Sermon – 1 Samuel 8.4-20, 11.14-14, P5, YB, June 10, 2018

Tags

choice, covenant, faithfulness, foundation, free will, God, king, leader, redeem, relationship, Sermon, theocracy, trust, worry

Today we encounter one of the most pivotal moments in our faith history.  The story from First Samuel may not seem that momentous.  Surely the Flood, or the crossing of the Red Sea, or the arrival at the Promised Land, or, I don’t know, the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are more pivotal.  But this short piece of scripture contains something quite theologically significant in the covenantal relationship between God and God’s people.  Samuel has been a righteous prophet and judge for the people, but much like his predecessor Eli who we heard about last week, his sons have become corrupt leaders and the people are unhappy.  And so, the people suggest a solution:  a king.  In their minds this is a great solution.  A king could solve their problems, and most certainly would help protect them from enemies.  A king would dispense justice and mercy to foster right relationships among the people, would hold fast to the covenantal law, and would be appointed by God.  And they would still have prophets to act as their system of checks and balances.[i]  Besides, all the other nations have kings, why shouldn’t they?

The request sounds innocent enough.  As twenty-first century Americans, having no governing leader is inconceivable.  For us, the idea of a theocracy is so foreign, we almost have a hard time imagining the concept.  A king, or at least a president, sounds perfectly reasonable.  But for the people of God, a theocracy is all they have ever known.  “Since the time when Israel first became a nation, Israel had been a theocracy, a community guided and protected by YHWH.  They were set apart, distinctive from other nations, and they had no king as others nations did.  Israel was led by various judges whom God raised up in times of need.  These leaders included, among others, Moses, Miriam, Aaron, Deborah, Samson, Gideon, and Samuel, who served not as kings or queens but as mouthpieces for God as they arbitrated disputes, saw that justice was done, or led the people to victory over a threatening enemy.”[ii]  So this request for a king is a huge shift.  As Walter Brueggemann explains, “Their request is nothing less than a change in Israel’s foundational commitments….This request for a king is one more step in [a] continuing performance of mistrust.”[iii]  In other words, the people of God do not trust God, and out of their mistrust, they are willing to change the entire basis of their relationship with God.

Now if you were to ask me about my greatest spiritual struggle, I would likely say worry.  I have told countless people how much the Matthean text about worry has been a spiritual guide for me, “Consider the lilies of the field…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”[iv]  My whole life I have thought my greatest struggle was worry.  But in reflecting this week, I am not sure my greatest issue is worry.  My greatest issue might be trust.  I worry because I do not trust – I do not trust God to make a way, so I strive and fail and strive again to make my own way.  I suspect I am not alone.  We all fail to trust God from time to time.  And any logical person would quietly support your lack of trust in God.  Because to trust in God seems naïve, lacks self-responsibility, and discredits our agency in the world.  Most of us read today’s Old Testament lesson, and secretly we agree with the Israelites.  Sure, there is no perfect form of government, but you have to have something!  We may jokingly or even figuratively ask Jesus to take the wheel, but we all know that we still need to drive the car.

But when we step away from a theocracy, when we change the foundational covenantal commitment between us and God, we must face the same fate as the Israelites.  Samuel tells them what having a king will mean.  Having a king will mean giving up their sons for service in battle and for the tending of the king’s fields, giving up their daughters as cooks and sexual servants, giving up their best land, livestock, and produce.  And worst of all – worst of all – they will be the king’s slaves.  Now for a people who have been enslaved before, this should be the ultimate warning.  All they need to do was think back to those days with Pharaoh – no rights, no power, brutal labor, no hope.  But then, God says something even worse.  When the Israelites finally see God is right and that the new king they wanted is a mess (and spoiler alert:  the new kings will be a mess – the kings do all that Samuel predicts and even more horrible things); when the Israelites cry out, God will not answer them.  This critical part of their relationship with God will be over.

