Un/Worthy

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 12, 2016, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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

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

Here’s a name baseball fans will remember, Al Hrabosky. “The Mad Hungarian” came up through the St. Louis Cardinal Minor League system to become one of the most influential relief pitchers of the Seventy’s. Was it his wicked delivery? His unrivaled intensity? His Fu Manchu mustache?

If you selected “All of the above” you got the Hrabosky effect.

In 1978 he left the Cards to sign a contract with the cross state rival Kansas City Royals. Two years later Hrabosky became a free agent and signed with the Atlanta Braves. When asked why the Royals did not choose to match the Braves’ offer, General Manager Joe Burke said he wasn’t worth it. Hrabosky countered, “The Braves are willing to pay me, so I must be worth it.”

This is today’s lesson in free market economics, something is worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. We’ll get back to this.

In our gospel reading, it’s getting along to be mealtime. It seems Luke’s gospel has Jesus going from one meal to the next, my kind of gospel. Jesus is invited to the home of Simon the Pharisee for a meal. Others are invited too.

Just a couple of things you may not be aware of that will be helpful. This isn’t a closed off banquet hall with high style chairs. This table is not very high at all and those who will eat lay on mats on their left elbows and eat with their right hands. Their legs will be splayed back and away from the table. Also, strangely to us, it is not uncommon for people to just drop in on the festivities seemingly for no good reason at all.

So Jesus goes with Simon to the festivities. Everyone was reclined at the table and the servants brought the food. Among the passersby is a local woman who has led a sinful life. As you see, anybody can just drop by a fancy dinner, even this sinful life leading woman! She breaks open an alabaster jar of perfume and anoints the feet of the Lord Jesus.

Can you imagine how good that felt after a long day on the road? The oils and the balm being rubbed lovingly into your feet. She’s weeping. She’s washing your feet with her long, long hair. Do you think he might have closed his eyes enjoying this tender care?

Well, she’s in his house, on his grounds, and Simon can’t keep quiet. He mumbles “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

This is Simon the Pharisee’s “Al Hrabosky” moment of human economics; and as far as he’s concerned she’s not worth all that and a bag of chips. Jesus on the other hand teaches that heavenly economics are not human economics.

Jesus engages Simon in a riddle, actually a common form of entertainment at get-togethers like this in the day before college football and TiVo. He offered the story of a moneylender who forgave two debts, one of fifty denarii and another of 500 denarii.

First though, a quick lesson in ancient finance. A denarius was a day’s living wage for the common worker. It was fair, it wasn’t extravagant, it was a living wage. So 50 denarii would amount to a healthy credit card bill and 500 would pay for a nice sedan.

Neither bill so high it can’t be incurred or repaid over time, but when bankruptcy comes, broke is broke.

Jesus asks, “The moneylender forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Isn’t it obvious? It is to Simon, the one with the larger debt.

Jesus tells him he made the right choice. Technically it’s not much of a riddle, but then again, I find the rest of the conversation has a bigger riddle.

Back in the day, hospitality rules said that when you invite someone over you provide water for them to wash their feet. When you wear sandals and share roads with beasts of burden, you’d want to wash your feet too. On a side note which will become a matter of no small importance, you wash your own feet. A slave can’t be compelled to wash someone else’s feet.

Well, Simon didn’t provide so much as a basin of water. Simon did not meet his guest with a kiss either. Nor did Simon give oil for washing. This sinful woman provided perfume, her kisses, her tears, and her hair for our Lord’s feet. She could not be compelled to wash his feet, yet she did she served him on her own accord out of love. Yes, she may have been a sinful woman, and we don’t know what her sins are, but by my count the score is Sinful Woman 5, Simon 0.

Jesus continues, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” To her alone he says, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This woman seemed to know what Paul tells the Galatians over and over. They are not saved by the Law, but by grace. Yes, she is a sinner, a sinner serving God. By accepting Jesus the Christ, by loving and serving Christ, she has found her way to forgiveness. She has found shalom. She has found peace.

Paul says what Christ shows, we who know God, we who know the Christ will find ourselves “among the sinners.” I find this ironic, I have always found that when we find ourselves around those who know God we find ourselves among those who sin too. People like Simon.

While we are on this earth, we sin. People sin. Some days we sin like we owe fifty day’s pay. Others like 500 day’s pay. Others we owe a government sized bailout. Who needs more love? Of course it’s the one who owes more.

But let’s ask this question, who’s more worthy?

The question of worth is always based on some scale. Some external scale that somebody sets up and interprets. Did you meet the scale? Did you exceed expectations? Did you earn this bonus? Are you worthy of this reward?

The Jews measure this through the law. The 613 Commandments, the 613 Mitzvoth. The 248 positive commandments and the 365 negative commandments; if you were going to be judged by a code, that was quite a code. There were people who would judge. There were courts and there were scribes and Pharisees. Paul knew all of this. Paul was raised in this and he was esteemed in all of this.

Then Paul received the revelation of the better way. “So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

By his interpretation of the law, Simon judged the woman a sinner. She was way down on his totem pole. He, a Pharisee, was having Jesus, the “next big thing,” the “Flavor of the Month,” over for dinner. Simon’s star was ascending. He was seeing and being seen by all the right people. He had kept the law since a young child. Simon was living right. He thought he was on top of the world and in all the right ways, he was.

But with Jesus at the table, everything had changed. Paul says it this way to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Jesus didn’t give himself for those with the best marks in the law. God in Christ knew the people who needed him most were those in the most difficulty, those who owed 500 denarii.

Those who owed fifty couldn’t save themselves though. It’s just that those who are in worse shape will love the redeemer more.

That’s the issue here. We have laws. We have lots of laws. They can be called benchmarks or standards or goals or outcome projections. They will end up as judgements. We face them every day and we will be judged worthy or unworthy.

In God’s law, we have all fallen short of the mark. We all sin. We are unworthy of the salvation freely offered through the life, work, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Yet, in God’s economics, as the children of God, though we are unworthy, we are saved. God loves us so much, that even if we think we have done enough, we haven’t, we can’t, and his grace is sufficient.

This takes me back to Simon and the sinful woman. Simon the Pharisee serves the Church and the Law, but he forgets the simplest principles of hospitality, water, oil, and greeting. The sinful woman brings these and the tears of shame knowing she’s not worthy, or is it tears of joy knowing that while she is not worthy, she is yet at the feet of her Lord.

