Exodus 38:1-12
Matthew 22:34-46
We study engineering and economics, physics and philosophy, so as to know.
We study poetry and music and art so as to listen, to see, to feel life's rhythm.
The call to worship this day, was written a decade ago, when the Arizona State legislature dropped all study of creative writing, art and music from the public school curricula. What seems self-evident, is that governments want answers, fix the economy, bomb the enemy, make peace, without full comprehension of the means, the weight and value of balancing and changing priorities.
When we do turn to the Scriptures, we seek wisdom and faith, as if these were set apart from human reason. Years ago, there was a New York Times' Best Seller “All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarden”. Which emphasized the basics of cooperation, sharing, compassion, loyalty. There are times when life seems so complicated, time is a commodity and there is no where safe or secure to invest. Times when, rather than seeking complex new leaps of understanding to balance pointillism with string theory, we need to listen to the needs of others and act out of a commitment of love. Faith does not require that we know the language of dogma, distinctions between Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation, between a Hermeneutic and Proof Texting, faith requires a commitment of covenant. In Western society, we tend to imagine a commitment as if a warrantee. Covenant commitment is not for 1 year, or three, or a lifetime, but for all time.
Part of the wonder of this morning's readings are the importance of visiting an idea a second time. A first effort may be experiential, may be flawed, might be forgot, but a second time underscores and makes permanent. Contracts are legally binding, Covenants are cut into stone or into us in love. An odd, but true reality, love cuts us, love can wound, can scar, can disfigure, but as covenant is cut into our lives.
We are a cynical stiff-necked people, who hear the word love, and drop into an overtly sentimental ridicule of “The Church Lady”, where everything is “SPECIAL” and we bless one another's heart with saccharin sweetness. We emphasize that, this love is different, this is not as perverse as eros, or as flowery as romance, AGAPE is a special kind of love Jesus made up. He did not. The Greek language had just as many words for love, just as many emotions, as we do. But what Jesus describes in Greek with AGAPE is what in the Old Testament was named as “hesed” a steadfast love, a living covenant, that could simultaneously suspend a myriad polarities with the reality: because you are loved.
Exodus records that God loved Israel, loved the people so much as to protect them from oppression; to give the enslaved, freedom; and part seas for them. But as often happens in first love, the people did not appreciate what was offered. The power and beauty of the 10 Commandments we know, the 10 Commandments here written on two stone tablets, are that knowing how fickle we are, having already been betrayed and abandoned by us, God offers the covenant anew. Not ignoring what took place, for God is named as one who can visit suffering on a people for four generations, but God is also steadfast in mercy, in loyalty, in compassion. The 10 Commandments are not about LAW, they are an emphatic statement of COMMITMENT from God, that God will be with us, God will be faithful, and God can transform what was broken into something of value.
There has been a Wendy's Commercial this Summer, emphasizing value. One friend asks the other for a dollar, then offers to trade that buck for the 99 cent sandwich the other is enjoying, and the one enjoying the sandwich recognizes that what is in hand has increased in value and they do not want to give it up.
We have been witnesses to miracles. Imagine a young couple, who are afraid that if they bear a child they may pass along DNA that their child would endure what they had suffered as a child. But before the child is born, they diagnose a more serious problem. Despite all our prayers to make the suffering go away, to relieve them of their plight, the child is born, and with a series of surgeries is healthy and a great gift. Suddenly all their earlier fears are forgot.
There is a certain irony to Exodus 34, because where the first version spelled out four laws of relationship to God and six of relationship within human culture, eight in the negative and two Thou Shalts, in the dictating of these commandments, God instructs the people of Israel to avoid their enemies, to not cook lamb in goat's milk, and rather than worshipping fertility Gods to observe three offerings annually, an offering at the time of planting, an offering pledging future commitment when crops first begin to bear, and an offering at harvest, yet while the people attempted to follow these as a kosher people, the 10 Commandments were remembered as stated in the first version.
In total, the Old Testament Rabbis had counted 618 different laws, 248 positive and 365 thou shalt not, associated with 248 parts of the human body and 365 days of the year. We have followed the last several weeks as the Pharisees and Saducees each tested Jesus about Authority, about the Sanctity of Marriage, about the Resurrection of the dead, and the Power of the Empire versus the Kingdom of God, finally this morning a Theologian is put forward to challenge Jesus on the nuances of all the laws and commandments of what it is to be Kosher. Of the 618 different laws, cooking meat in its mother's milk, versus circumcision, lying, versus simple coveting, pride versus murder which is the greatest? According to Hebrew Law all the Commands were equal, if Sin is brokenness from God to do what you desire as if there were no God, what difference if that is because you were prideful, or murderous? Yet, Jesus replied, the way we need to understand the Laws, the key to everything is to follow the Covenant to love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Here the purpose of the Second is not that the first was insufficient, but that the two together, support and reinforce one another. like the form of the cross, we love God, and we love one another, everything else is understood through these covenant commitments. One need not know every single iota of every law, if you follow these covenant commitments, for all the Law and the Prophets are based upon these.
Having been tested in all these ways, Jesus then tests his listeners. Some have suggested Jesus might be the Messiah, so he asks of the Pharisees, Saducees, Scribes and Theologians: :”How is the Relationship between Beloved King David and the Messiah?” They respond The Messiah is Son of David, as recorded in David wanting to build a house for God and God instead making a Covenant for all future generations that God would be present with the Son of David. To which Jesus then sings one of the most loved of the Psalms which identifies David addressing the Messiah as Lord. It would be as if in the midst of the Political debates last spring, if instead of trying to explain their faith and religious loyalties, the Candidates for our highest Office, our greatest Powers, simply stood before the Nation and humbly sang “Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found, twas blind but now I see.”