These are the words that have haunted me this week, “…in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”  Are there things I could do that would make God not answer me?  Is there a chance that on the two millionth time I refuse to trust God, our relationship could finally break?  Is there a chance we could have a government so broken by ego and lack of compassion and compromise that God would refuse to exert God’s power to redeem us?  A couple of years ago, we talked to our pediatrician about discipline and our frustration with our children’s constant pushing of boundaries.  The pediatrician recommended the “Three Rule.”  Instead of threatening punishments and consequences, instead of engaging in lengthy explanations about why behaviors were unacceptable and what the consequence would be, we should follow the “Three Rule.”  When a child does something unacceptable, the parent says, “one.”  No words are exchanged, no threats are made.  Just the number one.  If, or I guess I should say when, the behavior continues, the parent simply says, “two.”  Finally, when the behavior still continues, the parent says, “three,” and the child immediately goes to their room for a period of time commiserate with their age.  But, and here’s the kicker, when their time is up, there is no discussion, no scolding, just a return to normal.

Now I get a little wary of comparing God with a parent, since parents are just as flawed as kings, but here is what I appreciate about God in this text today.  God strikes me as a person who calmly works through the Three Rule.  So, although Samuel breaks the rule by going on an on about the consequences of a king, God does something extraordinary with the people of God’s request.  God says “okay.”  In a wonderful combination of “grace and judgment, the Lord commands Samuel to ‘listen’ to the people but also to ‘warn them and show them the ways of the king.’”  God does not smite the people or abandon the people.  God, as God always does, respects their free-will and allows the people of God to choose their fate – even if their choice is a fundamental altering of the very basis of their relationship with God.  There is something reassuring to me about a God who allows us full agency in our relationship – whose love is not tied to us making good decisions – and who can remain calm even when we are catastrophically proposing a fundamental change in our relationship with God.

But even more than God’s reaction, I am not convinced the judgment of God is as final as Samuel predicts.  We know God is a God who judges.  Lord knows the Israelites do indeed suffer the consequences of taking on a human king – their sons, daughters, and property are decimated, and eventually the kingdom is divided and ultimately destroyed, with the peoples scattered all over the world.  But we know a few things more about God.  We know that God’s mind can be changed.  We saw this reality firsthand when Moses advocated for mercy with the sinful people, or when Nineveh repented of their sins, or when some of those earthly kings changed their ways.  But mostly we know that God sends a Messiah – God’s only Son to redeem us.  Though judgment is a part of our relationship with God, so is redemption, forgiveness, and grace.  I am not sure I will ever master trusting God fully.  Perhaps I am just too human.  But our invitation this week is to keep trying.  Our invitation is to pause in those moments of mistrust and recount the wonderful deeds of our God.  Maybe you start with a scriptural mantra, “Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Hannah, Jonah, Ruth, Peter, Paul.”  But perhaps more importantly you start your own mantra, “That time when I walked away from God, that time when I blamed God, that time when I…”  We have seen God’s faithfulness, even through the sacrifice of God’s only Son.  But we have also seen God’s faithfulness every day of our earthly life.  Our invitation is to listen, as God listens to God’s people everyday.  Amen.

[i] Carol J. Dempsey, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays for Year B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 3.

[ii] Marianne Blickenstaff, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays for Year B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 1.

[iii] Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation:  A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preach, First and Second Samuel (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 62.

[iv] Matthew 6.28, 34

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Sermon – Luke 4.1-13, L1, YC, February 14, 2016

Tags

clergy, death, dependence, faithfulness, formation, God, Holy Spirit, hope, Lent, presence, Satan, Sermon, temptation, transition, wilderness

The irony of this being the first Sunday in Lent after the week we have had is not lost on me.  By now our parish should have received a letter from me explaining how I have accepted a call to a new position in Williamsburg, Virginia.  The letter has been met with a variety of reactions, from surprise to disappointment, from understanding to hurt, from confusion to anger.  But no matter what the initial reactions have been, the primary question from all has been, “What does that mean for St. Margaret’s now?”  That question and the news of coming change alone would have been enough for the week.  But then on Friday we lost one of the patriarchs of St. Margaret’s.  Though any death is hard, as a founding member and a perpetual evangelist, Chet will be deeply missed.  Given the week we have had, I cannot think of a better Sunday to talk about the wilderness.

