Luke 13:31-35; Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1
A year ago NASA released an image of the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest galaxy to us. They captured the image using the Hubble Telescope, but they outdid themselves. They took 411 images and put them together to create the largest image ever taken. It’s a whopping 1.5 billion pixels and requires about 4.3 GB of disk space! [See the video.]
The image takes you through over 100 million stars and travels more than 40,000 light years. It’s likely to make you feel like you are a very, very, very small part of a universe which we are only beginning to understand the true size of. It is truly mind-blowing.
“The Lord . . . brought Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars if you think you can count them. This is how many children you will have.’ Abram trusted the Lord” (Genesis 15:4-6).
Abram didn’t have the light pollution that we have. On a clear night he could see thousands of stars. But he couldn’t see the millions of stars that Hubble can see. And Hubble keeps seeing more. Our vision of the universe keeps expanding.
The African slaves in the 18th and first half of the 19th century southern states had to think beyond their present circumstances. They put their hope in the promised kingdom, a kingdom not born or controlled by the powers of this world. One of their spirituals describes the kingdom of God this way: “There’s plenty good room, plenty good room, plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom.”(1)
We could say that this thought is a central theme in Luke’s Gospel. In story after story and encounter after encounter with the leaders of the religious institution of his time, Jesus was building a bigger kingdom. He kept tearing down walls, opening doors, and building bridges to get people into God’s kingdom.
God’s passionate desire from before the time of Abram, through the nation building with Moses, the judges, and the kings, through the trials, tribulations, and chastising of the prophets, and finally through the Word become flesh – Jesus Christ – is to gather God’s human children closer and closer in God’s embracing love and grace. “How often I have wanted to gather your people just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Luke 13:34).
God is building the kingdom one person at a time, just at the universe is built one star, one solar system, one galaxy at a time.
I understand building. It has been part of me since childhood. Before I was born my father built on a sunroom on the family house. When I was six or seven, he redid the kitchen. Several years later they built on a major addition to make a first floor garage and second floor master suite. I used scrap lumber to build a small log-style cabin.
In high school I took an interest in the Connecticut Western Reserve of Ohio (land set aside in northeast Ohio by the early federal government as a way of paying the Connecticut citizens who served in the Revolutionary War. I became very interested in the old homes that dotted the area. I dreamed of restoring one someday.
Over the years, I have avidly watched “This Old House” and a number of shows on HGTV. Living in the manse, which is now a nearly 120 year old house, has filled my desire to work on an old house. We have done a lot to preserve and enhance its style. It has been fun.
It was a thrill to be involved in the design and building of this facility. Set against the wooded backdrop, it was designed to be open, welcoming, flexible, inviting, useful. The hope was that it would be a community gathering place. We are still working on that aspect.
How do we enlarge our part of the God’s kingdom? How do we tear down the walls that separate people? How do we create open, inviting and safe space for people from many backgrounds – ethnic, economic, educated, racial, gender – to be in the presence of God and each other so that everyone may grow and benefit from the vastness of experience, knowledge, and faith? How do we dissolve the sameness which acts like a force field repelling the very diversity which nurtures fuller life in the majesty of God’s love?
It seems that we live in a world where everyone has a different notion of God’s kingdom, as well as how to enlarge it, how to live out the ministry of welcome. In Luke’s gospel, the first people to see Jesus after his birth are a bunch of shepherds. They represent a necessary but highly undesirable class of people within the society. As Jesus goes about his ministry, he associates with all sorts of people who are at the margins of society, the people who are not deemed respectable enough be at the center of things.
A peasant girl is chosen to be Jesus’ mother. A wayward son is welcomed by an extravagant father whose love seems reckless. An outcast Samaritan willingly exercises compassion toward a robbed and beaten traveler. The penitent thief is remembered and welcomed into paradise.
We have heard the thoughts of Judas, who argued for and ultimately acted on a very different idea about kingdom building. The insurrectionists could not abide Jesus’ otherworldly kingdom talk, his lack of direct and decisive action. The people wanted action, not the preaching of God’s grace and gentleness of soul.
