I
know. I am risking a lot by coming out
of the pulpit and standing among you.
For those of you who are new to us and have complained about me
preaching down at you, you have inserted yourself into a pastoral dilemma. I prefer preaching down here. I think such sermons are livelier, at least in
my own mind. I feel like the pulpit ones
are more lectures, or at least run that risk.
But now that there’s enough voices on both sides, I think I will be
splitting my time, or at least the location from where I preach my sermons and
homilies.
To the
extent that some Adventers have been remarking that my sermons are way better
than they used to be, I would have to agree.
When I arrived, I could exegete a text fine. Part of good preaching, though, revolves
around the preacher’s ability to point how the text speaks to us in our current
lives. I guess the colloquial way to say
it would to say it is my job to point out to you where God is at work in the
world around you. Now, it’s one thing to
say that God cares about this or that or something else and that He is
redeeming this or that or another thing, but it is entirely different to see it
with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears. That’s what’s really happening around
here. As you all have come to know me
these last four years and I have come to know you, you are doing a better job
of sharing your lives. And it’s in your
lives that God is active. All I am doing
is tapping into that, oooh, dare we say Epiphany? What do I mean?
This week,
I had several sermons bouncing around in my head. It is Transfiguration Sunday, so all the
readings are rather well known. My
problem was the sermon illustration part.
Who among us will be going up a mountaintop with Jesus this week? Who among us understands Paul’s use of
veils? Who among us glow with the glory
of God and so has to hide our faces from our friends? I see the nods. You understand this issue. I had good lectures or papers, but they were
going to be lousy sermons. Until last
night. I chuckled as I sat talking with
three homeless men because God was finally answering my prayers for a good
illustration or two to help me bring the Transfiguration alive in your world.
Our story
from Exodus comes from a famous story.
Most of us picture Charleton Heston coming down the mountain and
throwing the tablets at those who want to worship the molten calf and sin
against God. A few demented folks
picture Mel Brooks with fifteen commands dropping one of his stone tablets and
switching to ten commandments.
What? Y’all haven’t figured out I
have a weird sense of humor yet, or that I know a few of you are kindred souls?
The story
is so well know we forget the meaning and the consequences. God sends Moses to free His people. After Yahweh defeats all the Egyptian gods in
their strongholds, Pharaoh throws the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses leads them to the sea, where they are
corned by Pharaoh’s chariots. God parts
the sea, allows Israel to go through the water on their left and on their
right, and then closes the dry path, destroying Pharaoh’s chariots. Israel then proceeds to Mount Sinai, where
they camp to be given the torah – what it look like to live in communion with
the holy, righteous, just, loving, God of their ancestors. The people think that God takes too long
giving Moses His instructions, and so the Israelites commit idolatry and some
other notable sins. The famous
depictions in the movies make us think it was just the Ten Commandments being
brought down the mountain, but way more information was being conveyed to Moses
by God. All the torah was being
given. Plus, God was sharing the precise
instructions regarding the Tabernacle.
One of
God’s promises to His people was that He would dwell among them. They would be His people, and He would be
their God. I see the nods. Israel had the opportunity to experience the
fulfillment of that promises. Great
attention was paid to that dwelling where God would be. In fact, Moses will receive more instructions
regarding the Tabernacle after the interlude of sin and destruction of the
tablets. So, here’s Israel. They’ve been delivered from bondage and from
the threat of Pharaoh’s army by the hand of God. They have fought no battles themselves. There have been no quirky tricks by their
generals. They have come to Sinai to
begin to prepare to be the inheritors of the Covenant that God made with
Abraham and Sarah. And what do they
do? That’s right. They reject God.
If you
were God, how would you respond?
Lightning bolt? Sure. Earthquake?
You just watch the movies.
Tornado? Sure. I think most of us would have understood if
God had chosen to destroy them. They were,
at best, ungrateful. They certainly were
unworthy of benefitting from such a magnanimous promise, right?
Israel,
though, should remind us of ourselves.
We are, at our best, ungrateful and at our worst, unworthy, right? You and I live on this side of the Empty
Tomb. We see the full revelation of God
and the bulk of the Covenant that He made with Abraham and Sarah so long ago,
yet how often do we resemble the Israelites?
How often do we think God is insufficient for our problems? How many of us think God is restricted from
acting in our lives? How many of us
think we are beneath God’s notice? Yes,
I had lots of interesting discussions about the truth of the Resurrection this
week. I recognize there are some among
us who believe, but I recognize that there are some among us who need help with
their unbelief. We live on this side of
the Empty Tomb, but we act as if that tomb still had His body. And the world sees how we act, how we speak.
How does
God respond to the sin of Israel? Yes,
He kills a number of them in the aftermath.
