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I remember one of the very
first classes I had in Biblical Greek, near the beginning of my journey in
seminary, spent one whole class session looking at the word for the mercy seat
of Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross, known as the hilasterion. Of course, it
became very legal-ease in theological understanding, but then, this is human
nature when we are trying to think or approach forgiveness, reconciliation and
accountability as a part of our discipleship formation. The word literally means that the blood upon
the covenant seat of God appeased God’s judgment or wrath.
Covenant is another one of
those words, that is so wound around two things—being faith and
accountability. I don’t know how many
people remember the second to the last scene from the Indiana Jones’ classic—'Raiders
of the Lost Ark,’ but it showed the Nazis beginning to open the ark of the
covenant only to be utterly destroyed by something they had no claim upon or
privy to see in the first place. Before
all who looked were killed, one SS officer took a handful of the ark’s
disintegrated parchments throwing it to the ground and claiming it be
worthless…
Both of these nuggets of
thought, should spark, just how we perhaps, spiritually, take sacrifice and
accountability for granted. The church
uses the word covenant, quite often for it falls right down the middle
spiritually for us in coming to understand ourselves and God’s grace in action
as the Body active in the world. This
past weekend, one of the main themes to be communicated to those making their
Cursillo, was the example of God’s Grace in action through those serving,
giving of themselves to impart a graciousness that inspires hearts and minds to
begin to KNOW the love, Christ Jesus gave us.
The spiritual formation
power of Cursillo which ironically was invented towards the start of World War
II, was that it was to be an outlet for focusing people, grounding people who
in fact, cares and has indeed, provided for all—Christ. The other amazing power of these retreats
that I have served on for the past 14 years, is how people are changed and
motivated truly to become lay leaders within their own congregations and grow
their congregations. Speaking for
myself, it was the initial spark to go to seminary.
One of my team mates this
past weekend, had a beautiful and tragic connection to the talk she was to
give. She was to share a “fourth day
talk,” that talked about the Chrysalis and the butterfly. The story, she shared is more or less about
how someone sees the butterfly struggling to break out of the Chrysalis and
tries to help it out by cutting the shell open, but he accidentally cuts parts
of the butterfly’s wings off.
The way the story
continued on was that the creature forgave this man for damaging her
wings. In the process of reading through
this talk, the woman broke down and was fairly sure that she just couldn’t deliver
it. Not only could she not agree with
the happy ending, but she really just couldn’t forgive. She and her children were victims of domestic
violence, and this story shook her to her core.
After a lot of brotherly and sisterly love and prayer, she gave her talk,
and it was amazing. It was as if her
tears focused her heart back on the greater mission of what she needed the Pilgrims
to prayerfully hear about forgiveness and sacrifice.
The beautiful stole you
see me wearing this morning was given as a prayerful gift for my willingness to
serve as one of the weekend’s spiritual directors. The rainbow, we know today, has come to symbolize
many things. Originally, Biblically, it
was the beautiful sign of God’s covenantal peace and mercy lighting the sky and
bridging over all divisions spiritually and actually. The Cursillo movement sings a song called
DeColores or I’ve jokingly renamed it Hey Delores, since I’ve gotten tired of
singing it too many times… DeColores
means of many colors. Many colors are
the shades within a person’s soul, light and dark as well as somewhere in
between—this is just what makes them who they are. This is God’s guiding grace that our faith
has us begin to tangibly see and feel.
It is a gift.
Realizing even a smidgen
of this gift is when we understand forgiveness, reconciliation. Peter’s questioning this week to Jesus sounds
almost like it is from a comedy skit at first… You can probably just imagine
Jesus rolling His eyes and thinking in the back of His mind: “Oh boy, another
question he just has to ask without thinking about it first…” The bigger issue to Peter’s question,
however, is our problem—we are always conditional, we always have some strings
attached to everything we do. Our own
language gives it away—tolerance over acceptance, indifference over compassion,
practicality over justice. We’re only
going to give, or go so far. What a tragic societal symptom, we continually
resist in changing!
What an irony, as well?! For Christ Jesus gave us so much and we are
not only, or more often ungrateful and forgetful about it, but unforgiving
towards our neighbors over many things. It is as if we cannot hold or honor a
covenant between ourselves as a people of faith? When the church of Christ experiences issues
of conflict, beyond it being rooted in a need for control, there are issues of
unwillingness and mistrust, which is more or less, a heart that will not be disciplined
to being sacrificial, trusting enough or merciful. It’s a staple challenge to the problem of
being human. “We want, what we want, when we want it and the WAY we want it
period…” And this same person says, if you need something from me… It’s around
my conditions and best interests, first.
