"Pioneer of Salvation" January 01, 2017

Isaiah 63: 7-9 Hebrews 2:10-18 There was an old preacher, who began every sermon, every worship service, with the words: This is the Day the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” There is something incredibly important about this day, after most the relatives have gone home, but school has not started; Christmas is over , and yet the Wisemen are not here yet. The beauty of embracing a New Year, is realization that our old year was stuck, was not big enough to allow for the possibilities of what is to come. What God may do, which we pray is more grand and wonderful than we have ever known. In recent days, friends and relatives have described how happy they are to finally bury 2016 and move on to a different reality, as if all that was wrong would stay in the past; and being in charge of our lives we could begin anew, different, without suffering. A dear friend had a stroke, and now feels as if his former life is over, without the possibility of good and bad times to come. Another had an inoperable cancer, yet the person continued to believe something could be done. Throughout the last 400 years, ever since Rene Descartes postulated that his own existence was real because they were his perceptions… “I think, therefore, I AM,” humanity has been on an escalating trajectory toward the totalitarian autonomous Self. The world does not matter, other people’s needs do not matter, so long as I am satiated. If not satisfied, we can always cover with a series of four letter words: I’m Okay, Good, Fine, Nice. In the last decade, we have escalated this to where we cannot even have a face to face conversation, instead we converse through our hand-held social devices. Instead of taking photographs of great events, people, places, we take “selfie” pictures of ourselves at these places, with these people, as Center of events. The autonomous self is in opposition to everything in the Bible. Both Testaments emphasize our relationship with God and with the world around us, not alone. Abram and Sarah did not set off on their own, they went with God. Moses did not cross the Red Sea by himself God used Moses to set free the Nations that would become Israel. Jesus did not fly-in on Santa’s sleigh to combat the Grinch. Even in the wilderness and in the Garden at Gethsemane, Jesus was with God. Which is why the final words of Jesus on the Cross are so painful, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” That at death, when in our deepest pain and sense of loss, we imagine ourselves totally alone, abandoned when we are not really; for that is the moment, when billions and billions of people throughout more than 2000 years have most identified with Jesus, and when we are most certain he was more than human, the Messiah, the Anointed one, God and Jesus were one. In all my life and faith, one question has bothered me. Not why was I born, or why must I die. Not why this opportunity did not come, or that one did. Not about sickness or life after. But fifteen years ago, when we first began relationship with refugees from South Sudan, over dinner that night, they asked 3 questions: You have given us a new life, things we never knew imagined, or believed we would enjoy, but as you are our church where are our Bibles? And the truth was, as American Christians in the 21st Century, we had forgotten that others did not have Bibles, or that we could share the Word of God. Second, why out of the hundreds of thousands of refugees at the Camp, the millions killed in war, Why were we saved? Which is a question none of us can answer. But third, Our World had been in Civil War for over 25 years, we have been without food or water or peace, for as long as any can remember, WHY did you not care? Why did you not help? In truth, we had been pre-occupied with ourselves, our world, Drug Wars and Sexual Scandals, Inflation and Recession, and we had not thought to care, or to look outside ourselves, especially to Africa. We have been living for the wrong goals. Instead of reading to our children of happily ever after, rather than being satisfied, or hunger satiated, or conquering pain and loss; what if we believed in SALVATION. The world has not spoken of salvation for a hundred years. In part because Salvation inherently requires Others. We cannot save ourselves. We can survive, but to be saved we need to be rescued, and to rescue others. Salvation cannot be private, salvation is not about winning, having more than others, getting a better deal. What would SALVATION look like? I think back to Psalm 23 “Thou preparest a Table before me, in the presence of my enemies, my cup runneth over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” A time and place where there are no enemies. Where everyone, not only me and the people I care about, but everyone has an equal place at the Table. Where everyone is fed, not simply fattened, to be satiated, but with a super abundance of whatever is needed. According to the Letter to the Hebrews SALVATION is not a private place, but a communal state of being, “OUR SALVATION.” Jesus is the Pioneer of Our Salvation, blazing the trail, making the way for us to travel the course no one had ever gone before, ultimately for us to join the Savior with God at the End. God’s faithful persist in praising God, through all that comes. Emphasizing God’s grace and love does not raise us above the suffering of the world, but allows us to endure and persevere. In the case of Isaiah, MEMORY is the key. By recalling the gracious deeds of the LORD, the prophet helps others in two vital ways: First, by rescuing others from their autonomous individual loneliness of experience. “I will recount all the Lord has done for US. Throughout this prophecy, the believer speaks in the plural, that we are not alone. We cannot delude ourselves to an “ONLY-CHILD fantasy that others do not understand or care. Because God’s love is for “the People” “The Whole House of Israel” “The Children of God.” Even when we each pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray not to MY GOD, but to OUR FATHER. Second, by rescuing us from the PRESENT, the prophet’s description of historic events help others to know the world has not always been like it now is. There were other times, when God heard people’s distress and God entered in, God cared. While never denying the pain of the present, we are able to imagine that in a bigger reality, when there were pains in the past -- God saved, that in the future, God may provide a new salvation. Rather than the prison of the present, we open our faith to the possibilities of a fuller future, a New Year. What if, instead of trying to make and keep New Year Resolutions for things, things only focused on ourselves, things beyond our control… if we resolved to start each day with saying and then trying to live out this prayer: “I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of God, because of all that the Lord has done for us.” Then name the many joys we have had in life.