Old Mystic, March 29, 2009
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Summary
Lent is a time to remember, ponder, and seek God’s forgiveness as we reflect upon the sacrifice of Jesus at the cross. Forgiveness is a continuous opportunity of healing, renewal, and relationship that God offers in His new covenant in Christ. As it was granted to the Israelites in exile, it is a covenant where God makes himself known to the human heart; from the least to the greatest.
Sermon
It is very difficult to understand disaster until it hits home. Those of us who have been accustomed to a peaceful and more or less problem-free life, we probably need to relate to something out of our personal realm to understand the plight of the Israelites. Perhaps the heinous attacks to the World Trade Center on 9/11 can help. On that day we saw lives destroyed, families who lost loved ones, the destruction of buildings; and tears, unbearable grief, the rise of fear, and a deep sense that some part of our peaceful living was forever lost. Can you imagine if in addition to that our nation would have fallen into some sort of captivity? I believe that only those who were directly affected by the catastrophe can have a sort of a grasp of the suffering of Israel in captivity, personally and in the sense of a national disaster. Many of us, not directly affected by the bombing of the towers in New York City, we may have to resort to our imagination.
Jeremiah is powerful in words to lament the fall of Jerusalem, God’s beloved city: “How lonely is the city that once was full of people!” “She weeps bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks… the roads of Zion mourn for no one comes to the festivals.” “The tongue of the infants sticks to the roof of their mouth for thirst; the children beg for food but no one gives them anything.” He is also aware of the sinfulness of the city and the nation: “Jerusalem has sinned grievously, so she has become a mockery; all who honored her despise her.” But God also inspired the prophet to bring words of hope: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
It is always difficult to explain suffering. Theologians and philosophers struggle to come to terms with the fact there are no satisfying answers. Why a loving, merciful God allows “good people” to suffer? Why me, or why us? I will not attempt to offer an explanation. I just want to say that I remain in the belief that God does not necessarily punish sin with suffering. Sin brings suffering in itself because when we are in sin we are estranged from God, far away from him, out of that loving relationship; on our own and without any spiritual resources to live our lives in peace. Beyond suffering and punishment, sin is a fact; it is a harsh reality of the lives of many who suffer but also of those who do not.
But Jeremiah had good news for those suffering in exile as well as those who were left behind in the desolated city of Jerusalem. God is making a covenant, one that is almost impossible to ignore. For us it becomes powerfully manifest in the cross where Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for our forgiveness. For the Israelites, in the words of Jeremiah, “I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” God offers a covenant of forgiveness and great things will happen to those who want to enter into that covenant. Looking at the promise of forgiveness advanced by the prophet, I’ll point out to three aspects of the promise contained in the covenant.
I. IT IS A PROMISE OF HEALING
There is no doubt that at that stage in history they were convinced that their sin was what brought the punishment of suffering upon them. With that understanding, strongly declared by Jeremiah, forgiveness becomes really powerful. Because it means returning to the ancient promise of possessing their own and fruitful land; it entails planting their vineyards and building their houses; it opens up the possibility of a peaceful life and, above all, it restores the nation to the cherished title of God’s People. Their dignity, their self-esteem, and their self-love are renewed. In short, peace, that most precious state of life, never fully achieved but in the making, brings its unsurpassable healing power even when in this life any of us would get just a glimpse.
There is healing in forgiveness because the estrangement from God, our separation from him, that what most human beings fail to see as their most pressing problem, ends and the most precious relationship is restored. Now we are alone no more; we have a hope that does not fade; we can experience joy. And all of that is healing. Both the wounds of sin and suffering can and will in the end be healed by our Loving God.
II. IT IS A PROMISE OF RENEWAL
The promise of this new covenant is unusual for the Israelites. “I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts.” A really remarkable promise when we think that these people were children of rigor who needed something compelling to submit to and would miserably fail in their attempt to be faithful to the constrains of the law. What it is promised in this new covenant is quite different. It is as if Jeremiah is saying, “You will be able to know God on your own;” “you will be able to experience God on your own.” They might have asked then when that was going to happen; they were used to obey the law and now it seems that they are granted freedom. Freedom? Paul makes it clear when writing to the Galatians. In Christ we are free from the law! We have the freedom to know God, we have been granted God’s Spirit!
Needless to say, this is a conditional freedom. It is the ability to make responsible choices, not just what pleases us. But beyond making choices, some of which might be difficult and challenging, it is the freedom of the unlimited possibilities that come with the privilege of knowing God.
III. IT IS A PROMISE OF A NEW RELATIONSHIP
The Israelites had a distant relationship with God. They always needed a mediator, whether it was their leader like Moses, or one of the prophets like Jeremiah himself, or the priests who would offer sacrifices in their behalf. They had no direct connection with God. In the light of the promise of forgiveness offered in this new covenant, whereby they could know God personally, they are blessed with a whole new relationship. They might have not understood it then. After all, for them the promise seems to lie somewhere in the future. From our vantage point we know that individuals, groups, and peoples can have a relationship with God.
Our focus tends to be most of the time on the possibility for individuals to have a personal relationship with God. Through the Holy Spirit God makes himself known to us. This is a great promise contained in the New Testament and Pentecost is the perennial reminder of this precious gift from God. On the other hand, the covenant offered to Israel, analogous to the one of the cross, is a promise of forgiveness for a whole nation. Peoples, nations, churches, and other groups are entities that God cares for. They also need to be restored; they also need forgiveness, renewal, and healing. The possibility of knowing God is the most powerful equalizer; it is a possibility that is offered to all, from the least to the greatest.
Lent is moving toward its culmination in the solemnity of Holy Week and the jubilation of Easter Sunday. Forgiveness proved to have a high price; God did not stop at anything to grant it. Christ’s sacrifice at the cross is God’s most powerful argument to draw us near. If we just stayed with forgiveness as such it would be enough to help us continue our journeys with hope. Yet, the promise that forgiveness carries over is beyond anything that could be described in human words. It is the promise of God’s very presence in our lives and the possibility to know him.
A Saving Serpent?
Old Mystic, March 22, 2009
Numbers 21:4-9
Summary
God has spoken and continues to speak to us through symbols that point to His grace, his forgiveness, and the gift of life. As the serpent lifted up in the wilderness became the symbol of God's compassion, love, forgiveness, and salvation, it also points to God’s supreme revelation: Jesus Christ, our Savior, Redeemer, God with us.
Sermon
Symbols are such an important part of our lives because they point to many cherished things, some that are religious and therefore sacred, and others that engage customs, values, experiences. Many of the symbols that are meaningful to us are cultural. For Argentineans, for example, drinking mate, the South American green tea that is drank sipping from a metal straw out of a hollow gourd filled with the infusion, is a powerful symbol of friendship and community as the drink is passed around in a circle and everybody drinks from the same straw. My experience tells me that the simple idea of sharing the straw makes most Americans cringe!
Religious symbols are more or less clearly defined by traditions. For example, crosses, rosaries, icons, images, and statues are symbols in the Christian tradition that connect us with the Divinity in some sort of way. Needless to say, for us as Protestants and as Baptists, none of these symbols has power in itself (sacramental power); they are just finite symbols that point to ultimate reality and for that reason we must understand their limitations without diminishing the power of the truth they point to. Robert Neville, professor of Theology and Philosophy at Boston University, would refer to them as broken symbols: they effectively engage us in spite of their known limitations.
When we think of a serpent as a symbol we understand better its brokenness. Throughout history and across cultures serpents have conveyed many different meanings such as life, death, protection, danger, and even the power of healing, as in the symbol of modern medicine. In the Christian tradition, the serpent of the Garden of Eden has been a symbol of temptation, deception, and evil and clearly associated with Satan. But at the same time, as we look at today’s story of the Israelites in the wilderness, it becomes a symbol of compassion, love, grace, forgiveness, healing, and salvation. The poisonous, killer serpent has become the saving serpent.
Life in the desert was not easy for the Israelites. In spite of the fact that they had been nomadic, the struggles for survival were taking a toll on them as they kept wandering for years. It must be hard to have to continuously strive to find food and water where they are so scarce. God had provided manna (like coriander seed that tasted like wafers made with honey) and when they got tired of it, quails. God made fresh, drinking water flow from a rock. God protected them and handed them their enemies in battle like when they defeated the Canaanite king of Arad. Yet, they were tired and when people are tired they complain.
They complained in spite of the fact that they had much to be thankful for. Had they forgotten how God brought them out slavery in Egypt? How God protected them from Pharaoh’s army dividing the waters of the Red Sea or how God led them through the wilderness guiding them by pillars of cloud and fire? It seems that either they were not clear about their purpose and destiny, the promise of the land flowing milk and honey, or that they had lost their faith. Lack of faith brings about lack of vision and lack of vision, the loss of meaning, and the loss of meaning, despair and weariness. And people weary and in despair complain.
The Israelites’ complained because they had to go a long way; the text says that they “became inpatient on the way” which was God’s choice and, as usual, it was made clear through Moses, their leader. And their complaint grew to the point when they “spoke against God and against Moses.” “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we detest this miserable food.” So the complaints turned to be sinful as they spoke against God and God’ chosen leader. The narrative is blatant: God punished their slandering with a plague of poisonous snakes that killed many of them.
It may be tempting to focus on the evidence suggested by the text that death and suffering are ways that God has to punish sin. But this is an ancient text for a people with a limited understanding about the nature and character of God. It is perhaps easier to admonish ourselves about the benefits of obedience, submission, and compliance to what we are commanded. That is the simple way. But that view would prevent us from seeing God’s abundant grace, His love, and compassion. We need not regard our sufferings as a punishment for our misdeeds though they may very well related to our own mistakes and failures; we must focus on a God that in his love will always have a way for us—a way to save us.
The Israelites changed their minds—that is, they repented. They decided to try a different way; after all, complaints and slandering had not worked. They recognized that they had sinned and went to Moses to ask him to pray to God so the serpents would go away from them. So Moses prayed and God instructed him to make a bronze poisonous serpent and set it on a pole. The serpents did not go away, but whoever was bit by a one of them would look at the bronze symbol and be healed and protected. The very serpent that brought so much suffering to the people became the symbol of salvation.
John the Evangelist picked up this symbol in his Gospel when he said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes may have eternal life.” It is indeed a broken symbol since many of us would find it to be not the most appropriate symbol to point to Jesus. But at the same time it is an indication of the many ways God has to bring us into his grace. The people of Israel had to set their eyes on the bronze serpent lifted up for their salvation, healing, and protection. We, 21st century onlookers, as many generations preceding us, can look at Jesus Christ, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who… endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Unfortunately, so often we need to be reminded by our own snakes, the snakes that bite us, to remember about God’s love and grace. How many times we only come to God when the desperate circumstance of our lives make us first complain, then slander or even curse, go into depression and despair, and only in the end cry for help? God will find the most diverse, creative, and surprising ways to point to Jesus Christ. God wants us to connect with Him and with His Son in whom He offers salvation and healing.
