Mark 10:17-31
Another difficult passage. Two weeks in a row. And actually together in Mark’s gospel. First we have the passage about divorce and now this about wealth. It’s surprising that we want to call ourselves a Christian nation with these passages as part of the package. I had a seminary professor who said our country was based on denial and greed. And these passages hit right at the heart of each of these.
We spent some time last week on what to do with these difficult verses. Today I hope to delve a little more deeply into this particular passage. It is also difficult to me. One on which I’d rather not preach, I must confess, but one that we ignore at our own peril.
The passage is of course about wealth and getting into the kingdom of God. And it’s not good news. In fact, it turns good news on its ear. At the time that Jesus spoke these words (and to many in our culture) wealth was a sign of God’s favor. If God is pleased with you, you will have possessions. The more God is pleased with you, the more you will have.
This must certainly have been a surprise to the young man who came to see Jesus. As one who had many possessions, he thought he was pretty close to being right there where he needed to be. But then reality sets in. He hears Jesus’ words; he hears those verbs that mean to change his life: go, sell, give, come, follow. Quoting the passage: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing, go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’” Go, sell, give, come, follow.
The story of the rich young ruler is in all three gospels. Each is a little different though—Matthew tells us he’s young. Luke tells us that he’s a ruler. Mark leaves out those details and sticks to the one fact that’s important: he’s rich.
And he’s a good man; he follows the law and has since his youth. He’s a model citizen. If anyone is bound for heaven, he is. But there’s one thing wrong. Go, sell, give, come, follow.
It saddens him, we’re told. He’s sad because he has many possessions. And no doubt he’s attached to his possessions and the lifestyle that goes with them. He’s comfortable. He lives a life of ease, no doubt. But then there’s suddenly go, sell, give, come, follow.
We don’t know what happened to the young man. Did he do as Jesus said? Did he go, sell, give, come, follow? Or did he return to his life of ease, continuing to follow the commandments except for this one from Jesus? We’ll never know, as nothing more is recorded of him in scripture. We don’t know what became of him.
This scripture strikes home to me. Though I am far from considering myself wealthy, I do seem to have my own bit of possessions. Now if I were to sell them all, I doubt I could do much to help the poor, since most of my possessions aren’t worth that much. But still, I know where my next meal is coming from. I have things that have value to me. I have a regular roof over my head and live fairly easily. Compared to much of the world, I’m wealthy, even though by US standards, I’m not high on the charts of wealth. But compared to God’s children throughout the world, I am doing extremely well.
And I daresay so are most of us in this room this morning. If you’re not worried about how your next meal will find you, if you have more than cardboard or a tarp to keep the elements from yourself, if you have a bank account, with any amount in it, this scripture applies to you.
Go, sell, give, come, follow. Each of those verbs is a commandment to us. They aren’t contextually based in the 1st century solely and don’t apply only to rich, young rulers of the 1st century. They are our verbs; our uncomfortable commandments to figure out what we are to do with them.
This isn’t a stewardship sermon, but it’s sure going to sound like one before I’m through. Because this scripture is all about deciding how we deal with our wealth. Do we use it to help others? Do we invest it in places that need our income rather than those places that will just increase our wealth?
Our giving is of consequence. How and where we use our wealth is important to God. There’s no doubt about it. This scripture makes that clear. Go, sell, give, come, follow. Those verbs just hang there and accuse us.
And of course, it’s not just giving that matters. It’s the come, follow part too that gets us. Not only do we have to deal with our wealth, we must then follow Jesus’ precepts and teachings, which is not the easiest thing to do always. We have to be poor and good? What are you thinking, Jesus?! Isn’t one enough?
Can’t we simply follow you without a concern to our giving? Or how about if we are giving and generous with our wealth but don’t necessarily follow you? Does it have to be both? All those verbs are beginning to get to us. They get in the way of our lives and really distract us from important matters.
But that’s what we’re asked to do. Go, sell, give, come, follow. All parts are important. Jesus not only invites us to do these things but commands it.
The good news of this scripture is that it’s all God’s decision when it comes down to it. Even though we have the image of a camel going through a needle’s eye, an impossible task to all of us here, Jesus tells us and the disciples that anything is possible with God.
But in the meantime go, sell, give, come, follow. These are the words to guide our lives.
17 September 2006
060917ser
Mark 8:27-38
Put yourself in Peter’s shoes in our reading from Mark this morning. One minute he’s flying high because he got it right—he proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. “Who do you say I am,” asked Jesus. And Peter responds, “You are the Messiah.” “You are the Christ.” “You are the anointed one.” “You are the savior.”
It was quite a moment. There they were in Caesarea Philippi and Jesus is alone with the disciples at this point. And Peter gets it right. Though the other disciples, echoing the voices of the crowds, declare that Jesus is John the Baptist come back to life or Elijah come back to earth or one of the prophets, Peter, speaking for the rest of the disciples states quite openly that Jesus is the messiah.
The Jewish messiah was the one who was anointed to save: to save Israel—to save it from foreign domination. The messiah would be the one who would bring back the glory of Israel, of God’s kingdom on earth, and bring to fruition God’s promises to the ancient Hebrew people of a land.
There hadn’t been a country of Judah or Israel for centuries. Ever since the 6th century bc the political entity of Judah had been taken over by others, except for a brief period of time. So the Jews were looking for an anointed one to save them; to bring them back to the glory of David’s kingdom.
That’s the context in which Peter makes his declaration of Jesus’ messiahship. Now whether Peter believed that Jesus was going to restore the kingdom of Judah or Israel, we don’t know. But certainly if that’s what he believed, he would be no different that anyone else in Israel at the time. All were looking for a messiah to come and save them from the Roman empire, the current oppressors. So you can’t fault Peter if he had high expectations of what a messiah would do.
That’s why the rebuke that Peter received just following this moment must have been so surprising to him. For Jesus went on to explain, immediately following this declaration of messiahship, that he was going to suffer and die. The messiah would suffer? The messiah would die? Impossible!
The juxtaposition is strong. Declared the messiah at one point and then pronouncing his own suffering, death & resurrection. It didn’t make sense. That’s when Peter blows it. Peter, riding on the high of getting it right, goes ahead and rebukes Jesus. What a thing to do. It’s not a word we use often but it’s found twice in this passage. Peter rebukes Jesus.
To Peter, and most Jews, the messiah cannot suffer, none the less die at the hands of the political and religious leaders of the day. The messiah is untouchable when it comes to suffering. To think that the one who is anointed to save Israel would undergo any suffering was, once again, impossible. And Peter wastes no time in pointing this out.
But Jesus turns around and does his own rebuking. And does it in a forceful and unwavering way: “Get behind me Satan,” he says. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter (and probably the others, to be fair) is thinking of the messiah in human terms, but Jesus has God’s plan in mind; God’s plan which involves all of creation; all humankind; not just the political state of Israel. A messiah who will defeat not the enemies of the Jewish state, but a messiah who will defeat the final enemy: death. That’s the messiah that Jesus knew himself to be. Though Jesus was a good Jewish teacher he envisioned a mission broader than the one that Peter and the other disciples saw; that they could only see because of their limited, human scope.
So Peter goes from the high of getting it right by proclaiming Jesus as the messiah but then finds himself being rebuked and even called “Satan” within moments of his astute proclamation. It must have been quite a precipitous fall.
