Selling Ourselves Short, Out and Otherwise

The Tanzanian Hymn Listen God is Calling connects God’s story heard in today’s readings with our story as baptized children of God.

• It meets us in the chaos and crazed pace of our lives.
• It reminds us to listen because God is calling.
• It invites us to live more connected to God.

 Listen, listen, God is calling, through the Word inviting, offering forgiveness, comfort and joy.

While those words and the song of God’s presence in our lives brings comfort and joy, we somehow still think we are in control, that everything we have and are is of our making, and that we have the freedom to do and live as we wish. And you know what, you are right. We do have that freedom, but that freedom is a gift from God who calls to us, who reminds us who and what we are.

We are God’s. Claimed in our baptism, our Creator delighting in us and claiming us as God’s own.

We are God’s. Called to move from woe to glory, fearing, loving and serving the Lord.

We are God’s. Fed at the table with the bread of heaven  and the cup of salvation, receiving what we are, becoming what we receive.

We are the Body of Christ, gathered by the Holy Spirit as the church to do God’s work with our hands.

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Our sandwich reading today, the one between the Hebrew Scripture and New Testament Good News, between law and gospel, the second reading, the epistle, the reading to guide our life together as the church was written by Paul to the church in Corinth. The city was a vibrant seaport, a center for commerce and culture. It was also a city centered on consumerism, individualism, philosophical pondering, and selfish sexual sin. It was the Amsterdam, Bangkok, Rio and Vegas of its day.

Paul’s words reach across time to you and me individually and to you and me…

• gathered as the Body of Christ,
• God’s voice and hands in the world,
• with a timeless message for believers and the church.

Paul points out that our bodies are not our own… they are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Paul points out that because we were bought with a price… we are not our own.

Paul points out that while we are freed from sin… we are to glorify the one who freed us.

But we don’t like to listen to Paul, or the one who calls and invites us. We are in charge, we are in control, we can do as we please… and because of the gift of free will, we often fall short of the glory of God. We abuse and ignore the gifts of creation from the world around us to the bodies we are given. Our selfish selling out, selling ourselves short, and selling our bodies to the wills of ourselves and the world leads to:

• fixation and over-indulgence
• bad habits and compulsion
• addictions and disease

When we sell ourselves to sin it enslaves. We prostitute the bodies God has given us and even the body God gathers as the church. You see the things we do become who we are. The things we do, gets in the way of relationships with others and with God.

We are not our own… When we abuse our bodies, we abuse all of the bodies we are connected to by relationship…

• family and friends,
• classmates and co-workers,
• neighbors known and unknown.

When we sin with our bodies, we sin against others and we sin against God.

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From Woe to Wow to Glory

God’s Word is not passive.

• It is not about things, not about you and me, or the stuff of creation.
• It is about doing and changing things, you and me, and the very stuff of creation.

God’s Word calls all things into being, brings order out of chaos, breathes new life where there is a dead numbness caused by jobs lost, relationships strained, bodies pained by illness, families broken by stress, and people like you and me who live burdened by selfish sin.

Thankfully God’s Word speaks and everything changes.

We meet that word, that voice, that change today in God’s Story, the Word found in the beginning, sung in the Psalms, and in Good News found in splashing water.

The Word of God Sounds Like—the Crashing Waters of Creation

In Genesis, we meet the voice of God…

• In the sound of the wind that swept over the face of the waters.
• In calling light into being
• In naming light day and darkness night

In the beginning and today, in God’s Word…

• We hear living water today in this worship space, echoing God’s voice.
• We hear the truth that God is in the midst and works with chaos.
• We hear comfort in God bringing order to even the most frightening of places.

The Word of God Sounds Like—the Power to Make Us Say Wow

In the Psalm, we meet the voice of God unleashed in all its power and majesty…

• Starting with water, God’s voice thunder storming over mighty waters
• Breaking the largest of cedar trees, stripping oak forests bare
• Flashing forth lighting, sparking flames and fire storms
• Skipping mountains and shaking the desert sands

The word of God is loud and powerful, changing creation itself. The Israelites see and hear God’s voice and respond saying Glory! And all we can say is woe or wow.

