Sunday, June 16, 2013

Unworthy

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday June 16, 2013, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.



1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21
Psalm 5:1-8
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

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

Rules, I have been thinking a lot about rules lately. Two weeks ago in Sunday School I said that according to Genesis (by my reckoning at least), humanity began with one simple rule: “Don’t eat that.” Sure, there were chores; we were to tend the garden. We had responsibilities too; we were called to worship and be in community with God. But really, there was only one rule, “Don’t eat that.” So, how’d that work out for us?

Gradually, the number of rules increased. From one, we went to the Ten Commandments. Eventually those weren’t enough for an increasingly complex society. In the 3rd Century Rabbi Simlai, compiled a list of Mosaic Laws from the Torah. According to Rabbi Simlai there are 613 commandments or mitzvot, the Taryag Mitzvot. 

The Taryag Mitzvot are separated into two categories, there are 248 mitzvot aseh, or positive commands, the things we are called to do. There are also 365 mitzvot lo taaseh, or negative commands, the things we are called never to do. As it happens, these numbers have cultural significance. According to Jewish tradition 248 corresponds to the number of bones and significant organs in the human body and 365 corresponds to the number of days in the year.[i] 

Some of these rules make perfect sense to us today, things like, “Know there is a God,” “Know God is One,” and “Entertain thoughts of no other god except for the One True God.” We’re familiar with these rules. These are lessons Jesus teaches in the gospels. Then again, there are others we do not follow. For example, the Taryag Mitzvot includes the prohibition against eating non-kosher fish. Sorry, but I enjoy catfish and shrimp.  Neither is kosher, but both are tasty. In fact, if someone brings either of these wrapped with bacon for your next potluck, I will make it my purpose in life to make sure you don’t have to worry about leftovers. Let’s face it, bacon isn’t kosher either, but my mouth is watering anyway.

Closer to home, the constitution of the United States of America is just over 4,600 words long. That is about the same number of words that we will hear in this worship service including everything except the announcements and the music. It may seem long, but as the foundation of a nation over 225 years old it’s relatively brief. In comparison, the current tax code, just one element of what is made allowable by the constitution, is between 55,000 and 60,000 pages long depending on who you ask. I saw those numbers and thought, “Really, there’s 5,000 pages of wiggle room?” There are more pages of wiggle room than there are words in the document that authorizes the code’s very existence.

Truly how can anybody really say they know the entire tax code when there is so much of it? The commentary and the compendium of case law increases the size of tax code beyond my imagination. This truth leads us to another: If you looked deeply enough into the tax code and into anybody’s taxes then you would be able to find a violation. There are just so many small and arcane laws that the slightest thing could slip you up. I don’t say this to scare you; I say this to prove a point. With enough law there is something to convict everyone.

How many laws does it take to reach this critical mass? I don’t know, but according to the Apostle Paul it’s below 613.

Paul told the Galatians “We who are Jews by birth know that a person is not justified by the works of the law.” Other translations say “a person is not justified through the faithfulness of the law.” Paul knows and tells all with ears to hear that there is no way the law can justify us. Hiding in those 613 Taryag Mitzvot, and of course the commentaries and the compendium of case law, hiding in there is something to trip us all. There is always something in the law to convict us all. Literally, if you try to be justified, found worthy in the eyes of God through the law, you will fail.

If you try to be worthy in the eyes of God through the law, you will fail. In the law we are all unworthy.

Seeking legal justification is a loser’s game. That’s why we need something different, something better. Something that does what the law can’t. So, as we transition to our reading from Luke let me ask you, who placed their faith in the Law of Moses and their ability to fulfill that law? That’s right, the Pharisees!

You can’t blame the Pharisees of any time and place for trying to justify themselves in the law. Few knew the law better. They knew what it took to be justified in the law and it worked well enough for them. They had the best seats in the synagogue. They were served first at banquets. Life was good and you can’t blame them if they are satisfied with the life society offers them.

So Simon the Pharisee knew there was a new rabbi in town and knew he was responsible for some pretty heady stuff. Having him over for dinner was an absolute coup!

In our reading Jesus came to Simon’s home for dinner. Dinners of this sort were held in semi-public areas of the home, so it was more like a banquet held at a street fair than in someone’s dining room. This public access allowed people who were not invited to come and go and scope out the host and the guests.

