Christ the King Sunday
Reading: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14
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For I Know the Plans (Sermon)
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Category Archives: God’s work
Sacrifice (Sermon 9/15/13)
Genesis 21:1-3; 22:1-14
Sacrifice.
The life of faith is one of sacrifice. That’s the truth of it. Sacrifice on the part of God and sacrifice on the part of those who trust God, who want to trust God, who work to trust God.
Sacrifice.
Frankly, in a religious system that requires those who believe to tell others- sacrifice is among the LEAST appealing words. No one sings, “I love to tell the story. It is fierce and gory/ To tell the old, old story/ of Abr’m and his son.” We are squeamish at the songs that are about blood, about sacrifice, about giving up all our things, about the less- than- stellar human rights record of the church and its equally dull historical response to evil.
Sacrifice.
It is also difficult to realize that even reading Scripture requires sacrifice. There are things that cannot all be true when we read Scripture as a whole. We all generally have a habit of considering certain stories more relevant than others. In so doing, we sacrifice what we don’t want to think about or what seems unimportant to what we prefer or seems more significant to us.
Which brings us to the story of the testing of Abraham and the binding of Isaac. This is a terrible story, a horrific story, and, in general, the number one story cited by atheists as a proof for the rejection of God. What kind of God would do this?
And I’m confronted with a dilemma- do I defend God (is God’s reputation mine to defend)? Do I laud Abraham? Do I give Isaac or Sarah a voice that’s otherwise not recorded in the scripture? And I have a very small amount of time, so I will be sacrificing many things I’d like to say.
This story requires sacrifice from us. We can choose to sacrifice from among many things, but there are three main choices that we will lay upon the altar and prepare to offer up and away from us. We must either sacrifice the idea that this story is a historical fact or we must sacrifice the idea of a God who does not test through trauma or we sacrifice the idea of God’s perfect foreknowledge, that God knows what we will do before we do it.
The first sacrifice that we may make is the idea that all Scripture is a historical fact. The stories of Genesis and early Exodus, in particular, were first written down when the people of Israel were in exile. Some had been told for generations and generations, but others were organized during exile to give strength to the people. A particular story may not have actually occurred, but still contained an important truth that supported the life of the people who are doing the telling.
Israel was likely alone among its neighboring nations in not practicing child sacrifice. Other groups of people may also specifically have had a practice of sacrificing the first fruits of all things- plants, animals, and children. Israel needed story, an explanation, for the way they did things- sparing the firstborn children, refusing to kill their infants. The story of the binding of Isaac reveals a way that could have happened- God set up a situation to make it clear to Abraham that child sacrifice was NOT the things were to be done.
Maybe.
If this story is told during the exile- in Babylon or elsewhere- the people of Israel need to make sense of what’s happening to them and where God is in it. They perceive themselves to be the beloved of God, the firstborn of God’s plan, the vessels of God’s promises. They may be on the sacrificial altar of exile, but God will not let them be destroyed. Provisions will be made. Israel will not perish and the consolation story, the reminder tale, the encouraging word is a story going as far back as Abraham. God tested, but did not allow the beloved and longed- for son of Father-of-Many (which is what Abraham means) to die in the test.
If either of these constructions makes more sense to us than the idea that God would test Abraham in this way. Or that the man who argued on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah wouldn’t speak up for his son. If either of these reasons for the story is more acceptable, we have sacrificed the idea of historical fact (for this specific scripture reading) for a transmission of cultural truth.
Several years ago, I was meeting with some of the parents of children who attend our preschool (the kids do, not the parents). We met because a preschool family- two parents and two little girls- had died in a small plane crash. I met with people to talk about their own grief and to help them know how to discuss this with their children. We had a long talk about where God might be in such a tragedy and what we could know and what we didn’t know. At the end of a good conversation, just before we prayed, one woman said, “I don’t know. I believe God does these things sometimes to test our faith.”
I just looked at her, thinking, “If God feels the need to kill a whole family just to test our faith, then I’m out. I’m done. No more.” What I said was, “Hmm… well, let’s pray.” Maybe we look at this story and we think, “This is not the word of the Lord for me. I can’t believe in a God who tests through trauma. I have come to trust that God may stretch me and push me and even hit me upside the head sometimes. However, a God that kills children, a God that would even suggest it, a God that creates and uses horrible and traumatic situations to bolster faith, which is supposed to be a gift- I can’t believe in that God. I won’t.”