God is great and powerful beyond our world of wondering. We do have reason to fear and tremble. But we also have reason to trust God who creates, sustains, and saves us. But we fail to see God’s creative hand and hear God’s majestic voice. When we do, we move beyond woe and wow. When we see or hear God in what we understand and in what makes us wonder, we too say Glory!

The Word of God Sounds Like—the Promise of Claiming Us as God’s Own

In baptism, God claims us as God’s own. Through God’s Word in Mark today, we see and hear the voice of God. The Word of God is present in the flesh in the person of Jesus. Jesus who is fully God and fully human steps into the dirty waters of our lives and is washed. Jesus sees and hears as God the Spirit descends like a dove and God the Father speaks of his delight in his son.

And we who are baptized, washed , forgiven and created anew each day, are baptized with the Holy Spirit, claimed, named and proclaimed children of God. Children God takes delight in.

And when the water is shallow and smooth, When the ground and our lives don’t shake, and the winds of chaos are calm…

• We think we have it together,
• We think it is our doing,
• We forget God’s hand and voice.

But we know that the waters, days and winds of life are not calm. And we who are baptized, we who see God’s hand and voice in the Word and World, know that Baptism is not some holy magic life jacket that keep everything calm. Baptism is water and wind and God’s mighty word that you and I are called into each and every day.

God calls us to the water of life. But we barely tip our toes in. We are afraid of what might happen if we fully immerse ourselves in living a baptized life seeing and hearing God’s voice and following God’s call that was given to us in baptism.

Wow we think, water is scary… And it is, water cleanses, drowns and kills.  It has to do those things to move us from wow to glory. It has to in order to give birth to new life. The waters of baptism are mighty, and the life of the baptized are not without storms. But God who delights in you, calls you to step out onto the storms of the world.

The Word of God Sounds Like—the Spark of Fire and the Splash of Baptism

In baptism we are changed. Our washing and gift of the Holy Spirit changes everything from wow to glory. In every dark cloud, each wind of change, and in the storms of our sinful creation and those that blow into our lives… in every moment God is there to be seen and heard. God’s presence and voice showing and calling us to glory is there.

• We have trouble looking and listening.
• We have trouble seeing and hearing.
• We have trouble remembering our baptism.
• Living as the baptized, trusting that in all of those storms, God is with us, leading and speaking to us all through the Holy Spirit.

Baptism is both seen and heard. A tangible proclamation of God’s presence and promise voiced for you and me forever. It is like a dirty old rock dropped into a crystal calm body of water.

We see and hear the rock as it moves toward and then is immersed in the water.

• The thunk and splash are seen and heard.
• The sounds vibrating out into space forever.
• The splash is replaced by ripples on the body of water.
• Ripples that move out from the splash and flow on and on.

Our baptism splash of new life resulted in ripples of blessing that flow out from God through us, into the world and lives of others. Our baptism sparked the flowing of the Holy Spirit into our lives to fan the flames of faith, lighting a fire that moves us to Glory!

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 May you hear the Word of God and not the winds of your desires.

May you see sparks of God and not the flames of your desires.

May others see, hear and experience God through your life

splashing in and sharing the waters and wonders of grace

and fanning flames of faith as God’s hands and voice

moving others from woe and wow to Glory!

 

There’s Something [Prophetic] About Mary

This final Sunday in Advent is often the day many worshipping communities replace preaching with a pageant of the coming birth of Jesus. In doing so, we miss the magnificence of God working through Mary. We reduce Mary’s role to that of a cute young girl holding a baby doll. We rush to opening the present of Jesus’ birth, missing out on the announcement and Mary’s song of prophetic proclamation.

• Today is not about the birth of Jesus, we wait another week for that.
• Today is about God adding a young teenage girl to God’s and our story.
• Today is all about mystery and intrigue, an angel and an unexpected pregnancy, and uncertainty and change beyond our comprehension.

The story of the coming of Jesus begins with the out of this world announcement by Gabriel to Mary that she’s pregnant and will be the mother of the Son of God.

