Return of the Sunday Sermon
Apr. 2nd, 2007 12:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkA while back I was in the habit of fairly regularly writing "Sunday sermons." I'm not a preacher of any sort, although I have spoken to congregations before, due to the fact that I'm Mormon, and we don't have clergy in the usual sense, so the task of speaking in church gets spread about. I don't get to speak in church more than once every few years though, and I get interesting spiritual thoughts far more often than that, so I sometimes write them up and post them here on livejournal. I haven't done so in quite a wile, I've been busy with other things, but today I ran into an interesting story, and had a few thoughts about it, so I figured I'd share.
I've been reading a few articles on snopes.com, which debunks popular internet myths. I find it interesting to see how myths start and spread, and discover the truths behind the odd things that get forwarded to half the world.
And today I read one about John Newton, the man who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace." I've always quite liked that song, so I was interested in the story. The myth going about is that John Newton was a slave trader, who found God after a near-miss with death and disaster in a horrible storm, and promptly freed all his slaves, wrote the hymn, and lived a Christian life thereafter.
This is not what happened. The real story is, to me, a far better one. John Newton was, indeed, a slave trader. And he did indeed convert to Christianity after a horrible storm. But he wrote Amazing Grace many years later, and it's what happened in those years that gets my attention. Because Newton did not immediately free his slaves after converting. In fact he remained a slave trader for several years after finding Christ. But eventually he did leave the slave trade. And eventually he became a minister, and eventually he started speaking out against the practice of slavery. And eventually he wrote that inspiring hymn about personal salvation, about being a wretch and then being saved. And most people, hearing that song, think of the sort of instant salvation found in the first version of the story. Which is certainly one way to look at it. But I like to look at it another way.
The first story is a very common story. It's even in the Bible, in the account of Saul on the road to Damascus. You find it in the Book of Mormon as well, in the account of Alma the Younger accepting Christ's salvation and being a changed man from that instant forth. And I'm sure that kind of split second true conversion does sometimes happen. But not to most of us. Most of us are a lot more like Newton than Saul or Alma. We may have some great moment that brings us to embrace God, some terrible storm in our lives that causes us to realize we need the presence of the divine. But that moment doesn't suddenly make us perfect. We're still much the same after as before. It's the years that follow that work the change. Even as Newton slowly shifted from slaver to minister, we change from our sinful selves to better, more Christ-like selves. And sometimes the change is hard, and sometimes it's slow, and sometimes the fact that even after our great spiritual epiphanies we still suffer from temptation and sin makes us doubt if those epiphanies were even real. We wonder why we can't be a Saul remade to Paul, why we keep wandering from the fold. Why our happily ever after in Christ isn't here yet.
You see, it's the same problem that plagues many marriages today. The "happily ever after syndrome" that causes us to reach a pinnacle of experience and expect smooth sailing thereafter. And when the smooth sailing turns to choppy seas, we assume that the pinnacle was an illusion, the love wasn't real, the saving grace of no worth. But real life is almost never smooth sailing. Indeed for every Paul, there are hundreds of Peters, who even though he had earlier proclaimed with firmness that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, still denied him thrice on the eve of his crucifixion. But Peter's later denial didn't mean his earlier profession was worthless. Peter, after all, went on to become the leader of the early church, and the rock of his testimony shown in that first proclamation was what Christ's church was founded on. So we, even though we fall short of the glory of God, can still do great things. Sometimes the path is long, and there are many tiny steps in it, and we wish we could simply jump to the perfection at the end in a single bound, but we shouldn't berate ourselves for not staying pure and strong without fail forever once we're converted. And as we take those tiny steps, and work our way closer to God, eventually we, as John Newton found, will feel his Amazing Grace come into our lives, not in a sudden strike of lightning, but as a slowly rising tide.
I've been reading a few articles on snopes.com, which debunks popular internet myths. I find it interesting to see how myths start and spread, and discover the truths behind the odd things that get forwarded to half the world.
And today I read one about John Newton, the man who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace." I've always quite liked that song, so I was interested in the story. The myth going about is that John Newton was a slave trader, who found God after a near-miss with death and disaster in a horrible storm, and promptly freed all his slaves, wrote the hymn, and lived a Christian life thereafter.