Perhaps we read this story and we have to either sacrifice the idea of a God who wouldn’t test through trauma (meaning God did and God does). Or we trust that God tempers our faith, but the wretched things that happen in life are not a result of God’s desire to see us be more faithful. They are the result of our choice (sometimes), the choices of others (sometimes), and the forces that oppose God. If God tests through trauma, then God wants Syrian civilians to die. God expects great faith to come from 8 and 9 year-old girls who are given in marriage to 40-year-old men in Yemen. God is building enormous trust through the inequality and inhumanity that is our criminal justice system.
If we want to accept that this story is factual and significant to Scripture as a real event, we must accept that God made Abraham righteous, but also tested the limits of that righteousness. That if God will test through trauma one time, God would, could, and does do it again. Is that a sacrifice you’re willing to make, a belief you’re willing to accept? Because holding that to be true will prove to sacrifice a certain peace of mind about God’s will in which we’ve usually found peace.
The last, and hardest, sacrifice we might make with this story is the notion that divine foreknowledge is perfect. Maybe God knows the arc of how things will work out, but does not always know how we will respond. God made a series of very serious covenants with Abraham- promises that involved generations, land, and blessings. God didn’t make these promises to just anyone and maybe it was time be sure the choice was a good one. Before Isaac gets to the age of reproducing, before the generations really get rolling, before Abraham tries to pass Sarah off as his sister again (as he did twice before), God needs to be sure that Abraham is truly faithful, is trusting, and is worthy of the work God intends to do through him. And God tests because God does not know for sure.
How does that sit with you- the idea that God does not know what we will do before we do it? This is the ultimate definition of free will- that we are faced with a myriad of choices and responses to God’s actions (God always moves first). When human actions occur, God responds- using the Spirit to bring about good. If God already knows what we will do, then why would God be involved in the world at all now? God can retreat, sit on God’s lounge chair, and relax until whatever time it is that Jesus will return. If we sacrifice the idea that God has perfect foreknowledge, we are received, instead, into a relationship with an active and responsive God.
I haven’t explained the story of the binding of Isaac. I haven’t said a firm statement about why it’s there or what it means. I can’t. We come to this story and it does require sacrifice of us. We must either embrace it as a story with truth, but not facts. Or we must believe in a God who tests through trauma, among other things. Or we have to let go of the idea that God has predestined and knows every action.
This story requires a sacrifice, but so does all faithful living. We must sacrifice the idea that we can save ourselves, that we are in control, that our goodness brings redemption, that sanctification (becoming more holy) happens through our willpower. We must sacrifice the idea that we can fully know and, in the ashes of that surrender, the peace that passes our understand can and does bloom.
We have welcomed Jax into a life that is mysterious, frustrating, and powerfully hopeful. And it’s full of sacrifices, starting with God’s own willingness to create, to be involved, to walk among us, and to pour out the Spirit in blessing and guidance.
Sacrifice.
The life of faithfulness is one of sacrifice. That’s the truth of it. Sacrifice on the part of God and sacrifice on the part of those who trust God, who want to trust God, who work to trust God.
Amen.
Lord’s Prayer: Fifth Petition
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
The most frequent conversation I have around this petition is which word people prefer: some like trespasses, some like sins, and some like debts. Let’s think about them for a minute.
Trespass… a trespass is occupying a space that one does not have the right to be. A person who abuses another person physically or emotionally is clearly trespassing… using and misusing space that is not theirs.
Sin… a sin is an attempt at power, an effort to control a situation or another person. Sinning might happen through trying to manipulate with words or power or it might be a sneaky way of cutting corners or even gossiping. A shared conversation about a person who is not in the room, which is not positive or uplifting, is about feeling more powerful than them in the moment. That’s an example of sin.
The language of debts and debtors is clearly about a gap in a relationship. One person owes the other person something or a group owes another group. It might be reparations for past actions, it might be financial, or it might be an effort to make up for a failure to act. A community’s efforts to exclude a certain group of people or a city’s neglect of certain areas or locations might be considered establishing a debt.
So those are examples of how sins, trespasses, and debts works between people. How do those things work between people and God? What are examples of how we trespass, sin, or are indebted to God?
Trespass: How do we occupy a space that only God has a right to be? Where to we trample in a space that should belong to God?