Scripture doesn’t say. But this question makes me wonder this riddle, in our reading is Simon the fifty denarii sinner or is he the 500 denarii sinner? It also makes me wonder which I am. But in truth, all the answer to that riddle will show us is how grateful we should be when the moneylender forgives our debt.

In the end our response to this question must be to be like response of the sinful woman. Seek the feet of Christ and serve him where he is, for there is forgiveness. Not because we are worthy, because we are never going to be. Our human condition will forever keep us from that.

But here’s the Good News of Jesus Christ, like the sinful woman we seek and serve the Lord not because we are worthy, but because he is.

Blinded by the Light

This sermon was heard at John Calvin Presbyterian Church in Shreveport, Louisiana on Sunday February 7, 2016, the Last Sunday in Epiphany, Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday. Sorry, no audio.

Exodus 34:29-35
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36

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

Twenty years ago next month, while I was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Lamar, Colorado, I was helping host a Presbyterian Revival called “Spirit Alive.” Yes, yes, a Presbyterian revival, sounds kind of funny. I joked that “Presbyterian revival” meant that nobody drank decaf all weekend. I was the Hospitality Chair which meant I put together the drinks and snacks for the visiting team that was doing the presentations.

The visiting pastor who led the revival was the Reverend Scott Luckey. On Saturday night, he preached a sermon on forgiveness. To make a long story short, at that moment in time I was handling the breakup with a girlfriend poorly. Even though the breakup had happened eight years earlier, I was still handling it poorly. I was so scarred that I couldn’t forgive. Not because I was unable to forgive, but because I couldn’t think of what I needed to forgive her for. Again, long story. But see, I had met someone; and those thoughts and feelings were beginning to reawaken. I knew if I couldn’t get beyond those old feelings I would mess up the best thing to happen to me in a long time.

In the Saturday night sermon, Pastor Luckey said only when you are able to forgive will you know what it is to be forgiven. Now, I don’t know about you. I don’t know where you were twenty years ago at about 8:30 PM Mountain Time, but a shaft of light entered that sanctuary and shined down on me. I don’t see how anybody within 750 miles could have missed it! It was glorious.

When he said that, things began to change. I say began because things weren’t always perfect. They never are. There was still healing to be done, but after eight long years I was finally off square one.

One of the most common images used in scripture is light. One of the first images in scripture is light, Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good.” Don’t forget, light is always good in scripture. As for me, sitting in that sanctuary on that dark Saturday night, the light of Christ’s forgiveness was good.

Light is often associated with the presence of God. John’s and Luke’s gospels call Jesus the Light of the World. In 2Corinthians Paul writes, “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Jesus is the light. Knowledge of Christ is the light shining out of the darkness.

There are many more examples, if you have a concordance or the internet you can find more, but I think biblically we can say “Light—Good.”

Earlier this week I saw an article from Forbes about dumb things bosses say. One of the important things it says is every boss, unless you are very, very lucky, will say something dumb from time to time. That’s just being human. It is when saying dumb things becomes a pattern that employees should worry. Enter Peter, stage right…

Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up on the mountain to pray. While he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw Moses and Elijah talking to him. Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were swallowed by the brightness, the light shined such that Jesus’ robes became as white as white can be. The three apostles are blinded by the light.

They are overwhelmed by who and what they see! They see Moses who was last seen going into the mountains alone to watch the people enter the Promised Land. They see Elijah who was last seen by Elisha being swept away by the whirlwind into the heavens. These heroes of the faith are chatting with Jesus, apparently speaking of his departure.

So what does Peter do with this overload, he erupts! “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Dang. Peter takes a perfect moment, not a perfectly good moment but a perfect moment, and goes off the farm hoping to build “Mountainside Holy Land Village and Retreat Center,” three prophets, no waiting.

Our translation says, “not knowing what he said.” Another way to say that could be “he had no idea what he just said.”

We’ve all got that friend, don’t we? Open mouth, insert foot? That fine ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. It generally comes with a moderate amount of embarrassment. Scripture doesn’t record the look James and John gave him. Then again, maybe all Peter did was save James and John the indignity of being the first to say something dumb.

Before their critique could come, they were all covered in a cloud and heard a voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen (or ‘my beloved’ depending on the translation); listen to him!” Then, suddenly, it was a day like it was before the face of Jesus changed (and that’s all the word “transfiguration” means, change face).

Friends, we’ve all been blinded by something or other. Peter was blinded by the light. He was so flummoxed by what he had seen that he had no idea what to say. Peter’s problem was that he thought something needed to be said and then he said something. When we live our lives like an action movie, we tend to say all the wrong things at all the right times. This hardly makes Peter special, it only immortalizes him in scripture. Among my friends, I was the one who said the dumb things. I’m better now, but it made the ‘70’s and ‘80’s memorable.

So how do we avoid this? Here are some starters. The first is to pray. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where God is working in our lives. I’m not saying we will be able to discern the invisible hand of God at work. I believe when we “see” that, we put God’s name on what we want to call God’s work, what we hope is God’s work. So if we don’t look at the work where do we look? We need to look at the faces of those around us. As we become more aware of others we will begin to see the face of Christ around us.

When we see the face of Christ in those around us, we will treat each other differently. When we look for light instead of darkness we behave differently. When people do the same toward us we’ll notice that too. All too often, even in a city this size, people treat one another like obstacles or like nothing at all. If we seek the face of Christ in one another it is impossible to behave that way.

When the voice in the cloud said “listen to him,” this is what it meant. In the ancient languages, “listen” meant more than “hear,” it also meant “respond.” Pray and listen. See where God is working and go work with God and God’s people.

Then we need to stop and smell the roses. We need to spend time with God and with one another. In the church we call this koinonia, we call this fellowship. We act as a community. We come together and share a meal. We spend time with people for no other reason than it is good.

Look at it this way, God exists as distinct three persons; Father, Son, and Spirit. If community is good for God’s very existence, it must be absolutely necessary for us. Without a community, we are nothing. Only through others can we see the face of God in Christ.

And vice-versa, only through the face of God in Christ can we really see others.

Only when we are quiet, only when we pray, only when we become aware, only when we come together and only we respond to one another can we see the light, be in the light. Is this scary? Peter, James, and John were scared in the presence of the Lord so it would be foolish if we weren’t. We might be blinded by the light like Peter, we may even say something dumb. But as we pray, come together, and respond with and to one another; that will happen less and less. And the rewards of life abiding in Christ are glorious.

