Lost and Found Sermon

Teacher of Preachers Fred Craddock described, people imagine giving themselves to God as if Going into the Bank withdrawing a Cashier’s Check for $1,000,000 to give to God. Instead, God tells us to go back to the Bank, cash that check and take out that sum in quarters. Throughout every day of life, distribute those quarters, as if part of that gift, that covenant commitment to God.

Do me a favor, In your bulletin where this morning’s Old Testament reading is described as The Covenant OF Circumcision, cross out the preposition OF, write in the word AND. Because as human beings, we record life by events and accomplishments, as if once and for all completed, rather than as a new way of life begun. We describe the Covenants of The RAINBOW, CIRCUMCISION, CIRCUMSCRIBING OUR HEART, CRUCIFIXION, as if isolated events in human history. The child was circumcised on the 8th day, the believer was baptized before they knew whether or not to fuss, we graduated from school, we got married, we had a child. All these events, are not trophy accomplishments, each is a name we acquire, an identity found in the person we already are. Have any of us EVER witnessed a Rainbow? This was not only a Covenant Promise once long ago to Noah, but a COVENANT PROMISE for All Future Generations of BLESSINGS for the Future.

The great error of our time is perceiving life as temporary and disposable. Change is so common to us, that we NO LONGER identify ourselves by the Milestones, the Events, Relationships, and Accomplishments, but only by what we want to do next. We ignore the reality of being CIRCUMCISED, BAPTIZED, A GRADUATE, MARRIED, MOTHER/FATHER, VETERAN, HOME OWNER, DEACON, ELDER, TEACHER, GRANDPARENT, throwing these aside for the next accomplishment, the next title, the next HOLLOW THING.

Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. What a marvelous word for our time, According to the Scriptures, 75 years old was the start of Middle Age! From the time of Noah, through the Tower Babel, and all the succeeding generations, God had known and witnessed this family. Generation upon generation, until there was Abram and Sarai who could have no succeeding generation, and God promised to be faithful to them. For 14 years, Abram has lived with the Promise, when at age 99 God promises to create something new in their identity, not only to live with the Promise, but to live with the fulfillment of that Promise.

Nothing will ever be the same. The identity of everyone involved in this story changes. What does it mean, to go from being a son or daughter, to being an adult, to being a lover, to being husband or wife, to being a Graduate, to being a survivor, to being a Parent? For Abram to go from being the BEARER of the Promise, to POSSESSING THE FULFILLMENT, means he is no longer the same, he and his wife and even God have a new Identity. He will be FATHER ABRAHAM, she will be SARAH MOTHER OF KINGS & NATIONS. GOD in addition to being The Creator, LORD, God of our Ancestors, will be El-Shaddai, THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Literally, God of the Mountains, God of the furthest horizons, God of the futures, Awesome, Impossible God.

FAITH IS NOT LOGICAL. Faith is not a matter of knowledge, regurgitation of historic events, names and places, nor of deductively and inductively arriving at conclusions based on that data. Faith is not simply a matter of Ethics and Morals, doing what is right. FAITH is TRUST IN GOD. FAITH is BELIEF in the IMPOSSIBLE. Abram hears this NEW COVENANT with God and Laughs in Scorn. The Covenant is as impossible as having a 9th RANKED College Basketball Team, that seemingly a High School team could have beat, coming from behind to win all four Championship games to become BIG EAST CHAMPIONS. If we can believe in this, and we know God to be known to us by the Identity of Being ALMIGHTY GOD, is anything Not Possible?

Abraham himself, did not believe. Sarah knew her own body, and Sarah did not believe. They laughed at themselves, they laughed at the impossibility of it all. Yet when challenged about believing, the response of Sarah was “I did not laugh”.
The IMPOSSIBILITY of FAITH, FINDING SOMETHING WE NEVER KNEW WAS LOST, disbelieving among the believers is what this passage has in common with Mark.

The Disciples knew Jesus to be a great PREACHER and TEACHER, A HEALER and MIRACLE WORKER, they had seen him feed 5000 people with a few bits of fish and bread, enough so Peter could identify Jesus as BEING THE MESSIAH Sent from God. And Jesus explains the fullness of that identity. To be the Messiah requires SUFFERING and BETRAYAL and ABANDONMENT and ISOLATION and DEATH and RESURRECTION.

According to the Gospel of Mark, for Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Resurrection, means Jesus SUFFERS. I grew up in a time in the Church, where we jumped straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Morning. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and a week later Came Back as the Son of God, entering New Jerusalem:Heaven. Two years ago, our culture was scandalized by Mel Gibson’s film, THE PASSION, which focused exclusively on the Suffering of Jesus. But Mark’s point is larger than both of these, the VERY ONE who is given by God as a GIFT OF GRACE, the Preacher, Teacher, Healer, Miracle Worker that is followed and Loved, MUST SUFFER, MUST DIE, in order to be RESURRECTED from Death to Life. Like Peter, we witness loved ones’ suffering and cry out OVER MY DEAD BODY! There is a frightening temptation there, for all of us, especially in a world so ACCUSTOMED to PAIN-KILLERS and Anesthetizing to get through, that we long to ENABLE others to avoid suffering. But the Gospel recognition is that struggle and suffering are and EVEN DEATH are essential to our acceptance of God as being God, of Jesus as being the Messiah, of the Holy Spirit who gives us life.

The point is NOT to inflict SUFFERING ON OTHERS. Our purpose is not to cause harm and suffering so that perhaps the ones we love will have deeper faith! But rather, that when we, or our loved ones suffer, when they face impossible realities, as extreme as Death on the Cross, or lose everything they worked for, or having a baby at age 90, or get pregnant at 19, we believe in them and in God’s Almighty Ability to use every circumstance of life.

This word from the Gospel, could not have been said to any generation as appropriately as to our own. When we have more BILLIONAIRES than ever in History. When the dream of people is to risk all they have for the possibility of $1,000,000 in a Briefcase held by one of 20 beautiful young women; or to spend $1 on a Lottery Ticket with the hope of winning $300,000,000. When Our Business Leaders and Government Leaders, fail to demonstrate leadership, but are repeatedly indicted for Corruption, and are then re-elected as if their selling out their integrity, selling out our trust, did not matter. When individuals cause accidents, in the expectation that The HEAVY HITTERS will win them a large settlement. We need to question, as Jesus identified:

What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
What is your life worth?
For whosever is ashamed of believing, of having faith in God, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed.

So who are you? Are you lost, or are you found? Are you suffering? Are we passing the events of life as hollow milestones, or as a continually evolving mystery, in which we believe God can do all things, even death and life, our death and life, belong to God?
And Remember, Faith is not a One Time event, A Test at the Pearly Gates, some one time catharsis we endure in life, but is met in so many little ways every day.