Sin: What are our attempts at power that should belong to God? How do we attempt to usurp authority that should only belong to God?
Debts: What do we owe God? What debt is there between God and us that we cannot cover?
When we talk about forgiveness, we tend to either discuss how grateful we are for God’s forgiveness or we talk about how other people need to forgive or what we might not be able to forgive. We rarely talk about how hard it is to actually forgive someone. We rarely talk about the effects of not forgiving. We hardly mention the mental and emotional and physical toll of holding onto how we have been trespassed, sinned against, and the debts that others have incurred.
What can sin do? Sin can affect our self-perception. It can make us feel ashamed and insecure. We feel uncertain. We are assured of God’s love, but our ability to experience it seems dampened and frustrated.
Sin builds barriers. Even if we are in a safe place, holding on to the sins that have been committed to us keeps us from being able to fully engage with and experience relationships with other people around us. We cannot trust them- because if we do… they might hurt us in the same way.
Sin makes us feel weak. When we are angry, it’s not actually a powerful feeling. We feel frustrated and powerless. We feel ineffective and hurt. We might like a good rant or vent, but ultimately, as long as we focus on what’s been done to us, we have no power. In fact, we are giving the power to the person or group that has hurt us.
Forgiveness, on the other hand, centers us in who God is, breaks down barriers, and empowers. When God forgives, it is the essence of who God is. God’s self is revealed to be merciful and loving. When God forgives, barrier- real and perceived, come down. We are reminded that nothing can come between God and God’s love for all creation through Jesus Christ. That love is made real through grace and through the Spirit- gifts and manifestations of forgiveness.
God is in control and forgiveness is the revelation of that control. God is not momentarily distracted by anger or revenge. God laments, but brings things around to growth and renewal through forgiving sins, trespasses, and debts. Our attempts at control, our efforts to play God, the obligations we cannot cover… God’s forgiveness heals these things.
When we forgive, healing occurs as well. We can be centered in who God has made us to be. We are able to be in relationship with others. You feel empowered. If I don’t forgive the person who hurts me… they can continue to hurt me. They have the power, even if they are miles away… by not forgiving them… the trespass or sin or debt… I am controlled by an event and a person who is not myself and is not my God. I have no freedom. I am managed by something outside myself… and that spirals out quickly, as most of us know.
Forgiveness is hard, but if we don’t do it… if we don’t actually do the work of letting go, of mending where possible, of distancing if necessary, of regaining our center in Christ, of being led by the Holy Spirit instead of a spirit of anger or revenge or victimization… if we don’t do the work of forgiveness, how can we truly begin to trust and rejoice in God’s forgiveness of our sins? If we are holding onto to slights and blows, historical sins and anticipated future trespasses… how can we faithfully live in the hope that God can bring good out of all things. If we do not do the work of forgiveness, what is the framework we have for doing anything else that God has called us to do?
Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian pastor and theologian, said:
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.The skeleton at the feast is you.[1]
There is a feast to which we are called… not just invited, but called… a feast that is the food of forgiveness of ourselves and others. To taste of that feast is to taste of God… not a foretaste of the feast to come… but of meal that already is… juicy, abundant, sweet, filling, comforting, and nourishing… forgiveness.
Amen.
Whose Blueprint
I strongly recommend the sound file of this sermon (at the bottom) to you , as it has the transitions missing in the text.
Easter 7 (Narrative Lectionary, Year C)
Easter 7 (Narrative Lectionary, Year C)
12 May 2013
Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29
What bewitches us?
We are (all) easily distracted (or seduced) by things that are not important. How many times have you lost an hour or three to television or to the Internet and ended up feeling guilty about that time? Very few of us have had that same experience in prayer or devotional time. Yet, false piety can be equally bewitching. We are not called to live lives of sequestered prayer and study, but prayer and devotion in word and deed. Our prayers are in how we live, how we use our time and talents, how we reveal our trust in God’s grace.
The Galatians were “bewitched” by false teachers who continued to emphasize the necessity of fulfilling all of the laws of Judaism in order to be assured of God’s blessing through Christ. Paul rejects this notion. The law was and is important for those who were born into it, he says. However, God is bringing others into the good news of freedom in Jesus Christ. Their right-ness with God comes through Jesus’ faithfulness alone- not through anything that they are able to do to merit that grace or favor.
