The Price and Cost of Sacrifice
2 Samuel 24:18-24
“How much does it cost?” How many times have you asked that question? We are obsessed with the price of things. When we see a big house we ask, “How much does it cost?” When we see a luxury car, we say, “Look at the price tag on that!” A big part of shopping is the attempt to find the right price. Some of us will go through store circulars and drive for miles in order to save a few dollars on the price. Some stores even offer low-price guarantees. “If you find our item anywhere else for less, we will refund the difference.”
We don’t want to pay too much for something. We don’t want to pay too little, either. We like to think that a person who gets something for free gets the best value. But, that’s not usually the case. You can pay too little for something just as you can pay too much for it. I know someone who gets his room and board for free. Do you know what else? He’s homeless. His “free” room and board are provided by a homeless shelter. Are you envious? Of course not! I’m guessing you would not wait in line to receive that kind of free service. We feel pride in paying a fair price for the things we have. What we want out of life is not a handout, but a fair deal. We want to pay the right price.
The question this morning is, “What is the right price to pay for our Christian faith?” How much should we be willing to pay for the spiritual resources that help us find meaning? Listen closely to my question. I didn’t ask if we should pay for our faith. I asked, “How much?” I assume each of us will pay. The issue is: what is the right price?
Today’s reading from 2 Samuel gives us some guidance. Has your ego ever been so inflated that you made a poor decision? It happens in today’s story. God’s fumes with anger because David, once again, disobeys God. David calls for a census of the people. It seems innocent enough. However, the royal advisors know that the census results feed David’s ego. You can always be more proud of your mighty exploits if you have a firm number to back it up. The census also counts David how many eligible men to conscript into military service. If David drafts them, his army grows, and he can conquer more territory. The census is a bad idea. David knows it. He counts the people anyway. God’s anger burns against David. In an absolute monarchy, the only check and balance occurs when God corrects the king. God asks David to choose his punishment.
In our house, we play a game called “Would you rather . . .” We take turns asking another person a difficult question: would you rather be poor and popular or rich and hated? Would you rather eat worms or ants? God gives David a “would you rather” proposition: As a punishment, would you rather see your people suffer through famine, war, or plague? David chooses the plague, and then helplessly watches the agonizing death of 70,000 subjects. In heartache, David laments, “I alone have sinned. I alone have done wickedly, but these people, what have they done? Let your hands, O God, be against me.”
God tells David, “Go and make an altar to me. Make a sacrifice at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” The threshing floor is a place where grain kernels are separated and ground into flour. It’s is an image of abundance. While his people face scarcity and death, David travels to a house of plenty. Araunah, like a good citizen, offers the king his threshing floor, and everything that goes with it, for free.
If David had been a smart shopper, he would have said, “That’s a bargain I can’t pass up.” Instead, David says, “No, I don’t want it for free. I’ll buy these things from you . I’ll pay the right price. . . I will not offer burnt offerings to my God that have cost me nothing.” David knows if he makes a sacrifice that costs nothing, he cheapens his relationship with God. He pays the farmer 50 shekels of silver and God ends the plague. Later on, Araunah’s Threshing Floor will be the foundation for the Jerusalem Temple. The location of one costly offering will forever accept the sacrifices of worshippers.
One of the ironies of the Christian faith is that it’s completely free and it costs us everything. Christ offers salvation for free. We don’t pay an entry fee to get into the church. Nobody here ever sends a bill to church members.
But, once we get in the door and start worshipping God, we are asked to give something sacrificial to God, a gift that costs us something. We want to pay the right price. Every year, church members sit down and determine the right price for their offerings to God. We all know that we can’t run the church without money. The question is always, “How much?” Like David, every one of us asks, “How much is the right price for me this year? We can’t have it all for nothing. So, what is my worthy gift?”
Running the church comes with a price and a cost. The price is the bottom line of our budget. Right now, it’s about $260,000. The price pays for heat, electricity, snow removal, staff salaries and benefits, insurance, cleaning, outreach, and other day-to-day expenses of running the church. There is also a cost. Cost reflects an item’s value in alternative uses. When money is tight, we channel it funds to one area of he budget as a priority over another area. There’s only a limited amount of money to spend every year, and it can go to a number of alternative uses. When the money gets used in one area, then there is less of it to use somewhere else. So, we make decisions of how to allocate scarce resources to their most valued uses.
Time has a cost. When time is consumed in one activity, there is less to use somewhere else. The cost of our time is its value in its alternative uses. Discipleship also comes with a cost. We choose to direct spiritual commitment to alternative uses. There are tons of people and places dividing our attention and resources. Following Jesus means allocating spiritual focus on our relationship with God. As a result, someone else will not that portion of our focus. Cost is about sacrifice and obedience.
But, how much should we give? Where should we give? Some people answer, “Not much,” “Not all,” “Not here,” or “Just enough.” Such people have a small vision for the church. A small vision is not expensive.
Sometimes people have a vision that is too large for the resources available. Sometimes a cumbersome vision tempts us to build something unreasonable. The price is too high for the scarce resources that have alternative uses. I don’t think God wants us to do that. God wants us to have an appropriate vision for the church -- a vision that’s large enough to challenge the resources we have available.
It is sinful for a church to have such a small vision that it doesn’t cost much. Can you imagine a church saying, “Let’s do the absolute minimum so that it doesn’t really cost us much and we can save our resources”? Imagine if the church decided to cut down on expenses so that we could make it a bargain for the members. We could say, “This month we have enough money. We don’t want anybody to give to this church. But down at the Methodist church, they hired a new staff member and they have a new program for children, so we want all our members to give down there instead of here for this month.”
Do you think that would be what God would have this church to do? I don’t want to belong to a church that has such a small vision, and I hope you don’t. I am not campaigning for an unreasonably large vision, but I don’t want us to have a miniature vision that costs nothing. We need visions that reflect the right price for our church -- A vision that will challenge our church.
We always struggle with the right price. Many of you know that we started 2005 about $30,000 in the red for our church budget last year. We worked hard to reduce the deficit. Many people increased their pledges. We found some new renters. We ran fundraisers. Past and Present’s Shop profits help us out. We also received some very high, unexpected plumbing and insurance bills this past week. By the close of the year, we may run about a $10,00 deficit. We must not have the right vision and the right giving to reflect the cost of running the church. We also want to enlarge our vision for this year. We want to do more as a church, which means challenging our financial resources. I hope you will join me in helping our church to have the right kind of vision.
There are other aspects of stewardship. One is the commitment to prayer and worship. To be blunt, I want you here on Sunday mornings, participating in our life as a church. When you join the Rotary club and miss more than 10% of the time, they will kick you out. We have many members that miss more than 10%. We also have many members who decided, “Out of all of the alternative uses of my time on Sunday morning, I choose to worship God with my church family. I will not make offerings that cost nothing. I will not have a faith that costs me no time.”
Stewardship also involves service. The Church of the Savior in Washington DC requires every member to serve through local service organizations in their community. I wish that our church could have that kind of expectation of our members. True Christians are not self-centered, self-absorbed, and only concerned about “me, myself and I.” The basic nature of the Christian is to reach out and serve others. It means saying, “I don’t want a faith that costs nothing in terms of service.”
Some people are proud that their faith cost them nothing. Can you imagine someone saying: “I’m so happy that I go to that church, and I don’t give a dime. I’m a member of that church, and I don’t attend but 20% of the time. I’m a Christian, and I don’t serve anybody but me.”
“I give burnt offerings to God that cost me nothing.” Is that the kind of Christian you want to be? I don’t think so.
What is the price and cost of sacrifice? Steven King learned. During a commencement address, the author asked graduates what they will do with their money. He said:
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing you’re not going to do, and that’s take it with you. I’m worth I don’t know exactly how many millions of dollars. I’m still in the Third World compared to Bill Gates, but on the whole I’m doing Ok . And a couple of years ago I found out what ‘you can’t take it with you’ means. I found out while I was lying in the ditch at the side of a country road, covered with mud and blood and with the tibia of my right leg poking out the side of my jeans like a branch of a tree taken down by a thunderstorm. I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you’re lying in the ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard? We all know that life is ephemeral, but on that particular day and in the months that followed, I got a painful but extremely valuable look at life’s simple backstage truths. We come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we’re just as broke. Warren Buffet? Going to go out broke. Bill Gates? Going to go out broke. Tom Hanks? Going out broke. Steve King? Broke. Not a crying dime. And how long in between? . . . Just the blink of an eye."
In what will we invest our lives? Will our lives be devoted to giving or only to taking?
What is the price and cost of sacrifice for you? Think about it as we form a vision of who we are, as a church, and what we can do with generous gifts.
Works Consulted:
Anders, Dr. Mickey. “How Much Does It Cost?" http://www.pikevillefirstchristianchurch.org/Sermons/Sermon20020407.html
The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Downers Grove: IVP, 1998.
Sowell, Thomas. Basic Economics. New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Stackhouse, Max L., Dennis McCann, Shirely Roels, and Preston Williams. On Moral Business, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Sermon for Oct. 2, 2005 -- World Communion Sunday
Crime and Punishment
Genesis 4:1-16
We have several children’s Bibles in our house. Today’s children’s Bibles are more exciting then they used to be. Engaging stories. Colorful cartoon pictures. It’s a good thing to introducing our little ones to the rhythms of Scripture. We hope the stories will fasten to them throughout their lives. My five-year-old’s Bible storybook takes complicated stories and reduces them to a half dozen simple sentences. Here’s what Genesis 4 is condensed to: Adam and Eve had two sons. Their names were Cain and Abel. Abel obeyed God, but Cain did not obey God. Cain was angry and killed Abel. This was wrong. Adam and Eve were very sad. God was sad, too.
We hope that some day our kids will move on from the simple stories of their children’s Bible to deeper understandings of the stories. It’s hope I have for all of us – that we grow to engage the Scriptures as critical thinkers. Often, our understanding of Bible stories is what we learned in Sunday school. We are adults who still carrying around the flannelgraph versions of the Bible. The version of the story I read to you a moment ago said flat out that “Cain did not obey God.” One of the higher-level children’s Bibles I have says that God didn’t like Cain from the beginning because “Cain was cold and proud and self-willed.” We hold on to those images even as adults. We assume that Cain came out of Eve’s womb as the spawn of Satan while Abel was born as Mamma’s Little Lamb. We remember how in Sunday School we were taught that this story was “The First Murder,” and we assume that Genesis 4 is in the Bible to teach us about the spread of sin.
Of course, there’s some to all of that, but it’s not the whole truth. Let’s go to the story and see if we can read it in a new way. It begins simply enough: Adam and Eve start a family. They have two sons. Cain, the big brother, grows into a farmer. Abel, the little brother, becomes a shepherd. We are told nothing else about Cain or Abel. They seem to be decent, hard-working sons. They are both religious people, so they honor God by giving offerings--a sacrifice specific to each man’s vocation. Each offers some of the product of his work. Cain brings some produce from his gardens and Abel brings some firstborn animals from his flocks.
For some reason, God like’s Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s. Why? Is Cain really proud and self-willed? Is God trying to rub it in Cain’s face that he’s the Bad Seed? Is God anti-vegetarian? Was there something wrong with Cain’s crops? Maybe God really does like the little brother best. Maybe the difference is that Cain kept back the best produce for himself while Abel willingly offered some of the very best. Maybe Cain’s devotion to God was lukewarm while Abel expressed enthusiastic piety.
For some reason, God likes Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. We are not told why. But since we don’t want God to come off as arbitrary, we try to figure out what was wrong with Cain’s offering. We don’t know why. Cain does, and it upsets him. He’s angry. And sad. And depressed. Why didn’t God like his worship? It’s not a bad question. Cain will soon be guilty of something rather horrible--so terrible as to make whatever was wrong with his sacrifice look trivial by comparison.
We have another assumption about the story. God didn’t like Cain. After the murder, God rejects Cain forever. I don’t see that in the text. God’s words to Cain aren’t harsh. God expresses concern for Cain’s well being. Whatever is wrong with Cain’s attitude, it is not so bad that Cain is helpless. God suggests that with some effort, Cain can wrestle temptation to the ground and become the master over it instead of the victim. Did Cain wonder about this at all? Did he try to wrestle with his frustrations and angers? We don’t know because the story wastes no time in hauling Abel out into the field where the deadly deed is done.
Did you notice that Abel never speaks? He never says a word. Abel doesn’t make a sound until his blood cries out from the ground. The only words of Abel are the cries of the innocent victim of violence and abuse. Abel’s cry pierces God’s ears. Cain can’t get away with the crime. God says to Cain, “Listen! Don’t you hear the blood crying out!?” Apparently he did not. Neither do we most of the time.
Crime goes on and on. So does its punishment. It’s like a farmer who sows poison into the soil of his fields. As Cain spills his brother’s blood onto the ground, now nothing will grow for him. Cain the farmer is literally up-rooted from the ground. He is a restless wanderer on the earth. He won’t be able to sink down roots anymore. He moves to the land of Nod, which is Hebrew for “wanderland.” He is punished with a living death. So Killer Cain begs God to please not let the same fate come to him!
You almost expect God to tell Cain, “Tough luck, buddy! You chose death and so now you need to face your own death.” God never says it. Humanity chooses death but God insists on life. God knows that the cycle of violence needs to be snapped. Cain will not suffer Abel’s fate. God marks Cain to show that God protects him. It’s bad enough that Abel’s blood screams in God’s ears. God can’t bear to hear Cain's blood shout out, too. God chooses life in the face of death.
