Sunday, June 29, 2008

Exodus 13:17-22 "Leading Me"

In college I had a girlfriend break up with me at a point where I wasn’t ready for the relationship to be over. She said that God had given her peace about breaking up with me. I felt that God wanted me to pursue the relationship even more, and thus I started a dangerous descent towards becoming a stalker.

You can turn on the TV to Trinity Broadcasting Network and see men and women with too many jewels on their fingers and too much makeup on their faces claiming that God has called them to share the good news that God wants to give you your every want, if you just give them the money you don’t have. I remember watching TBN once in Chicago, during one of their fund drives, where they had a guest preacher come on who only comes on when they’re asking for money. And he said that God had told him that whoever pledged $1000 to the TV station would find themselves completely out of debt within the next month. He told them to pledge $1000 and send in $100 of it right away. And he said that God would erase their debts completely. And then he had the gall to say, “if it doesn’t work, do it again!”

In May of this year, a bishop in the Episcopal church decided to bless a friend’s gay union. When asked about it, he said that it was what he felt God calling him to do. If that wasn’t bad enough, this same bishop, who theologically disagrees with much of the church, has received death threats from Christians who believe that God is calling them to kill him.

The point of this is that a lot of people “hear” God telling them to do things that I’m pretty sure God is actually not telling them to do. Realizing this sometimes can lead you to a difficult place. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night that would lead us and guide us so we would know where God was leading? Unfortunately, even this didn’t work for the Israelites when they were in the desert, as they headed off in their own direction even when God was so very clear to them.

I. Easier Said than Done

We believe that God leads us, that he guides us, that he points the way forward for us. This is a part of what we are about as Christians. It is a part of our belief. If we didn’t believe that God guided us, there wouldn’t be much point in following him. During my internship, there were three of us who regularly preached. Pastor Wilson regularly preached messages around the theme that we should obey God. Pastor Nelson regularly preached messages that reminded us to follow God. And I regularly preached messages reminding us to trust God. All of us were talking about letting God guide you and lead you and following his will for your life. And most Christians I know truly want to do this. And yet it is often something that is easier said than done.

Oh, there are certain rules and laws that we can follow to try to make sure that we are obeying God, but even these can be difficult to deal with at times. Jesus himself was attacked by the religious leaders in his day because he didn’t follow the commandments the way that they wanted him to and they thought he was ignoring God’s commands. Matthew 12 gives us a good example of this as we see Jesus breaking the Sabbath laws that the religious leaders followed. He heals on the Sabbath, he eats grain that he himself has picked on the Sabbath. He seems to be ignoring the laws and the commandments. And throughout the history of the church this has been an ongoing thing. Some Christians have done one thing and others have done something else and they both claimed that God was leading and guiding them and they both cannot be right. During the Reformation there were actually groups of Christians killing each other because of the way they baptized.

There are a couple dangers that arise when we realize this. First, some just ignore history altogether. They go ahead and figure that they’ve got it right and the Christians that disagree with them have it wrong and that’s it. This leads to a dogmatism that ignores God’s leading and ignores the Truth of scripture and instead relies on yourself to find truth. This really doesn’t seem like much of a danger until we look at the religious leaders in Jesus’ day and we realize that this is exactly what they were doing. They were putting their own understanding of who God was and what he wanted in place of truly seeking him. And Jesus came along and told them that seeking after God’s kingdom is more than just following a bunch of man-made rules. And trying to follow God’s rules doesn’t always work right either when you let your own understanding get in the way.

Unfortunately, the mantra: “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!” isn’t quite good enough. If it were we’d be following a whole different set of rules than we are today. But the other extreme is no better.

You see, the other danger is to see the confusion that the Bible sometimes brings and find yourself depressed and hopeless. If Christians throughout history cannot get it right, why should I expect that I am going to get it right? This leads to a pluralism that allows everyone to have equal claim to truth and can lead to not really believing in anything. This is something that can be seen in the New Age movement. It leads to a wishy-washy approach to theology that never stands for anything and allows anyone to believe whatever they want. And it is just as dangerous as the first danger of being too rigid.

II. The Middle Way

So, what do we do? How do we respond to God’s guidance when we have to worry about whether it is actually God that we’re hearing? I remember a professor at college drawing a picture up on the board of a road with a ditch on either side of it. He explained that to be theologically sound, we need to walk the straight and narrow path. But the problem is that there is a deep ditch on either side of the path and it becomes easier and easier to fall into one ditch or the other. Worse, when you are being careful not to fall into one ditch, you find yourself walking closer and closer to the other one. Let’s go back to one of the examples I mentioned in our opening.

Most people here would agree that the Episcopal Bishop who decided to bless a marriage of a gay couple has fallen away from the truth. He has fallen into a ditch on the left side of the path. And many, in response to this have edged more to the right side of the path, trying to stay true to the life that they believe God is calling them, trying to stay true to an orthodox and historic reading of scripture. But some, as they have moved to the right side of the path have fallen into another ditch. Perhaps this ditch is one that accepts that killing homosexuals is okay. Or perhaps it is a theology that many Christians accept that says that homosexuality is a worse sin than other sins, and one that carries a special punishment with it. These beliefs are just as much off of the truth of human sinfulness and God’s love as the blessing of a gay marriage is.