The answers to life's problems do not have to be complex, the language of faith need not get in the way. What matters, the only thing that maters is our COVENANT COMMITMENT, our Love and Devotion. I have tried to start a tradition, that was begun years ago in my becoming a minister. After College and Seminary Graduate School, candidates for the ministry sit for four four hour written exams similar to passing the Bar in Law, or Medical Boards for a Doctor, after which you are permitted to find a Church that wants you. Then, and only then, are you able to stand before the Presbytery as the Elders and Ministers ask whatever questions they desire. And since the reUnion of the Presbyterian Church in 1984, every time a minister changes Presbyteries they are questioned all over again. The first time I was examined this lasted for two hours. At the end of which you are escorted from the room as they debate and vote on your preparedness for serving a Church. As I was led back into the Sanctuary after the vote, the Presbytery rose to sing: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” as reminder that the blessings we seek are not the Culture's values of Celebrity, Wealth, Notoriety, and Security, but God and God's love alone
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Seeing and Notseeing Is Believing, October 19, 2008
Exodus 33
Matthew 22:15-24
Yesterday, I was at our sons' Parents weekend, where we heard the former Majority leader of the US Senate Dr. Bill Frist speaking about economic development in Underdeveloped countries. After the lecture I introduced myself and described we had created a Clinic in South Sudan and provided for it for two years. He responded dismissively “O yes, religious groups have done a number of wonderful things.”
I was speaking with someone on the Nominating Committee the other day about the church, who described “We've created a very fragile, dangerous consortium. All these separate cliques, side by side. We know that in other times the church has been divided against itself. The world has so many different people's of differing cultures, differing nationalities, ages, orientations, all of which seem to be in competition. It's going to take a firm and authoritative hand to keep all these divergent groups working together!” And we are diverse , we claim that diversity as a value, trying to be as diverse and mutli-talented as possible, but, it doesn't take a heavy hand. What is required is an ABIDING PRESENCE, a covenant that we will trust one another and trust God; the presence of the holy and the presence of one another, that we can be the body of Christ in this place and time, together.
There are those among us who are rationalists, who know that SEEING is BELIEVING, we want to build success upon success, accomplishment upon accomplishment, to invest only in that which can guarantee a sound future.
There are also those among us, who theorize that for BELIEF to be Belief, our BELIEF must be in WHAT IS NOT SEEN. Science, Law and Physics can determine the mathematic probability of every contingency, but there are limits to our knowledge, limits to what we can prove, there are also times when rationalism and pragmatism and technology are simply too stiff, too cold and practical when we need human touch and re-assurance, support and prayer, at which point we BELIEVE because the alternative is hopelessness or a reliance on fate.
There are also those Second Grade Grammar teachers among us, who will insist that we need to use the plural adjective, that rather than SEEING AND NOT SEEING IS BELIEVING, What is proper is that SEEING and NOT SEEING ARE BELIEVING, but it is precisely the interplay and juxtaposition of these TWO as ONE where faith is alive and real. SEEING AND NOT SEEING IS BELIEVING.
If the Bell Choir were each to play all their notes all at the same time, or even as ever each chose to do, there would be sound, there might even on occasion be chords, but we would not call this music. ONLY when every one of the choir have rehearsed together and built trust in one another, being there when needed and having made mistakes, as well as the power and presence of silence, does music resonate.
Last week we read together that the people became anxious because of the delay of Moses on the mountain. The people wanted predictability, wanted a guarantee that WHEN I pray, my wishes will be answered. When I make an offering, I will get what I desire. SO they made an Idol, the GOLDEN CALF. Moses came down the mountain and broke the calf, naming that what they had done was to repeat the Sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis, because they chose to do for themselves as if God did not exist. Moses then went back up the Mountain at Horeb and God says “GO on Your Way, take the people” Go to the Promised Land and get it over with. To which Moses says NO LORD, Not without you. There can be CHEAP GRACE, where we rush to get to the end, where we accept without understanding or forgiveness, without claiming and accepting all that has gone along, but the point is not to GET LIFE OVER WITH.
In the late 1980s, George Steiner, Cultural Critic and Philosopher of Cambridge, Harvard and Columbia, went so far as to describe that every great work of ART, all great LITERATURE deals with the SEARCH for “LIFE, DEATH and GOD”, everything of worth in culture is a transcendent journey that without God is humanly impossible. We could send rockets to the moon, but there would be no questioning of WHY, no search for anything beyond ourselves, without God being part of our lives. An artist can follow all the rules to technically paint or sculpt like one of the Masters, but without faith, without conviction and calling, life would lack passion, life would lack meaning. We can marry and have children, but how different the experience when we come together with shared hopes and dreams and belief in the impossible. We pace the floor at night with our children wishing we could take away the ear ache, make the cancer vanish, allow them to succeed, and where life fails to struggle and wonder, WHY GOD?
Moses does what neither Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac or Jacob had done before him. All the Patriarchs had encountered God, responded to God's call, walked with God, and struggled with faith when circumstances did not fall their way; but most were like Jonah wishing they could get away from God, only to discover that they could not, so they would do as God commands. Moses demands that God be in his life. Moses demands that life, that marriage and the community, and the raising of children, the daily and lifelong struggles, all of it, all of life, WHAT IS SEEN & UNSEEN, be HOLY.
I am convinced that there are painful times in life, which God uses. I would not go so far as to blame God for causing suffering in the world; but that there are times when our lives, our understanding and knowledge and schedules are SO FULL, we have left no time or space for what is holy, that we are humbled. And in those struggles, the car accident that almost killed us... the economic collapse that means we cannot retire to do as we wanted to do, but instead must continue to be of service... the doubts of fidelity that we realize there is GOD in our lives. In the silence and in the struggle, and the juxtaposition of the two, there is FAITH.
The Ancient Empire of Rome was in many ways the cultural opposite of our own time, not that one is good and the other bad, both have their limitations. But in our time and culture, it would be rare and odd for a person to stop in the midst of their work to pray. Often when greeting folk on Sunday morning, they will comment on the weather, and I will respond “GOD DOES GOOD WORK” and they will look at me as if humorous. It is as if, Faith in God is safe so long as it is kept within this house of worship, within Sunday morning. In the Ancient Roman World, they would be equally PROFANED if you brought something worldly into Religion. Religion was a place for faith in the UNSEEN, the MYTHIC and MYSTIC and SPIRITUAL, and to bring logic, or reason, or world events, into a house of worship was seen as evil. In the Ancient Roman Empire, the culture had so legislated the difference between what is SEEN what is REAL IN THE WORLD and WHAT is UNSEEN/ what is of God, that you were required to use different money in worship than in the culture. As a Roman Society, you paid taxes, you bought and sold and traded in ROMAN Currency. But within a Temple, you made an offering with a living thing, if you had come a great distance and could not or had not brought a heifer or a goat, you could buy them, BUT you had to use TEMPLE CURRENCY not Roman Coinage. Like going through International Customs you traded all the Roman currency you had on you so as to bring nothing worldly into this place, and when you left you sold or gave away everything of the Temple so as to take nothing out into the real world. The Pharisees ask a POINTLESS Question, IS IT LEGAL TO PAY TAXES? Not is it Righteous, is it faithful, is it moral or ethical, or As a man of faith is it WRONG to support the Government...but is it LEGAL. And Jesus replies, by saying I do not have a Coin of the Empire, do any of you? When they produce one, they have already “Profaned Themselves” by having brought that thing into this place.