Somehow, through it all, God loves Cain. Who knows why--he doesn’t seem terribly loveable. God saves Cain while Abel’s blood still screams. If we hold those two images in tension, we you are approaching the mystery of the gospel. Many children’s Bibles show a picture of Cain whomping Abel on the head with a rock or a stick. It’s terrible. But that is not the final image of Genesis 4. We are left with a pool of Abel’s blood, crying and screaming into God’s ear. It pains God to hear it and so he has his hands cupped over his ears. Yet at the same moment God is bending down and kissing Cain’s forehead, protecting Cain for life!
Screaming blood and kissing lips. Justified punishment and gracious salvation. Cain’s bloody hands and God’s mark of protection on Cain’s forehead. The images collide and bewilder. Why does God keep insisting on life? Why doesn’t the cry of Abel’s blood have the last word? Why? Because only God may have the last word, and that word is life.
Does all this talk about innocent blood remind you of someone else? How about Jesus? The blood of Jesus has something to say-- the shed blood of the innocent always speaks to us. Abel’s blood cried out to God with screams of horror and injustice. Christ’s’ blood cries out, too, and it shouts words of life. God didn’t let anyone shed Cain’s blood because cycles of violence and death must stop. Something needed to be done to restore God’s creation. That something is found in the sacrifice of God’s Son. Here is the final and ultimate innocent victim whose blood is shed unjustly. Jesus' blood does not scream, it sings; it does not cry, it croons; it does not darken into a pool of death but becomes a fountain of life.
Cain chose death and could never quite settle down again because of it. East of Eden there was only restlessness and wandering. Cain set us up for a whole history of restless wandering--the land of Nod has been most everywhere, it seems. Meanwhile, in all our restless search for answers and identity, the blood of the innocent keeps getting shed. The cries from the blood-soaked soil in lower Manhattan must send God reeling, but no less also the cries from the soils of Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and everywhere that people die as one group keeps trying to gain mastery over another.
Cain set our human race to wandering, unable to sink down roots into the soil we have sullied. Jesus grants us rest and a settled place to sink down roots into his love and grace. Cain brings us to Nod. Jesus brings us home. Abel’s blood speaks of death and injustice. Jesus' blood speaks life and grace.
As we come to communion, we remember the sacrifice of Christ. We come as those who are brought from death to life. As we come, let’s remember the times we have chosen death over life. Sadly, it happens too easily. But death doesn’t get the final word. Even when we choose death, we are loved and protected by God. God always chooses life over death.
Sources:
"Hearing Abel, Raising Cain" by Scott Hoezee, http://www.calvincrc.org/sermons/topics/genesis/genesis4.html
Genesis 4:1-16
We have several children’s Bibles in our house. Today’s children’s Bibles are more exciting then they used to be. Engaging stories. Colorful cartoon pictures. It’s a good thing to introducing our little ones to the rhythms of Scripture. We hope the stories will fasten to them throughout their lives. My five-year-old’s Bible storybook takes complicated stories and reduces them to a half dozen simple sentences. Here’s what Genesis 4 is condensed to: Adam and Eve had two sons. Their names were Cain and Abel. Abel obeyed God, but Cain did not obey God. Cain was angry and killed Abel. This was wrong. Adam and Eve were very sad. God was sad, too.
We hope that some day our kids will move on from the simple stories of their children’s Bible to deeper understandings of the stories. It’s hope I have for all of us – that we grow to engage the Scriptures as critical thinkers. Often, our understanding of Bible stories is what we learned in Sunday school. We are adults who still carrying around the flannelgraph versions of the Bible. The version of the story I read to you a moment ago said flat out that “Cain did not obey God.” One of the higher-level children’s Bibles I have says that God didn’t like Cain from the beginning because “Cain was cold and proud and self-willed.” We hold on to those images even as adults. We assume that Cain came out of Eve’s womb as the spawn of Satan while Abel was born as Mamma’s Little Lamb. We remember how in Sunday School we were taught that this story was “The First Murder,” and we assume that Genesis 4 is in the Bible to teach us about the spread of sin.
Of course, there’s some to all of that, but it’s not the whole truth. Let’s go to the story and see if we can read it in a new way. It begins simply enough: Adam and Eve start a family. They have two sons. Cain, the big brother, grows into a farmer. Abel, the little brother, becomes a shepherd. We are told nothing else about Cain or Abel. They seem to be decent, hard-working sons. They are both religious people, so they honor God by giving offerings--a sacrifice specific to each man’s vocation. Each offers some of the product of his work. Cain brings some produce from his gardens and Abel brings some firstborn animals from his flocks.
For some reason, God like’s Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s. Why? Is Cain really proud and self-willed? Is God trying to rub it in Cain’s face that he’s the Bad Seed? Is God anti-vegetarian? Was there something wrong with Cain’s crops? Maybe God really does like the little brother best. Maybe the difference is that Cain kept back the best produce for himself while Abel willingly offered some of the very best. Maybe Cain’s devotion to God was lukewarm while Abel expressed enthusiastic piety.
For some reason, God likes Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. We are not told why. But since we don’t want God to come off as arbitrary, we try to figure out what was wrong with Cain’s offering. We don’t know why. Cain does, and it upsets him. He’s angry. And sad. And depressed. Why didn’t God like his worship? It’s not a bad question. Cain will soon be guilty of something rather horrible--so terrible as to make whatever was wrong with his sacrifice look trivial by comparison.
We have another assumption about the story. God didn’t like Cain. After the murder, God rejects Cain forever. I don’t see that in the text. God’s words to Cain aren’t harsh. God expresses concern for Cain’s well being. Whatever is wrong with Cain’s attitude, it is not so bad that Cain is helpless. God suggests that with some effort, Cain can wrestle temptation to the ground and become the master over it instead of the victim. Did Cain wonder about this at all? Did he try to wrestle with his frustrations and angers? We don’t know because the story wastes no time in hauling Abel out into the field where the deadly deed is done.
Did you notice that Abel never speaks? He never says a word. Abel doesn’t make a sound until his blood cries out from the ground. The only words of Abel are the cries of the innocent victim of violence and abuse. Abel’s cry pierces God’s ears. Cain can’t get away with the crime. God says to Cain, “Listen! Don’t you hear the blood crying out!?” Apparently he did not. Neither do we most of the time.
Crime goes on and on. So does its punishment. It’s like a farmer who sows poison into the soil of his fields. As Cain spills his brother’s blood onto the ground, now nothing will grow for him. Cain the farmer is literally up-rooted from the ground. He is a restless wanderer on the earth. He won’t be able to sink down roots anymore. He moves to the land of Nod, which is Hebrew for “wanderland.” He is punished with a living death. So Killer Cain begs God to please not let the same fate come to him!
You almost expect God to tell Cain, “Tough luck, buddy! You chose death and so now you need to face your own death.” God never says it. Humanity chooses death but God insists on life. God knows that the cycle of violence needs to be snapped. Cain will not suffer Abel’s fate. God marks Cain to show that God protects him. It’s bad enough that Abel’s blood screams in God’s ears. God can’t bear to hear Cain's blood shout out, too. God chooses life in the face of death.
Somehow, through it all, God loves Cain. Who knows why--he doesn’t seem terribly loveable. God saves Cain while Abel’s blood still screams. If we hold those two images in tension, we you are approaching the mystery of the gospel. Many children’s Bibles show a picture of Cain whomping Abel on the head with a rock or a stick. It’s terrible. But that is not the final image of Genesis 4. We are left with a pool of Abel’s blood, crying and screaming into God’s ear. It pains God to hear it and so he has his hands cupped over his ears. Yet at the same moment God is bending down and kissing Cain’s forehead, protecting Cain for life!
Screaming blood and kissing lips. Justified punishment and gracious salvation. Cain’s bloody hands and God’s mark of protection on Cain’s forehead. The images collide and bewilder. Why does God keep insisting on life? Why doesn’t the cry of Abel’s blood have the last word? Why? Because only God may have the last word, and that word is life.
Does all this talk about innocent blood remind you of someone else? How about Jesus? The blood of Jesus has something to say-- the shed blood of the innocent always speaks to us. Abel’s blood cried out to God with screams of horror and injustice. Christ’s’ blood cries out, too, and it shouts words of life. God didn’t let anyone shed Cain’s blood because cycles of violence and death must stop. Something needed to be done to restore God’s creation. That something is found in the sacrifice of God’s Son. Here is the final and ultimate innocent victim whose blood is shed unjustly. Jesus' blood does not scream, it sings; it does not cry, it croons; it does not darken into a pool of death but becomes a fountain of life.
Cain chose death and could never quite settle down again because of it. East of Eden there was only restlessness and wandering. Cain set us up for a whole history of restless wandering--the land of Nod has been most everywhere, it seems. Meanwhile, in all our restless search for answers and identity, the blood of the innocent keeps getting shed. The cries from the blood-soaked soil in lower Manhattan must send God reeling, but no less also the cries from the soils of Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and everywhere that people die as one group keeps trying to gain mastery over another.
Cain set our human race to wandering, unable to sink down roots into the soil we have sullied. Jesus grants us rest and a settled place to sink down roots into his love and grace. Cain brings us to Nod. Jesus brings us home. Abel’s blood speaks of death and injustice. Jesus' blood speaks life and grace.
As we come to communion, we remember the sacrifice of Christ. We come as those who are brought from death to life. As we come, let’s remember the times we have chosen death over life. Sadly, it happens too easily. But death doesn’t get the final word. Even when we choose death, we are loved and protected by God. God always chooses life over death.
Sources:
"Hearing Abel, Raising Cain" by Scott Hoezee, http://www.calvincrc.org/sermons/topics/genesis/genesis4.html
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Sermon for September 25, 2005
Original Sin
Romans 3:20-26; Genesis 3:1-21
Romans 3:20-26; Genesis 3:1-21
I couldn’t make this up if I tried. My mother calls her tax accountant. The accountant is excited. She says to my mother, “Oh I’m glad you called. Your sister is sitting right in front of me. So is your brother and your mother.” Strange coincidences happen all the time right. It’s really not that unusual. They all use the same accountant. Here’s what threw my mother off. My mother’s mother -- my grandmother -- has been dead for almost three years. We always called my grandmother Mom. I had to ask – how did Mom get to the accountant’s office? And of all the places for the spirit of the dead to visit, why would she choose the accountant’s office? It all started a few months ago when my uncle talked taxes with the accountant Mid sentence, she suddenly freezes, and then she starts to zone off and stare into the distance, and then her eyes roll back in her head. My uncle thinks she’s having a seizure, and when he goes to help, she snaps out of it and says that Mom, my dead grandmother, is in the room with them. She starts giving messages from beyond the grave. Visits from dead relatives have become a regular feature of tax appointments. My grandmother and grandfather have talked through the accountant, as well as other relatives. Apparently, they have good tax and business advice for the whole family. I think it’s a little weird. When I go to the accountant, I plan to talk about . . . well, taxes. I think this accountant is overstepping her professional boundaries a bit. It says even more about my family that they are willing to stay with this woman. The spiritual visitations freak them out. However, I think they like it at the same time. Plus, the woman is a wonder of an accountant.
I wonder if the accountant’s behavior is a blessing or a curse. Is her behavior helpful, or is it sinful? In fact, I can ask that about a lot of people’s behavior, including my own. In my relationships with people, do I bless them with my words and actions, or am I liability? How about our relationship with God. Were we created to be blessings, or do we carry the mark of original sin in us. Is it written into our genetic code that we will always say the wrong things, make the wrong decisions, and alienate ourselves from each other all before we even get out of bed in the morning?
The traditional way of thinking about sin comes from our understanding of what happened in the Garden of Eden. The snake tempts the woman, the woman tempts the man, the man and the woman eat the fruit, gain knowledge of good and evil, and the man, the woman and the snake are cursed by God. Not only that, their offspring is also cursed. Not only those, the consequences of their disobedience are passed on from generation to generation forever. This is the idea of original sin – what Calvin called hereditary depravity. Here’s our question for today: do we enter a torn and sinful world as blotches on existence, as sinful creatures, or do we enter the world as original blessings?
If I asked a group of kids what the first story in the Bible is, I bet many of them would say Adam and Eve. It’s not true. We learned last week, the Bible starts with the story of creation. God’s word does not begin with a story of temptation and failure. The Bible begins with blessing. Each day God creates something, and he calls it good. Listen to this poem by James Weldon Johnson:
I wonder if the accountant’s behavior is a blessing or a curse. Is her behavior helpful, or is it sinful? In fact, I can ask that about a lot of people’s behavior, including my own. In my relationships with people, do I bless them with my words and actions, or am I liability? How about our relationship with God. Were we created to be blessings, or do we carry the mark of original sin in us. Is it written into our genetic code that we will always say the wrong things, make the wrong decisions, and alienate ourselves from each other all before we even get out of bed in the morning?
The traditional way of thinking about sin comes from our understanding of what happened in the Garden of Eden. The snake tempts the woman, the woman tempts the man, the man and the woman eat the fruit, gain knowledge of good and evil, and the man, the woman and the snake are cursed by God. Not only that, their offspring is also cursed. Not only those, the consequences of their disobedience are passed on from generation to generation forever. This is the idea of original sin – what Calvin called hereditary depravity. Here’s our question for today: do we enter a torn and sinful world as blotches on existence, as sinful creatures, or do we enter the world as original blessings?
If I asked a group of kids what the first story in the Bible is, I bet many of them would say Adam and Eve. It’s not true. We learned last week, the Bible starts with the story of creation. God’s word does not begin with a story of temptation and failure. The Bible begins with blessing. Each day God creates something, and he calls it good. Listen to this poem by James Weldon Johnson:
And God stepped out of space,
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely –
I’ll make me a world…
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely –
I’ll make me a world…
After the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the seas, the green living things, the creatures of the air and land, “God looked on His world/ With all its living things, /And God said: I’m lonely still…
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,…
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay…
Then … blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
And it was not just good; it was exceedingly good.