There’s a Peanuts cartoon which speaks to this reading from Luke’s gospel.
In the first frame, Lucy is standing next to a tree. Looking up, she shouts to Linus, “What are doing in that tree?”
Linus answers from the branches of the tree, “Looking for something.” Then he adds, “Can you see Snoopy? We climbed up here together, but now I don’t see him.”
Lucy unsympathetically shouts back up the tree, “Beagles can’t climb trees.”
The next frame shows Snoopy falling out of the tree right on his head with a loud “KLUNK.” “You’re right!” Snoopy concludes.
Then Lucy lets Snoopy have it, “You stupid Beagle, what are you doing climbing around in a tree?” Snoopy’s sore head is still spinning.
Linus interrupts from the tree, “Don’t yell at him…. We’re trying to find a strange creature in a nest….”
Lucy walks off saying, “You’re both crazy! Go ahead and knock yourselves out! I couldn’t care less!!”
Then Snoopy with his head still sore and spinning thinks, “Rats…I was hoping for a hug!” (2)
Don’t similar scenes happen to us? We hurt ourselves – perhaps physically or emotionally or spiritually. A parent, friend, pastor, parishioner gives us a lecture about how stupid we were. “Rats,” we may say to ourselves, “I was hoping for a hug!” There are those times when what we need most is to know that somebody still cares and loves us, because we already know we have acted like jerks.
One of the most dreadful Christian sins is that we too often act like Lucy. We are too quick to open our mouths and give lectures to others. It is so easy for us good and righteous believers to judge and condemn others for their stupid mistakes. What compounds our sin is that we think that we are doing the proper and right thing by giving them all our good advice. “You shouldn’t have done that. You should have known better. You’re getting what you deserve.” And so on.
Sometimes people need good teaching. Jesus is often teaching the people, but many times, especially after making a stupid mistake, people feel more like Snoopy: “Rats…I was hoping for a hug!” The image of a hen wrapping her wings around her chicks seems a lot like a hug to me – and that’s what Jesus wishes he could do.
The mission of the church of Jesus is to give hugs, to embrace, not to push away. On the way to the cross, Jesus attempts to embrace, to gather under his hen-like wings the entire world. The gospel writer John put it in different words: “God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
How big is God’s world? How are you making it larger?
(1) Cited by Michael B. Curry, “Luke 13:31-5 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word; Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, Volume 2, 69.
(2) Cited by Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday,” 2 Lent C Exegetical Notes on Luke 13:31-35 (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=51bd49db6caae596e13e44534&id=c726dc3928&e=e9babc8d38)
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Sunday, February 14, 2016
The Journey
Luke 4:1-15; Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8b-13
There are still a few people in Pike County who have never journeyed out of the county, some who have never been to the big city of Chillicothe, or to the even bigger metropolis of Columbus. Those numbers are decreasing rapidly, because of the ubiquitous automobile, and the places people have to go to get health and social services. With the advances of the internet, a person could leave the county a lot less, but that would be a whole different generation.
We travel. Just over fifty years ago I traveled thirty miles to attend a boarding school. It was an hour’s drive, but it was a lifetime away from all that I had ever known. And I know that I am largely who I am because I said yes to making that journey.
I remember my first airplane flight. It was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Denver, Colorado. I know that we had to change planes somewhere, but I don’t remember where. One year later I was flying from Cleveland to New York JFK on to Edinburgh, Scotland, to begin my seminary education.
Many of us have made similar journeys for social, educational, or career reasons. For some, it was because Uncle Sam pointed his finger at you and you didn’t have a choice. For others, it was all choice – I want to do this and go there. Some of us have sailed the seven seas, plied the European rails, trekked up mountains. I have a friend through the Presbytery who is on a three month journey which includes South Seas islands, the coast of Chile, and Antarctica.
The journeys of life change us. The destination is less significant than the actual journey.
