A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

is there anybody in there?

Colossians 3:1-17, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, August 15, 2010

After a very long and boring sermon the parishoners filed out of the church saying nothing to the preacher. Towards the end of the line was a thoughtful person who always commented on the sermons. "Pastor, today your sermon reminded me of the peace and love of God!" The pastor was thrilled. "No one has ever said anything like that about my preaching before. Tell me why." "Well, it reminded me of the peace of God because it passed all understanding and the love of God because it endured forever!"

In our reading, Paul draws a contrast between how his original audience used to live without Jesus and how they now live in Christ. It's a typical "before and after" portrait, something similar to the kind of testimonies heard at AA meetings: "Once I started out every morning with a tumbler of scotch and ended the day with a fifth of Wild Turkey, but now I'm happy with coffee and Diet 7-Up." And so Paul says, "My friends, once you talked harshly, drank yourself into stupors, and shook your fists in fury at people in the marketplace. But now you know Jesus and so you don't do any of that anymore." Before and after.

But this before and after may not apply so well to many here. If we were to line up at a microphone to share our Christian story, it wouldn't take long before most of us would start to sound like echoes of each another. "Well, my story is pretty much just like what Maude and Albert already said. . . . . I was born in a Christian home, baptized, went to Sunday school," and so forth. And, of course, that’s beautiful. It’s good when you've been Christian for as long as you can remember. Ironically, however, without a vivid "before and after" contrast, we may sometimes find it difficult to define what makes our lives Christian. Like, if someone were to ask how being a Christian affects your life, what would you say? “I go to church every Sunday. I was a deacon a couple of years ago and now I'm on the building committee. I contribute to the general fund and make sure my kids go to Sunday school." But suppose the questioner continued: "No, no. I don't mean church stuff. I mean the rest of the week? What makes you different from those who don't claim to be Christian?"

Now that's a tough question. It’s tough because it doesn’t allow any excuses for our "same as other worldly people" behavior. It’s tough because it opens up the thought that how we normally conceive of our lives, you know, the day-to-day grind, the routine and struggle of bills, eating, and responsibilities, this pressure cooker we call life, that this can’t ultimately be accepted as the only way to describe what we do, who we are. "What makes you different from those who don't claim to be Christian?" is a tough question because deep down it’s not purely asking about actions. It's asking, "What do you got that's better?"

Look, much of this life is not about what we do, our actions, but about what gets done to us, and how we respond. And how we respond often comes from the state or shape our soul is in. What I care about this morning is your soul, the state of your soul, and not just in an eternal sense. I’m seriously worried about its present day condition as well. So I ask you: Is it well with your soul? If it is, then you’ve got something better.

Let’s be honest, if Americans, or folks living in this society and culture, are universally notorious for having poor eating habits with our fast food diet, being overweight from lack of exercise, and working more hours than most other countries, it’s quite likely that our souls are also a bit unhealthy, lacking exercise, and being stretched too thin to do its job. The stubborn fact is that the description of what ails us physically can be used to describe accurately what ails us spiritually. We move too fast, want too much, and are at peace too little. Not only do the arterial passages from heart to limb get mucked up by our lifestyle, but the spiritual passage from soul to Lord do as well. We don’t know how to find peace. And I’m telling you, without some interior peace, some soul strength, this world will tear you apart, in so many different ways.

Let me go historical on you: Since the Industrial Revolution, since the time when things really began to be stacked against our spiritual lives, and now with the computer and Information Age, we have been made to think in terms of machines, think like TVs, view ourselves in terms of computers; our lives have been turned into bits of digital data that fly around in space for anyone to grab hold of and manipulate to their commercial advantage. There's more: Ever since the Civil War, capitalism has proceeded to transform everything into a commodity, turning the whole world, practically the entirety of our lives, into profit or not profit, value or no value. We seek to move faster and faster to experience more and more, to get more and more, to control more and more. We are awash now in instant messaging, instant coffee, instant gratification. We have built machines that have reorganized our lives to depend upon them and interact with them more than we do with each other: where there used to be tellers helping us to receive money at banks and attendants pumping gas at stations, now there are machines; where kids used to play games, sports, and hang out with each other, they now do so only if they are connected by their monitors to the Web. We are more and more distant from our natural environment: urban and suburban lights turn out the stars, more and more pavement and development cover more and more landscape; incessant noise constantly irritates our senses; advertisement, information, and entertainment messages overload our brains.          