Between who was invited, who wasn’t invited, and the seating arrangements; folks would be able to see who’s who and what’s what without buying this week’s People magazine. 

But this one particular woman did not fit in with Simon’s dinner plans. She was a woman of the city, a sinner to boot. Luke does not give us any indication of what her “sin” is, but the one thing we can tell is that the wages of sin must have paid pretty well. She was able to afford an alabaster jar of costly ointment. These items were not cheap, so whatever her sin was, it wasn’t mismanaging money. 

While anyone would be able to drop in on the dinner party, she was not welcome. It is obvious by Simon’s reaction to her that she was a gate crasher, a woman flying solo who was not welcome at the party. Since she was not being accompanied by either a husband or male relative, that added another cultural no-no.

As the old saying goes, “In for a penny, in for a pound.” As long as her behavior was so scandalous, she went all the way. She wept so much that she was able to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears. Having no towel she washed his feet with her hair, then she anointed them with the costly perfume. The laundry list of cultural taboos she was breaking now included touching a man she is not related to and letting her hair down in public. Simon had enough of her appalling behavior. This was his party, and this sinner was not about to upstage the host.

Simon first says to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” If this Jesus was worth half of what everyone said about him, he would not allow himself to be defiled like this by this woman. This personal aside doesn’t get past Jesus though.

So Jesus tells Simon and the guests the one about the moneylender and the debtors.  He begins, “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?”

Something everyone then would have known that we may not is that the normal living daily wage in that time was one denarius. If we lived in that time we also would have known that both of these debts would have been nearly impossible for a common worker to repay. The lesser debt would take two months of wages to repay and the greater about twenty.

Simon answers Jesus rightly: “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt will love him more.” It’s not that both won’t love the lender for forgiving their unrepayable debts, but the one with the greater debt will love more.

Jesus takes Simon’s words and declares, “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven.” Then he says to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus tells her that her sins are forgiven, but not because of what she’s done. The way we often see it, sinful people perform a great act of penance and generosity and then Jesus says “you are forgiven.” But that’s not what Jesus says. The key is found in the word hence.

Look at verse 47 again: “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven.” Jesus says her sins are forgiven without any accounting of her actions at the banquet. She has sinned and her sins have been forgiven. Her actions at the banquet have nothing to do with gaining forgiveness. It is then that Jesus says, “Hence she has shown great love.”

Know this; Jesus demonstrates that her forgiveness does not lie in holy acts, but her virtue does. It is not virtue that leads to forgiveness, not at all. She anoints and kisses his feet not to receive forgiveness of sins but because she has received this glorious gracious gift. Jesus shares this truth with everyone at the banquet.

After the story, Jesus returns us to Simon’s internal narrative about the woman and against Jesus. Yes, I said that correctly, about the woman—against Jesus. Simon is no fan of the little gate crasher, but his thoughts accuse Jesus. Simon asks himself “What kind of prophet can this man be? I have heard such wondrous things about the great Jesus of Nazareth, but he allows himself to be handled by a sinful woman.”

In true Jesus’ style, he turns the table on his host.  As important as table manners and banquet etiquette were in ancient Israel, hospitality codes older than Abraham were infinitely more important. Providing hospitality to his guests was Simon’s first responsibility.

Jesus reminds Simon when a guest is invited into the home, it is traditional to offer water to wash the feet. In a time and place where people wore sandals and shared the roads horses and livestock, washing the feet became a ritual. It was also proper to offer oil. In a time when Ivory soap was still more than1850 years on the horizon[ii] oil was used like soap. And the welcoming kiss was as ordinary as a handshake is to us today. Simon was not bothered to offer Jesus any of these things.

For a guy who knew how to live according to the Law, Simon the Pharisee wasn’t doing a very good job. He was fundamentally lacking in his responsibilities as a host and that was not right in the eyes of the law.

Jesus accuses Simon. Yes her sins are many, and his sins are also so vast than he could never hope to repay them by his own works. Just like the monetary debts, his sins are too abundant to repay. Just like the monetary debt, our sins are too abundant to repay too.

What Paul taught is so very important for us to remember: We are saved by grace through faith, not by any work that we could ever do. We are called to know that even if we are “good” by whatever measure, our sin is a debt too great to ever repay on our own. The Law will never justify, it will only convict. Yet through Jesus Christ we are forgiven. The law convicts, grace through faith in Christ redeems.