But he goes further, to question the inscription and picture on it. At which point, he is naming this challenge as a Question of AUTHORITY. The question is not whether it is legal or right to have to pay taxes, but if you have to give to both, which is more important, what is the greatest authority in our lives? And they describe that the image of Caesar is on the coin, to which Jesus claims and you are created in the image of God, so render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what belongs to God.
The issue of our times is not Should we go into despair over the Market, nor Can we continue living Eat, Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow we may die, WE DO NEED to change our priorities and question what is of greatest value, but in that profess we are created in the image of God.
Matthew 22:15-24
Yesterday, I was at our sons' Parents weekend, where we heard the former Majority leader of the US Senate Dr. Bill Frist speaking about economic development in Underdeveloped countries. After the lecture I introduced myself and described we had created a Clinic in South Sudan and provided for it for two years. He responded dismissively “O yes, religious groups have done a number of wonderful things.”
I was speaking with someone on the Nominating Committee the other day about the church, who described “We've created a very fragile, dangerous consortium. All these separate cliques, side by side. We know that in other times the church has been divided against itself. The world has so many different people's of differing cultures, differing nationalities, ages, orientations, all of which seem to be in competition. It's going to take a firm and authoritative hand to keep all these divergent groups working together!” And we are diverse , we claim that diversity as a value, trying to be as diverse and mutli-talented as possible, but, it doesn't take a heavy hand. What is required is an ABIDING PRESENCE, a covenant that we will trust one another and trust God; the presence of the holy and the presence of one another, that we can be the body of Christ in this place and time, together.
There are those among us who are rationalists, who know that SEEING is BELIEVING, we want to build success upon success, accomplishment upon accomplishment, to invest only in that which can guarantee a sound future.
There are also those among us, who theorize that for BELIEF to be Belief, our BELIEF must be in WHAT IS NOT SEEN. Science, Law and Physics can determine the mathematic probability of every contingency, but there are limits to our knowledge, limits to what we can prove, there are also times when rationalism and pragmatism and technology are simply too stiff, too cold and practical when we need human touch and re-assurance, support and prayer, at which point we BELIEVE because the alternative is hopelessness or a reliance on fate.
There are also those Second Grade Grammar teachers among us, who will insist that we need to use the plural adjective, that rather than SEEING AND NOT SEEING IS BELIEVING, What is proper is that SEEING and NOT SEEING ARE BELIEVING, but it is precisely the interplay and juxtaposition of these TWO as ONE where faith is alive and real. SEEING AND NOT SEEING IS BELIEVING.
If the Bell Choir were each to play all their notes all at the same time, or even as ever each chose to do, there would be sound, there might even on occasion be chords, but we would not call this music. ONLY when every one of the choir have rehearsed together and built trust in one another, being there when needed and having made mistakes, as well as the power and presence of silence, does music resonate.
Last week we read together that the people became anxious because of the delay of Moses on the mountain. The people wanted predictability, wanted a guarantee that WHEN I pray, my wishes will be answered. When I make an offering, I will get what I desire. SO they made an Idol, the GOLDEN CALF. Moses came down the mountain and broke the calf, naming that what they had done was to repeat the Sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis, because they chose to do for themselves as if God did not exist. Moses then went back up the Mountain at Horeb and God says “GO on Your Way, take the people” Go to the Promised Land and get it over with. To which Moses says NO LORD, Not without you. There can be CHEAP GRACE, where we rush to get to the end, where we accept without understanding or forgiveness, without claiming and accepting all that has gone along, but the point is not to GET LIFE OVER WITH.
In the late 1980s, George Steiner, Cultural Critic and Philosopher of Cambridge, Harvard and Columbia, went so far as to describe that every great work of ART, all great LITERATURE deals with the SEARCH for “LIFE, DEATH and GOD”, everything of worth in culture is a transcendent journey that without God is humanly impossible. We could send rockets to the moon, but there would be no questioning of WHY, no search for anything beyond ourselves, without God being part of our lives. An artist can follow all the rules to technically paint or sculpt like one of the Masters, but without faith, without conviction and calling, life would lack passion, life would lack meaning. We can marry and have children, but how different the experience when we come together with shared hopes and dreams and belief in the impossible. We pace the floor at night with our children wishing we could take away the ear ache, make the cancer vanish, allow them to succeed, and where life fails to struggle and wonder, WHY GOD?
Moses does what neither Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac or Jacob had done before him. All the Patriarchs had encountered God, responded to God's call, walked with God, and struggled with faith when circumstances did not fall their way; but most were like Jonah wishing they could get away from God, only to discover that they could not, so they would do as God commands. Moses demands that God be in his life. Moses demands that life, that marriage and the community, and the raising of children, the daily and lifelong struggles, all of it, all of life, WHAT IS SEEN & UNSEEN, be HOLY.
I am convinced that there are painful times in life, which God uses. I would not go so far as to blame God for causing suffering in the world; but that there are times when our lives, our understanding and knowledge and schedules are SO FULL, we have left no time or space for what is holy, that we are humbled. And in those struggles, the car accident that almost killed us... the economic collapse that means we cannot retire to do as we wanted to do, but instead must continue to be of service... the doubts of fidelity that we realize there is GOD in our lives. In the silence and in the struggle, and the juxtaposition of the two, there is FAITH.
