the God that refuses to leave

Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

About ten years ago I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. The truth is, I didn’t really know the story. I knew the climax – Jesus’ death and resurrection. And I knew some of the pieces – stories about Moses and a talking snake and a multi-colored coat. But the glue that held the pieces together? Well, that’s what I wanted to find. And so I opened the Bible and started – “in the beginning.” And at first nothing really surprised me. When the snake was like “hey eat this fruit – it’s really not that big of deal” – well, I wasn’t fooled. But what I read after that kind of surprised me. You see I had always assumed that people in the Bible were, I don’t know, decent human beings. But I found them to be the exact opposite – a bunch of misfits that were always leaving the God that loved them. And the more I read the more I noticed a pattern. God would claim people as His own – He’d mark them out and give them an identity as His special people. But eventually those people would forget about God, leave, and try to find an identity somewhere else. That was the basic storyline that kept repeating itself. God would bless and love and claim a people for Himself – but the recipients of His grace would forget who they were and what God had done for them and because of that, they would leave.


The Bible surprised me because I thought it was a textbook on how to be good. And of course, there’s some truth to that view. But I had always imagined that God was like a talent scout on a quest to find great moral athletes who could help His team win. But then I read about Abraham, who gave his wife to two foreign kings pretending that she was his sister; and Elisha, whose self-esteem was crushed when some kids mocked him for being bald and responded by praying – not for their forgiveness but that a bear would come and eat them; and the Israelites, who were saved from slavery on a Wednesday and began worshipping a golden calf on a Friday; and Peter, who on the toughest night of Jesus’ life took a power nap, chopped off someone’s ear, and denied his Lord three consecutive times. In other words, I was surprised to learn that the God we worship claims people as His own – that he marks them out and gives them an identity as His special people – before they do anything good. And even more surprising was that God’s people would routinely forget about Him, leave, and decide to find an identity somewhere else. But the most shocking reality of all was the glue that held these misfits together – God’s utter refusal to leave them. It didn’t matter how many times people left God. God utterly refused to leave them.


In tonight’s Gospel we hear the story of “doubting Thomas,” which is not a nickname I approve of. We don’t give pejorative nicknames to anyone else. To the best of my knowledge, there’s no “persecutor Paul” or “impulsive Peter.” But more than that, it’s an understatement. Tomas doesn’t have doubts. Thomas quits. In his heart, Thomas leaves – he walks away from God. Forget that Jesus spoke openly about his death and resurrection before they even happened. After all, Thomas has – he has forgotten everything Jesus said and did before he died that was meant to prepare him for this moment. Now understandably, the cross was devastating. Thomas’ master is dead, life seems absurd, and Thomas decides that he’s had enough. And so when the disciples proclaim, “we have seen the Lord,” Thomas’ response makes sense. “You know what. I think I’m going to count my losses here and walk away. Believe whatever you want – but until I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in his side, I’m just not going to believe. You want to hold on the dream? That’s fine. But as for me, I’m leaving.”


It would be great if Thomas’ story were an isolated incident – if Thomas were some weirdo freak that we just couldn’t relate to. But let’s be honest, life is painful at times and faith doesn’t always come easily – for the depressed, or the burnt out, or the lonely, or the guilt-ridden, or for those who suffer, or when people we love suffer. And God knows faith isn’t easy in a secular world that wants us to believe a different story than the Gospel – a story that ends, not with resurrection, but with the cross. It’d be great if Thomas were an exception to the rule and not the perfect example of it, but let’s be honest. At some point in our life, we either have been or will be right there with Thomas and Peter and the Israelites and Elisha and Abraham and the whole band of misfits that, as the hymn says, “are prone to leave the God we love.” Eventually – if only in our heart, and for a million different reasons – we all get discouraged. We all get confused. We all leave God.


The miracle of Easter – the miracle the church celebrates week after week – is that God refuses to leave us. Yes, we leave God. But God never leaves us. And so, is it really that surprising that Jesus comes back for Thomas? In other words, if by walking away Thomas does what we’re all prone to do at times – isn’t God just doing what His loving nature demands – come back for the people He loves? You see, in tonight’s story about Jesus and Thomas we have the entire Bible in a nutshell. Like Thomas, we’re all prone to walk away from God. But in Christ, God does whatever it takes to get us back. He refuses to let us go.


To be a disciple of Jesus is root our life in the story we heard tonight, this story that’s glued together by God’s refusal to leave His people. To follow Jesus is to say that this story is our story, that this God – the One that refused to leave Thomas even though Thomas had left Him – is our God. For in giving our lives to Jesus we receive a completely new identity – an identity that’s marked by the faithfulness of God.


This morning I preached at my goddaughter’s baptism, and a lot of people I know have a problem with infant baptism. Their argument is that the children aren’t old enough to decide for themselves. Here’s why I think they’re wrong. To be a Christian isn’t to say that we’re good but that God’s good; it’s not to say that we’re faithful, but that God’s faithful; it’s not to say that we choose God, but that God chooses us. You see, in baptizing people before they think or speak or do anything good or bad we are claiming something profound about the awesome character of God – that God reaches out to us before we reach out to Him, that God loves us before we ever love Him, that God gives us a new identity – an identity that’s marked by His refusal to leave us – simply because He wants to.


To be a disciple of Jesus is root our life in the story we heard tonight, this story that’s glued together by God’s refusal to leave us – because we’re tempted every single day to find meaning in a different story, a story that ends with the cross, or a story that says we have to prove ourselves for God to love us, or clean ourselves up before God will love us. But that’s why the church is so important. You see our job is to do for each other what Jesus did for Thomas, to do for each other what God does for us – utterly refuse to leave! And so if someone you love wakes up tomorrow and is anxiously wrestling with who they are and they’ve forgotten what gives them worth, our job is to remind them of who they are in Christ; to remind them that, contrary to what the world would have them believe, they are not what they do. They are not their reputation. They are not the sum total of their achievements or their mistakes. They are what they feel. They are not how they look. They are not their portfolio. They are not their IQ. They are not as good as their latest sermon or their latest relationship or their latest test score or their latest service project. Our job is to remind them of their true identity in Christ. And they will forget. And so will we. We forget our story, our true identity in Christ every single day. But, the good news of the Christian Gospel is that God doesn’t forget, that He can’t forget. Because at the end of the day our worth has nothing to do with our ability to be faithful to God and everything to do with God’s promise to be faithful to us. AMEN.

hanging in there (Jeremiah - OMEGA)

jeremiah (hanging in there)


In Jesus’ day the Pharisees told people that being rich and comfortable meant that you were at the center of God’s will – that God would reward the faithful with money and a comfortable, painless existence. Of course, the Pharisees also taught that the opposite was true – that pain and poverty were signs that you were not at the center of God’s will. The Pharisee’s message was simple. If your life is hard, God is not with you. Pain and persecution mean the absence of God.