We are in the Lenten season. It is a time of the year that powerfully points to Christ. It is symbolic of the passion of our Lord, his journey to the cross, his suffering, and ultimately of his victory over sin and death. It is perhaps also a time to pray as the Israelites asked Moses in the wilderness; a good time to lift a prayer of repentance and of changing our minds. and to look in the direction where God is pointing to: Jesus Christ, our savior, our redeemer, and our healer.
Numbers 21:4-9
Summary
God has spoken and continues to speak to us through symbols that point to His grace, his forgiveness, and the gift of life. As the serpent lifted up in the wilderness became the symbol of God's compassion, love, forgiveness, and salvation, it also points to God’s supreme revelation: Jesus Christ, our Savior, Redeemer, God with us.
Sermon
Symbols are such an important part of our lives because they point to many cherished things, some that are religious and therefore sacred, and others that engage customs, values, experiences. Many of the symbols that are meaningful to us are cultural. For Argentineans, for example, drinking mate, the South American green tea that is drank sipping from a metal straw out of a hollow gourd filled with the infusion, is a powerful symbol of friendship and community as the drink is passed around in a circle and everybody drinks from the same straw. My experience tells me that the simple idea of sharing the straw makes most Americans cringe!
Religious symbols are more or less clearly defined by traditions. For example, crosses, rosaries, icons, images, and statues are symbols in the Christian tradition that connect us with the Divinity in some sort of way. Needless to say, for us as Protestants and as Baptists, none of these symbols has power in itself (sacramental power); they are just finite symbols that point to ultimate reality and for that reason we must understand their limitations without diminishing the power of the truth they point to. Robert Neville, professor of Theology and Philosophy at Boston University, would refer to them as broken symbols: they effectively engage us in spite of their known limitations.
When we think of a serpent as a symbol we understand better its brokenness. Throughout history and across cultures serpents have conveyed many different meanings such as life, death, protection, danger, and even the power of healing, as in the symbol of modern medicine. In the Christian tradition, the serpent of the Garden of Eden has been a symbol of temptation, deception, and evil and clearly associated with Satan. But at the same time, as we look at today’s story of the Israelites in the wilderness, it becomes a symbol of compassion, love, grace, forgiveness, healing, and salvation. The poisonous, killer serpent has become the saving serpent.
Life in the desert was not easy for the Israelites. In spite of the fact that they had been nomadic, the struggles for survival were taking a toll on them as they kept wandering for years. It must be hard to have to continuously strive to find food and water where they are so scarce. God had provided manna (like coriander seed that tasted like wafers made with honey) and when they got tired of it, quails. God made fresh, drinking water flow from a rock. God protected them and handed them their enemies in battle like when they defeated the Canaanite king of Arad. Yet, they were tired and when people are tired they complain.
They complained in spite of the fact that they had much to be thankful for. Had they forgotten how God brought them out slavery in Egypt? How God protected them from Pharaoh’s army dividing the waters of the Red Sea or how God led them through the wilderness guiding them by pillars of cloud and fire? It seems that either they were not clear about their purpose and destiny, the promise of the land flowing milk and honey, or that they had lost their faith. Lack of faith brings about lack of vision and lack of vision, the loss of meaning, and the loss of meaning, despair and weariness. And people weary and in despair complain.
The Israelites’ complained because they had to go a long way; the text says that they “became inpatient on the way” which was God’s choice and, as usual, it was made clear through Moses, their leader. And their complaint grew to the point when they “spoke against God and against Moses.” “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we detest this miserable food.” So the complaints turned to be sinful as they spoke against God and God’ chosen leader. The narrative is blatant: God punished their slandering with a plague of poisonous snakes that killed many of them.
It may be tempting to focus on the evidence suggested by the text that death and suffering are ways that God has to punish sin. But this is an ancient text for a people with a limited understanding about the nature and character of God. It is perhaps easier to admonish ourselves about the benefits of obedience, submission, and compliance to what we are commanded. That is the simple way. But that view would prevent us from seeing God’s abundant grace, His love, and compassion. We need not regard our sufferings as a punishment for our misdeeds though they may very well related to our own mistakes and failures; we must focus on a God that in his love will always have a way for us—a way to save us.
The Israelites changed their minds—that is, they repented. They decided to try a different way; after all, complaints and slandering had not worked. They recognized that they had sinned and went to Moses to ask him to pray to God so the serpents would go away from them. So Moses prayed and God instructed him to make a bronze poisonous serpent and set it on a pole. The serpents did not go away, but whoever was bit by a one of them would look at the bronze symbol and be healed and protected. The very serpent that brought so much suffering to the people became the symbol of salvation.
John the Evangelist picked up this symbol in his Gospel when he said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes may have eternal life.” It is indeed a broken symbol since many of us would find it to be not the most appropriate symbol to point to Jesus. But at the same time it is an indication of the many ways God has to bring us into his grace. The people of Israel had to set their eyes on the bronze serpent lifted up for their salvation, healing, and protection. We, 21st century onlookers, as many generations preceding us, can look at Jesus Christ, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who… endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Unfortunately, so often we need to be reminded by our own snakes, the snakes that bite us, to remember about God’s love and grace. How many times we only come to God when the desperate circumstance of our lives make us first complain, then slander or even curse, go into depression and despair, and only in the end cry for help? God will find the most diverse, creative, and surprising ways to point to Jesus Christ. God wants us to connect with Him and with His Son in whom He offers salvation and healing.
We are in the Lenten season. It is a time of the year that powerfully points to Christ. It is symbolic of the passion of our Lord, his journey to the cross, his suffering, and ultimately of his victory over sin and death. It is perhaps also a time to pray as the Israelites asked Moses in the wilderness; a good time to lift a prayer of repentance and of changing our minds. and to look in the direction where God is pointing to: Jesus Christ, our savior, our redeemer, and our healer.
Surrendering to God's Wisdom
Old Mystic, March 15, 2009
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Summary
By His Grace and Love God grants us the opportunity to come into his wisdom and receive, understand, and proclaim the saving power of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Sermon
I would like to believe that not everyone in this audience was raised watching the TV series “Father knows Best.” After all, it originally aired between 1954 and 1960! At the same time I would guess that most of us are familiar with the story and must have watched a re-run of this warm family sitcom that depicts life in the 50’s. Jim Anderson, a General Insurance agent portrayed by Robert Young, lives a quiet family life in a middle class Midwestern suburb with his wife, Margaret, and his children Betty, Bud, and Kathy. Those who remember the series can probably relate to the warmth, the simplicity, and the charm of this comedy, which conveyed a sense of the presumed happy life of the times. Father always had an answer for the domestic problems that would emerge in a household like his, understood to be the typical American home. It was sentimental and it assumed a cultural sense of what is right deeply rooted in the American ethos of the 1950’s.
Some have called the comedy rosy and paternalistic, since it relied on a hierarchical understanding of family life, and tended to have an unrealistic view of it. After all, life is not easy and many of the issues we deal with are more complex and pressing than siblings’ disputes about house chores, or missing a high school football game for being out too late the night before. Yet, in its context, understanding that Jim Anderson was a son of his time, his wisdom was good. Father knew best because he had that ability to discern what was right for his family; he had common sense. His gift of human wisdom helped him to be a guide to those who listened to him. What about wisdom in this age? Or in any age? Is there any human wisdom that would lead us to understand the cross of Jesus Christ?
Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, wants to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he makes his case by calling his proclamation, “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” It does not begin with the understanding or the mastering the body of human knowledge about the faith; the acquisition of a mass of information about the “right” Christian beliefs. It requires faith and surrendering to God’s Wisdom—which may be unfathomable—that means, as I put it, coming in submission to an encounter with the Living God. And this very often happens when we are confronted with the harsh reality of the Cross. The stumbling block of the Son of God crucified; the foolishness of Savior that cannot save himself by just walking away. Can we understand it by means of our human wisdom? Does it make any sense? I want to affirm that surrendering to God’s Wisdom, we can understand a few things about human wisdom.
HUMAN WISDOM IS FEAR OF GOD
The book of Proverbs, known as a book of human wisdom, asserts that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” And fear here should not be understood as terror or being irrationally afraid of something unknown; it has to do with that sense of humbling ourselves in recognition of our humanity as we stand at the very presence of the Living God. I like the Message’s rendition of this verse (Proverbs 1:7) that says, “Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.”
Fear of God is implicit in Paul’s teaching to the church in Corinth. He says, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” The world cannot know God through the wisdom and knowledge of this present system of human affairs! What is science if not just a mechanistic description of a common perception of reality, which may very well serve technology in helping human life on this planet, but does not answer ultimate questions? God in His wisdom chose the message of Christ crucified to reveal his saving love and the hope of the kingdom. For that reason we must humble ourselves before Christ, with a sense of humiliation—healthy fear. Surrendering to the Living Christ, to God, is the beginning of wisdom and entering into a relationship where we’ll taste—just taste—the unfathomable Wisdom of God.
HUMAN WISDOM IS KNOWING THAT WE DON’T KNOW
This May sound relativistic, particularly in a world—including Christianity, that strives for the human knowledge of clean, cut, comprehensible universal truth. We love to make claims about our knowledge of universal truth but, how much can we grasp of them with our limited human understanding? We can perhaps assert that there are universal values. But we can only have a limited comprehension of the depth of their meaning. Paul himself talking about human knowledge when teaching about love said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly; but then we will see face to face.” Human wisdom means acknowledging that we know that we know nothing.
For that reason Paul challenges the wisdom of the Jews and the Greeks. The wisdom of God, the wisdom of the cross, of the crucified Christ, was a stumbling block for the Jews. They wanted a liberator from the oppression of the Romans; a king for eternity—the reappearance of David; they wanted a victorious Messiah, not a pale, suffering, weak, Galilean carpenter who claimed to be a Rabi. And for the Romans? The cross was simply foolishness. Who could believe in a king who did not have an army but just a bunch of fishermen and outcasts from a lost province of their vast empire? But for those who surrender by faith to the message of the cross, it is the power of God. It doesn’t seem to be wisdom; but if we humble ourselves and we admit that we know nothing, we begin to walk in the wisdom of God.
HUMAN WISDOM IS KNOWING HOW TO APPLY THE LITTLE WE KNOW
If the cross sounds foolish, or if it is a stumbling block, we must perhaps ponder what a great love God has for humanity to offer His son to death and death on a cross. Are we beginning to grasp the importance of Love? Love is central to God’s Being and therefore to his wisdom. From our human perspective, loving, in many cases, will seem to be very foolish. And it will often put us in a moral dilemma. Can anyone love a rapist, or a child abuser? Really, I couldn’t possibly see any wisdom in loving such people if love means trusting them; believing them. Only God has wisdom to love all human beings! In fact, God took upon himself all the sin of the world, of all the sinners of the world because he loved the world and wouldn’t withhold any effort to redeem all the people of the world. Is there any other way but surrendering to this incomprehensible wisdom?
We may not know how to love, and be merciful, and how to help those around us in every case. Again, there are many situations in which applying those Christian virtues may be a little difficult. Not everyone “qualifies for the benefits” according to our human book. But if we do love those that we can love, and help those who we can help, and serve those who are within our reach, are we not somehow beginning to apply a little wisdom? Saint Augustine said, “love and do what you like;” quite a risky statement since doing what we like may not always be the right thing. But in the wisdom of love, if in any way that love comprehends the deepest Love of God, then we will have more understanding; more wisdom to do the right thing.
