The reading
1John 4 1- 6
Beloved, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God;
for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the
Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from
God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it
is coming; and now it is already in the world. 4 Little children, you are from
God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one
who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore what they say is from
the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God
listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we
know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
The message
As we start our third week with 1st John, I want
to review a little. 1st John
was written as a sort of follow up to John’s Gospel. It was necessary to address the ideas
scattered around the new churches. People were coming to believe in Jesus as
the savior but that Jesus was not the word of God made flesh, that he was not
really human, that he was some sort of spiritual being only that just appeared
human. (That’s why we have been singing a few Christmas carols each week as we
go through 1st John, that’s the time we celebrate the word of God
made flesh) 1st John was also
written to teach people that what we believe and what we do are connected, that
faith in Jesus Christ makes us different and demands change.
Today, we get to chapter 4 of 1st John, we see
where the ideas that Jesus was a spiritual being or that we could do whatever
we want came from. These things were
taught. Wandering preachers went from place to place, new church to new church
and started to instruct people, pretending that they were sharing visions or
revelations from God. They did this for selfish reasons, deceitful reasons,
wealth or power seeking, because they just plain misunderstood the Gospel of
John or thought they had a real vision but never submitted to have it tested. These are the people who John calls antichrists. This is not the same figure as the book of
revelation. In Revelation the antichrist is part of the cosmic, end times battle
between good and evil, a place where God’s ultimate victory is described in
frightening visions of what could be and secret codes understandable virtually
only to the Christian community. In 1st John the word antichrist
means anyone is against Christ or trying to be a substitute for Jesus and his
teaching, pretending to have some other revelation or new, better news from God,
We are not quite sure who exactly this letter was written to
or who, in particular, this passage was about. From this letter and Paul’s
writings, we know these antichrists operated in a few different ways. Some
pretended to be from the apostles, others claimed secret revelations made to
them, exploited the practice of speaking in tongues, some did magic tricks or
faked healing powers. They told people what they wanted to hear and made great
promises not supported by the word of God.
Today, we would call what was happening fake news.
This temptation to false teachings has always been around,
lurking and deceiving people. A few months ago, I went to see the Book of
Mormon on Broadway. This show focuses on
the work of 2 Mormon missionaries sent to convert the people of some bizarre
version of Uganda. Before moving on I wanted to share a quick detour into
reality, This show was put together by a group of rich people who, as far as I know,
have never done a single thing to help the people of Uganda, despite the huge
profits they are making off exploiting the very real issues in that place. The
Mormons they make fun of, like many churches are actually there trying to help,
trying to undo past wrongs and investing resources in making things better.
In the
show one of these missionaries is a super Mormon, well raised, trained and
studied, awesome at all things mormon and expecting to do great things. The other
is not so awesome. Awkward, uneducated, annoying and socially struggling. They
both struggle to make any progress with converting people in this community of
extreme poverty, danger from warlords and Aids, other diseases. The not so awesome Mormon soon discovers if
he just makes things up, he can get people interested. He starts to teach that
the Book of Mormon speaks about ways to cure AIDS, get rich, come to America
and overthrow warlords. The show ends
with the disgraced Mormons and their first converts just starting their own
religion ringing door bells and teaching the nonsense they just made up.
The people in Uganda are presented as backwards, ignorant
and willing to believe anything. Of course, the reality is they are people desperate
for Good News, for recognition and for opportunity. That, if anything, is why
they listen. The truth is this happens. People in the communities 1 John was written
to were told lies as revelation, today, there are churches that tell lies as
revelation, who tell people what they want to hear, who twist around scripture,
misquote things and come up with ridiculous stuff. This is
not about politics, opinions and ideas for public good. This is about the central beliefs of our
faith. That is when we need to speak.
Live and let live or To each their own are not biblical
values, especially when their own beliefs suck, point away from God, deceive or
allow the justification of horrible things. 1 John gives the community the
tools to fight back. This week, it is
the question “do they teach Jesus has come in the flesh, did the word of God
become flesh and dwell amongst us” , Why
is this so important, Recognizing the word of God becoming flesh is not just a
sentence of doctrine on a list of 100s of other beliefs. The word of God becoming flesh is a way of
life. It is seeing and knowing God is in the world, in suffering, in storms, in
the valley of the shadow of death, with the ignored and unlistened to, with
separated families on our borders, with the struggling poor, with the
mistreated, addicted and okay.
This is what Jesus teaches the crowds in Matthew 25 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and
all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations
will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his
right and the goats on his left.“Then the King will say to those on his right,
‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave
me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a
stranger and you invited me in, I needed
clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison
and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did
we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe
you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will
reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these
brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Next week we will hear 1st John’s famous verses
on love. We are used to them as readings
for weddings or engagements, kind words about caring for each other. Really, they too are tools given to the
church to judge and evaluate the words of teachers “does what they say point to
love, create love, push God’s love above everything else, inspire love of
neighbor”.
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