Election Day

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday April 27, 2008, the 6th Sunday in Easter.

Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:8-20
1Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The last thing I have to tell any of us is that Election Day is coming closer every day. I wish I could tell you, I would love to tell you all it’s just around the corner, but that would be a lie. After nearly a year and a half of candidates, debates, and scandal-gates, we will be celebrating the democratic process for nearly 30 more weeks. In the end of the process, voters will be responsible for electing candidates for city, county, district, state, and national office. As we learned in the 2000 election this isn’t quite true for the Presidency, but this is no place to try to explain the Electoral College.

The concept of election also has theological roots, far different from those of the political realm. Of course, theologians can’t agree on precisely what “election” means. One ancient understanding of this concept is that the Lord preordains some persons to be saved and others to be condemned. This is called “double predestination.” While this understanding of election has historical legs, it is not right.

After all, as we know, the Lord is the Lord of life, not the Lord of death. It is outside of the character of God to create life only to have it sentenced to eternal death. Remember, in the words of John’s gospel as Jesus promises his disciples, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”

This isn’t the issue Paul was running into when he brought the Good News to Athens. He was teaching the truth of life eternal in Jesus Christ in the Synagogue and in the market place, where ever people would listen.

When Paul reached Athens with the Gospel, the people were intrigued. Receiving new philosophies wasn’t new to the Athenians; they loved new ideas and new philosophies. Still, while the Good News Paul shared with them was new and strange; but the Athenians weren’t sure about something this new and strange.

So Paul began by acknowledging the spirituality of the Greeks; and the Greeks of the day were a highly spiritual, very religious people. The Greeks of that day would have no trouble living in our world with its many religions, pseudo-religions, and new age philosophies. In fact, while they didn’t invent new age religion, they could easily have laid the groundwork for its current incarnation.

The Greeks were so spiritual, and so (if you’ll pardon the expression) politically correct that they would erect shrines to Gods they didn’t know existed in the off chance that if an unknown God showed up; he she or whatever would not be offended. Imagine the ancient goat god Baal showing up in Athens asking where his statue is and being told “It’s over here; you must be ‘other.’”

Paul used the Athenian anticipation of the unknown to share with them what they did not know. Paul told them of the God who made the world and everything in it. He told them of the God who breathed life into creation. He told them of the God who created life so that the living would search for its creator just as they do.

He told them of the God who created the world, so we do not need to create shrines where God can live; God lives everywhere. We shouldn’t even think of God like the idols and altars forged of gold, or silver, or stone; or of any other sort of image forged by our imaginations.

He told of God who is not served by human hands as though he needed human hands to serve him. He told of the God who freely creates out of love for creation wanting nothing more and nothing less than for creation to seek God; not because God needs it, but because God wants it. God wants a relationship with creation and has freely given all of creation the yearning to join in the life eternal.

What God wants is for creation to repent from the ancient ways and, to turn to new life because this God “has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

So if God doesn’t want us to build him shrines or altars, if God doesn’t want little houses like Peter wanted to build at the transfiguration, what does God want?

God wants us to repent. And in Jesus Christ, repentance is no longer marked by returning to the ways of the law; it is in developing a relationship with the one who created the Law, the one who is the embodiment of the Law.[1]

In our reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples how he wants to be worshiped; he tells them how to love him. Jesus tells them “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But if we are to live for the one who wrote the law, not for the law itself, what does it mean to keep his commandments?

We are called to respond to the Word of God in faith, not in fear. We are to respond to a relationship with a living being, the Living God; not out of fear of reprisal from statues we could never hope to keep.

“For both Paul and John repentance is included in faith. Paul speaks of faith as union with Christ; the death of the old nature, the putting on of the new humanity, resurrection to newness of life, and new creation. The Johannine literature presents the life in Christ as rebirth; movement from death to life and from darkness to light; or as the triumph of truth over falsehood, love over hatred, God over the world.”[2]

And God so knows that we need help to strengthen our faith that he will send an advocate, a counselor, a helper so that we may keep Jesus’ commandments. Through Jesus, God sends the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Life who helps us to keep the faith. It is through the work of the Spirit and faith in the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, that we live. Because God lives, we live and on that day, that day of judgment and redemption, we will know that Jesus is in the Father and being in Jesus, Jesus is in us.

One of the great truths of the church which came from the reformation is that we are saved by grace through faith. Last week, I spoke of the radical nature of grace. Grace is the freely given gift of unmerited favor. We can do nothing to earn grace. We can’t buy it with cash, our good acts or even our repentance. Last week I said:

Jesus is the way to the Father’s house, the Father’s family. In this we are all the sons and daughters of God Almighty and brothers and sisters of Jesus our Lord. Jesus has provided the way for us whether we ask for it or not.
There is nothing we can do to ask for or accept the gift of grace which is given long before our ability to accept it.[3]

We are saved by grace through faith. Grace is God’s freely given gift. But without our response to this gift, it is worthless. Unless we live in relationship with the Lord, sharing the grace and peace of Jesus, unless we keep his command to love and share—grace is wasted on us.

In Acts Paul teaches us that our response comes in repentance through faith. We are called to turn from the old ways and (in the case of the Athenians) many Gods to the one true God.

America’s Election Day is coming soon, November 11, 2008. In Acts, Paul promises the Athenians that God has fixed a day when the world will be judged. On our election day, we, citizens, voters will judge the quality of the candidates and elect the ones who will govern us. According to Acts, God will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. That man is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who has been elected by his Father.

We talk about human election and predestination when in truth the one who is elect is our Lord Jesus Christ. No one else can claim this status. But through his work, and the presence of his Spirit, by grace through faith we share a bond, a love, a relationship with the triune God.

Jesus promises us as individuals and together as the body of Christ that he is coming; he will not leave us orphaned. This is not because Jesus needs us but because Jesus wants us. We are given the gift of grace so that we may respond in faith and love through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is how we keep his commandments.

Last week’s reading from John’s gospel began, “In my father’s house there is room for everyone,”[4] through faith, we enter the household of God for the death of the old nature, the putting on of the new humanity, resurrection to newness of life, and new creation.[5]

[1] Repentance, “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” Buttirck, Editor. 21st Printing, Electronic Edition, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962
[2] Ibid.
[3] Stories of Life, http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2008/04/stories-of-life.html, retrieved April 26, 2008.
[4] New Living Translation
[5] Ibid, Repentence.