Sunday, August 04, 2013

Seeking the Better Things

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday August 4, 2013, the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Later this month St. Andrew will call and install their new Interim Pastor so while I am still on the fill-in list, my season of frequent service to this congregation is coming to an end. Thanks be to God for their hospitality and generosity during this season.

Unfortunately this week there is only text, no audio or video.

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

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

I would like to begin by saying how much I enjoyed Tara Porr’s sermon from last week.[1] I particularly enjoyed how she reimagined Hosea’s proposal, if you can call it that, to Gomer. The way she took scripture and inflected it into the way we speak was marvelous. When she used Gomer’s voice to say “That’s so sweet!” I laughed. It was a wonderful way to take a whore-endous, whore-rific, whore-rible piece of scripture—puns intended—and replay it in a modern way.

But it was her skill with handling the symbolism of Hosea wedding a woman of many sexual partners symbolically representing our Faithful Lord’s wedding to a nation that takes many partners that was brilliant. Still, I can imagine her preparing that sermon, reading that passage and thinking to herself “how in the world does this preach?” because I felt the same way when I read these passages from Colossians and Luke.

She read from the densest use of the word “whore” found in scripture. I get to share “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)” and “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.” After reading these passages, when I say, “This is the Word of the Lord” I almost expect to hear the congregation reply “Really?” instead of “Amen.”

Paul tells Timothy that all scripture is good and beneficial for study and teaching, but these have an edge to them that point to many uncomfortable lessons.

Then Marie showed me an article from the Wall Street Journal blogs about the actor Ben Foster who is starring in a movie based on retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s memoir “Lone Survivor.” This book and its movie are based on one of his unit’s reconnaissance missions in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2005. Their objective was to kill or capture a Taliban leader. On missions like these in the wilderness of Afghanistan they would occasionally cross paths with local shepherds.

In a recent interview, Mr. Foster was asked about this scene. He replied, “The ancient question of war is do you kill a shepherd and save your own life and potentially endanger your people, or do you let him go? They decided to let them go, and these brave young men were hunted down.” [2]

Foster continues, “[Luttrell] was the lone survivor, and asked a man in this village to give him water. The law there is if you give a man water who asks for help in war, you’re taking him in as a family member and you must protect him to the death.” [3]

The reason I chose to tell this story is because I want us to consider our family. Who is our family? How do we welcome new members into our family? What does it mean to be a member of a family or more righteously this family? We’ll get back to that.

Our gospel reading opens with a definition of family which is gaining some traction these days, the family as an economic unit. In my 20’s I had a friend whose grandfather owned a large soybean farm in Kansas. This man and his wife had four children and after the parents’ death, each of them owned a quarter share in the farm. They had it all worked out, and the family as an economic unit was secure. They didn’t run into the trouble Luke’s gospel reports when Jesus had the brother screaming, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

This man wanted his request heard, and knew how to fawn while asking it too. “Teacher,” other translations say “Rabbi,” in a word he appealed to our Lord’s earthly status and the traditions of the thousands of teachers who came before him. Maybe if he had thought of Jesus as Lord rather than as teacher he would have been better off. As important as the family as an economic unit is, Jesus did not take to the question well. Jesus flat out asked the man who he thought he was to make this decision.

Jesus adds to his lesson telling the man and all with ears to hear, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

The story that follows is one which stock brokers, insurance agents, and others who sell 401(k)’s don’t want us to hear.  In a nutshell we can plan all we want, but there will be a day; and that day could be tomorrow or it could be 100 years from now. Depending on our own resources and taking joy in stuff ultimately leads down the road to nowhere.

So, Jesus tells us to be on our guard against all kinds greed and then tells a story about a man who has a special place for all of the stuff his life has brought him. I’m not talking about his barns either, in truth I’m talking about his heart.

There is a phrase in that sentence that always gets the best of me. Jesus doesn’t warn us about financial greed alone. As for this man, his greed took root in more than just his possessions; it took root in eating, drinking, and merriment; everything his life can buy but nothing God provides. He warns the people about all kinds of greed. I could give you a litany of the sorts of greed that corrupts the lives of human beings, but the list would be long, the oration would be boring, and the recitation ultimately incomplete.

In the end, it is enough to know that Jesus warns the people about all kinds of greed, not the run of the mill garden variety financial kind. Then it’s Paul who takes that laundry list and names it something else, he calls all kinds of greed idolatry.

Now if there isn’t a more loaded word than idolatry I’d like you to share it with me. I’m not saying you can’t find one, I’m saying if you do I’d like to get prepared to be frightened. Simply put, Idolatry is putting anything, the idol, before God. A pastor friend from Colorado thought the NFL was the perfect American idol. His opinion came from the simple truth that in the Mountain Time zone games start at 11:00 AM. With worship starting at 10:30 folks didn’t get out until the end of the first quarter. If there was a potluck it would be halftime before fans got home.