Pharisees have not gone extinct. Sadly, they’re not even an endangered species. Has anyone ever heard the term “prosperity preacher?” A prosperity preacher’s message is simple. The greater your faith, the more money you’ll give (to them, of course), and the more money you give, the more money God is going to give back to you. It’s like a heavenly ponzi scheme. To quote one prosperity preacher, “God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get you that money.” Modern day Pharisees may have a different name – prosperity preachers – but their message hasn’t changed. “If your life is hard or if you don’t have money or if you’re feeling overwhelmed, God isn’t with you. Pain and persecution mean the absence of God.” That’s their message.


Now, a little career advice in case you’re thinking about becoming a prosperity preacher. Whatever you do, do not preach on Jeremiah. And try not to open the Bible either. I’m just saying – it’d be career suicide. You will not find one ounce of support in the book of Jeremiah to suggest that obedience to God will lead to safe, painless life or that when you follow God things will typically go your way. The book of Jeremiah actually suggests the opposite.


Jeremiah was chosen for a hard assignment. The year was 620 BC. Historically speaking, Assyria has already destroyed the Northern Kingdom and now the Southern Kingdom of Israel is on the verge of being destroyed by the Babylonians. The people had broken the covenant and Jeremiah’s job was to call the people of Israel to repent so that the consequences of their disobedience might be averted. “You have two choices. Repent or be conquered.” That’s the Word that God gives Jeremiah to preach.


Now, I’m sure you know this, but there’s no formal discernment process to become a prophet. Jeremiah didn’t make an appointment with the bishop or meet with the Commission on Ministry or go to seminary. In fact, he didn’t even go to college. In fact Jeremiah, if living today in America, would have been a freshman in high school when God called him to be a prophet, and this is what God tells him:


Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’ 
Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. 
Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.’ … [Therefore] gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.


Last Omega we talked about being chosen, and I gave us four C’s to guide our discussion. Does anyone remember the four C’s of being chosen? Context, confrontation, conversion and call. This week, to talk about Jeremiah and what it means to be chosen for difficult Kingdom of God work, I want to give us three F’s – fervor, frustration and fortitude.

FERVOR

Fervor is defined as a feeling of great warmth and intensity. Think about being infatuated with another person. There can be a million reasons why you shouldn’t date them, but the fervor is so strong – your feelings are so intense – that you cannot see the difficulty that lies in your future. God tells Jeremiah that he’s being sent to speak “against the kings of Judah, it’s princes, its priests, and the people of the land.” That’s a difficult job. But Jeremiah is excited! He begins his mission with passion and intensity. To steal a phrase from Rick Warren, Jeremiah is living a “purpose driven life.” And if you read the first few chapters of the book, you get this sense that Jeremiah is pumped up. After all, God chose him before he was born and has promised to never forsake him. We can almost imagine Jeremiah saying to himself, “I’m going to speak the words of God to anyone He tells me to. I don’t care how powerful they are or how unpopular I’ll become. I don’t care what it costs me.”

I imagine that most of us have had a Jeremiah moment, a moment of life changing regeneration. Spiritual writers call this “the first fervor.” The first fervor is a time in our life where we’re infatuated with God. For a lot of us it happened at camp. We felt God’s warmth and love and we made a vow – “I will follow you wherever you lead. I don’t care what it costs me.” Maybe it happened in church, or in a quiet moment of personal prayer, or when we accepted Jesus as our Savior, or perhaps when a friend shared their faith with us. It sounds cheesy but I still remember the day I fell in love with God – September 10, 1998. I read this crappy book called “The Journey” and for reasons unbeknownst to me my life was changed forever.

Now, I honestly believe that this fervor, this infatuation, is a wonderful thing. It’s where the vast majority of romantic relationships begin, and it’s usually where our relationship with God begins. There are no doubt exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, fervor or infatuation is where relationship begins. Fervor is good. Infatuation is good. But there’s only one problem. Fervor dies. Man cannot live by zeal alone. Feelings of great warmth and intensity are not enough to sustain mature relationships, and this includes our relationship with God. Eventually, we experience the second F.

FRUSTRATION

Jeremiah is sent to kings, princes, priests, and the people to speak words of judgment. Now, try and imagine being sent by God, shortly after your 8th grade graduation, to speak words of judgment against the president, both the federal and the state government, your priests and your bishops, your parents, your parent’s friends, and anyone else you can think of. Picture yourself marching up the steps of the Lincoln memorial, being handed a microphone and having the attention of every major news network in America, and then speaking these words: “Listen up America. Thus saith the Lord. Stop drilling for oil, even if that means losing electricity. Start giving your janitors the same privileges you give your CEO’s. Throw away your passports, for the nations belong to the Lord and you have no right to put up walls. If you do these things, then you will live. But woe unto you if you don’t do them, for the Canadians will invade our land!”

Do you think people would listen? What do you think they’d say? I’ll tell you exactly what they’d say. “Shut up you snotty nosed punk. You have no idea how the real world works.” And that’s basically what the people told Jeremiah. There was a lot of laughing and mocking and jeering and ignoring. People did not respond well to his warnings. Like any prophet, Jeremiah wants his people to feel what God feels but his words fall on deaf ears and on hard hearts. Now, this is very frustrating – both for God and for Jeremiah – and so after a couple of years of failed sermons, God and Jeremiah decide to up the ante a bit.

God said to me, "Go, buy a clay pot. Then get a few leaders from the people and a few of the leading priests … and preach there what I tell you. "Say, 'Listen to God's Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! I'm about to bring doom crashing down on this place. … "Say all this, and then smash the pot in front of the men who have come with you. Then say, 'This is what God says: I'll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. (Excerpt from The Message, Jeremiah 19)


Fast forward. You’re not in 8th grade anymore. You’re 20 years old and a member of the Episcopal Student Center and you come to see that the ways of your missioner are corrupt. You set up a meeting with the bishop. I’m there. The bishop is there. You’re there. But, instead of bringing some talking points, you bring this glass, and when the bishop tries to shake your hand and ask you how he can help, you do the following (hold up the glass)! “Thus saith the Lord, remove John Newton from his post or the Canadians will trample the land. And while you’re at it, bishop, repent of your own sins, too or else this will happen.” (smash the glass) If that happened, do you think you’d be welcome back at the student center again?


But that’s exactly what Jeremiah did. And do you know how his priest responded? He had Jeremiah beaten and put in stocks right outside the temple. As a side note, let that be a lesson to you. You don’t want to mess with your priest.