In Luke’s gospel today, Jesus goes from the high of his baptism, where God proclaims Jesus’ identity as God’s son, out to the wilderness where he will be tempted for forty days by Satan.  The people of God are no strangers to the wilderness.  Before the people of Israel entered the land of promise in our Old Testament reading today, first they wandered for forty years in the wilderness.  Those years typify what a wilderness experience is all about:  confusion, fear, wariness, hunger, dissatisfaction, mourning, regret, anger, jealousy, and impatience.  In the wilderness, the people of Israel wondered why they had ever left Egypt, even though Egypt had been a place of slavery.  At least in Egypt they knew from where their next meal would come.  In the wilderness, the people of Israel whined about everything – a lack of food, a lack of water, a lack of direction.  They lost hope in God to provide for them so, in a moment of weakness, they had their priest construct a golden calf for them to worship.  They behaved so badly that a whole generation did not get the chance to see the promised land.  For Jesus, the wilderness is no different.  The wilderness is marked by scarcity and temptation.  Voices try to sway Jesus away from God.  And when Jesus was at his weakest, Satan himself came to tempt Jesus to take matters into his own hands instead of trusting God to stand with Jesus.

Of course, St. Margaret’s is no stranger to wilderness times.  Before we had parish status we went through several vicars, experiencing one transition after another.  When the twenty-year tenure of our first rector ended, many wondered how we would survive.  Clergy transitions can feel much like those wilderness moments for the Israelites.  On the one hand, transitions are full of promise as we imagine what new life a different clergy person might breathe into our community.  On the other hand, there are days when we glorify Egypt, when although our time in Egypt was not perfect and maybe had even become stale, at least we knew what to expect or had the stability of Father so-and-so.  Likewise, we have been through many parish deaths.  Each one hits us in a unique way, and each one makes us wonder what we will do without the person we have lost.  Who will be our warden, our treasurer, our coordinator of ushers, or our major donor?  How will we sing in the choir, laugh at coffee hour, or balance the budget without them?

That is the scary thing about the wilderness.  The wilderness tempts us into thinking and doing all sorts of things.  Although the three specific temptations of Jesus that Luke describes are certainly challenging, what is more unsettling is the underlying nature of temptation itself.  As one scholar argues, “…temptation is not so often temptation toward something – usually portrayed as doing something you shouldn’t – but rather is usually the temptation away from something – namely, our relationship with God and the identity we receive in and through that relationship.”[i]  What the wilderness has the chance to do is undermine our confidence in ourselves and in the community God made us to be.  That is what Satan is trying to do to Jesus:  erode Jesus’ confidence in his identity, in his security, and in his worthiness before God.  Satan did the same thing to the people of Israel for forty years, and Satan will do the same thing to St. Margaret’s if we let him.  Satan will try to erode our confidence that God is still acting and moving in this place and will continue to make this community a place of sacred encounter and experiences with God and God’s people.

As I was thinking about the wilderness of Lent, transition, and death, I kept coming back to the Holy Spirit.  You see, when Jesus goes into the wilderness, he does not go alone.  The text tells us that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.  The Spirit does not just drop Jesus off to fend for himself.  “…the Spirit continues to abide with him, enabling him to grow stronger through this season.”[ii]  Being filled with and accompanied by the Holy Spirit is the only way one gets through the wilderness.[iii]  The Spirit stays with Jesus in the wilderness because being chosen and anointed for one’s mission is not enough.  Jesus must be tested, being led to places of hunger and despair.  Only then does he learn dependence on God, who graciously provides for all our needs in all of life’s seasons.[iv]  The Holy Spirit enables Jesus to journey through the wilderness so that Jesus can learn that lesson about dependence upon the Lord our God.  The Holy Spirit’s company allows Jesus to see the powerful presence and abundance of God in his deepest need.

Thinking about the Holy Spirit this week has shifted my energy.  Instead of thinking about the wilderness with a sense of dread and familiarity, instead of bracing myself for impact, and instead of erecting soaring walls of protection to keep pain out, I found myself asking a different set of questions.  Where have I experienced God’s faithfulness in the wilderness?  How has my relationship with God been transformed?  How strong are the temptations of returning to old ways – to ways of relying on myself?[v]  Somehow, shifting the questions from where has God been absent in the wilderness to where has God or the Holy Spirit been present in the wilderness gave me a sense of hope.  Instead of looking for the bad – the dreariness of Lent, the burden of transition, the grief of death – I found myself wanting to look for the good – the blessing of time set apart with God, the opportunity for new life and growth, the reminder of resurrection promised for us all.

