Nehemiah 8: 11, 12; Luke 4: 16-20

There is a line in the movie the Ice Harvest that goes as following:” if you are what you do, but you don’t do anything, who are you?”  We have been talking the last three weeks about doing and being as Christians and the church.  We could therefore reverse that saying also and ask:” We have learned that we cannot just do things as Christians, but we must also be, so what is our doing without really being present with God and people?  Life is not supposed to be go go go go and do do do do do, but it is do be do be do be do as the Quantum Activist says. We have to reflect then do, reflect and do and reflect again. We saw how Martha was the doer when she met Jesus and her sister Mary was focused on being.  We also saw that Jesus Who is described as the Word is both Verb and Noun.  But we still have one more question to ask: “how do we bring doing and being together?  How do we bring together “be a Christian” with “do as a Christian.”  So far we have established that we should do both and do switch them off, but not how to connect them. Therefore the question in the movie is valid:” If you are what you do, but you don’t do anything, then who are you? Also the reverse: if we have to know who we are before we can do anything but we don’t know, does our doing make any sense?

Jesus gives us a clue in the verse that is written on the program cover:” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because The Spirit has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Spirit has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free…”It is the Spirit that ties together being and our doing.  If we are just doing things because everyone else does it, if we are shopping because everyone else does, if we are playing a sport because everyone else does, then doing is not tied to our being.  It isn’t connected.  This is a key understanding, friends, it really is.  We must ask ourselves the question: ”Is our doing connected to the Spirit of God? “ For Jesus the Spirit is upon Him.  He takes this direct quote from the Old Testament.  It is God’s Spirit.  In his doing Jesus is moved by the Spirit.  His being is in the Spirit.  He is not doing because the Romans are telling Him to, or the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the Emperor.  It is because the Spirit moves Him.  It is His calling

I want to talk to you about two extremes in Christian being and doing. On the one hand is a member of a militia in Southern California who goes out into the desert a couple of times a month to train for combat.  He owns assault weapons and he sincerely believes that either gangs or hoodlums or the government might come one day to take over his house and his family and his community.  Mostly he is afraid of the government. This man may very well attend church regularly, but he has armed himself to the teeth because he has faith in no one.  He is preparing for something that is infinitely less likely to happen than many other bad things that could happen to him or his family.  In a sense he doesn’t trust in grace and goodness.  All the burdens fall on his and his militia’s firepower.  In the mean time people that think like him are putting vulnerable and more trusting citizens at risk of death by the assault weapons they believe should be for sale in the 98,000 guns sales establishments in the U.S.(more than there are Starbucks…in the world). He is doing, but because there is no being and no Spirit, the doing becomes a war game in the desert, a video game with flesh and blood people in khakis.

On the other side of the spectrum is a Korean American couple, also from Southern California, who work as evangelists and have unusual spiritual gifts.  We spent an evening talking to them last week. They have received no fixed income and have depended exclusively on the donations people give them when they preach since 1984.  They have raised three children who have gone through college.  At one point they felt a calling to go to Cambodia.  So they visited there and fell in love with the ministry there. They leased two houses there and are supporting orphans who have come of age in the orphanage but have no place to go after they reach adolescence.  They spent three months out of every year in Cambodia. They are at the far end of the spectrum in the way they combine being and doing.  They have let go of control.  They are completely depending on the Holy Spirit.  Their being with God’s Spirit determines their doing.  They are dedicating themselves to do what they are and to be what they do.

Friends, you and I are somewhere on that spectrum between empty doing and being and doing that are integrated.  We are never going to be as paranoid as the militia guy and never as dedicated as the Korean American evangelists. Yet for us too the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, ties together being and doing, if we do it right. Jesus makes that clear in today’s text.  So what I am asking you to do today, is to allow yourself to move on that spectrum that runs from paranoia to faith in God’s Spirit. May God help us like the returning exiles in Nehemiah to be in worshipful celebration so we may do ever greater things.