Oh, that woman I met twenty years ago, this July she and I will be married for nineteen years. Friends, let’s hear it for my wonderful, wonderful wife, my partner, my bringer of perspective, (in Hebrew) my ezer, my love and my heart, Marie. I thank God for her every day. I can see the light of Christ reflected through her like a prism shining many glorious colors. She helps me see the light of Christ. And I say fewer dumb things because of her. Praise God.

Halleluiah, Amen.

Signage and Its Purpose

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday April 15, 2012, the 2nd Sunday in Easter.

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Acts 4:32-35

Psalm 131

1 John 1:1-2:2

John 20:19-31

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 District of Columbia was created to serve as our nation’s permanent capital in 1790. Within the District, a new capital city was founded in 1791 to the east of the settlement at Georgetown. The original street layout in the new City of Washington was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant.[1]

A planned city, Washington was modeled in the Baroque style and incorporated avenues radiating out from rectangles. The District itself is divided into four quadrants. The axes separating the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol building. In most of the city, the streets are set out in a grid pattern with east-west streets named with letters and north-south streets named with numbers.

One of the oddities to the city’s layout is that there is no J Street in any quadrant. Legend has it that J Street was deliberately omitted by L’Enfant because of a dispute with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay over The Treaty of Enmity, Commerce and Navigation.[2] In truth the probable reason is more mundane. It is far more likely that the reason there is no “J” Street is because in the Gothic writing style popular until the mid-nineteenth century, the letters “I” and “J” were indistinguishable.

One of the better narratives explaining this is found in an episode of NCIS. At the conclusion of the episode Assistant Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer shared his take on why there is no J Street with Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard. He said it was because the founding fathers did not want anyone to get lost.[3]

One very important purpose of signage is so people do not get lost.

In my opinion, Thomas, or “Doubting Thomas,” gets more abuse than he deserves for being skeptical. I find his tendencies to speak his mind and to ask questions when he doesn’t understand admirable. Thomas was not a man to be persuaded willy-nilly.  In John 14[4] when Jesus says “And you know the way to the place where I am going;” Thomas is the one who says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” If we truly believe there is no such thing as a stupid question, then Thomas belongs in the Hall-of-Fame.

I imagine Thomas was a man of home spun wisdom. He had a “Show-Me” mentality that would have been popular here when Marshall was the Confederate capital of Missouri-in-Exile.[5] He was deliberate and he was cautious. He has questions and he wants them answered. He has doubts and he wants them vanquished.

So it was the evening on the first day of the week, the day of Jesus’ resurrection; and the disciples had locked themselves in the house where they met. Not detoured by physical barriers, the Lord entered the room and offered them his peace. He showed them his hands and side and the disciples were overjoyed. In the next moment, they received their vocation, their directions; they were pointed in the direction they were to take so they would not get lost. They were also given the most important thing they could take on their journeys; by the breath of Christ, in the wind of God, they received the presence of the Holy Spirit.

As for Thomas, scripture doesn’t say why he was not with the other disciples; only that he wasn’t. So when the others finally see Thomas, he got an ear full. “We have seen the Lord!” they proclaimed loudly and joyfully. They weren’t rubbing it in his face, I think they were rejoicing and wishing he had been with them to share the glorious gifts they had received.

The Missouri Mule spirit that had served Thomas did not desert him. He knew all about the crucifixion and he knows dead is dead. He seemed willing to believe some sort of apparition, a Holy Spirit, but the physical presence of the Lord in the glory of his resurrection body struck him as unlikely. He had to see the Lord Jesus for himself. He had to touch him. He needed it before he would believe it was true.

Sure enough, a week later they gathered for fellowship. Give Thomas credit, he wasn’t sure about the resurrection, but he still believed and still worshiped Jesus. Then just like the week before, Jesus came into the closed room, stood among them, and said “Peace be with you.”

Quoting John’s gospel, “Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas, answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”

Then, as a word for the world to come, Jesus blesses the generations that follow the original apostles and disciples. This first generation believed because they saw. The next generations, including those who hear and read this gospel then and now, they believe only because of these words and by the witness of the lives of the disciples that have followed since.

We live in a world where we, like Thomas, did not receive the Holy Spirit along with the disciples on that first Easter Sunday so long ago. Like Thomas at the beginning of our reading, all of humanity longs to see Jesus, behold the glory of his face, and touch his hands and side. Like Thomas, we can find the resurrection difficult because we have not personally seen the person of the resurrection. Like Thomas we all want to stand before the Lord and worship crying, “My Lord and my God.” We want to sing out adoring God in the happy chorus begun by the morning stars.

We’re looking for miracles; we’re looking for signs to point us toward belief. We are looking for signs of assurance.

In one way or another, one of the great questions of life is “What size miracle are you looking for?” In a society where bigger is infinitely better, the land of the super-size, we want big-big miracles with a big-big crunch. We want “burning-bush” and “loaves-and-fishes” sized miracles. Of course, as is usually the case, we should beware what we ask for when we ask for big-big miracles.

One of my favorite miracles is a big-big one. It comes from Numbers 11. The people of Israel are in the desert and they aren’t happy about it. They have been so long with only manna to eat that they have begun to grumble and long for “the good ol’ days” when they were in Egypt eating fish and cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic and ate them at no cost. No cost except for their freedom, but they were so bored with their food and their journey that they longed for the regular hours of strict manual labor under the whip.

Moses hears the grumbling and fears for his life, not a bad reaction if I say so myself. Moses asks the Lord “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?”

I wonder if this isn’t a big question among all overwhelmed leaders. 

Moses even tells the Lord “I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.” He finally says if he can’t get relief he would rather die at the hands of the Lord than the crowd.

So the Lord tells Moses to assemble the leaders of Israel and tell them this,

“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”

Beware what you ask for, because you just might get it.

People look for miracles. People look for signs and it looks like the people of Israel missed one. It looks like they blew through the “Yield” sign to me. In the parable of the vine and the branches John’s gospel would translate “Yield” as “Abide.” But for our purposes and the purposes of the people in the desert, it appears that Israel blew through a “Yield” sign.

Of course, the witness of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and all human history shows us that on the whole humanity has a tendency to blow through the “Yield” sign. And “Stop” signs for that matter too.

Another very important purpose of signage is to warn people and give them direction.

Everybody looks for signs and in our reading everyone gets the sign they need. The disciples saw the hands and side of Jesus and they believed. Thomas not only wanted what the other disciples got, he wanted to touch Christ’s rich wounds too. In the end though, seeing Jesus was enough. When he saw his Messiah he declared his faithfulness crying “My Lord and my God!”

