NOTE: Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, September 23, 2012. They are a work in progress about grace, God's holy mountain and living by trust.
Introduction
Have
you ever said something stupid out loud? I mean really stupid –
like you know it was totally wrong and inappropriate even as the words were
falling out of your face – but they keep coming? I’m talking about something really, totally
and completely stupid?
I have – you’ve heard some of them, too – I’ve
said some stupid things in worship when I’m trying to be funny or
spontaneous. I’ve butchered some
historical facts about the Bible when I conflated one reality with
another. And I’ve said stupid things in
a manner too harsh when I’ve felt worn-out and hung-up wet to dry. And if you’re anything like me, you have said
some stupid things, too in your day:
words you wish you could take back immediately – not so much because
they are embarrassing – but rather because they either confuse or wound
another, right?
Sometimes
I’ve heard or read stupid things in the Bible – maybe you have, too – things
that enflame our hatreds or degrade our neighbors or cause us unnecessary
suffering and pain. I think of the women I’ve counseled through the
years who’ve continued to stay in abusive and destructive relationships because
they’ve been taught that it is God’s plan for creation for women to submit to
their husbands. After all, it says in
Ephesians 5: Wives,
be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband
is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of
which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives
ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
· I think of our historic anti-Semitism that runs
rampant through Christianity born of the notion that the Jews are Christ
killers – the gospel of John is filled with barbs against the leaders of
Judaism – so it must be God’s will to hate them, right?
· And then there are those throughout the ages who
have wounded and abused themselves physically because they believed that when
Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear
it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than
for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut
it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than
for your whole body to go into hell" he was
speaking literally not figuratively.
Saying stupid and hurtful things seem to be a part of the human condition – we all do it – we’ve all done it – and we’ll all probably keep doing it this side of glory forever. To which St. Paul tells us something that is not stupid. He writes to the early church in Rome:
We know that all things work together for good for those
who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom
he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in
order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.*
And those whom he predestined he also
called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified
he also glorified. I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That is, if we truly love God and ache to learn from our stupidity – if we are willing to be humbled by our failures and turn them over to the Lord by grace – then God will take even all that is stupid and hurtful in our lives and history and work it for good. He’s not saying that everything IS good – nor that everything always is easy – but that even our sins and stupidity can be used for the work of grace for those who are committed to God’s purpose revealed in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
Insights
And THAT is a huge blessing – a massive gift filled with
hope and healing and forgiveness – that is offered to us by God in return for
love. Paul promises that if we love the
Lord then there is nothing that can happen that can subvert God’s plan for the
world. What’s more, there is nothing that
can ever separate us from God’s love and grace either:
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And why does Paul make such an outrageous
statement and promise? What evidence
does he have in his experience to warrant such a huge claim?
· Well, he himself has been healed and forgiven –
by the crucified and risen Jesus – who came to him in a vision, lifted away the
blinders of fear and hatred and set him on the road of life filled with a
mission of mercy. Paul has lived into
and through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord so he knows in his
flesh what God can do through love.
· Are you still with me? Do you hear what I’m trying to say? Stupidity and sin, fear and hatred, death and
destruction can all be used by God for good if we give it to the Lord in love.
Do
you know the name Elaine Pagels? She is
a distinguished scholar of religion at Princeton University who has written
about the Gnostic Gospels and other spiritual texts that the Church has kept
hidden or banished. Over the years, the
more she studied and wrote about the stupidity and sin of the Church as an
institution, you could see that she was becoming more and more alienated and
disillusioned.
“But
then something happened. A death. The death of her son, her oldest child – the
worst kind of sorry any parent could imagine.
And as she absorbed the news of his fatal illness, and certain death,
she rediscovered something” (Rediscovering
Reverence, p. 68) that she describes like this in her book, Beyond
Belief:
On a bright Sunday morning in
February, shivering in a T-shirt and running shorts, I stepped into the vaulted
stone vestibule of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York to catch my
breath and warm up. Since I had not been in church for a long time, I was
startled by my response to the worship in progress – the soaring harmonies of
the choir singing with the congregation; and the priest, a woman in bright gold
and white vestments, proclaiming the prayers in a clear and resonant
voice. As I stood watching, a thought
came to me: here is a family that knows
how to face death…
Standing in the back of that
church, I recognized, uncomfortably, that I needed to be there. Here was a
place to weep without imposing tears upon a child; and here was a heterogeneous
community that had gathered to sing, to celebrate, to acknowledge common needs
and to deal with what we cannot control or imagine. And at the same time, the
celebration spoke of hope; perhaps that is what made the presence of death
bearable…
I returned often to that church,
not looking for faith but because in the presence of the worship and the people
gathered there – and in a smaller group that met on weekdays in the church
basement for mutual encouragement – my defenses fell away, exposing storms of
grief and hope. In that church I
gathered new energy to face whatever awaited us as constructively as possible.
Like
the Apostle Paul told us: when we
bring whatever we have to the Lord in love… nothing not
death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now
that’s an enormous idea – bigger and more awesome than most of our
imaginations can grasp - so our spiritual founders took the time to find
different symbols from our everyday lives that pointed to the enormity of God’s
grace.
· Sometimes they spoke of God’s presence as the
dew of the morning in the desert – and what does that image evoke for you?
