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The only way Adam and Eve and the
children of God could find their way back to Eden is that the old ways, the old
nature must die. What must rise instead is that changing of one’s way of life,
a spiritual conversion, a transformation of the heart also known as metanoia.
Metanoia is a transliterated Greek word for what repentance, reconciliation is
to mean. Over the centuries we have heard those words reconciliation and
repentance perhaps too often without understanding what God needs to have
happen within us.
I was surprised to see that the
lessons we have for this Sunday haven't been preached upon together for quite
some time. The Gospel we have this afternoon is beautiful. This is the Gospel
with the Golden Rule. It is literally Jesus wrapping up His Sermon on the Plain
by telling us to “love our enemies, do to others as you would have them do to
you.” Being merciful as our God is merciful, forgiving each other being
compassionate and beyond ourselves is something we're not very comfortable with
truly working upon. We can read these beautiful verses in scripture and get the
warm fuzzies on what God needs us to do… but do we really DO it?
In my doctoral catechism class, we
were talking about the role of the scriptures to transform the world. The
professor stopped short when it came to the problem of evil in the world. It
might be theologically perfect to the Lutheran tradition, but I cannot agree,
or I should say vehemently disagree that we are not called to aspire towards
changing the world together. It can't be just in the little house Church of the
Grace Hub that we change this little corner of the world. It can't be in
so-and-so's Lutheran Church that we change just what we do together as Church?
The moment we confine ourselves to the steeple, we really do forget about the
people beyond it and beyond ourselves!
We are all called to encourage and motivated one another to change the
world together through the power of God’s love shining through us.
St Paul's wayward Corinthians can
only think in terms of: “Let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
They couldn't get past the things that did need to die and the things that did
need to rise, in order for them to really live into the Christian Journey—the
lifestyle of Grace. We are all to die in Adam, he says, or in Eve (in my case),
so all will be made alive in Christ. Being alive in Christ… what does that look
like in the 21st century? What does that look like in your own little universe
of who you are? Do you have your feet firmly on the ground of where God needs
you to be? Planting your feet firmly on the ground of where Christ needs you to
be is realizing that spiritual change of heart. Sin, death and the devil are
not going to be vanquished by “pretty words” with no action or by a theological
treatise with no purpose beyond itself.
I think it's wonderful and beautiful
that these scriptures we have today are just before the Transfiguration and
literally towards the end of the Epiphany season before our time of Lent. For
what we are challenged with today is to see the radical love of God plus to
contemplate and incorporate this radical love of God. This radical love of God
is agape love. “It is the full Monty of the Gospel.” It is the most powerful
source of God's work in the world. For Love takes down all enemies. Love
vanquishes evil and Love changes us truly into the children of Grace and
promise that Christ needs us to be.
We've got a radical lesson from
Genesis that first book of the Old Testament today. Joe comes home, and no he
isn't going to kill his two brothers for shipping him off to slavery in Egypt… He
actually comes in the front door and completely forgives them. They're
expecting the worst and almost want to hide underneath the tables and under the
beds.... instead he soberly tells them that God has sent him on a mission to
rescue them as well as other people and that he didn't come there for them. “God
sent me to help you,” he says. The radical image of his forgiveness is at the
very end where he hugs his brothers and weeps on them. It's amazing what toxic
stuff families can do to one another either from putting curses on you, to
calling relatives in the middle of the night prompting you to have to put an
order of protection against them or avoiding talking to you for maybe 30
something years. I guess many of us have families that are like the Corinthian
people. We're probably not as lucky to have someone as Saint Paul to be our pastor,
however.
“I am only human” only goes so far. It
can’t justify us for being self-seeking jerks in the world. For the Christian
is to believe, receive, incorporate and share the Good News as well as the
Christian is called to reflect, confess, repent and renew. I had a very good
teacher being a child of conversion and coming back to the faith late in life. My
first teacher had the whole sense of what living into your baptism daily means.
Pastor Eric knew how to get you to think about: what does it look like? You
could look at it as a spiritual calisthenic or you could think of it as just
like opening our eyes in the morning to see there's something we really need to
focus on, and it is the Son.
Every time I have heard the versions
and remaining lessons within the Sermon on the Plain as Luke calls it or The
Sermon on the Mount as Matthew calls it, it's hard to believe that perhaps
beyond the eyewitness of Peter, there was a source of sayings by Jesus that
perhaps informed how we're seeing and experiencing these writings today. My
favorite movie Franco Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth from 1977, all 382 minutes
tries to go into every nook and cranny of the Gospel writers’ vision of Jesus
and His ministry in the world. They show His Sermon on the Mount or Sermon on
the Plain in one sitting. Now that would be one gloriously long sermon, I
certainly wouldn't mind sitting all afternoon and listening to. But in that
listening is that becoming faith in my heart to make that change?
When your life is spinning in
circles and nothing seems to be moving forward that breaks apart the human
spirit and that's what the devil wants to do. What is evil and nihilistic in
our world today has a divisive purpose of tearing down the human spirit from
being able to grow and go with light in the world for all to see. If your light
is becoming an amber, and your heart hurts… what good is that to you if the
mission dwindles? When the weight of the world is upon your shoulders and your
heart is heavy, are you calling upon Christ to lift you? Maybe some of us
picture that Footprints poem where Jesus falls down trying to lift our girth in
the air to carry us.... for there was a time and a place we ate, and we drank,
and we got too merry and we woke up the next day and wondered what the hell we
did that for?