In this world, people want their own “resurrection appearance” miracle. Everybody wants to see Jesus just like the disciples, but scripture says that’s not for everybody. So what kinds of signs and what kind of miracles should we be looking for?

Last Saturday there were a lot of little miracles wondering around the lawn. To see the smiles of the kids as they were having their pictures taken with the Easter Bunny was joyful. It was a sign of new life and the promise of what can be.

Last weekend there was a little boy who arrived late and was only able to find one egg on the ground. There were also several teenage boys who made pouches out of the front of their t-shirts that they filled with eggs. (Why t-shirts? Take it from a former teenage boy, baskets would not do.) When they saw the sad little boy they dropped eggs where he could get them. This little boy went from dejected to elated because he found eggs, enough eggs to fill his basket. Leaving greed behind in the name of sharing is always a miracle. Just like it was in the time of the early church as we heard from Acts this morning.

As for the disciples, they were asked to share forgiveness with the world. Now that’s a miracle as small as a smile and as big as a burning bush. This was tough because the disciples knew that only God could forgive sins, and they knew that even with the Holy Spirit they were not God. Yet they received the power and responsibility to forgive or not forgive people who had hurt them and others.

Their power was not to limit or empower God. Their power was given so that they might no longer be bound to anger and vengeance. God forgives, but unless we forgive we bind ourselves to the past. We don’t forgive so others can go on with their lives, but so we can get on with ours.

Let me add that if you have ever tried to get over such harm on your own, you’ll know it takes the work of the Holy Spirit to do the job.

Here’s the final sign we need, the green light. We need to be the miracle. We need to live so that others can see that our God lives. We need to live like the disciples of every time and age before us who lived so we could believe. Our lives need to show those who see us that our God lives so they can believe. It is our call and our vocation to live lives worthy of Christ so that they can believe and become Christ’s disciples.

In this case, the purpose of signage is to move people off the mark; going where they are supposed to go.

So, what size miracle are we looking for? Here is the biggest one of all. Here is the miracle we are to share with the world. We were created by the Triune God who loved so much that he created life. The Lord not only created matter to love and care for, our God created a race of people who could choose to love the Lord God back. (Risky move that is.) We are loved by a God who loves us so much that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. This by the grace and peace given freely by God in Christ.

Signs have their purpose. They make sure we don’t get lost, they assure us, they warn us, they give us direction, and they get us going when we are supposed to go. On the whole, this is a worthy vocation Jesus sends us into the world to share.

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[1] Much of these first paragraphs are taken and adapted from: “Streets and Highways of Washington DC.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_and_highways_of_Washington,_D.C.

[2] “No J Street in Washington DC,” http://www.snopes.com/history/american/jstreet.asp

[3] “Jimmy Palmer,” The NCIS Database” Wiki. http://ncis.wikia.com/wiki/Jimmy_Palmer. The episode is called “Broken Bird.”

[4] John 14:4-5

[5] Marshall, Texas,  The Republic of Texas and the Civil War (1841–1860) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall,_Texas#The_Republic_of_Texas_and_the_Civil_War_.281841.E2.80.931860.29

What We Remember

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday September 11, 2011, the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Exodus 14:19-31

Psalm 114

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

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 guess I don’t have to remind anybody what today is. Al mentioned it during the announcements and I even touched on it in my greeting on this somber day. Vicke even brought it up last week during her Children’s Sermon. One of the things she asked was if 9-11 fell on Monday or Tuesday ten years ago. I was the first to say Tuesday. I knew because I knew exactly were I was when the news started to make it out to the Central Time Zone.

It’s easy for me to remember because it was my second week in seminary. I was sitting in the Rev. Dr. Kathryn Roberts’ Introduction to the Old Testament class, a class that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we were covering the Hebrew alphabet. As we were learning our “Aleph, Beth, Gimel’s” a buzz started to rise in the hallway. It was louder than usual, but it was my second week in seminary, so what did I know about normal?

My first inkling about what was going on happened when I went to the financial aid office. Glenna Balch, the seminary’s wonderful Director of Financial Aid, was listening to the news playing on her radio. Sorry folks, live audio internet streaming was still in its infancy and live streaming video was embryonic; if you were at work and there was no TV, you depended on the radio. I was her office for a while and did some paperwork while listening to what was going on in New York. The overwhelming feeling I had is that this is what it must have been like listening to H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” live on the radio on October 30, 1938.

For those of you who are not familiar with 70 year old radio dramas, “War of the Worlds” was the brain child of Orson Welles who was also director of the Mercury Theater of the Air. It began like any regular music program would begin, with the announcer welcoming the audience and a band starting the show. Suddenly, the music program is interrupted by breaking news. The news was that the earth had just been invaded by Mars. It wasn’t until the show’s fortieth minutes that the focus went from what was supposed to be the radio news broadcast and onto the narrator and his story.

In a time before television, radio broadcast not just news and music, but comedy and drama shows too. Breaking news was also a part of the day because of the rise of Hitler and the war in Europe. To a listener who thought it was just a normal music show, it sounded like a global tragedy was breaking loose in the swamps of Jersey. Welles’ show was on CBS Radio and broadcast nation-wide, and because it had no commercials the fake news reports sounded like real news reports. It caused pockets of panic around the country. What was meant to be a scary story for Halloween became an even scarier story.

As I told Glenna, listening to the news was like listening to “War of the Worlds,” except that this time it was real.

I went home and went to Marie. She had already been in the hospital twice since we moved to Austin three or four weeks earlier, so I knew she would be fragile. We just sat and watched everything unfold on TV.

I’ll admit it; I suspect you are thinking more about where you were on 9-11 than listening to me at this moment. That’s fine, I was hoping to open a door to a moment of remembrance. I know for a fact that my story is not more important than yours.

I went down this road because honestly I had trouble knowing where to go with our readings from Romans and Matthew.

Matthew gives us a parable with commentary tacked on the end for good measure. Peter asks how many times we should forgive. His offer of seven sounds overly reasonable to an Old Testament scholar. Seven is forever connected to blessings and curses, so to forgive seven times rather than curse for seven generations is quite generous.

So when Jesus tells him “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” he’s blowing the Law of Moses and conventional wisdom completely out of the water.