There are times in our lives when someone will say each of us is unworthy. One way or another we are found lacking, just not good enough. In the eyes of the law and in the eyes of those who use their own little metrics to measure us, we are deemed unworthy.

But let us remember, nothing the sinful woman could do earned her forgiveness. She is made worthy by Jesus alone. By Christ’s own nature she was made worthy. In forgiveness, in God’s grace accepted through faith, she responded by doing what the hoity-toity Pharisee would not. She responded to the forgiveness she received. She responded by serving the Lord God, Jesus the Christ. The Pharisee didn’t respond at all.

Let’s face it, Simon the Pharisee probably thought the sinful woman in the story was the “debtor of 200 denarii”. In the final analysis, he might well have been wrong about that too. The good news is that in Christ, by grace alone, that doesn’t matter anymore.
[i] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[ii] Ivory soap was first sold in 1879, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_soap, accessed June 15, 2007
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Sunday, June 09, 2013

Receiving Good Gifts

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Henderson, Texas on Sunday June 9, 2013, the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time.



1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17

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

When I was in junior high school, we read stories by the great American author William Sydney Porter, the writer known better as O. Henry. We read “The Ransom of Red Chief,” and it was a lot of fun. Who doesn’t know a little hellion child like Red Chief? It was easy to catch the ironic twist of the story’s ransom in reverse, even for a bunch of middle schoolers. One that caught us off guard was “The Gift of the Magi.” Let me say that I did not understand the story or the literary concepts being explored.

I just didn’t have a grip on the story. As a twelve year old boy I thought it was heartbreaking, though I didn’t have the words to express that concept yet. Getting the most wonderful gift in the world and having no use for it was tragic. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, especially at Christmas; especially since at the time I thought more about getting presents than I did of giving and receiving gifts.

This scene from 1Kings is positively heart wrenching. The editors of the New Revised Standard Version do it no favors when they title the reading “The Widow of Zarephath.” The plight of a widow was tragic in these most ancient of days. Literally widows had no social standing. There was no one to care for them. It wasn’t as if there was life insurance. If your job is to take care of the husband and the household, and your husband dies, you are in big trouble.

Often a woman would not be able to return to her mother and father. Addressing Elijah she says “As the Lord your God lives” implying that she is not an Israelite but an immigrant which brings its own ill tidings. It is obvious from our reading that this woman’s son is not old enough to work or else he would be providing for them. Finally let’s remember that all of this is in the middle of a drought and it’s a recipe for the perfect storm of spiraling poverty. She has nothing, literally nothing but the clothes on her back, enough meal and oil for one cake of bread, and the want for it all to end.

If you think that last statement is bleak, it’s actually rosier than what’s found in scripture. When the prophet asks the widow for a morsel of bread from her hand she replies, “I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” There may be no greater words of despair in literature. She has seen her plight; she knows what’s coming next. This world has nothing for her. The hope she had for her son and the future of her family is gone. She is helpless and hopeless.

Then comes the promise, the promise of an extravagant gift. Elijah promises the widow that if she prepares him some bread using her meal and oil, and then prepare a little something for herself and her son, then the meal and oil will not forsake them before the Lord brings rain again on the earth.

At this point in the narrative I wonder what the widow was thinking. She called Elijah a man of the Lord, but did she wonder who he would be to her and her family? Did she suspect that this miracle could really happen? Did she think she would receive her own private manna to lead her through her wilderness? Was there hope or was this just a man trying to take advantage of her? Scripture is silent so the world will never know. All we know is that she did as the prophet instructed.

If the scripture ended here we would only have the promise, we would not have the fulfillment. Reconciliation in the form of a gift of bread is still a pipe dream at this moment, a gift she takes the risk to receive.

Luke’s gospel gives us another widow, the widow of Nain. Things haven’t changed for widows since the time of the Kings. Her situation was no better than the widow of Zarephath. Actually her situation was worse because with her son’s death, her one remaining link to family and the community was laying on a bier. Of course she was crying. Her son was gone and her place in the world was gone too. Her place in the world was gone.

Jesus and his disciples saw this. They all knew what was happening. Sorrow would be their natural reaction. Compassion and pity, which is the same word in biblical Greek, were in order too, but only Jesus could do something more than compassion and pity. Jesus could do more than react, he could act.