The Ancient Empire of Rome was in many ways the cultural opposite of our own time, not that one is good and the other bad, both have their limitations. But in our time and culture, it would be rare and odd for a person to stop in the midst of their work to pray. Often when greeting folk on Sunday morning, they will comment on the weather, and I will respond “GOD DOES GOOD WORK” and they will look at me as if humorous. It is as if, Faith in God is safe so long as it is kept within this house of worship, within Sunday morning. In the Ancient Roman World, they would be equally PROFANED if you brought something worldly into Religion. Religion was a place for faith in the UNSEEN, the MYTHIC and MYSTIC and SPIRITUAL, and to bring logic, or reason, or world events, into a house of worship was seen as evil. In the Ancient Roman Empire, the culture had so legislated the difference between what is SEEN what is REAL IN THE WORLD and WHAT is UNSEEN/ what is of God, that you were required to use different money in worship than in the culture. As a Roman Society, you paid taxes, you bought and sold and traded in ROMAN Currency. But within a Temple, you made an offering with a living thing, if you had come a great distance and could not or had not brought a heifer or a goat, you could buy them, BUT you had to use TEMPLE CURRENCY not Roman Coinage. Like going through International Customs you traded all the Roman currency you had on you so as to bring nothing worldly into this place, and when you left you sold or gave away everything of the Temple so as to take nothing out into the real world. The Pharisees ask a POINTLESS Question, IS IT LEGAL TO PAY TAXES? Not is it Righteous, is it faithful, is it moral or ethical, or As a man of faith is it WRONG to support the Government...but is it LEGAL. And Jesus replies, by saying I do not have a Coin of the Empire, do any of you? When they produce one, they have already “Profaned Themselves” by having brought that thing into this place.
But he goes further, to question the inscription and picture on it. At which point, he is naming this challenge as a Question of AUTHORITY. The question is not whether it is legal or right to have to pay taxes, but if you have to give to both, which is more important, what is the greatest authority in our lives? And they describe that the image of Caesar is on the coin, to which Jesus claims and you are created in the image of God, so render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what belongs to God.
The issue of our times is not Should we go into despair over the Market, nor Can we continue living Eat, Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow we may die, WE DO NEED to change our priorities and question what is of greatest value, but in that profess we are created in the image of God.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
A Presumptuous People, October 12, 2008
Exodus 32:1-14
Matthew 22:1-14
We are a PRESUMPTUOUS people, filled and pre-occupied with our own anxieties.
Would that we could be the people we envision ourselves to be: Joyful, Faithful, Ethical, Moral, Just, acting to follow through on clear priorities... However, Jesus aptly names that when Called, we have other things to do. The parable describes that among those called, the first is a wealthy land-owner who claims “I have just bought a piece of property and must go inspect what I have bought. The point is not that he bought land sight unseen, but that having bought this land, he wanted to go stand in the middle of his possession and see all that was his. He wanted to walk up and down upon it and take pride that all this was his and his alone. He could not be distracted by a responsibility, even to the King.
The second is a business man who claims to have recently purchased ten pair of oxen and he wants to try them out. The point is not that the fields need to be plowed, not that the oxen are in any danger, but simply that he has bought ten pair of oxen, and like our having a fleet of new cars, he cannot be content until he has driven each, he wanted to touch them, put them into service, he wanted to witness what profit they could provide for him. He could not be distracted by a commitment even to their King.
The third professes, I just got married myself, ignoring that he could have brought his bride to share the honor of attending the King's son's Wedding, ignoring that he could have understood how important this was by having himself gotten married, ignoring this could have blessed his marriage, he wanted to be alone. He saw his priorities foremost. He could not be distracted by an obligation even to the King.
We put our own wants ahead of the world's needs, our demonstration of free will ahead of God's plan. It is the middle of October in Central New York, we have a National Holiday celebrating the discovery of our Continent by Western Europeans over 400 years ago, and on this weekend off the temperature is going to be 75 degrees. Some of us, cannot wait for the first snow, others want to return to mid-summer when the weather was not as beautiful in our eyes as the Autumn has become. Still others, want to hold this moment in time, preserving the color of the leaves, the smells, sound of geese, failing to recognize that the smell is of decay, color the change brought by the trees withdrawing moisture into their roots, flocks preparing to fly.
The Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, even Computerization, each were attempts to equalize all humanity, that with public education, with access to information and technology, the human condition would be improved. In so many ways our circumstance has been improved. We now live in a time where quality health care is described as both a basic Human Right and a Moral Responsibility, rather than a privilege of the aristocracy, or an obligation of the State. Where access to owning a home has been perceived as a right all in our nation could attain. Where education is perceived as not only available, but essential. Where technology has made things available cheaper, faster and smaller than ever before. But with all this we do enjoy, we still are human, like two year olds we still want more and we want what we want when we want. Binding our anxiety, we presume to demand our fulfillment of our desires, hurrying up life, foolishly trying to get it over with.
This is the story of God's creation of the Garden of Eden and The Fall of Adam and Eve, all over again. God had saved the people. God brought them out of slavery and oppression into nature's wilderness, which the people presumed to be AN EXILE. God fed the people and gave them water, God gave the people the LAW and Commandments, which the people did not have to, but freely accepted. The Covenant was cut, offerings were made, the smell of the burnt cereal offerings filled their nostrils, the blood of the sacrifice of ten bulls was sprinkled on the people to seal them in God's Covenant. In the intervening 12 chapters, between Chapter 20 where they receive the 10 Commandments and 32 which we read this day, Moses went up Mount Sinai where God planned and specified in great detail what the Ark of the Covenant would look like, how the Tent of meeting was to be adorned, how the Tabernacle was to be filled with music, all to inspire the people with awe. The purpose of worship was not to be an obligation, not a tax paid to the gods for fertility, pleading for blessings, or changing the economy to benefit our portfolio. God's desire was for the people to be in relationship with God to co-create a Tabernacle and Tent and Ark representative of the Covenant Relationship God had made to this people setting them apart for all history, setting them apart from all others, saving them and preserving them throughout generations. BUT Moses was gone too long. The people became anxious for leadership. The people were idle, and they wanted to do something with their anxiety, so with the blessing of Aaron the idle people made an IDOL of Gold. Inso doing, just as the first humans ate of the FRUIT God commanded not to eat, this people broke the commandment to have no other Gods.
How often, when we are anxious, depressed, filled with fears and blah, we try to fill that void with something gold, something that sparkles, that is new, tangible, malleable, able to be owned and controlled. But that chocolate, the land we own and possess, the oxen and cars and tools of production, do not satisfy.
