Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church     
 
Pastor Tim Janiszewski - "Caitlyn--Don't Call Me Bruce--Jenner"

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Messages of Grace

(Past Recorded Sermons) 


















 
This Sunday
June 21, 2015


Sermon Title:
"Thermometers and Thermostats"


Scripture:
Daniel 1;
Romans 12:1-2





Picture of Pastor Tim

June 18, 2015

 

Dear MLEPC Members and Friends:

 

A lead news story for several weeks has revolved around Caitlyn Jenner. Jenner was born in 1949 as Bruce Jenner, and grew up to be the incredibly gifted athlete who won the Gold Medal for the Decathlon in the 1976 Olympic Games. I personally can remember watching him as he crossed the finish line in the 1500 meter race to conclude his victory. That year, Jenner was named the greatest athlete in the world and soon thereafter appeared on boxes of Wheaties cereal in recognition of his accomplishments. Jenner married and divorced three times, fathering six children along the way through these marriages. He became involved in acting and celebrity circles, taking for his third wife one of the famous (infamous?) Kardashians. At the end of 2014, Jenner's estimated worth was approximately $100 million dollars.

 

Recently, Jenner underwent a sex reassignment procedure from male to female anatomy and announced himself now as a herself--Caitlyn Jenner. Of course, in terms of genetic coding of chromosomes, Jenner remains male, but otherwise Jenner now is female in her presentation of personal identity, as the cover photo of Vanity Fair magazine displays.

 

Reactions to Jenner's transformation have come forth with energy. The sports media giant ESPN has recognized Jenner with its 2015 award for courage, even though Jenner has not been directly involved in the sports world for decades. President Obama and First Lady Michelle both tweeted Jenner their congratulations. One brave soul, a son of actor Tom Cruise, noted that issues of the environment and global warming remain far more important than Jenner's metamorphosis and then quickly received searing condemnation from Jenner advocates.

 

On the medical front, some news stories noted that the prestigious Johns Hopkins Medical Center stopped performing sex reassignment surgery back in the 1970s, because data did not indicate that persons receiving it found resolution to their sexual identity struggles. In fact, individuals who have undergone the procedure have a suicide rate twenty times higher than the American public overall. Predictably, those who view Jenner as a courageous role model assign this statistic to the ill-treatment and hatred expressed by the general public toward these brave souls.

 

And on and on it goes. I suspect that I am not far from the mark when imagining that many evangelical Christians who try to live according to biblical standards are scratching their heads and wondering, "What is the world coming to?"

 

This Sunday, our sermon text is taken from Daniel, chapter one. It contains the historical account of how Daniel and his friends were ripped from their faith community in Israel around 605 B. C., and then thrust into the secular and pagan culture of Babylon. They found themselves surrounded by a society that pressured them to conform to its morals and mores, leaving behind the biblical principles of their former lives. I imagine that the world of court life in the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar was as perplexing for them as our world with Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner is for us.

 

What were they to do? They had to learn to be thermostats, not thermometers. Say what? Well, think of it this way. A thermometer is always adjusting to the environment surrounding it. It constantly adjusts to reflect the surrounding temperature. A thermostat is different. It senses the ambient temperature, but then has the ability to influence and affect the temperature. I am grateful on these hot and humid days that we have a thermostat in our dining room which sends a message to our air conditioner so that our environment can be changed. If we only had a thermometer in the dining room --well, we'd just be hot, sticky, and uncomfortable.

 

So in a culture of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, how can we as Christians be God's thermostats that affect our world, instead of becoming mere thermometers that can only reflect our world? That was the challenge placed before Daniel and his friends. It's the same one that we face today. May God give us wisdom through His Word and Spirit to do it faithfully to His glory.

 

Pastor Tim

 

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