As part of North Street's 40 Days of Lent, every Saturday, Pastor Jeremy is sending out a "preparing for worship" reading.Have you ever seen the movie, The Wizard of Oz? Maybe you've even read the book. But what a lot of people don't know is that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is actually just the first of fourteen books by the original author, Frank L. Baum. When I was a kid, I enjoyed reading them all. I think it was sometime after I'd already read the Chronicles of Narnia three or four times and I was looking for another fantasy land to get lost in. Of course, Baum's Oz doesn't have the blatant Christian themes that Lewis' Narnia does, but they are nonetheless still good stories. And where there's good story, there's often good truth for life application.
If you remember, Dorothy and her companions are all headed for the Emerald City of Oz to find a great wizard who will be able to help each of them, namely Dorothy in her quest to return home to Kansas. Along their journey, they learn about how great this wizard is - he just appeared in the sky one day, and all the inhabitants of Oz fell before the great wizard from the sky as his power was obvious to them. And Dorothy and her friends reach the Emerald City and find the "great" wizard, who dupes them at first, but whom they soon find out to be nothing more than a normal man from Kansas who has hid behind some pretty cool tricks and schemes to conceal his true identity.Before they found out who he really was, the wizard told them to come back before he could help them. He seemed powerful, but he couldn't deliver on their wishes and their needs - he couldn't do anything to help them. But as soon as he's found out, he finds that he can actually help each of them, giving them their respective needs.
It was only when he stepped out from hiding behind his curtain that he could be who he needed to be.
I've heard someone say that the greatest thing that could ever happen to an individual would be for his (or her) sin to be exposed on the evening news. Can you imagine it? You turn on the television to find out who's winning the latest primary, but instead of seeing Clinton or McCain, you see your own picture. And with your smiling face there for all to see, the news anchor is rattling off all the things you think no one knows about you: your sin, your past actions, your temptations, and perhaps even things a little more recent...perhaps something you did today. It would be horrible...at first glance. But if we really think about that, the situation would lead us to rely on nothing else but the grace and loving forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And isn't that where we're supposed to be anyway?I think that this is why confession has been an important aspect of the life of a follower of Christ for most of the history of Christian tradition. We protestants don't do this very well though, and especially us, as people of the holiness tradition. We faithfully profess that we're saved and sanctified by the grace of God, but it too often ends up causing us to rely on an act or decision we made years ago, rather than a daily reliance on God's grace. When we acknowledge who we are and what we've done, we must rely on the grace of God, instead of whatever walls and pretenses we build up for ourselves.
This has to do with honesty - honesty with God and honesty with ourselves. And this is where we'll pick up tomorrow from the Word. In the meantime, ask yourselves: "What does it mean to live in spirit and in truth?"
Perhaps you'd pray this prayer, one written by Stanley Hauerwas and adapted by my friend, Christy Gunter-Leppert:
"Lord of all life, we come before you not knowing who we are. We strut our stuff, trying to impress others with our self-confidence and in the process we hope to actually be what we pretend and fake to others. Save us from this, so that we might learn who we are through trust in you, to make us more then we could imagine or fake to anyone else."
Our passages for this week, February 24, are Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, and John 4:5-42. Click here to read them.
I look forward to worshiping with you tomorrow,
For & Through Christ,
Jeremy