The Book of Deuteronomy comes across as Moses’ memoir of the forty-year journey he took as God’s appointed leader of the Israelite people. We know that Moses lost his cool on several occasions. The incessant cries of the Israelites, “Are we there yet?” would have been enough to wear down the most seasoned tour guide. But this wasn’t a busload of weary travelers, it was thousands upon thousands according to the records. Think of the million-person march on Washington DC without the assistance of law enforcement personnel.
The journey from slavery in Egypt to nationhood in Canaan was a journey through a sci-fi time warp. It took all of the forty years to begin to shake the traditions and “we used to”s out of the people, and then as the biblical record after Deuteronomy reports, the attitude adjustment and reprogramming for a new life hadn’t completely taken, even after a whole generation died on the journey and a new generation was born.
The premise of the promised land was that it flowed with milk and honey, that is, everything would be all right if the people would buckle down and follow the commandments and keep the Lord God first and foremost in their thinking. For that honor and privilege God expected gratitude, first-fruits, early harvest thanksgiving.
Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. As the later history depicted it, people were busy counting seeds, lest they give God too much and not keep enough for themselves. All that manna – just enough for both those who collected a lot and for those who couldn’t collect much – hadn’t made an impression on them. Even in the midst of plenty the Israelites were in a wilderness of disobedience, greed, disbelief. Their journey was not over. Not for a long time.
Jesus was a traveler. In utero he traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. As an infant he traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt. As a child he traveled from Egypt to Nazareth. As a 12-year old he traveled to Jerusalem for Passover, possibly after his bar mitzvah, and stayed behind, learning from and questioning the teachers of the law. Then about age thirty, he joined the caravans of people who were traveling to the place in the Jordan River where his cousin John was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins. The Spirit descended and announced him “Beloved.” The water’s edge wasn’t the end of his journey, it was the embarkation point.
Jesus entered the wilderness for forty days. He gave up more than chocolate or the internet or red meat. In a sense, he gave up his soul. That is, he didn’t protect it. He didn’t shield it from whatever he would encounter. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He had questions. He wondered what the time in front of him was going to hold for him. Stripped of every defense, every comfort, every connection with those who would have tried to dissuade him and pull him back from the brink of the ministry to which he had been called, Jesus could experience every temptation in its full intensity. This was tightrope walking without a safety net.
Our Lenten Calendar asks “What does it mean to “fast”? Fasting is more than food. Fasting is not only giving up something. To remove something from our lives creates a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. Vacuums fill up quickly and easily. The vacuum created by fasting needs to be intentionally filled by giving something more of ourselves as an expression of faithfulness. By giving up things that fill our lives for ourselves, we release time and energy to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with our God, to use the words of the prophet Micah (6:8).
Jesus’ wilderness experience sounds alien to us. We find it difficult to understand this story because we think of Jesus being perfect and sinless. But when we think that we forget that he was fully human as well as fully divine. We wonder how temptation was a question for him? Especially since we are tempted by so many ordinary and unnecessary things. He had nothing and no one to hide behind. But he also had no distractions.
The temptation in the wilderness was not an easy forty days for our Lord. Jesus doesn’t need to be standing in a bakery to be tempted by bread. He is able to turn stones to bread, but it was important for Jesus to journey in the wilderness so that his focus would be where it had to be: on God and God’s word. The devil forced Jesus to confront more than flesh, power and faith; Jesus had to think about the ministry he was about to begin. Jesus faced human and divine temptations.
Jesus did not prove himself to be the Son of God by turning stones into bread or by testing God’s faithfulness with foolish actions like jumping off the roof of the Temple. Jesus proved he was the Son of God by dwelling in the presence of God and relying on God’s faithfulness. Jesus did not come to feed the hungry, to rule over the nations or to be a famous preacher. Jesus proved himself to be the Son of God because he turned to God’s Word and God’s promises as the foundation for everything the did. He came to die, to bring forgiveness and healing to a world that was sick and dying from sin. The journey through the wilderness led to a cross, to an empty tomb, and to eternal life for all who believe, who call on Jesus’ name.