God had planned to co-create a relationship that would inspire. God had planned that worship like a fine feast would be planned and simmered, developed and nurtured for the people to find fulfillment. The people wanted to have something that would fill the void. Something they could point to when anxious and follow the ritual of their making to that which they owned and possessed, and having paid the duty, having fulfilled their obligation, all would instantly be right with the world. Mom could kiss the boo-boo and make everything right. Dad could repair the broken toy as good as new.
The struggle of God and Moses, the struggle we each encounter, was what to do when the covenant is broken. God's response is “LET ME BE ALONE” so as to get even with this people. God is not simply going to let the people that God saved go after idols of their own making. God is not simply going to kill and destroy. God had created this people, like the act of creation itself, so God would plunge them into primordial chaos. AND MOSES, this man of faith, says “NO LORD”. God says “Do not worry, I will make a great nation out of you, I promised this to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who was renamed Israel, long ago, I promise this to you as as a person of faith as well.” And Moses says “NO GOD.
You are a Rational, Reasoning God, and this is a teachable moment, not a time for vengeance.
Your Reputation with other Nations, with all the world, is on the line, if you do this, no one is going to remember the people broke covenant and made a golden idol. The people will recall God set them free and killed them.
Repent God, and allow the people to repent. And Moses recounts for God the story of faith, the story of Abraham and Isaac and Israel. And this Nation called Israel, as well.” Then Moses came down the mountain to call the people to also repent. Throughout time, we have described God as UnChanging, what we mean by that is that GOD'S COMMITMENT, GOD'S FAITH and COVENANT IS, though God can repent, forgive, choose to enter in and make a difference.
How rarely do we as people of faith do what Moses did! Rather than inventorying our assets. Rather than counting our accomplishments, or going off to be alone. Rather than checking and repositioning our portfolios. To stop, to recall the “spiritual” moments in our lives, to retell our stories of faith.
I recall about three years ago, going along with the Boy Scouts as an Advisor as they climbed the Presidential Range of the Appalachian Trail of the White Mountains. We began the hike, and the mountains became taller and taller when suddenly it occurred to me that these boys were seventeen year olds and I was middle aged. That first day, I convinced myself that all I had to do was survive, keeping up, until we got to the camp that night, and I would not have embarrassed my son, so I could hike down the following day. When midmorning we reached a plateau and looked out over the 50 miles of mountains we would be hiking, I recognized there was no way down, all we could do was trust God and trust one another to get us through this journey.
I recall a weekend about two years ago, when we had a wedding planned for a Saturday afternoon, and during the week there was a death of another family. What none of us could have anticipated, God's sense of humor, was that the mother of the Bride and the daughter of the deceased were best friends, so that morning the mother of the Bride sat with her best friend and consoled her at her loss, and that afternoon the daughter of the deceased sat beside the Mother of the Bride proudly watching the daughter they had raised together walk up the aisle.
There was a man who was very angry at life. He used to throw things and swear, lose his temper and spit on people. One day a friend sat down with him and said “What's wrong with you hat you do this?” He responded that he acted out this way at Church, because they Church preaches forgiveness, so no matter what he did, people had to forgive him. His friend told a different story, that when he had been very young his mother had died, and the whole church took responsibility to love and care and act as mother for a mother-less child. Rather than a place that had to forgive, this was a people who demonstrated love and commitment and faith.
The question is not, is there brokenness in the world. There is. The question is whether we bind our anxiety to shiny objects filled with empty calories that entertain us to death, or whether we see these as faith stories, examples of God in our midst and we change.
Realize, it is not enough, simply to be baptized, to have once long ago claimed a relationship of faith. The parable of the Wedding Garment is that the King invited everyone, good and bad. When the King entered the Banquet Hall, the ing saw one who had not prepared for a Wedding Feast, but who had simply come for a free meal. Elsewhere, those who were caught recognized their wrong and prayed for the opportunity to change. This one did not, he could see nothing other than his own hunger and desire.
Matthew 22:1-14
We are a PRESUMPTUOUS people, filled and pre-occupied with our own anxieties.
Would that we could be the people we envision ourselves to be: Joyful, Faithful, Ethical, Moral, Just, acting to follow through on clear priorities... However, Jesus aptly names that when Called, we have other things to do. The parable describes that among those called, the first is a wealthy land-owner who claims “I have just bought a piece of property and must go inspect what I have bought. The point is not that he bought land sight unseen, but that having bought this land, he wanted to go stand in the middle of his possession and see all that was his. He wanted to walk up and down upon it and take pride that all this was his and his alone. He could not be distracted by a responsibility, even to the King.
The second is a business man who claims to have recently purchased ten pair of oxen and he wants to try them out. The point is not that the fields need to be plowed, not that the oxen are in any danger, but simply that he has bought ten pair of oxen, and like our having a fleet of new cars, he cannot be content until he has driven each, he wanted to touch them, put them into service, he wanted to witness what profit they could provide for him. He could not be distracted by a commitment even to their King.
The third professes, I just got married myself, ignoring that he could have brought his bride to share the honor of attending the King's son's Wedding, ignoring that he could have understood how important this was by having himself gotten married, ignoring this could have blessed his marriage, he wanted to be alone. He saw his priorities foremost. He could not be distracted by an obligation even to the King.
We put our own wants ahead of the world's needs, our demonstration of free will ahead of God's plan. It is the middle of October in Central New York, we have a National Holiday celebrating the discovery of our Continent by Western Europeans over 400 years ago, and on this weekend off the temperature is going to be 75 degrees. Some of us, cannot wait for the first snow, others want to return to mid-summer when the weather was not as beautiful in our eyes as the Autumn has become. Still others, want to hold this moment in time, preserving the color of the leaves, the smells, sound of geese, failing to recognize that the smell is of decay, color the change brought by the trees withdrawing moisture into their roots, flocks preparing to fly.
The Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, even Computerization, each were attempts to equalize all humanity, that with public education, with access to information and technology, the human condition would be improved. In so many ways our circumstance has been improved. We now live in a time where quality health care is described as both a basic Human Right and a Moral Responsibility, rather than a privilege of the aristocracy, or an obligation of the State. Where access to owning a home has been perceived as a right all in our nation could attain. Where education is perceived as not only available, but essential. Where technology has made things available cheaper, faster and smaller than ever before. But with all this we do enjoy, we still are human, like two year olds we still want more and we want what we want when we want. Binding our anxiety, we presume to demand our fulfillment of our desires, hurrying up life, foolishly trying to get it over with.
