On trust, temptations, liturgies, and the Gospel!

     I am mindful that this is both the First Sunday Lent and Outreach Sunday, and so I will be more Homily than sermon focused.  That is not to say that the written sermon, when finally published, may not be normal length after feedback from those of us gathered here today.  Speaking of which, I am doubly glad to see y’all here.  First, I am glad your boats all worked after a season of idleness.  We laugh a bit, but many of you know the water is ridiculously high around here after all that rain the last couple days.  Keep the folks dealing with flooding in your prayers.  The other reason, of course, is the start of daylight savings.  I know how hard it is to get up today and make it to church on time.  So, thank you for taking your bounden duty and service seriously!

     If I was a homily namer and marketer, I’d probably call today typological and trusting.  The t-words keep it alliterative and point us to the theme behind our readings.  But the types and shadows serve another purpose.  They point us to the reasons of why we should be in the business of trusting God, even when the world around us seems to be falling apart or going to hell in a handbasket or whatever over metaphorical phrase we like to use.

     Our OT reading today takes place during Moses’ last day with the people of Israel.  Some will say it was his last day on earth, but that is just guessing.  Moses is forbidden by God from leading Israel into the Promised Land because of his sin, his failure to trust God.  Before he exits the stage we call life, though, Moses gives a number of instructive and exhortative speeches.  This one is about feast of the First Fruits.  Y’all can read it well enough, but it was a significant event in the life of Israel.  Before the battles that will be fought and the division of the Land, Israel is being instructed by their leader of their need to remember that it is God who has done all this for them.  In fact, God’s grace is so prevalent that they are the inheritors of promises not made to them, but rather their spiritual ancestors, by the Lord.

     At the first harvest, faithful Hebrews were required to bring a tenth of their offering to the priests in the camp, and later to the Temple.  There, the ritual described here was to take place.  The one offering the tithe to God  declared publicly their relationship to Abraham and Jacob, their cultural identity with being on the margins and later enslaved, their growth and oppression, their cry to the Lord, His faithfulness, and His deliverance.  Every time one of the people brought their feast of first fruits to the priests, this liturgy was to be enacted.  Every Hebrew, or later so-called God-fearers, was called by God to remind themselves that this harvest, this bounty, was made possible only through the saving grace of God.  Nothing the individual member of Israel did had caused this abundance to occur.

     Then, of course, the first fruit tithe was to be shared with the Levites, who had no inheritance apart from what their brothers and sisters, cousins in reality, shared with them, and with the resident aliens, those who lived among them but had no inheritance.  Can you imagine the display?  It would make our Thanksgiving celebrations look pitiful by comparison as tithe after tithe was presented.  Spiritually, the lessons would be a reminder of the need to trust God and of the abundant blessings which He bestows upon those who do, in fact, trust Him.  Plus, there would be a forced identification with those on the margins in their own society.  Given the responses by Netenyahu the last couple days, one wonders if he skips this part of the torah in his studies.

     All of that liturgy was to be done to remind people that Yahweh was trustworthy.  When old man Abraham had a choice, trusting God to give him and Sarah an heir, Abraham eventually trusted.  When Abraham was called by God to sacrifice the literal offspring of that promise, Abraham was willing to trust God.  Similarly, though things seemed their bleakest when the people of Israel were enslaved, God was faithful.  Israel did not fight their way out.  God fought their way out.  Better still, as inheritors of the liturgy described by Moses, the people would live on the side of possession of the Land.  For them to make their offerings of fruit they did not sow and plantings they did not plant, their ancestors had to defeat all the “ites” who possessed their inheritance.

     We are Episcopalians; we are liturgical.  We, of all modern Christians, should understand what’s happening in these passages.  Our work, our liturgy, is identical to that of what Moses describes in the book of Deuteronomy.  It is, to use my fancy t-word from the pretend title, typological of what we do when we gather in worship, which itself is typological of what is occurring the eternal presence of our spiritual ancestors with God!  We remind ourselves that God bound Himself to Abraham because of Abraham’s faith.  We remind ourselves that God’s fulfillment, ultimate fulfilment of His oath to Abraham, is the coming and work of Jesus of Nazareth.  We remind ourselves that we are oppressed.  Oh, I know that seems a weird thing to say in the blessed land of Brentwood in the blessed land of the United States.  Most in the world would love our oppression, but we know we are oppressed by the consequences of our sins.  It may not be slavery like Israel experienced under Egypt, but it is just as oppressive.  Some of us suffer from disease.  Some of us here may suffer from material privation, which seems even more burdensome when we remind ourselves that most of us are well blessed materially.  Some of us are oppressed because of failed or broken relationships.  We are oppressed, in short, by sin.

