Poverty of Spirit

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0:00 This morning as we're thinking about the story of our lives and the story of the cross, we get us thinking about what movies make us particularly nostalgic. Back to the Future did that for me this morning, or not this morning, but this week. I'll let that movie dock brown. There's a couple quotes in the book we've been working through this book, Poverty of Spirit by Johannes Baptiste Metz, Jordan gave it to me.

0:31 A while ago in the title Poverty of Spirit drew me to it in this Easter season just thinking about who we are that we need resurrection. And so we've been working through the book and it gets particularly deep today. There are a couple quotes I'm going to read for us that remind me of Dock Brown actually, there, deep, Dock Brown's deep, and then it's time travel guys. But before we get to that, I want to bring us in with a call to worship.

1:01 This morning I'm going to use a text for the call to worship that comes into our reflection of scripture. Instead of a Psalm, I'm going to use a section from Matthew's account to the Gospels. So it's in Matthew chapter six, started at verse 25 if you want to follow along. Jesus is speaking here and he says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you'll drink,

1:32 nor about your body, what you will put on. It's not life more than food and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them, are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life and why are you anxious about clothing?

2:02 So consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither soil nor spin yet I tell you even Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so close the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? You have little faith therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the Gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

2:42 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added for you, added to you. Oh good Lord, thank you for the gift of life today. Teach us how to rest in this present moment. Be mindful of how we've gotten here and hopeful about where you'll take us.

3:15 Be with us this morning as we gather together in our rooms and across town. Love us this morning as only you can. Jesus name we pray. So we're working towards the end of this book and this chapter he goes into specific examples or the she calls it like the shapes of poverty.

3:45 The way that our poverty of spirit manifests and it is particularly deep. I mean it's like the whole book has been kind of like it's a little dense but this section is like gets very existential like who am I in the world. It's pretty inspiring when I got down into it but it takes a little bit to get down into it. Just a fair warning if you're reading along. Two of the quotes that I pulled out that stuck with me was what the past has made us is yet to come and the future is the unfinished destiny of the past.

4:27 I guess that's what got me thinking about back to the future. He talks about several ways or shapes that our poverty takes in this chapter and he starts out with this one about poverty of being commonplace, how you can avoid some ordinary aspects of your life and then the poverty of misery. This is not that you identify with the poor or choose to be poor or miserable but that some people that's there a lot in life points to Jesus for that.

5:02 But what got really interesting to me was what he calls the poverty of our provisional nature as humans. That's why I read that text for us from Matthew chapter 6 because it gets to this idea that he's talking about a little bit. Essentially he's saying remember that you have poverty of spirit is this like deep limitation that says to be fully human is to be essentially limited.

5:45 There are essential core limitations on what it means to be human and the whole premise of the book is that we ought to lean into those limitations and celebrate them not run from them. That they are core to how God created us and when we settle into God's created intent for ourselves we find the fullest experience of life. We can very quickly settle down into God's created intent for us if we are aware and lean into the intended limitations of being human.

6:23 We can become fully human as we are aware of and accept our fundamental limitations. What he does as he moves through the limitations is this book is he starts to come at some of the things that we take for granted in our life and they're so kind of customary that we lose notice of them.

6:54 That passage in Matthew that I started us with used as the call to worship that talks about don't be anxious about your life what you'll eat what you'll drink or what are your body what you will put on. It's not life more than food. He's talking about don't worry about these things because God knows that you need them. Then he concludes that section right after where I stopped I stopped but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added added to you verse 34. He says therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

7:33 I think in a time like now when so hard to predict what's coming it may accentuate the reality that's true all the time that you are not in control of the future. It that your future is outside of your control. In fact much of your past was outside of your controls well and all these experiences of your past are coming together in this brief present moment and shaping who you'll be forever and so much of this is outside of your control.

8:21 Of course it's not outside of the control of God. God is in control of the past and the future. We are not. And that may seem like a normal like not a revolutionary idea. It's not a revolutionary idea of course. But the problem is so often we allow ourselves to live with the illusion that the future is in our control.