That’s the message that Paul sent the believers in Rome:
During this Lenten season, as we stand with Mary and so many others at the cross, let us remember that we do not choose to go into this wilderness. We are led there by the Holy Spirit. Though it is a place of temptation, we do not need to fear, for we, like Jesus filled with the Spirit, are not alone.
Let us approach this time with God’s Word in our mouth and in our heart so that we can overcome all the temptations that assail us. We have nothing to fear, for God has already heard our cry and saved us. We live in the Most High’s shelter, we camp in the Almighty’s shade. We have the words to remember our past as we thank God for the present and move into the future, so that God’s story will be written on our hearts and in our minds forever. We have the words by which we have life and by which we live: “All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.”
That is our Lenten journey.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
There are still a few people in Pike County who have never journeyed out of the county, some who have never been to the big city of Chillicothe, or to the even bigger metropolis of Columbus. Those numbers are decreasing rapidly, because of the ubiquitous automobile, and the places people have to go to get health and social services. With the advances of the internet, a person could leave the county a lot less, but that would be a whole different generation.
We travel. Just over fifty years ago I traveled thirty miles to attend a boarding school. It was an hour’s drive, but it was a lifetime away from all that I had ever known. And I know that I am largely who I am because I said yes to making that journey.
I remember my first airplane flight. It was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Denver, Colorado. I know that we had to change planes somewhere, but I don’t remember where. One year later I was flying from Cleveland to New York JFK on to Edinburgh, Scotland, to begin my seminary education.
Many of us have made similar journeys for social, educational, or career reasons. For some, it was because Uncle Sam pointed his finger at you and you didn’t have a choice. For others, it was all choice – I want to do this and go there. Some of us have sailed the seven seas, plied the European rails, trekked up mountains. I have a friend through the Presbytery who is on a three month journey which includes South Seas islands, the coast of Chile, and Antarctica.
The journeys of life change us. The destination is less significant than the actual journey.
The Book of Deuteronomy comes across as Moses’ memoir of the forty-year journey he took as God’s appointed leader of the Israelite people. We know that Moses lost his cool on several occasions. The incessant cries of the Israelites, “Are we there yet?” would have been enough to wear down the most seasoned tour guide. But this wasn’t a busload of weary travelers, it was thousands upon thousands according to the records. Think of the million-person march on Washington DC without the assistance of law enforcement personnel.
The journey from slavery in Egypt to nationhood in Canaan was a journey through a sci-fi time warp. It took all of the forty years to begin to shake the traditions and “we used to”s out of the people, and then as the biblical record after Deuteronomy reports, the attitude adjustment and reprogramming for a new life hadn’t completely taken, even after a whole generation died on the journey and a new generation was born.
The premise of the promised land was that it flowed with milk and honey, that is, everything would be all right if the people would buckle down and follow the commandments and keep the Lord God first and foremost in their thinking. For that honor and privilege God expected gratitude, first-fruits, early harvest thanksgiving.
Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. As the later history depicted it, people were busy counting seeds, lest they give God too much and not keep enough for themselves. All that manna – just enough for both those who collected a lot and for those who couldn’t collect much – hadn’t made an impression on them. Even in the midst of plenty the Israelites were in a wilderness of disobedience, greed, disbelief. Their journey was not over. Not for a long time.
Jesus was a traveler. In utero he traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. As an infant he traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt. As a child he traveled from Egypt to Nazareth. As a 12-year old he traveled to Jerusalem for Passover, possibly after his bar mitzvah, and stayed behind, learning from and questioning the teachers of the law. Then about age thirty, he joined the caravans of people who were traveling to the place in the Jordan River where his cousin John was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins. The Spirit descended and announced him “Beloved.” The water’s edge wasn’t the end of his journey, it was the embarkation point.
Jesus entered the wilderness for forty days. He gave up more than chocolate or the internet or red meat. In a sense, he gave up his soul. That is, he didn’t protect it. He didn’t shield it from whatever he would encounter. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He had questions. He wondered what the time in front of him was going to hold for him. Stripped of every defense, every comfort, every connection with those who would have tried to dissuade him and pull him back from the brink of the ministry to which he had been called, Jesus could experience every temptation in its full intensity. This was tightrope walking without a safety net.