So many people stayed home during football season that giving actually went down during those four months, longer if the home team made the playoffs. Considering this was during John Elway’s heyday on the reins of the Broncos, the playoffs were almost a foregone conclusion. Yes, my pastor made a pretty good argument for the NFL being an idol.

As for taking this to the “loaded idolatry” level let me finish saying “Texas high school football” and get out of the way. Considering Allen ISD just finished a $60 million facility, that’s not a sanctuary or a tabernacle, it’s a bloody cathedral to high school football.

Is it an idol? I don’t know the people well enough to know, but $60 million for a high school football stadium? If the Church of Jesus Christ had fundraising like that there would be no hunger in East Texas.

Paul begins this portion of his epistle to the Colossians saying, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Paul is writing this to the saints in Colossae, he’s writing to believers, the church. I make this point because some translations don’t say “So if…” they say “Since…” Paul is not asking whether they have been raised with Christ or not. In a lovely turn of a rhetorical phrase he is saying that they are raised in Christ.

Since they are raised in Christ their minds should not be on the things of the earth. They should not be set on the idols we make with our own hands and worshiped like they mean something. They are called to be of a higher mind. They are called to live the life they have been freely given at great cost so that we may be with Christ in God.

We are to surrender fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and all forms of greed (which is all forms of idolatry) forsaking anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. We are to be clothed with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

We are to live in Christ so that we may not only be able to seek the better things, but accept them and nurture them when we discern them.

So, what does this have to do with family? Let’s begin with who is in the family.

Paul covered this pretty well. There is no longer Greek or Jew—cultural identification and membership is considered moot.

As for circumcised and uncircumcised this relates to faith. As culture bears no more meaning; neither does religious affiliation.

As for barbarians and Scythians, the Barbarians (with a capital B) were Turks and the Scythians were Iranian. This could have meant “from west or east” as much as it could mean “vicious people” verses “more cultured vicious people.”

Slave and Free had to do with social status as well as economic status. It comes down to whether or not you have freedom on earth, you have freedom in Christ.

These differentiations are vitally important because in this day and time we have to beware of who we say doesn’t belong. Let us remember that after the “Slaughter of the Innocents” in Matthew's gospel comes the “Escape to Egypt.” Our Lord’s family arrived as strangers in a strange land. They had no visas or permits. The Lord told the Jews to stay out of Egypt so there would have been few kin folk when they arrived. Thank God for the gifts of the Magi or else they would have had no gold or other liquid assets when they arrived.

In short, our Lord was once a political refugee and an illegal alien. In Christ there is freedom for all. This is vitally important to our Lord today because while an infant he was once was a refugee, a prisoner to the power and politics of his time.

How do we welcome new members into our family? In a way, it’s not completely unlike how the Afghani man accepted Marcus Luttrell, with water. While they extended a cup of drinking water, we become family in the waters of our baptism. In this holy sacrament we are welcomed into the community which Christ has ordained to be his body. In these holy waters we are baptized and sealed by the spirit.

In the waters of our baptism we suffer the death that faces all who come into the chaos of water only to be received into new life as a member of the Christian community. We are welcomed in this messy, messy sacrament to join together in the messy lives we live together. It is this unity in Christ, as he too was baptized in the waters of new life, that we come together as family. Family where we defend each one’s dignity against the world that would love to see that new life crushed.

So what does it mean to be a part of this family? It means more than showing up once a week and touching base like a seven-day game of tag where you have to come once a week or “you’re it.”

It means we defend one another. This isn’t unlike the answer to the question “who is my neighbor.” A neighbor is someone who shows mercy, someone who makes a difference. But neighbors are largely a voluntary alliance. We don’t get to pick our family.

Family, in family there is love and respect and dignity even when your little sister bugs the living daylights out of you. Even when your brother borrows the car and doesn’t bother to put gas in it, family is still family. When the Session, Presbytery, or General Assembly votes don’t go as we believe they should, we are still family. Even when family leaves, we are still family. In this love, even in the midst of strife, in the waters of our baptism God’s peace is there.

This is where I share our joy. Nurtured by the food and drink of the Lord’s Supper we share the joy found in our Call to Worship. In the words of the 107th Psalm, Let them give thanks for the mercy of God, for the wonders the LORD does for all people. For God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Whoever is wise will ponder these things, and consider well the mercies of the LORD. Halleluiah!

God satisfies the hungry heart with the better things. It’s up to us to seek them, nurture them, and share them with the world.


[1] “When Words Aren’t Enough” based on Hosea 1:1-10. Miss Porr is a student at Princeton Seminary and about to start a yearlong internship in Groomsport, Northern Ireland. Godspeed and have a great year Tara.
[2] Chai, Barbara, “Ben Foster on how ‘Lone Survivor’ asks ancient questions of war.” http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/04/16/ben-foster-on-how-lone-survivor-asks-ancient-questions-of-war/, retrieved on July 31, 2013.
[3] I am reminded that Luttrell wrote in his book that he was offered tea instead of water. Foster’s recollection may be inaccurate, but it both is what he told Barbara Chai and works better with the end of the sermon.

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