This is the story of God's creation of the Garden of Eden and The Fall of Adam and Eve, all over again. God had saved the people. God brought them out of slavery and oppression into nature's wilderness, which the people presumed to be AN EXILE. God fed the people and gave them water, God gave the people the LAW and Commandments, which the people did not have to, but freely accepted. The Covenant was cut, offerings were made, the smell of the burnt cereal offerings filled their nostrils, the blood of the sacrifice of ten bulls was sprinkled on the people to seal them in God's Covenant. In the intervening 12 chapters, between Chapter 20 where they receive the 10 Commandments and 32 which we read this day, Moses went up Mount Sinai where God planned and specified in great detail what the Ark of the Covenant would look like, how the Tent of meeting was to be adorned, how the Tabernacle was to be filled with music, all to inspire the people with awe. The purpose of worship was not to be an obligation, not a tax paid to the gods for fertility, pleading for blessings, or changing the economy to benefit our portfolio. God's desire was for the people to be in relationship with God to co-create a Tabernacle and Tent and Ark representative of the Covenant Relationship God had made to this people setting them apart for all history, setting them apart from all others, saving them and preserving them throughout generations. BUT Moses was gone too long. The people became anxious for leadership. The people were idle, and they wanted to do something with their anxiety, so with the blessing of Aaron the idle people made an IDOL of Gold. Inso doing, just as the first humans ate of the FRUIT God commanded not to eat, this people broke the commandment to have no other Gods.
How often, when we are anxious, depressed, filled with fears and blah, we try to fill that void with something gold, something that sparkles, that is new, tangible, malleable, able to be owned and controlled. But that chocolate, the land we own and possess, the oxen and cars and tools of production, do not satisfy.
God had planned to co-create a relationship that would inspire. God had planned that worship like a fine feast would be planned and simmered, developed and nurtured for the people to find fulfillment. The people wanted to have something that would fill the void. Something they could point to when anxious and follow the ritual of their making to that which they owned and possessed, and having paid the duty, having fulfilled their obligation, all would instantly be right with the world. Mom could kiss the boo-boo and make everything right. Dad could repair the broken toy as good as new.
The struggle of God and Moses, the struggle we each encounter, was what to do when the covenant is broken. God's response is “LET ME BE ALONE” so as to get even with this people. God is not simply going to let the people that God saved go after idols of their own making. God is not simply going to kill and destroy. God had created this people, like the act of creation itself, so God would plunge them into primordial chaos. AND MOSES, this man of faith, says “NO LORD”. God says “Do not worry, I will make a great nation out of you, I promised this to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who was renamed Israel, long ago, I promise this to you as as a person of faith as well.” And Moses says “NO GOD.
You are a Rational, Reasoning God, and this is a teachable moment, not a time for vengeance.
Your Reputation with other Nations, with all the world, is on the line, if you do this, no one is going to remember the people broke covenant and made a golden idol. The people will recall God set them free and killed them.
Repent God, and allow the people to repent. And Moses recounts for God the story of faith, the story of Abraham and Isaac and Israel. And this Nation called Israel, as well.” Then Moses came down the mountain to call the people to also repent. Throughout time, we have described God as UnChanging, what we mean by that is that GOD'S COMMITMENT, GOD'S FAITH and COVENANT IS, though God can repent, forgive, choose to enter in and make a difference.
How rarely do we as people of faith do what Moses did! Rather than inventorying our assets. Rather than counting our accomplishments, or going off to be alone. Rather than checking and repositioning our portfolios. To stop, to recall the “spiritual” moments in our lives, to retell our stories of faith.
I recall about three years ago, going along with the Boy Scouts as an Advisor as they climbed the Presidential Range of the Appalachian Trail of the White Mountains. We began the hike, and the mountains became taller and taller when suddenly it occurred to me that these boys were seventeen year olds and I was middle aged. That first day, I convinced myself that all I had to do was survive, keeping up, until we got to the camp that night, and I would not have embarrassed my son, so I could hike down the following day. When midmorning we reached a plateau and looked out over the 50 miles of mountains we would be hiking, I recognized there was no way down, all we could do was trust God and trust one another to get us through this journey.
I recall a weekend about two years ago, when we had a wedding planned for a Saturday afternoon, and during the week there was a death of another family. What none of us could have anticipated, God's sense of humor, was that the mother of the Bride and the daughter of the deceased were best friends, so that morning the mother of the Bride sat with her best friend and consoled her at her loss, and that afternoon the daughter of the deceased sat beside the Mother of the Bride proudly watching the daughter they had raised together walk up the aisle.
There was a man who was very angry at life. He used to throw things and swear, lose his temper and spit on people. One day a friend sat down with him and said “What's wrong with you hat you do this?” He responded that he acted out this way at Church, because they Church preaches forgiveness, so no matter what he did, people had to forgive him. His friend told a different story, that when he had been very young his mother had died, and the whole church took responsibility to love and care and act as mother for a mother-less child. Rather than a place that had to forgive, this was a people who demonstrated love and commitment and faith.
The question is not, is there brokenness in the world. There is. The question is whether we bind our anxiety to shiny objects filled with empty calories that entertain us to death, or whether we see these as faith stories, examples of God in our midst and we change.
Realize, it is not enough, simply to be baptized, to have once long ago claimed a relationship of faith. The parable of the Wedding Garment is that the King invited everyone, good and bad. When the King entered the Banquet Hall, the ing saw one who had not prepared for a Wedding Feast, but who had simply come for a free meal. Elsewhere, those who were caught recognized their wrong and prayed for the opportunity to change. This one did not, he could see nothing other than his own hunger and desire.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
God's Law or Love: Yes! October 05, 2008
Exodus 20
Matthew 21:33-44
The former slaves of The Pharaoh of Egypt had cried out from oppression and GOD made them FREE!
These former slaves of Pharaoh had cried out in hunger to God, and received MANNA from Heaven.
These former slaves of Pharaoh had complained of thirst and received WATER from solid Rock.
Afraid of the strangers around them, complaining against one another, God had provided them leaders.
