5/17/09 "Nike"-- a brief outline of my sermon on I John 5:1-6
How many here have a pair of shoes with a swoosh on them? Or some shirt, or other article of clothing? It seems that the Nike brand is everywhere. Nike is the Greek word for victory. It is found only here in the New Testament in the noun form, "and this is the victory that conquers the world: our faith." Three others times in these few verses do we find the word in the verb form, often translated as "conquers" or "overcomes." In fact 1/4 of all the uses of Nike are found in this little letter of I John.
I wonder what was going on the writer used the word Nike so often. I looked it up in the commentaries. There was fighting. There was wrong-headed theology. There was lack of love. And that was just in the church!
Sometimes doesn't it seem that we live lives of defeat, even in the church?
I can nearly promise you that if you hang around the church for any length of time that you will be hurt, disappointed, forgotten, miscommunicated to. Why? Because the church is made up of people like you and me....sinners, broken, incomplete. There is plenty of sin within the church as well as outside of it.
You may be here today as one of those who has been hurt by the church. It is hard to live the victory, the Nike. Where is the victory?
The passage says, "this is the victory that conquers the world:"
our hard worK--no
our competence--no
our moral goodness--no
our age--no
our money--no
our brute strength--no
our political power--no
our military power--no
Too often we think it is about our overcoming. I have heard all my life, "You must pull yourself up by your bootstraps." Did you see today that I am wearing my Tony Llama's. I bought these on the square in Mason, Texas, in 1978. Let's see what it looks like to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps. (Bend over and struggle with lifting my leg, exposing my rear end to the congregation.) What's that look like? Not very pretty is it.
What is the victory? Our faith! Who is it that overcomes the world? The one who believes that Jesus is Son of God.
I know that we are sensitive to other faiths or to those of no faith, but we have a specific content to our faith. Jesus Christ. We do not worship some generic God.
We have a specific revelation, one by water and the blood, as the passage says. Water--Jesus was born of the birth waters of Mary. Blood--Jesus really died on a cross. Jesus didn't just seem to be human; he really was human. This is the scandal of the gospel: the Word became flesh and dwelt among. The Lord of all life came to live among us as one of us.
And Jesus didn't just live and die; he lives still. We practice His presence by participating in His sacraments. Water--we are baptized. This is our sacrament of identity. I don't know about you, but I can't hear it too much. "You are my child, the beloved one, with you I am well-pleased." Martin Luther when he was really depressed clung to the fact, "I am baptized."
Blood--the sacrament of communion. Margaret Briley has us focused on our diets. It really is true: we are what we eat. We come together at this table to become like Him, Jesus. We continue to eat here until we learn to communicate, until we learn to become community.
I wish I could tell you that this victory happens in an instance, but it doesn't. The war has been won, but the battle continues. It takes a lifetime of believing to claim the victory.
So when we baptize a child like we did last week, we remember our baptism. I wish we could change the words. It's really hard to ask parents of a newborn that first question, "DO you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world and repent of your sin?" I know that they just want to say to me, "Look, it was hard enough just to get this child dressed this morning and get here half-way on time." It takes a lifetime of turning our back on sin and accepting God's freedom and power and accepting Christ as Lord and Saviour.
And we eat together at this table, and at the 40th wedding celebration like last night, and at snack time at Sunday School with the little children in order to become like Christ. And sometimes it is hard, like when your child is in your Sunday School class that you are teaching and knows just how far to push you, and all of the other kids are watching you to see how you are going to handle the situation.
So this is the victory that conquers the world: our faith. This is the good news I have to share with you today. I say to you, Nike, "Just do it."