Here’s my point. For Jeremiah, the glamorous veneer of prophetic ministry is gone. Jeremiah’s infatuation with God is gone. His fervor is gone. And in its place is a big, fat dose of frustration. You see not in a million years did Jeremiah envision this happening to him. After all, God promised him, “I will protect you and rescue you and never abandon you.” But here’s Jeremiah in the stocks and he feels abandoned. Can you imagine the frustration? One day God’s telling him “I love you Jeremiah. I’ve chosen you Jeremiah. I’m with you Jeremiah.” But the next day he’s in the stocks with wounds bleeding, body aching, and people taunting.


Like Jeremiah, we’re all going have to come to terms with frustration. For some of us, our commitment to Jesus will only bring a few days of pain, sorrow and rejection. But for others, rejection and sorrow will be par for the course. Either way, I honestly believe that the frustration we experience is a testament to God’s grace. In fact, frustration is inevitable if we want to be mature disciples of Jesus.


For example, the apostle Paul had a friend named Timothy, and ole’ Timmy was also a preacher. Like Jeremiah, Timothy started out strong, but his infatuation turned to frustration. Timothy was frustrated because his people weren’t responding and I imagine that Timothy thought that he was a failure. Well, Paul knew this and so he wrote Timothy a letter and in that letter Paul said the following – “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Tim 3:12) In other words, I know you’re frustrated Timothy. But here’s what I’d like to say to you about that – “congratulations.” Because it you’re frustrated, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re on the right track.


Frustration is just a part of mature discipleship. Knowing that, we can move on to F3 – fortitude.


FORTITUDE


You don’t really hear much about fortitude anymore, which is a shame, because it’s actually one of the four cardinal virtues. Fortitude, by definition, is what enables us to act rightly and to persevere in the face of frustration. Fortitude is about not quitting; it’s about hanging in there. I know this sounds weird, but sometimes God just calls us to just “hang in there.”

After spending that first night in the stocks Jeremiah’s life actually gets harder. A few things happen. First, he gets thrown into a dungeon and later on into a pit, where he’s left for dead. He receives beating after beating for speaking God’s word to the people. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that this goes on for forty years – forty years! – and the people never repent. The Babylonians invade and the Israelites lose their freedom.

Now, I want you to imagine this from Jeremiah’s perspective. Jeremiah has spent the last forty years of his life trying to avert what just happened. He was sent to preach repentance, the people never did it, and because they didn’t listen to him Jerusalem fell to Her enemies. Can you imagine what Jeremiah must have thought? “For the last forty years, I was humiliated, beaten, intimidated, disrespected, and I spent half my life in a dungeon. What was the point? They never listened. All of my preaching and all of my praying - was it all for nothing?”

I think we also can get discouraged when we try and do something for God and it doesn’t “work.” We too can feel as if our devotion and our faithfulness have yielded nothing. Think about praying and pleading for an alcoholic that never changes, or a friend who after years of your continual prayer still has contempt for your faith. After a while, we start asking ourselves – “what was the point? They never listened. Was it all for nothing?”

Fortitude is that virtue that gives us the courage to say, “no. The praying and the pleading is meaningful because God told me to do it. I may not know what the point was, but God does, and I trust God. He formed me in the womb, He called me, and I trust Him.”

Fortitude is about hanging in there. You see Jeremiah learned something important throughout his life. God doesn’t measure success the same way that we do. It matters very little to God if we’re successful. What matters to God is that we’re faithful. Jeremiah learned that God’s ways are not our ways. And so there are going to be times in our life when we pray for things and work for things that we know are pleasing to God and they just don’t happen. And when seen through a worldly lens, we will fail. It happened to Jeremiah. It happened to Jesus. It’ll happen to us. We’ll all end up on the cross eventually – one way or another.

Fortunately, God doesn’t view our life through a worldly lens but through a heavenly one. And so the question isn’t whether or not we’ll get frustrated. The question is whether or not we’ll exercise fortitude. The question is whether or not we’ll have the courage to just hang in there. Because sometimes, believe it or not, hanging in there is all that God wants from us.

My favorite Bible verse is Jeremiah 29:11, which says “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Plans “to prosper you.” I guess I was wrong. Jeremiah was a prosperity preacher after all. But what that tells me is that maybe – just maybe – we need to rethink prosperity. When our life is the hardest, maybe that means that God is the closest He’s ever been. Maybe pain and persecution mean the presence of God.

Jeremiah’s life was messy and he didn’t die knowing how valuable his ministry would be. And I’m not going to sugarcoat it – we too may die not knowing the impact that our life will have.

But God does. He’s the One who formed us in the womb. He’s the One that promised never to leave us. He’s worth trusting.

And so hang in there.

most to be envied (EASTER SERMON)

A couple weeks ago someone asked me a question. “What belief, if any, is so important to Christianity that if proven wrong you’d walk away from the faith?” I didn’t even have to think. “The bodily resurrection of Jesus.” That was my answer. In other words, if a bone-filled tomb is discovered with the following inscription – here lies Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary and Joseph, brother of James, cousin of John the Baptist, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and who walked around Galilee with twelve disciples and was hailed as their teacher and Lord, yes the same Jesus that fed 5000 people and pissed off the Pharisees and socialized with sinners and was called Son of David by some and the Christ by others – well, I’d give you all a big hug, pack up my things, and pursue a career in professional wrestling. Why? Because trying to put the smack down on Hulk Hogan or whoever’s dominating the WFW these days would make more sense than following a Jesus who was dead. Paul puts it like this: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” And a few verses earlier he says this: “if Christ hasn’t been raised your faith is meaningless and you’re still in your sins.” In other words, if Jesus is still dead than so are we. Our hope depends on the truth of his resurrection.

Now, perhaps you’re thinking – isn’t that a little, I don’t know, dramatic? “Isn’t faith,” people will ask “primarily about friendship and warm feelings and helping us find our life’s passion, and isn’t God a senile, benevolent grandfather type who longs for nothing more than to give us all ice cream cones in heaven?” To which I will reply – no. You see a lot of people miss the point of the Gospel because they don’t understand the problem that Jesus came to solve. In other words, people wrongly assume that their main problem in life is their broken marriage or their depression or their inability to find work that excites them, and because they’ve misunderstood their problem, they don’t fully grasp God’s solution.