• This announcement is shocking, is a big deal for believers and deal breaker for doubters.
• This announcement has been pondered for centuries, its details interpreted by theologians, hymn writers, and artists.
• This announcement story is about God’s magnificence and miraculous entering into our story.

The story is about God loving us so much that God comes to us, in human form, to live among us, to love and forgive us in person. And the story is about God using Mary’s body and voice to proclaim and then deliver the One who will save us from ourselves and the world.

Mary’s role as ‘God-bearer’ is critical not because of her accepting to be Jesus’ mom, but because of how God works through her. God speaks through her actions and words in Luke, birthing the Word made flesh, the one who will dwell among us. Mary tells us about God’s promises for those who wait through heartfelt song. She proclaims as prophets do what God is up to in the world. That God will meet us where we are through God’s self in the form of a son, named Jesus.

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We who wait for the Lord, heard Mary’s song as our psalm today. Mary sings as a prophet telling of what this Jesus, God with us, the fully divine and fully human one that she will give birth to what he will do for our weary world. Mary’s song proclaims for us her joy, not so much in being chosen by God, or in the anticipation of the birth of her first child, but rather what will happen because of this holy child’s coming into the world.

• A broken and beaten world, bloodied by weapons and economic oppression,
• A world where the victors took the spoils by forcing, raping and pillaging,
• A world that longed for a king to turn things around, a messiah to save them.

The world was about to change by the one for whom we wait. In Luke’s Gospel the one is called by many names:

• Jesus, the name Mary is told to give him,
• The Savior of the World,
• The Prince of Peace,
• The Messiah or Christ.

Mary proclaims that he will be called the Son of God in our reading, but before Gabriel is sent to break the news, or the Holy Spirit comes upon her, or the Most High overshadows her… long before Jesus the Christ was ever conceived, there was another proclaimed “Son of God.”

 

I am what I am

One of my favorite classic cartoons is Popeye the Sailor Man. Many sociologists and culture scholars consider Popeye a precursor to the many super heroes of paper comic books, radio, television, and action movies. One of his catchphrases is “I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam,” which is a bold and freeing expression of who his is.

• This individualism flies in the face of who others want us to be.
• This individualism flies in the face of expectations others place on us.
• This individualism is a gift from God, who made us uniquely who we are and universally in God’s own image.

In our Gospel reading from John, we hear about another John, the cousin of Jesus, the one who prepares the way of the Lord, the one who baptized with water in preparation for the One for whom we wait. 

• John the Baptist was given a magnetic personality and powerful message by God.
• John the Baptist was given a role to be both a witness to, and to testify to the light.
• John the Baptist was given a task that was rather confusing for those around him,
  • people who longed for a Messiah to save them,
  • people who wanted John to be more than who he was made by God to be,
  • people who placed expectations that exceeded the role and message that God had given to him.

John the Baptist, like Popeye, was a precursor to something, someone bigger, with a boldness and power that would exceed their own. John the Baptist, like Popeye, was portrayed as blunt, bold and brash. And John the Baptist, like Popeye, was portrayed standing up to, challenging and upsetting those in authority.

While John had an important role, it was a supporting, preparatory one. John, like Popeye says is “I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam,” an Advent message for us all.

• John knew who he was.
• John knew he was uniquely made by God for a unique role.
• John knew that he was also, a child of God like those he shared the good news of the coming light of the world with.

A message for all who wait for the Messiah, each of them and you and I too, universally and lovingly made in the image of God.

In his defining himself, John the Baptist points to the Messiah. A Messiah that the people were trying to imagine, conjure up, longing so hard for, that they projected the role on people like John (much like we do when we seek presidential candidates). We who wait for the Lord, the Light, the One to come and save us, also try to imagine and conjure up who and what the Messiah will be like… what are you looking for in the Messiah, for what kind of Jesus do you wait?

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Listen, Listen God is Calling

Today we hear from the prophet Isaiah who speaks a message of comfort and hope for the people, people who’ll live in exile from the promised land. God through the prophet says “comfort, comfort now my people.” These words become comfort and hope during the exile. The Israelites recalled the words delivered by Isaiah that they will build a royal highway for God.