This is not what happened. The real story is, to me, a far better one. John Newton was, indeed, a slave trader. And he did indeed convert to Christianity after a horrible storm. But he wrote Amazing Grace many years later, and it's what happened in those years that gets my attention. Because Newton did not immediately free his slaves after converting. In fact he remained a slave trader for several years after finding Christ. But eventually he did leave the slave trade. And eventually he became a minister, and eventually he started speaking out against the practice of slavery. And eventually he wrote that inspiring hymn about personal salvation, about being a wretch and then being saved. And most people, hearing that song, think of the sort of instant salvation found in the first version of the story. Which is certainly one way to look at it. But I like to look at it another way.
The first story is a very common story. It's even in the Bible, in the account of Saul on the road to Damascus. You find it in the Book of Mormon as well, in the account of Alma the Younger accepting Christ's salvation and being a changed man from that instant forth. And I'm sure that kind of split second true conversion does sometimes happen. But not to most of us. Most of us are a lot more like Newton than Saul or Alma. We may have some great moment that brings us to embrace God, some terrible storm in our lives that causes us to realize we need the presence of the divine. But that moment doesn't suddenly make us perfect. We're still much the same after as before. It's the years that follow that work the change. Even as Newton slowly shifted from slaver to minister, we change from our sinful selves to better, more Christ-like selves. And sometimes the change is hard, and sometimes it's slow, and sometimes the fact that even after our great spiritual epiphanies we still suffer from temptation and sin makes us doubt if those epiphanies were even real. We wonder why we can't be a Saul remade to Paul, why we keep wandering from the fold. Why our happily ever after in Christ isn't here yet.
You see, it's the same problem that plagues many marriages today. The "happily ever after syndrome" that causes us to reach a pinnacle of experience and expect smooth sailing thereafter. And when the smooth sailing turns to choppy seas, we assume that the pinnacle was an illusion, the love wasn't real, the saving grace of no worth. But real life is almost never smooth sailing. Indeed for every Paul, there are hundreds of Peters, who even though he had earlier proclaimed with firmness that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, still denied him thrice on the eve of his crucifixion. But Peter's later denial didn't mean his earlier profession was worthless. Peter, after all, went on to become the leader of the early church, and the rock of his testimony shown in that first proclamation was what Christ's church was founded on. So we, even though we fall short of the glory of God, can still do great things. Sometimes the path is long, and there are many tiny steps in it, and we wish we could simply jump to the perfection at the end in a single bound, but we shouldn't berate ourselves for not staying pure and strong without fail forever once we're converted. And as we take those tiny steps, and work our way closer to God, eventually we, as John Newton found, will feel his Amazing Grace come into our lives, not in a sudden strike of lightning, but as a slowly rising tide.
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nice quote
Date: 2007-04-02 08:10 am (UTC)I think you would make a great life coach, regardless of what religious beliefs are involved. I wish more people would accept that life doesn't just "get better" all the time. I find myself wanting the lighting bolt event to happen, then realize that while sometimes those things happen, the simpler ways of change, like the rain can have a longer lasting effect that the scorched earth that the lightning leaves because the rain is so gradual and in most climates comes back every year. the tsunami waves leave paths of destruction, but the smaller tidal waves are what wear down rocks into pebbles and refine them into sand. Sometimes you just have to wait for the water to do its thing and be sure you are doing what you need to be to doing too.
There's definately something to helping yourself and not seeing everything in a negative view and being open to new ideas. God(s) and other people help those who help themselves, and others. Helping yourself is not a selfish thing, as long as you use your strenght to help others and you know when you need to ask for help. It is amazing to think someone who owned slaves in that time of American history would even think to free his slaves, and I think many people would benefit from pondering such impossibilities.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 11:36 pm (UTC)I don't particularly like a lot of the evenagelicals for those very reasons. Well, and because some of the vocal ones are cray and/or hypocrites. But that's a whole 'nother rant which I have ranted many times before.
Saved by the grace of God doesn't mean it's a free pass for the rest of your life. It's something a lot deeper than that.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 04:51 pm (UTC)