It is about surrendering. It is about faith. God wants us to look at the cross because it is a profound expression of His love as crude, and as horrendous as it may seem. “God did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us…” From our human wisdom’s angle it sounds foolish. That is why the whole message of the gospel and of belief is about, faith, about believing God; it is about coming into His loving arms; it is to experience an encounter with the Living God and surrendering to his Wisdom; to Him.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Summary
By His Grace and Love God grants us the opportunity to come into his wisdom and receive, understand, and proclaim the saving power of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Sermon
I would like to believe that not everyone in this audience was raised watching the TV series “Father knows Best.” After all, it originally aired between 1954 and 1960! At the same time I would guess that most of us are familiar with the story and must have watched a re-run of this warm family sitcom that depicts life in the 50’s. Jim Anderson, a General Insurance agent portrayed by Robert Young, lives a quiet family life in a middle class Midwestern suburb with his wife, Margaret, and his children Betty, Bud, and Kathy. Those who remember the series can probably relate to the warmth, the simplicity, and the charm of this comedy, which conveyed a sense of the presumed happy life of the times. Father always had an answer for the domestic problems that would emerge in a household like his, understood to be the typical American home. It was sentimental and it assumed a cultural sense of what is right deeply rooted in the American ethos of the 1950’s.
Some have called the comedy rosy and paternalistic, since it relied on a hierarchical understanding of family life, and tended to have an unrealistic view of it. After all, life is not easy and many of the issues we deal with are more complex and pressing than siblings’ disputes about house chores, or missing a high school football game for being out too late the night before. Yet, in its context, understanding that Jim Anderson was a son of his time, his wisdom was good. Father knew best because he had that ability to discern what was right for his family; he had common sense. His gift of human wisdom helped him to be a guide to those who listened to him. What about wisdom in this age? Or in any age? Is there any human wisdom that would lead us to understand the cross of Jesus Christ?
Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, wants to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he makes his case by calling his proclamation, “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” It does not begin with the understanding or the mastering the body of human knowledge about the faith; the acquisition of a mass of information about the “right” Christian beliefs. It requires faith and surrendering to God’s Wisdom—which may be unfathomable—that means, as I put it, coming in submission to an encounter with the Living God. And this very often happens when we are confronted with the harsh reality of the Cross. The stumbling block of the Son of God crucified; the foolishness of Savior that cannot save himself by just walking away. Can we understand it by means of our human wisdom? Does it make any sense? I want to affirm that surrendering to God’s Wisdom, we can understand a few things about human wisdom.
HUMAN WISDOM IS FEAR OF GOD
The book of Proverbs, known as a book of human wisdom, asserts that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” And fear here should not be understood as terror or being irrationally afraid of something unknown; it has to do with that sense of humbling ourselves in recognition of our humanity as we stand at the very presence of the Living God. I like the Message’s rendition of this verse (Proverbs 1:7) that says, “Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.”
Fear of God is implicit in Paul’s teaching to the church in Corinth. He says, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” The world cannot know God through the wisdom and knowledge of this present system of human affairs! What is science if not just a mechanistic description of a common perception of reality, which may very well serve technology in helping human life on this planet, but does not answer ultimate questions? God in His wisdom chose the message of Christ crucified to reveal his saving love and the hope of the kingdom. For that reason we must humble ourselves before Christ, with a sense of humiliation—healthy fear. Surrendering to the Living Christ, to God, is the beginning of wisdom and entering into a relationship where we’ll taste—just taste—the unfathomable Wisdom of God.
HUMAN WISDOM IS KNOWING THAT WE DON’T KNOW
This May sound relativistic, particularly in a world—including Christianity, that strives for the human knowledge of clean, cut, comprehensible universal truth. We love to make claims about our knowledge of universal truth but, how much can we grasp of them with our limited human understanding? We can perhaps assert that there are universal values. But we can only have a limited comprehension of the depth of their meaning. Paul himself talking about human knowledge when teaching about love said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly; but then we will see face to face.” Human wisdom means acknowledging that we know that we know nothing.
For that reason Paul challenges the wisdom of the Jews and the Greeks. The wisdom of God, the wisdom of the cross, of the crucified Christ, was a stumbling block for the Jews. They wanted a liberator from the oppression of the Romans; a king for eternity—the reappearance of David; they wanted a victorious Messiah, not a pale, suffering, weak, Galilean carpenter who claimed to be a Rabi. And for the Romans? The cross was simply foolishness. Who could believe in a king who did not have an army but just a bunch of fishermen and outcasts from a lost province of their vast empire? But for those who surrender by faith to the message of the cross, it is the power of God. It doesn’t seem to be wisdom; but if we humble ourselves and we admit that we know nothing, we begin to walk in the wisdom of God.
HUMAN WISDOM IS KNOWING HOW TO APPLY THE LITTLE WE KNOW
If the cross sounds foolish, or if it is a stumbling block, we must perhaps ponder what a great love God has for humanity to offer His son to death and death on a cross. Are we beginning to grasp the importance of Love? Love is central to God’s Being and therefore to his wisdom. From our human perspective, loving, in many cases, will seem to be very foolish. And it will often put us in a moral dilemma. Can anyone love a rapist, or a child abuser? Really, I couldn’t possibly see any wisdom in loving such people if love means trusting them; believing them. Only God has wisdom to love all human beings! In fact, God took upon himself all the sin of the world, of all the sinners of the world because he loved the world and wouldn’t withhold any effort to redeem all the people of the world. Is there any other way but surrendering to this incomprehensible wisdom?
We may not know how to love, and be merciful, and how to help those around us in every case. Again, there are many situations in which applying those Christian virtues may be a little difficult. Not everyone “qualifies for the benefits” according to our human book. But if we do love those that we can love, and help those who we can help, and serve those who are within our reach, are we not somehow beginning to apply a little wisdom? Saint Augustine said, “love and do what you like;” quite a risky statement since doing what we like may not always be the right thing. But in the wisdom of love, if in any way that love comprehends the deepest Love of God, then we will have more understanding; more wisdom to do the right thing.
It is about surrendering. It is about faith. God wants us to look at the cross because it is a profound expression of His love as crude, and as horrendous as it may seem. “God did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us…” From our human wisdom’s angle it sounds foolish. That is why the whole message of the gospel and of belief is about, faith, about believing God; it is about coming into His loving arms; it is to experience an encounter with the Living God and surrendering to his Wisdom; to Him.
A covenant of Faith
Old Mystic, March 8, 2009
Romans4:13-25
Summary
God offers a covenant to all those who want to be God’s righteous children. It is a pledge and a promise that implies deliverance, a future of hope, and a creative role now and in that future. We can only receive the opportunity of that covenant by faith; unconditional faith in God who becomes human, goes to the cross, and is raised from the dead the third day because of his gracious love.
Sermon
Who has not heard the admonition, “You ought to play by the rules.” Indeed, a very good piece of advice. Rules provide a structure, direction, a process and a number of procedures to fulfill a task, or comply with the norms of society, and make life easier for everyone. A simplistic approach to life-in-community would be to repeat to each other, “Follow the rules.” Needless to say, we live in a world that needs law and order and we have a sort of “social contract” that compels us to abide by the law—whether carefully crafted or inherent to our nature, as it is often accepted as “given” by many. And anyone, who faithfully and reasonably stays within the constraints of the laws of the land, can and will be considered a law-abiding citizen. Now rules, as they are often subject to human creation and interpretation, within the limitations of our humanity, very often fail to accomplish what they are supposed to achieve. For that reason, perhaps, we have a Congress and we elect our representatives to that congress, in order to revise, re-formulate, and update the rules. Simply because after some time rules may change or they need to change; they are imperfect for the pursuit of life; for the building of community; for shaping the future.
I love playing games and when I do, I try to carefully follow the rules. One of my favorite board games is Monopoly and I must confess with a mixture of pride and shame that I have earned a reputation of being good at it to the point of disgusting anyone who dares to oppose me in playing this game. As you may know, the game consists in buying land, building property, and charging outrageous rents to any unfortunate player who happens to land on any piece of the board that I own. Who wins? Whoever takes everything, owns everything, and leaves the other players with nothing. My grandchildren Sakari and Jose became my latest victims this past summer. What could I do? The kids wanted to play a game with grandpa! Why am I so good at this game besides of the fact that I have been quite lucky at rolling the dice? The secret is perhaps that rules can be pushed to the extreme for our own benefit. So I become a sort of wheeler-dealer, as the game allows it, to get what I want without breaking the rules. I get what I want, I win, but everybody else loses. Unfortunately, so it happens very often in the game of life when the rules fail to those who lose.
Paul wants to convey the message of the gospel to the Romans and his argument is that the law does not bring us home. Rules, though helpful, are just a rudiment; elementary means to a greater end. The apostle writes to the Christians in Rome: “The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” In other words, the greater end of conquering the world—for lack of a better term—will only be reached by means of righteousness and righteousness that comes by faith not by the law or, as I put it before, by following the rules. Needless to say, with God’s righteousness the rules make sense! Once again, faith is at the center. Faith as it was exemplified by Abraham for who “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.” God had promised Abraham that he would inherit the world and Abraham believed God.
So God established a covenant; a gracious pledge; a glorious promise. Not only to Abraham and his descendants—whether they stubbornly pledged allegiance to the most insignificant detail of the Law of Moses or not—but to all those who exercise, who employ, who use their faith to seize God’s promise. God offers a covenant for us to take that promise. From our human perspective, it is a covenant of faith and faith in Him who raised Jesus from the dead and who handed him to death for our trespasses and raised him for our justification. Let me share with you three aspects of this faith.
I. FAITH IS OPPORTUNITY
Freedom is one of the most precious gifts that God gave us to accompany our faith. God wants us to make choices, fruitful creative choices, the right choices, but choices nevertheless. God does not want to constrain us with laws and rules and principles to keep us on track. In fact, Paul himself, when referring to the Mosaic Law in his letter to the Galatians, said: “The law was our disciplinarian until Christ came… But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” The law was like a nanny for small children; with some basic rules to keep us on track. By faith, now, we have come to the freedom of the children of God! Therefore, faith is the opportunity God gives us to join Him in what he is doing and what He wants to do in the world.
Faith is opportunity also because we have been made to live by faith. Faith is built in our lives. We can call it a gift, a very basic gift we have been endowed with. It is the ability to believe; the strength to keep on going; the drive to move in a particular direction even when we may not know whether it is the right direction. So when we are called by God to have faith, when we are challenged by Jesus to believe, it our opportunity to become what God want us to be; to go where he wants us to go; to do what he wants us to do. And we better believe it: that is good because God makes it good. Abraham believed God and, as he seized the opportunity he saw his faith grow as he gave glory to God. Let us now move on to the second aspect of Faith.