As highway builders, they and we are preparing the way for the Lord. Isaiah is beautiful, powerful and memorable so it is no wonder that his prophesy would be quoted by Mark as he introduces the John, fellow highway builder, way preparer and Baptizer.

And while John is a fascinating guy, I’m drawn to the prophet and God’s word for us through Isaiah. You see it’s about roads, no not the controversial magic busway between New Britain and Hartford, or proposals by politicians to put tolls back on Connecticut highways… or is it? You see the context for Isaiah’s highway building is that during ancient times oppressed and conquered peoples would be forced  to build highways for the victors.

Not much different than the local politician who calls in a favor to get road improvements, a new bridge, or highway expansion from the higher level politician he or she helped get elected. The world we live in is not all that much different than the one Isaiah prophesy’s in. If you’re represented by the majority party, If you’re connected to the influential or powerful, you get all the perks, connections and life on easy street. If not, you live in a world riddled with pot-holes and detours of injustice.

So just as the Governor will be one of the first to take a ride on the magic bus, so did victors use the highways built by those conquered to take their own “victory lap.” The road these royal public relations and ego rides were taken on became known as the king’s highway, an image that the Israelites dreamed of and Isaiah speaks of as the promised king leads the people back to their homeland, their promised land.

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The dream of the exiled is our dream as this Advent we too prepare the royal highway for Jesus, listen to the prophet…

³Someone is shouting: “Clear a path in the desert! Make a straight road for the LORD our God. ⁴Fill in the valleys; flatten every hill and mountain. Level the rough and rugged ground. ⁵Then the glory of the LORD will appear for all to see. The LORD has promised this!”

So we are called to be road engineers preparing the way, excavators clearing the way and making way. But what shall we say about the coming of Jesus, listen to the prophet…

⁶Someone told me to shout, and I asked, “What should I shout?” We humans are merely grass, and we last no longer than wild flowers. ⁷At the LORD’s command, flowers and grass disappear, and so do we.

We are reminded of this as the fall mums wither and die and the grass turns brown. We wake to frost covering our landscape and we are reminded that winter comes into all of our lives. Much of creation goes fallow, hibernates, or dies to give room for God to do something new,  for sins to be erased, for forgiveness to sprout, for new life to come from our God of continuous comfort and everlasting love, listen to the prophet…

 

Wait for it, Wait for it, Wait for it…

“Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” is a National Public Radio’s hour-long quiz program that tests your knowledge and vocabulary against some of the best and brightest in the news and entertainment world while figuring out what’s real and what’s made up. The show focuses on the current word in the world, word as in what’s happening and not The Word as in Jesus. I enjoy the bantering of the very literate guests and how the show is a series of riddles and word problems, similar to the Gospel reading from Mark today…

Following those hard times, Sun will fade out, moon cloud over, Stars fall out of the sky, cosmic powers tremble.”

That’s some weather forecast, coming on the heels of great suffering…

• Kind of like getting hit by a hurricane, only to be devastated by a surprise Nor‘easter,
• Or losing your job, only to find out that your spouse has terminal cancer,
• Or failing the big test, only to find out that you got cut from the team.

But wait, there’s more…

And then they’ll see the Son of Man enter in grand style, his Arrival filling the sky—no one will miss it! He’ll dispatch the angels; they will pull in the chosen from the four winds, from pole to pole.

This is more than stormy weather, Jesus is returning and this time will do so with more than a simple nativity and shiny star, although shiny stars were wonders of the sky in ancient times, thought to be spiritual powers.

But wait, there’s more, how about a riddle of a fig tree…

Take a lesson from the fig tree. From the moment you notice its buds form, the merest hint of green, you know summer’s just around the corner. And so it is with you. When you see all these things, you know he is at the door. Don’t take this lightly. I’m not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too—these things will happen. Sky and earth will wear out; my words won’t wear out.

So should we be looking for clues springing up in the stars, or in fig orchards…? It doesn’t matter what happens cosmically or what kind of havoc is wreaked on earth, words, the Word, the most important words, the good news of Jesus Christ, our Messiah for whom we wait… will not wear out, will not abandon us, will come again.