How often do we do that? We catch a glimmer of the Truth, with a capital T, and then moments later waste that Truth by turning it into earthly terms. How often are we like Peter, glimpsing and proclaiming some vastly wonderful piece of information only to use it in some way that is less than heavenly?
It’s like catching a glimpse of God’s all-powerfulness in a moment of clarity and then immediately using it to ask for a parking space. We don’t have any idea of how abusing such power might affect ourselves or others.
We live in an age in which many would like to tell us who Jesus is. Just like the disciples answering that others think Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah or a prophet. We have those who insist on a formulaic answer to who Jesus is and leave little room for other responses.
But we have to decide for ourselves who we think Jesus is and then figure out what that means. If we declare Jesus the messiah, that just isn’t enough. For, if we’re not careful, we can be like Peter and begin to rebuke Jesus when he doesn’t turn out to be what we expected. We have to pay attention to Jesus himself as he tells us who he is and what he must go through.
We don’t like a suffering messiah. We want an unscarred hand on our shoulder. We don’t want to know that our messiah suffers like the rest of us. Our image is too rapped up in the old westerns where the hero gets shot in the shoulder and bravely goes on anyways. That’s the hero we want and we want our messiah to be a hero. The one who saves us needs to be impermeable and teflon-coated.
But Jesus has other ideas. He knows that messiahship is messy. It’s not a pretty game. He knows what he has to go through. And nothing in our attitude or Peter’s desires can stop it.
But where does that leave us? With a messiah with scarred hands that have been wounded. And unlike Peter, we have the benefit of hindsight that puts some balm on the sting of rebuke that we might feel. But we can feel those scarred hands healing and comforting us. And we know that our messiah has conquered death.
We need to ask ourselves, “Who do you say Jesus is?” We need to be continually asking ourselves that question. We may not like what Jesus says to us in reply, but we are continually comforted by those scarred hands of the messiah.
Mark 8:27-38
Put yourself in Peter’s shoes in our reading from Mark this morning. One minute he’s flying high because he got it right—he proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. “Who do you say I am,” asked Jesus. And Peter responds, “You are the Messiah.” “You are the Christ.” “You are the anointed one.” “You are the savior.”
It was quite a moment. There they were in Caesarea Philippi and Jesus is alone with the disciples at this point. And Peter gets it right. Though the other disciples, echoing the voices of the crowds, declare that Jesus is John the Baptist come back to life or Elijah come back to earth or one of the prophets, Peter, speaking for the rest of the disciples states quite openly that Jesus is the messiah.
The Jewish messiah was the one who was anointed to save: to save Israel—to save it from foreign domination. The messiah would be the one who would bring back the glory of Israel, of God’s kingdom on earth, and bring to fruition God’s promises to the ancient Hebrew people of a land.
There hadn’t been a country of Judah or Israel for centuries. Ever since the 6th century bc the political entity of Judah had been taken over by others, except for a brief period of time. So the Jews were looking for an anointed one to save them; to bring them back to the glory of David’s kingdom.
That’s the context in which Peter makes his declaration of Jesus’ messiahship. Now whether Peter believed that Jesus was going to restore the kingdom of Judah or Israel, we don’t know. But certainly if that’s what he believed, he would be no different that anyone else in Israel at the time. All were looking for a messiah to come and save them from the Roman empire, the current oppressors. So you can’t fault Peter if he had high expectations of what a messiah would do.
That’s why the rebuke that Peter received just following this moment must have been so surprising to him. For Jesus went on to explain, immediately following this declaration of messiahship, that he was going to suffer and die. The messiah would suffer? The messiah would die? Impossible!
The juxtaposition is strong. Declared the messiah at one point and then pronouncing his own suffering, death & resurrection. It didn’t make sense. That’s when Peter blows it. Peter, riding on the high of getting it right, goes ahead and rebukes Jesus. What a thing to do. It’s not a word we use often but it’s found twice in this passage. Peter rebukes Jesus.
To Peter, and most Jews, the messiah cannot suffer, none the less die at the hands of the political and religious leaders of the day. The messiah is untouchable when it comes to suffering. To think that the one who is anointed to save Israel would undergo any suffering was, once again, impossible. And Peter wastes no time in pointing this out.
But Jesus turns around and does his own rebuking. And does it in a forceful and unwavering way: “Get behind me Satan,” he says. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter (and probably the others, to be fair) is thinking of the messiah in human terms, but Jesus has God’s plan in mind; God’s plan which involves all of creation; all humankind; not just the political state of Israel. A messiah who will defeat not the enemies of the Jewish state, but a messiah who will defeat the final enemy: death. That’s the messiah that Jesus knew himself to be. Though Jesus was a good Jewish teacher he envisioned a mission broader than the one that Peter and the other disciples saw; that they could only see because of their limited, human scope.
So Peter goes from the high of getting it right by proclaiming Jesus as the messiah but then finds himself being rebuked and even called “Satan” within moments of his astute proclamation. It must have been quite a precipitous fall.
How often do we do that? We catch a glimmer of the Truth, with a capital T, and then moments later waste that Truth by turning it into earthly terms. How often are we like Peter, glimpsing and proclaiming some vastly wonderful piece of information only to use it in some way that is less than heavenly?
It’s like catching a glimpse of God’s all-powerfulness in a moment of clarity and then immediately using it to ask for a parking space. We don’t have any idea of how abusing such power might affect ourselves or others.
We live in an age in which many would like to tell us who Jesus is. Just like the disciples answering that others think Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah or a prophet. We have those who insist on a formulaic answer to who Jesus is and leave little room for other responses.
But we have to decide for ourselves who we think Jesus is and then figure out what that means. If we declare Jesus the messiah, that just isn’t enough. For, if we’re not careful, we can be like Peter and begin to rebuke Jesus when he doesn’t turn out to be what we expected. We have to pay attention to Jesus himself as he tells us who he is and what he must go through.
We don’t like a suffering messiah. We want an unscarred hand on our shoulder. We don’t want to know that our messiah suffers like the rest of us. Our image is too rapped up in the old westerns where the hero gets shot in the shoulder and bravely goes on anyways. That’s the hero we want and we want our messiah to be a hero. The one who saves us needs to be impermeable and teflon-coated.
But Jesus has other ideas. He knows that messiahship is messy. It’s not a pretty game. He knows what he has to go through. And nothing in our attitude or Peter’s desires can stop it.
But where does that leave us? With a messiah with scarred hands that have been wounded. And unlike Peter, we have the benefit of hindsight that puts some balm on the sting of rebuke that we might feel. But we can feel those scarred hands healing and comforting us. And we know that our messiah has conquered death.
We need to ask ourselves, “Who do you say Jesus is?” We need to be continually asking ourselves that question. We may not like what Jesus says to us in reply, but we are continually comforted by those scarred hands of the messiah.
27 August 2006
The City of Ephesus sat on the western shore of what is now Turkey. It had been, in its glory days, an important trade center. By the time the epistle which I read a few minutes ago was written, Ephesus was little more than a tourist stop. But what a tourist stop it was. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world—the best of all seven some have said. Ephesus relied on the tourists who came to see and worship at the Temple of Artemis for its survival.