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,…
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay…
Then … blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
And it was not just good; it was exceedingly good.
We are created with such great possibilities…. fragile, radiant beings. How is it that we grow our souls within a culture that scares and scars so many because they are infected by the sin of original sin.
Most of us have heard about original sin plenty of times. If you grew up Catholic, it was ingrained in your faith. In Catholic teaching, the evidence of original sin is losing control. Any passion is a loss of control. Lovemaking is seen as a loss of control. How many Catholic kids and adults had to sit through scary lectures about the evils of their bodies and how they were all one slip away from burning in the fire of hell? The Catholic church declared God has no passion. God never loses control, and never has to repent. Unlike us, God is unchangeable, even to the point where the Father did not suffer on the cross with his son, Jesus. It’s called antipatripassionism. The New England Puritans were not much better. Today, the word puritanical means sternly moral – close-minded fundamentalists. In truth, they were really no different than other Reformers who ran away from the decadent culture of the day. No matter our tradition, we all hear about original sin. But rarely do we hear about original blessing. Get out your Bible sometime and scrutinize the texts. The doctrine of original sin is not found in any writings of the Old Testament. It is certainly not in chapters 1-3 of Genesis. Look closely at what the basis of humanity is again. It’s not the curse, but the blessing. Original blessing is the basis of all basic human trust and faith.
What if we took this idea of original blessing seriously? How would it work out, how would if affect the ways in which we look at ourselves and at each other? If we begin with the blessing of God’s creative energy and understand ourselves as originally blessed, rather than originally cursed, how much better we may feel about ourselves.
· Instead of being suspicious about our bodies, we would welcome our bodies and we would be gentle, instead of combative.
· Humility would no longer mean despising of one’s self. The word humility and human come from the same root – hummus. It actually means dirt. Humility literally means to befriend one’s earthiness.
· Instead of trying to control everything, we would be more ready to experience and celebrate the passions of life.
· Instead of our focus on eternal life after death, we would understand eternal life as beginning now. The longer I am in the ministry the less I am concerned with life after death and the more I am concerned with life after birth.
· Instead of regarding humans as sinners we would regard ourselves as people who can chose to create or destroy.
There’s another part of Adam and Eve’s “Fall” in Genesis. Instead of being called “The Fall”, it should be called “The Slide” because in the 3rd Chapter of Genesis Adam and Eve sort of slide, or segue into their condition of irresponsibility and dishonesty. The “original sin” is not so much a rebellion but rather laziness, passing the buck, blaming the snake, and not owning up to responsibility (This is sort of like all of the finger pointing that’s going on during the response to Hurricane Katrina, but that’s another sermon). In other words, we are originally blessed, but for some reason we can’t handle it. We were supposed to be the co-pilots – co-creators with God -- but we decided to reach over and take the controls away from the captain. Here was our downfall; our slide into hubris, a condition called, well, . . . sin.
But, is it original or is it learned? Ask any teacher about the saintliness of their children and they will be glad to testify to their uncanny ability to fight, hit, steal and hoard, as well as to their ability to learn, charm, love, and share. But ask Kindergarten teachers about children who are entering schools now. More and more children entering our school systems are morally challenged, that is their moral compass is dysfunctional. We are finding, regardless of socio-economic level, children who seem to have no conscience. How they got this way is a complex environment of causes, but in some way, by influence or lack of influence, by omission or commission these children learned … nothing. And who teaches them … nothing. Well, I guess the adults do. But who taught us? Our parents. Who taught them? You get the idea. The spooky thing about all of this is that the sins of the parents seem to stretch out several generations long after the parents are dead.
It seems that in the past 10,000 years we all learned something rather well, and it is not a reflection of our original blessing. As Paul reminds us, “All sinned and have fallen short of the glory [blessing] of God.” That is, despite living with a positive attitude about our originally blessed selves, we will have times when our ugliness will show through much to our embarrassment.
· We still look at other people who are different than us with fear. We judge others. We protect ourselves from “them.” We talk about “those people” but fail to think about how we function in the system.
· Instead of celebrating and being gentle to our bodies we are hard on them, working them long hours, depriving them of sleep, putting all kids of foreign substances in them and otherwise wearing them out before their time.
· Instead of emphasizing the healing of the whole people of God, the whole earth, we want our own personal salvation, our own piece of the economic pie and we want it now, even if two-thirds of the world must suffer to support our selfish standard of living.
· Our desire to experience ecstasy and the joy of sexuality turns on itself and we use the blessing of sexuality to sell cars, and boats, and facial creams, and of course, Viagra. I watched an interview with Barabara Streisand the other night. She was talking about her sexual modesty and how embarrassed she gets when she sees Cialis commercials on TV. Cialis is a competitor with Viagara. During the commercial break, what commercial do you think the network ran? Cialis! I don’t agree with Babs on most things, but some of those commercials make me blush, too. As we regard ourselves as persons with the freedom of choice, we choose a number of good things but so often we chose those things which destroy rather than create.
So which is true? Are we originally blessed or originally cursed? Let me wind us down with a story. Fred Craddock, a teacher and preacher, was driving through Tennessee some years ago. He stopped at a restaurant for a meal, and he was intrigued as one man went from table to table greeting everyone. When the man came to Craddock and learned he was a minister, the man insisted on telling a story. He said that he had been born in the mountains not far from where they sat. His mother was not married when he was born. In that time and culture, the mother and her son were scorned. The boy grew up feeling the love of his mother, but also the contempt of the townsfolk. He was known around town as the bastard kid, or the son of the whore. At recess, his classmates would exclude him, and he learned to keep to himself in order to avoid getting teased. At age 12 the boy took up going to church on his own. A new minister had come to the church near his house. The boy would slip into the back row just as the services began, and leave before it was over so that no one would ask him, “What’s a boy like you doing here.”
However, one Sunday he so wrapped up in the service that he forgot to slip out. Before he could quietly exit, he felt the big hand of the minister on his shoulder, light and gentle. The preacher looked at him and asked, “Who are you, son? Whose boy are you?” The boy’s heart sank, and perhaps his pain showed on his face. But then the preacher answered, “Wait a minute. I know who you are. The family resemblance is unmistakable. You are a child of God.” With those words, he patted him on the back and added, “That’s quite an inheritance. Go, and claim it” The boy was now an old man greeting people in a restaurant. He told Craddock, “That one statement literally changed my whole life.” The man’s name was Ben Hooper and he elected the governor of Tennessee -- twice.
Do we hurt others, live by our compromises, and forget some of the important things
Most of us have heard about original sin plenty of times. If you grew up Catholic, it was ingrained in your faith. In Catholic teaching, the evidence of original sin is losing control. Any passion is a loss of control. Lovemaking is seen as a loss of control. How many Catholic kids and adults had to sit through scary lectures about the evils of their bodies and how they were all one slip away from burning in the fire of hell? The Catholic church declared God has no passion. God never loses control, and never has to repent. Unlike us, God is unchangeable, even to the point where the Father did not suffer on the cross with his son, Jesus. It’s called antipatripassionism. The New England Puritans were not much better. Today, the word puritanical means sternly moral – close-minded fundamentalists. In truth, they were really no different than other Reformers who ran away from the decadent culture of the day. No matter our tradition, we all hear about original sin. But rarely do we hear about original blessing. Get out your Bible sometime and scrutinize the texts. The doctrine of original sin is not found in any writings of the Old Testament. It is certainly not in chapters 1-3 of Genesis. Look closely at what the basis of humanity is again. It’s not the curse, but the blessing. Original blessing is the basis of all basic human trust and faith.
What if we took this idea of original blessing seriously? How would it work out, how would if affect the ways in which we look at ourselves and at each other? If we begin with the blessing of God’s creative energy and understand ourselves as originally blessed, rather than originally cursed, how much better we may feel about ourselves.
· Instead of being suspicious about our bodies, we would welcome our bodies and we would be gentle, instead of combative.
· Humility would no longer mean despising of one’s self. The word humility and human come from the same root – hummus. It actually means dirt. Humility literally means to befriend one’s earthiness.
· Instead of trying to control everything, we would be more ready to experience and celebrate the passions of life.
· Instead of our focus on eternal life after death, we would understand eternal life as beginning now. The longer I am in the ministry the less I am concerned with life after death and the more I am concerned with life after birth.
· Instead of regarding humans as sinners we would regard ourselves as people who can chose to create or destroy.
There’s another part of Adam and Eve’s “Fall” in Genesis. Instead of being called “The Fall”, it should be called “The Slide” because in the 3rd Chapter of Genesis Adam and Eve sort of slide, or segue into their condition of irresponsibility and dishonesty. The “original sin” is not so much a rebellion but rather laziness, passing the buck, blaming the snake, and not owning up to responsibility (This is sort of like all of the finger pointing that’s going on during the response to Hurricane Katrina, but that’s another sermon). In other words, we are originally blessed, but for some reason we can’t handle it. We were supposed to be the co-pilots – co-creators with God -- but we decided to reach over and take the controls away from the captain. Here was our downfall; our slide into hubris, a condition called, well, . . . sin.
But, is it original or is it learned? Ask any teacher about the saintliness of their children and they will be glad to testify to their uncanny ability to fight, hit, steal and hoard, as well as to their ability to learn, charm, love, and share. But ask Kindergarten teachers about children who are entering schools now. More and more children entering our school systems are morally challenged, that is their moral compass is dysfunctional. We are finding, regardless of socio-economic level, children who seem to have no conscience. How they got this way is a complex environment of causes, but in some way, by influence or lack of influence, by omission or commission these children learned … nothing. And who teaches them … nothing. Well, I guess the adults do. But who taught us? Our parents. Who taught them? You get the idea. The spooky thing about all of this is that the sins of the parents seem to stretch out several generations long after the parents are dead.
It seems that in the past 10,000 years we all learned something rather well, and it is not a reflection of our original blessing. As Paul reminds us, “All sinned and have fallen short of the glory [blessing] of God.” That is, despite living with a positive attitude about our originally blessed selves, we will have times when our ugliness will show through much to our embarrassment.
· We still look at other people who are different than us with fear. We judge others. We protect ourselves from “them.” We talk about “those people” but fail to think about how we function in the system.
· Instead of celebrating and being gentle to our bodies we are hard on them, working them long hours, depriving them of sleep, putting all kids of foreign substances in them and otherwise wearing them out before their time.
· Instead of emphasizing the healing of the whole people of God, the whole earth, we want our own personal salvation, our own piece of the economic pie and we want it now, even if two-thirds of the world must suffer to support our selfish standard of living.
· Our desire to experience ecstasy and the joy of sexuality turns on itself and we use the blessing of sexuality to sell cars, and boats, and facial creams, and of course, Viagra. I watched an interview with Barabara Streisand the other night. She was talking about her sexual modesty and how embarrassed she gets when she sees Cialis commercials on TV. Cialis is a competitor with Viagara. During the commercial break, what commercial do you think the network ran? Cialis! I don’t agree with Babs on most things, but some of those commercials make me blush, too. As we regard ourselves as persons with the freedom of choice, we choose a number of good things but so often we chose those things which destroy rather than create.
So which is true? Are we originally blessed or originally cursed? Let me wind us down with a story. Fred Craddock, a teacher and preacher, was driving through Tennessee some years ago. He stopped at a restaurant for a meal, and he was intrigued as one man went from table to table greeting everyone. When the man came to Craddock and learned he was a minister, the man insisted on telling a story. He said that he had been born in the mountains not far from where they sat. His mother was not married when he was born. In that time and culture, the mother and her son were scorned. The boy grew up feeling the love of his mother, but also the contempt of the townsfolk. He was known around town as the bastard kid, or the son of the whore. At recess, his classmates would exclude him, and he learned to keep to himself in order to avoid getting teased. At age 12 the boy took up going to church on his own. A new minister had come to the church near his house. The boy would slip into the back row just as the services began, and leave before it was over so that no one would ask him, “What’s a boy like you doing here.”
However, one Sunday he so wrapped up in the service that he forgot to slip out. Before he could quietly exit, he felt the big hand of the minister on his shoulder, light and gentle. The preacher looked at him and asked, “Who are you, son? Whose boy are you?” The boy’s heart sank, and perhaps his pain showed on his face. But then the preacher answered, “Wait a minute. I know who you are. The family resemblance is unmistakable. You are a child of God.” With those words, he patted him on the back and added, “That’s quite an inheritance. Go, and claim it” The boy was now an old man greeting people in a restaurant. He told Craddock, “That one statement literally changed my whole life.” The man’s name was Ben Hooper and he elected the governor of Tennessee -- twice.
Do we hurt others, live by our compromises, and forget some of the important things
Absolutely.
Do we take what God created as good, and manipulate it for our own gain?
Of course we do.
Do we suffer the consequences of the other’s bad decisions.
Yes, we do.
Are we the bearers of hereditary depravity, cursed and rejected by God? All I can say is this, I know who we are. The family resemblance is unmistakable. We are the children of God. You bear the image of God. Our legacy, and our potential, is exceedingly good.
Works Consulted
“Original Sin or Original Blessing” by The Rev. Rod Frohman
Works Consulted
“Original Sin or Original Blessing” by The Rev. Rod Frohman
“Original Sin” at Wikipedia.
“Puritans” at Wikepedia.
“Puritans” at Wikepedia.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Sermon for September 18, 2005
Hi All.
Because of vacations and general laziness, etc., I haven't posted for a while. I am back to posting my weeky sermons from TCC on this site. As always, let me know what you think.