Our Lenten Calendar asks “What does it mean to “fast”? Fasting is more than food. Fasting is not only giving up something. To remove something from our lives creates a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. Vacuums fill up quickly and easily. The vacuum created by fasting needs to be intentionally filled by giving something more of ourselves as an expression of faithfulness. By giving up things that fill our lives for ourselves, we release time and energy to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with our God, to use the words of the prophet Micah (6:8).
Jesus’ wilderness experience sounds alien to us. We find it difficult to understand this story because we think of Jesus being perfect and sinless. But when we think that we forget that he was fully human as well as fully divine. We wonder how temptation was a question for him? Especially since we are tempted by so many ordinary and unnecessary things. He had nothing and no one to hide behind. But he also had no distractions.
The temptation in the wilderness was not an easy forty days for our Lord. Jesus doesn’t need to be standing in a bakery to be tempted by bread. He is able to turn stones to bread, but it was important for Jesus to journey in the wilderness so that his focus would be where it had to be: on God and God’s word. The devil forced Jesus to confront more than flesh, power and faith; Jesus had to think about the ministry he was about to begin. Jesus faced human and divine temptations.
Jesus did not prove himself to be the Son of God by turning stones into bread or by testing God’s faithfulness with foolish actions like jumping off the roof of the Temple. Jesus proved he was the Son of God by dwelling in the presence of God and relying on God’s faithfulness. Jesus did not come to feed the hungry, to rule over the nations or to be a famous preacher. Jesus proved himself to be the Son of God because he turned to God’s Word and God’s promises as the foundation for everything the did. He came to die, to bring forgiveness and healing to a world that was sick and dying from sin. The journey through the wilderness led to a cross, to an empty tomb, and to eternal life for all who believe, who call on Jesus’ name.
That’s the message that Paul sent the believers in Rome:
[I]f you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness, and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation. (Romans 10:9-10)Whatever we choose to do as we go on this Lenten journey, let’s remember that we aren’t trying to prove ourselves. Lent teaches us how to abide in God as we face the difficulties and temptations of this world. The end of our Lenten journey is not pleasant. We have to face the cross with Jesus, deal with his death and the end of our assumptions about what He really came to do. He didn’t come to feed us, to be our king, or be a adoration generating spectacle. As Jesus hangs on the cross our wilderness shock is that this is not how it is meant to be. Our troubles are far more complex, our pain far deeper than we can imagine. Our sin is beyond our ability to overcome. There was no easy way to fix what was wrong with the world. We have to face that reality on Good Friday when even Jesus cried out to God in his suffering and pain.
During this Lenten season, as we stand with Mary and so many others at the cross, let us remember that we do not choose to go into this wilderness. We are led there by the Holy Spirit. Though it is a place of temptation, we do not need to fear, for we, like Jesus filled with the Spirit, are not alone.
Let us approach this time with God’s Word in our mouth and in our heart so that we can overcome all the temptations that assail us. We have nothing to fear, for God has already heard our cry and saved us. We live in the Most High’s shelter, we camp in the Almighty’s shade. We have the words to remember our past as we thank God for the present and move into the future, so that God’s story will be written on our hearts and in our minds forever. We have the words by which we have life and by which we live: “All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.”
That is our Lenten journey.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Some People Change
2 Corinthians 3:12-18; Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36
It’s been a short Epiphany season this year. Only five weeks long. That’s not a lot of time for the light of the Savior of the world to penetrate the darkness of our world, not a lot of time for us to get up to speed with understanding that Jesus offers God’s grace to those on the inside of life as well as those on the outside, regardless of who defines inside and outside. For all our intelligence, we are sometimes slow to realize that our definitions carry no weight with God.
Paul tries to get that point across to the Corinthian believers. They are a contentious bunch, even fighting with Paul about the very truths of the gospel which he had presented them. There are times when we can sense that Paul is close to losing his temper with them. Fortunately his theological and rhetorical training constrains him.