Now imagine if a group came along and threatened the very tourism on which the city existed. Of course that would be the Christians—followers of Jesus who do away with idols and false gods. It’s like someone in San Francisco wanting to straighten out Lombard Street, get rid of Coit Tower and reduce Fisherman’s Wharf to, well, to a wharf for fishermen. It wouldn’t be popular. And neither were the Christians.
It’s a pretty standard story for early Christians—followers of the Way as they were known. They threatened the status quo. The worshiped not the emperor, as all in the Roman territories were supposed to do, but this other guy, this Jesus. They were aligned with the Jews who were another odd lot. At this point Christianity was still decades away from being accepted by the emperor as the official religion of the realm. Christians were still a persecuted lot.
And so we find the state of things as we read today’s words from Ephesians. The lectionary has brought us a bit of Ephesians for the past 7 weeks. If you’ve been paying attention to the lectionary readings we’ve covered most of the book. And today’s reading is right near the end of the book.
The authorship of Ephesians is doubted. Though it begins and ends with greetings and salutations from Paul, it wasn’t uncommon in those days to create writings that pretended to be by someone else. Thus there are several books in the epistles that purport to be by Paul though scholarship doubts that authorship and attributes it to one of his followers. Scholars have decided that Ephesians is one such book.
Now this doesn’t make it any less worthy of our attention. Obviously, if the lectionary is going to cover it in such depth over 7 weeks, it must be worth looking at. The book itself is short—only 6 chapters long and easily readable in one short sitting. Our reading this morning is the culmination of the book—the ending except for some personal salutations.
The book of Ephesians brings in many of Paul’s frequent themes—the grace of God, gifts that we are given that are to be used, assiduous avoidance of the ways of the secular world. But today’s scripture caught me because it was a little different. It’s a discussion of how to live the Christian life but with a military metaphor.
I’m not one to be hooked by a military theme. I’ve never served in the military and though I respect those who have served and do serve, the words by this unknown author which dress the Christian in the military clothing of the day both engage and repel me. If we try to update the reading to modern day, we might be talking about the Kevlar vest righteousness, the combat boots of peace and the AK-47 of faith. That’s very jangling to my ears.
But I think the author of Ephesians has a point. We aren’t up against flesh and blood enemies, but against cosmic forces of evil that would bring us down. And we can ignore those forces only at our own peril.
It’s tempting to live a Christian life that does not recognize the existence of evil. It’s tempting to just assume that God will take care of us and that no wrong will come to us. But it just doesn’t always work that way.
There is evil that is always around us and it needs to be faced. It needs to be acknowledged and reckoned with. The problem of evil is a long-standing one. There are those who would wish to deny its existence; those who would have us believe that all is well.
Our author of this morning’s reading clearly believes that evil exists and that it’s part of the Christian’s job to face it. But not just acknowledge it and move on but deal with it in some way.
Why else would we need all the protective and battle gear that the author describes? If we were allowed to turn and just run away from evil, averting our eyes from it, we would need none of these things that were depicted.
I am adverse to war—I think most of you realize that. That is part of my trouble with this passage. But I assure you, if I suddenly, somehow found myself in battle I’d be wishing for the Kevlar vest, the helmet, the combat boots and other ways to protect myself. The battle imagery is not entirely to my suiting but it may just be the right imagery to speak of our battle with evil. For if Santa Clara County for some reason suddenly decided to march north and attack, we would be in desperate need of gear that would first protect us and secondly help to repel the attack.
It is no different when we deal with evil—evil attacks us whether we are prepared or not. And the point this author is making is that it’s best to be prepared. That’s all. Be ready for the fight against the evils that surround us.
And there are plenty of evils alive and well in our culture: the evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism and…and…and. And that’s not to mention the evils of greed and idolatry that seem to be quite alive and well, not only in our culture but also in the time that Ephesians was written, according to the author if you read the whole book.
These evils, and plenty of others, are alive and well all around us. And it is our duty as Christians to confront them and do what we can to eliminate them. It takes recognition on our part first off. Hardest of all, we must examine ourselves to see how we might participate in evil so that we can eliminate it from our own behaviors and inner thoughts.
Once we can confront the evils that we participate in, we are ready to take on the evils that are part of our culture. And as the author of the letter says, it’s going to take truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit to protect us and arm us.
You can name the evils that surround you. It doesn’t take much reflection to know what sorts of things you are up against. I have named a few but you can certainly come up with others.
Be prepared for a fight, a mighty struggle, once you confront evil though. It doesn’t go down easily. That’s why some of these evils have lasted for centuries and centuries. But, we can be assured, God is on our side.
Now imagine if a group came along and threatened the very tourism on which the city existed. Of course that would be the Christians—followers of Jesus who do away with idols and false gods. It’s like someone in San Francisco wanting to straighten out Lombard Street, get rid of Coit Tower and reduce Fisherman’s Wharf to, well, to a wharf for fishermen. It wouldn’t be popular. And neither were the Christians.
It’s a pretty standard story for early Christians—followers of the Way as they were known. They threatened the status quo. The worshiped not the emperor, as all in the Roman territories were supposed to do, but this other guy, this Jesus. They were aligned with the Jews who were another odd lot. At this point Christianity was still decades away from being accepted by the emperor as the official religion of the realm. Christians were still a persecuted lot.
And so we find the state of things as we read today’s words from Ephesians. The lectionary has brought us a bit of Ephesians for the past 7 weeks. If you’ve been paying attention to the lectionary readings we’ve covered most of the book. And today’s reading is right near the end of the book.
The authorship of Ephesians is doubted. Though it begins and ends with greetings and salutations from Paul, it wasn’t uncommon in those days to create writings that pretended to be by someone else. Thus there are several books in the epistles that purport to be by Paul though scholarship doubts that authorship and attributes it to one of his followers. Scholars have decided that Ephesians is one such book.
Now this doesn’t make it any less worthy of our attention. Obviously, if the lectionary is going to cover it in such depth over 7 weeks, it must be worth looking at. The book itself is short—only 6 chapters long and easily readable in one short sitting. Our reading this morning is the culmination of the book—the ending except for some personal salutations.
The book of Ephesians brings in many of Paul’s frequent themes—the grace of God, gifts that we are given that are to be used, assiduous avoidance of the ways of the secular world. But today’s scripture caught me because it was a little different. It’s a discussion of how to live the Christian life but with a military metaphor.
I’m not one to be hooked by a military theme. I’ve never served in the military and though I respect those who have served and do serve, the words by this unknown author which dress the Christian in the military clothing of the day both engage and repel me. If we try to update the reading to modern day, we might be talking about the Kevlar vest righteousness, the combat boots of peace and the AK-47 of faith. That’s very jangling to my ears.
But I think the author of Ephesians has a point. We aren’t up against flesh and blood enemies, but against cosmic forces of evil that would bring us down. And we can ignore those forces only at our own peril.
It’s tempting to live a Christian life that does not recognize the existence of evil. It’s tempting to just assume that God will take care of us and that no wrong will come to us. But it just doesn’t always work that way.
There is evil that is always around us and it needs to be faced. It needs to be acknowledged and reckoned with. The problem of evil is a long-standing one. There are those who would wish to deny its existence; those who would have us believe that all is well.
Our author of this morning’s reading clearly believes that evil exists and that it’s part of the Christian’s job to face it. But not just acknowledge it and move on but deal with it in some way.