Elijah tells the widow “Do not be afraid.” Jesus tells the widow “Do not weep.” Elijah comes in the name of the Lord: Jesus comes as the Lord incarnate. Elijah shares with the woman what the Lord has instructed him. Jesus shares the presence and the power of Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus says “Young man, I say to you, rise!” and he does. The dead man sat up and Jesus gave him to his mother. The man who was dead now lives. In addition, his mother is alive again in the eyes of the community. By her son she is restored to the community. By the Son of God she is restored to life with her son.

A fear seized all of them, as they rejoiced this miracle fear seizes them. One of the things that could have scared them is that action, even the action of the Lord, comes with consequences. The scripture tells us this was “some time later” in relation to the events we read last week. Other translations say the next day. A little day counting and we discover that these events happen on a Sabbath. Healing is dicey enough, but healing on the Sabbath is a point controversial in scripture. Something else that may have scared the funeral procession is that Jesus touched the dead man. Jesus touched him and when he did cultural taboos and purity laws ring in their heads.

The people say “A great prophet has risen among us!” but it takes more than a great prophet to do what Jesus has done, taking on the law and bringing grace to the people. It takes a prophet, a priest, and a king; a Messiah. As the people say “God has looked favorably on his people!” God has given us the greatest gift of them all.

There are ways scripture invites us to see beyond what’s written on the page. There is an intimate nuance to the foreshadowing of God’s word that invites us to know that what happens isn’t an accident. There is connection and relationship and redemption within God’s creation that doesn’t invite us to look for an intelligent design, but at the intelligent designer.

As we consider the widow’s bread in Zarephath, the bread that will sustain her and her family during the darkest time in her life, I invite you to consider the bread we are given. In the simple bread of the Eucharistic meal we are given the bread of life. The bread of life which sustains the church is present in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The staff of life is offered by the Old Testament prophets and more exquisitely by the King of Kings.

As we consider the rising of the man from his funeral pallet we find restoration to life only the Lord can provide. In the return to life of one family we see the foreshadowing of a future where all humanity is restored. In the life and death and resurrection of Jesus all life is restored to what God intended before the beginning.

The gift of nourishment is offered to the church through the bread. The gifts of reconciliation and redemption are offered to all creation through the resurrection. Together they offer new life to every crack and crevice of our lives. We are washed anew in the good gifts of God, but now I ask, what do we do with these gifts? How do we receive these good gifts?

There are a couple of quotes from William Sloane Coffin, the late pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, that I want to share with you.  The first is like a whetstone for my sharp tongue.  Coffin quotes Reinhold Niebuhr saying, “Despair is the fate of realists who know something about sin, but nothing about redemption.”[i]

The hardest part of speaking the truth of God is the reality of people waiting in pain, so this quote speaks to me. I know Niebuhr’s despair, I know realism, and I know about redemption. Not separating them one from another can be quite difficult. Some days the difference between knowing about and truly knowing the truth of redemption can be measured by inches, other days by light years.

But the other thing Coffin says is “Hope is what’s still there when all your worst fears have been realized”[ii] When the wolf is at the door, when it is darkest before the dawn; that’s when all we have left is hope. This hope is not in might or power. It’s not in the princes or principalities of this world. Our hope is in the love of Christ, Christ who walked in our shoes 2,000 years before we did.

We have been given great gifts, gifts of bread and life; reconciliation and hope, and they become more when we use them in ways that give glory to God.

The joy of scripture, like the joy of reading O Henry, is the way layers and layers of the tale peel away like an onion. Each reading is a chance for a new revelation through the narrative. Each reading is a chance for something new to come around.

Something I got out of this reading is that God’s good gifts bloom into full flower only when we take the risk to accept them. The widow of Zarephath took the risk that Elijah could do as promised. The widow of Nain took the risk to allow Jesus to approach the funeral party. When these women took the risk they received the good gifts of God. Jesus took the risk of violating cultural norms (You know, the way we always do it...) to bring new life, eternal life to the world.

What are we willing to risk? Our last meal? Our place in society? The norms we know to experience the grace we don’t? This is the cry of the Lord, when we risk to receive life in Christ we will receive gifts greater than we could ever imagine.

