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| Sermon Sampler |
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"What Are You Looking For?"
John 1:29-42
In our reading this morning from the Gospel of John, we see that as Jesus is baptized, John declares, "Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world," and then John begins right away to call those who had been his followers, to go and follow Jesus. They in turn, bring others and so forth. That kind of evangelism, is, after all, what our faith is all about- making disciples of the nations. But this emphasis on evangelism begs and important question as well, perhaps the most important question we as would-be disciples can ask: "why?" Or as Jesus puts it to Andrew and Simon Peter, "What are you looking for?" What are we looking for?
If our faith really is, as Kiekegaard said, a "decision," then we have to ask ourselves, "a decision for what?" What is this path we are called to? Where does it lead? What are we looking for? It's a question that often crosses my mind as I look out at the empty pews in our once full sanctuary, or as I wonder about all the evil and craziness in the world- like the terrible shooting that took place in Tucson this past weekend. The media, of course, full of opinions and pontifications, along with the usual predictions that everything will change or that nothing will change. I even had a pollster call me to ask what I thought about it all. I didn't really know what to answer him because I don't really know what I think. I know what I feel- I'm angry. I'm angry that innocent people, especially children, get murdered by men with guns in supermarket parking lots. I am angry that an elected official meeting with her constituents- a good thing it seems to me- is shot down by a disturbed man who bought his ammunition at the local Wal Mart. I'm angry that we are such a violent culture and I'm sad as well. Sad that our public speech has become so violent and hateful that even if it didn't cause this young man to do what he did, we still cannot seem to grant one another the same kind of respect we all want for ourselves. And, I'm disappointed that for all our talk about moral values and faith, we seem to have such a hard time treating or even thinking about each other as well-intentioned and decent human beings- that we have an entire industry of pundits who mkae their living fanning or distrust and dislikeof one another rather than encouraging us to reason together. I am angry at God as well, for creating this young man and so many like him- terrorists who in their dark and troubled minds somehow have come to believe that by destroying what only God can create, that they have somehow done something necessary and right. And because the taking of a human life, even in the most noble of causes is never right, never okay; that at best it is a lesser evil, I am disappointed that even we who claim the faith of Jesus Christ seem to have forgotten that.
But beyond what any of us feels, is the much more important question of what then shall we do? How are we to live in the face of the evil that is so much a part of our world every day? We have seen all kinds of responses to this particular event from the self-serving to the noble- from thos which satsify our all too human yearning after vengeance and retribution to those, much more difficult, which call us to be witnesses to the plank in our own eyes rather than the moat in our brothers'. The ones that demand of us that we do the hard work required to be resurrection people, to take a personal moral inventory, regardless of what the sins of others are,so that we may seize this opportunity to answer the call of the Baptist to repentance- a call even the sinless One chose to answer- not because he had to, but so that he could be one with his people, so that we could understand that we must, all of us do and be better is we are to realize salvation for us all- that it is not enough to assure ourselves that we had nothing to do with this or any other tragedy because our sisters and brothers are suffering and we need to be the answer to that suffering, the way Christ was for us when we offered himself to the waters of baptism in solidarity with his sinful, suffering children and when he gave himself to and for them on the cross.
My sisters and brothers, things cannot change unless we are willing to change. The tragedy in Tucson was the result of an act of an individual, but no man is an island and every sin against God and God's creation is a call to all of us to look deeply and fearlessly at ourselves, to seek God's will for us in the assurance of our faith that with God, such evil is not inevitable or necessary and that if we will resolve to do what we do, to say what we say, differently, that though our actions may not have caused or contributed to this, we can look at them in the light of what we believe and change can happen. That we can take responsibility for what we contribute to the fear, the divisiveness, the violence, if not on the world stage, then in our own hearts, with our words- and that we can repent of those things, act and think and do better.
We can change our gun laws, we can stop paying attention to the hate mongers who infect our airwaves and that is all to the good, but none of those things will make a real difference unless we as a people can find the courage to repent of our evil ways and turn to what we say we believe- especially those of us who claim the Christian faith because that is what our faith requires of us- to live what we say we believe every day in everything that we do. That is what our faith calls us to, to affirm the promise made at our baptism to let go of everything else- our privileges, our perogatives our property, our rights and especially our wills in favor of the new life and the new reality that is promised to us through Jesus Christ.