Why else would we need all the protective and battle gear that the author describes? If we were allowed to turn and just run away from evil, averting our eyes from it, we would need none of these things that were depicted.
I am adverse to war—I think most of you realize that. That is part of my trouble with this passage. But I assure you, if I suddenly, somehow found myself in battle I’d be wishing for the Kevlar vest, the helmet, the combat boots and other ways to protect myself. The battle imagery is not entirely to my suiting but it may just be the right imagery to speak of our battle with evil. For if Santa Clara County for some reason suddenly decided to march north and attack, we would be in desperate need of gear that would first protect us and secondly help to repel the attack.
It is no different when we deal with evil—evil attacks us whether we are prepared or not. And the point this author is making is that it’s best to be prepared. That’s all. Be ready for the fight against the evils that surround us.
And there are plenty of evils alive and well in our culture: the evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism and…and…and. And that’s not to mention the evils of greed and idolatry that seem to be quite alive and well, not only in our culture but also in the time that Ephesians was written, according to the author if you read the whole book.
These evils, and plenty of others, are alive and well all around us. And it is our duty as Christians to confront them and do what we can to eliminate them. It takes recognition on our part first off. Hardest of all, we must examine ourselves to see how we might participate in evil so that we can eliminate it from our own behaviors and inner thoughts.
Once we can confront the evils that we participate in, we are ready to take on the evils that are part of our culture. And as the author of the letter says, it’s going to take truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit to protect us and arm us.
You can name the evils that surround you. It doesn’t take much reflection to know what sorts of things you are up against. I have named a few but you can certainly come up with others.
Be prepared for a fight, a mighty struggle, once you confront evil though. It doesn’t go down easily. That’s why some of these evils have lasted for centuries and centuries. But, we can be assured, God is on our side.
6 August 2006
It helps to remember last week’s Hebrew Bible lectionary reading in order to make sense of today’s reading. So a recap might be in order.
Last week, David, King of Israel, with a harem of wives, saw Bathsheba bathing from his roof. He desired her and, being the king, got her. The problem was that she was married and David got her pregnant. No problem actually; as king, David had her husband sent to the front lines of battle and killed. Then he was free to marry her as another of his wives. So David took Uriah’s wife as his own after Uriah died in battle.
And that’s where we pick up today’s scripture. Now, I have no doubt that the whole of Jerusalem knew what was going on, human nature being what it is. Tongues will wag. But who is going to confront the king? No one in the entire kingdom is going to raise his or her voice against King David.
Except one…God. God is willing to voice a complaint against the king. God knows what’s going on and will speak up. God will raise judgment against David without fear. But God needs someone to be God’s voice. God needs a prophet to speak for God. And Nathan is just that prophet.
Now Nathan knows that he has to bring the word—God’s word—to the highest power in the land. He takes his orders directly from God. But he also knows that a direct attack on the king could spell disaster. So he comes up with a story, which he tells to King David: a story about a rich man and a poor man. A rich man who is greedy and a poor man who has nothing. Yet the rich man, when faced with serving a guest a meal, decides against taking from his many flocks and instead yanks the only thing that the poor man has—a ewe who has grown up with his children and is treated like one of the family. The rich man ignores his own vast holdings and instead steals the one thing of value in the poor man’s household.
David is incensed by this story. He declares that because of his greed, the rich man should die. The rich man’s power has corrupted him, David decides. He has gone beyond the realm of civilized behaviour.
This is when Nathan must have summoned all his courage. For his words are simple and direct: “You are the man,” he says. “You are the man,” he declares before David, indicting David of his crime of stealing the wife of Uriah and then sending him to die.
It took a lot of nerve for Nathan to do such a thing. Even with the indirect assault of the story, to say, “you are the man” must have taken every morsel of strength and courage in his body. For he still is talking to the king and the king could have him executed immediately for his presumptuousness.
But he didn’t. David, after Nathan explains that God has seen David’s actions in this whole affair, simply repents. His words back to Nathan and God are “I have sinned against the Lord.” Simply yet effective words.
How often are we in the place of David—justifying our actions and thinking no one notices how off base we might be? Thinking that what we are doing is all right when we know it’s wrong? Supposing that we can hide behind our justifications?
Many of us act that way. There are a few souls who have the opposite problem—everything that happens is their fault. They take the blame for everything and don’t try to justify anything. This scripture—and sermon—are not for them. This is for the rest of us who try to hide ourselves behind our justifications.
Like David, we can be caught in the web of justifications. I’m right because I have the power to be right. No one will challenge me. We may not be king or queen or a powerful ruler, but we can still use the power we have to justify what we do.
And this justification is rampant in our society today it seems, all the way to the top of the power chain. We ignore God’s ways and think we can hide from the truth of it.
Yet God sees. And God can get behind our justifications—God knows what’s going on with us even when we can hide it from others.
Now most of our justifications probably aren’t worth the trouble that Nathan took with David. It may be that we drove a little too fast because we were late for a meeting. Or that we didn’t go back to the grocery when we found out we were undercharged. There are plenty of choices each and every day when we find ourselves justifying our way out of making the right on.
But it’s the big ones that require the intervention of our own Nathan’s—usually known as our conscience. It’s when our conscience intervenes that we know the prophet of God is at work. It’s only occasionally that we actually get a real, live prophet to come up to us as Nathan did with David.
It’s when your conscience is pulling you that you know you haven’t escaped God’s notice. It’s that little voice inside of you that tells you that God is present and sees through your justifications, as God indeed can do.
Of course, the way around it all is to lead a life that is perfect in every way. Most of us, I would guess, can’t do that. So instead watch for that prophet inside yourself and know that your justifications may not be truly valid.
Last week, David, King of Israel, with a harem of wives, saw Bathsheba bathing from his roof. He desired her and, being the king, got her. The problem was that she was married and David got her pregnant. No problem actually; as king, David had her husband sent to the front lines of battle and killed. Then he was free to marry her as another of his wives. So David took Uriah’s wife as his own after Uriah died in battle.
And that’s where we pick up today’s scripture. Now, I have no doubt that the whole of Jerusalem knew what was going on, human nature being what it is. Tongues will wag. But who is going to confront the king? No one in the entire kingdom is going to raise his or her voice against King David.
Except one…God. God is willing to voice a complaint against the king. God knows what’s going on and will speak up. God will raise judgment against David without fear. But God needs someone to be God’s voice. God needs a prophet to speak for God. And Nathan is just that prophet.
Now Nathan knows that he has to bring the word—God’s word—to the highest power in the land. He takes his orders directly from God. But he also knows that a direct attack on the king could spell disaster. So he comes up with a story, which he tells to King David: a story about a rich man and a poor man. A rich man who is greedy and a poor man who has nothing. Yet the rich man, when faced with serving a guest a meal, decides against taking from his many flocks and instead yanks the only thing that the poor man has—a ewe who has grown up with his children and is treated like one of the family. The rich man ignores his own vast holdings and instead steals the one thing of value in the poor man’s household.
David is incensed by this story. He declares that because of his greed, the rich man should die. The rich man’s power has corrupted him, David decides. He has gone beyond the realm of civilized behaviour.
This is when Nathan must have summoned all his courage. For his words are simple and direct: “You are the man,” he says. “You are the man,” he declares before David, indicting David of his crime of stealing the wife of Uriah and then sending him to die.