The reason Christianity hinges on the truth of Jesus’ resurrection is because none of these things – not one – is our primary problem. They’re all symptoms of the giant problem that plagues us. Divorce and depression and cancer and meanness and pride and natural disaster and various disabilities and insecurity are not our primary problem. They’re symptoms. Think about it. If broken relationships were really our problem then why not worship Dr. Phil? But – if humanity’s problem is something far worse, something we cannot solve on our own, then the solution required must itself be dramatic. And that’s exactly what Jesus’ resurrection claims to be: a dramatic solution to a horrible problem. But if Jesus hasn’t been raised? Well, that means we’re left dealing with that problem on our own.

Now, failing to understand the problem the Gospel responds to isn’t a new phenomenon. Apparently, there were some Corinthians who also forgot what their real problem was and they were claiming that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. And so Paul reminds them: “for in Adam, “ he says, “all die.” “For in Adam all die.” And a few verses earlier he tells them, “you are still in your sins.” Sin and death. These, Paul reminds the Corinthians, are the problems that plague humanity, the cancers that infects the cosmos. Sin and death. These, and nothing else, are the problems the first Christians risked their lives to tell the world that Jesus’ resurrection had solved. Sin and death. That’s what we have to deal with if Jesus hasn’t been raised from the dead. And so Paul asks them – “You know what that means don’t you, if Jesus hasn’t been raised? It means that of all people we are most to be pitied. Because our hope depends on the truth of his resurrection.”

The reason we are here tonight, the reason we gather week after week to celebrate Jesus’ life, the reason that we of all people are most to be envied is because the One we’ve put our trust in, the One we seek to follow, the One that we call Lord – He’s alive. Jesus is alive. Yes, he tasted death. Yes, he bore our sin. But, he did so to defeat them both by rising from the dead. Yes, Paul says tonight, in Adam all die. But in Christ we are made alive.” And then Paul asks them. “You know what it means don’t you if Jesus has been raised? It means that of all people we are most to be envied. Because, as a matter of fact, Christ has been raised and our hope depends on the truth of his resurrection.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and our future resurrection that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees, are the bedrocks of the Christian faith. Of course our hope in Christ is for this life, but our hope in Christ is not, as Paul says, for this life only. After all, because Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, we who belong to Christ will also be raised in our bodies when He returns to judge the world. Should we die before that happens, which I imagine we will, we will of course be safe with God in heaven. But, the hope of heaven is not what we celebrate at Easter. Heaven is not the end. Resurrection is the end. This earth, the one we inhabit now, being flooded with the glory of God – that is the end. The defeat of our enemies – sin and death – that is our hope.

In other words, resurrection is what the entire creation is waiting for, the grand finale to God’s good but fallen creation, that moment in time when what happened to Jesus will happen to us, too. And it is this hope – and no other hope – this hope that Jesus’ resurrection has launched new life – it is this hope that invests meaning in the life we now live. We have hope now, in this life, because Jesus’ tomb is empty. Now, there are a million reasons why this is true but I’ll end tonight by mentioning two.

First, if sin and death have been defeated and God is sovereign and resurrection awaits us, then nothing that happens in this life is irredeemably tragic. All things work for our good. As Paul writes in Romans, “in the end all things work for the good of those who love God.” All things – painful things, seemingly senseless things, sinful things – all things work for our good. After all, when Jesus was raised from the dead he still had holes in his hands and his side from the crucifixion. But in the resurrection those holes were his glory. In the same way, when we are raised from the dead at the end of the age we will still have holes as well. But in the resurrection those holes we have from the crosses we bore and those holes we have from the mistakes we made will be our glory, too. Why? Because they will be filled with the mercy and healing and love of God.

But there’s another reason the resurrection invests our life with meaning now. Not only does God use evil for good. He also multiplies the good that we do on earth a hundredfold in the resurrection. That’s what Jesus means when he talks about storing up treasures in heaven or what Paul means when he talks about working for an imperishable crown. God will take our every act of love and blessing and healing and forgiveness and celebration and use it in the grand finale that awaits our world. Our work here on earth, the work we do in faith because we love Jesus, all of it will be used eternally for our joy and for God’s glory. What that means is that every moment in this life is an opportunity – an opportunity to make a lasting contribution to God’s new world. In other words, no day on earth is ordinary. No day is boring. No day is meaningless. That is, of course, unless we let it be by not living now with an eye to God’s resurrected future.

Alleluia Christ is risen! 

The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.

You’re right. Which means that we of all people are most to be envied. 


let God serve you

I read an interesting article this week on the Internet with the following title: “how to get a girl in your karate class to like you.” And in case you’re wondering whether or not this title is a metaphor for something else, it’s not – I really read an article about how to get a girl in your karate class to like you. Now for the record, I’m not currently taking a karate class, but in case some of you are, the article had some pretty good suggestions. Step one – you friend her on facebook. Step 2 – don’t make fun of her when she does a bad kick. Step 3 – while sparring with her do not go too easy. Always remember, she’s learning the same skills as you are. Step 4 – always compliment her karate skills after class. I’ll stop here but the list goes on – there were like 19 of these steps. And if followed to a tee, at least according to the article, there’s a chance you might just get the girl in your karate class to like you. Of course the article had a disclaimer – “we do not guarantee that if you follow these steps the girl will actually like you.”

In a weird way, that’s kind of how people approached the gods in the Roman world, which is where the Gospel was first proclaimed. It was a world that believed that many gods governed the lives of humans. Ancient Roman religion basically boiled down to one thing: appease the gods that controlled human life. And each god or goddess had a different list that had to be met. And since they controlled your life the point of religion was to get them to like you. To serve them. To do the perfect things, to make the perfect sacrifice, so that maybe – just maybe – you could get the right god to like you. But of course the gods were fickle and because of that Roman religion came with a disclaimer of it’s own– “we do not guarantee that if you follow these steps the gods will actually like you.”

Even we have inherited a belief that God has a list, haven’t we? And because we cannot keep that list our relationship with God is fickle. Yes we believe that God accepts us but that doesn’t mean we feel His love. The problem that follows is that faith gets reduced to routine. We fall short. We feel guilty. We seek to atone for ourselves, perhaps by going to church or by donating money or by doing “good deeds.” And as routine becomes habit we start to think, perhaps unconsciously, that we’re actually serving God! That God needs our worship and our money and our good deeds to get on with His earthly project. We’d never say this but our hearts see faith as a contract. And the terms of this contract go something like this: “we can’t keep God’s list, God accepts us anyway through Jesus, we’re indebted to God, and because we’re indebted our job is to serve. To take make the right sacrifices. To take the right steps.” And so we know that God accepts us. But that God actually likes us? Well, there’s just no guarantee.

Tonight’s gospel wasn’t just written to expose the absurdity of Roman paganism, with its many strategies on how to appease the gods. It was written to mock the very belief that we can serve God. Because the Gospel isn’t about us serving God. The Gospel is about God serving us.