What do commercials/ads tell us is important?
We are all subjected to advertizing- both subtle and overt- that says we are not yet what we could be. We can be stronger, faster, more beautiful, smarter, more useful, more clever, a better parent/neighbor/child/spouse… with just one more product, one more item, one more thing. That final thing will give us what we’ve been missing to have a perfect life. Until we get it and we find that we are still lacking. In addition to exacerbating and exploiting our fears, commercials reveal a poor system of creation- where the only way a person can succeed is if someone else fails. In the commercialized and commodified system, people become the means to our achievements- not through support and mutual aid, but because we can climb over them in our race to the top.
How can we live into God’s grace in our lives?
Faithful living seems daunting when we understand it to be a system of perfect and perfected belief. The Spirit tries to draw us away from that idea- into an understanding that the life of faith is one of trust in God’s promises and actions. Neither our belief system nor our actions save us or even get God “right”, but we trust in God’s work of justifying us through Christ. Furthermore, our trust is not in the on-going act of justification (being made right), but in the completed action of justification. It’s not something God is doing that God could decide to stop. Bringing the world into right relationship through Jesus Christ is something that God has already done. It is finished. (Heard that phrase before?)
Thus, we are being helped by the Spirit to understand that justification, to accept that right-ness, to live into the trust that God’s on-going work of creation and healing serves to help understand what God has already done. Not to earn it. Not to complete it. But to come to see ourselves and everyone around us through the light of Jesus.
Blueprint
This is a blueprint of a proposed remodel/addition to this church dated May 1969. There is a note on it from 1977 saying that this proposal was never used. Yet we’ve saved it. We have saved proposed changes to a building that no long exists as it did forty-four (44) years ago.
Why do we still have it? Some of you would say it is because we never throw anything away. I suspect that for years, people said, “We might use it. It might be useful. Don’t throw it away just yet.”
Even as the building changed and changed again, we still held on to an old idea, an old picture, a possibility- even though it wouldn’t work.
This is what so many of us do when it comes to grace. We keep our old blueprint. We say: Yes, we are clothed in Christ. Yes, we are new creations. Yes, we have been made right with God through God’s own actions. But we want to keep this blueprint… We want to hold on to our notions of how the world works… We are afraid… and we might need a fallback plan- in case God doesn’t come through.
Don’t raise your hand. Has anyone thought that before? It sounds so terrible when I say it out loud, but it is what so many of us do. We trust that grace is true, but we want to hold on to our blueprint- our way of seeing the world, just in case.
Bewitched by our illusion of control
We are bewitched by our illusions of control. When my grandmother died, the rabbi for the funeral home (who didn’t really know her), spoke very briefly at her funeral service. I am sure he meant to be comforting and inclusive when he talked about remembering her and her legacy and then said, “Whatever God there is or isn’t…” I thought, “What?!? Whatever God there is or isn’t…” It is one thing to be cautious about the actions one attributes to God, but it’s another thing entirely to straddle the fence at a time of proclamation.
I called another pastor after the service and complained, “Who says that? I could do better than that.” The pastor laughed and said, “Sure you could, but more importantly, God does better than that.”
We have been called, through the Spirit, into lives of proclamation- lives that say “God is”, lives that are lived without fear, lives that are carried forward because of what God has already done.
When we hold onto our blueprints- our maps and attempts to say that we might need our own power later- we are living lives that say, “Whatever God there is or isn’t…” When we refuse to listen to the siren song of the commercial world or the whisper of the forces that oppose God, when we swallow our fears and live by trusting in God’s grace… we are living like Abraham and Sarah.
When we trust that we are not defined by our work, our race, our abilities, our body types, our mental state, our family’s achievements, our church’s size, our ability to pray… when we trust that we are defined by Christ and Christ alone… then we have the courage to welcome all people, to care for our neighbors, to work for change in our community, to appreciate creation.
Trust is not about fully comprehending and explaining a formula or creed. It is about prayerful and devotional living- without fear- through confidence in what God has finished in Jesus Christ.
The promise we have inherited is not that there may or may not be a God who may or may not be working on something for the future. The promise we have inherited is that God who knows all things, who made all things, who has saved all things has included us in that salvation through Jesus the Christ. It is on the authority of this promise that we throw out our plans and live into God’s blueprint- an outline that has remodeled us all into the image of Christ.