It took a lot of nerve for Nathan to do such a thing. Even with the indirect assault of the story, to say, “you are the man” must have taken every morsel of strength and courage in his body. For he still is talking to the king and the king could have him executed immediately for his presumptuousness.
But he didn’t. David, after Nathan explains that God has seen David’s actions in this whole affair, simply repents. His words back to Nathan and God are “I have sinned against the Lord.” Simply yet effective words.
How often are we in the place of David—justifying our actions and thinking no one notices how off base we might be? Thinking that what we are doing is all right when we know it’s wrong? Supposing that we can hide behind our justifications?
Many of us act that way. There are a few souls who have the opposite problem—everything that happens is their fault. They take the blame for everything and don’t try to justify anything. This scripture—and sermon—are not for them. This is for the rest of us who try to hide ourselves behind our justifications.
Like David, we can be caught in the web of justifications. I’m right because I have the power to be right. No one will challenge me. We may not be king or queen or a powerful ruler, but we can still use the power we have to justify what we do.
And this justification is rampant in our society today it seems, all the way to the top of the power chain. We ignore God’s ways and think we can hide from the truth of it.
Yet God sees. And God can get behind our justifications—God knows what’s going on with us even when we can hide it from others.
Now most of our justifications probably aren’t worth the trouble that Nathan took with David. It may be that we drove a little too fast because we were late for a meeting. Or that we didn’t go back to the grocery when we found out we were undercharged. There are plenty of choices each and every day when we find ourselves justifying our way out of making the right on.
But it’s the big ones that require the intervention of our own Nathan’s—usually known as our conscience. It’s when our conscience intervenes that we know the prophet of God is at work. It’s only occasionally that we actually get a real, live prophet to come up to us as Nathan did with David.
It’s when your conscience is pulling you that you know you haven’t escaped God’s notice. It’s that little voice inside of you that tells you that God is present and sees through your justifications, as God indeed can do.
Of course, the way around it all is to lead a life that is perfect in every way. Most of us, I would guess, can’t do that. So instead watch for that prophet inside yourself and know that your justifications may not be truly valid.
16 July 2006
I recently ran across this quote about worship from author Annie Dillard:
"Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews" (in Teaching a Stone to Talk).
Indeed is that how you feel as you enter worship? Like it’s an amusement park ride that you don’t know where it’s going? Or is it all tame and calm and that’s just how you like it?
Well we know what side David, by this point King of the Israelites, would fall on. David is exuberant in his worship during today’s Hebrew Bible reading. And exuberant he should be. Because the ark is coming to Jerusalem.
The ark, which contained the tablets on which Moses received the ten commandments, had been living elsewhere. David, in this move, merged together the religious and political centers of his country. No wonder he was excited.
Up to recently, Israel had been a loose confederation of the various tribes. Each had its own border skirmishes and they relied on each other for help. There was no central leader but rather a series of judges who ruled as needed.
As the country came together to form a more cohesive political unit, there was the need for a king. At first, Saul ruled over the newly united kingdom. But he fell out of favor with God and lost his kingship. Eventually he lost his life in a battle with the Philistines. Last week we heard David’s lament over the death of Saul and his son Jonathan.
David had been anointed as king and strove to unite the kingdom while fighting against the Philistines, who were the Israelite’s neighbors to the south. David chose Jerusalem as his capital, which was smart as it sat on the border between the northern tribes and the southern tribes.
And then David decided to further unite his kingdom by bringing the ancient Ark of the Covenant, holding those holy tablets, to his capital. Now David’s Jerusalem would be both the political and religious center of his kingdom’s life. David was no dummy.
So no wonder he was excited about the coming of the Ark to Jerusalem. So excited in fact that he, the king of Israel, danced in front of the ark as it came into the city. Danced only in a linen ephod. I’ve read two varying accounts of what an ephod is. Some say that David was basically dancing in his underwear—that a linen ephod was an undergarment. The other interpretation, which was more likely, is that an ephod is a garment worn only by a priest. It was an apron-like garment and worn with other priestly garments. In any case, it wasn’t the whole outfit of a priest and David must have made an impression wearing only it as he danced in front of the ark.
His excitement was high. And his wife, Michal, Saul’s daughter, was disgusted at the show he was putting on. We’re told that she looked down from her window and saw her husband dancing and twirling in the scantiest of outfits and “despised him in her heart.”
As a group, we’re fairly used to being fairly complacent in our worship. We too might have looked askance on David as he led the procession into Jerusalem. As white protestants, we don’t normally find the opportunities to express the joy of our worship, in our worship. The most movement we do is to stand up to sing hymns and then to come forward during communion.
But sometimes we need to be reminded of the joy that worship brings. Which brings us back to the quote with which I began this sermon. David knew the power of God that he was invoking. He not only danced but sacrificed in front of the ark as they went along. In our worship, as we call upon God to send the Spirit among us and be a part of us, we are invoking that same power that David recognized. We should be issued life preservers and signal flares! Who knows where our worship of God will take us. Lash us to our seats; we’re going to ask God to be among us and take us to God only knows where.
Worship should be filled with the joy that David experienced as he brought the ark in the kingdom. But aren’t we more often like Michal as we peer down on the party and frown our disgust? Isn’t our worship more often like fancy hats rather than crash helmets? Don’t we find that we would rather sit back and enjoy the ride or the view while someone else does the dancing?
Yes, worship can be an exciting event. We needn’t be complacent in our approach to worship. Yes, there is need for quietude and for calm relaxing meditation. But worship is invoking the Spirit of God to be among us and you just never know what will happen what you do that. Be prepared to be moved as you worship God.
And in being moved be prepared for what the Spirit may lead you to do outside these walls once you’ve hooked into the power of worship.
"Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews" (in Teaching a Stone to Talk).
Indeed is that how you feel as you enter worship? Like it’s an amusement park ride that you don’t know where it’s going? Or is it all tame and calm and that’s just how you like it?
Well we know what side David, by this point King of the Israelites, would fall on. David is exuberant in his worship during today’s Hebrew Bible reading. And exuberant he should be. Because the ark is coming to Jerusalem.
The ark, which contained the tablets on which Moses received the ten commandments, had been living elsewhere. David, in this move, merged together the religious and political centers of his country. No wonder he was excited.
Up to recently, Israel had been a loose confederation of the various tribes. Each had its own border skirmishes and they relied on each other for help. There was no central leader but rather a series of judges who ruled as needed.
As the country came together to form a more cohesive political unit, there was the need for a king. At first, Saul ruled over the newly united kingdom. But he fell out of favor with God and lost his kingship. Eventually he lost his life in a battle with the Philistines. Last week we heard David’s lament over the death of Saul and his son Jonathan.
David had been anointed as king and strove to unite the kingdom while fighting against the Philistines, who were the Israelite’s neighbors to the south. David chose Jerusalem as his capital, which was smart as it sat on the border between the northern tribes and the southern tribes.
And then David decided to further unite his kingdom by bringing the ancient Ark of the Covenant, holding those holy tablets, to his capital. Now David’s Jerusalem would be both the political and religious center of his kingdom’s life. David was no dummy.