In tonight’s Gospel John writes the following: “having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end. And during supper, knowing … that he had come from God and was going to God, Jesus got up from the table … and began to wash his disciples’ feet.” The point being made here isn’t that Jesus is God, but you know what the heck, he decided to wash their feet anyway. No – that’s not the point. John’s point is that washing his disciple’s feet is what Jesus had to do – not in spite of the fact that he was God – but precisely because He was God! In other words, through a simple act of washing their feet Jesus revealed to his disciples who God is: the Ultimate Servant that loves because He chooses to love, that saves because He chooses to save, that washes us because He chooses to make us clean. This isn’t yet another scheme to slip the pill in the chocolate milk, John’s clever way of saying “the Gospel is about you serving God and look, watch Jesus, here’s how you do it.” No, the point being made is much more scandalous: the Gospel isn’t about us serving God but about God serving us.

What a scandal the Christian Gospel was, and what a scandal it still is! Let’s be honest – isn’t there something about Peter’s objection that captures how we feel? Do our hearts not cry out, “Lord you must never wash my feet!” You see I think part of us would rather just be accepted, that we’d rather just fulfill our end of the contract – a little money here, a little worship there, and perhaps a good deed every now and again – because that way we get to remain in control of our own life. Part of us, to be quite frank, prefers the paganism of ancient Rome. We serve God. God is appeased. We get on with our own life and we fulfill our own plans. Because if the Gospel is about us serving God, well, then let’s be realistic – there’s only so much that God can ask. But the idea that God serves us? Well, an idea like that can shatter our lives and the plans we’re pursuing.

And so this little drama with Peter is funny on the outside, but on the inside it’s a deeply serious matter reaching to the very center of the Gospel itself. “Unless I wash you,” Jesus says, “you have no share with me.” In other words, “you belong to me by letting me wash you, by letting me serve you, by letting me be God.” And you know what’s so ironic? It’s when we let Jesus do that, when see that he came not to be served but to serve that the idea of serving God actually starts to make sense. It’s only when we see that Jesus loves us because He chooses to love us that loving other people even begins to make sense. Because if we let Jesus wash us, His mercy and love will break our heart, we’ll pick up a towel, and we’ll live to wash the feet of others. And by this people will know that we are Jesus’ disciples – because we let Him serve us – and our very act of “letting” will overflow into “loving.”

Now in a matter of moments you’ll have an opportunity to come forward and have your feet washed. If you choose to come forward for this simple act of prayer, here is what I suggest: do not ask God how you can serve Him. I invite you to pray a prayer more scandalous than that. Ask God what you can do to let Him serve you.

Now, if that’s hard for you, then imagine what it was like to hear the Gospel 2000 years ago. In a world where religion was about getting the gods to like you, imagine hearing the good news that God that was trying to win your friendship. In a world where religion was about serving the gods, imagine hearing the good news that God wanted to serve you. In a world where religion was about making the perfect sacrifice for God, imagine hearing the good news that in Christ God had made the perfect sacrifice for you. After all, that simple act of foot washing was meant to point to a much more courageous act of love – a cruciform act that would wash our souls and give us something that no other god had ever thought of offering – a guarantee that we’re actually loved.

eucharistic courage

When the hour for the Passover meal came, Jesus took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Then he took the cup and said, “This cup is poured out for you. This is the new covenant in my blood.”

Let me begin by saying thank you. Thanks for being here tonight. Thanks for being ready to come up and take Communion. Thank you for your courage. I’m not joking – what you’re about to do is incredibly brave. Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die.” And that’s exactly what we’re here for tonight. Now before you freak out, I’m not going to pull a Jim Jones and pass out Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. But – what you’ve come to do tonight require you to be courageous. The Eucharist takes courage.

Now, to understand what I’m talking about, to understand what Jesus was doing in tonight’s Gospel when he instituted the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Holy Communion, we need to understand something central to Jesus’ 1st century Palestinian Jewish world – and that’s symbolism. Jesus’ world was steeped in symbols.

A symbol, by definition, takes one thing and uses it to say something else. Let’s look at a few examples from Jesus’ Bible, or as we call it, the Old Testament. The prophet Hosea married a prostitute to symbolize Israel’s infidelity. Jeremiah preached while holding a pair of dirty underwear – a symbol of Israel’s filth. Ezekiel cooked a meal over his own poop. I have to say this is a symbol I have yet to see the big stink about. My point is this – symbols were central to Jesus’ world. Jesus’ world was steeped in symbols.

And so it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that symbols were central to Jesus’ ministry. After all, there is a reason he chose 12 disciples – it was a symbol for the 12 tribes of Israel being restored through his ministry. There’s a reason that he chose to be baptized, even though he was sinless. It was a symbol for his mission to be numbered among the transgressors on the cross. There’s a reason Jesus prayed in a garden the night before he died – the Garden of Gethsemane was a symbol for Eden, for that which was lost when Adam and Eve rebelled. Jesus’ ministry was steeped in symbols.

And so it also shouldn’t surprise us that when Jesus gathered his disciples around a table at the Passover, took a piece of bread, broke that bread, and then gave it to his disciples, this too was a symbol. In fact, this was Jesus’ last great symbol before he died. Jesus took bread. Jesus broke bread. Jesus gave bread. And so here’s my question. Assuming he wasn’t just loading up on carbs – that this meal was Jesus’ last great symbol – what was Jesus trying to say? When Jesus took the bread, broke the bread, and gave the bread – what did this taking, this breaking, this giving symbolize? Why does it take courage to eat this meal in particular, week after week, like he told us to do?

The Last Supper happens during Passover – a Jewish festival that celebrates the exodus. And so to unlock the meaning of Jesus’ greatest symbol there’s something we need to recall about the first Passover night. God told the people of Israel to slaughter a lamb, take its blood, and place it on the doorposts of their home. This blood, God promised, would protect them and save them. Yes – judgment would be passed on the first-born of Egypt. But – those protected by the blood of a lamb would be “passed over.” The blood would protect them and save them.

And so this meal, the Passover meal, was a symbol – a symbol of what God had done, a symbolic meal Jews shared year after year. And this symbol was so important that to not celebrate the Passover was to reject the covenant. It’d be like burning the American flag. But even more, to not celebrate the Passover was basically saying that you had lost hope in God. Why? Because Jews in Jesus’ day were praying for a second exodus, and for God to bring about a new covenant. In other words, looking back to what God had done – set them free – they prayed for what God would do – set the entire creation free.