The parable itself is about a man who seeks patience to repay his debt but will not show the same to his fellow slave. The scope of debt is expressed in a way that we don’t relate to because we don’t know the conversions. To put it in perspective, 100 denarii is 100 days worth of wages to the average laborer. Based on the average income for a household in Marshall, that would be somewhere around $20,000. A talent weighs a little over 75 pounds. Since the debt would have been measured in gold and given the spot price of gold on Monday when I ran this little computation, 10,000 talents would come to just over $2 billion.

The king forgives a debt that is so incredible that none of us could scarcely fathom. One example we can begin to get a grip on: This week Forbes magazine reported the Dallas Cowboys are worth $1.85 billion.[i] So imagine being forgiven by Jerry Jones for losing the entire Cowboys franchise—lock, stock, and stadium. Funny, I don’t see that story ending the same way as that part of the parable.

As for $20,000, that’s a new car; and not one with a ton of bells and whistles either. We have a grip on that kind of debt. It’s not cheap, but it’s doable.

The king forgives, he doesn’t grant a reprieve he cancels the full debt. The king forgives more than we could ever hope or imagine. But the man who receives such grace cannot extend it to his brother, his fellow slave. The king is generous, but he also has an eye to what’s right, even if that eye is focused in anger. If you can’t forgive then you will pay the same price you assigned your brother.

Marie and I were watching “The Children of 9/11” on NBC Monday night. They were interviewing children whose parents were killed in the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and on United Flight 93. One of the girls, maybe about 13 years old said even if 1,000 innocent Muslims came and apologized to her for killing her father, she would not forgive. She could not accept the apology of a nation for deeds of a few. This was followed by a young girl whose father, a Muslim, also worked and was killed at the World Trade Center. She said that she could never understand how Islam could be so warped to make their action an act of faith. She could not understand.

Now, I won’t pass judgment on the young girl who lost her father and cannot forgive. I don’t expect a thirteen year old to have a faith that can move that mountain. She’s thirteen! She lost her father in the premier national tragedy of our country! She was a spectacle of media for months and now years after the fact! These are not the makings of repentance from anger and delivery from grief and sorrow.

Our reading from Romans teaches us we are not to pass judgment on those whose faith is weak. We are not to cast away someone just because of judgment on “disputable matters.” The New Living Translation says this more cleanly, “Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.” I know not to reject the thirteen year old girl who does not have forgiveness in her heart today. She’s known the most horrible sorrow a girl or boy can know and she’s had it for three-quarters of her life. I can pray one day she will forgive, but I cannot and will not blame her for how she feels, especially not today.

There’s something else in Romans that needs to be addressed today. Paul writes, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers everyday alike.” In a way we started our worship today saying that today was different from last Sunday and will be different from the next. We say this because there is something in the fiber of our nation that says this day is different.

There is a story that a member of a Baptist church asked his preacher why they didn’t celebrate Lent (the season of preparation for Easter). The preacher told him that they don’t celebrate Lent because we are an Easter people. To this preacher every day is just as special as any other, every day is a celebration because since the resurrection everyday is Easter. This is how we are called to live our lives, we are supposed to live like everyday is the resurrection because everyday we live in the resurrection.

Despite being someone who likes the calendar that gives us Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, I like this story. We should live everyday like it’s the day of the resurrection. So here’s the question, is today a special day or should every day be just a special? Paul doesn’t answer this question.

He does say “He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord… For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the living and the dead.”

In short, it doesn’t really matter whether we consider this a special day or another special day as long as we give thanks to God. “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess to God.” By this, each of us we will ultimately be held accountable.

In the eyes of some, this is where the church fell short as the people of God on 9-11. Will Willimon is the Presiding Bishop over the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. Along with his numerous other gifts and talents, he is a renowned preacher. These are his thoughts about this 9-11:

For the most powerful, militarized nation in the world also to think of itself as an innocent victim is deadly. It was a rare prophetic moment for me, considering Presidents Bush and Obama have spent billions asking the military to rectify the crime of a small band of lawless individuals, destroying a couple of nations who had little to do with it, in the costliest, longest series of wars in the history of the United States.

The silence of most Christians and the giddy enthusiasm of a few, as well as the ubiquity of flags and patriotic extravaganzas in allegedly evangelical churches, says to me that American Christians may look back upon our response to 9/11 as our greatest Christological defeat. It was shattering to admit that we had lost the theological means to distinguish between the United States and the kingdom of God. The criminals who perpetrated 9/11 and the flag-waving boosters of our almost exclusively martial response were of one mind: that the nonviolent way of Jesus is stupid. All of us preachers share the shame; when our people felt very vulnerable, they reached for the flag, not the Cross.

September 11 has changed me. I'm going to preach as never before about Christ crucified as the answer to the question of what's wrong with the world. I have also resolved to relentlessly reiterate from the pulpit that the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on our own terms by crucifying God's own Son.

My way of paraphrasing what Willimon is saying is that in the shadow of 9-11 the phrase “God and Country” has become “Country and God.” He says that in the shadow of 9-11 the people of God set aside the cross for the flag and this is the failure of the church.

I thank God everyday that I live in a country where not only am I allowed to praise God, I am allowed to praise God as I am called to praise God. I thank God that our nation is protected by men and women who are volunteers, who have chosen to offer themselves to protect all of us. I thank God that I am allowed to pray for the civilian and military leaders who create the policy they help implement. I thank God I am allowed to pray that our political leaders are worthy of the respect shown by our military.

But there one thing we need to take from our readings that if we don’t we won’t be Christ’s church.

God saves. Our God saves; and one of the things God expects us to do in return is to have mercy, to forgive one another. To take our parable a little too literally, God our King has forgiven us $2 billion worth of sin against the Lord and asks that we forgive a comparatively paltry $20,000 worth of sin against each other. All the while, we are called not to judge poorly those who cannot forgive because their faith is weak.

We are called to forgive because humanity’s sin against God is greater than the sin we can commit against one another, even the sin a group of 20 terrorists perpetrated against thousands of individual people, their families, and this nation. Maybe that’s the hard lesson of 9-11 for the church. Humanity’s sin against God is greater than our sin against each other. God forgives, God saves, and so we are called to forgive too. This is what we are called to remember.

Some people call today “Patriot’s Day” and I want to wave the flag, shoot, I approved the bulletin cover. But that is not my vocation, not from this pulpit. My call is to raise the cross. My call is like that of John the Baptist and point to Jesus. My call is to exalt Christ above anything the world will try to put along side him. This is not easy. I pray for the strength to proclaim Christ over exalting a nation, even, in my opinion, the greatest nation on Earth. As we remember the victims of 9-11, let us remember the one who saves us all first.