We find that his statements to the Corinthians in today’s brief passage represent the core of his understanding of Jesus’ relationship with believers. Paul tells the Corinthian faithful that in Christ they are called out of lives of spiritual bondage and intellectual blindness into new lives which are filled with freedom, hope, and boldness. This is on account of the transfiguring encounter with the Spirit who is the Lord. It is only through Christ that the veil of ignorance and bondage is removed and that true sight comes to their eyes and hence to their spiritual being. Hardened hearts are softened and blind spiritual eyes become sighted as the glory of God is revealed and lives are transformed into God’s image.
There is a lot of not seeing and not believing in the pages of scripture. There are very few instances of seeing and believing. Two of the key instances are presented by the presence of Moses and Elijah in the account of the transfiguration of Jesus. Moses represents the covenant that created a people and Elijah represents the epitome of the prophetic tradition. Each of them saw God in a special way.
We heard about Moses having talked with God when God gave Moses the second set of the tables of the Law. Just before that Moses had begged God to show him God’s glorious presence. God told Moses to stand behind a rock and God would pass by so that Moses could see all of God’s goodness. “But,” God says, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).
You will remember that when Elijah defeated the 400 prophets of Baal in the whole burnt offering contest on Mount Carmel and then had them slaughtered, Queen Jezebel threatened Elijah’s life. He fled ultimately to Mount Horeb where he sought God unsuccessfully in the wind, earthquake, and fire. Then he met God in the thin, quiet, nearly inaudible sound of near silence (1 Kings 19:12).
Paul earnestly desired that the Corinthians see Jesus in the words of the Gospel and the way the gospel was lived by those who had seen Jesus and by those who had not seen the physical Jesus but had believed in him where sight had not taken them.
It is easy to dismiss the fractured believing and disbelieving of the Corinthians as something that was only effected them. Mis-believing is not something that happened long ago. It happens everyday in the best of congregations. Like the Jews who could not or would not see Jesus as the Christ (3:14-15), we also may be victims to our own bondage and darkness.
Week after week I stand at this pulpit, graciously accorded a measure of authority by you for this responsibility. Yet as a flawed human being who like everyone else needs to repent and seek God’s forgiving grace, I have to ask, am I at times masking God’s word of truth rather than unveiling it? Are some of you here because you don’t know what else to do with a Sunday morning? Or does anything spiritual that happens here roll off you like water off a duck’s back? We all have our veils, our masks, our blinders. Sometimes our faith is like that smudged window that just never seems to be streak-free, no matter how hard we try to clean it.
We are blinded by so many different kinds of things. We are blinded by fear: fear of failure; fear of loss; fear of success; fear of not being able to measure up to our ideal standards or those of someone else.
We are blinded by envy: envy of a lifestyle, be it jet-setting or simple; envy of prestige, renown, recognition; envy of people who have made it and seem to have everything going their way.
We are blinded by tradition: the traditions handed down by our forebears; the tradition of not rocking the boat; the tradition of being second-rate or sidelined so we have to pull our lives around us like a protective blanket.
We are blinded by ambition: the need to get ahead; the need to have everything imaginable; the necessity of always being right; the drive not to get left behind.
All these kinds of blindness separate us from God and from the joy in the Lord which the Spirit desires to lavish on us.
Paul Tillich, one of the leading theologians of the mid-20th century, in a sermon on Romans 5:20 titled “You Are Accepted,”(1) suggests that our personal and societal idolatries often manifest themselves in a kind of “moral reversal.” Rather than seeing the state of our own sin (addictions), we project blame onto the external objects of our addiction. We cast blame on alcohol, drugs, temptresses or tempters, “the system,” the cops, religion, government, the President, immigrants, liberals, conservatives, ivory tower pedants. Other people—parents, spouses, children, friends, or strangers, congregation members—receive our venom.
