No Longer in That Way

Sermon for Proper 6 (RCL - B)
Offered by Nathan Ferrell at Red Bank National Battlefield Park
(HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville Annual Picnic)

Texts: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,14-17; Mark 4:26-34

My friends, today our Lord presents us with a choice to make, a path to choose. There are two options. We can continue in our old, habitual, customary ways of looking at other people. Or we can look at people with the eyes of the Holy Spirit.

Do you remember our reading from the First Book of Samuel? God teaches old Samuel to not look at the outward appearance of a person. The Lord does not see the skin, the hair. The Lord looks at the heart.

And then we are given those beautiful words from St. Paul. “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view.” The words here literally translate as “to know someone in the flesh”. To know someone kata sarka = by the flesh.
To talk about knowing someone from a human point of view is too vague, I think. A better translation is to say something like, “to view someone on the basis of my personal experiences.” That’s a little cumbersome, but I think it’s better.
J.B. Phillips said it this way: “our knowledge of others can no longer be based on their outward lives.”

Well, what does this mean to regard someone from a human point of view? I want some answers. We’re out here in the park – it’s an informal setting. What do you think this means? Let’s have some ideas, some concrete examples.

OK. So what’s the alternative? To see the heart of the other, to view someone through the eyes of the Spirit, to know the other as a new creation in Christ.

What would it be like if we actually lived this out? If we actually regarded no one anymore from a human point of view, solely on the basis of our past experiences?

Let’s use our sanctified imagination for a moment and just imagine what it would be like to have this kind of worldview. How would your life be different?


God's plan is for us to have the ability, and the desire, to see beyond, to look deeper than the surface level.

For me, I see a connection here with the wearing of my seat belt. Every single time I drive in an automobile, I wear a seat belt. By the grace of God, this is not because of the past. I have never been in an accident where the seat belt has saved me. I wear my seat belt because of the future, because of the possible accident that waits around the bend in the road. I wear it not because of what has been in my past, but because of what could be in my future.

This, I believe, is like the change of perspective that Jesus came to bring to us! By the grace of God, we can look at other people not on the basis of what has been in their past, but on the basis of what they could be in the future. In God’s glorious future, they could be changed into beings of unspeakable glory.

We human beings have a curious habit of judging people solely on the basis of our own personal experiences and of their outward appearances.

In our painting business, we had a customer recently who exemplifies this well. Many of our painters are Turks, for there is a huge community of Turkish painters in the Cinnaminson-Delran-Burlington area. And, as with any other group of people, some of them are really good painters and some aren’t quite so skilled.

Well, on this particular job, I met with the couple after we finished painting their exterior, because they had a punch-list of a few things they wanted us to fix and clean. We met on Saturday afternoon, and we agreed that me and my crew of Turks would be back on Tuesday to finish these items. Well, on Monday, the husband called me and said, “Look, let’s talk man-to-man. I know your guys. I used to live in Delran where they are. They’re sloppy, they angry, they don’t like Americans, they don’t care about anything. And I don’t trust them coming onto my property at all.”

I couldn’t believe that he had the nerve to speak to me in that way. I know my guys, and these two painters are great guys, very respectful. They both have gone through the effort of becoming American citizens. One has a brand new baby. This fellow had no idea what he was talking about. But, do you see how it happened? I do not know any details at all, but obviously he had had some bad experience in his past with Turkish people. And on the basis of this alone, he boldly passed his judgment upon me and my painters, without knowing anything about us at all.

Judging according to the flesh, according to our own limited personal experiences.

The desert fathers spoke much about the dangers of judging others. It is one of the primary ways that we stray from the spiritual way of life. Once a brother came to Abbot Poemen seeking advice and he said: “What ought I to do, Father? I am in great sadness.” The elder said to him: “Never despise anyone, never condemn anyone, never speak evil of anyone, and the Lord will give you peace.”

Do you want to have deep and abiding peace in your life? This is a good place to start. Despise no one, condemn no one, and speak evil of no one, and the Lord will give you peace.

Because do you know what happens? When I begin to think about the evil that someone has done, when I begin to stew about how rotten they are, or when I am quick to pass judgment, then I quickly stop watching myself. I stop paying attention to my own faults. And at the end of the day, what the Lord is trying to teach us is really quite simple and profound, but we stumble over it so often. The teaching is this: we cannot control anyone else. The only one we can control is ourselves. And just to do this is a full-time job! Just to go about the job of reforming ourselves, changing ourselves one step at a time until we bear the likeness of Jesus Christ more and more every day- this takes all of the time that God has given us on this earth.

In Christ, the past is gone. The old has passed away; everything is in the process of becoming new. You and I – we may not look like too much on the outside. Our past may not be full of blazing signs of holiness. But God is doing something in us. God is changing us. God is making us into something beautiful. We are new creations in Christ, and one day we will even look like it!

In the meantime, we can make a choice to deal with others, not as they look today, but as they could be in God’s glorious future. Not only is this the truth about others – that God has the final say about who they are – but it is also a better, richer and fuller way for us to live this life.

Thanks be to God that we are given such clear guidance about how to live together into the fullness of life available in Christ. Amen.