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[i] Associated Press, “Dallas Cowboys Most Valuable NFL Franchise,” http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6941473/dallas-cowboys-most-valuable-nfl-team-forbes-list, retrieved September 11, 2011.

This Sermon Is Not About You

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday September 4, 2011, the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm 149

Romans 13:8-14

Matthew 18:15-20

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 started writing the sermon early last week, I had a beautiful illustration for how to make it look like two people were following 18:15-17 from our reading this morning, Christ’s directions to his disciples on conflict resolution. Now as I cryptically said, the illustration made it “look like” they were following Christ’s directions, but truly they weren’t.

After sharing the illustration I was going to say “But this sermon is not about them, and it’s not about you either.” As it would happen, on Wednesday Al told me that I needed to take a look at the web site he checks for children’s sermons. The next day at Lectio Divina, the group that meets on Thursday to study the gospel reading, I was given more food for thought. Then I read an article on line that asked the pastoral question “Are You a Preacher or a Motivational Speaker?” At that point, the old illustration was worthless.

The children’s sermon Al shared with me was wonderful. I won’t share the whole text with you, but here’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version:

Once upon a time there were two brothers. When their father died, they inherited and split their father’s farm and continued in the family business. One day, one of them offended the other over a slight that is now long forgotten.

Then one day, a carpenter visited one of the brothers and asked if there was any work for him. The farmer-brother said yes, there was work. He wanted the carpenter to build a fence along the stream that split their property so he didn’t have to see his brother again.

At the end of the day, the farmer came to check on the carpenter’s work only to discover that instead of building a wall, he built a bridge. Shocked at the work, he was even more amazed to see his brother on the other side. “After all the terrible things I’ve done to you over the years, I can't believe that you would build a bridge and welcome me back.”[1] He then reached out to his brother and gave him a big hug.

After the two men made amends, the brother that hired the carpenter went home. The farmer asked the carpenter to stay. The carpenter replied “No, I have more bridges to build.”

There are several ways to interpret scripture, among them are descriptive and prescriptive. The descriptive way of interpreting scripture interprets through explanation, a grand rephrasing of the word of God for the people of God. I tend to do a lot of this. My original illustration, the one I talked about at the beginning, would have made a wonderful segue into describing verses 15-17. I would have described how this biblical conflict resolution process works and how important it is to use it.

I would have said that those three verses show us how to make amends when a brother, fellow disciple, member of the church has sinned against you. It keeps it small and intimate until the whole church is involved and it does keep the sin within the church. What starts between the disciples should remain in the church.

It’s not bad as descriptions go; at least it wasn’t bad before I was reminded there’s something better.

The prescriptive interpretation of scripture does something different. The prescriptive interpretation doesn’t describe the text. Like a prescription helps make a sick body better, the prescriptive interpretation helps us use the text in our lives. It helps make us better disciples. A prescriptive interpretation of this scripture is the basis of that children’s sermon. The prescriptive interpretation reminds us that Christ makes amends for us and between us. Christ makes amends between us and our God.

Christ bridges the gap. Christ closes the chasms and schisms that are so old that we don’t remember their particulars anymore. Yes, we can remember broad brush strokes of the sins, but the details are gone like yesterday’s news.

The glory of this prescription is that while it is humanity’s first inclination to want to build walls between us, Christ will have nothing to do with that. When something comes between disciples, between brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord is there building bridges instead of walls.

How wonderful is that? Our God saves! Even when we try to build walls God builds bridges and saves us from ourselves bringing us to reconciliation.

On Thursday, this was going through my mind as we were reading Matthew 18:15-20 in our study. On a side note, during the announcements Al always says that everyone is invited to join the study in the chapel at 10:00 Thursday mornings. As he has said, we read and we discuss, we listen and we pray. It’s not a lecture. Because of this, insights that are new (at least to me) and glorious are shared regularly.

One of the things that came up on Thursday was a wonderful and glorious interpretation that helps define church for all of us. One of the participants, Tom Malcolm, noted that in verse 20, Jesus says “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Now, that’s nothing new, this is the kind of scripture that has helped define the church for nearly 2,000 years. What made this more special was how he related it to the first part of our reading.

He reminded us verse 15 begins, “If your brother sins against you…” and ends saying “between the two of you.” Friends, intelligence is often complex and complicated, but great wisdom often comes in the very simplest of words. Let me paraphrase the point made on Thursday. He told us verse 15 has two people, the sinner and the sinned against, when they come together in Jesus’ name, Christ is among them.

I love this insight. I absolutely love it. In verses 15-17, this is a particular brother member of the church, who was sinned against by another particular brother member of the church. They are disciples, but they are individuals.

In the last three verses, the “you” Jesus is talking about is the Church, his Church. The two in verse fifteen, by coming together in Jesus’ holy name come together as the Church, the capital “C” church. They don’t form a denomination or a congregation; they come together as members of the Body of Christ, they come together as the Church.

This is important for all of us; there are times when we do not agree with one another. There are times when people will be hurt by the actions of another member of the Body of Christ. There are times when members of the same denomination or congregation hurt one another.

So now not only do we have a scriptural conflict resolution process (and good, holy tools are never a bad thing), we have a savior who is the bridge between two in conflict. Even more so, when two parties are gathered in the name of the Lord, especially when it’s two members, one who has sinned against the other, Jesus promises he is there with them.

Then I read the article by Sherman Haywood Cox II on the difference between preaching and motivational speaking. He contends that a lot of preaching, popular preaching, what passes for relevant preaching, is nothing more than changing “the title from the latest pop-psychologist’s seminar from “how to succeed” to “how to fulfill God’s purpose” where God’s purpose is defined as “succeeding in this life.”[2]

He points out that hearing this kind of message may be helpful and useful, but it’s not the gospel. He laments that often this Gospel Lite is no more than learning “a skill or a mindset that will help [the listener] finally break the boundaries that keep them from that promotion.”[3] It’s nice, but it’s not the Good News.

He says that where good motivational speaking from the pulpit breaks down is that it lacks two things, the cross and the coming kingdom of God. He also tells preachers and other readers to beware. You have to beware of sticking Jesus on the end so that it sounds Christian. The cross is central, the cross is necessary.

This week’s edition of “Presbyterians Today” magazine includes an article called “Questions Muslims ask Christians.” One of the questions was “Why do you believe that Jesus suffered and died on the cross?”[4]

The answer begins reminding the reader that Muslims don’t consider Jesus the Son of God, though they consider him a great prophet and within their theology a Messiah. They also believe that God, the God of Abraham, would have never allowed the murder of such a great prophet. Another belief they don’t share is original sin, so they don’t share our concept of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God for the atonement of sin. No original sin, no need for the sacrifice.