II. FAITH IS RIGHTEOUSNESS
Righteousness is a very powerful word. Who possesses the wisdom, the discernment, or even the “right” to make a call about what is the righteous way, especially when we deal with conflicting views about moral issues? It become even more challenging when we want to argue with the Bible as our foundation and most of us know that there are different and quite often conflicting interpretations of the meaning of the Scriptures. In fact most of us can become very good in showing the “narrow way” when it comes to “Biblical prescription.” But God’s revelation is something to be experienced not to be prescribed. The Bible is not a “recipe book” where we can discover some sort of a secret formula or a code for a happy or successful life and therefore by following some steps we will win. Please, do not misunderstand me; it does provide us with a moral and theological framework. But the root of righteousness is in our faith in God, and his Son, and the Holy Spirit! Through the message of the Bible we encounter the Living God and in our personal experience of communion with Him we find His love and begin to have a grasp of His righteousness.
By faith we believe that things need to be right, that can be right, and that will definitely be right one day. By faith we believe that we will find our own way to righteousness, even if we are not sure about what is right, especially in these days when many traditional views are being challenged. Can we affirm that love is never wrong? Can we believe that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things?” This is the high road; the road to righteousness. Love is God’s way to righteousness! Because of God’s great love, Jesus went to the cross so we can have redemption and forgiveness. By faith we believe in the possibility of righteousness because it is part of God’s covenant.
III. FAITH CONQUERS THE WORLD
It is interesting that Paul, when speaking of God’s promise to Abraham, speaks of inheriting the world, which is a very inclusive word if we think of how that promise was framed in the Old Testament; a pledge to give him land and descendants. It can be interpreted that for Paul the world is an encompassing reality. It means life, creation; the heavens and the earth; the natural and the supernatural; all things created—much more that land and descendants. The world is ours and by faith we are inheriting it; by faith we are called to conquer it. This conquest, however, is not a conquest by force or by the exercise of human power. The world needs love; the kind of love that brings righteousness.
And the world is crying out for help. Paul himself said in the same letter to the Romans, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now...” and it “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” The children of God need to emerge and with loving, creative, and transforming power claim back God’s creation. It is by faith that we, folks from OMBC, can begin to make a difference in a world that needs love. We have the faith and it will grow if give glory to God as Abraham did.
We are in Lent and very soon Holy Week and Easter will be here. The season is always a good reminder that God, in His great mercy, has offered us a covenant. It is a pledge to save us: to restore us; to re-create us; it is a promise of life in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We can embrace that covenant by faith and become co-workers with God. It is a covenant of faith.
Romans4:13-25
Summary
God offers a covenant to all those who want to be God’s righteous children. It is a pledge and a promise that implies deliverance, a future of hope, and a creative role now and in that future. We can only receive the opportunity of that covenant by faith; unconditional faith in God who becomes human, goes to the cross, and is raised from the dead the third day because of his gracious love.
Sermon
Who has not heard the admonition, “You ought to play by the rules.” Indeed, a very good piece of advice. Rules provide a structure, direction, a process and a number of procedures to fulfill a task, or comply with the norms of society, and make life easier for everyone. A simplistic approach to life-in-community would be to repeat to each other, “Follow the rules.” Needless to say, we live in a world that needs law and order and we have a sort of “social contract” that compels us to abide by the law—whether carefully crafted or inherent to our nature, as it is often accepted as “given” by many. And anyone, who faithfully and reasonably stays within the constraints of the laws of the land, can and will be considered a law-abiding citizen. Now rules, as they are often subject to human creation and interpretation, within the limitations of our humanity, very often fail to accomplish what they are supposed to achieve. For that reason, perhaps, we have a Congress and we elect our representatives to that congress, in order to revise, re-formulate, and update the rules. Simply because after some time rules may change or they need to change; they are imperfect for the pursuit of life; for the building of community; for shaping the future.
I love playing games and when I do, I try to carefully follow the rules. One of my favorite board games is Monopoly and I must confess with a mixture of pride and shame that I have earned a reputation of being good at it to the point of disgusting anyone who dares to oppose me in playing this game. As you may know, the game consists in buying land, building property, and charging outrageous rents to any unfortunate player who happens to land on any piece of the board that I own. Who wins? Whoever takes everything, owns everything, and leaves the other players with nothing. My grandchildren Sakari and Jose became my latest victims this past summer. What could I do? The kids wanted to play a game with grandpa! Why am I so good at this game besides of the fact that I have been quite lucky at rolling the dice? The secret is perhaps that rules can be pushed to the extreme for our own benefit. So I become a sort of wheeler-dealer, as the game allows it, to get what I want without breaking the rules. I get what I want, I win, but everybody else loses. Unfortunately, so it happens very often in the game of life when the rules fail to those who lose.
Paul wants to convey the message of the gospel to the Romans and his argument is that the law does not bring us home. Rules, though helpful, are just a rudiment; elementary means to a greater end. The apostle writes to the Christians in Rome: “The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” In other words, the greater end of conquering the world—for lack of a better term—will only be reached by means of righteousness and righteousness that comes by faith not by the law or, as I put it before, by following the rules. Needless to say, with God’s righteousness the rules make sense! Once again, faith is at the center. Faith as it was exemplified by Abraham for who “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.” God had promised Abraham that he would inherit the world and Abraham believed God.
So God established a covenant; a gracious pledge; a glorious promise. Not only to Abraham and his descendants—whether they stubbornly pledged allegiance to the most insignificant detail of the Law of Moses or not—but to all those who exercise, who employ, who use their faith to seize God’s promise. God offers a covenant for us to take that promise. From our human perspective, it is a covenant of faith and faith in Him who raised Jesus from the dead and who handed him to death for our trespasses and raised him for our justification. Let me share with you three aspects of this faith.
I. FAITH IS OPPORTUNITY
Freedom is one of the most precious gifts that God gave us to accompany our faith. God wants us to make choices, fruitful creative choices, the right choices, but choices nevertheless. God does not want to constrain us with laws and rules and principles to keep us on track. In fact, Paul himself, when referring to the Mosaic Law in his letter to the Galatians, said: “The law was our disciplinarian until Christ came… But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” The law was like a nanny for small children; with some basic rules to keep us on track. By faith, now, we have come to the freedom of the children of God! Therefore, faith is the opportunity God gives us to join Him in what he is doing and what He wants to do in the world.
Faith is opportunity also because we have been made to live by faith. Faith is built in our lives. We can call it a gift, a very basic gift we have been endowed with. It is the ability to believe; the strength to keep on going; the drive to move in a particular direction even when we may not know whether it is the right direction. So when we are called by God to have faith, when we are challenged by Jesus to believe, it our opportunity to become what God want us to be; to go where he wants us to go; to do what he wants us to do. And we better believe it: that is good because God makes it good. Abraham believed God and, as he seized the opportunity he saw his faith grow as he gave glory to God. Let us now move on to the second aspect of Faith.
II. FAITH IS RIGHTEOUSNESS
Righteousness is a very powerful word. Who possesses the wisdom, the discernment, or even the “right” to make a call about what is the righteous way, especially when we deal with conflicting views about moral issues? It become even more challenging when we want to argue with the Bible as our foundation and most of us know that there are different and quite often conflicting interpretations of the meaning of the Scriptures. In fact most of us can become very good in showing the “narrow way” when it comes to “Biblical prescription.” But God’s revelation is something to be experienced not to be prescribed. The Bible is not a “recipe book” where we can discover some sort of a secret formula or a code for a happy or successful life and therefore by following some steps we will win. Please, do not misunderstand me; it does provide us with a moral and theological framework. But the root of righteousness is in our faith in God, and his Son, and the Holy Spirit! Through the message of the Bible we encounter the Living God and in our personal experience of communion with Him we find His love and begin to have a grasp of His righteousness.
By faith we believe that things need to be right, that can be right, and that will definitely be right one day. By faith we believe that we will find our own way to righteousness, even if we are not sure about what is right, especially in these days when many traditional views are being challenged. Can we affirm that love is never wrong? Can we believe that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things?” This is the high road; the road to righteousness. Love is God’s way to righteousness! Because of God’s great love, Jesus went to the cross so we can have redemption and forgiveness. By faith we believe in the possibility of righteousness because it is part of God’s covenant.
III. FAITH CONQUERS THE WORLD
It is interesting that Paul, when speaking of God’s promise to Abraham, speaks of inheriting the world, which is a very inclusive word if we think of how that promise was framed in the Old Testament; a pledge to give him land and descendants. It can be interpreted that for Paul the world is an encompassing reality. It means life, creation; the heavens and the earth; the natural and the supernatural; all things created—much more that land and descendants. The world is ours and by faith we are inheriting it; by faith we are called to conquer it. This conquest, however, is not a conquest by force or by the exercise of human power. The world needs love; the kind of love that brings righteousness.
And the world is crying out for help. Paul himself said in the same letter to the Romans, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now...” and it “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” The children of God need to emerge and with loving, creative, and transforming power claim back God’s creation. It is by faith that we, folks from OMBC, can begin to make a difference in a world that needs love. We have the faith and it will grow if give glory to God as Abraham did.
We are in Lent and very soon Holy Week and Easter will be here. The season is always a good reminder that God, in His great mercy, has offered us a covenant. It is a pledge to save us: to restore us; to re-create us; it is a promise of life in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We can embrace that covenant by faith and become co-workers with God. It is a covenant of faith.
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Old Mystic, March 1, 2009
Genesis 9:8-17
Summary
The story of the ending of the flood is an ancient powerful reminder of God’s saving initiative and God’s establishment of a covenant with humanity, a forerunner of the covenant in Christ, of which we are lovingly invited to participate. It is God’s initiative; it is possible because of God’s grace and a challenge for us to enter into it.
Sermon
Many may be quite familiar with the music of Credence Clearwater Revival, a popular rock band of the late 60’s and early 70’s. What it may be perhaps surprising to some is the fact that they were so popular in countries like Argentina where indeed they were very popular then. Their songs would be on the radio, the lyrics not necessarily understood by most of the listeners, but their rhythm was catchy, and there was something appealing about the voice of their leader and main composer John Fogerty. So I can remember many of their songs and, among them, a particular one, under the title of “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” Let share some of Fogerty’s existential struggles:
"Long as I remember the rain been comin' down. Clouds of myst'ry pouring confusion on the ground. Good men through the ages, try'n' to find the sun, and I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain..." Music and lyrics by John Fogerty
I’m not sure how good my exegesis of this musician’s plight is but it seems to me that his feeling, expressed in the music and lyrics of this song, is that humanity cannot stop a course of self-destruction and its fate expressed through the metaphor of unstoppable rain. There is confusion, promises (Five year plans and new deals), people gathered together (a positive sign), yet the rain keeps falling down. Therefore the question, who’ll stop the rain?