I will not tell you that the next forty days or even forty weeks will be easy.  In fact, I know that many of those days and weeks will be very hard.  But having been through Lents, transitions, and deaths before, and having watched Jesus held up by the Spirit, I can tell you that we have all experienced God’s faithfulness in the wilderness.  Though none of us likes the wilderness, the wilderness is a necessary part of our formation in Christ – like the necessity of wildfires to restore health and wholeness to ecosystems.  Just like those fires can contribute to overall forest health, the wilderness can contribute to our overall spiritual health.  In these next forty days, I invite you to not turn inward toward fear, protection, and isolation.  I invite you to turn to one another for strength and companionship.  I invite you to come to me as we all process what this change means for St. Margaret’s.  But mostly, I invite you to remember the Holy Spirit who is keeping vigil with each one of us.  The wilderness of Lent this year may be more palpable than in years past.  But I invite you to hold on to the hope of God’s promise to be with you in the midst of the wilderness.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Lent 1 C: Identity Theft,” February 9, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-1-c-identity-theft/ on February 11, 2016.

[ii] Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr., “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 44.

[iii] Karoline Lewis, “Filled With the Holy Spirit,” February 7, 2016 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4291 on February 11, 2016.

[iv] Tribble, 44.

[v] Kimberly M. Van Driel, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 47.

Sermon – Job 42.1-6, 10-17, P25, YB, October 25, 2015

Tags

abundance, faithfulness, gift, God, happily ever after, happy, Job, new normal, opportunity, Sermon, stewardship, suffering, theology of gratitude, transform, wealth

I remember well the reentry experience I had after my first major international mission trip.  A team of about 20 of us traveled to Honduras for ten days, spending seven of those days in a rural, impoverished village.  When I came back to Duke, I came back a changed person.  Suddenly the mounds of food available in the dining hall seemed exorbitant, if not wasteful when I remembered the hungry children of the village.  Although the long, hot showers felt glorious, I also could not help but feeling guilty for using so much water and having that water so ready at my fingertips when I had become so accustomed to having only a bucket of water to bathe with every other day – a bucket that I had to share with someone else.  Even being able to go to the student health center for the stomach bug I brought back with me felt like a luxury after having run a health clinic with meager supplies and only one doctor.

All that would be enough to make me feel out of place.  But what made the experience worse was that I felt like a transformed, confused, vulnerable person in a sea of people going about their everyday lives.  In fact, I was very clear that I was the weird one.  All I had to do was have the basic, “What did you do for Spring Break?” conversation, and I could tell that no one could relate to my new reality.  They had been to Cancun, Cabo, or Costa Rica for Spring Break.  They had stories about partying, pools, and pina coladas.  There biggest stressors were navigating taxis without speaking Spanish, haggling with shop owners about prices, and trying to figure out how much to tip the cabana guys.  My stories about a lack of indoor plumbing, sleeping on cement floors, and boiling water to drink just led to blank stares and quick exits.  Instead, I was left alone, on a campus full of abundance, with students who have never had to worry about money or even their basic needs being met, in a place where my only responsibility was to study and attend classes.  Having seen real poverty, I would never again be able to look at the campus and people and privilege around me and see all of that in the same way again.

I think that is what makes me so uncomfortable about the happily-ever-after ending we get in Job today.  These last few weeks we have been reading through Job.  We hear the confusing conversation between the Adversary and God about how the Adversary will test Job’s righteousness by taking everything away – his children, his livestock, his home.  We remember how his friends try to tell him he must have done something to deserve his suffering.  We hear Job lash out at God, demanding to know why he is suffering so.  And last week we heard God put Job in his place, asking how Job thought he had any right to presume he knew God’s ways.  The today, when Job humbly confesses and submits to God, God suddenly relieves Job of his suffering.  He brings back his wealth – twice as much as he had before.  He blesses Job with children and livestock again.  On the surface, the whole story sounds so simple.  Job has everything taken away, he remains faithful, and then is restored his fortunes.  But something about that ending does not sit well with me.  How could Job ever look at his ten children without remembering the ten he had before?  How could Job ever look at that livestock and wealth without remembering how he once had nothing?  How could Job receive his consoling brothers and sisters without remembering how they had all deserted him and left him to sit with his sores and grief?  For some reason, I just cannot imagine how all that abundance in the face of recent tragedy somehow makes up for all his suffering.