But wait, when is this going down?

 But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son. Only the Father. So keep a sharp lookout, for you don’t know the timetable. It’s like a man who takes a trip, leaving home and putting his servants in charge, each assigned a task, and commanding the gatekeeper to stand watch. So, stay at your post, watching. You have no idea when the homeowner is returning, whether evening, midnight, cockcrow, or morning. You don’t want him showing up unannounced, with you asleep on the job. I say it to you, and I’m saying it to all: Stay at your post. Keep watch.” (The Message)

So we have this urgent image of the Son of Man coming. We do not know when or where, but are told to wait. But wait—we don’t like to wait. And all these cryptic riddle-like clues—how in the world will we know when. When will Jesus, our savior come again to save our messed up lives, our fragile environment, our broken world. Heaven help us we cry… and that’s exactly what will happen.

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The Truth Will Occupy You and Set You Free

Sermon for Reformation Sunday + October 30, 2011

Today is a day when the realities of who we are, what our nature really is (when we are truthful with ourselves), and where we go when faced with that truthful reality. The Good News this day is all about freedom, liberation from what binds and enslaves us. The bad news is that you and I are like the Israelites in our Hebrew Scripture reading, we believe that we are not bound, and have never been enslaved. Our perception of reality is of a world where slavery to anyone or anything is ancient history…

• We’re American’s,
• We’re number one,
• We’re in control of our destiny.

The truth is that we like the Israelites, live in denial, forgetting the experience of life along the Nile, enslaved to choices and circumstances of our lives. The truth of our world, our country, our church and our selves, is that…

• We need freedom from our sinful thoughts and ways,
• We need to be unchained from the bondage of brokenness,
• We need to be reconciled to the fact that we are people in need of reform.

We, who are both sinners and saints, need the Holy Spirit to work in and through our lives, reclaiming the truth, refining our focus, and reforming our ways. This day is about
reclaiming what it means as Christ followers to live in the freedom that Jesus has given us through the cross.

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Reclaiming the Truth

 

God Isn’t Fair

Sermon +September 18, 2011

God Isn’t Fair

It’s not fair! I deserved the spot on the team, the higher grade, job, promotion, raise…

It’s not fair! I worked harder, I’ve been here longer, I’m wiser, smarter, older, better…

It does not matter whether we are reacting to the big things, or to the size of the piece of cake or pie, or love… we each view the world and what happens to us through our own “fairness” frame.

• We compare and judge what we’ve got versus what others get. 
• We know what we deserve and we know what others do too.
• We judge fairness, favor and forgiveness through our selfish scales of justice.

And by God we know that we are right. We know what is fair. And we know that God is fair and God is on our side. But the reality is that God is the judge of what is fair, what is just and God, well God isn’t fair (at least by our standards).

Thankfully God is fair, God is just and God is love! Unfortunately, we struggle to understand the fairness frame God has, the justice scales God uses, the abundance and ability of God to love.

• We have failed to understand God’s economy
• We have grumbled about God’s justice system
• We have responded as if there is a deficit of God’s love

We live as if all of God’s story is as depressed as our own. Somehow we experience God’s fairness, justice and love as unstable as the stock market, as fleeting as employment security, as being in some kind of divine recession. All we have to do is look around us or at the texts this day to see that God is not fair.

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In the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world, where even those living at theU.S.poverty line are wealthy by world standards, we still want more. We see the glass as half empty, feel as if we are somehow being punished, that we living a life that isn’t fair. That God doesn’t bless America as much as God used to. Where when Jonah finally does what God asks sees that God is unfair, those people in Ninevah were sinful, they should have gotten what was coming to them. Where all those workers in the vineyard got the same pay, even though they all didn’t work as long or as hard… It’s not fair!

Life is not fair is a premise that many people believe, but God isn’t fair… God’s Word includes many examples of what the kingdom of heaven is like, or the way God sees, shares and desires fairness, justice and love for us and for our life with God, on earth as it is in heaven. God meets us and all people, the inequalities of this world with God’s own form of inequality—Grace. But we who see our recession lives full of unfairness, injustice, and little love, grumble atgrace in our depressed deficit focused life.