When we look at the story of the ending of the flood, the answer to the question seems obvious. God can stop the rain. Though it must have been tough and even hard to believe for Noah and his family that that rain would ever stop when they were watching all life around them being destroyed by God’s wrath. But the rain stopped and the image of a rainbow, as a sign of a promise is powerful. And the promise, though simple, appropriate for onlookers of the time, is an anticipation of God’s initiative to save humankind; to save us; to save His creation. “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." It should perhaps be added to this promise that there is more to come; that this rudiment of a covenant, a pledge not to destroy all creation through a flood, is just a glimpse of God’s love for creation and for humanity. It is perhaps a good start for this season of Lent to go back to that covenant so we can reflect on the new covenant” in Jesus Christ, established through the cross, where God takes away our guilt and liberates us from all that oppresses us. If we feel it has been raining too long for our lives, we can affirm that sometime, may be soon, or later on; may be in this life or in our life to come, God will stop the rain. God has made a covenant with us.
1. IT IS AN EXPRESSION OF GOD’S LOVE
It is implicit throughout the story of the flood and the gathering of the species into the ark that God preserved Noah and his family because of His profound love for humanity. In fact the covenant of the rainbow is preceded by the covenant of the ark whereby God made a commitment to protect and save Noah of the raging waters. God is love; God has always been love and any divine saving activity comes out of that unending love. God love us and has made a pledge to save us so “the rain will stop.” And that love is extended to all creation, not just human beings. Ever since the beginning, God’s remark about His creation has been that “it is good.” God’s creation is good, so it is not a human fad or whim, or the impulse of environmentalists, the claim that the creation should be cared for; it is a divine decree. God has made us human beings stewards of the beautiful world He created because God loves His creation.
Looking at the story again, it cannot escape us also the fact that through the powerful destruction of a fallen world God is executing His inescapable justice. There is such a thing as sin, there is a harsh reality of evil, and the consequence of guilt appears. Justice needs to be made; the guilty must condemned. Now, this is very hard to grasp. Why a loving God would destroy all human life sparing only 8 people? It is impossible to fathom God’s designs. Perhaps our problem is that we want to see God like a coin with its two sides: love and justice. But God’s love cannot be separated from His justice or vice versa. God’s love is always just; and God’s justice is exercised through love. For that reason in his ultimate covenant offered to us God decided to surrender in love and took upon himself our guilt making justice through love. God loves us enough to make the rain stop. If our hearts are warmed by God’s presence, if they are touched by the Holy Spirit, if we open our minds, and our senses, and our emotions to the Living God, He’ll stop the rain.
2. IT IS A SAVING COVENANT
Any covenant offered by God is a covenant of grace which means that God, in His love and mercy, delivers a favor toward us, something that we do not deserve. It is an opportunity to live; an opportunity to have a purpose greater than us; an opportunity to be free, understanding freedom as the possibility to become creative by surrendering to God’s power. Noah and his family were saved from the destruction of the flood and were granted the opportunity to re-create the world; it was a fresh start. They were saved to live and God was anticipating to them through the rudimentary covenant of the rainbow that God saves us for life and life abundant.
Unfortunately, were so often caught up in the rain and it keeps on falling down. All the circumstances around us make us doubt about any type of salvation or may be they take us in a flight out of this world being happy just with the idea of life beyond this life—at type of contentment that often leads to inaction, to abandoning the creative freedom that we are saved for. I must confess myself that I have been in the middle of the rain wondering if it would ever stop. Yet, we need to look at the rainbow… and the cross! God has made a covenant with us—in fact He has established that covenant, not us—whereby we are offered life; beautiful, abundant, creative, precious life, here and now. And I say this with fear and trembling, He’ll stop the rain.
3. IT CALLS FOR PARTICIPATION
There is no doubt that God takes the initiative; God is sovereign. We can only interpret His designs; our tools of comprehension are limited. We can only have glimpses of God’s glory and receive his grace, love, and mercy. However, in no way are we passive recipients of that grace. In fact any offer from God and by God to us calls for participation. His covenant, his salvation, or liberation, or transformation, or any opportunity given to us is there for our taking. We take the steps to participate in God’s project. I will not deny the compelling power of God’s love and the work of the Holy Spirit in convincing us but the ultimate decision of participating is ours. Noah understood God’s revelation; he was told that he needed to surrender to the crazy idea of building an ark when he was so far from any body of water where such a vessel could navigate. He was mocked by his contemporaries as delusional old man because there were other options. Noah could have walked away from God’s crazy proposal yet he decided to participate.
Sometimes it is difficult to participate in God’s project because it is so against the grain and perhaps because we are so much in the middle of the rain… and it keeps on falling down. I remember when I was young, growing up in the humid weather of Buenos Aires, storms would come at least one a year and rain would fall constantly anywhere from 5 to 9 days. We called those storms “Southeasters.” Being in the middle of a Southeaster was depressing. And when we are depressed we don’t feel we have the energy to do anything. If there is any strength we receive from God and any conviction from the Holy Sprit, we do need them to commit ourselves to participate in God’s project, even in the middle of the rain.
I don’t think I can emphasize enough how much God loves us. The image of a rainbow, whether real or created, is a reminder. So is the cross, such a horrendous instrument of torture and death. Jesus went to the cross to enact our salvation and redemption because of that love. This season of Lent, therefore, is once again a time to reflect upon, welcome, and celebrate God’s covenant of love in Jesus Christ. It is always an invitation to participate in God’s Kingdom, to come into the presence of the Living God; to join God in what God is doing in the world, even if it keeps on raining.
Genesis 9:8-17
Summary
The story of the ending of the flood is an ancient powerful reminder of God’s saving initiative and God’s establishment of a covenant with humanity, a forerunner of the covenant in Christ, of which we are lovingly invited to participate. It is God’s initiative; it is possible because of God’s grace and a challenge for us to enter into it.
Sermon
Many may be quite familiar with the music of Credence Clearwater Revival, a popular rock band of the late 60’s and early 70’s. What it may be perhaps surprising to some is the fact that they were so popular in countries like Argentina where indeed they were very popular then. Their songs would be on the radio, the lyrics not necessarily understood by most of the listeners, but their rhythm was catchy, and there was something appealing about the voice of their leader and main composer John Fogerty. So I can remember many of their songs and, among them, a particular one, under the title of “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” Let share some of Fogerty’s existential struggles:
"Long as I remember the rain been comin' down. Clouds of myst'ry pouring confusion on the ground. Good men through the ages, try'n' to find the sun, and I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain..." Music and lyrics by John Fogerty
I’m not sure how good my exegesis of this musician’s plight is but it seems to me that his feeling, expressed in the music and lyrics of this song, is that humanity cannot stop a course of self-destruction and its fate expressed through the metaphor of unstoppable rain. There is confusion, promises (Five year plans and new deals), people gathered together (a positive sign), yet the rain keeps falling down. Therefore the question, who’ll stop the rain?
When we look at the story of the ending of the flood, the answer to the question seems obvious. God can stop the rain. Though it must have been tough and even hard to believe for Noah and his family that that rain would ever stop when they were watching all life around them being destroyed by God’s wrath. But the rain stopped and the image of a rainbow, as a sign of a promise is powerful. And the promise, though simple, appropriate for onlookers of the time, is an anticipation of God’s initiative to save humankind; to save us; to save His creation. “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." It should perhaps be added to this promise that there is more to come; that this rudiment of a covenant, a pledge not to destroy all creation through a flood, is just a glimpse of God’s love for creation and for humanity. It is perhaps a good start for this season of Lent to go back to that covenant so we can reflect on the new covenant” in Jesus Christ, established through the cross, where God takes away our guilt and liberates us from all that oppresses us. If we feel it has been raining too long for our lives, we can affirm that sometime, may be soon, or later on; may be in this life or in our life to come, God will stop the rain. God has made a covenant with us.
1. IT IS AN EXPRESSION OF GOD’S LOVE
It is implicit throughout the story of the flood and the gathering of the species into the ark that God preserved Noah and his family because of His profound love for humanity. In fact the covenant of the rainbow is preceded by the covenant of the ark whereby God made a commitment to protect and save Noah of the raging waters. God is love; God has always been love and any divine saving activity comes out of that unending love. God love us and has made a pledge to save us so “the rain will stop.” And that love is extended to all creation, not just human beings. Ever since the beginning, God’s remark about His creation has been that “it is good.” God’s creation is good, so it is not a human fad or whim, or the impulse of environmentalists, the claim that the creation should be cared for; it is a divine decree. God has made us human beings stewards of the beautiful world He created because God loves His creation.
Looking at the story again, it cannot escape us also the fact that through the powerful destruction of a fallen world God is executing His inescapable justice. There is such a thing as sin, there is a harsh reality of evil, and the consequence of guilt appears. Justice needs to be made; the guilty must condemned. Now, this is very hard to grasp. Why a loving God would destroy all human life sparing only 8 people? It is impossible to fathom God’s designs. Perhaps our problem is that we want to see God like a coin with its two sides: love and justice. But God’s love cannot be separated from His justice or vice versa. God’s love is always just; and God’s justice is exercised through love. For that reason in his ultimate covenant offered to us God decided to surrender in love and took upon himself our guilt making justice through love. God loves us enough to make the rain stop. If our hearts are warmed by God’s presence, if they are touched by the Holy Spirit, if we open our minds, and our senses, and our emotions to the Living God, He’ll stop the rain.
2. IT IS A SAVING COVENANT
Any covenant offered by God is a covenant of grace which means that God, in His love and mercy, delivers a favor toward us, something that we do not deserve. It is an opportunity to live; an opportunity to have a purpose greater than us; an opportunity to be free, understanding freedom as the possibility to become creative by surrendering to God’s power. Noah and his family were saved from the destruction of the flood and were granted the opportunity to re-create the world; it was a fresh start. They were saved to live and God was anticipating to them through the rudimentary covenant of the rainbow that God saves us for life and life abundant.
Unfortunately, were so often caught up in the rain and it keeps on falling down. All the circumstances around us make us doubt about any type of salvation or may be they take us in a flight out of this world being happy just with the idea of life beyond this life—at type of contentment that often leads to inaction, to abandoning the creative freedom that we are saved for. I must confess myself that I have been in the middle of the rain wondering if it would ever stop. Yet, we need to look at the rainbow… and the cross! God has made a covenant with us—in fact He has established that covenant, not us—whereby we are offered life; beautiful, abundant, creative, precious life, here and now. And I say this with fear and trembling, He’ll stop the rain.
3. IT CALLS FOR PARTICIPATION
There is no doubt that God takes the initiative; God is sovereign. We can only interpret His designs; our tools of comprehension are limited. We can only have glimpses of God’s glory and receive his grace, love, and mercy. However, in no way are we passive recipients of that grace. In fact any offer from God and by God to us calls for participation. His covenant, his salvation, or liberation, or transformation, or any opportunity given to us is there for our taking. We take the steps to participate in God’s project. I will not deny the compelling power of God’s love and the work of the Holy Spirit in convincing us but the ultimate decision of participating is ours. Noah understood God’s revelation; he was told that he needed to surrender to the crazy idea of building an ark when he was so far from any body of water where such a vessel could navigate. He was mocked by his contemporaries as delusional old man because there were other options. Noah could have walked away from God’s crazy proposal yet he decided to participate.