Paul claims that even today, in spite of everything (3:14), the blind do not see, and even though they “know,” they cannot fathom they are the problem.(2)
In human development and educational circles the ongoing discussion is whether we are who we are because of nature or because of nurture. If we throw the discussion into the theological arena, we are who we are because of nature – we are children of Adam and Eve, we carry the gene of sin and disobedience. But, thanks be to God in Christ Jesus, we are also the product of nurture. We are who we are because of the grace which Jesus brought us through his life, death, and resurrection which transforms us who through the working of the Spirit in us and in those around us. We can be changed. We can have the scales removed from the eyes of our faith.
Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to take a look at their own lives in Christ and to see in their own unveiled faces how they are being “transformed … from one degree of glory to the next.” Paul had enough experience in ministry with the Corinthian congregation and with others to know that no one falls head first into the pool of God’s transforming love and emerges fully formed as a perfect reflection of Christ. The work of God’s justifying and redemptive Spirit moves in human lives from one degree of glory to another, often taking a lifetime to achieve the full reflection of Christ in our shining, unveiled faces.
This is wonderfully good news! No one sails through life without setbacks, without rough seas, without hardships and doubts. Paul is a prime example of this obvious truth. Yet for the follower of Christ, the setbacks or hardships are not the defining events of life. For the beloved sisters and brothers of Christ, the defining event is the gift of freedom offered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The true identity of the Christian is found in the love of God that has been written upon hearts. No outward circumstances or worldly appearances can change the inward and spiritual reality of God’s justifying and redemptive grace.
The work of the Christian believer – our work – then, is to allow the love of Christ and the freedom of the Spirit to be manifest in daily living. The work of the Christian believer, with Paul, is not to lose heart but to continue — no matter what the circumstances of life — to act with boldness in the direction of God’s redeeming work of love and mercy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) Paul Tillich, “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 153-63. Available online at www.religion-online.org.
(2) Donald W. Musser, “2 Corinthians 3:12-18 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 450.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
It’s been a short Epiphany season this year. Only five weeks long. That’s not a lot of time for the light of the Savior of the world to penetrate the darkness of our world, not a lot of time for us to get up to speed with understanding that Jesus offers God’s grace to those on the inside of life as well as those on the outside, regardless of who defines inside and outside. For all our intelligence, we are sometimes slow to realize that our definitions carry no weight with God.
Paul tries to get that point across to the Corinthian believers. They are a contentious bunch, even fighting with Paul about the very truths of the gospel which he had presented them. There are times when we can sense that Paul is close to losing his temper with them. Fortunately his theological and rhetorical training constrains him.
We find that his statements to the Corinthians in today’s brief passage represent the core of his understanding of Jesus’ relationship with believers. Paul tells the Corinthian faithful that in Christ they are called out of lives of spiritual bondage and intellectual blindness into new lives which are filled with freedom, hope, and boldness. This is on account of the transfiguring encounter with the Spirit who is the Lord. It is only through Christ that the veil of ignorance and bondage is removed and that true sight comes to their eyes and hence to their spiritual being. Hardened hearts are softened and blind spiritual eyes become sighted as the glory of God is revealed and lives are transformed into God’s image.
There is a lot of not seeing and not believing in the pages of scripture. There are very few instances of seeing and believing. Two of the key instances are presented by the presence of Moses and Elijah in the account of the transfiguration of Jesus. Moses represents the covenant that created a people and Elijah represents the epitome of the prophetic tradition. Each of them saw God in a special way.
We heard about Moses having talked with God when God gave Moses the second set of the tables of the Law. Just before that Moses had begged God to show him God’s glorious presence. God told Moses to stand behind a rock and God would pass by so that Moses could see all of God’s goodness. “But,” God says, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).
You will remember that when Elijah defeated the 400 prophets of Baal in the whole burnt offering contest on Mount Carmel and then had them slaughtered, Queen Jezebel threatened Elijah’s life. He fled ultimately to Mount Horeb where he sought God unsuccessfully in the wind, earthquake, and fire. Then he met God in the thin, quiet, nearly inaudible sound of near silence (1 Kings 19:12).
Paul earnestly desired that the Corinthians see Jesus in the words of the Gospel and the way the gospel was lived by those who had seen Jesus and by those who had not seen the physical Jesus but had believed in him where sight had not taken them.