Now with that in mind, let’s go back to that Upper Room – to the “last supper” that takes place at the Passover. Rather than looking back to the first exodus, to the first covenant, Jesus looks forward to a new exodus, to the new covenant He’s going to bring about. And like in the first Passover, blood will be shed – but it won’t be the blood of a lamb. It will be the blood of the Lamb. Like in the first Passover, judgment will take place. But it won’t be on the firstborn of Egypt. It will be on the firstborn of God. As Jesus gathers his disciples in that Upper Room, he tells them once again that blood will be shed – blood that will protect them and save them. “This is my blood,” he says, “given for you.” But to emphasize, to hammer home whose blood that must be, how the new covenant will come about, Jesus makes use of his last great symbol. And so taking a piece of bread he says, “This is my body, given for you.” “This bread – this is my body. What happens to this bread will happen to me.” And then he broke it. And he gave it to them as food.

These symbols that Jesus gives us – when he took the bread, when he broke the bread, and when he gave the bread – mean at least these three things.

First, this meal symbolizes what Jesus did for us. Like the bread Jesus is taken. The Roman authorities take him and nail him to a cross. He’s taken by the will of His Father, He’s taken by the leading of the Spirit, He’s taken by a vision of the Kingdom of God and set apart to establish that Kingdom here on earth. In his own words, “I came not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” Jesus is taken.

Second, like the bread Jesus is broken. His heart is broken by the sin and faithlessness that surround him. His body is broken and bruised as he’s nailed to a cross. His Spirit is broken as He cries out to His Father only to hear silence. Jesus is broken.

Third, Jesus is given to the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” God gave his only Son. To us. To bring about the new covenant. To set creation free. Jesus is taken, broken, and given to the world for this very purpose.

But that’s only half the story. Jesus then gives his disciples the bread and says, “Eat it,” which in Jesus’ symbol steeped world means, “may what happens to this bread, may what happens to me, happen to you too. If you eat this bread my story will become your story. My life will become your life. Take this bread – my broken body given for the world – and eat it.”

Do you see now why Eucharistic worship takes courage? Eucharistic worship takes courage because, whether we realize it or not, every time we approach God’s altar and hold out our hands we accept our mission as the people of God – we pray that what happened to Jesus will happen to us. Eucharistic worship takes courage because God answers that prayer.

First, God will take us. Right where we are. It doesn’t matter how sinful we are, how many shameful secrets we have, or how unworthy we feel. God will take us.

Second, God will break us. He will break us of our pride. He will break us of our self-sufficiency. He will break us of our idols – of whatever it is in our life other than Him that we think will give meaning to our life. The living Lord that says, “take up your cross and follow me” will lay a cross upon our back. And that cross will break us.

Finally, God will give us to the world as food. The Lord who laid down his life for us will teach us to lay down our life for the world. We’ll become what Paul calls a “living sacrifice.” And by laying down our life for the world we’ll take our part in God’s work to set the creation free.

Someone once told me that they love how the Episcopal Church doesn’t do altar calls. They were obviously grossly misinformed. Because we do one every single week. And it takes courage to come forward. Because we’re not asking you to accept Christ. We are bidding you to come and die – to be taken, broken, and given to the world as ministers of Christ’s new covenant. We’re asking for Jesus’ story to become your story. For Jesus’ life to become your life. For Jesus’ death to become your death. And so once again, thank you for your courage. Because what you’re about to do is incredibly brave.

chosen (Isaiah) -- OMEGA

chosen (Isaiah)

At least once a month someone asks me the question, “how’d you decide to become a priest?” And that’s a hard question to answer because I don’t believe I did. Honestly, I don’t. I really believe that God chose me for this work. I’m not so sure that I decided to become a priest. I’m not saying that I’m a puppet or that God is just pulling the strings. But I don’t think I’m here right now because of a decision that I made. I think I’m here right now because of a decision that God made. I think I’m chosen for this work. And you know what’s weird? I don’t think I’m special. I believe that God is invested in your life, too – just like He is in mine. I honestly believe that tonight I am speaking to a group of people who are also chosen for God’s work. I honestly believe that you are called.

And so tonight, I’d like to do something a little bit different, and that’s start with our bible reading to talk about being called or being chosen. Our reading comes from Isaiah.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’ 
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! ‘Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’

In order to talk about being chosen, I’m going to give us four C’s to help guide our minds – context, confrontation, conversion and call.

CONTEXT

Hearing God’s call doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We all have a context, a history, and a background. The call of Isaiah does not begin with a vision. It begins with a context. What is that context? “In the year that King Uzziah died.” Uzziah’s death – that is the context for Isaiah’s call.

If you haven’t heard of Uzziah, he was a remarkable king and he did a lot to bless his people. He was a military genius, building an army of over 300,000 soldiers. He also fortified Jerusalem, which meant that under Uzziah’s rule, the people of Israel were finally safe. Uzziah was an economic guru, a spiritual leader, and a pillar of the people. With the exception of David and Solomon, Uzziah was remembered as the most stable, wise, faithful and powerful King that Israel ever had. But more than that, his reign lasted 52 years – that’s more than Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush’s combined. Imagine having a president for fifty-two years with a 100% approval rating. In the land of Israel, Uzziah is all that they knew and they depended on their king. Their king was their refuge. But then one day – their refuge dies.

Question – what do you do when Uzziah dies? For their whole life, Uzziah had been on the throne. He was their anchor, their source of strength, their refuge, their king. But now he’s dead.

Here’s what I’d like to suggest. The death of our anchor, the death of our king, is the context for hearing the call of God. Our Uzziah dies. We come to see that our anchor can’t hold us and that we need a new one. We come to see that the source of our strength is either gone or inadequate. We come to see that our king – whatever that is or whoever that is – is mortal and subject to death and that we desperately need a king that is immortal, a king that can never die.

Now, the death of Uzziah is different for each of us. It could be an earth-shattering event – the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or the end of a relationship that we were fully invested in. Or, our lives can just unravel. And that unraveling can be dramatic – a panic attack or a meltdown. Or, that unraveling could just be a deep dissatisfaction with the status quo – a realization that the source of our strength, whatever that is, is fleeting. But death – that’s the context for hearing the call of God. Uzziah dies. We come to see that what we were relying on or who we were relying on cannot save us and that we need a new anchor.

CONFRONTATION

Our second “C” is confrontation. Isaiah is confronted with the presence of God. And notice the irony. King Uzziah is dead, which means that the throne is now empty. But then Isaiah looks up and where does he see God? Sitting on a throne. Isaiah turns his eyes from the throne of man and beholds the throne of God. Knowing Uzziah to be dead, Isaiah comes to know that God is alive. Isaiah is confronted with a vision of the Living God.