Sometimes it is difficult to participate in God’s project because it is so against the grain and perhaps because we are so much in the middle of the rain… and it keeps on falling down. I remember when I was young, growing up in the humid weather of Buenos Aires, storms would come at least one a year and rain would fall constantly anywhere from 5 to 9 days. We called those storms “Southeasters.” Being in the middle of a Southeaster was depressing. And when we are depressed we don’t feel we have the energy to do anything. If there is any strength we receive from God and any conviction from the Holy Sprit, we do need them to commit ourselves to participate in God’s project, even in the middle of the rain.
I don’t think I can emphasize enough how much God loves us. The image of a rainbow, whether real or created, is a reminder. So is the cross, such a horrendous instrument of torture and death. Jesus went to the cross to enact our salvation and redemption because of that love. This season of Lent, therefore, is once again a time to reflect upon, welcome, and celebrate God’s covenant of love in Jesus Christ. It is always an invitation to participate in God’s Kingdom, to come into the presence of the Living God; to join God in what God is doing in the world, even if it keeps on raining.
The Mountain and the Valley
Old Mystic, February 22, 2009
Mark 9:2-9
Summary
Our Christian life, a life of faith, is marked both by the peaks of our experiencing God as the disciples in the mount of the Transfiguration, and the journey of our daily lives where we walk with Jesus Christ as we deal with the struggles of our existence.
Sermon
I love mountains and high places, perhaps because I was born in the plains of the province of Buenos Aires, known as the pampas, the fertile and green grasslands where crops are grown, and that extend beyond that province to cover a large area of Argentina. Since I was raised in the suburbs, our occasional trips out of the “urban cone,” as the huge urban area of Buenos Aires and its suburbs is known, were trips to flatlands, plains, and muddy rivers. Boring! Very boring! Please don’t misunderstand me; the pampas are green, full of cattle, they have large estancias or haciendas (farms), where you can enjoy some of the best beef in the world in the famous asados. In fact, they represent an enormous attraction to people from all over the world; but not that much for me.
I can honestly affirm that since I was very young, when I first saw the mountains of the Sierra in the province of Cordoba, I fell in love with elevations, hills, and high places. I can recall some of the most precious memories of my life on top a mountain. I remember when we used to go on vacation to a small town, Los Cocos, in Cordoba. One of my favorite activities was to climb to the “Flagpole” (El Mastil), actually a monument on top of a high peak of about 5,000 feet. It was good because I loved to get to the top and watch the breathtaking scenic view and I enjoyed doing it with one of my best friends—my father. It was an experience of contemplation, of beauty, of companionship, of friendship, and of awe. It was the beginning of my comprehension of the greatness of God, of the beauty of creation, and of a sense of what it means to experience God.
I can relate to the incident at the mount of the Transfiguration and perhaps most of you can, yet not necessarily in the same way—some may recall similar feelings standing by a creek and watching the waters move; or gazing at the colorful forests of an autumn landscape in New England. What the disciples saw in that mountain, some say it was Mount Hermon, others say it was Mount Tabor, was very special. Jesus took them there and while he was praying he was transfigured. He went through a metamorphosis; according to Mark, his garments became so shining white that they thought they were out of this world. Matthew, in a parallel passage, also saw his face shine “like a sun.” It was a sort of vision, certainly not of this world. Peter, James, and John, the circle of the “privileged” disciples who were there, also witnessed a conversation between the transfigured, celestial, shining Christ, and two of their heroes, heroes of the Israelite faith: Moses and Elijah. These two, the vision at the top of the mountain, the shining clothes, the cloud that engulfed them, and the voice from heaven, all signal the revealing message of God: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.”
It was an incredible experience beyond whether it was just something taking place in their imagination or an actual phenomenon of physical transformation. Either way, it was powerful; it profoundly impacted these men. John and James, at least according to the biblical story, did not open their mouths. They were too terrified to talk, or perhaps full of awe, or dread. Peter, on the other hand, always prompt to jump and to react according to his impulsive nature, managed to mumble a proposal: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Mark’s take of Peter’s words was simply that he was talking nonsense. He was also terrified. At the same time, Peter’s words reflect the value of the experience: it is good to be here. Unfortunately, the event did not last long. After the cloud overshadowed them, Moses and Elijah were gone, and Jesus was the same one they knew in everyday life; Jesus the human, the one with whom they walked daily.
But they learned something important through this event. There are moments in life when we witness God’s movement, when we encounter God in a special moment, when we have a glimpse of God’s glory. We live in a tension between those glorious moments when we feel that very presence of God and the more frequent times when we are called to act, to get involved, to serve, to practice what comes by the inspiration of a God who, I have no doubt, is always inviting us to experience Him. Today’s passage is highly instructive on two aspects of our Christian life without falling into the pits of a confusing dichotomy between the spiritual or the “Holy” and the practical or the human. We are continually immersed both in our religious spiritual experience and in our daily practice of our faith. Looking at the passage we can venture to say that we are summoned by God to two things.
1. WE ARE CALLED TO EXPERIENCE GOD
Born and raised Baptist, I was exposed to the understanding that religion is something we must experience. Though it would be a little bold to assert that all Baptists understand their religious experience as a sort of existential occurrence, or a conversion, or a vision, or an epiphany, many would agree that faith brings us to experience God in a concrete way. No experience, of course, can be put into a mold. It varies from person to person. Yet, the claim is that somehow, in our own way, we can all feel that sense of awe, of wonder, that sensation of trepidation because we know by faith that we are standing in the presence of the Living God.
I have the utmost respect for those who have a different view of religion where the faith can be learned; where by a process of education, or by participation of rituals and sacraments, one belongs to the Christian Community and subscribes to the tenets of the church. Doctrine can be enlightening and the help of mediators can be useful to somehow bring us into the stream. Yet, I prefer to believe that beyond the rational, in the realm of the non-rational, I can have an encounter with the Living God. Many call it an experience. A special moment or moments when, like Jesus’ disciples, we feel that sense of awe, or dread, or fear because we are physically aware of God’s presence near us.
Southern Baptist Scholar William E. Hull, writing on a booklet titled The Meaning of the Baptist Experience, characterizes our Baptist faith as one that dwells on experiencing God. Hull says that, “an experience begins to take shape when an individual becomes so engaged in some aspect of life that the attention is focused, the mind is stimulated, and the emotions are stirred.” Since we all have different ways of apprehending the meaning of our experience, it becomes very unique to us; very personal.
Our passage today is an enticement to go up to the top of the mountain, or walk by the riverside, or lay on a grassy, green field; perhaps stay in the peace and privacy of our room. Wherever it is, let us seek the encounter; let us look for the experience; let us be nurtured by the very presence of God so we are equipped for the journey. We can do it as individuals in our personal search, but we can also do it as a family of faith. We can do it in prayer together; we can do it in worship; we can do it in a retreat; we can do it through contemplation, or solitude, or meditation, or simply by praying for one another. We can do it! We can experience the Living God day in and day out so our lives are continually transformed.
2. WE ARE CALLED TO WALK WITH JESUS
Walking with Jesus is walking our own walk; it is dealing with the challenges of our daily life, coping with our own struggles, and going through our pains and sorrows. But most importantly, this walk with Jesus implies living our lives guided by his example, inspired by his teachings, and motivated by his sacrifice. This is utterly difficult, especially if we respond to Jesus’ challenge of picking up the cross and following him. Yes, sometimes it seems painful to come down to the valley after the experience of the mountain. For that reason Peter said, “It is good to be here.”
But while at the mountain, when the apostles were watching the glory of God with their own eyes as it manifested itself in the transfiguration of Jesus, God’s cloud engulfed them and they heard God’s voice loud and clear, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” The God we can experience, who can impact our lives for ever, calls us to listen to Jesus as we walk with him our in our daily lives. We can listen to Jesus—not perhaps in an audible way—when we read the Sermon on the Mount; when he calls us to love God and neighbor, or to turn the other cheek, or to mend the wounds of someone injured like the Good Samaritan did. We can listen to Jesus when he said,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me
To bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To let the oppressed go free,
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
But listening to Jesus is not just an intellectual exercise; it is a call to walk with him and engage the practice of our faith. It is serving, proclaiming, teaching, and fleshing out the life of Christ in us. Such a life, again, is a difficult one but remember, we may be in the valley but we have been to the mountain top and God is always with us. Canadian Baptist Henry Blackaby in his famous curriculum “Experiencing God” claims that our best way to experience God is by joining God in what God is doing in the world. That is what the disciples learned as they walked with Jesus; they joined Jesus in his mission.
Life has its ups and downs, yet we can certainly claim that God is with us all the time. In fact, when I speak of experiencing God, I hope to experience him all the time, not just once in a while. Because it is this experience, this encounter, this contemplation, this wonderful opportunity to meet God, who is at the center of our lives, that empowers, and nurtures our lives for our mission and our daily walk. Let us seek God with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our heart.
Mark 9:2-9
Summary
Our Christian life, a life of faith, is marked both by the peaks of our experiencing God as the disciples in the mount of the Transfiguration, and the journey of our daily lives where we walk with Jesus Christ as we deal with the struggles of our existence.
Sermon
I love mountains and high places, perhaps because I was born in the plains of the province of Buenos Aires, known as the pampas, the fertile and green grasslands where crops are grown, and that extend beyond that province to cover a large area of Argentina. Since I was raised in the suburbs, our occasional trips out of the “urban cone,” as the huge urban area of Buenos Aires and its suburbs is known, were trips to flatlands, plains, and muddy rivers. Boring! Very boring! Please don’t misunderstand me; the pampas are green, full of cattle, they have large estancias or haciendas (farms), where you can enjoy some of the best beef in the world in the famous asados. In fact, they represent an enormous attraction to people from all over the world; but not that much for me.
I can honestly affirm that since I was very young, when I first saw the mountains of the Sierra in the province of Cordoba, I fell in love with elevations, hills, and high places. I can recall some of the most precious memories of my life on top a mountain. I remember when we used to go on vacation to a small town, Los Cocos, in Cordoba. One of my favorite activities was to climb to the “Flagpole” (El Mastil), actually a monument on top of a high peak of about 5,000 feet. It was good because I loved to get to the top and watch the breathtaking scenic view and I enjoyed doing it with one of my best friends—my father. It was an experience of contemplation, of beauty, of companionship, of friendship, and of awe. It was the beginning of my comprehension of the greatness of God, of the beauty of creation, and of a sense of what it means to experience God.
I can relate to the incident at the mount of the Transfiguration and perhaps most of you can, yet not necessarily in the same way—some may recall similar feelings standing by a creek and watching the waters move; or gazing at the colorful forests of an autumn landscape in New England. What the disciples saw in that mountain, some say it was Mount Hermon, others say it was Mount Tabor, was very special. Jesus took them there and while he was praying he was transfigured. He went through a metamorphosis; according to Mark, his garments became so shining white that they thought they were out of this world. Matthew, in a parallel passage, also saw his face shine “like a sun.” It was a sort of vision, certainly not of this world. Peter, James, and John, the circle of the “privileged” disciples who were there, also witnessed a conversation between the transfigured, celestial, shining Christ, and two of their heroes, heroes of the Israelite faith: Moses and Elijah. These two, the vision at the top of the mountain, the shining clothes, the cloud that engulfed them, and the voice from heaven, all signal the revealing message of God: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.”