God invites us into stories to show us, to teach us, to invite us to live full and fair, joyful and just, and lavish and love-filled kingdom lives. We miss the point, we think we have to wait to die to experience the kingdom, that there is no heaven on earth, that life sucks and then you die. And you know what… you are right.

• We have to die to our “it’s not fair” living.
• We have to die to our focus on what’s fair and just from our perspective.
• We have to die to limiting our love and expecting God to do the same.

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God invites us to the kingdom through loving the Ninevites, through sending Jonah and you and I to share God’s story and invitation, and through sending Jesus to us and for us, forgiving that we might forgive, dying that we might live in kingdom ways and always. God wants us to move from insisting it’s not fair to forgive instead, from insisting it’s not just to instilling justice, from limiting our love to living in love, from grumbling about grace to gracing others.

The Jonah story is one our two Bible study groups have spent time with this summer. It is a story some recall as a fish tale about Jonah getting swallowed by a great fish. It is a story we can relate to…

• Knowing what God wants us to do, thinking it’s not fair and doing something else.
• Running away from what we are called to be and do, as far away as possible.
• Confronted with what we are to do, but still avoiding, denying, and stomping our feet.

And then when God has our undivided attention, when we are in crisis, when life doesn’t go our way… we go and do what we know is what is expected of us, usually dragging our feet and complaining it’s not fair. Our journeys are long and take us to unexpected places, to encounter people we don’t know or like, and share messages we don’t want to share, or news that is not fair, assistance that is not deserved. So we wonder…

• Why doesn’t God see what I see,
• Why doesn’t God punish those who deserve it,
• Why does God love those people… why God isn’t fair!

God says, “go to Nineveh, go to the neighbors you don’t like and tell them about me!” Jonah finally goes and begrudgingly tells the people, “In forty days you will be toast!” He heads out of town, parks on outside of town to watch them get what they deserve from a great ringside seat. But the judgment isn’t Jonah’s, the fireball of wrath doesn’t come, nothing happens and Jonah is crushed.

But something has happened, the whole city repented overnight, and God forgives, changes God’s mind, and calls off the destruction. Jonah is outraged that after everything God put him through, God is unfair and grants grace. “God, I knew this would happen,” says Jonah, “You are so unfair, I did everything you asked, finally those people were going to get what they deserved, and you… you wussed out, you got weak knees, you turned into a pushover, wishy-washy, open-wallet Santa Claus who didn’t give them what they deserved. It isn’t fair, you didn’t do what you said you would, they could of killed the messenger and what do I get?”

Jonah and you and I get a lesson that we have a good and gracious God,merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love! But Jonah and you and I want God to follow our fairness, justice and love means test. Jonah whines “It’s just not fair! You won’t follow the rules God. You make a promise, and then decide not to keep it. These people are evil and deserve to be destroyed.” But God responds to the whining of Jonah and you and I with God’s fairness, justice and love means test… grace. And we grumble about the grace given others.

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The whining continues in Matthew’s vineyard over fair labor practices, just compensation guidelines, and equitable granting of grace. It isn’t fair… and God says leave the means testing, fairness, justice and granting to me. Equality can sometimes seem unfair, unjust, unloving and unworkable in the world…

• A manager or coach would say God’s equality would lead to chaos in the workplace or sports field because the hardest working employees or players wouldn’t have it.
• A labor union boss would agree, pointing out that seniority, benefits, hourly and overtime pay all have to be assigned equitably based on contract rules.
• A teacher would say that lazy students might appreciate everyone getting “A’s” but hardworking students would complain as would school board and education agencies.

The kingdom of heaven is not about whining and grumbling about the blessings, circumstances and forgiveness of others. The kingdom of heaven is not fair by world standards. The kingdom of heaven is a radical abundance of blessings, forgiveness, and life that knows no ending.

• God is thankfully unfair, good and a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
• God is thankfully on the loose, active in our lives and in the world, calling us to let our worldly understanding and expectations die.
• God is thankfully inviting and including us all in the kingdom story, forever forgiving, generously granting grace, and lavishing life and limitless love.