     Oh, I understand it is not a way that we think outside of Lent.  When I talk enslavement, some of you question whether people really are enslaved.  I mean, there are no chains, no collars, no real bindings.  But the threat of death is all too real.  Similarly, what does it mean to be oppressed by sin.  The short answer, of course, is that sin binds us in ways we do not spend much time contemplating.  Our ultimate bind, our ultimate chain is death.  Know anybody who is excited to face death?  Unless they are in great pain or mentally ill, probably not.  Most of us fear it, or at least do our best to avoid it.  Heck, I am a parish priest in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, to use the set apart language of ordination.  As many of you remark, I really seem to believe the things I preach.  I am certain that just as God raised Jesus on that glorious Easter morning, He will raise me after my death.  Yet, y’all will never catch me playing hopscotch on I-65!

     And so, like our spiritual ancestors, we gather in liturgy to remind ourselves that we are not citizens of this country or this world.  Our citizenship is of the place of our Father in heaven.  We remind ourselves that we, too, are small in number.  We remind ourselves that we are oppressed by our sins and the sins of others.  We cry to the Lord for deliverance.  And we remind ourselves that, just as He has delivered His sons and daughters countless times in the past, so will He deliver us in His good time.

     Doubters and cynics among us are probably raising the “But you really don’t know.”  And, to an extent, they have a point.  Do we know?  Of course not.  It is, after all, faith.  They question that doubters and cynics deal with really, though, is the question of trust.  How can you or I trust that what we read is true?  How can you or I claim to be reasonable and rational and yet believe something so outside the bounds of modern knowledge is true?  How can you and I and even them believe something and not later be found to be fools?  I see a couple nods.

     Again, I am trying to be brief, and I gather there can be lots and lots of unpacking this week in conversations, but think back to the Garden.  What was the sin?  Upon what did Satan prey when convincing Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?  I heard it.  Say it louder.  Trust!  That’s right.  How do you know God can be trusted?  Both doubted, and our relationship with God was terribly distorted.

     Look to our Gospel reading today.  Does Jesus know His purpose?  Yes.  Does Satan know His purpose?  Yes.  So what is the temptation really about?  Trust.  Who has been leading Jesus in the wilderness without food?  God.  Who has promised Jesus authority and glory if He walks the path in obedience to which He has been called?  Jesus.  Who has been asked to place all His trust in the Father, undoing the sin of Adam and Eve so long ago?  Jesus.  All these temptations, described by most commentators as messianic, are questions of trust for Jesus.

     I know we spend a great deal of time talking about Jesus’ divinity, especially during the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, but now we have switched seasons.  Now, it is appropriate to change our focus a bit.  I am glad that Jesus was God incarnate, but I am equally as glad that He was and is fully human.  How much more relatable does His humanity seem to us?  At Christmas, I reminded us of birth stories, and it caused a bit of buzz as folks around here shared their own.  Similarly, look at the temptations face by Jesus.  How much more should we be comforted by the fact that our judge understands the pulls and strains we face!  If you fasted Wednesday, how easy was it?  Maybe you failed.  Maybe it was not as easy as you thought.  The One who stands in judgment of you, though, knows what it is like. 

     Look at the offer of power and authority.  Who does not crave those things and desires to avoid death at all cost?  Satan is offering Jesus an opportunity to avoid the pain and suffering of the Cross.  Can you imagine THAT temptation?  Yet Jesus trusts the Father’s plan and walks the path He agreed to walk.  Make no mistake, He will be hurt.  Those He comes to save will betray Him, mock Him, and shout “Crucify Him!”  Those for whom He came will, at the very end, mock His death for their sakes, and still He wills Himself to obey the Father even to death.  Can you imagine the physical, emotional, and spiritual toll?  And He sits in judgment of us.  That’s why we remind ourselves in the comfortable words that He died for everyone who would call Him Lord.