It was an incredible experience beyond whether it was just something taking place in their imagination or an actual phenomenon of physical transformation. Either way, it was powerful; it profoundly impacted these men. John and James, at least according to the biblical story, did not open their mouths. They were too terrified to talk, or perhaps full of awe, or dread. Peter, on the other hand, always prompt to jump and to react according to his impulsive nature, managed to mumble a proposal: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Mark’s take of Peter’s words was simply that he was talking nonsense. He was also terrified. At the same time, Peter’s words reflect the value of the experience: it is good to be here. Unfortunately, the event did not last long. After the cloud overshadowed them, Moses and Elijah were gone, and Jesus was the same one they knew in everyday life; Jesus the human, the one with whom they walked daily.
But they learned something important through this event. There are moments in life when we witness God’s movement, when we encounter God in a special moment, when we have a glimpse of God’s glory. We live in a tension between those glorious moments when we feel that very presence of God and the more frequent times when we are called to act, to get involved, to serve, to practice what comes by the inspiration of a God who, I have no doubt, is always inviting us to experience Him. Today’s passage is highly instructive on two aspects of our Christian life without falling into the pits of a confusing dichotomy between the spiritual or the “Holy” and the practical or the human. We are continually immersed both in our religious spiritual experience and in our daily practice of our faith. Looking at the passage we can venture to say that we are summoned by God to two things.
1. WE ARE CALLED TO EXPERIENCE GOD
Born and raised Baptist, I was exposed to the understanding that religion is something we must experience. Though it would be a little bold to assert that all Baptists understand their religious experience as a sort of existential occurrence, or a conversion, or a vision, or an epiphany, many would agree that faith brings us to experience God in a concrete way. No experience, of course, can be put into a mold. It varies from person to person. Yet, the claim is that somehow, in our own way, we can all feel that sense of awe, of wonder, that sensation of trepidation because we know by faith that we are standing in the presence of the Living God.
I have the utmost respect for those who have a different view of religion where the faith can be learned; where by a process of education, or by participation of rituals and sacraments, one belongs to the Christian Community and subscribes to the tenets of the church. Doctrine can be enlightening and the help of mediators can be useful to somehow bring us into the stream. Yet, I prefer to believe that beyond the rational, in the realm of the non-rational, I can have an encounter with the Living God. Many call it an experience. A special moment or moments when, like Jesus’ disciples, we feel that sense of awe, or dread, or fear because we are physically aware of God’s presence near us.
Southern Baptist Scholar William E. Hull, writing on a booklet titled The Meaning of the Baptist Experience, characterizes our Baptist faith as one that dwells on experiencing God. Hull says that, “an experience begins to take shape when an individual becomes so engaged in some aspect of life that the attention is focused, the mind is stimulated, and the emotions are stirred.” Since we all have different ways of apprehending the meaning of our experience, it becomes very unique to us; very personal.
Our passage today is an enticement to go up to the top of the mountain, or walk by the riverside, or lay on a grassy, green field; perhaps stay in the peace and privacy of our room. Wherever it is, let us seek the encounter; let us look for the experience; let us be nurtured by the very presence of God so we are equipped for the journey. We can do it as individuals in our personal search, but we can also do it as a family of faith. We can do it in prayer together; we can do it in worship; we can do it in a retreat; we can do it through contemplation, or solitude, or meditation, or simply by praying for one another. We can do it! We can experience the Living God day in and day out so our lives are continually transformed.
2. WE ARE CALLED TO WALK WITH JESUS
Walking with Jesus is walking our own walk; it is dealing with the challenges of our daily life, coping with our own struggles, and going through our pains and sorrows. But most importantly, this walk with Jesus implies living our lives guided by his example, inspired by his teachings, and motivated by his sacrifice. This is utterly difficult, especially if we respond to Jesus’ challenge of picking up the cross and following him. Yes, sometimes it seems painful to come down to the valley after the experience of the mountain. For that reason Peter said, “It is good to be here.”
But while at the mountain, when the apostles were watching the glory of God with their own eyes as it manifested itself in the transfiguration of Jesus, God’s cloud engulfed them and they heard God’s voice loud and clear, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” The God we can experience, who can impact our lives for ever, calls us to listen to Jesus as we walk with him our in our daily lives. We can listen to Jesus—not perhaps in an audible way—when we read the Sermon on the Mount; when he calls us to love God and neighbor, or to turn the other cheek, or to mend the wounds of someone injured like the Good Samaritan did. We can listen to Jesus when he said,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me
To bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To let the oppressed go free,
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
But listening to Jesus is not just an intellectual exercise; it is a call to walk with him and engage the practice of our faith. It is serving, proclaiming, teaching, and fleshing out the life of Christ in us. Such a life, again, is a difficult one but remember, we may be in the valley but we have been to the mountain top and God is always with us. Canadian Baptist Henry Blackaby in his famous curriculum “Experiencing God” claims that our best way to experience God is by joining God in what God is doing in the world. That is what the disciples learned as they walked with Jesus; they joined Jesus in his mission.
Life has its ups and downs, yet we can certainly claim that God is with us all the time. In fact, when I speak of experiencing God, I hope to experience him all the time, not just once in a while. Because it is this experience, this encounter, this contemplation, this wonderful opportunity to meet God, who is at the center of our lives, that empowers, and nurtures our lives for our mission and our daily walk. Let us seek God with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our heart.
A Race We Need to Run
Old Mystic, February 15, 2009
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Summary
As Christians we are called to run the race of a life of sacrifice and discipline, where we live in a profound relationship with the Living God. Grounded on such a relationship, we can assume the responsibility of bringing the Good News of the Gospel to those around us; a Gospel love, peace, and justice for a needy world.
Sermon
I must confess that I am fond of sports metaphors and illustrations because they depict so well our human plight in seeking success in what we do, in reaching goals, and being effective in our endeavors. In sports we clearly see the contrast between agony and ecstasy; between victory and defeat; between joy and sadness. It is interesting to watch how much we can contemplate in sports the display of human passion, both good and sometimes not so good, sometimes pathological passion. Who does not warmly remember the 2004 ALCS series when the Boston Red Sox came from behind to beat the New York Yankees after being 0-3, with their backs against the wall? Tears came out of the eyes even of the most detached fans! And then they went to win their first world series in 86 years. What an amazing story of perseverance, discipline, and faith. I still remember the signs displayed by some fans: We believe!
Paul, the apostle, addressing the church in Corinth, knows that he is speaking to people who knew sports. Organized sports, as we know them, what we call the Olympics, began in the Greco-Roman world. And Corinth was the city where the famous Isthmian Games, only second in importance to the Athenian Olympic Games, used to take place. Now, the metaphors used in the passage we read today, though powerful and useful, they have their flaws. If we compare the race we are running as Christians with the race Paul uses as illustration, there are some crucial differences. He points to the fact that we receive a non-perishable wreath to crown our victory in our Christian life and that may be a good analogy. At the same time, in a sports race there is always one winner; only one takes the wreath of the victors; only one climbs to podium. The promised crown to the faithful in the race of life, however, is reserved for many. Having made such a clarification, let it be said that, I believe, Paul is trying to convey a powerful message to the church in Corinth: it is not so much about winning; it is not about defeating an enemy; it is about Running the Race We Need to Run.
But Paul uses a second metaphor, that one of a boxer that as such knows that serious, competitive boxing is more than throwing punches to his shadow. In both cases, whether a racer or a boxer, what it takes to win is discipline. He speaks of exercising control in all things, not running aimlessly, or beating the air. Paul is conveying the people of the church in Corinth a message that sounds appealing but at the same time cumbersome. Victory in life comes through discipline; through intentional, planned, organized, and carefully performed actions where we seek God and where we commit to fulfill our call to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. All of this may sound difficult. Someone may say, “I did not come here today to hear about sacrifice, or work, or tough discipline.” Some other may think that to define Christian life in terms of discipline will turn people away; or perhaps somebody else would dare to say that the idea of living a life of discipline takes away their freedom or the possibility of “enjoying life.” But that is not how I understand discipline. That is not, I believe, what the apostle signifies when he speaks of discipline. Discipline is the means to an end: to an experience of joy, of ecstasy, of fulfillment, of anticipation, of a taste of God’s Peace in Jesus Christ, a peace that will be one day complete and perfect. Discipline is not deprivation; it is neither an exaltation of suffering nor sacrifice for its own sake. It is a road to the Living God.
My friends, we are called to Run the Race We Need to Run. And as I have already said, that requires discipline. So let me share briefly some thoughts about this discipline. In first place, Christian discipline is a relationship. It means that we deliberately, intentionally, and consistently seek God’s face; it implies that we employ our best efforts to come to the “Throne of His Grace.” Discipline is a relationship where we diligently approach the Living God to experience His incomparable presence. Paul speaks of self-control in this passage but he also knows well how human he is, as he confessed, “for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do… “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul knew that only the relationship he had with God and Jesus Christ could empower, nurture, and sustain him in his journey. He said, “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—[and] was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.” What an experience of a relationship he had with the Living God!
A discipline of seeking to build a relationship with God is to practice what many call the spiritual disciplines. Those are spiritual practices that rooted in the Scriptures and in our Christian tradition we have consistently engaged—or not. We all know about the importance of prayer, or reflection on the Scriptures, or meditation; may be some have practiced fasting, or solitude; some may claim—rightfully so—that the experience God through service. Richard Foster in his famous book The Celebration of Discipline mentions inward, outward, and corporate spiritual disciplines and we can discern as we learn about them that each individual person will probably find their own way to practice some of them. It doesn’t matter how many, which ones, or how anyone would personally practice any spiritual discipline. What matters is that we honestly, humbly, and consistently look for intentional ways of engaging the Living God.
Sometimes we confuse spiritual disciplines with rituals. There is nothing wrong with rituals; they are ceremonies, acts, or customs that we perform that have the purpose of memory, of honor, and worship. But rituals are mere forms, methods, or procedures. We can do many things we believe that as rituals they are going to bring us closer to God and spiritual disciplines can be practiced through ritual. The risk, however, is that often times we fall into the pits of a ritualistic going through the motions.
Again, there is nothing wrong with rituals—after all I am promoting the use of systematic and organized spiritual disciplines. Whatever it is that we do, it must be done to encounter, engage, and establish a relationship with the Living God. It is in that relationship that our life is nurtured; it is that Person we need to know personally that the Scriptures are revealing; it is the true meaning of Emmanuel: God is with us, and we seek God, who is at the center of our lives. We are summoned by Paul to run a race and we can only do that with the discipline of a relationship with God.
Second, the discipline we need to Run the Race We Need to Run is costly. God’s grace is not cheap, it is costly. Jesus put it in very difficult terms, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Paul makes it look ugly: “I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.” But the high cost of the discipline of Christian life is not so much about “renouncing to the world,” or giving up the “worldly pleasures,” or living an ascetic life with no joy. We don’t have to become monks and be confined in a monastery spending the rest of our life in contemplation—even though a little contemplation can certainly be good for us. On the contrary, we have the responsibility of sharing the joy of our relationship with God. This is proclaiming the good news: sharing by word and by deed that relationship with the Living God that Christ makes possible with our neighbors, our loved ones, and with the whole world.
