Greg the Preacher

So during the Kapchorwa project trip, the entire team was asked for three people to volunteer to preach on Sunday morning. I realized quickly I would be one of the three, simply because the idea did not seem deplorable to me. In other words, I would do it. True to form, only one person volunteered at first, then I said I would do it and then we had to goad one of the other team members into preaching. So I gave a sermon for this rural Uganda Anglican church. It was fun, I’ve never been translated before, and I got the privilege of being translated into Kupsabiny, a language spoken by less then ten thousand people. The idea for the sermon started with the most obvious question. What would a Houston suburb boy have in common with agriculture workers in Uganda? The only thing I could think of was sin. So I started the sermon talking about the differences between people around the world, like how they say hello. Here in Kampala we say “Oliyotiya,” which means “Hi how are you.” In Kapchorwa they say “Chikaste Jesu” which means “Praise Jesus.” I unashamedly claimed Texas and taught them how to say the traditional redneck greeting, “Howdy!” I even got them to yell it really loud, it was like being back at A&M, except everyone was black. Seeing that everyone in the audience was a church goer, I decided to talk about culturally acceptable sin. Everyone knows things like drinking and adultery are sinful. I asked them, “Are those the only sins we need to avoid?” There are many sins that are found at every church, no matter what culture. Gossip, greed, lust, jealousy, impatience and other sins don’t seem as bad, and are therefore considered acceptable in Christian cultures. I was told the best way to get points across to Ugandans was by telling stories, so I told a few stories about people dealing with the sins listed above. People told me afterwards that the sermon went well, but who knows. Anyway, I got a guy to take two very poor pictures of me while I was preachin, here they are: Greg and the Translator Greg and the crowd Oh, and by the way, I was reading through some old journal entries and I came across this post from Nov 18 2005 which is basically the same as my sermon I briefly described above except for a western audience. I had forgotten about this post, but it is well written and explains the ideas I spoke about in the sermon better than I could write them now, so here it is: Rescued from...? It is easy for someone to be critical of their own culture, but this is often an effort to portray themselves as different from their society. It is better for someone to search their own heart for problems and discover they are not alone, that many people in their culture share their problems. Then they share what they find, in a message with conviction as opposed to judgment. Well, I am going to try to do that. So I've been thinking... What do you think of when you hear the words "sinful people"? Do you think of drunks? Liars? Fornicators? Adulterers? Serial Killers? Drug Abusers? Televangelists? Anyone else? When I hear the words sinful people, I tend to think of the low class in our society, that only care for themselves. People who have 6 kids with all different fathers, and the fathers who made them. Parents who teach their children that domestic violence is common, children who won't hesitate to use force to get their way. People with no responsibility, don't care for anyone but themselves and continue to walk the path of suffering their parents paved for them and never walk the way Jesus wants them to. And now I think... What would I be like if I never walked the way Jesus wanted me to? Would I be like these people, or would I be something else? If I never learned a single lesson about Christ, I doubt I would resemble the people that I described above at all. Just by living in suburban culture, I have learned responsibility and decency towards others, and just those two values alone would separate me from the people above. I didn't just learn these values at church, but through my parents and school also. So what if I never went to church? My values, although different, would be similar to the values I hold today, simply because I was raised in suburban culture which promotes good values. A large portion of what I learned at church was rules: Don't use drugs, don’t have sex before marriage, don’t cuss. Those were the main sins that we were taught to steer away from. Nobody thought we would be tempted to get in a gang or beat our girlfriends, those things don't exist in suburban culture (with exceptions of course) so they never taught us not to. So I had a revelation, I asked myself “What did Christ rescue me from?” Drinking and Cussing? Just because I don't commit obvious sins does not mean that I don't sin. All of us have our demons, including those of us who were raised with good suburban values. Our hearts are no less evil than the people we consider scum. It just manifests itself in different ways, possibly more subtle ways. Materialism, obsession, idolatry, greed, a judgmental spirit, the list could be longer. These sins are a little less obvious, and therefore accepted, sometimes promoted, by society. Just because greed is more acceptable in our society than spousal abuse does not make it any less evil. The truth is, our salvation as Christians is not saving sex for marriage, our salvation is a relationship with Jesus. We need to remember that our religion is not a rulebook, but a sacrifice of our hearts. Just because we steer clear of the most visible sins, doesn't mean we are more righteous than anyone else, or righteous at all. In fact, if we never drank, smoked, did drugs, had sex or cussed but had no relationship with Christ, our hearts would be just as evil as someone who did all of the above. Let's face it, we need Christ as much as the most disgusting person we can imagine. So in Christ, I am rescued from myself, from the evil desires of my heart, and the sorrow of my soul. Christ has forgiven me and set me free, and He is continuing to heal me from the pain in my soul that life put there. And only through relationship with him can I live a satisfying life. I am no different than any man, and if I abandoned Christ, I would be just as sinful as anyone else. My actions don’t make me Holy, Christ’s sacrifice did. So don’t take pride in what you don’t do, have humility and remember what you struggle with, remember what you’d be like without Christ, remember how reliant we are on him. And don’t judge the lowest in our society to harshly. And I need to learn these lessons more than anyone reading this.