And the reason I say confronted is because Isaiah comes to see that the Living God is holy. According to Isaiah, even the angels cover their faces. The angels can’t even look as they cry holy, holy, holy, over and over again. And as a side note, repetition is the bible’s only way to emphasize something. There aren’t any capital letters or exclamation points in the Hebrew language and so the only tool for emphasis is repetition. Now, a lot of words in the bible are repeated twice but only once does an attribute of God get repeated three times. And what is that attribute? It’s not “loving, loving, loving” or “compassionate, compassionate, compassionate.” Of course, God is most definitely loving and most certainly compassionate. But only holiness is repeated three times. This is significant. Holiness gets to the core of who God is.

Now, most people hear the word holiness and think about moral purity. But holiness is much more complicated than that. The Hebrew word qadosh means set apart and refers to someone or something that is totally different. To say that God is holy is to say that God is totally different. It’s to say that God is different in a way that is wonderful and mysterious and terrifying and exciting. And that “total difference,” that holiness, leads Isaiah to our third “C.”

CONVERSION

“And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

After seeing the truth about God, Isaiah saw the truth about himself, and he spoke the truth about himself – I am lost! Seeing the truth about ourselves is rare. We tend to downplay our sin and our weaknesses. We minimize the reality of our sin, the cost of our wrong choices, and the damage we’ve done to ourselves and to each other. It’s like we’re born wearing special sunglasses that darken our perspective and keep us from seeing the truth. But then we’re confronted with the great and terrifying holiness of God and that confrontation makes us ripe for conversion. It rips off our sunglasses, or perhaps I should say our sin-glasses. After seeing God for who He truly is – holy – we see ourselves for who we truly are – people of unclean lips.

And notice, Isaiah says something incredibly profound. “I’m lost.” Another translation of the Hebrew word is “ruined.” “Woe” is me he says. Woe is a word of judgment that the prophets typically spoke on other people. But the prophet Isaiah speaks woe on himself. Because in the light of God’s holiness, Isaiah is undone and he comes to see that unless God’s grace intervenes he will be utterly ruined. Fortunately, God’s grace does intervene, though perhaps not in the way we usually imagine. Here’s how it happens.

An angel takes a live coal and holds it to Isaiah’s lips. This is Isaiah’s image of grace. In fact, the coal is so hot that the angel of God has to use a pair of tongs. The angel can’t even use his hands, but Isaiah has to allow the coal to burn one of the most sensitive parts of his body. And this tells us something important about grace. There is real pain – a real sting – that comes with conversion. We often assume that grace means the absence of pain. But according to Isaiah that’s just not the case. Deep, deep grace – at least initially – can make us feel a deep, deep pain.

You see, the goal of God’s grace is to change us, which is what I mean when I say “conversion.” The goal of God’s grace isn’t to spare us from pain but to redeem our character, and I hate to say this, but pain can do wonders for our character. After all, it’s painful whenever our Uzziah dies. But it’s still grace. It’s painful when we’re confronted with the reality of our sin in the light of God’s holiness. But it’s still grace.

One of my favorite writers – Brannan Manning – is an alcoholic and he writes a lot about how God’s grace allowed him to hit rock bottom. He writes about how in order to change, he had to see the wasted years, the ruined relationships, the devastating lies, and the utter selfishness. It was God’s painful grace, he says, that allowed him to see the truth.

A lot of Christian mystics tell us to pray for the gift of tears. And if you’ve ever read their writings, you come to see that they all prayed, on a regular basis, for a broken heart – what they called the gift of tears. That was their prayer – for God’s light to penetrate their souls, to reveal the presence of sin, and to bring them to tears. When’s the last time you prayed for that? I’ll be honest – it’s been a while for me. But God’s painful grace is something we should be seeking. It is a good thing to feel lost because it opens us up to the power of being found, which moves us to “C” number four.

CALL

Our life is found in the call of God. God doesn’t heal Isaiah for his sake alone but so that he can live out his prophetic call. “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” That’s God’s question and for the first time Isaiah is ready to respond. “Here am I. Send me.”

If we asked Isaiah “how’d you decide to become a prophet” what do you think he’d say? Who knows, but I imagine it’d be along the lines of “I didn’t choose God, God chose me.” But you know what’s weird? I don’t think Isaiah is special. I believe that God is just as invested in the lives of the people in this room as He was in Isaiah’s. And I honestly believe that tonight I’m speaking to a group of people who are chosen for God’s work. I honestly believe that you are called. I guess the only question is – to what?

Well, I think that you and I are ultimately chosen for the same thing. And since not all of you are called to be priests, that mean’s my primary call is not to be a priest. My primary call, your primary call, is something else. Our primary call is to be holy, like God is holy. Our call is to be transformed so much in the depth of our souls that we become totally different in a way that is wonderful and mysterious and terrifying and exciting. In a world of hate, we are chosen to be set on fire with love. In a world that is selfish, we are chosen to be surprisingly selfless. In a world full of dull sameness, we are chosen to be different. Just like God.

Jesus put it like this in the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Think again about our reading from Isaiah, where even the angels had to cover their eyes in the presence of God. But then along comes Jesus, who knew the Book of Isaiah backwards and forwards, and says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” I think that’s our common call. To have a pure heart. Just like God. So that one day, we can see Him. So that we don’t have to cover our faces.

Does anyone know what the Greek word ekklesia means, which is where we get the word church? It means to be “called out.” If we think that we’re not called to anything than we’ve misunderstood Christianity. We are all called out. Not one of us is special, and yet every single one of us is special.

I’m sure you’ve been told that you’re made in the image of God, which is true, but tonight I want to tell you what that means. In biblical times, kings would strategically place their image all over their land. For example, kings would put up statues of themselves and stamp their image on coins. Coins were made in the image of the king. Statues were made in the image of the king. This was the king’s way of reminding the people who was in control.

In the same way, each of us is called to be an image for our King. To a world that mourns the death of Uzziah, we are chosen to represent the King that cannot die, to remind people that there is One seated on the throne of heaven and that he reigns over us all. The king of heaven has strategically placed you all over His land. Our call is to be so loving and so selfless and so different that people are reminded who the true King is.

We may or may not hear it but God is asking each of us – whom shall I send, and who will go for us? In other words, who will represent us?

What a blessed thing it is to feel God’s painful grace, to stop mourning the death of Uzziah, to see a vision of the King eternal that cannot die, and then to respond with the words of Isaiah.