8:59 That we can determine what will happen. In fact we allow ourselves to live with the illusion that we have. We have determined our future. We've set aside enough retirement so we'll sure retirement will go the way we want. We've secured a good enough job so we are sure that job will provide for us off into the future.

9:29 We have raised our children right so we are sure they'll make perfect choices off into the future. We've picked the right mate so we are sure the relationship will go in a good way off into the future. Or vice versa we've made enough bad choices we're sure there's no good for us in the future. We've made a mistake that we can't undo. We're sure that it will never live it down into the future.

10:01 We so often though it's not a revolutionary idea that you are not in control of your future so often we allow ourselves to live with the illusion that we are. And the invitation of the poverty of spirit is to stay very central into the truth that the future is outside of your control. You are essentially fundamentally limited. You are subject to the choices that you have made in the past and you cannot control the outcome that's coming for you in the future.

10:38 He pulls in two verses that kind of take this take the next step here. The first one I want to look at is in Colossians. If you look there with me it's a letter that Paul writes to the church in Colossians and it's in the New Testament. So it goes ax Romans verses and Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians and I want to look at Colossians chapter 4.

11:08 This brief little phrase, Colossians is actually, it's really beautiful. We talk a lot about how smart Paul is in his writing but there are some passages in Colossians that are just really pretty. He talks about the nature of Christ at the beginning. But towards the end of his letter to the church in Colossians chapter 4, starting at verse 2, he's giving some further instructions for their life and he says,

11:39 If you all would continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the words to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am being imprisoned. That I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. And then he has this phrase that the author pulls out for us, conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of time. That your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

12:16 He says, Paul says there, make the best use of your time. And the author points out this thing that we all know, but allow ourselves to put aside, that each day and the moment you are making choices that can never be unmade. You are stacking up opportunities and you are determining what you'll do with that opportunity and then you are very unceremoniously moving past it into the next season of opportunities.

12:59 And there is a profound limitation in that reality that you and I experience life moving through it linearly. The reason back in the future is so fun, the reason the flux capacitor is so exciting is because it doesn't exist. I was like trying to imagine a situation where even Doc Brown could have done something right. Like how do you go back to the 1950s as though the 1950s were still existing someplace?

13:30 I don't know. Maybe we'll figure out that there are parallel realities. But for our experience right now, what we know is that in each moment you obscure thousands of different choices or opportunities and you pick one and you move forward in that reality. And there is a profound limitation in moving linearly through time. And normally it's not helpful to think through it, but today for just this moment, I want to think about what it means to be fully human.

14:02 And to be fully human is to recognize this deep limitation that everything is experienced moving just like this. And it comes into the story of Scripture that there is a limit on our time that to be human is to be this finite experience. With the beginning, what was outside of our control and these stacked up choices and experiences, some of which we've made, some of which were made for us that cannot be unmade, that are building together this future.

14:38 I want to look at this in another spot. It's coming together here. We'll go back if you were in Colossians. Go back just a little bit to Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. Ephesians chapter 5. Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus covers a lot of ground, but there's this one little place here in chapter 5 where there's three lines set off as a quote.

15:09 And I love when Paul quotes things. He quotes poets from the day. He sometimes quotes hymns. And some of his letters, he even quotes the beginnings of creeds that are being used in the first century church. In this little section in Ephesians chapter 5, scholars think he's quoting a hymn. Just a couple little lines of this hymn that's used in the first century church.

15:39 Let's see. Let's start at verse chapter 5. Verse 13, but when anything is exposed by light, he says it becomes visible for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, he's quoting this hymn, away goes sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Verse 15, look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise but wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

16:17 The author pulls this out because the quote there is make the best use of the days. It says make the best use of the time because the days are evil. I like that he quotes that hymn before he says that and says, wake up for just a minute and remember the reality of your existence. Wake up, oh sleeper, moving along in a rote fashion, living under the illusion that there is a wake up from the illusions and recognize what's happening.