So no wonder he was excited about the coming of the Ark to Jerusalem. So excited in fact that he, the king of Israel, danced in front of the ark as it came into the city. Danced only in a linen ephod. I’ve read two varying accounts of what an ephod is. Some say that David was basically dancing in his underwear—that a linen ephod was an undergarment. The other interpretation, which was more likely, is that an ephod is a garment worn only by a priest. It was an apron-like garment and worn with other priestly garments. In any case, it wasn’t the whole outfit of a priest and David must have made an impression wearing only it as he danced in front of the ark.
His excitement was high. And his wife, Michal, Saul’s daughter, was disgusted at the show he was putting on. We’re told that she looked down from her window and saw her husband dancing and twirling in the scantiest of outfits and “despised him in her heart.”
As a group, we’re fairly used to being fairly complacent in our worship. We too might have looked askance on David as he led the procession into Jerusalem. As white protestants, we don’t normally find the opportunities to express the joy of our worship, in our worship. The most movement we do is to stand up to sing hymns and then to come forward during communion.
But sometimes we need to be reminded of the joy that worship brings. Which brings us back to the quote with which I began this sermon. David knew the power of God that he was invoking. He not only danced but sacrificed in front of the ark as they went along. In our worship, as we call upon God to send the Spirit among us and be a part of us, we are invoking that same power that David recognized. We should be issued life preservers and signal flares! Who knows where our worship of God will take us. Lash us to our seats; we’re going to ask God to be among us and take us to God only knows where.
Worship should be filled with the joy that David experienced as he brought the ark in the kingdom. But aren’t we more often like Michal as we peer down on the party and frown our disgust? Isn’t our worship more often like fancy hats rather than crash helmets? Don’t we find that we would rather sit back and enjoy the ride or the view while someone else does the dancing?
Yes, worship can be an exciting event. We needn’t be complacent in our approach to worship. Yes, there is need for quietude and for calm relaxing meditation. But worship is invoking the Spirit of God to be among us and you just never know what will happen what you do that. Be prepared to be moved as you worship God.
And in being moved be prepared for what the Spirit may lead you to do outside these walls once you’ve hooked into the power of worship.
18 June 2006
Samuel was most assuredly not happy with his latest assignment, which we heard about in the Hebrew Bible reading this morning. He was undoubtedly caught between a rock and a hard place as the saying goes.
On the one hand he had Saul, the king of the Hebrew people watching his every move. Samuel was the chief priest—the head honcho in the Temple. And kings worry about such a person. On the other hand Samuel had God. And you don’t ignore God—especially if you’re the chief priest.
And God was asking Samuel to do a very hard thing. A dangerous thing. He was to anoint the new king. While the old king was still around.
Saul had been made king and was ruling over the kingdom of Israel. But then Saul displeased God and God withdrew God’s support of Saul’s kingship.
Now you can imagine that such a thing would not be pleasing to Saul; to have that all that power and then have it removed from you? No, Saul isn’t happy and isn’t going to be pleased with anyone who goes along with this new plan.
So Samuel has his instructions—go to Bethlehem and from among the sons of Jesse, one of the local bigwigs no doubt, he was to anoint a new king. Sounds simple except as Samuel says, if Saul hears of it, he’ll kill Samuel. Not what chief priests have in mind when they sign up for the job. But that’s often the job of religious figures isn’t it—to fly in the face of the politicians? But that’s probably another sermon.
So Saul goes to Bethlehem. He takes a heifer with him as a cover. If anyone asks, he’s going there to sacrifice to God—that’s all. And the townspeople are nervous to have this august person come to their tiny little village. The elders rush out to meet him and say “have you come peaceably?” He reassures them that he’s only there for a sacrifice to God.
It’s at the sacrifice that God is going to reveal to Samuel who among Jesse’s sons is to be anointed as the new king. So everyone is there for the big sacrifice and Samuel has Jesse parade his sons before him. Samuel is sure that he’s found the right one as soon as he sees Eliab. Eliab is undoubtedly the eldest. He was probably tall in stature, good looking and ready for whatever God threw at him. But Samuel was wrong. This is not the son of Jesse that God has chosen. Neither are Abinadab nor Shammah. In fact, 7 of Jesse’s sons pass before Samuel and God says, “Nope, not that one,” to each of the 7.
At this point Samuel must be wondering if God is playing some trick on him. All these young men, fine specimens of Hebrew manhood, come before him and each of them, in his turn, is rejected by God. Samuel must be thinking, “Come on, God—give me a break. You give me this impossible task and then don’t give me the support I need. Couldn’t you just pick one?!”
Probably out of desperation, he asks if all of Jesse’s sons are here. Jesse replies, probably somewhat embarrassedly that, well, yes, there is one more. He’s the youngest—the least important of all—but he’s out tending the sheep. He’s got one of the lowliest jobs around. That’s what youngest children often end up doing—the jobs no one else wants.
So they bring him in from the fields and of course, as we all know, this is the one that God has chosen. The author of 1 Samuel makes a point of telling us how good looking he is—he’s got a ruddy complexion and is handsome and has killer eyes. Of course this is David, the future king of Israel, against whom all future kings are measured. David is so important in fact that our Christian scriptures trace Jesus’ lineage back through him. And we’ll learn more about David’s story in the coming weeks through the lectionary readings. Right now I want to focus on David’s call to be king.
Remember last week, in the Hebrew Scriptures which we read? We heard about Isaiah’s call to be a prophet. In short, God asks whom God will send out to be a prophet among the Hebrew people and Isaiah responds “Here I am, send me.” Well, David’s call to kingship is completely the opposite. Not that he resisted but David, out there among the sheep, had no idea that he would make the transition from pasture to palace. God chose David as the next king.
This is clearly two forms of call—one in which the person who is called responds by filling a need. The other in which God chooses someone to do a job that’s completely unexpected. Either way, there is a job that needs doing and the need is filled.
I read a quote recently, I forget who said it, but it went something along these lines: “What if God calls everyone into ministry and makes do with those of us who say yes?” It’s an interesting thought. What if we are all called into ministry and only some of us respond?
Of course, we are all called into ministry—each one of us here is called to ministry. The ministries differ of course: Isaiah wasn’t called to be king and David wasn’t called to be a prophet. But each of us is called to ministry in some form. And most of us here today have already said yes to calls. We’re here today, that’s one good sign of call acceptance. We’ve responded, in no small way, to God’s call to be among a community of God’s people to worship God this Sunday morning.
But what about the larger calls? Are you listening carefully for where God might be calling you? Are you prepared, like Isaiah, to say here I am, send me? Or maybe you’re out in the sheep pasture, minding your own business, and there’s an urgent call for you to come into the sacrifice where you will, unexpectedly, be anointed.
Calls are funny things. Maybe our call isn’t to be prophet to an entire nation or leader of a country. Likely it isn’t. But we have calls each and every day from God that lead us into situations where God’s work is needed. Perhaps it’s to do the work of Interfaith Hospitality Network or tutoring with Homework Central. Perhaps it’s to be an officer in this congregation or with Peninsula Interfaith Action. Perhaps it’s to speak out on a local level about an issue that confronts your community.
There are so many ways that God calls each and every one of us. It is our job to be attentive and to listen carefully. And then of course, to come in from the sheepfold and actually get to work on doing whatever it is God calls you to.
On the one hand he had Saul, the king of the Hebrew people watching his every move. Samuel was the chief priest—the head honcho in the Temple. And kings worry about such a person. On the other hand Samuel had God. And you don’t ignore God—especially if you’re the chief priest.