But what else happens? Who will
lead the people now? The angel of the
Lord. The consequence of Israel’s sin is
that God will no longer dwell among them.
He will send His angel to lead them, and from time to time He will
descend to speak with Moses in their midst, but He will not dwell among
them. The true sad consequence of all
this is, seemingly, the loss of God being in the midst of them.
Now,
remember when we were talking of lightning bolts and tornados and earthquakes
as our way of handling the people?
Thankfully, God is far more merciful than we. The angel will lead them, but who will
mediate between them and God? That’s
right! Moses. God will use a human being to be His
mouthpiece. In this way, of course,
Moses is a pre-figure of the fully divine and fully human Jesus of
Nazareth. Moses is a type and shadow of
the Mediator who is to come. Moses will
be their instructor. Moses will be their
judge. Moses will be their prophet. Moses will be their leader. For now.
But, like the people whom he serves, Moses will sin against God. Like the people whom he leads, Moses will not
trust God and His instructions entirely.
That true truster, that One who gets it right will be Jesus.
Moses has
another problem, though. He has been in
the presence of God for so long that he reflects the glory of God. When Moses comes down this time, his face
glows. It rightly terrifies the
people. So, what do they do? They ask Moses to veil his face. Think of how sad this really is. God was going to dwell among them. They were all going to glow with the glory of
God. They were going to get to be the
nation of priests and a light until the world in fulfilment of God’s promise to
Moses. Now, they ask God’s mouthpiece,
God’s chosen mediator, to cover that same glory. Talk about a real tragedy.
There are
two lessons I want you to take away from our story today. First, one cannot truly encounter God and not
be changed. Not many of us have those same
kind of real or mystical experiences that result in a Pauline conversion or a
need to veil ourselves, but we are all changed in our encounters. As I talked a few weeks ago, that awe in our
encounters with God causes us to live out our lives for the benefits of
others—I know the mental health folks said it in a fancier way, but that really
is what happens. We recognize our
humanity. We recognize our impotence. We recognize the mortality of others and
God’s love of them, and we begin to live the life to which He calls us. We serve others not because He makes us, but
because we want to thank Him for what He has done for us in Christ. And we know this thanksgiving is far more
than worship. Rather, we understand that
worship is feeding the hungry in His name, clothing the poor in His name,
visiting the sick in His name, being the shoulder to cry on in His name, being
the peacemaker in His name and so on. We
offer the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, everything! We recognize that there is no secular square
inch of the universe, and no second of our lives, outside His purview. And we offer our lives gladly. Lovingly.
Where it
gets fun, of course, is that you and I, by virtue of our baptism, you and I
inherit part of Christ’s work in the world.
Make no mistake, Christ is the Mediator with a capital M, but you and I,
like Moses and all those who came before, are the mediators, with a small m, of
God’s grace in the world around us. We
gather in worship here to be prepared, taught, encouraged and whatever else we
need to be His herald out there. When we
pray that we receive the benefits of His passion, this is one of those
benefits. We are asking God to use us as
His mouthpiece, His mediator, His herald and whatever else He might need to
convey His love and His mercy to the world around us!
All that
leads me back to last night. I was
sitting with three homeless gentlemen at Room at the Inn. They did not yet know who I was. One of the guys said he wanted to thank us
for welcoming them into our church. I
told him, of course, he was welcome. He
reiterated, rather forcefully, that he meant it, that they wanted to thank us
for welcoming them in. Now, that’s when
my pastor head started ringing, so I asked if churches really invited them in
in unwelcoming ways. “Heck yeah! All the time.” I remarked I thought that strange. For all our denominational fights in the
world around us, I seldom hear Christians remarking they should not feed the
hungry or clothe the poor. “You’d think
so, right? I mean, not many of us chose
this for our lives, right? It sort of
just happened. Many of us may have made
bad decisions, but usually it was addiction or not being right in the head that
caused us to make stupid decisions. Know
what I mean?” The other two guys agreed
with his evaluation.
So, I
asked how they could tell how some churches wanted them and others did
not. “All y’all seem glad we are
here. That’s the first tip. The guy who picked us up was excited to be
driving us and glad to have a full load.
Then, we walk in the door and some lady is welcoming us, telling us to
grab a spot, get some clothes, help ourselves to toiletries, where the bathroom
is, where the food is, and offering us a drink.
Now, look around. We’ve all
started eating, and folks are sitting with us chatting. Heck, you’re not even eating and you are just
sitting here listening to me go on about churches that don’t want us. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers, right? Who cares if we are wanted as long as we get
our food and a warm place to stay and a shower?
Which reminds me, she apologized y’all don’t have showers? Who does that? Nobody apologizes to us! She’s acting like she kinda failed us in some
way.”