God is in everything, and everything is in God. Isn’t this the message in the opening lines of John’s gospel? Jesus is God in the flesh – the eternal word of God wearing human skin and living among us. Jesus came to reveal a God who calls us into relationship. Jesus is Immanuel, God With Us. He experiences everything we do. He lives through pain, and hunger, and happiness, and temptation, and death. Jesus doesn’t relate to us just as human beings with DNA and predictable gene patterns. We are not called into a clinical relationship with Jesus. He doesn’t look at you and say, “A typical Christian of your spiritual age should be healthier,” as he rips off a prescription for more prayer and selfless giving. Jesus relates to you as an individual. He knows your pain. He knows your trials. He knows what excites you and what scares you. And he loves you.
The question is whether we can relate back to God. Remember what Buber said: Relation is reciprocity. If relating to another means give and take, then we have to give and not just take. A new relationship with God and creation means being vulnerable to God’s Word-- the ongoing, creative energy of God. Our spiritual task is to get out of the way enough so that we might be filled and renewed with God’s Word so that we can go about our work of healing, celebrating, and co-creating.[iv]
What I’m really talking about today is the power of love. I’m asking you to love creation and to love one another, and to love God. The love I’m talking about involves some risk. Think of a two people who fall in love. In a moment of passion, a guy says, “I love you.” And the girl says, “Wow, I love you too.” I see it in the movies all the time. The guy might mean it with all of his soul. But he is only into experiencing the moment: the rush of excitement. He says, “I Love you,” but he might really mean, “I love girls,” or “I love how I feel right now.” If that’s the case, then what he calls love is really using the woman as an object to fulfill his supposed needs at that moment. How many people do you know who have heard the words “I love you,” and then left the relationship feeling cheap and used? We might call it love, but it’s not a relationship.
Think of what happens with another couple when they say “I love you” to one another. They look, and listen, and touch one another, and they know that what they see, hear, and feel has been kissed by God. This is not just any person. This is not just MY wife, or MY husband, or MY lover. This person represents the image of God, and we are given to one another as a reminder to enjoy the gifts of God.
Sure, we can live in an orderly, detached reliable world. We can categorize people and judge them, and distance ourselves from “those people” who are always screwing things up.
We can suck the life out of those around us, and our earth, until we are bloated and satisfied while others are tossed aside like second-hand remnants after they’ve served their purpose. There is another way.
We can approach one another, and the world around us and realize that that we see, or touch is a single unique being, interconnected yet unique. This week I want you to look. Really look. And listen, and touch know that what you see, and hear, and feel, has been kissed by God.
[i] “Gone With the Water” by Joel Bourne in National Geographic, http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
[ii] from Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner, 1970), 56-58.
[iii] “The Call of Creation: God's Invitation and the Human Response,” http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/resource/GreenText/
[iv] Some ideas in this sermon were freely lifted from Original Blessing by Matthew Fox (New York: Putnam, 1983).
Because of vacations and general laziness, etc., I haven't posted for a while. I am back to posting my weeky sermons from TCC on this site. As always, let me know what you think.
Lessons from Creation
Genesis 1:1-2:4a; John 1:1-2
“It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside . . . watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday. But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party. The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in . . .As it reached 25 feet over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.”[i]
I just quoted an article written by National Geographic in October, 2004. Almost one year ago, the author forecast the consequences of Katrina with eerie precision. The article claimed that a year ago, The Federal Emergency Management Agency listed a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation. While we listen to politicians blame each other for the response, we sink under the dawning realization that some preventive steps were never taken to protect the city. One of the key reasons Katrina devastated New Orleans was the loss of coastal wetlands. Healthy wetlands provide a natural buffer against storm surges. But the Louisiana wetlands have been steadily disappearing for years. Some of the erosion is natural. Humans have had their hand in it, too. Deep offshore wells now account for nearly a third of all domestic oil production. For decades, geologists believed that the oil deposits were too deep for drilling to have any impact on the surface. But three years ago, a petroleum geologist noticed that the highest rates of wetland loss coincided with the period of peak oil and gas production in the 1970s and 80’s. The removal of millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, caused a drop in subsurface pressure. Nearby underground faults slipped and the land above caved in. It’s like when you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down.
In the days after Katrina, politicians passed around blame for mismanagement like it was a game of hot potato. We heard little about our responsibility for the environmental factors. We no longer think of ourselves as intertwined with our environment. It’s as if we humans are no longer part of creation. We stride the earth as gods, and the ground beneath our feet lives only to serve. In the wake of Katrina, we face the same lesson once more: short-term advantages can be gained by exploiting the environment. But in the long term we pay for it. Just like you can spend three days drinking in New Orleans and it’ll be fun. Sooner or later you’re going to pay.
Many human beings misunderstand our true place in creation. We think the natural world is merely the place where we live. Creation is a commodity, and we are the consumers. In the process, we are alienated from the earth, and from each other, and also from God.
Creation implies relationship. When I read the creation epics in Genesis, I sense that God created us for relationship with God, and with all of creation. Relationships rupture when we treat the world around us as merchandise we can accumulate. Instead of relating to creation as a gift, we act as if the world around us exists solely for the satisfaction of our supposed needs.
Martin Buber was a philosopher and social activist. In 1923 he came out with a groundbreaking book called I and Thou. He talked about two different types of relationships. Some people have I-Thou or I-You relationships. An I-You relationship is a true dialogue. A person relates to another with mutuality, openness, and directness. There are also I-It relationships. In an I-It relationship, a person learns about another, and experiences another, but never enters into a relationship. I-It relationships are entirely objective. I have an I-It relationship with my doctor. We don’t get together and enter into one another’s profound hopes and fears. He doesn’t even know me. He looks me over and objectively compares my health to other males of my age.
Take the example of a tree. You see a tree in the middle of summer – a rigid green pillar in a flood of light. You can feel its movement and sense the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core. You can sense the sucking of the roots and the breathing of the leaves. You can name put the tree in a category– call it a maple, an oak, a birch. You can tell with some predictability how it will grow and when it will lose its leaves. But, up to this point the tree remains an object – an It. You have only experienced the tree.
But, it can also happen, when will and grace are joined, that as you contemplate the tree you are drawn into a relation, and tree ceases to be an It. All of the sudden you notice the unique features of this tree. It is not just a maple. It has original features that make it different from other maples. It’s still a maple. It still has a predictable form, color, and chemistry. But now, it’s as if you are confronting this maple as an individual. As the breeze tickles its branches, the leaves shake and the limbs sway, and all of the sudden this tree is dancing with you. You are in a relationship. And relation is reciprocity.[ii]
I’d think that we are I-It people with creation. We think that if we have enough objective knowledge and experience and science and can pour it all into new technology, then we will be saved. It’s a lie that we can manufacture our own health and happiness. Many of us are I-It people with our heads stuck in a synthetic world that is cheap and impotent. Our ability to enjoy one another, and the rest of creation is dammed up by greed, corruption, fractured relationships, boredom, and injustice. And so we find it easier to objectify and accumulate. But God’s creation will not be tamed. Leonard Bernstein reminds us of this in some words from his Mass:
Genesis 1:1-2:4a; John 1:1-2
“It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside . . . watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday. But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party. The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in . . .As it reached 25 feet over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.”[i]
I just quoted an article written by National Geographic in October, 2004. Almost one year ago, the author forecast the consequences of Katrina with eerie precision. The article claimed that a year ago, The Federal Emergency Management Agency listed a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation. While we listen to politicians blame each other for the response, we sink under the dawning realization that some preventive steps were never taken to protect the city. One of the key reasons Katrina devastated New Orleans was the loss of coastal wetlands. Healthy wetlands provide a natural buffer against storm surges. But the Louisiana wetlands have been steadily disappearing for years. Some of the erosion is natural. Humans have had their hand in it, too. Deep offshore wells now account for nearly a third of all domestic oil production. For decades, geologists believed that the oil deposits were too deep for drilling to have any impact on the surface. But three years ago, a petroleum geologist noticed that the highest rates of wetland loss coincided with the period of peak oil and gas production in the 1970s and 80’s. The removal of millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, caused a drop in subsurface pressure. Nearby underground faults slipped and the land above caved in. It’s like when you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down.
In the days after Katrina, politicians passed around blame for mismanagement like it was a game of hot potato. We heard little about our responsibility for the environmental factors. We no longer think of ourselves as intertwined with our environment. It’s as if we humans are no longer part of creation. We stride the earth as gods, and the ground beneath our feet lives only to serve. In the wake of Katrina, we face the same lesson once more: short-term advantages can be gained by exploiting the environment. But in the long term we pay for it. Just like you can spend three days drinking in New Orleans and it’ll be fun. Sooner or later you’re going to pay.
Many human beings misunderstand our true place in creation. We think the natural world is merely the place where we live. Creation is a commodity, and we are the consumers. In the process, we are alienated from the earth, and from each other, and also from God.
Creation implies relationship. When I read the creation epics in Genesis, I sense that God created us for relationship with God, and with all of creation. Relationships rupture when we treat the world around us as merchandise we can accumulate. Instead of relating to creation as a gift, we act as if the world around us exists solely for the satisfaction of our supposed needs.
Martin Buber was a philosopher and social activist. In 1923 he came out with a groundbreaking book called I and Thou. He talked about two different types of relationships. Some people have I-Thou or I-You relationships. An I-You relationship is a true dialogue. A person relates to another with mutuality, openness, and directness. There are also I-It relationships. In an I-It relationship, a person learns about another, and experiences another, but never enters into a relationship. I-It relationships are entirely objective. I have an I-It relationship with my doctor. We don’t get together and enter into one another’s profound hopes and fears. He doesn’t even know me. He looks me over and objectively compares my health to other males of my age.
Take the example of a tree. You see a tree in the middle of summer – a rigid green pillar in a flood of light. You can feel its movement and sense the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core. You can sense the sucking of the roots and the breathing of the leaves. You can name put the tree in a category– call it a maple, an oak, a birch. You can tell with some predictability how it will grow and when it will lose its leaves. But, up to this point the tree remains an object – an It. You have only experienced the tree.
But, it can also happen, when will and grace are joined, that as you contemplate the tree you are drawn into a relation, and tree ceases to be an It. All of the sudden you notice the unique features of this tree. It is not just a maple. It has original features that make it different from other maples. It’s still a maple. It still has a predictable form, color, and chemistry. But now, it’s as if you are confronting this maple as an individual. As the breeze tickles its branches, the leaves shake and the limbs sway, and all of the sudden this tree is dancing with you. You are in a relationship. And relation is reciprocity.[ii]
I’d think that we are I-It people with creation. We think that if we have enough objective knowledge and experience and science and can pour it all into new technology, then we will be saved. It’s a lie that we can manufacture our own health and happiness. Many of us are I-It people with our heads stuck in a synthetic world that is cheap and impotent. Our ability to enjoy one another, and the rest of creation is dammed up by greed, corruption, fractured relationships, boredom, and injustice. And so we find it easier to objectify and accumulate. But God’s creation will not be tamed. Leonard Bernstein reminds us of this in some words from his Mass:
You can lock up the bold men,
Go and lock up your bold men,
And hold men in tow.
You can stifle all adventure
For a century or so.
Smother hope before its risen.
Watch it wizen like a gourd.
But you cannot imprison
The Word of the Lord.
No, you cannot imprison
The Word of the Lord.
Go and lock up your bold men,
And hold men in tow.
You can stifle all adventure
For a century or so.
Smother hope before its risen.
Watch it wizen like a gourd.
But you cannot imprison
The Word of the Lord.
No, you cannot imprison
The Word of the Lord.
Buber plays on the words of the creation story and writes, “In the beginning is the relation” (69). This is one lesson of creation. If we want to recover health and harmony, our broken relationships need healing. The process begins when we can see the image of God around us. I’m not talking about pantheism here. Pantheism is when you look at a rock and think, that rock is a god. So is that tree. So are you and I. Pantheism states that everything is God and God is everything. But, the lesson I’m learning from creation is to add one word to this formula: God is in everything, and everything is in God. That includes you and me. Creation reveals God to us and allows us to experience God’s presence.
I’m talking about I-You relationships with creation – transforming every experience into a unique connection. I-You relationships draw us closer to one another and to God. Nature’s abundance and beauty reveals God’s generosity and majesty. Creation’s healing, nourishing and life-giving properties reveal divine love.[iii]
I’m talking about I-You relationships with creation – transforming every experience into a unique connection. I-You relationships draw us closer to one another and to God. Nature’s abundance and beauty reveals God’s generosity and majesty. Creation’s healing, nourishing and life-giving properties reveal divine love.[iii]
God is in everything, and everything is in God. Isn’t this the message in the opening lines of John’s gospel? Jesus is God in the flesh – the eternal word of God wearing human skin and living among us. Jesus came to reveal a God who calls us into relationship. Jesus is Immanuel, God With Us. He experiences everything we do. He lives through pain, and hunger, and happiness, and temptation, and death. Jesus doesn’t relate to us just as human beings with DNA and predictable gene patterns. We are not called into a clinical relationship with Jesus. He doesn’t look at you and say, “A typical Christian of your spiritual age should be healthier,” as he rips off a prescription for more prayer and selfless giving. Jesus relates to you as an individual. He knows your pain. He knows your trials. He knows what excites you and what scares you. And he loves you.