And God was asking Samuel to do a very hard thing. A dangerous thing. He was to anoint the new king. While the old king was still around.
Saul had been made king and was ruling over the kingdom of Israel. But then Saul displeased God and God withdrew God’s support of Saul’s kingship.
Now you can imagine that such a thing would not be pleasing to Saul; to have that all that power and then have it removed from you? No, Saul isn’t happy and isn’t going to be pleased with anyone who goes along with this new plan.
So Samuel has his instructions—go to Bethlehem and from among the sons of Jesse, one of the local bigwigs no doubt, he was to anoint a new king. Sounds simple except as Samuel says, if Saul hears of it, he’ll kill Samuel. Not what chief priests have in mind when they sign up for the job. But that’s often the job of religious figures isn’t it—to fly in the face of the politicians? But that’s probably another sermon.
So Saul goes to Bethlehem. He takes a heifer with him as a cover. If anyone asks, he’s going there to sacrifice to God—that’s all. And the townspeople are nervous to have this august person come to their tiny little village. The elders rush out to meet him and say “have you come peaceably?” He reassures them that he’s only there for a sacrifice to God.
It’s at the sacrifice that God is going to reveal to Samuel who among Jesse’s sons is to be anointed as the new king. So everyone is there for the big sacrifice and Samuel has Jesse parade his sons before him. Samuel is sure that he’s found the right one as soon as he sees Eliab. Eliab is undoubtedly the eldest. He was probably tall in stature, good looking and ready for whatever God threw at him. But Samuel was wrong. This is not the son of Jesse that God has chosen. Neither are Abinadab nor Shammah. In fact, 7 of Jesse’s sons pass before Samuel and God says, “Nope, not that one,” to each of the 7.
At this point Samuel must be wondering if God is playing some trick on him. All these young men, fine specimens of Hebrew manhood, come before him and each of them, in his turn, is rejected by God. Samuel must be thinking, “Come on, God—give me a break. You give me this impossible task and then don’t give me the support I need. Couldn’t you just pick one?!”
Probably out of desperation, he asks if all of Jesse’s sons are here. Jesse replies, probably somewhat embarrassedly that, well, yes, there is one more. He’s the youngest—the least important of all—but he’s out tending the sheep. He’s got one of the lowliest jobs around. That’s what youngest children often end up doing—the jobs no one else wants.
So they bring him in from the fields and of course, as we all know, this is the one that God has chosen. The author of 1 Samuel makes a point of telling us how good looking he is—he’s got a ruddy complexion and is handsome and has killer eyes. Of course this is David, the future king of Israel, against whom all future kings are measured. David is so important in fact that our Christian scriptures trace Jesus’ lineage back through him. And we’ll learn more about David’s story in the coming weeks through the lectionary readings. Right now I want to focus on David’s call to be king.
Remember last week, in the Hebrew Scriptures which we read? We heard about Isaiah’s call to be a prophet. In short, God asks whom God will send out to be a prophet among the Hebrew people and Isaiah responds “Here I am, send me.” Well, David’s call to kingship is completely the opposite. Not that he resisted but David, out there among the sheep, had no idea that he would make the transition from pasture to palace. God chose David as the next king.
This is clearly two forms of call—one in which the person who is called responds by filling a need. The other in which God chooses someone to do a job that’s completely unexpected. Either way, there is a job that needs doing and the need is filled.
I read a quote recently, I forget who said it, but it went something along these lines: “What if God calls everyone into ministry and makes do with those of us who say yes?” It’s an interesting thought. What if we are all called into ministry and only some of us respond?
Of course, we are all called into ministry—each one of us here is called to ministry. The ministries differ of course: Isaiah wasn’t called to be king and David wasn’t called to be a prophet. But each of us is called to ministry in some form. And most of us here today have already said yes to calls. We’re here today, that’s one good sign of call acceptance. We’ve responded, in no small way, to God’s call to be among a community of God’s people to worship God this Sunday morning.
But what about the larger calls? Are you listening carefully for where God might be calling you? Are you prepared, like Isaiah, to say here I am, send me? Or maybe you’re out in the sheep pasture, minding your own business, and there’s an urgent call for you to come into the sacrifice where you will, unexpectedly, be anointed.
Calls are funny things. Maybe our call isn’t to be prophet to an entire nation or leader of a country. Likely it isn’t. But we have calls each and every day from God that lead us into situations where God’s work is needed. Perhaps it’s to do the work of Interfaith Hospitality Network or tutoring with Homework Central. Perhaps it’s to be an officer in this congregation or with Peninsula Interfaith Action. Perhaps it’s to speak out on a local level about an issue that confronts your community.
There are so many ways that God calls each and every one of us. It is our job to be attentive and to listen carefully. And then of course, to come in from the sheepfold and actually get to work on doing whatever it is God calls you to.
Trinity Sunday Sermon, 11 June 2006
When we were in Tuscany just a few weeks ago, we saw at least a couple of paintings and frescoes which attempted to portray the trinity. Typically these showed an older, gray-bearded man in the back, who was, of course, God the Father. In front would be Jesus on the cross, representing the redemptive 2nd person of the trinity. And somewhere in between would be a dove, showing the Spirit.
This is Trinity Sunday—the day when we are supposed to concentrate on the three-in-oneness of our God. If I had played my cards right, Kacey would have been preaching on this day too, but I blew it! So here I am, dealing with the sometimes difficult-to-grasp doctrine of the trinity.
The difficulty is that there is no specific reference to the trinity in the scriptures. This is a doctrine the early church came up with. It’s something new as far as religions go. It’s still monotheism and it’s definitely not the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans. It’s proclaiming the oneness of God yet recognizing the different ways that God appears to us.
My problem with the Trinity is that I see God in far vaster ways than just a trinity. I see God as a multi-faceted, ever-turning gem who shows different faces at different times, always amazing and astounding us. I suppose that would make me something of a heretic, but who’s surprised at that?
There is one thing to be clear of when speaking about the trinity. Traditionally, we have spoken about the three persons of the trinity. The word “persons” makes it difficult sometimes to understand. But if you realize that the word “person” comes from the Latin word “persona” it makes it a little easier. For the “persona” referred to the mask worn by Greek and Roman actors. The mask was the persona, which they wore to indicate different characters. So the three persons of God can be thought of as the masks God wears when dealing with humanity.
But here on Trinity Sunday, the lectionary attempts to make it all clear by cobbling together verses that give us a glimpse of some of these facets of God. The trinity as it were. The three aspects of God that have historically been a part of our Christian beliefs. So let’s take a look at these verses to see what we can discover about God. Let’s start with Isaiah.
This is one of my favorite verses. It’s the story of Isaiah’s call to prophesy to the Israelites. It’s a clear acceptance of God’s call but with it we get a glimpse into the magnitude of God’s greatness according to Isaiah.
Isaiah begins by right off telling us that the hem of God’s robe fills the temple. The temple in Jerusalem at this point would have been the biggest building around. And it can contain only the hem of God’s robe. That’s how amazingly big God is. It’s unimaginable.
God is continually being praised by the angels—the cherubim & seraphim—who surround the throne. They sing out “holy, holy, holy.” In Hebrew, to express the superlative, you repeat the word three times. Thus when they sing out “holy, holy, holy,” they are saying that God is the holiest of all.
