"Examination of Intentions" January 8, 2017

I Kings 3: 5-14 Isaiah 42: 1-15 Matthew 3: 13-17 This week an email came from my wife’s sister, who is at a Presbyterian Church in Washington DC, stating that she is part of a prayer group, writing prayers for the Inauguration, and she wanted another set of eyes. What they had written was: "Gracious God, As we approach the inauguration of our new President, we bring to You our hopes and fears- recognizing both uncertainty and joy. We are blessed to live in a country that allows for a peaceful transition of powers. Help us to be kind and gentle as we talk and listen to one another and work together to generate a new public discourse for the future of our one Nation under God. Open our hearts, that we may recognize new possibilities for peace and prosperity. Please be with incoming President Trump and all our leaders, give them wisdom, compassion and grace.* Amen" Her concern was that Wisdom, Compassion, Grace ought to lead somewhere, so should the phrase best be Wisdom and Compassion that lead to Grace? And what is the distinction between Wisdom and Compassion leading to Grace versus Wisdom and Grace that lead to Compassion? Given the Prayer of Solomon before his taking the responsibility of office, I wondered the difference between these and asking that Grace and Compassion lead to Wisdom; or whether Grace, Compassion and Wisdom leading to HUMILITY, and whether we pray for our leaders to have Humility? What are your hopes for this new year, this new administration? I am well aware that many of us deal with chronic issues of pain, of care giving, of depression and fear, that provided the government leave us alone, we are willing to leave them alone. But times of transition, retirement, the birth of a child, the death of a spouse, ordination and installation, marriage all are times of examining our intentions. When meeting with a couple, one asked whether we were required to say “Do you wish to be married?” I explained that this was a traditional part of the wedding, where they and their families had been asked their intentions for this relationship, and their seriousness about the commitment, which at one time had been a dowry. The couple responded, “Yes, but, if we have gotten to this point, wearing the dress, walking up the aisle, standing in front of all our family and friends, with a reception waiting, it would be silly for us to have gotten this far if the answer to ‘Do you intend to marry?’ was No.” By that point, the answers to questions are a foregone conclusion, just as are their vows; the swearing-in of the President, and the vows of Ordination. And yet, something happens in each of us, when we make vows to one another before God, when we accept new responsibilities and a new identity for who we are. We tend to recite the history often, for a people who ought to know and own it, but Ancient Israel claimed as their identity before God that they had been slaves, who cried out to God and God heard them, cared and set them free. For generations God led the Nation through wilderness, where they were dependent for everything on God. God gave Israel a land flowing with resources, they described as milk and honey, which we in this Nation describe as Purple Mountains Majesty, Fruited Plains, a Silicon Valley, Golden fields of Harvest, from Sea to Shining Sea. Israel became a super-power, the greatest most powerful monarchy on the face of the Earth; but they forgot about God, they competed with other nations, trying to be better than anyone else at being like them. Israel was fractured, destroyed and carried off in bondage: some to Babylon, some left behind to scrape out an existence in the ruins of bombed out cities, some dispersed we know not where. In each context, the people of faith wondered, How could God let this happen? Has God abandoned us? Is God still God? The questions behind Isaiah 40-42 are if God is really concerned about Justice and Righteousness, Compassion and Grace? Israel was so devastated as to question if God was capable of making things right? Isaiah 42 introduces an entirely new concept, a new way of thinking about God. Israel had been the first and only nation to profess that there is only One true God. Monotheism had been a bold claim, that the God who created the stars and canyon depths, oceans and mountains; Also was the same God who created you and me; more than created has been present with us in all the struggles of our lives. God is also the Judge over Time and Space, Right and Wrong. Isaiah 42 describes God coming as our Messiah. To be God’s Annointed, to be the Messiah was not only to be God’s Elect, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but also to feel the depths of the world’s pain, to bear the insults and scars. He will open the doors of the prisons, bringing light to those hidden away in sin and darkness; to give sight to the blind, strength to the broken, forgiveness to sinners, and faith to the Gentiles. What Isaiah was describing was nothing less than complete overhaul of Israel’s existing world and moral agenda. Part of the separation between Judaism and Christianity has been whether “Israel” the Jewish people communally are God’s Servant to the world, a light to the nations; or whether there would be and is One person, one Savior for the world, Jesus Christ. Will Willimon is now a retired Methodist Bishop, a popular theologian, who claims that for many of us, the problem is that our expectations of God are too big, God does not measure up to how we think God should be and act. It must have been incredibly frustrating for John the Baptist. No doubt, all the rest of the day, it rattled his brain and took the wind out of his stomach, that the first public appearance of the Savior had not been what he wanted everyone to see. We have all had those days of total disillusion, when you go about the tasks with a vacant, blank look in your eyes. Why would God have allowed himself to be so anonymous, so mortal, so like everyone else that he could blend into the crowd? Jesus baptism sets up our hearing Matthew 4, which we have to wait for until March. Matthew 4, is where the Devil Tempts God. Who would have ever conceived of such a thing? In all the Scriptures God is never Tempted by the Devil. Yet as the incarnation, as fully God and fully mortal, Jesus was Human enough to be tempted to doubt and fear, but Jesus was also God enough to not succumb, to never give up the Communal vows and relationship begun in Baptism, “You are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Certainly, John the Baptist was anxiously waiting for Jesus to build on the foundation he had established, to step up and preach with fire and brimstone, calling all the world to trust him and trust God. But Jesus did not. Jesus hung back. Jesus was silent. Jesus was vulnerable. Jesus was Humble. Almighty God we pray that you would grant us Wisdom. Following Your commandments and ordinances that we would receive Grace and Compassion that lead to Vulnerable Humility as your servants.