Saying NO

Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.

Things are not well at the Acme Widget Company these days.

Jennifer went for a long walk in the woods that Saturday afternoon.

It had been an exhausting time, and she needed time to think.

It had been quite a process.

There were several cousins who could have been selected as the next president of the family company.

Some of the shareholders had quietly come to her and urged her to curry favor with certain folks, win their vote, and take over.

She had the training, the skill, the experience.

She could do it; and so she did.

It took lots of conversations, way too much coffee, but now she had arrived, and it was sweet.

But she needed space to think, and thus the walk in the woods.

She was shocked at what she discovered as the mulled over the series of events leading to her presidency of Acme Widgets.

Her ideals were still there:

--the dream of service, of changing the way the widget industry works.

But there were other voices crowded into her head.

“Now, at last, you have a chance to make some real money.

You know how to take the shortcuts in the industrial processes;

you know the chemistry to make widgets cheaper, trading off of the family name.

You can make a killing, financially.

And those cousins with whom you competed...now you can ease them out.

Oh, you can make it look respectable; just make sure they're gone, and soon too!”

Those voices keep sounding louder and louder in Jennifer's head.

What would she say or do?

Things are not well at the Acme Widget Company these days.

George was so angry he could spit.

Twenty years he's been working there, and he knows the machines, what they can do and what they can't.

He knows that if they increase the speed on the framble-smacker that parts will start to break and the whole line will stop.

There will be no increase in production, just lengthy repair downtime and his budget will be shot.

As he is kicking a worn-out framble down the sidewalk, the voices start inside his head:

“You should march right into that front office and tell that crazy Jennifer a thing or two.

Just barge right past the secretary...he'll be too surprised to say anything... and let her have it.

In fact, why don't you just resign on the spot.

They can't do without your experience and judgment in running this company.

That would show them.

Those voices keep sounding louder and louder in George's head.

What would he say or do?

Things are not well at the Acme Widget Company these days.

Tom is annoyed, too.

He finally had things figured out in his shop, how to get things done smoothly.

He was on good terms with his fellow workers and they had agreed that he would informally lead things in this corner of the building.

And then the notice came in: new procedures, rearranged schedules, different workers.

It just upset everything that he had gotten organized to his own satisfaction.

And the voices started wooing him:

“You have every reason to be annoyed.

You can show them; you can slow the machine down just a little bit, pick an argument with that new person—it won't be hard since you already know how to push his buttons.

You don't have to be unbearable, just annoying, and maybe you can get things back the way they were.

Play your cards carefully, Tom, and you'll get that nice pension you've been dreaming about.

Yes, don't deny it...I know that's the subject of your daydreams.”

Those voices keep sounding louder and louder in Tom's head.

What would he say or do?

Things are not well at the Acme Widget Company these days.

Nor are they well at any school, business, government, or household.

We could rewrite the Acme Widget Company situation into every one of our lives, and we know it quite well.

The temptations to power have been with us from the beginning, and we fall for them regularly.

It might be economic power.

[It is ironic that one of the old slang words for money is “bread.”]

The temptation is always not just to trade with someone, but to subdue someone, take advantage.

And Jesus said NO to turning stones into bread.

It might be spiritual power.

Instead of understanding that we are called as servants of the Lord Jesus and of each other, we keep scrambling for the higher seat,

and fail to recognize the responsibility that is attached to every position within the church, the responsibility that is given to us in Holy Baptism.

And Jesus said NO to demanding the privileges due in his position, and instead showed us humility even to death on a cross.

It might be political power.

How great is the temptation to say whatever it takes to get elected, no matter what one's core beliefs are.

And that is true for every student council, every organization, every business, or every government entity.

How tempting it is to lie, to cheat, to grab for power any way one can.

And Jesus says NO to selfish power, and says “Worship the Lord you God, and serve only him.”

Jesus calls us to say NO, often, and with great intensity.

Our society is one of self-satisfaction and self-indulgence.

There has never been a TV commercial that says “Deny yourself , take up your cross, and follow me.”

Rather, every advertisement

whispers or screams

“Enjoy yourself.

You owe it to yourself. You deserve it.

Take the money and run.”

Jesus is leading and enticing us to say NO to all of it.

He intends the church to be the most counter-cultural of peoples.

NO power grabs!

The work of God in our world is not to help us to grab what we want,

but rather to enable us for the first time in our self-centered little lives to get what God wants.

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”

That's a tough word to hear in a world that tells us to worship ourselves.

We have some students from Pennsylvania College of Technology visiting with us today.

They are over in Children's Church and talking about the service trip they went on together with Sharon Comini and others last year.

They are also talking about their plans for a service trip to NYC in a few weeks.

This is a very different kind of spring break, instead of hedonistic sun-worshiping in Florida, to be working with the very poor, the street people and others in need in NYC.

It is saying NO to one kind of life for that week, and allowing God to get something else done instead.

And who knows what else might come about because they take this time and use it in this way!

I read this week about a man who often complained in his college years about how narrow-minded his home church was: back home they were discouraging a variety of things and encouraging others.

He got as far away from church as he could.

But things are different now.

He has a son in an alcohol treatment program and a daughter going through a second bitter divorce.

And he is back at church.

The same place he called backward, unenlightened, and narrow-minded.

Why is he there?

“I realized too late that I had absolutely no means of saying 'no' to myself or my kids,” he explained.

“I knew how to go out and get everything that I wanted, but I had no means of knowing what was worth wanting, and my kids picked up the same confusion.”

Now he is back in a church that is passing on to him the strength from Jesus, the strength to say “no.”

Our Wednesday noon group has been reading Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

We have come to a deeper understanding of just how clever Satan really is, enticing us to grab for power anywhere we can.

A silly joke to illustrate:

“Why did you buy that dress that you don't need?” implored the husband.

“You should have resisted, by saying 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'”

Replied the wife, “That's what I did say, and Satan told me that it looked very nice from the back.”

Very sneaky, very enticing, these temptations to power!

Our chief weapon is power of a different sort.

We can say NO to the demands and enticements because we know already that Jesus has first said YES to us. “

“I choose you. You are mine, I love you. I will hold onto you forever,” he tells us.

That word, that promise, that YES by the Lord Jesus makes it possible for us to say NO to the evil within us when we should and must.

Hear it, receive it;

and know that we are backed by Jesus' YES as we battle against Satan's wiles this week.

Let this world's tyrant rage

In battle we'll engage!

His might is doomed to fail;

God's judgment must prevail

One little word subdues him.....NO!, in the name of Christ.

Amen LBW#229 A Mighty Fortress

Saying NO

St. Mark's Lutheran Church