While it is obviously true there have been amazing developments in terms of medicine, transportation, comforts, and more, this list of negatives, and it could be enlarged, also stands true. If I were to be brutally honest, and I'm getting there, we exist in a practically soulless bubble, an environment more at odds and ruinous of the human spirit than has ever existed—in which almost nothing reminds us that there is something inside of us. How we live, at the speed of data, cannot be reconciled with the soul's rhythm. What we do to earth, air, and sea is not compatible with the soul that respects and listens to its body. How we claw after money to keep our lives afloat disenfranchises the soul from a life of enriching purpose. How we thirst for entertainment, distractions, and self-indulgences deflates the soul to the size of a hardened kernel.

And think of this, all this has yet to take into consideration whether someone is successful at making his or way in our world today. The pressures become compounded exponentially when a person fails to or cannot make his or her way well through this cemetery of the soul. Throw failure at work, or the inability to acquire a good paying job, into the mix, drug addiction, a naturally negative personality, a disability, bad marriage, rotten parenting, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a couple of bad investments, or just plain bad luck—throw any of these on to the spiritual conflagration that continually burns around us and the odds have been greatly increased against that person.

But then there are those mysterious lines where Paul writes, “For you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed.” Ah, what if, what if, none of this stuff matters? What if all that is real is what is unseen, and what is seen is merely kindling? What if the hunch you've had all along that you are a better person, a more spiritual person, a kinder, humbler, stronger, more joyful person than you have shown to this time is true? What if what you have believed early in the morning before the rush begins, or late at night when the rush has ebbed away is the way you really feel and the life you really want. What if God wants most of all to forgive us for what we have done against ourselves, for having turned our backs on our souls, for having chosen the lesser over the better, the easier over the improbable? What if the solution is your soul, and the peace that comes from letting it lead?

Caring for your soul means you are going to care for a secret part of you, a mysterious portion of your being that no one can touch, that no one can take, where Christ dwells in you. It's meant to be your reservoir of peace, your wellspring of power, a center of calm. And do we ever need it, sometimes more than others.  

Horatio Spafford was a wealthy Chicago lawyer with a thriving legal practice, a beautiful home, a wife, four daughters and a son. He was also a devout Christian and faithful student of the Scriptures. His circle of friends included Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey and various other well-known clergymen of the day. At the very height of his success, Horatio and his wife Anna suffered the tragic loss of their young son. Shortly thereafter on October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed almost every real estate investment Spafford had. In 1873, Spafford scheduled a boat trip to Europe, to give his wife and daughters a much needed vacation from tragedy, and so that he might join Moody and Sankey for an evangelistic campaign in England. Spafford sent his wife and daughters on ahead while he remained in Chicago, to take care of some unexpected last minute business. Several days later he received notice that his family's ship had encountered a collision in which all four of his daughters drowned. His wife Anna sent him the now famous telegram, "Saved alone." With a heavy heart, Spafford boarded a boat that would take him to his grieving Anna, in England. It was on this trip that he penned those now famous words, when sorrows like sea billows roll; it is well, it is well with my soul.

The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Israel. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the local poor, regardless of religious affiliation or ethnic background. Philip Bliss was so impressed with Spafford's life and the words of his hymn that he composed a beautiful piece of music to accompany the lyrics. He called his tune Ville du Havre, from the name of the stricken vessel. For more than a century, It Is Well With My Soul has expressed the possibility of keeping one’s soul, finding peace even in the midst of the most tragic circumstances.

How can it be well with your soul? How do we find peace today? First, don't let your worries get the best of you. Remember, Moses started out as a basket case. I'm sorry. I had to put that in there.

 There is more in you. There is another in you. There is Christ in your soul. If you've become brittle, tired, angry, nervous, doubting, lacking peace, lacking fire, lacking hope, lacking purpose, lacking joy—or even if you haven’t—get to your soul. Slow down. Steal away. Pray at 3 a.m. in the morning. Turn to the Psalms. Cling to Christ. Turn off the TV. Read great literature. Listen to inspired music. Visit someone who needs to see you, or whom you need to see. Forgive, forgive, and ask for forgiveness. Eat better. Take walks with the Lord. Pray for those who are most difficult for you. Make a change in yourself, your schedule, your routine, your eating, your vision, your destiny. And the peace of the Lord will be with your soul.

Return to Sermons (table of contents)

Return to Homepage of the Congregational Church of Boca Raton