This only grows that illusion of control, the evil one tempts us into
thinking we have or “own.” It only divides and hampers the efficacy of the
Gospel to grow the church in spirit and numbers or as Pastor Dawson used to
say—in butts and bucks…
These recent insights come
from some reading I have been doing in my studies about conflicts within
congregations, due to the secular age, current culture’s influence. An important aspect of being able to forgive,
forget and move forward in the world, is being accountable to the fact that we
are the least to think we have the power or control to judge, condemn over
others—that’s God’s work. The Old
Testament lesson this morning, literally has Joseph saying this to his
brothers. Leaping forward a couple of
thousand years, is it just because we don’t really have enough trust and faith
in God to see justice enacted?
Trust is a very hard
thing…. One of the beautiful people, I am newly blessed to have made friends
with, during this first Cursillo out in the desert, came up to me at the
beginning of one of the team training towards the weekend with tears in his
eyes claiming that he felt those from me and my issues with trust. He then proceeded to give me the greatest
bearhug I have ever felt, in my life honestly. In fact, that whole weekend was
wonderful in how open people were and how the passing of the peace and prayers
was frankly delightful! Another reason,
I’m glad that we pass the peace here.
Whether or not we feel too familiar with one another, or that it is
distracting or overly extending, it IS the spirit moving and reinforcing our
hearts WHY we gather. Maybe the world doesn’t need psychologists anymore, they
just need to receive regular TLC from others?
Kind of a hippy thought, I know, but those serving and being served, in
essence, are experiencing the graciousness and gift of the “Way of Christ,” as
literally expressive faith.
When I was giving my first
talk or rollo as they’re called, God’s spirit wrenched my heart to tears, as
well. I couldn’t help it. Just as my
teammate experienced for herself, God’s unlimited, boundless, loving Grace over
flowed upon me. God’s Grace overflowed
upon me through those tears to find peace with myself, to not only face that
issue of trust I had as a “beef” with God, about many things troubling my heart…
but to forgive and move forward with Christ as that solid rock I cannot help,
but cling to! St. Paul once again,
blesses our hearts to hear a great pastoral note to consider: “. 8If
we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then,
whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” So very true, do we remember that
enough? Paul continues to say: “9For to this end Christ died and lived
again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. 10Why
do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your
brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”
Mercy’s
seat was taken by our Lord and savior, at the cross, for our undeserving
sake. We may all fall short of the glory
of God in walking the light of Grace, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive
to be accountable through His Grace for His Gospel’s sake and our need to love
and care for our neighbor! Maybe we continually have to ask stupid questions
like Peter and ask ourselves in prayer—what would Jesus truly want me to
do? There is so much darkness in the
world, we have to keep that oil in our lamps a burnin’ bright as well as,
forgive ourselves. We need to forgive
ourselves for not being the world’s version of perfection but truly strive for
the spiritual formation perfection, God is counting on all of you, to pursue.
God
is counting on you, this was the wonderful Sunday morning reflection I gave
before I communed everyone and started the morning chapel service. God is counting on you to make friends, be a
friend and bring them to Christ. Sound
familiar? Yes, it’s that little nagging
message at the bottom of all of our bulletins as a challenge out to you to
spread God’s word and yes, it came from Cursillo. I will now share a snippet of
that message here since it is relative and important for all of us to strive
towards…
“That everyday world is
going to have that roller coaster of mountain tops and valleys. There are going to be moments where you will
be greatly challenged, perhaps even led to despair… However, things may have
gone for me, God has always reached down, got a hold of me and rescued me. He has always lifted me to carry on. He has
always encouraged me to keep on truckin,’ for the Gospel… For the world needs
love, it needs Christ Jesus and His Living Restorative Word, now more than ever
before! The wilderness of the world
shouldn’t feel like a barren desert to tread upon… but be one, we step out
boldly because truly, Christ is counting on You, on all of us, to follow
through!”
Let us Pray
God
of Grace and abundant mercy,
Teach
our hearts, shape our hearts
To
be founts of compassion, mercy and faith
Help
us to trust, now more than ever, not only in ourselves but
To
show this enduring, unconditional faithfulness towards others
For
Your Gospel’s sake
May
we strive to be a covenantal people in all we do, say and BE
For
Your love is the glorious gift of Grace, that makes us whole!
AMEN
September 17th, 2017; Fifteenth Sunday after
Pentecost; Year A; Proper 19; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 103:1-13; Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12;
Matthew 18:21-35
https://youtu.be/1ZI2DzHkVLQ
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