Some forty years later, reading “The Gift of the Magi” isn’t much easier. Different, but not easier. Now I see it as a tale of sacrifice. People risk giving up their most precious possessions so that they may give good gifts to the one they love the most. Now I know that the “gifts of the Magi” aren’t the things the sacrifice buys, but the sacrifice itself. Through this all too familiar tale I can now imagine the depth of true love. I can imagine the cost of sacrifice.

I can now begin to imagine the sacrificial love the Father has for creation by giving his Son so we may all be reconciled. I can now see the blessing of receiving the gift of grace in the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ. I can see that like anyone who knows separation and loss; through the word of the Lord, words which are actions unto themselves, we are given redemption.

As we heard in our Call to Worship this morning:

Hallelujah!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Blessed are those who put their trust in you, O God.

[i] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 66.
[ii] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 1, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 137.
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Sunday, June 02, 2013

Power and Authority

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday June 2, 2013, the 9th Sunday in Ordinary Time.


1 Kings 18:20-39
Psalm 96
Galatians 1:1-12
Luke 7:1-10

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

In her wonderful sermon last week, the Reverend Peggy Rounseville shared that it is difficult to create a sermon without a narrative scripture. Likewise I’ve heard it said that describing the Trinity is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Where Rev. Rounseville met the challenge head-on, this week’s readings from the Old Testament and the Gospel provide wonderful narratives ripe for the sermon writer.

Our Old Testament reading from 1Kings is the wonderful and (in its own way) hilarious story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. The short version is that Elijah takes on the Baal’s priests and Baal doesn’t show up for the show down. Then the Lord is majestic in response to Elijah’s prayer. Good story, but I want us to consider some of the details of the story, details the people who originally heard this story would know; details that are lost to us in modern times.

Let’s begin with a geography lesson; Mount Carmel is in Northern Israel, near the modern port city of Haifa. This is important to us because at this time the land was divided into two kingdoms, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. Especially important to this story is that the center of the worship of the Lord was the Temple in Jerusalem, located in Judah.

Here’s Elijah not only in Israel, where Baal worship was pretty well established (at least that’s what 450 priests would have us believe), but he is a long, long way from home. If might makes right then Elijah is in big, big trouble.

Next, a refresher on what it takes to offer a sacrifice. According to scripture, it took the morning for Baal’s priests to prepare their offering. During that morning they probably didn’t need to prepare an altar or find the wood since they were playing on their home court, but they had to prepare the bull. This would take a while using Iron Age tools, but with 450 priests I imagine the work went by pretty quickly.

Because he was working alone, it would take Elijah much longer. Elijah started by collecting and arranging twelve stones to make an altar, one stone for each of Jacob’s sons. This must have taken a while to accomplish without Home Depot and a Bobcat. Then without the benefit of a Kubota he made a trench around the altar. I’m assuming he took wood from the same pile used by Baal’s priests, but if he didn’t that took another little while, especially without a McCulloch.

As for preparing the bull, Elijah would have used the methods detailed in the Law of Moses. Let’s be honest, if you have ever harvested livestock from the hoof you know how long it can take. Now take into account kosher laws and Iron Age tools. Based on our reading, it took a full day to prepare the sacrifice.

Then comes the water, if Baal’s priests filled oblation jars then they poured over 350 gallons of water over the offering. No wonder it covered the wood and filled the trench, 350 gallons is bathtub size! This is just what it took to prepare the offering, not including the liturgical ritual of the sacrifice.

The ritual, their prayers and their cries; when this didn’t bring Baal Elijah invited them to keep at it. "Cry aloud!” he told them. Then the mocking starts. “Make sure you yell really, really loud because he may be sleeping in or at brunch or on the golf course or half-way to Dallas to see the Rangers play the Royals.” Then comes the ritual stabbing, with swords and lances they slash one another until they paint themselves crimson.

We read the priests limp around their offering just like they limped around their declaration of whether the Lord or Ball is God. This is where a quick Hebrew lesson helps. The Hebrew word for “limp” can also mean” waver” or “dance.” So where our translation says they limp, they could also be said to waver in their dedication to Baal or the Lord. As they dance around their offering, they may be dancing around their faith in Baal’s ability to answer their prayers.

Then, after Elijah’s long day of preparation, with a simple prayer it happens. The fire of the LORD fell and consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust. Even the water in the trench is licked up. Only then, only when the people saw, did they fall on their faces and say, "The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God."

That’s a good story, and now we know more about what it takes to create this great miracle. That’s just one of the things we should take from this reading.