The question is whether we can relate back to God. Remember what Buber said: Relation is reciprocity. If relating to another means give and take, then we have to give and not just take. A new relationship with God and creation means being vulnerable to God’s Word-- the ongoing, creative energy of God. Our spiritual task is to get out of the way enough so that we might be filled and renewed with God’s Word so that we can go about our work of healing, celebrating, and co-creating.[iv]
What I’m really talking about today is the power of love. I’m asking you to love creation and to love one another, and to love God. The love I’m talking about involves some risk. Think of a two people who fall in love. In a moment of passion, a guy says, “I love you.” And the girl says, “Wow, I love you too.” I see it in the movies all the time. The guy might mean it with all of his soul. But he is only into experiencing the moment: the rush of excitement. He says, “I Love you,” but he might really mean, “I love girls,” or “I love how I feel right now.” If that’s the case, then what he calls love is really using the woman as an object to fulfill his supposed needs at that moment. How many people do you know who have heard the words “I love you,” and then left the relationship feeling cheap and used? We might call it love, but it’s not a relationship.
Think of what happens with another couple when they say “I love you” to one another. They look, and listen, and touch one another, and they know that what they see, hear, and feel has been kissed by God. This is not just any person. This is not just MY wife, or MY husband, or MY lover. This person represents the image of God, and we are given to one another as a reminder to enjoy the gifts of God.
Sure, we can live in an orderly, detached reliable world. We can categorize people and judge them, and distance ourselves from “those people” who are always screwing things up.
We can suck the life out of those around us, and our earth, until we are bloated and satisfied while others are tossed aside like second-hand remnants after they’ve served their purpose. There is another way.
We can approach one another, and the world around us and realize that that we see, or touch is a single unique being, interconnected yet unique. This week I want you to look. Really look. And listen, and touch know that what you see, and hear, and feel, has been kissed by God.
[i] “Gone With the Water” by Joel Bourne in National Geographic, http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
[ii] from Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner, 1970), 56-58.
[iii] “The Call of Creation: God's Invitation and the Human Response,” http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/resource/GreenText/
[iv] Some ideas in this sermon were freely lifted from Original Blessing by Matthew Fox (New York: Putnam, 1983).
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Sermon for September 11, 2005
Forgive Us Our Debts
Matthew 18:21-35
How do you respond when a mistake has been made with your fast-food order? If you’re 6’3” and weigh 270 pounds, people don’t recommend crawling through the drive-through window. But that’s exactly what happened when a University of Kansas football player realized a chalupa was left out of his Taco Bell order. He got so angry that he tried to climb through the 14 X 46-inch drive-through window and got stuck. The frightened manager and employees locked themselves in an office and called the police. The police pulled up to the drive-through and laughed hysterically as they discovered the legs and back end of the football player kicking in midair.
We hear stories of rage all the time. Two shoppers in a Connecticut supermarket fall to fist fighting over who should be first in a newly opened checkout lane. A Continental Airlines flight returns to base after a passenger hurls a beer can at a flight attendant and bites a pilot. During an argument over rough play at their sons' hockey practice, a father in Massachusetts bludgeons another father to death. I remember a long time ago I accidentally cut a man off in traffic. He followed me all the way to my home. As soon as we parked, he ran over to my car and he began screaming and shaking. I would not come out of the car, so he began pounding his fists on the hood of the car as he swore at me. I just sat there, scared, hoping the man would go away. My infraction didn’t seem to warrant his reaction.
Rage is literally all the rage today. A June, 2005 study estimated that roughly 1 in 20 people has had “intermittent explosive disorder” -- a form of destructive, uncontrolled anger. The numbers translate into many millions of circles of trembling misery and anxiety. Wives live in fear of their husbands' next tirade, and wonder if they dare bring children into such a violent world of wrath. Husbands find that sometimes the smallest provocation of their wives brings on a firestorm. Parents struggle to understand why a son puts his fist through things, kicks pets, or screams at siblings.
It’s easy to see the problems in others. But if we’re honest, we’ve all done it. At one time or another, someone says something innocent and we take it as a personal attack. Or we feel that a certain person is intentionally doing something to make us angry, and we seethe in resentment. We’ve all exploded irrationally at something minor and let the situation control us.
And then, every Sunday, we come to church and pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” If you are like me, you are good at praying the first part of the prayer. But when it comes to forgiving others just as God forgives us, that’s a whole different story. This morning we are going to look at forgiveness through the lens of one of Jesus' parables.
Like usual, the Apostle Peter asks one of his famously reckless questions: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive a person who sins against me? Should I forgive up to seven times.” I have to give Peter some credit. Seven times is a lot. Have you ever had the opportunity to forgive a person seven times? If you offended me or I bailed you out of trouble three or four times, I doubt I would want to be anywhere near you. Even the Rabbis in Jesus’ day taught that forgiving someone three times was enough. Peter takes the Rabbi’s three times, doubles it, adds one for good measure, and suggests with eager satisfaction that it will be enough if he forgives seven times. Jesus says, “Peter, you don’t have to forgive seven times.” I can imagine a satisfying smile beginning to stretch across Peter’s face. Perhaps there’s a split second of gratification gleaming in Peter’s eyes. And then Jesus says, “You need to forgive seventy times seven times,” or depending on some translations, “Seventy seven times.” Either way, ifs a lot! Christ’s answer is that there are no limits to forgiveness.[i]
Lets give Peter a break. We all want to feel good about how good natured and forgiving we are. We also know that most of us have at least one person who knows every button to push to upset us. The mere sight of the person causes us to make up excuses to leave the same room. The German philosopher Schopenhauer compared the human race to a bunch of porcupines huddling together on a cold winter’s night. He said, “The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt one another with our sharp quills. And in the lonely night of earth’s winter eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness."[ii]
It always amazes me how unwilling we are to forgive others, especially after we know how willing God is to forgive us. I read a quote from a biography of German poet Heinrich Heine which said, “Forgiveness was not Heine’s business or specialty.” Heine used to say, “My nature is the most peaceful in the world. All I ask is a simple cottage, a decent bed, good food, some flowers in front of my window, and a few trees beside my door. Then, if God wanted to make me completely happy, he would let me enjoy the spectacle of six or seven of my enemies dangling from those trees. I would forgive them of all the wrongs they have done to me -- forgive them from the bottom of my heart, for we must forgive our enemies. But not until they are hanged.”[iii] Humans tend to hold grudges. It’s hard to let go of the past - to forgive completely.
I can imagine what might happen if we appointed a committee of people to write the Lord’s prayer. It may have come out like this:
But, Jesus teaches no such thing. He refuses to be the spokesman of our natural instinct for payback. Instead he teaches us to say: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.[iv] “I tell you to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven times.”
To drive the point home, Jesus tells a parable about a king and his servant. The servant owes the king an amount nearing national debt -- 10,000 talents. Just to put it that into perspective, King Herod annual tax revenues were about 900 talents, so 10,000 talents would have been equal to the national revenue for more than eleven years. The desperate debtor asks to be released from his daunting debt, and the king forgives the financial obligation. The king just writes it off when the servant pleads for mercy. A debt is something that we owe and have not paid. When we fail to do what we should, God has every right to demand payment from us. We become debtors to God. But instead of punishment, God cancelled our debt. God offers total forgiveness to all who come want it. We stand before God as debtors who deserve punishment. But through Christ, we are set free.
How do we respond to grace like this? We should fall on our faces in thanks. We should commit our lives to showing the same mercy to others and doing everything God wants us to do. But Jesus knows that this is not always the case. As he continues his parable, the forgiven servant walks arrogantly away from the king. After being forgiven for a mind-boggling debt of worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the foolish servant goes to one of his co-workers who owes him one or two grand. The coworker pleads for mercy, but the servant will hear none of it and has him thrown into jail. The rest of the servants can’t believe what’s happened, so they tattle to the king. The result is not pretty. I believe Jesus is saying this: a person must forgive in order to be forgiven. The one who can’t forgive a fellow human being, especially for a trifling offense, cannot expect to be forgiven the great debt we owe God.
What is your reaction to forgiveness? Is it grateful thanks or repeat offense? Do you forgive others, or continue to hold grudges? A devout Christian man named Chet has a whole lot of trouble offering total forgiveness. In 1991 his son was shot and slain during a robbery. So far as he knows, the killers have not sought his forgiveness. From what he knows of them, he doesn’t think it’s likely, either. So, he does not feel obliged to forgive them now. Chet says, “Don’t try to tell me I should feel guilty, because I have no intention at this point to forgive the animals . . . who viciously murdered my son. And anyone who disagrees has never walked in my shoes.”[v]
Chris Carrier. might disagree. Chris was kidnapped on Christmas Day, 1974 when he was 10 years old. When he was finally found he had been tortured, shot, and left for dead in the Everglades. Miraculously, young Chris recovered, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested. A few years ago, 22 years after the kidnapping, David McAllister - confessed to the crime. McAllister was 77 years old, blind and dying in a nursing home. Chris Carrier, now a minister, forgave his abductor. Everyday Chris visits McAllister. He prays with the man, reads the Bible with him, and he’s doing everything he can to help the man make peace with God in his remaining years of life. Chris says, “While many people can’t understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn’t not forgive him. If I’d chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn’t be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be.”
I wish it was easy to forgive like this. The truth is it’s easier to be like Chet -consumed with pain and searching for understanding. Forgiveness is supernatural. We just can’t seem to muster it up on our own power. But Jesus can show us the way, because he knows the freedom in being able to forgive. He knew it on those last awful moments on the cross when he cried out, Father, forgive them . . .” Is there someone you need to forgive? Someone you’ve been avoiding? Is there an offense from the past . . . an insult . . . a cold-shoulder . . . perhaps a travesty that lingers on and needs to be pardoned? Forgive, the debt. Do it today. Because no matter what has happened, it's nothing in comparison with the debt that God has canceled for us.
1. See David Leininger, “The Freedom of Forgiveness” ( 1/15/96), www. sermoncentral.com, and William Barclay, Matthew II (Louisville: WJKP, 1975), 193.
[ii]. Fresh Illustrations for Preaching, 135.
[iii]. John Story via Presbynet, “Jokes” #3543
[iv]. Helmut Thielike, Our Heavenly Father (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 104.
[v]. Quoted by Leininger.
Matthew 18:21-35
How do you respond when a mistake has been made with your fast-food order? If you’re 6’3” and weigh 270 pounds, people don’t recommend crawling through the drive-through window. But that’s exactly what happened when a University of Kansas football player realized a chalupa was left out of his Taco Bell order. He got so angry that he tried to climb through the 14 X 46-inch drive-through window and got stuck. The frightened manager and employees locked themselves in an office and called the police. The police pulled up to the drive-through and laughed hysterically as they discovered the legs and back end of the football player kicking in midair.
We hear stories of rage all the time. Two shoppers in a Connecticut supermarket fall to fist fighting over who should be first in a newly opened checkout lane. A Continental Airlines flight returns to base after a passenger hurls a beer can at a flight attendant and bites a pilot. During an argument over rough play at their sons' hockey practice, a father in Massachusetts bludgeons another father to death. I remember a long time ago I accidentally cut a man off in traffic. He followed me all the way to my home. As soon as we parked, he ran over to my car and he began screaming and shaking. I would not come out of the car, so he began pounding his fists on the hood of the car as he swore at me. I just sat there, scared, hoping the man would go away. My infraction didn’t seem to warrant his reaction.
Rage is literally all the rage today. A June, 2005 study estimated that roughly 1 in 20 people has had “intermittent explosive disorder” -- a form of destructive, uncontrolled anger. The numbers translate into many millions of circles of trembling misery and anxiety. Wives live in fear of their husbands' next tirade, and wonder if they dare bring children into such a violent world of wrath. Husbands find that sometimes the smallest provocation of their wives brings on a firestorm. Parents struggle to understand why a son puts his fist through things, kicks pets, or screams at siblings.
It’s easy to see the problems in others. But if we’re honest, we’ve all done it. At one time or another, someone says something innocent and we take it as a personal attack. Or we feel that a certain person is intentionally doing something to make us angry, and we seethe in resentment. We’ve all exploded irrationally at something minor and let the situation control us.
And then, every Sunday, we come to church and pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” If you are like me, you are good at praying the first part of the prayer. But when it comes to forgiving others just as God forgives us, that’s a whole different story. This morning we are going to look at forgiveness through the lens of one of Jesus' parables.
Like usual, the Apostle Peter asks one of his famously reckless questions: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive a person who sins against me? Should I forgive up to seven times.” I have to give Peter some credit. Seven times is a lot. Have you ever had the opportunity to forgive a person seven times? If you offended me or I bailed you out of trouble three or four times, I doubt I would want to be anywhere near you. Even the Rabbis in Jesus’ day taught that forgiving someone three times was enough. Peter takes the Rabbi’s three times, doubles it, adds one for good measure, and suggests with eager satisfaction that it will be enough if he forgives seven times. Jesus says, “Peter, you don’t have to forgive seven times.” I can imagine a satisfying smile beginning to stretch across Peter’s face. Perhaps there’s a split second of gratification gleaming in Peter’s eyes. And then Jesus says, “You need to forgive seventy times seven times,” or depending on some translations, “Seventy seven times.” Either way, ifs a lot! Christ’s answer is that there are no limits to forgiveness.[i]
Lets give Peter a break. We all want to feel good about how good natured and forgiving we are. We also know that most of us have at least one person who knows every button to push to upset us. The mere sight of the person causes us to make up excuses to leave the same room. The German philosopher Schopenhauer compared the human race to a bunch of porcupines huddling together on a cold winter’s night. He said, “The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt one another with our sharp quills. And in the lonely night of earth’s winter eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness."[ii]
It always amazes me how unwilling we are to forgive others, especially after we know how willing God is to forgive us. I read a quote from a biography of German poet Heinrich Heine which said, “Forgiveness was not Heine’s business or specialty.” Heine used to say, “My nature is the most peaceful in the world. All I ask is a simple cottage, a decent bed, good food, some flowers in front of my window, and a few trees beside my door. Then, if God wanted to make me completely happy, he would let me enjoy the spectacle of six or seven of my enemies dangling from those trees. I would forgive them of all the wrongs they have done to me -- forgive them from the bottom of my heart, for we must forgive our enemies. But not until they are hanged.”[iii] Humans tend to hold grudges. It’s hard to let go of the past - to forgive completely.