…For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.

 

Forgiving Doesn’t Require Forgetting

A tough week of worries, a difficult day when we remember 9/11, and challenging readings focused on forgiveness. Scripture is full of references to forgiveness but today, today many want to forget, not forgive. Many want to grieve and not grant grace. Many want revenge and not reconciliation. The obvious link to the events of 10 years ago almost doesn’t need to be spoken, but the need for forgiveness, grace and reconciliation also extends to our relationships with family, friends and neighbors.

In the gospel Peter wants Jesus to explain more about what the expectations of discipleship really are. So Jesus addresses the team of disciples directly with an intensity and bold images that are meant for the ears of believers. He re-emphasizes the call to forgiveness and in case they missed it, tells them,                                                                           

God’s given your filthy slate of sins the ultimate cleaning, even the stuff you haven’t messed up yet. The least you can do is to go easy on those who let you down once in a while, and even those others who mess-up big time.”

The point is that there is no way that the servant in Jesus’ parable, the disciples wondering about Jesus’ expectations, and believers like you and me will ever be able to repay the master, the creator, the God of all.

• God forgives and expects that we will as well.         
• God eliminates the guilt and pain of everything that we create in anger and the evil within each of us.                                                                     
• God expects us to do the same, and we expect our neighbor to forgive us, but we are reluctant to forgive.

God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but you and I, are not God. We are quick to anger and abounding in vengeful violence. So what is forgiveness, what does it look like for people like you and me?

• Forgiveness is what is expected by people in relationship with God.
• Forgiveness is holy work, because it is God who forgives us.
• Forgiveness is possible because we are forgiven and God makes it possible for us to forgive one another.
• Forgiveness is ongoing because we are all sinners and need to be forgiven all the time.

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The parable Jesus tells bogs many of us down. We tend to focus on the details, the harshness, the numbers. None of it matters as much as the message of forgiveness. A message Martin Luther reminded us of, that forgiveness is God’s command. But the Matthew text distracts us with the numbers. Many Greek scholars believe that Jesus said to forgive seventy-seven times and not seventy times seven, but neither number is really important. Jesus’ point was not to count while we forgive, but to forgive. The point to the disciples and you and me is that Christian forgiveness is not quantitative, but qualitative. As Christians in relationship with God and one another, we are forgiven to forgive, without keeping score.

Forgiveness is easier said than done. At our noon Bible study this week we had a discussion about forgiveness, some said it was easier than staying mad and miserable, while others said it is hard and at time impossible to forgive. Forgiveness is what we a called to. But while it is called for, we can’t force, guilt, or pressure another to forgive. It can be hard to understand why some of those who have had horrible evil things happen to them or their loved ones can forgive, while others who haven’t suffered a significant loss struggle to forgive much smaller sins against them.

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The thing we all at one time or another need to wrestle with is this… now that I have experienced this… disgrace, evil, pain, sin, tragedy, violence, wrong… against me, what now, what with god’s help and acting in my life will I or we do? What is the response? Unfortunately forgiveness does not come easily for most of us if we are honest with ourselves. And sadly for some of us, holding onto grieving grudges, raging resentments, and anguishing anger is a way of life.

Writer Anne Lamott says:

I went around saying for a long time that I am not one of those Christians who is heavily into forgiveness—that I am one of the other kind. But even though it was funny, and actually true, it started to be too painful to stay this way.”                                                          

The forgiveness we Christians are called to is tough.

We may and usually never can forget, but God forgives us, we are forgiven always so that we can, if we are able, to forgive others. We are forgiven and God opens the door so that we can, if and when we are able, forgive. Thankfully, regardless of our human ability to forgive others God never forgets to forgive us. This hard work of forgiveness is not about what we do, or even our forgiving. It is about what God does.

God forgives us, so we can forgive. When we stomp our feet, fold our arms and retreat from one another, refusing to forgive, God responds to us. God does not turn a cold shoulder, give us the quiet treatment, or punish us. Rather God wraps arms around us, lavishes us in love… through water that washes, bread and wine that fills our aches and emptiness, and grace that abounds beyond our understanding.