From the pulpit I must proclaim and as disciples we must to live that through Christ’s death, even death on the cross, Jesus died for the sin of the world. Our Creator knew us so well that even before we were created there would have to be someone who would build bridges between us and God, between each of us and all of us. “Jesus humanity and suffering communicate the extraordinary lengths to which our Creator has gone to lavish extravagant love upon sinful humanity.”[5]

As I said, this sermon is not about you. One of the reasons I say this is because I remember when I was in my 20’s I began to wonder if my pastor wasn’t following me around all day so that he could say something from the pulpit on Sunday that was intended just for me. I knew this wasn’t true, but it was uncanny the way he seemed to fashion messages that directly convicted me.

I don’t want anyone to think that I am indicting someone about a particular situation. I’m not. But let me say this, this sermon is not about you but it is for all of us. It is for the church. It is for the disciples. It is for the people of God. If that convicts each of us and all of us, that’s as it should be.

We are called to remember it is our Lord who takes the wood of the cross and builds bridges so that we may be one as his Body, one in his Church. This is the coming of the kingdom on Earth. We are called to go across those bridges and seek those who have sinned against us, and those who we’ve sinned against. Once a bridge is built, we can’t make anyone walk across it, but Jesus knew that too. But we also know that when two or three come together, Christ is there with them, together in his name they are the Church. This is necessary because of our sin and this redemption is only possible through his life, death, and resurrection.

I could go on and describe this passage all day, but I would rather us use this as a prescription that brings the body together than share another description. Truly, this prescription for forgiveness is a tonic for the troops.

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[1] “Building Bridges,” http://sermons4kids.com/building_bridges.htm, retrieved August 31, 2011.

[2] “Are You a Preacher or a Motivational Speaker?” http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/preaching-teaching/153625-are-you-a-preacher-or-motivational-speaker.html, retrieved September 1, 2011.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Perkins, Mitali, “Faith Seeking Understanding: Questions Muslims Ask Christians.” Presbyterians Today. Vol. 101, No. 7, September 2011, p 4.

[5] Ibid.

Go and Be Reconciled

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday February 13, 2011, the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
1Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37

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

As many of you either saw or heard last Sunday, pop music diva Christina Aguilera “sang” the national anthem at Super Bowl XLV.  Well there were a lot of folks who were outraged by her rendition, wishing that singers of the anthem would just stick to the tune Francis Scott Key used when he put lyrics to melody in the first place.  It was reported by Us Weekly[1] that among the many Americans who felt this way, the most famous was former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.

According to a source, Governor Palin reportedly blasted Christina Aguilera’s disastrous performance of the national anthem at Super Bowl XLV calling Aguilera a “demanding beauty queen who’s clearly in over her head.” The report also mentioned the Governor wanting to “deport” Aguilera, after having “to suffer through a performance by a foreigner with a poor grasp of the English language.” Palin also levied criticism on the Obama administration for allowing “spicy Latin princesses” to do the jobs of American pop divas.

The source reported a radio interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity where the Governor says “Quite frankly, Sean, public figures must be held accountable for what they say,” explained Palin.  “Here’s another case of an airhead diva going on TV, running her mouth off, sounding like a fool.  She doesn’t understand something so basic about America, yet we’re supposed to tolerate her diva behavior?  Americans can see through that, Sean.”

These are pretty heavy words.  She even used the “F” word, fool.  But there’s one more thing you need to know about this, none of it was true.  The story was created by a satirical “news organization” called SuperTuesdayNews.com.[2]

The real Governor Palin later responded to the false reports. “I had no interview with Sean [Hannity] and I have never bashed Christina.  In fact,” Palin adds in an on the record interview with Us Weekly, “I’ve defended her by telling folks to back off the criticism of her mistake.”

This spoof of Governor Palin has been blown way out of proportion after media reported the former vice presidential candidate’s fabricated comments as fact.  It was comedy, it was satire, and it was taken for fact by “real” news organizations.

Anyone who says Raca, an ancient Aramaic insult, is answerable to the Sanhedrin.  But anyone who says, “You fool” will be in danger of the fire of hell.  If there is a problem with the written word it’s that it’s hard to detect sarcasm and anyone who has accidently insulted somebody online knows this.  SuperTuesdayNews.com was telling a joke, a joke that got lost on Us Weekly and everyone else who picked up this item as gospel truth.

SuperTuesdayNews.com was being mean for the sake of the joke.  By our reading, this would place them in danger of the fire of hell.  The only people on a slipperier slope would be those who repeated this story as truth, without first finding that it was a joke.

There are two parts to our gospel reading today.  The first we have just touched upon, injuring another.  Jesus tells those who have just heard the beatitudes, those who had just heard that they are salt and light, that if they are angry with their brother they are as subject to judgment as they would be if they murdered.  Insult your brother and you’re answerable to the Sanhedrin, but calling someone a fool, well, that makes God your judge.  This is expanded in the rest of our reading.

It’s easy to understand the injunctions against taking vows.  This is the heart of the commandment that says thou shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.  Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.  Don’t swear by anything because once your reputation is damaged all that is left is to try to earn back the trust you have lost.  Also taking oaths by greater things adds nothing to your word.  Demanding others take oaths by greater things simply means distrust.  So let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, anything else is either window dressing or a smoke screen.

As for the injunctions against adultery and divorce, these are landmines of our time.

Jesus tells us that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart.  If this causes you to sin, it is better to eliminate the part of the body responsible than to allow the possibility of sin.

Well, this is one of those times when something gets lost in the translation.  Let me explain this by comparing two levels of lust.  Let’s call the first “Gee, she’s (or he’s-your choice) kinda cute” and the second “Gee, how can I go all King David on this Bathsheba?”  The first type, noting someone is attractive, is not the lust of the original Greek language.  Doing something about it, as David did with Bathsheba, that’s a sin.  On top of that, considering how to do “The David” is a sin.  That’s what this passage is talking about.

Oh, and scholars agree that the self mutilation of this passage is an exaggeration, it’s just an expression used by Jesus to make sure the people understood how important this teaching was.  I’m willing to agree with them, but then again, the vast majority of these scholars were men as am I.  Men probably aren’t the most unbiased of judges on the whole “pluck it out/chop it off” matter.