God also has the power to forgive, as evidenced by the coal which touches Isaiah’s lips and frees him from guilt. God is always ready to do this for us—forgive us of our sins and send us forth guiltless. Isaiah himself declared his lips unclean and immediately he was made clean.
Finally, from this Isaiah passage, we learn that God calls us into God’s service. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” God cries out to Isaiah as, indeed, God cries out to us. God is continually in need of those who will respond to the call with “Here am I; send me!” It’s funny to think of God in need but indeed that’s where we find God in this scripture—needing those who will act on God’s part in this world.
In Romans we learn about the Spirit of God which makes us children of God. It is through the adoptive nature of the Spirit that we become God’s children.
The Spirit moves and dances among us. It is the very being of God in our midst always and ever-present. And according to the verses we heard earlier from John, it is this very Spirit that births us into Christian life. We are to be “born from above,” John writes. The Holy Spirit then is the initiator of our lives of faith—adopted in yet born into the life of faith.
The Spirit is the one who sustains us through the difficult times of our lives—who lifts us up when we are perilously close to falling, who propels us forth when we respond with a “yes” to God’s call. The Spirit comes to surround us with loving protection and a nurturing presence in times of trial.
And what can we say about the third person of the trinity—Jesus? Jesus shows up in our gospel reading as a teacher—a well-known and respected teacher. He brings signs from God, according to Nicodemus. As Christians this aspect of God is central. We claim the divinity of Christ as central to our faith. In fact, the age-old Disciples claim of “no creed but Christ” is a clear part of the centrality of Christ in our beliefs.
Jesus is the man who walked the earth—it is Christ who represents us and intercedes for us. Jesus, as a brother to all of us, is often seen as our friend—our compatriot in the struggles our faith can lead us to. Jesus, as God’s son, as the gospel proclaimed this morning, is seen, in traditional Christian doctrine, as fully human, fully divine.
This person of the trinity knows completely what it is to be human. Jesus felt pain and suffering and joy and sorrow and was moved by the emotions of others. He walked the face of the earth and knew real pain—including the pain of a tortuous death.
As John tells us, Jesus came not for condemnation but for saving. Jesus is one who saves us—from the evils that can be found in this world, from the depths to which we can sink, from ourselves.
The three persons of the Trinity have been known historically as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Feminist theology has recast the three persons as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, referring more to the actions of God. However you refer to God, however you view the trinity, however God comes to you and acts in your life, know that God—the almighty one, the Spirit who makes us part of the family and Jesus the Christ who saves us—is ready to call you forth and sustain you in your efforts on God’s behalf.
This is Trinity Sunday—the day when we are supposed to concentrate on the three-in-oneness of our God. If I had played my cards right, Kacey would have been preaching on this day too, but I blew it! So here I am, dealing with the sometimes difficult-to-grasp doctrine of the trinity.
The difficulty is that there is no specific reference to the trinity in the scriptures. This is a doctrine the early church came up with. It’s something new as far as religions go. It’s still monotheism and it’s definitely not the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans. It’s proclaiming the oneness of God yet recognizing the different ways that God appears to us.
My problem with the Trinity is that I see God in far vaster ways than just a trinity. I see God as a multi-faceted, ever-turning gem who shows different faces at different times, always amazing and astounding us. I suppose that would make me something of a heretic, but who’s surprised at that?
There is one thing to be clear of when speaking about the trinity. Traditionally, we have spoken about the three persons of the trinity. The word “persons” makes it difficult sometimes to understand. But if you realize that the word “person” comes from the Latin word “persona” it makes it a little easier. For the “persona” referred to the mask worn by Greek and Roman actors. The mask was the persona, which they wore to indicate different characters. So the three persons of God can be thought of as the masks God wears when dealing with humanity.
But here on Trinity Sunday, the lectionary attempts to make it all clear by cobbling together verses that give us a glimpse of some of these facets of God. The trinity as it were. The three aspects of God that have historically been a part of our Christian beliefs. So let’s take a look at these verses to see what we can discover about God. Let’s start with Isaiah.
This is one of my favorite verses. It’s the story of Isaiah’s call to prophesy to the Israelites. It’s a clear acceptance of God’s call but with it we get a glimpse into the magnitude of God’s greatness according to Isaiah.
Isaiah begins by right off telling us that the hem of God’s robe fills the temple. The temple in Jerusalem at this point would have been the biggest building around. And it can contain only the hem of God’s robe. That’s how amazingly big God is. It’s unimaginable.
God is continually being praised by the angels—the cherubim & seraphim—who surround the throne. They sing out “holy, holy, holy.” In Hebrew, to express the superlative, you repeat the word three times. Thus when they sing out “holy, holy, holy,” they are saying that God is the holiest of all.
God also has the power to forgive, as evidenced by the coal which touches Isaiah’s lips and frees him from guilt. God is always ready to do this for us—forgive us of our sins and send us forth guiltless. Isaiah himself declared his lips unclean and immediately he was made clean.
Finally, from this Isaiah passage, we learn that God calls us into God’s service. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” God cries out to Isaiah as, indeed, God cries out to us. God is continually in need of those who will respond to the call with “Here am I; send me!” It’s funny to think of God in need but indeed that’s where we find God in this scripture—needing those who will act on God’s part in this world.
In Romans we learn about the Spirit of God which makes us children of God. It is through the adoptive nature of the Spirit that we become God’s children.
The Spirit moves and dances among us. It is the very being of God in our midst always and ever-present. And according to the verses we heard earlier from John, it is this very Spirit that births us into Christian life. We are to be “born from above,” John writes. The Holy Spirit then is the initiator of our lives of faith—adopted in yet born into the life of faith.
The Spirit is the one who sustains us through the difficult times of our lives—who lifts us up when we are perilously close to falling, who propels us forth when we respond with a “yes” to God’s call. The Spirit comes to surround us with loving protection and a nurturing presence in times of trial.
And what can we say about the third person of the trinity—Jesus? Jesus shows up in our gospel reading as a teacher—a well-known and respected teacher. He brings signs from God, according to Nicodemus. As Christians this aspect of God is central. We claim the divinity of Christ as central to our faith. In fact, the age-old Disciples claim of “no creed but Christ” is a clear part of the centrality of Christ in our beliefs.
Jesus is the man who walked the earth—it is Christ who represents us and intercedes for us. Jesus, as a brother to all of us, is often seen as our friend—our compatriot in the struggles our faith can lead us to. Jesus, as God’s son, as the gospel proclaimed this morning, is seen, in traditional Christian doctrine, as fully human, fully divine.
This person of the trinity knows completely what it is to be human. Jesus felt pain and suffering and joy and sorrow and was moved by the emotions of others. He walked the face of the earth and knew real pain—including the pain of a tortuous death.
As John tells us, Jesus came not for condemnation but for saving. Jesus is one who saves us—from the evils that can be found in this world, from the depths to which we can sink, from ourselves.
The three persons of the Trinity have been known historically as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Feminist theology has recast the three persons as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, referring more to the actions of God. However you refer to God, however you view the trinity, however God comes to you and acts in your life, know that God—the almighty one, the Spirit who makes us part of the family and Jesus the Christ who saves us—is ready to call you forth and sustain you in your efforts on God’s behalf.
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