Here am I. Send me.

the perfect vessel

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM Who I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

One of the curses of ordained ministry is that people assume that I have it all together – that because God called me to be a priest that somehow I must be special. They obviously don’t know me well. The truth is I get lonely and anxious. I’m sinful and stubborn and scared and fumble through life trying to balance serving God and managing my problems. But the assumption is that I’ve got it all together, that I’m a spiritual giant, that somehow I must be special. And logically, this makes sense. We live in a world where the best and the brightest have a competitive edge. In the Kingdom of the world, the more impressive our resume, the more likely we’ll get picked. That’s just how the Kingdom of the world works – but what about the Kingdom of God? Does God delight in calling the strong? Does God pick people who have it all together to do His work? Do we have to be special to do something great for God?

Tonight I want to tell you a story. It’s a story about God and about God’s work here on earth and about the people God uses to do that work. It’s a story that begins with a guy named Abraham and with a promise that God makes to him. “Through you and your descendants I want to bless the entire world.” That’s the promise. Now, in the context of this biblical story, humanity has fallen from grace, the world is out of joint, people don’t know God, they don’t love him, they’re not happy and so God draws up a rescue plan and chooses Abraham to be play a pretty key role. “Through you and your descendants I’m going to fix this mess. I’m going to use your descendants, your children, to bless the entire world.”

Well, by the time the Book of Exodus begins Abraham’s descendants – the Israelites – have been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. And maybe a few of these slaves have heard about God’s promise, but I doubt they believe it because all they’ve known is slavery. Imagine being born in a prison cell and then hearing a story about your great, great, great, great, great grandfather who was promised by God in 1509 that one day you’d live in a palace. Would that story give you hope as you sat rotting in your cell? I seriously doubt it. And so as the book of Exodus opens, the situation looks hopeless.

Well, just when it seems things can’t get any worse they do. The Egyptian Pharaoh starts worrying about the Israelites because when God commands them to be “fruitful and multiply,” they’re like “heck yea.” These people have a lot of babies and pharaoh doesn’t want to be outnumbered – after all, that would be bad for national security – and so he gets Congress to pass a law – newly born Israelite boys will be killed and thrown into the Nile.

Well, one day an Israelite boy is born by the name of Moses and his mother can’t stand the thought of losing him. And so she hides him for three months, and when she can’t hide him anymore, she makes a little basket and sets baby Moses down to float along the Nile hoping against hope for a miracle. Well, in an ironic twist, Pharaoh’s own daughter finds Moses and decides to keep him, which means, that Moses – the Israelite – is now the adopted grandson of Pharaoh himself – the one that originally wanted him dead.

Well, baby Moses grows up to discover that he’s living in two different worlds. On the one hand, he’s concerned for his own people – after all, he is an Israelite. But on the other hand, Moses is educated, trained, and raised – not only as an Egyptian – but as Egyptian royalty. Remember, he’s the adopted grandson of Pharaoh. We can assume he lives in a palace. He has nice food, nice clothes – I’m sure he has a few slaves of his own. But, he’s not an Egyptian. He’s an Israelite. Talk about a messed up situation – Moses’ own biological family are slaves in his own Kingdom. Today’s Old Testament reading comes from Exodus 3, but listen to what happens in Exodus 2.

When Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his people, the Israelites, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of the Israelite slaves. 12 After looking around to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.

Now, some preachers give Moses’ act a positive spin, but the Bible just doesn’t support this position. God doesn’t tell Moses to kill this dude. He murders him in cold blood. Well, the following morning Moses makes the front page of the Egyptian Post, and Pharaoh – his own grandfather – puts a price on his head. And so Moses – a convicted murderer – runs for his life and flees to the land of Midian.

And so fast-forward a couple years. Moses is now in the witness protection program. Moses gets a new wife – a cute little thing by the name of Zipporah. He’s gets a new career – deciding to enter the Midian shepherd training program. And finally, Moses has a son. And so Moses – the runaway killer – gets a “second chance at life.”

That’s enough background for tonight’s Old Testament reading from Exodus. Moses has been in Midian for forty years, he has a whole life behind him that no one even knows about, a life he’s ashamed of, but one day everything changes. God comes to Moses and says, “I’m choosing you – Moses I want you, of all people, to be the one to confront Pharaoh. I choose you Moses to set my people free.” Do you see why Moses’ response makes sense? Who am I? I’m not special. I’m not strong. I clearly don’t have my shniz together. Who am I to do this work?

And he’s right. I mean, could God have chosen a more dysfunctional person? Moses has never met his parents. He’s adopted. Ethnically he’s an Israelite but he’s raised an Egyptian. Moses has identity issues. He doesn’t know who he is. With one hand he enslaves the Israelites, with the other he avenges their abuse. Moses is impulsive. He kills a man in cold blood. He’s also a coward. Not wanting to be a man and own up to his mistake, Moses runs away to Midian and begins living a lie. And if all that weren’t enough, we later learn that Moses stutters – probably a nervous tick that developed from his dysfunctional life in the palace. Years of therapy couldn’t sort this stuff out. Moses doesn’t have it all together. He doesn’t feel very strong and God knows he isn’t special. And so when God calls him and says “I’m choosing you” Moses naturally objects. “You’ve made a mistake. You obviously don’t know about my past. Who am I?”

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes: “Consider your own call: not many of you were wise, not many powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” In other words, God doesn’t delight in calling the strong. He delights in calling the weak. Why? Because they are the perfect vessel to display His strength.

Now, I know we were raised to believe that the people in the Bible were heroes. But I’m going to give it to you straight. Abraham was a creepy old man. Jacob was insecure. Leah was ugly. Joseph was abused. Gideon was poor. Rahab was immoral. David was an adulterer. Elijah was suicidal. Jeremiah was depressed. Jonah was reluctant. John the Baptist was eccentric. Peter was impulsive. Martha was anxious. The Samaritan woman couldn’t hold together a marriage to save her life. Zacchaeus was unpopular. Thomas had doubts. Paul was a cripple. Timothy was timid. And I think you know where I stand with Moses. These are the people our God has chosen to work through. They’re not strong. They’re not special. They don’t have it all together. And that’s precisely why God chose them. They were the perfect vessel to display His strength.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there are two things about your life that I know are true. First, you don’t have it all together. If you’re anything like me, you get lonely and anxious; you’re sinful and stubborn and scared and you fumble through life trying to balance serving God and managing your problems. One way or another, I know the world’s taken its toll on you. You don’t have it all together.

Second, you are called to do great work for God. I don’t know what that looks like, but none of you are called to be a shepherd in Midian. You’re called to confront Pharaoh, to bring God’s people to freedom, to taste that freedom for yourself, to speak with God face to face like Moses did. I know there’s a burning bush out there for you too and the reason I’m preaching this sermon is because I don’t want you to miss it. I know what you’re thinking – who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? I’m not strong. I’m not special. I don’t have it all together. Who am I? You are the perfect vessel to display God’s strength.