I can imagine what might happen if we appointed a committee of people to write the Lord’s prayer. It may have come out like this:
“Call in the debts, O God. Avenge the sinner who ruined my life, O Lord. See the injustice and strike down the wrong-doer. You know the tormentors of our tortured world. Break them in pieces and cast them away. Get rid of that one competitor, the one associate, the one person who has shattered my life. And if it's your will, use me as your instrument of revenge."
But, Jesus teaches no such thing. He refuses to be the spokesman of our natural instinct for payback. Instead he teaches us to say: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.[iv] “I tell you to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven times.”
To drive the point home, Jesus tells a parable about a king and his servant. The servant owes the king an amount nearing national debt -- 10,000 talents. Just to put it that into perspective, King Herod annual tax revenues were about 900 talents, so 10,000 talents would have been equal to the national revenue for more than eleven years. The desperate debtor asks to be released from his daunting debt, and the king forgives the financial obligation. The king just writes it off when the servant pleads for mercy. A debt is something that we owe and have not paid. When we fail to do what we should, God has every right to demand payment from us. We become debtors to God. But instead of punishment, God cancelled our debt. God offers total forgiveness to all who come want it. We stand before God as debtors who deserve punishment. But through Christ, we are set free.
How do we respond to grace like this? We should fall on our faces in thanks. We should commit our lives to showing the same mercy to others and doing everything God wants us to do. But Jesus knows that this is not always the case. As he continues his parable, the forgiven servant walks arrogantly away from the king. After being forgiven for a mind-boggling debt of worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the foolish servant goes to one of his co-workers who owes him one or two grand. The coworker pleads for mercy, but the servant will hear none of it and has him thrown into jail. The rest of the servants can’t believe what’s happened, so they tattle to the king. The result is not pretty. I believe Jesus is saying this: a person must forgive in order to be forgiven. The one who can’t forgive a fellow human being, especially for a trifling offense, cannot expect to be forgiven the great debt we owe God.
What is your reaction to forgiveness? Is it grateful thanks or repeat offense? Do you forgive others, or continue to hold grudges? A devout Christian man named Chet has a whole lot of trouble offering total forgiveness. In 1991 his son was shot and slain during a robbery. So far as he knows, the killers have not sought his forgiveness. From what he knows of them, he doesn’t think it’s likely, either. So, he does not feel obliged to forgive them now. Chet says, “Don’t try to tell me I should feel guilty, because I have no intention at this point to forgive the animals . . . who viciously murdered my son. And anyone who disagrees has never walked in my shoes.”[v]
Chris Carrier. might disagree. Chris was kidnapped on Christmas Day, 1974 when he was 10 years old. When he was finally found he had been tortured, shot, and left for dead in the Everglades. Miraculously, young Chris recovered, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested. A few years ago, 22 years after the kidnapping, David McAllister - confessed to the crime. McAllister was 77 years old, blind and dying in a nursing home. Chris Carrier, now a minister, forgave his abductor. Everyday Chris visits McAllister. He prays with the man, reads the Bible with him, and he’s doing everything he can to help the man make peace with God in his remaining years of life. Chris says, “While many people can’t understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn’t not forgive him. If I’d chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn’t be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be.”
I wish it was easy to forgive like this. The truth is it’s easier to be like Chet -consumed with pain and searching for understanding. Forgiveness is supernatural. We just can’t seem to muster it up on our own power. But Jesus can show us the way, because he knows the freedom in being able to forgive. He knew it on those last awful moments on the cross when he cried out, Father, forgive them . . .” Is there someone you need to forgive? Someone you’ve been avoiding? Is there an offense from the past . . . an insult . . . a cold-shoulder . . . perhaps a travesty that lingers on and needs to be pardoned? Forgive, the debt. Do it today. Because no matter what has happened, it's nothing in comparison with the debt that God has canceled for us.
1. See David Leininger, “The Freedom of Forgiveness” ( 1/15/96), www. sermoncentral.com, and William Barclay, Matthew II (Louisville: WJKP, 1975), 193.
[ii]. Fresh Illustrations for Preaching, 135.
[iii]. John Story via Presbynet, “Jokes” #3543
[iv]. Helmut Thielike, Our Heavenly Father (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 104.
[v]. Quoted by Leininger.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Sermon for July 24
Faith Moves: Hosea the Steadfast Spouse
1 John 4:7‑12; Hosea 1: 1‑ 11; 3:1‑5
During a wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the pastor with an unusual offer. “Look,” he said, “I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to me and the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor and obey,’ and ‘forsake all others to be faithful to her forever,’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.” He passed the minister a $100 bill and walked away satisfied. The day of the wedding came, and the bride and groom moved to the part of the ceremony where the vows are exchanged. When it came time for the groom’s vows, the pastor looked the young man in the eye and said, “Will you promise to prostrate yourself before her, obey her every command and wish, serve her breakfast in bed every morning of your life and swear eternally before God and your lovely, wife that you will never even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?” The groom gulped and looked around, and said in a tiny voice, “Yes.” Then the groom leaned toward the pastor and hissed, ‑I thought we had a deal?” The pastor put the $100 bill into his hand and whispered back, “She made a better offer.”
The relationship sounds doomed from the start. From the beginning of the marriage, the bride and groom show lack of trust in each other. This morning we are going to look at a different marriage. It is between a man named Hosea and his wife Gomer. Hosea was a prophet in the nation of Israel and a contemporary of Isaiah. God tells him to do something unusual – a faith move that will take a lot of courage and humility.
The nation of Israel is in dire straights. The bloodthirsty nation of Assyria is a world empire. Assyria conquers neighboring countries, brutalizes the conquered armies, and reduces the inhabitants to slaves. Assyria’s grip slowly starts to squeeze Israel. Israel’s government is in anarchy. At one time the rulers only saw one way out. They paid money to the king of Assyria as a bribe for protection. Israel gave gold, silver, ivory, and purple robes, and became a puppet government in order to secure their borders. The rulers of Israel get tired of paying off Assyria for their security, so Israel forms an alliance with the their neighbors, the king of Damascus and the king of Tyre. If the three countries can show some strength and raise enough revenue, they hope to get noticed by Egypt and form a political and military alliance against Assyria. Israel is guilty of political promiscuity. The government of Israel goes from country to country, desperately looking for protection. In return, Israel is being led to the brink of destruction. While this is going on, the people of Israel have also turned their backs on the God of the covenant and have given their devotion to the seemingly harmless local gods of the area ‑ the fertility gods Baal and Asherah. God’s people need salvation but they are turning to other gods and other nations to help them. They turn to every one except their Lord and Maker. They worship the gods and rulers of the land rather than the Creator of heaven and earth who demands righteousness, mercy, love, and faithfulness
God decides to use a prophet named Hosea and woman named Gomer to speak to the people of Israel. Gomer is a prostitute, and God tells Hosea to marry her. After giving birth to three children, Gomer leaves Hosea and returns to the streets to sell her body. I can just imagine Hosea’s heartbreak. The woman he loves with all his heart, the women who bore him three children, leaves him to go back to her old life. She thinks her former life, with men giving her nice things and wanting to be with her, is better than her life as a wife and mother.
Then God says, “Hosea, I am going to use your broken, aching heart to let my people know that their actions are like the betrayal of an unfaithful spouse. My people have put their trust in political alliances instead of the Lord. My people have trusted in idols instead of worshiping the Lord their God. I love my people, but Israel has forgotten her Maker.” Then God says, “Hosea, no matter what Gomer does, I want you to stay true to her. Have faith, trust in me, and I will make things right again.”
God uses the symbol of marriage to speak to his people. It is easy to sentimentalize marriage. Life would be easy if marriage was only about romance and red roses, butterflies in the stomach and long walks on the beach. But marriage is more than that. Matrimony has to do with duty, responsibility and commitment. God accuses Israel of being an adulterous spouse who fails to show her commitment to the relationship. When the honeymoon is over, Israel forgets her greatest love. She can’t trust in the Lord when she needed him most, and turned to other lovers instead.
When I began reflected on this text I thought that this story demonstrated the way the world scorns and rejects the things of God ‑ how unbelievers turn away from the Creator. But as I thought about it more I realized that the Lord is not talking to the world. Hosea doesn’t address Egypt or Assyria, Damascus or Tyre. God is talking to his called people, his beloved. The people of the covenant are the ones who have rejected their Lord.
So, let’s not think about “Them” for a moment. Let’s think about “us.” After all, the church is called the New Israel, the people of the new covenant. We could all probably say, “I know a Christian person who ______ . . . fill in the blank with your sin of choice. I know a Christian person who cheats. I know a Christian who is a pain in the rear end. I know a Christian with a mouth like Howard Stern. I know a person who sleeps around. I know a Christian who’s self‑indulgent. I know a Christian who acts holier than thou but is rotten to the core.
What is usually our response to these people? Do we throw our arms around them and say, “We love you?” Can we really hate the sin but love the sinner? Do we take every opportunity to reach out and demonstrate that these people belong to God? I wish we acted this way. It seems that more often our first impulse is to judge and condemn. Maybe we feel betrayed and back away. Maybe we look at their situation and say, “Better them than me.” Maybe we say to the offender, “I’ll pray for you,” and that’s the end of it.
This is not Hosea’s reaction to Gomer. Hosea is committed to the restoration of his marriage. He knows that he can’t abandon his wife. And because Hosea is steadfast in the midst of betrayal, he knows that God will neither reject nor abandon his people.
God is in love with his people. He is in love with you. He is in love with his wayward children who have taken a detour in their spiritual journey. Friends, God is not going to let you, or them, or any of his covenant people go. The past few weeks we’ve been talking about faith moves. Well, here’s where I think the faith move comes into this story. God says to Hosea, “Go show your love to your wife again, even though she is used by another men. Love her as I love Israel.” Hosea finds her at the prostitute market, and buys her back. You have to understand, law and emotion prevented a husband who was publicly betrayed by his wife from renewing his marital life with her. It was bad form to chase after a promiscuous wife. Because of Gomer’s unfaithfulness, the marriage should have been over with. But God’s love is greater than custom and emotion.
God says, “Hosea, forget propriety and etiquette. Don’t listen to your betrayed and shattered heart. Go and get Gomer, and bring her home, and love her.” The name Gomer means “complete.” In the Bible, a person’s name says something about one’s destiny. I don’t see a woman who was forced to come back to a husband and lifestyle she hated. I imagine Gomer as a woman who is brought back with more love than she thinks she deserves. Gomer realizes that she is right where she needs and wants to be. When Gomer returns to Hosea, she is complete.
Isn’t this is exactly what God has done for us through Jesus Christ? We are all Gomers. We all have moments when we are tempted to wander away from God. We all get ourselves in places where our choices redirect us away from a relationship with God. We are all Gomers, and God paid the price to make us complete. The cross is the proof of the everlasting, sacrificial love of God. God loves you. God is serious about not wanting us, his people, to succumb to the effects of our faithless desires. God is so serious about completing us, that he placed the punishment for sin on his Son as atonement for human rebellion. Through Christ, God says, “I’m buying you back. I love you because you belong with me.”
There’s an appropriate response to such great love. 1 John says it best. “Let us love one another, for love comes from God.”
If you have ever been touched by the hand of God,
if you have ever caught a glimpse of God’s wild affection for you,
if you have ever felt free because of God’s forgiveness,
if you have ever felt restored, or healed,
or saved by the power of God Almighty,
then you should love in return.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s harder than it sounds. This is our faith move ‑ bold love. I’m not talking about wimpy love ‑ that mushy, gushy, warm fuzzy love. I’m not talking about love as some philosophical ideal. I’m talking about bold, audacious, determined, faithful love toward those who are unlovable. Love, as a faith move, is about reaching to those who have betrayed us. It’s extending the open hand of companionship instead of the fist of judgment. Bold love is our attempt to graciously embrace those who have sinned against us. It offers restoration to those who harm us. Bold love reclaims the potential good in another person, even at the risk of self‑sacrifice and loss. Love means using our lives to reclaiming the kernel of good in those who are lost.
God loves his people, and he will not let any of us go. That’s God’s commitment. He demonstrated that to Hosea, he proved it to Israel, and he is still dedicated to us today. Let us commit ourselves to loving everyone, with no strings attached, as our thankful response to God’s faithfulness.
1 John 4:7‑12; Hosea 1: 1‑ 11; 3:1‑5
During a wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the pastor with an unusual offer. “Look,” he said, “I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to me and the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor and obey,’ and ‘forsake all others to be faithful to her forever,’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.” He passed the minister a $100 bill and walked away satisfied. The day of the wedding came, and the bride and groom moved to the part of the ceremony where the vows are exchanged. When it came time for the groom’s vows, the pastor looked the young man in the eye and said, “Will you promise to prostrate yourself before her, obey her every command and wish, serve her breakfast in bed every morning of your life and swear eternally before God and your lovely, wife that you will never even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?” The groom gulped and looked around, and said in a tiny voice, “Yes.” Then the groom leaned toward the pastor and hissed, ‑I thought we had a deal?” The pastor put the $100 bill into his hand and whispered back, “She made a better offer.”
The relationship sounds doomed from the start. From the beginning of the marriage, the bride and groom show lack of trust in each other. This morning we are going to look at a different marriage. It is between a man named Hosea and his wife Gomer. Hosea was a prophet in the nation of Israel and a contemporary of Isaiah. God tells him to do something unusual – a faith move that will take a lot of courage and humility.