Of course, we all try to make that transition in life.  I know widowers or divorcees who have had countless people ask why they do not start dating – as if a new spouse could ever make them forget the one with whom they shared a lifetime.  I know pet owners who have lost a beloved pet, only to have someone say, “You should just get a new puppy.  A puppy will make you forget your old dog.”  I even know young mothers who have lost a pregnancy or even an infant, only to have someone say, “You’re young.  You can always have another.”  To their credit, I genuinely think our friends and family are trying to say something that they think is helpful.  They are facing the abyss of pain too, and simply want to make everything okay.  And so they, and we, say something that even sounds awful to us coming out of our mouths.  But we do not know what else to say.

As I have thought about Job this week, I realized the end of his story is not a happily-ever-after ending.  The end of his story is a story about the new normal.  The new normal is not just a return to the same – or even a doubling of what was before.  The new normal for Job is learning how to be a person of faith in the midst of abundance.  Job teaches us a lot about living in the new normal.  Job prays for his friends who tried to blame Job’s suffering on Job.  Job eats with his siblings who disappeared during his suffering.  And Job does something radical.  When he has those ten children, three of them are daughters.  The text tells us that he gives the daughters an inheritance along with their brothers.  That kind of action was unheard of in Job’s day.[i]  Women were not given inheritances.  If they wanted security, they got married.  But Job, in his new normal, decides not just to enjoy his wealth, but to make his wealth count for others – for the most vulnerable:  for women.

Though I would never wish Job’s fate on anyone, Job’s suffering and trials teach him something about faithfulness.  Job moves from basically espousing a prosperity gospel – one in which he was blessed with good things because of his faithfulness – to espousing a theology of gratitude.  His wealth is no longer something for him to possess as a reward, but is now a tool for making a difference in the world.  That is not to say that Job is not a righteous man before his trials.  The text tells us he is.  What the text does infer is that Job’s relationship with his wealth is transformed, along with his faith.[ii]

A few weeks ago, Deacon Anthony told us about an experience of a man in New York City that he saw on the website, “Humans of New York.”  The story about the man in his own words goes like this, “Not long ago it looked like I was about to get everything.  I was one of the first employees at a company that sold for a billion dollars.  So I started a new company, and everything seemed to be going perfectly, but suddenly everything came apart.  This has been the toughest year of my adult life.  I went bankrupt, my company failed, and a person I loved died.  I didn’t commit suicide—though I considered it.  But my ideas of myself have definitely died.  I thought I was better than everyone.  I saw my success as the culmination of all my positive merits.  Losing everything forced me to realize how much of my good fortune was due to things that had been given to me.”[iii]  I think that man from New York understood Job’s reality deeply.  His year of tragedy taught him the same thing that Job’s time of tragedy taught him.  Everything is a gift:  our wealth, our abundance, our comfort, our security.  Everything is a gift.  And once we realize that everything is a gift, we are irrevocably changed.  We cannot go back to living life in a haphazard, oblivious way.  Our perspective toward abundance, and our responsibility to manage that abundance, changes.

Job found a way to transform the lives of his daughters with his wealth – even though society would have never have considered asking him, let alone expected him to do so.  Often we talk about wealth being a burden or a responsibility.  All we need to do is think about the lesson we heard recently about the rich getting into heaven being like a camel going through the eye of a needle.  Or we know those familiar words from Luke, “to whom much is given, much is required.”  But Job does not teach us that lesson today.  Wealth is not a burden or a responsibility.  Wealth frees us for opportunity – opportunities to bless, to transform, and to flourish.  Like that man in New York understood, wealth is a gift.  Our invitation this week is to consider how we might use our wealth as a gift.  Instead of seeing this stewardship season as a reminder of the burden we all have to support the operating budget of the church, I invite you to consider this stewardship season as a gift – an invitation to use your wealth to create opportunities to bless, to transform, and to flourish the ministries of this place.  Like Job joyfully watched his daughters experience a new freedom, I wonder what new opportunities your wealth might create in this community.  Amen.

[i] Dale P. Andrews, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 199.

[ii] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Commentary on Job 42:1-6, 10-17,” October 28, 2012, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1455 on October 22, 2015.

[iii] Found at “Humans of New York,” October 10, 2015, found at https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/1105944539479645/?type=3&fref=nf on October 23, 2015.