Paul lays it out for the Corinthians
in probably a last-ditch effort to get them to listen to the truth of what a
full life in Christ really means. He says to them: “If with merely human hopes,
I fought … what would I have gained by it?” It continues to tell them not to be
deceived because bad company does ruin good judgment or discernment. He says it
as plainly as a father to his children: “Come to a sober and right mind and sin
no more.” Coming to a sober and right mind is that heart changing and turning
towards God. That is perhaps the oldest Biblical concept out there of the heart
discerning and transforming to God's Will and purposes. All of life has a
purpose but is not necessarily what we want… it is what God has put in store.
That's probably a really good hard one for us to take in and be okay with: “Letting
go and letting God” for we feel better when we are in control, don't we? When
evil becomes a problem in our lives, and it doesn't seem to be a part of what
we've done but outside of us… we point fingers and blame God and we get our own
“Job complex.”
Speaking of Job, Joseph’s story kind
of sounds a little similar… (but not as bad obviously.) Joseph’s brothers sold
him down the river. For all they knew he could have gotten killed or whole
bunch of other unpleasant things could have happened, but they could have cared
less. They got rid of him and they were happy about that(!) Job’s story is
obviously much more complex… but after getting angry at God, he understands the
nature and reason of the valley he was to walk through and survive through. I
think it's those valleys that we have in our lives that really test us. They
test our capacity to do and they test our capacity to be. Sometimes it's just
all too much. It doesn't make sense and it certainly doesn't make sense to our human
logic. “We want, what we want, when we want it.” Those are the drum skins
verses of the consumerist Modern Age.
When we are at the helm of our lives,
but the rudder is broken underneath… what are we really steering towards?
That's what I think is so interesting with the troubled times we have right now
with the death work of politics distorting peoples’ thoughts and getting people
to do ridiculous things. I've never been one to watch the Fox TV show ‘Empire,’
I don't like TV soap operas. Probably the last time I watched a TV soap opera
was in the 80’s with ‘Knots Landing’ and shows like ‘Dallas.’ One of the stars
of ‘Empire,’ Jussie Smollett tried and successfully staged a fake attack upon
himself to make a moral sensational justification about his hatred for “Republicans”
and his hatred for a label upon people he wants to declare bigots. It did get
him thrown in jail or paying a big fine I believe and not much more beyond that
though.
If we have now come to the point of
inventing purposes and reasons to accomplish our own agenda over that of
Gods... we are not only exampling a futility of purpose, but we are exampling,
moving backwards. We are not advancing as a people to love our enemies and do
good to others. We are becoming condemning self-righteous judges and juries. We're
seeing what we can do to hurt one another in order to proclaim a self-righteous
victory. God and the devil in the book of Job, were basically betting upon and
seeing what they could do to see how strong Job’s Faith would be.
Joseph's brothers, outside of still recovering from being in shock from seeing
him again, thought that they had it all wrapped up. They had their elaborate
plans complete to get rid of him, but it essentially backfired. Joseph’s
example of a radical love coming from a devoted faith illumines how he was a
messenger and he had a task to do. Jesus was a messenger for us as well, not
only our Savior and Lord of course, but Jesus always tried to get us to think beyond
ourselves, beyond our comfort zone.
When we think of that cross of
discipleship we must carry, do we see ourselves stretching to the point of our
limbs ripping and straining? Do we think that there must be an “easy button”
out there for us to push to get what we need to do, done? The greatest battle
we have is in our own hearts. The movement we need is on our shoulders, but it
does begin in the heart. This makes you think about something: are we measuring
up to the task of being new people? As people of the new nature, are we still
just following the leader of Adam and Eve through the wilderness, or are we
following Christ? St. Paul had to really get in the Corinthians’ face to have
them hear that the Christian life is certainly not easy. It is certainly not
one that you can circumvent the challenges to. But just like how we are today,
we wanted to have our cake and eat it too. We want to do things the easiest way
we can with little to no accountability or compassion.
I don't know if we'll see more escapades
of Hollywood actors or actresses staging events to make self-righteous
statements about their perspectives on life… but I can only hope that we grow
beyond our own navel-gazing to see what the Gospel really needs us to do. We
had our first measurable snowfall since 2008 in the Las Vegas area. Being from
Illinois, it didn't look anything special to me. I did feel sorry for the trees
this week in wondering about the weight upon their limbs of this wet and heavy
snow. The mountains truly looked beautiful, but I'm sure for many it was just
so strange. It was a complete change from how winters are “supposed to be” here.
For many it wasn’t necessarily a good thing… everyone has their opinions. The
difference between opinions and beliefs are truly a matter of faith. The
difference between judgement and discernment is a willingness to listen to God
and to neighbor. The difference between self-righteousness and love is the love
that God requires of us is that radical new nature.
Let us pray
Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus
Help us to do the right thing
Help us to be a renewed people
That has the complete transformation
and turns our hearts to you.
Help us to not be lost in that valley
but find and know the power of Your Love.
Gracious and loving Lord
Your love is what helps us to be new
people
It gives us light and it gives us
strength
We thank you for everything
May we never not be grateful
AMEN
February 24th,
2019; Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany; Year C; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by: Reverend
Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 103:1-13; Genesis
45:3-15; 1 Corinthians 15:21-42; Luke 6:27-38
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub at 12:30pm
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