The nation of Israel is in dire straights. The bloodthirsty nation of Assyria is a world empire. Assyria conquers neighboring countries, brutalizes the conquered armies, and reduces the inhabitants to slaves. Assyria’s grip slowly starts to squeeze Israel. Israel’s government is in anarchy. At one time the rulers only saw one way out. They paid money to the king of Assyria as a bribe for protection. Israel gave gold, silver, ivory, and purple robes, and became a puppet government in order to secure their borders. The rulers of Israel get tired of paying off Assyria for their security, so Israel forms an alliance with the their neighbors, the king of Damascus and the king of Tyre. If the three countries can show some strength and raise enough revenue, they hope to get noticed by Egypt and form a political and military alliance against Assyria. Israel is guilty of political promiscuity. The government of Israel goes from country to country, desperately looking for protection. In return, Israel is being led to the brink of destruction. While this is going on, the people of Israel have also turned their backs on the God of the covenant and have given their devotion to the seemingly harmless local gods of the area ‑ the fertility gods Baal and Asherah. God’s people need salvation but they are turning to other gods and other nations to help them. They turn to every one except their Lord and Maker. They worship the gods and rulers of the land rather than the Creator of heaven and earth who demands righteousness, mercy, love, and faithfulness
God decides to use a prophet named Hosea and woman named Gomer to speak to the people of Israel. Gomer is a prostitute, and God tells Hosea to marry her. After giving birth to three children, Gomer leaves Hosea and returns to the streets to sell her body. I can just imagine Hosea’s heartbreak. The woman he loves with all his heart, the women who bore him three children, leaves him to go back to her old life. She thinks her former life, with men giving her nice things and wanting to be with her, is better than her life as a wife and mother.
Then God says, “Hosea, I am going to use your broken, aching heart to let my people know that their actions are like the betrayal of an unfaithful spouse. My people have put their trust in political alliances instead of the Lord. My people have trusted in idols instead of worshiping the Lord their God. I love my people, but Israel has forgotten her Maker.” Then God says, “Hosea, no matter what Gomer does, I want you to stay true to her. Have faith, trust in me, and I will make things right again.”
God uses the symbol of marriage to speak to his people. It is easy to sentimentalize marriage. Life would be easy if marriage was only about romance and red roses, butterflies in the stomach and long walks on the beach. But marriage is more than that. Matrimony has to do with duty, responsibility and commitment. God accuses Israel of being an adulterous spouse who fails to show her commitment to the relationship. When the honeymoon is over, Israel forgets her greatest love. She can’t trust in the Lord when she needed him most, and turned to other lovers instead.
When I began reflected on this text I thought that this story demonstrated the way the world scorns and rejects the things of God ‑ how unbelievers turn away from the Creator. But as I thought about it more I realized that the Lord is not talking to the world. Hosea doesn’t address Egypt or Assyria, Damascus or Tyre. God is talking to his called people, his beloved. The people of the covenant are the ones who have rejected their Lord.
So, let’s not think about “Them” for a moment. Let’s think about “us.” After all, the church is called the New Israel, the people of the new covenant. We could all probably say, “I know a Christian person who ______ . . . fill in the blank with your sin of choice. I know a Christian person who cheats. I know a Christian who is a pain in the rear end. I know a Christian with a mouth like Howard Stern. I know a person who sleeps around. I know a Christian who’s self‑indulgent. I know a Christian who acts holier than thou but is rotten to the core.
What is usually our response to these people? Do we throw our arms around them and say, “We love you?” Can we really hate the sin but love the sinner? Do we take every opportunity to reach out and demonstrate that these people belong to God? I wish we acted this way. It seems that more often our first impulse is to judge and condemn. Maybe we feel betrayed and back away. Maybe we look at their situation and say, “Better them than me.” Maybe we say to the offender, “I’ll pray for you,” and that’s the end of it.
This is not Hosea’s reaction to Gomer. Hosea is committed to the restoration of his marriage. He knows that he can’t abandon his wife. And because Hosea is steadfast in the midst of betrayal, he knows that God will neither reject nor abandon his people.
God is in love with his people. He is in love with you. He is in love with his wayward children who have taken a detour in their spiritual journey. Friends, God is not going to let you, or them, or any of his covenant people go. The past few weeks we’ve been talking about faith moves. Well, here’s where I think the faith move comes into this story. God says to Hosea, “Go show your love to your wife again, even though she is used by another men. Love her as I love Israel.” Hosea finds her at the prostitute market, and buys her back. You have to understand, law and emotion prevented a husband who was publicly betrayed by his wife from renewing his marital life with her. It was bad form to chase after a promiscuous wife. Because of Gomer’s unfaithfulness, the marriage should have been over with. But God’s love is greater than custom and emotion.
God says, “Hosea, forget propriety and etiquette. Don’t listen to your betrayed and shattered heart. Go and get Gomer, and bring her home, and love her.” The name Gomer means “complete.” In the Bible, a person’s name says something about one’s destiny. I don’t see a woman who was forced to come back to a husband and lifestyle she hated. I imagine Gomer as a woman who is brought back with more love than she thinks she deserves. Gomer realizes that she is right where she needs and wants to be. When Gomer returns to Hosea, she is complete.
Isn’t this is exactly what God has done for us through Jesus Christ? We are all Gomers. We all have moments when we are tempted to wander away from God. We all get ourselves in places where our choices redirect us away from a relationship with God. We are all Gomers, and God paid the price to make us complete. The cross is the proof of the everlasting, sacrificial love of God. God loves you. God is serious about not wanting us, his people, to succumb to the effects of our faithless desires. God is so serious about completing us, that he placed the punishment for sin on his Son as atonement for human rebellion. Through Christ, God says, “I’m buying you back. I love you because you belong with me.”
There’s an appropriate response to such great love. 1 John says it best. “Let us love one another, for love comes from God.”
If you have ever been touched by the hand of God,
if you have ever caught a glimpse of God’s wild affection for you,
if you have ever felt free because of God’s forgiveness,
if you have ever felt restored, or healed,
or saved by the power of God Almighty,
then you should love in return.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s harder than it sounds. This is our faith move ‑ bold love. I’m not talking about wimpy love ‑ that mushy, gushy, warm fuzzy love. I’m not talking about love as some philosophical ideal. I’m talking about bold, audacious, determined, faithful love toward those who are unlovable. Love, as a faith move, is about reaching to those who have betrayed us. It’s extending the open hand of companionship instead of the fist of judgment. Bold love is our attempt to graciously embrace those who have sinned against us. It offers restoration to those who harm us. Bold love reclaims the potential good in another person, even at the risk of self‑sacrifice and loss. Love means using our lives to reclaiming the kernel of good in those who are lost.
God loves his people, and he will not let any of us go. That’s God’s commitment. He demonstrated that to Hosea, he proved it to Israel, and he is still dedicated to us today. Let us commit ourselves to loving everyone, with no strings attached, as our thankful response to God’s faithfulness.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Sermon for July 17
Faith Moves: Jonah and the Famished Fish
Jonah 1:1-17
There was this young minister who was serving his first church in a rural area. Let’s call him “Bill.” One day, while out visiting, he saw a major winter snow storm coming toward him and within minutes Bill was in a whiteout condition. Wondering what to do, the words of his father came back to him: If you get caught in a storm, just follow a snow plow and the road will always be clear before you. Sure enough, a plow came along and Bill followed it. He turning when the plow turned. He stopped when the plow stopped. After a while the plow parked and the driver got out and walked back to the car that had been on his tail. “Are you following me,” he asked? The young preacher admitted that he was following. Bill said, “My Daddy always said: If you get caught in a storm, just follow a snow plow and the road will always be clear before you. “Okay,” said the driver. “Just to let you know that I’ve finished the Mall parking lot and now I’m heading over to Wal-mart!”
Sometimes we need to be careful who we follow!
Clarence Jordan was a prophet for racial integration in the South. In 1942, after receiving his doctorate at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he returned to his native Georgia and established Koinonia Farm. Koinonia Farm was an experiment in Christian interracial communal living. Jordan envisioned an interracial community where blacks and whites could live and work together in a spirit of partnership. You can imagine how scandalous this was in Georgia in the 40’s. Throughout the 1950s and early 60s, Koinonia Farm remained a witness to nonviolence and racial equality, as its members withstood firebombs, bullets, KKK rallies, death threats, property damage, excommunication from churches, and economic boycotts. On one occasion, after preaching to a Southern congregation on the spirit of equality found in the New Testament, an elderly woman stopped Jordan. She cried, “I want you to know that my, grandfather fought in the Civil War, and I’ll never believe a word you say.” Jordan replied, “Ma’am, your choice seems quite clear. It is whether you will follow your granddaddy or Jesus Christ.”
I want us to answer a simple question this morning. When God asks you to do something outside of your comfort zone, who do you follow? Do you stick to what you think you know, or do you follow Jesus? Are you led exclusively by tradition ‑ by what you’ve always been told is the right way ‑ or do you follow Jesus? Do you only listen to the voices of your family and friends, or the voices of your past, or do you follow Jesus? I already know my own answer. I think of all the people who have become MY enemies because of what they believe, or say, or do. I think of the people I criticize, dismiss, and want to have no contact with. I think of those who have disappointed me. I think of all the people I’ve decided are unlovable, and I want nothing to do with them. Sometimes I hear the voice of Jesus telling me to go beyond my preconceptions ‑ to love and serve the people I’ve rejected, and I’m presented with a choice: obey Jesus, or stubbornly cling to my prejudice. Quite often, I am adamant in my intolerance. How about you? Who do you follow?
Why is it that we find it so hard to go beyond ourselves and do the challenging things God asks us to do? I think it has to do with a failure of faith. We fail to trust that God is sovereign and has a broader vision of what life and salvation really mean. It is hard to have faith when God’s plans go against our expectations of how we think God is supposed to act. The prophet Jonah struggled with the same problems. In today’s reading, Jonah God calls Jonah to extend God’s good news to the gentile city of Ninevah -- the capital city of the Assyrian empire. Jonah disagrees with God’s plan from the very beginning. Even though God says he loves Ninevah, Jonah wants nothing to do with this city. He tries so hard to resist what God wants, even while he clearly understands that God is open‑hearted and merciful to the enemies of Israel.
Last week I said that when faced with any situation there are two ways of handling it: Our way or God’s way. Jonah decides that God’s way is no good. God chose Jonah for this specific assignment, and Jonah thinks he has a choice to say no. Verse 1 begins by telling us that the word of the Lord came to Jonah. God’s voice must have stirred Jonah with a sense of awe and a profound experience of God’s presence and power. It is a life‑changing event to hear the word of the Lord. Yet, in the next sentence, before Jonah can even enjoy his encounter with God, shock waves begin exploding in his mind. His heart sinks when he hears God say, “Go to Ninevah.” I can just imagine Jonah’s inner protests. “God, you can’t really, mean Ninevah, the capitol city of Israel’s avowed enemy! They are scum. They capture and torture their enemies. Prisoners of Assyria pray for death to come and relieve their suffering. You aren’t going to use me to preach forgiveness to these cruel and violent people! I am a prophet for Israel.”
So, instead of traveling 500 miles east to Ninevah, Jonah turns the opposite direction, trekking to the seaport city of Joppa on the Mediterranean. From there he heads toward Tarshish, on the Atlantic coast of Spain. Just to get to Tarshish by ship meant a year and a half journey to the straits of Gibraltar. Jonah figures he’s escaped the Lord and has all the time in the world. What Jonah is really doing is abandoning his obligation to minister to the people of Ninevah. It’s an act of sinful rebellion. Jonah is a faithful prophet as long as God wants what Jonah wants. But when God’s command goes against what Jonah wants, Jonah decides he knows a better way. He is finally put out of commission. In the midst of a turbulent storm, the sailors are scared out of their wits. The boat is about to be pulled underwater because of the storm. The men toss the faithless Jonah overboard. Instantly, the sound and the fury of the storm, and the yelling and crying, and praying, and screaming cease. The sea is peaceful. The sailors shudder with wonder and praise God. But not the reluctant prophet. Not yet, at least. Jonah’s going to get some time to find new perspective in the belly of a great fish.
Let me ask you again, who do you follow? We should show some sympathy for Jonah before we get carried away with judgment. We shouldn’t condemn him without facing our own failure of faith. At one time or another we will all be faced with a command from God that’s difficult to hear, an instruction from God that sends us into a panic, an assignment that will cause us to run in the opposite direction, a calling that will prompt us to say, “Anything but that, Lord!” It is tragic for each one of us when we refuse to obey God’s clear command, because the result is that it puts us out of commission spiritually. Disobedience robs us of our credibility. Others see us and wonder why the “Christian” can’t get it together enough to carry out what he or she talks about. Disobedience puts us out of commission because if we call ourselves Christians, but we don’t have the faith to be totally obedient to God, our words and actions are hollow to a lost world that sees the church as a bunch of self‑absorbed hypocrites who are out of touch with the world and its problems. When we call ourselves Christians, but show lack of faith in God by doing things our own way, then the world has every right to question our credibility. Who do you follow? If you are afraid to follow God, then those around you, those who are looking at your words and your life for some glimmer of hope, will have no reason to put their hope in the Lord.
I think it’s interesting how God responds to disobedience. Let’s turn again to Jonah’s story. God responds with action. God doesn’t ignore Jonah’s rebellion. He doesn’t just sit by and allow Jonah to drift in his sins. Jonah is God’s chosen agent for a specific purpose, like it or not, and the Lord is prepared to offer correction. However, God also offers affection. I love verse 17: God arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. The Lord doesn’t allow Jonah to drown in the sea as a punishment. God keeps Jonah alive. He pursues and protects Jonah in his time of need.