Now finally, the people come to pay the piper, to receive the LAW and know what the Lord commands.
As slaves of Egypt, Pharaoh had ordered they build Pyramids and Statues, the Great Sphinx, National Monuments against all Eternity that not even Napoleon and his armies, or Hitler and the Nazis could eliminate from the face of the earth.
In order that they live, Pharaoh had commanded they kill their own babies and they had done so.
In order to be fed, Pharaoh commanded they labor without straw to bind the mortar, still they worked.
What now would this LORD require of them, for having destroyed their oppressor, for feeding them?
The 10 Commandments are strange and awesome, both because of what is required, and what is permitted, as well as the underlying pre-suppositions of what is referred to as the LAW of MOSES.
Despite satirists over time suggesting there were three or four tablets, 12, or even 40 Commandments, there are but 10. Four explicitly defining relationship to God, and 6 of our relationship to one another.
2 Requirements, and 8 Prohibitions. All of which makes one pause to consider, which is easier to fulfill, a Law that requires YOU MUST, or YOU SHALL NOT?
You shall Honor your Parents means that ALWAYS, in everything continually, you MUST.
You shall NOT COVET allows that you can do anything, and everything, all that is required is that you not desire to possess, to fight over, to guard ownership, and by the process of naming we insert the opposite that we SHALL DO, Have Compassion, act in love and devotion.
We have by virtue of believing in A NEW TESTAMENT, with a NEW COVENANT, perpetuated an understanding that the LAW of EXODUS was somehow insurmountable, unable to be lived.
BUT what Jesus described was not ABANDONMENT of the Law as unattainable, but rather, that he would demonstrate how we could so live into the underlying presuppositions of GOD'S LOVE that the LAW becomes self-fulfilled. By our undying commitment, by our willingness to sacrifice for what we love, by our Communion we more than fulfill the Commandments.
Often, people have examined these LAW by LAW, one after another, as if we could somehow find the loophole, the way around all the rest. VITAL to our understanding of the Law, is accepting their UNITY, that all our human relations are built upon our relationship as Human Creatures to God.
The difficulty, is that the GOD OF EXODUS is not a “USER-FRIENDLY GOD”.
We have a tendency to believe that either LONG, Long Ago, before Noah, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the CREATOR OF THE WHOLE COSMOS of universes and therefore in this Post-Modern, Computerized, North American culture, GOD cannot be concerned with what you and I do, think, feel;
OR that there is NO God, that God is the best desire of Human hearts and human aspirations. That as an ethical and moral people we have projected our philosophical ideals to Create a God of our making. Both of these are impotent and unreal. The One Time Creator God is far too distant in time and space, unconcerned, TOO LARGE to have care and passion and compassion for us.
The God of our best ideals, ethics and mores, is TOO SMALL, utterly dependent upon the values and emotions and beliefs of this people today.
BOTH Assume, there is No God, so we live as if we were God. That God has no hands but our hands. Countering both, is the God of EXODUS, who was so close at hand and attentive as to hear the people's cries, and TO CARE, and to enter in.
The God of Exodus was so powerful, that the most powerful and affluent of all the Pharaohs of the Awesome Empire of Egypt was manipulated into confrontation with all his resources, and in the end, the Pharaoh and Egypt, and all their technology and riches and weapons of war, were laid desolate.
For the last several weeks, our National Attention has been focused on the Economy, most recently the CREDIT Crisis, before that UNEMPLOYMENT, before that the STOCK MARKET, before that the HOUSING MARKET, before that GAS PRICES; and we have discovered the implications of our fears and our economy upon the whole world.
In response our leadership created a BILL, which was VOTED, ADOPTED and SIGNED into LAW, granting Powers and Authorities, Tax Breaks and the Ability to Tax the General Population in order to guarantee and protect our limited resources.
One Law, that gives authority for those trusted to use $850 Billion.
A Law to protect and save our investment for the protection and control of our limited resources.
In a WORLD OF POLYTHEISTIC IMAGINATION, God's Law requires we have faith in God alone.
The Bible assumes that Nations will put trust in Presidents and Governments in our ability to create Laws.
The Bible assumes humanity will desire to put faith in The ECONOMY.
Humanity will believe in our own power to wage WAR.
We will devote lifetimes, slaving to own and recreate a piece of Land, this is the reason behind a MORTGAGE that in Latin refers to until death.
For LOVE, for LUST, for PLEASURE for ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE, for PROSPERITY, for REDEMPTION, for PEACE, for CHILDREN what would we do? The 1st COMMANDMENT undercuts all else, that we place our trust, NOT in Washington, Not in Wall Street, not in POLITICS, not in the ECONOMY, not in WAR, not in EDUCATION, but that we place our faith and trust in the limitless generosity of God.
This is a God who does not allow us to use the resources of the earth to make statues or monuments or tombs against eternity, to show our devotion.
This is a God who Not only does not ask us to SWEAR DYING ALLEGIANCE, but who does not allow us to swear, by heaven, or by the name of God.
This is a God who demonstrating the sufficiency of Life, that we do not need to fear or be anxious, entreats us to regularly stop working to SABBATH, to reflect on life in all its fullness.
Repeatedly this week, in Board Rooms, in the Newspaper, in the Political Debates, INSTITUTIONS and AUTHORITIES were asked to name ethics and values, to define marriage, to define the rights and relationship between two who live a committed partnership, to describe what are the legal responsibilities we have for persons in our care and whether a person has the right to refuse treatment, to refuse what authorities determine to be best in order to live out their days and die as they choose, to define the responsibilities of a wife, a mother, a husband a father.
IF we begin with the belief that GOD and GOD alone is GOD, and that all our relationships evolve from the generosity of God. We need a few basic Commands to live by, and the number of BILLS needing to be passed to be LAWS, the rush to save to save the Economy, or to fight a War, or our political battles over Marriage, over defining human relationships will be few.
If instead, we begin, in our fears and our desire to possess to own, to be GOD, then we fail to understand the garden of life in which we live. We fail to see the winepress and the tower for what they can do, and instead guard and covet, even killing the Son of God, when our authority is challenged.
Matthew 21:33-44
The former slaves of The Pharaoh of Egypt had cried out from oppression and GOD made them FREE!
These former slaves of Pharaoh had cried out in hunger to God, and received MANNA from Heaven.