16:52 Then he says, the light of Christ will shine on you. This kind of gets at for just a minute, the most helpful response when we wake up and realize our poverty of spirit, when we wake up and realize our own limitations. He says that the light of Christ will shine on you.

17:22 He says then because of them, because the light of Christ will shine on you, look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise but wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. I don't know if it's always been my personality. It feels like it kind of has. In my senior, when I was graduating high school, way back before the turn of the millennium, graduated in 1999, that we were supposed to write these farewells which were like to all your friends in the school newspaper.

18:00 I wrote this paragraph talking about how time is fleeting and memories are all we take with us. It was way too philosophical for a high school senior. Now this year I'll turn 40 and I've been thinking a lot about how things are moving. Maybe it's just natural just for me to be thinking about that look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but wise.

18:30 I have had this recurring theme in my life that I want to make wise, responsible decisions. I can put up with most things. If I feel like inside of myself I made the wise and responsible decision and it is hard and has been hard knowing that I fall short of that mark so often. The limitations of being human are so hard but also inescapable that we spend lots of time just ignoring that they're there.

19:17 The author of this book is surfacing this teaching from the story of scripture that says your poverty of spirit, your essential limitation is worth pressing into not running away from. Paul says we ought to awake, oh sleeper and the light of Christ I was trying to imagine or remember an example from the story of scripture where someone did this and of course from our Lord.

19:52 Remember when he's hanging on the cross now the cross was intentionally a place of ridicule. They would put it outside of town. You couldn't crucify a Roman citizen. It was too humiliating to just the fact that you were a citizen meant you couldn't be crucified. It was too humiliating. It was already this place that said you're not worth much. Then almost always the bodies would just be left on the cross outside of town to decay and fall apart because nobody cared about the people that were crucified.

20:31 It was completely humiliating. Jesus especially because not only did he have the ridicule of the Romans but his own people. The Jewish ones were the ones who demanded his crucifixion and then mocked him as he carried the cross through town and they set it up outside in Golgotha. It's not a surprise as people are walking in to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. They walk by his crucified body that they make fun of him.

21:01 As he calls out they make fun of the fact that he's gotten himself into this situation. You see that right there as he's hanging on the cross and they say, hey if you're the son of God take yourself down off the cross. Right there they're pointing out this great and final limitation of humanity. You're not in control of when you die. Of course Jesus had the capacity to take himself down. To grasp control.

21:31 To spurn human limitation but as he did throughout his whole life as he hangs on the cross he demonstrates for us the proper response to human limitation. He celebrates it and gives us rests in the hope of a good God. They're making fun of him. They tear his clothes. And finally as he hangs on the cross at the very end he says,

22:06 father forgive him for they don't know what they're doing. And he breathes out and says, hey I give you God my spirit. I die resting in the hope of a good God. And then unprecedented times of global pandemic when families are in like cabin fever turmoil and jobs are unsecure.

22:38 And this sense of blessing is a time when we are acquainted with our sincere, honest limitations and in this sense it is a blessing. So often we can escape or pretend our limitations don't exist. It is hard to do that today. The most fruitful response to our limitation is not grasping for control.

23:09 Spurning our weakness and trying to step out of humanity and become God. The answer instead is to rest in our limitation and trust hope in the reality of a good God who comes to fight for us. Jesus facing the ultimate limitation of humanity, death outside of his control. At the hands of ignorant, foolish, grasping for power of people puts his hope in the reality of a good God.

23:51 On Easter morning is vindicated and God is revealed for the glorious goodness which comes for you as well. Glorious, gloriously good God coming for you. I pray that as we become acquainted in this time with our limitations, as we recognize the things we cannot control,

24:24 the movement and passage of time, the choices that are fixed and cannot be unmade, undone or done again. The limitation of our provision and our control that instead of grasping for more control, pretending we are not human, we sit back and call out in hope to the God who has demonstrated is infinitely good.

25:03 The last quote that I thought of from this book says that our infinite, I mean our finite existence is the shadow side of God's infinite existence. It is appropriate that you are limited because at your limitation God needs you, picks you up and covers the rest. May God pick you up this week in Jesus name.