The weight of our responsibility is heavy and the cost of our discipline is high for what is at stake. We are building the kingdom of God; we are shaping the future; we have a vision and the blueprints of God’s historical project of a new humanity. Proclaiming the gospel and bringing good news is not costly because we may suffer rejection; or because religion is out of touch with the reality of a secular age; or because we don’t want to surrender a lifestyle, or a career, or our simple routine of a life with little or no complications. Life will be and it is very hard! When all the things we value in this life come into focus with our calling, with bearing our responsibility, then they acquire meaning and then, only then, they get in line with our God given life purpose.
Sharing the good news is our lifestyle. When through our discipline we experience the Living God, we are equipped to live such lifestyle. The cost of such a lifestyle is high, as I said, because life, abundant life for others is at stake. But the discipline of our lifestyle is also costly because we are being constantly watched, sometimes judged, often criticized—perhaps with good reason, and many times ostracized, which brings along suffering. But who can take away from us the joy of standing before God face to face? Who can deny to us our experience of a relationship with the Living God? It is costly to be a witness, or a messenger; someone who reflect the character of Jesus Christ. But it is such a privilege that when we become aware of its greatness we want to respond like the prophet, “Here am I; send me!"
When we embark ourselves in the discipline of having a relationship with the Living God, the act of proclaiming the gospel becomes something natural. We can be articulate preachers who with eloquence and with nice words can explain the meaning of the good news. Or we can simply let people know that God is love and God loves them by… simply loving them. We can perhaps engage in acts of kindness toward our neighbor as an anticipation of the kingdom that is yet to come, but also as a confirmation of the good news that the kingdom of love, peace, and justice is already here and we are a clear sign. The gospel is a lifestyle; it is something that we flesh out; when we walk with God we only have to act naturally and our influence will make a difference.
There is no question, the responsibility of nurturing our lives is essential. There is so much at stake. We are those who bear the responsibility of being witnesses to Jesus Christ in Old Mystic and surroundings, following a rich Baptist tradition and a long history of sharing the gospel. We are aware of the fact that we need to grow; not so much because we want to be a larger church, or because we want to be viable, or because such occurrence will boost our pride and make us feel better. Growth is only a natural consequence of a life rooted in God through Jesus Christ and the joyful sharing of that experience with all those around us. And as we are called to this precious life of relationship with God and of purpose, we are also aware of the discipline we need. Let us diligently, consistently, and intentionally seek God, with all our heart and with all our mind, and let us flesh out that relationship in a way that witnesses to God’s amazing grace for all the world.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Summary
As Christians we are called to run the race of a life of sacrifice and discipline, where we live in a profound relationship with the Living God. Grounded on such a relationship, we can assume the responsibility of bringing the Good News of the Gospel to those around us; a Gospel love, peace, and justice for a needy world.
Sermon
I must confess that I am fond of sports metaphors and illustrations because they depict so well our human plight in seeking success in what we do, in reaching goals, and being effective in our endeavors. In sports we clearly see the contrast between agony and ecstasy; between victory and defeat; between joy and sadness. It is interesting to watch how much we can contemplate in sports the display of human passion, both good and sometimes not so good, sometimes pathological passion. Who does not warmly remember the 2004 ALCS series when the Boston Red Sox came from behind to beat the New York Yankees after being 0-3, with their backs against the wall? Tears came out of the eyes even of the most detached fans! And then they went to win their first world series in 86 years. What an amazing story of perseverance, discipline, and faith. I still remember the signs displayed by some fans: We believe!
Paul, the apostle, addressing the church in Corinth, knows that he is speaking to people who knew sports. Organized sports, as we know them, what we call the Olympics, began in the Greco-Roman world. And Corinth was the city where the famous Isthmian Games, only second in importance to the Athenian Olympic Games, used to take place. Now, the metaphors used in the passage we read today, though powerful and useful, they have their flaws. If we compare the race we are running as Christians with the race Paul uses as illustration, there are some crucial differences. He points to the fact that we receive a non-perishable wreath to crown our victory in our Christian life and that may be a good analogy. At the same time, in a sports race there is always one winner; only one takes the wreath of the victors; only one climbs to podium. The promised crown to the faithful in the race of life, however, is reserved for many. Having made such a clarification, let it be said that, I believe, Paul is trying to convey a powerful message to the church in Corinth: it is not so much about winning; it is not about defeating an enemy; it is about Running the Race We Need to Run.
But Paul uses a second metaphor, that one of a boxer that as such knows that serious, competitive boxing is more than throwing punches to his shadow. In both cases, whether a racer or a boxer, what it takes to win is discipline. He speaks of exercising control in all things, not running aimlessly, or beating the air. Paul is conveying the people of the church in Corinth a message that sounds appealing but at the same time cumbersome. Victory in life comes through discipline; through intentional, planned, organized, and carefully performed actions where we seek God and where we commit to fulfill our call to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. All of this may sound difficult. Someone may say, “I did not come here today to hear about sacrifice, or work, or tough discipline.” Some other may think that to define Christian life in terms of discipline will turn people away; or perhaps somebody else would dare to say that the idea of living a life of discipline takes away their freedom or the possibility of “enjoying life.” But that is not how I understand discipline. That is not, I believe, what the apostle signifies when he speaks of discipline. Discipline is the means to an end: to an experience of joy, of ecstasy, of fulfillment, of anticipation, of a taste of God’s Peace in Jesus Christ, a peace that will be one day complete and perfect. Discipline is not deprivation; it is neither an exaltation of suffering nor sacrifice for its own sake. It is a road to the Living God.
My friends, we are called to Run the Race We Need to Run. And as I have already said, that requires discipline. So let me share briefly some thoughts about this discipline. In first place, Christian discipline is a relationship. It means that we deliberately, intentionally, and consistently seek God’s face; it implies that we employ our best efforts to come to the “Throne of His Grace.” Discipline is a relationship where we diligently approach the Living God to experience His incomparable presence. Paul speaks of self-control in this passage but he also knows well how human he is, as he confessed, “for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do… “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul knew that only the relationship he had with God and Jesus Christ could empower, nurture, and sustain him in his journey. He said, “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—[and] was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.” What an experience of a relationship he had with the Living God!
A discipline of seeking to build a relationship with God is to practice what many call the spiritual disciplines. Those are spiritual practices that rooted in the Scriptures and in our Christian tradition we have consistently engaged—or not. We all know about the importance of prayer, or reflection on the Scriptures, or meditation; may be some have practiced fasting, or solitude; some may claim—rightfully so—that the experience God through service. Richard Foster in his famous book The Celebration of Discipline mentions inward, outward, and corporate spiritual disciplines and we can discern as we learn about them that each individual person will probably find their own way to practice some of them. It doesn’t matter how many, which ones, or how anyone would personally practice any spiritual discipline. What matters is that we honestly, humbly, and consistently look for intentional ways of engaging the Living God.
Sometimes we confuse spiritual disciplines with rituals. There is nothing wrong with rituals; they are ceremonies, acts, or customs that we perform that have the purpose of memory, of honor, and worship. But rituals are mere forms, methods, or procedures. We can do many things we believe that as rituals they are going to bring us closer to God and spiritual disciplines can be practiced through ritual. The risk, however, is that often times we fall into the pits of a ritualistic going through the motions.
Again, there is nothing wrong with rituals—after all I am promoting the use of systematic and organized spiritual disciplines. Whatever it is that we do, it must be done to encounter, engage, and establish a relationship with the Living God. It is in that relationship that our life is nurtured; it is that Person we need to know personally that the Scriptures are revealing; it is the true meaning of Emmanuel: God is with us, and we seek God, who is at the center of our lives. We are summoned by Paul to run a race and we can only do that with the discipline of a relationship with God.
Second, the discipline we need to Run the Race We Need to Run is costly. God’s grace is not cheap, it is costly. Jesus put it in very difficult terms, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Paul makes it look ugly: “I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.” But the high cost of the discipline of Christian life is not so much about “renouncing to the world,” or giving up the “worldly pleasures,” or living an ascetic life with no joy. We don’t have to become monks and be confined in a monastery spending the rest of our life in contemplation—even though a little contemplation can certainly be good for us. On the contrary, we have the responsibility of sharing the joy of our relationship with God. This is proclaiming the good news: sharing by word and by deed that relationship with the Living God that Christ makes possible with our neighbors, our loved ones, and with the whole world.
The weight of our responsibility is heavy and the cost of our discipline is high for what is at stake. We are building the kingdom of God; we are shaping the future; we have a vision and the blueprints of God’s historical project of a new humanity. Proclaiming the gospel and bringing good news is not costly because we may suffer rejection; or because religion is out of touch with the reality of a secular age; or because we don’t want to surrender a lifestyle, or a career, or our simple routine of a life with little or no complications. Life will be and it is very hard! When all the things we value in this life come into focus with our calling, with bearing our responsibility, then they acquire meaning and then, only then, they get in line with our God given life purpose.
Sharing the good news is our lifestyle. When through our discipline we experience the Living God, we are equipped to live such lifestyle. The cost of such a lifestyle is high, as I said, because life, abundant life for others is at stake. But the discipline of our lifestyle is also costly because we are being constantly watched, sometimes judged, often criticized—perhaps with good reason, and many times ostracized, which brings along suffering. But who can take away from us the joy of standing before God face to face? Who can deny to us our experience of a relationship with the Living God? It is costly to be a witness, or a messenger; someone who reflect the character of Jesus Christ. But it is such a privilege that when we become aware of its greatness we want to respond like the prophet, “Here am I; send me!"
When we embark ourselves in the discipline of having a relationship with the Living God, the act of proclaiming the gospel becomes something natural. We can be articulate preachers who with eloquence and with nice words can explain the meaning of the good news. Or we can simply let people know that God is love and God loves them by… simply loving them. We can perhaps engage in acts of kindness toward our neighbor as an anticipation of the kingdom that is yet to come, but also as a confirmation of the good news that the kingdom of love, peace, and justice is already here and we are a clear sign. The gospel is a lifestyle; it is something that we flesh out; when we walk with God we only have to act naturally and our influence will make a difference.
There is no question, the responsibility of nurturing our lives is essential. There is so much at stake. We are those who bear the responsibility of being witnesses to Jesus Christ in Old Mystic and surroundings, following a rich Baptist tradition and a long history of sharing the gospel. We are aware of the fact that we need to grow; not so much because we want to be a larger church, or because we want to be viable, or because such occurrence will boost our pride and make us feel better. Growth is only a natural consequence of a life rooted in God through Jesus Christ and the joyful sharing of that experience with all those around us. And as we are called to this precious life of relationship with God and of purpose, we are also aware of the discipline we need. Let us diligently, consistently, and intentionally seek God, with all our heart and with all our mind, and let us flesh out that relationship in a way that witnesses to God’s amazing grace for all the world.
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