These former slaves of Pharaoh had complained of thirst and received WATER from solid Rock.
Afraid of the strangers around them, complaining against one another, God had provided them leaders.
Now finally, the people come to pay the piper, to receive the LAW and know what the Lord commands.
As slaves of Egypt, Pharaoh had ordered they build Pyramids and Statues, the Great Sphinx, National Monuments against all Eternity that not even Napoleon and his armies, or Hitler and the Nazis could eliminate from the face of the earth.
In order that they live, Pharaoh had commanded they kill their own babies and they had done so.
In order to be fed, Pharaoh commanded they labor without straw to bind the mortar, still they worked.
What now would this LORD require of them, for having destroyed their oppressor, for feeding them?
The 10 Commandments are strange and awesome, both because of what is required, and what is permitted, as well as the underlying pre-suppositions of what is referred to as the LAW of MOSES.
Despite satirists over time suggesting there were three or four tablets, 12, or even 40 Commandments, there are but 10. Four explicitly defining relationship to God, and 6 of our relationship to one another.
2 Requirements, and 8 Prohibitions. All of which makes one pause to consider, which is easier to fulfill, a Law that requires YOU MUST, or YOU SHALL NOT?
You shall Honor your Parents means that ALWAYS, in everything continually, you MUST.
You shall NOT COVET allows that you can do anything, and everything, all that is required is that you not desire to possess, to fight over, to guard ownership, and by the process of naming we insert the opposite that we SHALL DO, Have Compassion, act in love and devotion.
We have by virtue of believing in A NEW TESTAMENT, with a NEW COVENANT, perpetuated an understanding that the LAW of EXODUS was somehow insurmountable, unable to be lived.
BUT what Jesus described was not ABANDONMENT of the Law as unattainable, but rather, that he would demonstrate how we could so live into the underlying presuppositions of GOD'S LOVE that the LAW becomes self-fulfilled. By our undying commitment, by our willingness to sacrifice for what we love, by our Communion we more than fulfill the Commandments.
Often, people have examined these LAW by LAW, one after another, as if we could somehow find the loophole, the way around all the rest. VITAL to our understanding of the Law, is accepting their UNITY, that all our human relations are built upon our relationship as Human Creatures to God.
The difficulty, is that the GOD OF EXODUS is not a “USER-FRIENDLY GOD”.
We have a tendency to believe that either LONG, Long Ago, before Noah, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the CREATOR OF THE WHOLE COSMOS of universes and therefore in this Post-Modern, Computerized, North American culture, GOD cannot be concerned with what you and I do, think, feel;
OR that there is NO God, that God is the best desire of Human hearts and human aspirations. That as an ethical and moral people we have projected our philosophical ideals to Create a God of our making. Both of these are impotent and unreal. The One Time Creator God is far too distant in time and space, unconcerned, TOO LARGE to have care and passion and compassion for us.
The God of our best ideals, ethics and mores, is TOO SMALL, utterly dependent upon the values and emotions and beliefs of this people today.
BOTH Assume, there is No God, so we live as if we were God. That God has no hands but our hands. Countering both, is the God of EXODUS, who was so close at hand and attentive as to hear the people's cries, and TO CARE, and to enter in.
The God of Exodus was so powerful, that the most powerful and affluent of all the Pharaohs of the Awesome Empire of Egypt was manipulated into confrontation with all his resources, and in the end, the Pharaoh and Egypt, and all their technology and riches and weapons of war, were laid desolate.
For the last several weeks, our National Attention has been focused on the Economy, most recently the CREDIT Crisis, before that UNEMPLOYMENT, before that the STOCK MARKET, before that the HOUSING MARKET, before that GAS PRICES; and we have discovered the implications of our fears and our economy upon the whole world.
In response our leadership created a BILL, which was VOTED, ADOPTED and SIGNED into LAW, granting Powers and Authorities, Tax Breaks and the Ability to Tax the General Population in order to guarantee and protect our limited resources.
One Law, that gives authority for those trusted to use $850 Billion.
A Law to protect and save our investment for the protection and control of our limited resources.
In a WORLD OF POLYTHEISTIC IMAGINATION, God's Law requires we have faith in God alone.
The Bible assumes that Nations will put trust in Presidents and Governments in our ability to create Laws.
The Bible assumes humanity will desire to put faith in The ECONOMY.
Humanity will believe in our own power to wage WAR.
We will devote lifetimes, slaving to own and recreate a piece of Land, this is the reason behind a MORTGAGE that in Latin refers to until death.
For LOVE, for LUST, for PLEASURE for ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE, for PROSPERITY, for REDEMPTION, for PEACE, for CHILDREN what would we do? The 1st COMMANDMENT undercuts all else, that we place our trust, NOT in Washington, Not in Wall Street, not in POLITICS, not in the ECONOMY, not in WAR, not in EDUCATION, but that we place our faith and trust in the limitless generosity of God.
This is a God who does not allow us to use the resources of the earth to make statues or monuments or tombs against eternity, to show our devotion.
This is a God who Not only does not ask us to SWEAR DYING ALLEGIANCE, but who does not allow us to swear, by heaven, or by the name of God.
This is a God who demonstrating the sufficiency of Life, that we do not need to fear or be anxious, entreats us to regularly stop working to SABBATH, to reflect on life in all its fullness.
Repeatedly this week, in Board Rooms, in the Newspaper, in the Political Debates, INSTITUTIONS and AUTHORITIES were asked to name ethics and values, to define marriage, to define the rights and relationship between two who live a committed partnership, to describe what are the legal responsibilities we have for persons in our care and whether a person has the right to refuse treatment, to refuse what authorities determine to be best in order to live out their days and die as they choose, to define the responsibilities of a wife, a mother, a husband a father.
IF we begin with the belief that GOD and GOD alone is GOD, and that all our relationships evolve from the generosity of God. We need a few basic Commands to live by, and the number of BILLS needing to be passed to be LAWS, the rush to save to save the Economy, or to fight a War, or our political battles over Marriage, over defining human relationships will be few.
If instead, we begin, in our fears and our desire to possess to own, to be GOD, then we fail to understand the garden of life in which we live. We fail to see the winepress and the tower for what they can do, and instead guard and covet, even killing the Son of God, when our authority is challenged.
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