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16 years ago, the album and the song Vertical Man was released by Ringo Starr. Only a handful of people know the personal trivia that only 20 years earlier, 1978, I became a Beatles’ fan at 10 year old! Now nearly 36 years later, still a fan and even more intrigued with how God provides imaginative illustrations to grasp at our discipleship journeys! For the lyrics even in this title track illumine the heart of our struggle as spiritually developing disciples in today’s texts: “When the world is coming down on you and your back’s against the wall—change the glass that you’ve been looking through... If you feel like you’ve had enough—let it go...”
Being
or developing the vertical aspect of our cross-shaped journey with Christ is
our faithful union—relationship to Christ Jesus as our main source of being led
and fed to thus go out and preach and teach the Gospel (the horizontal). You can’t have a cross-shaped ministry or
mentality if you are focused only on the vertical aspect of expressing/ living
faith. It’s not only, not about you
(healthy humility) but it is truly, truthfully living into Jesus’ greatest
commandment: Love the Lord Your God with
all your heart, soul, mind and strength as well as Love neighbor as you would
love yourself.
Paul’s
letter this week to the Romans speaks to his own struggles with living
faithfully into a cross-shaped ministry and mentality: “1I
ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite,
a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has
not rejected his people whom he foreknew. 13Now I am speaking to you
Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my
ministry 14in order to make my own people jealous, and thus save
some of them. 15For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the
world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead! 28As
regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake; but as regards
election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; 29for
the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30Just as you were
once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their
disobedience, 31so they have now been disobedient in order that, by
the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. 32For God
has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”
“29For
the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable:” Loving neighbor through our faith
has taken many expressions—it is the aspect of living into the horizontal—the hands
and feet as a loving and gracious response to a loving a gracious God! For when we are challenged to let it go... we
are called to let God (in) to help our hearts persevere and prioritize our
thoughts, words and actions. When the world is seemingly coming down around
you... now’s the time more than ever to not only let go and let God but be
constructive and connected not only to the Lord but to your neighbor!
The
Gospel lesson today has Jesus seemingly sounding strange or even perhaps
unintentionally sounding mean at first to the Canaanite woman’s seeking and
request of him. Jesus’ play on words, however illumine his compassion and mercy
to all. We must remember to never “cherry-pick”
the Gospel... and remember as well, that Jesus has always meant to example to
us the concept of no-partiality being an example of compassion and mercy as the
answer to living the lifestyle of Grace in response to his greatest commandment
to Love Him and Neighbor.
The
concepts of discipleship, no-partiality and compassion/ mercy have
unfortunately been “cherry-picked” over to the point of becoming
deconstructive, destructive and dissolved into no more than intellectual
idolatry... An idolatry that indentures and imprisons others to our sin;
indifference... What do I mean by this?
What is this saying? Well, there
have been a lot of things going on in the world these days... Some of my reformed brothers and sisters
would see these times to be not only in transition but seemingly of “tribulation”
or “apocalyptic.” They are merely
noticing how we are advancing as a society not into a lifestyle of grace but
one of the world unto the self and everything BUT neighbor. As a Lutheran person, we are merely in the
beginnings of a graceless wilderness. It
is not one without hope, but one that is requiring perseverance and obedience
above and beyond civility...
As
Christians some 2,000 plus years later, we should by now know that there is an
unpopular aspect to following Jesus...
We have to take up our cross to truly and wholly follow His example to
be both salt and light in this world which is currently losing the battle
against sin, death and Satan. Speaking
of losing the battle... at the moment anyway, we’re not used to it, here in
America, the thought of genuine persecution...
We’ve been ridiculously over-tolerant, if anything, to the atheists and
other self-concerned groups who sue us for prayer, decimate our loved ones
graves and tell us what we can do or say in expressing our faith! On the other side of the battlegrounds, we
have genuine murders, crucifixions, rapes and plundering going on in the “name”
and commandment of god.
Across
the seas, far stretches of land and dessert, we have several other groups of
humans crying out for our help. It’s not
all a call to the sword and call for added death and destruction... I am seeing it as a call to the Lord to SAVE
FAITH! We however are disobedient to the face of the truth of things taking
place... It has become with some “intellectualism,”
a selfish battle for grand-standing and partisan politics! So much has taken place within the last few
months... that the media doesn’t even know what to prioritize or share with its
viewers anymore.
Evil
abounds on many levels these days, ranging from one incident being the probable
racially-motivated shooting of a teenager in small suburban America firing up
violent protests to another—ISIS crucifying Christians in Syria and Iraq
alongside raping and murdering Christian women and children. Neither should
take away priority from one another... but to my chagrin, I have sadly been a witness
to conversations that do everything BUT address the tragedy, disobedience to
loving God and neighbor!
Many
of these conversations betray how unwilling we are to be not only
non-judgmental, but intellectually indifferent through the guise of “works
righteousness” ideology to reaching out to truthfully, spiritually “conquer”
evil in the world! If God’s mercy truly
reigned in our hearts as a guiding force to shape our lives to be gracious and
loving to neighbor... there wouldn’t be idolatry, intolerance and hate. But growing as a disciple requires us to
spiritually re-establish God’s priorities above and always beyond our own. We all fall short of the glory of God as it
is the reality of being both saint and sinner in perpetual discernment to LIVE
for and through Christ as Love to Him and neighbor.
The
world as we know it is a sphere that can and will change. It has many dimensions but truly only two
relationships that we are bound to under grace: “36“Teacher, (the lawyer
of the Sadducees and Pharisees ask to test Jesus...) which commandment in the
law is the greatest?” 37Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This
is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets.”
Through
Christ we have a new kind of righteousness, a new law that we need to be held
accountable to in order to re-establish God’s priorities for our lives. Being and becoming a disciple that
authentically lives into the lifestyle of Grace is taking on the challenge to
persevere through a cross-shaped faith.
It is not a call to intolerance or martyrdom but a call that is irrevocable;
to be and become instruments of God’s love, compassion, mercy, peace and
presence in the world—grace in action.
AMEN
Sunday August 17th,
2014; 10th Sunday after Pentecost; Year A; SOLA Lectionary Nicole
Collins
Psalm 67; Isaiah 56:1, 6-8;
Romans 11:1-2, 13-15, 28-32; Matthew 15:21-28
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