The divorce statutes are even more difficult to interpret for our day and time.  It’s because so many of us are either divorced or have friends and family who are divorced.  This includes my family where among the five of us, two parents, two siblings, and me, there are seven divorces, so finding an interpretation that is faithful and pastoral means cutting away a lot of things that aren’t necessary to the core of this teaching.

That ground is here.  Jesus is teaching faithfulness.  I look to our reading from Deuteronomy when interpreting this passage.  Deuteronomy tells us to be obedient, not to bow down and worship other gods.  The passage ends with Moses declaring to the congregation to choose life so that you and your children may live.  This is our call, to choose life so that we all may live.

Divorce and adultery are about the ancient legal status that someone bestows upon another by their actions.  Whether it’s by infidelity or by legal certificate, it is about what one person in a relationship does to another.  What the passage is saying is that we are not to behave in a way that would cause dishonor to another, particularly someone we love.

Jesus is talking about relationships.  Jesus is talking about faithfulness.  Jesus is talking about choosing life not just for yourself, but for your whole family.  It’s about life that is wonderful and glorious, a delight in the eyes of God.

What it’s not about is life lived in abuse.  It is not about life lived where you wonder where your partner is, and with whom.  It’s not about worrying if you are going to survive your partner’s viciousness or carelessness.  It’s not about staying in marriage because it’s what the law requires.  It’s about relationships grounded in God’s loving kindness given without reservation to those who have not earned it, but it’s not about tolerating infidelity and horror.

The common bond of all of these specifics, murder and anger and adultery and divorce, and even oath taking, the common bond between these is that there is a higher calling than what the law calls us to live.  That higher calling is the law made and embodied in the living Torah that is Jesus the Christ.  It is Christ who tells us that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  It is about relationships lived in faithful gracious love with one another, and the truth that we often make this life more difficult than necessary.

The way we live into this new life is the second major part of our reading.

Earlier this week I got a facebook friend request from an elementary school buddy who I haven’t seen in thirty-five years.  He began, “Dear Paul, I’m sorry.”  Now, I expected the usual things someone says in a facebook friend request. I did not expect this and I had no idea the emotional impact that it would have on me.  A simple “Dear Paul, I’m sorry” made me reel.

He went on to say that after his family moved away, he had become messed up because of drugs.  He reminded me of a time at the old municipal swimming pool a few years later, we must have been about thirteen or so, and he said something about my weight. I said, “Thanks a lot.”

He wrote, “I never forgot how mean and wrong it was to say that and I still hurt really bad for having said it.”  He said he had tried to find me for the last few years on line and succeeded just last week.  He repeated his apology and asked me to forgive him.  He regretted that I was hurt and that he did not apologize then.

Jesus says “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there.  First go and be reconciled to your brother.”

This is what he did.  This is what God calls us to do.  But it is very important to note what he did and what Jesus says, “If you remember that your brother has something against you, you are to go and be reconciled.”  It doesn’t say we get to sit in self pity and wait for someone who has wronged us to come and make it right, it says to go out and seek who you have wronged, who we have wronged.  It says go and be reconciled.

Jesus does not call us to passively sit by waiting for the world to apologize for its injustices.  It calls us to go out and right the wrongs we have done against others.  Take my word for it, having been on both sides; these words can be difficult to say, but they are glorious to hear. It’s not easy, but it is glorious.

My response began, “Think nothing more of it.  I forgive you.”

This is something we do every week.  Every week we come together and pray a Confession of Sin.  Then we hear the Assurance of Pardon.

Today we prayed God’s compassion and mercy on us.  We prayed that we acknowledge God’s statutes and our way of replacing them with our own desires. We prayed God set us right in accord with his design for us.”

Then we heard the Assurance of Pardon, We boldly declare God will put the law within us, writing them on our hearts.  God will forgive our iniquity and remember our sin no more.[3]

We hear the Good News of the Gospel; through Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin preached that he is “stunned by people who… say, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins,’ as if it were a piece of cake.”  He continues “The Assurance of Pardon is what takes humility, because it means giving up your opinion of yourself and accepting someone else’s opinion of you.  It means allowing someone else to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.  It means that you recognize that finally your value is a gift, not an achievement.”[4]

Coffin says that he believes the Assurance of Pardon is the most exciting part of the worship service.  Yet there is another part of liturgy that I believe is just as exciting.

There is something called “Passing the Peace” which you may have participated in at another church or at Presbytery worship.  It isn’t a time to meet and greet one another; it is a time when after we confess our sin and receive the assurance of pardon people extend that same peace to one another.  People shake hands and hug, usually saying something like “Peace be with you” and are answered with something like “And also with you.”  It is a way that people in the church offer and share forgiveness received from God with each other.  It is a way people go and become reconciled one to another before coming to the altar.

The 2010 film “The Book of Eli”[5] ends with this prayer, this benediction if you will.  Denzel Washington’s Eli says:

“Dear Lord, thank you for giving me the strength and the conviction to complete the task you entrusted to me. Thank you for guiding me straight and true through the many obstacles in my path. And for keeping me resolute when all around seemed lost. Thank you for your protection and your many signs along the way. Thank you for any good that I may have done, I’m so sorry about the bad. Thank you for the friend I made. Please watch over her as you watched over me. Thank you for finally allowing me to rest. I’m so very tired, but I go now to my rest at peace knowing that I have done right with my time on this earth. I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.”

So be strong, be straight.  Lord, keep us on straight paths through the many obstacles life places in our way.  Thank you for keeping us when all seems lost.  Thank you for your protections and signs.  Thank you for new friends and watch over them as you have watched over us.  Be with us so that we may know the higher law that is your life and the good we do by it.  And when we stray, we are sorry about the bad and pray for your forgiveness and grace as you send us to go and be reconciled, to one another and to you.

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[1] Oops! Sarah Palin Didn’t Call Christina Aguilera an Airhead,” http://www.popeater.com/2011/02/10/sarah-palin-christina-aguilera-super-bowl/, retrieved February 10, 2011.

[2] “Palin Says She’d Deport Christina Aguilera for Botching National Anthem,”

 http://www.supertuesdaynews.com/1/post/2011/02/palin-says-shed-deport-christina-aguilera-for-botching-national-anthem.html, retrieved February 10, 2011.

[3] Kirk, James G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.” Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001, page 33-34.

[4] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 312

[5] “The Book of Eli.” A Warner Brothers Movie, 2010.  The quote comes from the Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037705/quotes, retrieved February 11, 2011