Eating lunch at a small cafe, Mark Reed of Camarillo, California saw a sparrow hop through the open door and peck at the crumbs near his table. When the crumbs were gone, the sparrow hopped to the window ledge, spread its wings, and took flight, It was a brief flight. The sparrow crashed against the windowpane and fell to the floor. The bird quickly recovered and tried again. It crashed in to the window. So, it tried again and crashed in to the window. Mark got up and attempted to shoo the sparrow out the door, but the closer he got, the harder it threw itself against the pane. He nudged it with his hand. That sent the sparrow fluttering along the ledge, hammering its beak against the glass. Finally, Mark reached out and gently caught the bird, folding his fingers around its wings and body. It weighed almost nothing. He thought of how powerless and vulnerable the sparrow must have felt. At the door he released it and the sparrow sailed away. The sparrow only found freedom when it was lead to flight by Mark’s hands.
God’s response to our disobedience is twofold. Yes, there is discipline. But God is also compassionate. God understands our fear and our frailty. He sees our inability to go beyond our own plan. He knows how hard it is for us to recognize the reality of his love. And in those times he not only corrects, but God takes us in his hands, as if we are little birds, and God protects us from ourselves. God guides us with caring hands to the truth of what wonderful things can happen when we are obedient to God’s voice. God takes opportunities to confront us, to redirect us, to let us know that his ways are best, and to fill us with faith enough to trust his plans.
So, let me ask you again, who do you follow? Let me tell you about a man who did just the opposite of human nature. On January 3, 1865, King Kamehameha V of Hawaii issued a decree that obliged all lepers to make themselves known so that the incurable patients could be sent to a leprosarium on the island of Molokai. Despite their protests, victims of Hansen’s Disease were tracked own like game animals and captured and sent to the island. Contrary to newspaper reports there was nothing prepared for their reception. There were no beds or doctors in the hospital, and not enough huts for the people to live in. Those who died got neither a coffin nor a proper burial, and no one attempted to alleviate their suffering. The people gave up all sense of dignity and any desire for cleanliness or order. They had been treated like mangy animals, and being no longer respected as human beings, they proceeded to make beasts of themselves. By 1873, the public began to find out what was going on. One paper wrote, “Those whom the lepers most need are a priest and a doctor who would sacrifice themselves for the lepers by imprisoning themselves with them.” Until that time, the Catholic Bishop had set up a rotation of priests, to visit the island once a year. And while he knew that the lepers needed more pastoral care, he did not want to sentence a priest to go to the island as a full-time resident with the risk of catching the contagious disease. One priest volunteered to go. His name was Father Damien. He told the Bishop, “I want to go there! I know many of these unfortunate souls, and I ask only to share their lot and their prison. The Bishop gladly accepted the young priest’s offer.
Despite his quirks, Damien gave the lepers new a new church, an improved hospital, better living conditions, and a sense of dignity. He shared the love of God with these men and women. He went to the place where everyone else feared to venture, and he turned it around by obeying Christ. In 1889, 16 years after his arrival at Molokai, Father Damien died of leprosy. But thousands of men and women found healing through his sacrificial touch.
Jonah chapter one demonstrates the consequences when one fails to trust in God. Father Damien is an example of one who went to the Ninevah of his time, and obediently served the Lord. I encourage you to think of the Ninevah’s in your life, and to know that God may be calling you there. It may be a place. It may be a person or a relationship. God calls us, in faith, to trust him when as we go out as agents of reconciliation. So, go to Ninevah, following the Lord who wants all his people to know his mercy and love.
Jonah 1:1-17
There was this young minister who was serving his first church in a rural area. Let’s call him “Bill.” One day, while out visiting, he saw a major winter snow storm coming toward him and within minutes Bill was in a whiteout condition. Wondering what to do, the words of his father came back to him: If you get caught in a storm, just follow a snow plow and the road will always be clear before you. Sure enough, a plow came along and Bill followed it. He turning when the plow turned. He stopped when the plow stopped. After a while the plow parked and the driver got out and walked back to the car that had been on his tail. “Are you following me,” he asked? The young preacher admitted that he was following. Bill said, “My Daddy always said: If you get caught in a storm, just follow a snow plow and the road will always be clear before you. “Okay,” said the driver. “Just to let you know that I’ve finished the Mall parking lot and now I’m heading over to Wal-mart!”
Sometimes we need to be careful who we follow!
Clarence Jordan was a prophet for racial integration in the South. In 1942, after receiving his doctorate at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he returned to his native Georgia and established Koinonia Farm. Koinonia Farm was an experiment in Christian interracial communal living. Jordan envisioned an interracial community where blacks and whites could live and work together in a spirit of partnership. You can imagine how scandalous this was in Georgia in the 40’s. Throughout the 1950s and early 60s, Koinonia Farm remained a witness to nonviolence and racial equality, as its members withstood firebombs, bullets, KKK rallies, death threats, property damage, excommunication from churches, and economic boycotts. On one occasion, after preaching to a Southern congregation on the spirit of equality found in the New Testament, an elderly woman stopped Jordan. She cried, “I want you to know that my, grandfather fought in the Civil War, and I’ll never believe a word you say.” Jordan replied, “Ma’am, your choice seems quite clear. It is whether you will follow your granddaddy or Jesus Christ.”
I want us to answer a simple question this morning. When God asks you to do something outside of your comfort zone, who do you follow? Do you stick to what you think you know, or do you follow Jesus? Are you led exclusively by tradition ‑ by what you’ve always been told is the right way ‑ or do you follow Jesus? Do you only listen to the voices of your family and friends, or the voices of your past, or do you follow Jesus? I already know my own answer. I think of all the people who have become MY enemies because of what they believe, or say, or do. I think of the people I criticize, dismiss, and want to have no contact with. I think of those who have disappointed me. I think of all the people I’ve decided are unlovable, and I want nothing to do with them. Sometimes I hear the voice of Jesus telling me to go beyond my preconceptions ‑ to love and serve the people I’ve rejected, and I’m presented with a choice: obey Jesus, or stubbornly cling to my prejudice. Quite often, I am adamant in my intolerance. How about you? Who do you follow?
Why is it that we find it so hard to go beyond ourselves and do the challenging things God asks us to do? I think it has to do with a failure of faith. We fail to trust that God is sovereign and has a broader vision of what life and salvation really mean. It is hard to have faith when God’s plans go against our expectations of how we think God is supposed to act. The prophet Jonah struggled with the same problems. In today’s reading, Jonah God calls Jonah to extend God’s good news to the gentile city of Ninevah -- the capital city of the Assyrian empire. Jonah disagrees with God’s plan from the very beginning. Even though God says he loves Ninevah, Jonah wants nothing to do with this city. He tries so hard to resist what God wants, even while he clearly understands that God is open‑hearted and merciful to the enemies of Israel.
Last week I said that when faced with any situation there are two ways of handling it: Our way or God’s way. Jonah decides that God’s way is no good. God chose Jonah for this specific assignment, and Jonah thinks he has a choice to say no. Verse 1 begins by telling us that the word of the Lord came to Jonah. God’s voice must have stirred Jonah with a sense of awe and a profound experience of God’s presence and power. It is a life‑changing event to hear the word of the Lord. Yet, in the next sentence, before Jonah can even enjoy his encounter with God, shock waves begin exploding in his mind. His heart sinks when he hears God say, “Go to Ninevah.” I can just imagine Jonah’s inner protests. “God, you can’t really, mean Ninevah, the capitol city of Israel’s avowed enemy! They are scum. They capture and torture their enemies. Prisoners of Assyria pray for death to come and relieve their suffering. You aren’t going to use me to preach forgiveness to these cruel and violent people! I am a prophet for Israel.”
So, instead of traveling 500 miles east to Ninevah, Jonah turns the opposite direction, trekking to the seaport city of Joppa on the Mediterranean. From there he heads toward Tarshish, on the Atlantic coast of Spain. Just to get to Tarshish by ship meant a year and a half journey to the straits of Gibraltar. Jonah figures he’s escaped the Lord and has all the time in the world. What Jonah is really doing is abandoning his obligation to minister to the people of Ninevah. It’s an act of sinful rebellion. Jonah is a faithful prophet as long as God wants what Jonah wants. But when God’s command goes against what Jonah wants, Jonah decides he knows a better way. He is finally put out of commission. In the midst of a turbulent storm, the sailors are scared out of their wits. The boat is about to be pulled underwater because of the storm. The men toss the faithless Jonah overboard. Instantly, the sound and the fury of the storm, and the yelling and crying, and praying, and screaming cease. The sea is peaceful. The sailors shudder with wonder and praise God. But not the reluctant prophet. Not yet, at least. Jonah’s going to get some time to find new perspective in the belly of a great fish.
Let me ask you again, who do you follow? We should show some sympathy for Jonah before we get carried away with judgment. We shouldn’t condemn him without facing our own failure of faith. At one time or another we will all be faced with a command from God that’s difficult to hear, an instruction from God that sends us into a panic, an assignment that will cause us to run in the opposite direction, a calling that will prompt us to say, “Anything but that, Lord!” It is tragic for each one of us when we refuse to obey God’s clear command, because the result is that it puts us out of commission spiritually. Disobedience robs us of our credibility. Others see us and wonder why the “Christian” can’t get it together enough to carry out what he or she talks about. Disobedience puts us out of commission because if we call ourselves Christians, but we don’t have the faith to be totally obedient to God, our words and actions are hollow to a lost world that sees the church as a bunch of self‑absorbed hypocrites who are out of touch with the world and its problems. When we call ourselves Christians, but show lack of faith in God by doing things our own way, then the world has every right to question our credibility. Who do you follow? If you are afraid to follow God, then those around you, those who are looking at your words and your life for some glimmer of hope, will have no reason to put their hope in the Lord.
I think it’s interesting how God responds to disobedience. Let’s turn again to Jonah’s story. God responds with action. God doesn’t ignore Jonah’s rebellion. He doesn’t just sit by and allow Jonah to drift in his sins. Jonah is God’s chosen agent for a specific purpose, like it or not, and the Lord is prepared to offer correction. However, God also offers affection. I love verse 17: God arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. The Lord doesn’t allow Jonah to drown in the sea as a punishment. God keeps Jonah alive. He pursues and protects Jonah in his time of need.
Eating lunch at a small cafe, Mark Reed of Camarillo, California saw a sparrow hop through the open door and peck at the crumbs near his table. When the crumbs were gone, the sparrow hopped to the window ledge, spread its wings, and took flight, It was a brief flight. The sparrow crashed against the windowpane and fell to the floor. The bird quickly recovered and tried again. It crashed in to the window. So, it tried again and crashed in to the window. Mark got up and attempted to shoo the sparrow out the door, but the closer he got, the harder it threw itself against the pane. He nudged it with his hand. That sent the sparrow fluttering along the ledge, hammering its beak against the glass. Finally, Mark reached out and gently caught the bird, folding his fingers around its wings and body. It weighed almost nothing. He thought of how powerless and vulnerable the sparrow must have felt. At the door he released it and the sparrow sailed away. The sparrow only found freedom when it was lead to flight by Mark’s hands.
God’s response to our disobedience is twofold. Yes, there is discipline. But God is also compassionate. God understands our fear and our frailty. He sees our inability to go beyond our own plan. He knows how hard it is for us to recognize the reality of his love. And in those times he not only corrects, but God takes us in his hands, as if we are little birds, and God protects us from ourselves. God guides us with caring hands to the truth of what wonderful things can happen when we are obedient to God’s voice. God takes opportunities to confront us, to redirect us, to let us know that his ways are best, and to fill us with faith enough to trust his plans.
So, let me ask you again, who do you follow? Let me tell you about a man who did just the opposite of human nature. On January 3, 1865, King Kamehameha V of Hawaii issued a decree that obliged all lepers to make themselves known so that the incurable patients could be sent to a leprosarium on the island of Molokai. Despite their protests, victims of Hansen’s Disease were tracked own like game animals and captured and sent to the island. Contrary to newspaper reports there was nothing prepared for their reception. There were no beds or doctors in the hospital, and not enough huts for the people to live in. Those who died got neither a coffin nor a proper burial, and no one attempted to alleviate their suffering. The people gave up all sense of dignity and any desire for cleanliness or order. They had been treated like mangy animals, and being no longer respected as human beings, they proceeded to make beasts of themselves. By 1873, the public began to find out what was going on. One paper wrote, “Those whom the lepers most need are a priest and a doctor who would sacrifice themselves for the lepers by imprisoning themselves with them.” Until that time, the Catholic Bishop had set up a rotation of priests, to visit the island once a year. And while he knew that the lepers needed more pastoral care, he did not want to sentence a priest to go to the island as a full-time resident with the risk of catching the contagious disease. One priest volunteered to go. His name was Father Damien. He told the Bishop, “I want to go there! I know many of these unfortunate souls, and I ask only to share their lot and their prison. The Bishop gladly accepted the young priest’s offer.
Despite his quirks, Damien gave the lepers new a new church, an improved hospital, better living conditions, and a sense of dignity. He shared the love of God with these men and women. He went to the place where everyone else feared to venture, and he turned it around by obeying Christ. In 1889, 16 years after his arrival at Molokai, Father Damien died of leprosy. But thousands of men and women found healing through his sacrificial touch.
Jonah chapter one demonstrates the consequences when one fails to trust in God. Father Damien is an example of one who went to the Ninevah of his time, and obediently served the Lord. I encourage you to think of the Ninevah’s in your life, and to know that God may be calling you there. It may be a place. It may be a person or a relationship. God calls us, in faith, to trust him when as we go out as agents of reconciliation. So, go to Ninevah, following the Lord who wants all his people to know his mercy and love.
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