Dying For and Dying To (Sermon, Easter 3)
Acts 6:1-14, 7:44-60
Once there was a church full of people who loved Jesus and who tried to love one another. They had the best of intentions in all they did, in worship and in serving others. They even hosted a food pantry of sorts with fresh food that was passed out so that all could eat and be satisfied.
Of course, behind the scenes, things were less rosy. There were some who wished that church could be the way it always was. Too many changes made them upset. They felt that the congregation needed to slow down, heed what had always worked, and focus on their community.
There were others who felt that innovation was needed, that the church needed to be more open and outward-focused. These people were interested in different styles of worship and new areas of service. They struggled with how slowly things seemed to change and were frustrated by their inability to change everything all at once.
Then the leaders wanted to help, but were stretched in too many directions. Not all the homebound were being visited, not everyone who needed help was being seen, and when the leaders focused more on administrative tasks- the worship suffered. The community struggled to get things done, to get things right, and to get along with one another.
This description, of course, is of the church in early Acts. The Christians who were from Jewish backgrounds had memories of the temple worship and a sense of tradition. They were the ones who had always “belonged” and they felt that honoring those traditions was critical to the future of the community that followed Jesus. The Hellenists, Gentile Christian who spoke Greek, were newer to the community, but were equal contributors. They showed up and volunteered and were truly dedicated. They felt that in return for their dedication- their families and relatives should receive the same considerations (like being a part of the distribution of goods).
The apostles and leaders in the community wanted to be dedicated to teaching and preaching about Jesus, but when they get caught up in the other workings of the community- they aren’t able to study and pray in a way that leads to effective leadership. In order to remedy that situation, they divide up some of the tasks. In particular, seven men are appointed to head up the food distribution- the passing out of goods that everyone has brought together for the good of the order.
Stephen is one of those seven. He is assigned to distribute food, but he cannot refrain from preaching as he does it. Instead of just handing out the bread and the fruit, he talks about why they are doing this and the motivation behind their community living. He makes some people very angry by pointing out how they are still ignoring the work of God in the world, just as people have done since the world’s beginning. He offends the wrong people and they kill him. He dies for and in the Lord. (And he does so with Saul looking on and approving.)
Despite the struggles and divisions in the early church over all kinds of things, the Holy Spirit continued to work through them so that people continued to be brought to the faith. Yes, more of them died. Many more were killed for their faithful actions. It had little to with what they believed and lots to do with what they were willing to do to be a part of God’s work of justice and peace in their towns and cities. In order to live out the way of discipleship, some died for the faith and some died to their ideas of the faith.
Everyone who decided to follow the way of Jesus had to let go of certain ideas, certain convictions, certain assumptions about the world, about other people, about life in community. They had to die- to perish the thoughts- so that the new life of Christ could grow in them. That new life comes with a lot of extra growth that needs much room.
The community of Christ today is called to the same new life. What are we willing to die to so that the community of Christ will grow? Do we have the conviction of Stephen to continue to talk of Christ, even when it’s not officially our job and when it makes others angry? Are we willing to let go of the way things have always been so that things may become the way God is shaping them to be?
What would you give up to see new people learning about the love and life in God? What about our life in Christ would you die for and what should you die to?
We cannot expect that the God of renewal and reformation intends for the church to remain the same. We cannot hope that the Spirit of fire and water will leave things unaltered and unaffected by time and circumstance. We dare not rest on the idea that the Christ of healing and justice will allow us to sit back and organize our creeds while the world struggles in darkness.
The life of faith is a life of action. A life of action has seasons of growth and seasons of dying. What in this community, in the larger church, in each of our lives is dying so that God’s new growth can spring forth?
Despite the divisions, the arguments, and the deep grief over change, the early church worked forward in the Spirit to keep the way of life in Jesus the Christ alive and changing their world. We are called to no less of a life of action in discipleship. In fact, we are called to the very same life of healing, sharing, and working for justice. And the very same Spirit is at work in us… carrying us through deaths (of people, of ideas, of traditions) and bringing forth new and abundant life.
Amen.
This sermon was inspired by this blog post by Jan Edmiston: http://www.ecclesio.com/2013/03/a-risky-invitation-jan-edmiston/. I’ve been thinking about this since I first read it- weeks ago.
Faith, Grace, and Hope 