Sermon 18 - Whatsoever Things Are Pure
Philippians 4:8
Authorized (King James) Version
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
New International Version
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Titus 1:15
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
When your wife dies, your life changes. Well, you say, of course. The thing is, that so many changes take place, so much of your life changes, so drastically, that it's more like your life *ends*. You are doing all kinds of things, when you are married, because you are married. Your interests are affected by your spouse's interests. Any schedules that you have are affected by the activities, and needs, of your spouse. So when you're spouse is not there, everything changes. *Everything*.
So that's what was happening to me. Gloria had died, and my life was over. But I hadn't stopped breathing yet. So, I had to build a new life. I had to come up with things to do, and reasons to get out of bed in the morning. I had to come up with things to occupy the endless empty, lonely, hours of the day.
Well, I'm a researcher. I found things to do. Or, at least, I found things I *could* do. I found a number of things that I could do. I was researching grief. I was creating a means of support for other men who had lost their wives. I was doing research in my field of information security. Rather oddly, I started writing sermons. There were quite a few things that I could do. But, of course, just having things to do doesn't build you a life. So I was starting to worry about which of these things I should pursue.
I spoke to a friend about this problem, and she quoted Philippians 4:8 at me: whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
That sounded like pretty good advice. There's only one problem, in my particular case, with that advice: my professional life does not deal with things that are pure. I deal with liars, thieves, fraudsters, pornography, and people who are just out to do injuries to you, simply because they can. My professional life does not deal with the pure, and the noble. Oh sure, what I am doing hopefully will help people, and there may be some nobility in that, but the research that I have to do is not into anything that is remotely pure. My research is always into things that are pretty nasty.
As I am writing the notes for this sermon, I am also teaching the cryptography section of the information security seminar. I love cryptography, and, in this case, one of the reasons seems to be that, as a topic, it is at least ethically neutral, and research into it doesn't necessarily involve delving into the actions of bad people.
So, I felt that I needed to get away from what I had been doing in my professional life. Probably not entirely, since my research tends to be long-term, and I have to keep it up, if I'm ever going to go back into information security work. So I dialed back on my research. I kept up with issues that were arising in my field, but I didn't delve into it very deeply. I went into other things. I tried to help out in churches. I tried to find a new church. So I was doing church shopping. I was also offering help to the churches I was trying out. I was creating workshops on information security, at a very basic level, for the general population, and particularly for seniors. I was doing this so that the churches could offer this both to help out their own congregants, but also so that they could offer it to those in the community who might come to a workshop, but wouldn't want to come to a sermon. Then, of course, once you've gotten them into the sanctuary, you can grab them.
I was continuing to write sermons. Some of the sermons seemed to arise, rather oddly, from my experience of grief. Okay, well, grief is not the greatest of experiences, and it's not exactly pure, but it's not exactly impure, either, so that wasn't too strange. I felt that that was acceptable.
However, even as I was dialing back my research into information security, it seemed that information security was either prompting, or invading, some of my sermons. Ideas from information security, and the dangers, and, yes, even the nastiness, seemed to find an important place in the sermons that I was writing. One such sermon was initially prompted by an unfortunate experience, that seemed to point out a failing in some of the churches. So I wrote that up, as best I could, but it didn't seem finished. I wasn't happy with it. And then, during my church shopping, a throwaway comment at the end of a sermon suddenly reminded me of two areas of research that I had been working on prior to the "think on these things" advice. And suddenly, in a flurry, adding lessons from those two areas of research finished that sermon. It became complete, where it had not been before.
Are we not allowed in the church to talk about anything bad? Must we always be talking about only the positive? Doesn't that way lie toxic positivity? Are we not allowed to talk about the reality that sometimes you find it difficult to praise the Lord because you don't feel that you have anything to praise the Lord about?
I'm asking this question quite seriously. We really have a problem talking about anything bad in the church. Even if it's something bad unrelated to the church, we seem to feel that that is something that should not be discussed.
Can we not talk about the reality of pain? Of loss? Of grief? Is that forbidden in our church?
When my sister died, I first realised that we were not allowed to talk about death in our society. I desperately wanted to talk about my sister and about my sister's death. I was grieving. I probably wasn't doing it particularly well, after all I was only 15 years old. I still would have liked to have talked to someone, at least about my sister. That is a standard part of grieving: talking about your dead loved one. But I also wanted to talk about death. This was my second major experience with death, and I still really didn't understand it, but no one, absolutely no one, would discuss it with me. Not outside the church, and definitely not inside the church. Inside the church, negative and painful topics were absolutely forbidden!
That hurt me very badly.
After all the Bible says that God comforted us so that we could comfort others. Are we not allowed to comfort anybody until they come back to us with a happy smile on their face? Even without being helped?
Does Titus give me an out? Is it possible, if I have the best of intentions, to continue to do my information security research in the hope that I will, in fact, create something good out of even the difficult situations that I research? I know that it is too much to hope that I can be considered pure of heart, in and of myself, but hopefully using my security research to write sermons is at least a relatively good thing?
In another sermon I was trying to delve into the story of the foreign woman who begged Jesus to drive a demon out of her daughter. And what does Jesus do? He refuses! He calls the woman a dog! He calls the child, the suffering child, a dog! Unworthy of being healed! I'm trying to use this story in a sermon and I'm trying to make a point and every time that I get to this place in editing the sermon, I start crying!
It's very inconvenient.
Why on earth am I crying about this? Well possibly because I am suffering at the moment, and God is not doing anything about it. Am *I* unworthy of being healed? Or even comforted?
I'm trying not to take this personally. I am trying to remember that everything will be all right in the end and that if it is not yet all right then it is not yet the end. And of course yes, I know in the story in the Bible in the end the girl gets healed.
But, here in the middle, it's hard, you know?
So do we have to ignore the fact that it is hard? Does religiosity require that we deny that bad things even exist?
Are we, in the church, so desperately afraid that we are trying to deny that anything bad actually exists? That hardly seems like it could be right. Why should we be so afraid? Why, after all, are we even afraid of death? When we die and we go to be with the Lord, as Paul says. Isn't that a good thing?
Certainly, in my current situation, lonely, pained, grieving, and depressed, I'd much rather go to be with the Lord, but I can't even joke about things like that. Not in the church.
Am I completely out to lunch? Is the horror of information security work invading my sermons, to the bad? Am I so far gone that I don't even recognize how evil the bad stuff has become? Am I fooling myself?
Am I to look for the good, in the very bad?
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