Wilbur Reese wrote. He said, "I'd like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep. Just enough to make me feel like a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to cause me to love someone who's difficult or pick beets with a migrant worker. No. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper bag. Just $3 worth of God if you please."
What we are being challenged to do is to allow not just a small part of God but all of God to enter into us and into our lives through Jesus Christ. True transcendence - living with a "heavenly perspective" - means not being dominated and controlled by the things of this world and the inclinations of our humanness alone.
Tradition has attributed the letter to the Colossian church has having been written by the apostle Paul. This morning we heard a list of things that Paul says we must not allow to control and rule our lives. He's saying that when we treat any part of the created world as being "ultimate," like a god, then it in fact functions in our lives like a god. Anything that we "worship" - that we give the best of our time, attention and energy to - will take over our lives. And if we are allowing things like uncontrolled and exploitative sex...or rampant, consuming greed...or unresolved and inappropriate anger to rule our lives, then we have made gods of the world around us and within us.
But the gods that rule our lives aren't always just in the things we do; we can also be ruled by the things we struggle not to do! Whether we're obsessed with doing...or obsessed with avoiding - either way, we're not living with the transcendent perspective of Christ.
Some clinical psychologists have given a name to a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that many religious people suffer from. They call it the "scrupulosity obsession" - being too scrupulous, too conscientious, too careful. There is even a newsletter called "Scrupulous Anonymous," with a circulation of 13,000. Its editor, Rev. Thomas Santa, describes scrupulosity as "a tender conscience" - a condition in which everything becomes a sin, to the point that you're almost paralyzed. For such people, sin is everywhere. And they each believe they are the first among sinners...the one who needs to confess again and again and again.
These Scripture verses we heard today seem to play right into the scrupulosity that so many people suffer. Don't do this; don't do that. Watch out; the wrath of God is coming.
If the truth be told, Paul may have suffered himself from a touch of scrupulosity. He readily admits many times, as in 1 Timothy, that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the foremost." The "foremost" of sinners. The tiptop transgressor. The baddest of the bad. That's some serious sinfulness!
So, what does this mean for us? Are we to focus constantly on, as the list reads, "immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language and lies?" Are we to live a life of constant introspection, relentlessly obsessing over every one of our motivations, thoughts, words and deeds? Is Christian living nothing more than avoiding a list of negatives?
NO!
Here's a true story that helps explain why: A Virginia man was scrupulous about always wearing his wedding ring. In fact, in 15 years of marriage he had never taken it off. Never. Not once. It was a personal obsession.
One day he was out walking his dog . (Now, Sue, I know you walk Ottie, too...but this is different!) His dog was a big, lovable, squirrel-chasing mutt. The man stopped to talk with a neighbor, and as they chatted he let the dog's leash hang loosely on his left hand.
All of a sudden, the dog spotted a squirrel and took off! The leash caught on the man's wedding ring and - SNAP! - broke his finger.
Oh, the pain! The finger swelled up around the wedding ring, and when the man arrived at the hospital emergency room, the doctor announced he would have to cut the ring off. "Oh, no!" the man protested. "I have NEVER removed my wedding ring. Never. You can't cut it off."
The doctor replied, very matter-of-factly, "Then you'll lose your finger."
Suddenly, the man saw with crystal clarity what was truly important. It wasn't a perfect record of always wearing a wedding ring, day and night, consistently and flawlessly for the whole of his marriage. No, what mattered was a vital, loving and faithful relationship with his wife. And, if possible, 10 healthy fingers.
Paul challenges us with the words: "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Set your minds not on the temptations of this world, but on the joy of life with Christ, a life in which we are free to enjoy boundless compassion, kindness, love, peace and gratitude. We can do this because we have been given a new and abundant life that is safe and secure and hidden - held in trust - with Christ in God.
Whether we spend our time worshiping the gods of the world that drag us down...or we invest all our energy in desperately trying to avoid them, either way we're looking in the wrong direction. Today we are being challenged to look up. Somewhere between "anything goes" and "everything is wrong" there is the center point where we are called to live our lives. The centering point is Jesus Christ, and living from that place requires that we stop hiding ourselves in our "room with a view" and take on a view with some room - with some space for growing and changing and allowing God to truly be God of our lives; we need the view, the perspective of Christ.
What we are being challenged to do is to allow not just a small part of God but all of God to enter into us and into our lives through Jesus Christ. Do we want that? Do we want enough of God to explode our souls or disturb our sleep? Are we willing to trade ecstasy for transformation?
"Setting our minds on things above..." may just blow out the windows and tear down the walls in our lives...leaving a vast, open expanse of clear, fresh air around us. Christ has a way of doing that...in order to make room for a more heavenly view. Amen.
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