I should
add that the other two at the table were echoing his statements and filling in
some other details that had stuck in their heads.
I knew
quickly this was God steering me to this sermon. We are changed by our encounters with God,
but I wanted to press him to see if God really was in the midst of this. So I asked if he had any ideas why some
churches are unwelcoming and others are not.
“I have a
theory. It’s just my theory. But I think some churches make people
volunteer. They draft them and make
people do the stuff. My guess is here there’s
no draft.” The other two were certain
about his judgment.
I, of
course, thanked God for the great sermon illustration for the Transfiguration
Sunday and told him I thought he may be on to something. Everything done for them at Advent was by
people who wanted to do it. There’s a
lady who washes all the bedding every month because she wants to. There’s a lady who bakes all the bread every
month because she wants to. The driver
goes and gets them and returns them because he wants to. Folks choose a theme and decorate because
they want to make them feel like they are invited to a feast that points to a
way better Party. As I shared the
details of the planning and of the gathering of clothes and toiletries, and the
want to, the men all shook their heads in agreement. Each also blurted at various points, unless
they were going on about bread or something else they really appreciated that
they “could just tell.”
Brothers
and sisters, those in your lives “can just tell” if you have encountered the
God of Abraham & Sarah, of Isaac and Rachel, of Jacob & Rebecca, of
Moses, of Hannah, of Mary Magdalene, of Paul, of Peter, and of all their
favorite heroes. Even if they do not
know the stories, they know. We are, to use
different language, out of step with the world.
Where others look down or divide, we lift up and bring together. Where others seek to self-aggrandize, we
humble ourselves or deflect praise.
Where others seek to settle for good enough, we disciples of Jesus
remember that God gave His best. And
they know, and see, and hear, and feel.
And many, some even at a level they cannot understand, want that same
change, that same feeling of being loved, that same certainty that God will
redeem them and all their circumstances.
In some
ways, my brother and sisters, this was the perfect ending to our season of
Epiphany. My job has been to point out
to you where God’s grace and love has been manifest in the world around us and
in our lives. Now, we are preparing for
that big switch, where we remind ourselves that, like Israel, we need God’s
covenantal faithfulness, that we need His Savior, because we will fail if left
to our own desires and devices. Like
Israel before us, we will gladly and quickly turn to idolatry absent God’s
covenantal love and grace toward us. But
like Moses and all those who have communed intimately with God, we are changed,
we are transfigured, in that relationship with Him. We may not glow as did Moses. We may not even see the change in ourselves
because it is more a process we call salvation than a single event, but make no
mistake, others see His glory in us.
When we trust Him with the circumstances of our lives, others
notice. And when we give Him thanks and
praise for His faithfulness to us, they take note.
On
Wednesday, I will call us all to a Holy Lent.
On Wednesday I will remind us all of our mortal, sinful nature, and I
will call upon us each to enter into a season of reflection and holy
evaluation. Before we get there, though,
I have one other job for us all. Perhaps
it is a head start on Lent, but maybe it is a final reflection on Epiphany. Where else is God looking to meet you? Where else in your life is God asking you to
trust in His redeeming power and mercy?
Where else in your life is God asking you to allow Him to manifest His
glory in the world around you? Work? School?
The tennis club? Your favorite
restaurant? In the life of a neighbor? In your pursuit for money, or power, or glory? Where do you, like those in the story from
Ancient Israel today, insist on separating your life from Him?
I am here
to remind each one of us today, that we are the only ones hurt by such
idolatry. In our pursuits of whatever
things or relationships or goals we pursue apart from Him, we consign ourselves
to a life full of consequences of rejected grace, or rejected mercy, or
rejected love. When we insist on our own
way, and exclude Him from a part of our lives, it is we who are made poorer,
who are made less than what He called us to be, who become less human than He
intended. Why not, like those who saw
Moses and repented, give Him what is rightfully His anyway? He wants nothing more than for you to be that
son or daughter in whom He is well pleased, but that first step, that step of
trust and repentance, is ours. Yes, it
can be scary. Yes, it can make us seem
weird. But consider the sight of those
three homeless men last night. They saw in Adventers God’s grace in their
lives. They saw in Adventers thankfulness and joy. They saw, in its most shadowy and hazy form
possible, that for which God had created them, and they were awed and thankful not
just for the service, but for the reminder.
My brothers and sisters, God promises that one day, one glorious day,
all will see us as He sees us in His Son our Lord Jesus. All will know our choices to serve Him were
the right and wise choices. And all will
know that we have inherited all that He promised His children in this and every
age, not just for a few minutes on a Saturday night, but for all eternity! Why not give them, and yourself, a sneak peak
now? Why not give over to Him all those
areas you think outside His wisdom and power and see what He wants you to see!
In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
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