It is easy to dismiss the fractured believing and disbelieving of the Corinthians as something that was only effected them. Mis-believing is not something that happened long ago. It happens everyday in the best of congregations. Like the Jews who could not or would not see Jesus as the Christ (3:14-15), we also may be victims to our own bondage and darkness.
Week after week I stand at this pulpit, graciously accorded a measure of authority by you for this responsibility. Yet as a flawed human being who like everyone else needs to repent and seek God’s forgiving grace, I have to ask, am I at times masking God’s word of truth rather than unveiling it? Are some of you here because you don’t know what else to do with a Sunday morning? Or does anything spiritual that happens here roll off you like water off a duck’s back? We all have our veils, our masks, our blinders. Sometimes our faith is like that smudged window that just never seems to be streak-free, no matter how hard we try to clean it.
We are blinded by so many different kinds of things. We are blinded by fear: fear of failure; fear of loss; fear of success; fear of not being able to measure up to our ideal standards or those of someone else.
We are blinded by envy: envy of a lifestyle, be it jet-setting or simple; envy of prestige, renown, recognition; envy of people who have made it and seem to have everything going their way.
We are blinded by tradition: the traditions handed down by our forebears; the tradition of not rocking the boat; the tradition of being second-rate or sidelined so we have to pull our lives around us like a protective blanket.
We are blinded by ambition: the need to get ahead; the need to have everything imaginable; the necessity of always being right; the drive not to get left behind.
All these kinds of blindness separate us from God and from the joy in the Lord which the Spirit desires to lavish on us.
Paul Tillich, one of the leading theologians of the mid-20th century, in a sermon on Romans 5:20 titled “You Are Accepted,”(1) suggests that our personal and societal idolatries often manifest themselves in a kind of “moral reversal.” Rather than seeing the state of our own sin (addictions), we project blame onto the external objects of our addiction. We cast blame on alcohol, drugs, temptresses or tempters, “the system,” the cops, religion, government, the President, immigrants, liberals, conservatives, ivory tower pedants. Other people—parents, spouses, children, friends, or strangers, congregation members—receive our venom.
Paul claims that even today, in spite of everything (3:14), the blind do not see, and even though they “know,” they cannot fathom they are the problem.(2)
In human development and educational circles the ongoing discussion is whether we are who we are because of nature or because of nurture. If we throw the discussion into the theological arena, we are who we are because of nature – we are children of Adam and Eve, we carry the gene of sin and disobedience. But, thanks be to God in Christ Jesus, we are also the product of nurture. We are who we are because of the grace which Jesus brought us through his life, death, and resurrection which transforms us who through the working of the Spirit in us and in those around us. We can be changed. We can have the scales removed from the eyes of our faith.
Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to take a look at their own lives in Christ and to see in their own unveiled faces how they are being “transformed … from one degree of glory to the next.” Paul had enough experience in ministry with the Corinthian congregation and with others to know that no one falls head first into the pool of God’s transforming love and emerges fully formed as a perfect reflection of Christ. The work of God’s justifying and redemptive Spirit moves in human lives from one degree of glory to another, often taking a lifetime to achieve the full reflection of Christ in our shining, unveiled faces.
This is wonderfully good news! No one sails through life without setbacks, without rough seas, without hardships and doubts. Paul is a prime example of this obvious truth. Yet for the follower of Christ, the setbacks or hardships are not the defining events of life. For the beloved sisters and brothers of Christ, the defining event is the gift of freedom offered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The true identity of the Christian is found in the love of God that has been written upon hearts. No outward circumstances or worldly appearances can change the inward and spiritual reality of God’s justifying and redemptive grace.
The work of the Christian believer – our work – then, is to allow the love of Christ and the freedom of the Spirit to be manifest in daily living. The work of the Christian believer, with Paul, is not to lose heart but to continue — no matter what the circumstances of life — to act with boldness in the direction of God’s redeeming work of love and mercy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) Paul Tillich, “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 153-63. Available online at www.religion-online.org.
(2) Donald W. Musser, “2 Corinthians 3:12-18 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 450.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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