· At other times God was like a shepherd whose rod
and staff brings us protection even in the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes God’s love is like a feast – thou
preparest a table before me even in the presence of mine enemies and my cup
overflows.
· Today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah suggests
that God’s power and presence in our lives is like a mountain – a place that is
elevated and huge – a new heaven and new earth even where creation and joy
abound.
And before I go a little deeper into
Isaiah’s vision, let me ask you: have you
ever been to a mountain top? What
did it feel like? Think about that
deeply – try to reclaim the feelings of being on that mountain – because it is
those feelings, not the facts, that give our faith power and depth.
· What mountain tops have you experienced – where
and how – and what did it feel like to be on that mountain? (Let people share their encounters…)
· For me, different mountains evoke different
feelings: when I stood on the rim of the
Grand Canyon it was humbling – I was saturated with awe and silence – at the
enormity and power all around me. But
when I drive Route 7 up to Williamstown and reach the crest that looks out over
the valley, on that mountain I start to breathe deeper and feel very much at
rest and peace with the world.
Israel’s
poetic prophet, Isaiah, mixes three truths together in this morning’s reading
about what life is to be like under the love and grace of God. First,
he acknowledges that there is always suffering – the former devastations he
calls them – the wounds and pain we bring upon ourselves through stupidity,
sin, greed, fear and hatred.
·
What does that kind of sin and stupidity look
like in our time?
·
What are the signs of greed, fear, ignorance and
hatred in our generation?
The
promise of the prophet is that on God’s holy mountain these wounds will be used
to bring about healing and hope through grace.
That may seem incomprehensible – absurd even – but that is the
promise. And trusting in grace means
that we don’t have to understand how this works. We don’t have to be God. We are simply asked to acknowledge and
confess our sins and turn them in humility to the Lord. First, Isaiah speaks of the suffering.
Second, Isaiah clearly celebrates a sacred
reality that both transcends and transforms the former things: not only is God delighted with the new creation,
but humanity is set free.
·
I will rejoice
in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be
heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant
that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for
one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth and one who falls
short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
· What do those words
say to you? What is God saying to us
about the quality of our lives lived in God’s grace?
·
What about here?
What do you hear in these promises? They shall build
houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They
shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the
days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in
vain, or bear children for calamity;* for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord and their descendants as well.
God
is creating here – over and over the words of Genesis are used to remind us
that the healing and rejoicing of the Lord is a creative gift – a gift of grace
after the wounds of sin. A gift of
shalom that is offered to everyone who seeks to dwell on God’s holy mountain
· And that’s another huge word – shalom – that has to do not only with right relations
between people – healing and justice and compassion and creativity all rolled
together – but also right relations between human beings and animals and plants
and water and air.
· Wherever there is enmity between human beings
and the land, wherever there is war and fear, wherever there is hunger or
homelessness or intolerance, there is no shalom.
The
Apostle Paul calls the absence of shalom God’s wrath – not an active punishment
like we’re bad or stupid children – but rather the absence of the Lord’s
presence in our lives for a time so that we’ll experience the consequences of
our own stubborn opposition to the way of the Lord. In Romans 1 Paul puts it like this:
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness
suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because
God has shown it to them. Ever since the
creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though
they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they
are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God
or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless
minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they
exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human
being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.
I
have come to see God’s wrath as less active and more passive than we’ve been
told. It is rather like a loving parent
who in exasperation with a child says, “Look I’ve given you love and wisdom and
trust and protection but you insist on
doing hurtful things to yourself and others.
Well ok, then, have it your way… and see what you think then.”
· So the parent steps back and lets the beloved
child stumble and fall and fail. It is
agonizing – it is the powerlessness of love in action – and there are lots of
tears and prayers and silence offered up in hope that at some point the pain –
the emptiness – will be too great to bear and the child will want a change.
· And sometimes that happens – the Bible tells a
lot of stories about home-comings and feasts after stubborn children grow weary
of their sins – and the Scriptures are full of passages about the rejoicing in
love that takes place in God’s heart: my
child was once lost, but now she is found.
Hallelujah!
That’s the hope of
shalom – and wrath – that together they might bring us home into God’s
love.
Conclusion
But sometimes that
doesn’t happen, right? We know this in
our own families and we certainly see it in world events. And this is where the enormity of God’s love
– the awesome and humbling power that is more massive than a mountain – comes back
into play: we are invited to live and
act as those who trust.
Now we see as through
a glass darkly – only later shall we see face to face – for now we feel only the emptiness: now we see the darkness and have no idea how
the light of grace will come to pass.
Now we have tears not rejoicing, famine rather than feasting.
To which Paul says
very tenderly: Beloved, please, remember
the Lord Jesus Christ – and what came into his life by the grace of God - he,
too, was lost but now is found. He, too,
was dead but now lives. And what God has
given to Christ Jesus in love, he offers to us, too. Not because Jesus earned – not because we
deserve it – but because God loves us as
God.
All things can work together for good for those who love
God when we are called according to his purpose. Having experienced this in my
own flesh and soul, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is the good news
for those who dwell – and seek – the Lord’s shalom on God’s holy mountain. So let those who have ears to hear, hear.
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