     Even the temptation to trust God to send the angels to prevent His death is instructive for us.  As much as you and I like to avoid pain, how much more do we work to avoid serious pain and death?  God, of course, has promised that He will command angels to protect and bear His Son.  In essence, Satan is asking Jesus How do You know You really are the Son and that He really loves You?  Messianic temptations, indeed.  Jesus has to be so secure in His identity that He trusts unfailingly in His Father.  He is willing to face the doubt of Satan and of those who stand at the foot of the Cross saying “If You are the Son of God, come down” knowing that, if He proves to us who He is, He becomes unable to save us!  If He saves Himself, we are condemned.  Ah, the weight of glory seems a bit more oppressive now than you first thought, does it not?

     My guess, of course, is that those among us who are serious about their sins understand the oppressive weight of glory.  Oh, our failures in light of temptation does not damn all of creation like Christ’s failures would in light of His.  But our failures, our sins, do impact others.  We talked a few moments ago about how we are bound by our sins and the consequences of the sins of others.  Sometimes the oppression is more obvious than at other times, but we know their weight.  How many of us have experienced or been impacted by broken relationships?  Millennials seem to live under it as their parents and grandparents have worked through the era of no fault divorce only to prove to them it’s better not to marry in the first place.  How many of us were so touched by material privation that we forget the lesson imparted by the liturgy of the First Fruits, that we are merely stewards of God with respect to our possessions?  How many of us have areas where we have convinced ourselves that God has ceded us authority, much like He did Bruce in a few blocks around Buffalo?  How many of us have thorns like Paul, where God does not pull the thorn out or get the monkey off our backs with respect to addictions, only to find ourselves judging ourselves or others for that seeming lack of grace?  All of us have those dark, shadowy areas where we think God is incapable, or we are more capable, of exercising power and discernment.

     Where is the Gospel in all this?  In a sense, it is in the words of Paul to the Romans.  If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  Salvation, grafting ourselves into the people of God, is really mercifully simple.  There’s no litmus test to be passed.  There is no final exam, apart from this confession and belief in life.  Peter’s not going to be standing there waiting on us with a blue book and choice between essay or multiple choice quizzes.  Peter will not be there with a clipboard of our sins saying “Brian, you were tempted by this sin x times too many.  Sorry, there’s no room for you here.”  What saves us is that God’s Anointed, Jesus of Nazareth, trusted the Father.  Even though we fail and failed, still Jesus trusted.  And because of that trust, and our faith in Jesus, you and I get the benefits of His passion and Resurrection.  Wait, that sounds familiar, almost like a part of our liturgy, which points us to God and His worthiness. . . .

     The Gospel is, of course, summed up by St. Paul in the letter to the Romans today.  But it is present in the liturgy of the First Fruits, in Psalm 91, and even in the wilderness of temptation.  In fact, it is even present in our own liturgy, but more noticeable in the liturgy of Lent.  We remind ourselves each and every time we gather that God alone is worthy to be trusted and that Jesus alone truly trusted and that, one glorious day in the future, we will be recreated with new minds, new bodies, and new everythings that help veil us from the love of our Father in heaven and allow us to see Him clearly, hear Him clearly, and understand Him truly.

     Of course, like Abraham our earthly father, we are still wandering Arameans.  We will leave this service and head back out into our own wildernesses to do the work He has given us to do and to resist the temptations of the world and of its current ruler.  What better way to prepare us than to remind us, both in study and worship, of the trustworthiness of God, and of the source of strength and hope that will help get us through our own temptations.  Better still, when next we gather, be it Wednesday or Sunday or some other day, how much more adoring might we be knowing that the One to whom we pray for forgiveness, has walked a path not dissimilar to our own.  To use the language of our liturgy, this season: To Christ our Lord, who loves us, and washed us in His own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve His God and Father, to Him be glory in the Church evermore.  Through Him let us offer continually the sacrifice of praise, which is our bounden duty and service, and with faith in Him, come boldly before the throne of grace.

Amen!

Brian†

The Last Sunday of Epiphany and Transfigurations . . .

     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†