And that is what Jesus is calling us to today, my sisters and brothers, no less than that. Like Andrew and Simon Peter in our gospel reading this morning, to embrace a new and better way of being, a radically new way of living in which we are called to let go of any and all allegiances that blind us to bothe rthe humanity and imae of Christ that is every one of our sisters and brothers- to be the ones who put the lie to the twisted visions of deranged minds and hate-choked minds that believe their darkness can somehow blot out the light of God's divine love if they create enough mayhem, kill enough innocent people, rain enough death on their fellow human beings. No one can know if anyone could have prevented what happened this past week and despit ethe overheated rhetoric to the contrary, no one will ever knowwhat combination of demonic forces sent this sick young man out on his mission of death. But the gospel promises us, my sisters and brothers, that this evil is not the last word. It promises us that by our willingness to let go of our own anger, and our own fear, however justified, as well as our own prejudices and even our precious points of view, (however thoughtful) in favor of our willingness to follow our Savior, we can be made new- as individuals and as a society, and not just in the next world, but right here and now.
That, after all, is what salvation through the incarnation of God as the man of Nazareth is all about- the divine power of God's love as the Holy Spirit, empowering us through our baptism as it did when Jesus was baptized by John to embark on the salvation of his creation. Thats what discipleship is all about- about giving ourselves to Christ as his people, recognizing our Messiah and then getting up off our collective duff and following him- doing what has to be done to make that salvation happen. That is what Rev. King did as he led his people up against police dogs and water cannons, people who were trained to turn the other cheek even as they were being clubbed by night sticks and set upon by angry mobs. Its what Nelson Mandela did when he determined not only to forgive, but to include in his government many of the same people who were responsible for locking him in a cell for 27 years- when he set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to allow them to confess their sins againnst their fellow citizens and then to be welcomed back into the life of their nation- not perfect by any means- no human undertaking is, and yet testimonies to what can be when Christians give themselves up to the miracle of their baptism and to the biblical vision of what and who we can be as children of God- when we answer the question "what are you looking for" with "We are looking for thee..."
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"Make it Count"
Matthew 24:36-44 |
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Have any of you seen the commercial on TV where the family is in the kitchen and the world suddenly turns upside down? Everything is flying around the room as the Dad grabs a duffle sack out from under the sink and pulls Mom and the kids out the door? Then the voice over says something like, "Before disaster strikes... get a kit... make a plan..."
Well, I don't have a kit...not because I don't think it's a good idea, but because I don't know what I'm supposed to put in it. And frankly, not only do I not have a plan, I don't have a clue. Think about it with me for a moment: a level 4 hurricane hits Long Island... or a dirty bomb goes off spreading radiation- what should I have in the kit? A submarine? A helicopter? A couple of haz mat suits? Or how about some duct tape and cellophane? C'mon- an escape plan? From Long Island? It took me an hour and a half to get to Roosevelt Field the other day and that's on a weekday afternoon without a cloud in the sky. The truth is, if I'm going to be incinerated or swept away in storm, I'd rather be sitting in my living room when that happens then be stuck in traffic on the Southern State or the LIE.
I think a lot of us tend to feel that way about these apocalyptic texts in the bible as well; these "you better watch out, you better not cry, you better repent or your gonna die" fire and brimstone passages. Let's face it, we either heard so much of it growing up that it doesn't make a dent anymore, or we associate it with those TV preachers in western cut suits, their big-haired wives and their sermons about Armageddon when the righteous few will be raptured up into eternal bliss while everybody else finally gets theirs. A very tempting proposition perhaps, especially given the state of the world these days, but not easy to reconcile with the God we worship- the Prince of Peace who came that all might have life and have it abundantly.
Still, all we have to do is look at today's text to see what certainly seems to be another side to the gospel- a message that doesn't seem to go with the image of a loving God who claims in John to have sent his Son not to condemn, but to save the world- who said that he "came that you might have life and have it abundantly." And it's a bit hard to swallow, especially this time of year, when we are all exhausted from shopping, burdened with guilt either because we're too much involved in Christmas as an orgy of consumption or because we're trying to resist it without breaking any little hearts. All this while doing all the things we have to do to earn our daily bread and maybe even trying to do some seasonal good as well: maybe writing some checks to worthy causes that we can't really afford to write or vounteering some time we don't really have and expecting... or at least hoping... that when we come to church we'll get a little comfort, a little uplift. But what do we get? Bad Santa come to rain on the Christmas parade- apocalyptic texts of fire and brimstone- one will be taken, one left behind, cue the evil laugh!