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In the book Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma, Tilda Norberg tells 43 different stories of faith from 9/11 survivors and their families. My favorite example of forgiveness happened as the towers were falling inNew York City…                                                                                      

An Islamic Arab fromPalestine was running for his life in the surging crowd when he stumbled and fell. Paralyzed with fear and unable to get up, he was trampled within seconds by hundreds of feet rushing past him. Then the man felt an arm on his shoulder and a voice speaking to him. “Get up, brother! We have to get out of here.” Unable to stand because of his injuries, he felt himself being picked up. Again he heard the voice: “Brother, we have to get out of here.” Half dragged, half carried down many stories, the man finally emerged from the building leaning heavily on his rescuer. As the injured Palestinian turned to thank the person who had carried him to safety, his eyes widened, for the person who had called him “brother,” the man who had saved his life, was a Hasidic Jew. He had risked his life for an enemy. Who would do such a foolish thing?                    

Thankfully, we live in a state of forgiven-ness. A state created by our loving creator who after pursuing God’s people for generations, chose forgiveness over punishment, love over hate, and goodness over evil more than 2,000 years ago. After we ignored the prophets and even our pursuing God,  God sent love in human form, forgiveness in the form of a Messiah, a king to lead the people not into battle, or temptation, but to deliver us from evil.

Evil seen through the eyes of an itinerant preacher born out of wedlock to a peasant girl was met with forgiveness for us, for our broken behavior and sinful selfishness. Our hurtful actions and hate-filled words   were met with acceptance, forgiveness and love. Jesus the Christ did not judge us or sentence us to what we deserved, rather he taught us new math.

The math of an eye for an eye, was replaced with infinite forgiveness. The answers we thought were correct were recalculated in ways that no equation or computer program could ever calculate, let alone comprehend. God granted forgiveness, sending God’s only Son, instead of figuring out vengeance. Through Jesus, God made all future answers marked by mercy instead of judgment.

• Our answers of uncertainty, met with certain trust.
• Our test anxiety and despair,  met with faith and hope.
• Our worrying about scarcity, met with calm abundance.
• Our tendency for a violent response, met with peace and healing.
• Our fear of failure and death, met by second chances and new life.

We live in a state of forgiven-ness, and thankfully, forgiveness changes everything.

 

We Are All Morning [Mourning] People

We are as Christians, morning people. Not because we gather in worship early on Sunday mornings, but because Paul tells us so in his letter to the Romans. We are urged to be morning people because we have been living in the darkness of sin, not focusing on the coming light of Christ. Paul says that we are at the break of dawn, the sky brightens, the alarm rings, and a new day is at hand.                                                                

As Christ followers,

• it’s time to awaken our slumbering and sinful lives,
• it’s time to open the drapes and let the light shine on what God is doing in the world,
• it’s time to live together in the dawning day of God’s love and salvation.

Paul writes passionately about the coming day of Christ’s return…

You know what kind of times we live in, don’t get caught up in all its distractions.  I know it’s easy to get overwhelmed and loose track of what is really important. We loose track of time, get too exhausted to focus on faith and snooze through life. But it is time to wake up! The sketchiness and shadows of our night is almost over, a new day is about to break. The saving work of God is ramping up; pay attention to what God is doing like you did when your faith was first on fire!                                                     

So slackers shake off your sin and sleepiness and do as people do in the light of day. Stop your wild partying, indecent, and raucous behavior. While you’re at it, cut out your fighting and wanting everything you see. Hurry up and get ready, Jesus is as near to you as the clothes on your back. When you realize that, you will live in the light and not just to satisfy your selfish desires.

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This is typical of Paul who in the letter to the Romans focuses on how keeping the Law of Moses or trying to live a perfect Christian life isn’t possible, and doing so can’t save you or anyone else. Paul reminds that salvation is God’s ongoing work and in this part of the letter points to a higher law. But Paul knows that the Romans and you and I just want a check-list, a how-to guide with instructions on what to do and how we can save ourselves and earn God’s favor.