To continue, let’s start here, miracles are hard work. In fact, it often takes longer to prepare for a miracle than it takes for the miracle to actually happen.  It took a full day and all of his priestly skills for Elijah to prepare his offering. Then the Lord came and consumed the sacrifice in an instant. Only when everything was ready for the Lord to come did he come.

The next lesson to take from this is that the Lord wants us to participate in the Gospel. The Lord wants us to prepare for miracles. Camp Ferncliff is the PC(USA) camp in the middle of Arkansas. It’s a lovely little camp and has become lovelier over the last ten years with many renovations and additions. To plan these additions, the camp staff and board got together to prayerfully ask the question “What are we being called to do?” They had space, they had donations, they had plans about the mission of Christian camping, but they wanted to know what else, so prayerfully they asked.

A part of their answer came from the Arkansas branch of Presbyterian Women who offered to donate funds to create an emergency preparedness center. You had better believe the staff and board saw this as confirmation of their prayers about new vocation. In no time at all they cleared the land and built a pole barn to serve as a supply center for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA). As they were celebrating the completion of Phase I, Katrina landed on the Gulf coast.

As you all know, PDA and its new supply depot went into high gear. Today there are still PDA volunteers in the Gulf along with teams from the Jersey Shore to Long Island assisting after Super Storm Sandy and teams in Oklahoma preparing to roll in as soon as First Responders give the all clear. The Lord can do miracles, but the bigger miracle is for us to hear and respond to what the Lord calls us to do to make miracles happen.

How long did it take between the first vision and the Oklahoma response? Ten years give or take? To make the point, it took longer to prepare for the response than it will take to respond. Preparing for a miracle takes as long as it takes, even when it takes years.

Unfortunately there are responses to the Gospel that aren’t right. The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka has bought the internet domain GodHatesOklahoma.com. I won’t mock them like Elijah mocked the priests of Baal, but I say there is no life in a Gospel of hate. Because of miracles like Elijah’s offering and like Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, we have the faith and the tools necessary to respond to God’s people in need. That’s proof of God’s love. That’s the Gospel in action.

The Gospel of Baal and the Gospel of Westboro are the sort of things Paul warns the Galatians about in chapter 1. They are warned about words and beliefs of people who turn from the Lord. I often wonder where people get such spurious ideas about the Lord to think that anything of our world can separate us from the grace and peace of God’s love. I guess that’s the nature of sin, people will take up their idols and turn to a different gospel. Whether it’s Baal worship, or God’s hate, I can’t imagine replacing the Gospel of peace with anything else.

What’s dangerous is that people today often don’t recognize new idols for what they are. But the love and worship of power, prestige, celebrity, legal tender, or any one of an infinite number of things placed in front of the Lord have become American idols. Just watching the news we see a turn toward the Gospel of “I am not my brother’s keeper.”

Recently, a Gallup Poll showed that 70% of Americans believe religion is losing its influence in America. Another 70% believe this is a bad thing. As for those who have abandoned the Gospel of Christ, losing influence isn’t a bad thing. In truth, it’s really not up to us to keep to the religion. It is up to us to keep the faith, faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The final point I will make is about leaders and followers. Luke’s centurion knows about power and authority. He knows Jesus has the power and authority of the Lord to heal his servant. As a man under authority he knows that Jesus doesn’t need to be present bodily for the miracle to happen. Like Elijah doing the heavy lifting before the Lord consumes the sacrifice, like the attentive discernment of camp staff and Presbyterian Women preparing for a disaster that comes years later, the Lord will come when we are prepared and the time is ripe. In the meantime, it’s not up to us to decide what that work will be. It is up to the Lord our God.

The Lord is our God. Jesus is Lord. This we know. This we confess. The Lord does great things, but the Lord wants us to live the Gospel, not just read it. The Lord wants us to be a part of the miracles this world needs every day. The Lord prepares us; in scripture the Lord has shared what’s needed. It is up to us to find our place in the Gospel. The Lord wants us to be as confident as Elijah and the centurion. The Lord wants us to prepare for the miracles to come. Jesus wants us to remember that the control belongs to him.

This becomes evident to us when we learn that when translated into English, Elijah means “The Lord is my God.” The Lord has the power and authority. The Lord leads and calls us to follow.


“The Lord is my God.” This should be our name too.
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