But that isn't the God we worship and it's not the message of our faith or our gospel reading this morning either- as harsh as it may at first seem. Our God is not some nihilistic meglo-maniac waiting for just the right time to blast the unbelievers into smithereens or to visit retribution upon the earth. Ours is a loving God who gave himself up to death that all of his children might have redemption, the life and love, in all its fullness, that is his will for us. And Christ's warning for us this morning is not about whether he will save us or leave us, it's about OUR choices. It's a plea for us to live and live fully, to make every moment count- to make our lives a prayer of joy, a font of blessing. It's about what we are doing with this incredible gift, this life that our God has given us- about the reality of our lives as fragile, fleeting and above all, uncertain and about what we can do in the face of that reality. As we go through our days, days whose number we cannot know, Jesus is calling us to live them to the fullest, right now- to claim the abundant life.
"Keep awake therefore," he says, "for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." Don't waste what you have been given in pursuit of that which cannot satisfy. Don't throw your life and your joy away on resentment, self-righteous rage or fear. Don't miss an opportunity for grace, an opportunity to love, an opportunity to be the human being that God made you to be. Don't waste you time on pursuits that diminish you, that make you less than you are, that do not bring honor to God and to the image of God that is each and every one of his children. You do not when the time will come- but come it will because as God ordained a beginning of all things, he has also ordained an ending when this creation shall pass and a new one will take its place.
In our reading this morning Jesus is not offering us a threat or an admonishment to "be good or else," he is reminding us that just as there is a beginning to all things, there is an ending and that both of these are in the hands of God and God alone. Just as we could not appoint the hour of our birth any more than we could dictate the beginning of time itself, the end of all things for each of us and all of us is likewise beyond our control. And, my sisters and brothers, that is not a curse, its a blessing- an opportunity given to us that we might concentrate on the "how" in stead of the "how long" of our living...a chance to focus on making every moment count by being grateful for it- grateful for every morning we wake up to enjoy another day of life, another opportunity to love and live with all of our heart and soul and strength... to look around at our fellow human beings, our sisters and brothers of every stripe and recognize that they too are gifts from God made all the more precious for their fragility- all the more beautiful for the brief time that they will be with us sharing the blessings of this great and glorious creation that God has given us to share.
And Christ is also letting us know that he wants us to look as well at the pain, the suffering and the injustice in the world in the light of that reality and to be outraged by it. To struggle against every evil that robs what few moments we and our fellow children of God have to spend in these all-too-brief lives we share. He wants us to know that our claim upon the love of our Creator is no less nor more than that of our fellow human beings on us- that to love as God loves is to treasure every moment of the gift of life for ourselves and for those around us just as he does for each and every one of us. To live as Christ would have us live is to seek always after the abundant life, the joyful life, the redemptive life for all of his children.
Make it count, my beloved sisters and brothers- that is our Word for this morning. Make your brief time on this earth shine with the light of God's love for all that he has made. Understand that when some of us are in pain, when some of us are suffering and hurting, when some of us are cast out of the human community, the lives of all us are diminished, made less than they could be, less than God made them to be. There is no "us" and "them", in the human community after all, because the one who is left and the one who is taken are both part of, integral to and,inextricably linked one to the other through the God who created them both. And when the lives of some of us are given over to the darkness, either by the choices we make or by the cards that life has dealt us, a shadow is cast over all of us. And that calls upon us who would be disciples of the light to hold our lamps up that much higher, to care that much more, to love more and better and stronger- not just in words, but in truth and action- to keep the darkness at bay, to light the path for our brothers and our sisters, that we all might find our way to the kingdom together- following in the path of Christ.
Live now, my beloved, don't miss a chance to love with all of your might, to answer Christ's call to seek out his redemptive grace and to spread it around, to make it your own life's work. Life is today, live it in love, make it count! |
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