But this straight and narrow path, this middle way, isn’t about compromising. It isn’t about trying to work something out so everybody is happy. It isn’t about denying the truth so that people feel better. No, it is about staying true to God and his kingdom. It is about pursuing Christ in all you do and pursuing Christ’s priorities in the world around you. It is about asking the Holy Spirit to guide you in your study of scripture. It is about coming to the Bible with questions and allowing the Bible to answer them for you instead of trying to fit your answer into the Bible. This is hard to do. It takes humility and it takes practice.

III. Pillars to Guide Us

Today’s scripture tells of the people of Israel fleeing Egypt and preparing to travel through the desert and come to the Promised Land. And God knew that he was going to lead them in a difficult path, and they would have a hard time following him. So God gave them obvious pillars in the day and at night to lead them and guide them. The cloud by day and the fire at night told them that they were following God. The cloud by day and the fire at night told them that it was God who was guiding them, not just humans and definitely not their own desires. The cloud by day and the fire at night reminded them whose will it was that they were to follow and who it was that they should obey and who it was that they could trust.

Sometimes, when I am reading scripture, when I am trying to understand how God would work in today’s world, how God wants me to work in today’s world, I wish that I had a cloud by day and fire at night to guide me. I wish it could be that clear to me what God wanted of me. And yet, when we look at the people of Israel, with God guiding them so clearly, they still seemed to stray. They still went off on their own way. They still messed it up again and again. And I realize that the problem isn’t that God is a bad communicator. He has made it very clear to us what he wants from us. The problem is that we are bad listeners. We let too much get in our way so that we can’t hear God’s word, so that we don’t go where he is sending us, so that we find ourselves heading off on dangerous tracks instead of staying on that middle path.

And so, my prayer today for each of us is that God will give us wisdom to see where he is leading us, that he will give us humility before his scriptures so that we won’t try to read our desires into his truth, and that he will give us strength of conviction to stand true and go where he is sending us. Perhaps he is sending you to an Indian reservation in South Dakota, or perhaps he is sending you next door to a neighbor in need. Wherever he is leading you, trust his guiding voice and go where he calls. Amen.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Matthew 9:35-10:10 "Lord of the Harvest"

There is a story from the 9th century about a group of Irish monks found floating in a boat off the shore of England. They are brought to the king, King Alfred, a pretty devout Christian, and asked to explain who they are and where they are going. The monks respond with a powerful statement of faith and trust in God: “We stole away because we wanted for the love of God to be on pilgrimage, we cared not where.”

And so these monks snuck away from their monastery, got in a boat, threw away the oars, and allowed the currents to guide them wherever they led. They wanted to follow God’s call on their lives, and they realized that they couldn’t necessarily do it cloistered amongst a group of Christians; they had to get out into the world. But they didn’t want to allow their own reasoning and reasons to get in the way of where they were going so they left their destination up to God, and trusted that he would send them to a place where they were needed.

These monks were sent out by God to make a difference in the world, and they truly relied totally and completely on him to not only show them the way, but to meet their needs upon the way. These monks lived with a ruthless trust in their heavenly Father: trusting that he would guide them, trusting that he would meet their needs, trusting that he would use them.

This doesn’t seem to be a ministry model that is pushed terribly much in today’s world. In today’s world we do surveys to see where our gifts are, we research communities to see where their needs are. Church plants go through a long and complicated process to make sure that the community the church is being planted in has the means to support the church. Church planters go through a rigorous assessment process as they determine whether they are truly called to do what God is calling them to do. And the earthly resources are hoarded and counted so that we know that we can succeed at the work we are doing.

And somehow, in the midst of this process, the Holy Spirit is ignored, the movement of God is pushed aside, ruthless trust in God is scoffed at.

I. Equipped to Share

Last week we looked at what it means to be God’s ambassadors. We looked at the fact that the people of God (in the Old Testament, the Israelites, in the New Testament and beyond, the church) are called to pursue Christ and to pursue Christ’s priorities. We looked at the fact that we are called to spread Jesus’ love and truth to the world around us, and when we refrain from doing this we are lost and without purpose. We heard the call to return to the purpose that God has placed in our lives, to share the good news with those around us. Here, in today’s scripture, we see Jesus call and equip his twelve disciples to go out and share the good news with the world around them. We see that he calls them to share the good news and we see that he then seems to send them off on their own.

This could be a scary thing for the disciples. It isn’t exactly what they signed up for. After all, they had signed on board to being Jesus’ followers. They had agreed to follow and listen to Jesus, to learn from him. And now, instead of being the followers they hoped to be, they were having the rug pulled out from under them as they were sent off on their own to preach the good news. Jesus sent them away with instructions and he sent them away with the knowledge that they could do what he was asking of them. He told them that their message was specifically for the people of Israel, the lost sheep. He focuses their mission. Jesus knew that his mission and their future mission would include the gentiles and the Samaritans, but he knew that it couldn’t all be done at once, so even though Jesus wanted to see the message of the Kingdom of God get to the whole world, he limited where he was sending the disciples. He told the disciples what their message was to be: “The kingdom of heaven is near.” And then he gave them what they needed to share that message, he told them that they would be able to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy and drive out demons.

II. Freely Give

How would they be able to do this? Because they had received these blessings from God and were told to share them with others. “Freely you have received, freely give,” Jesus says. Know that everything you do is not in your own power but is a gift from God. Know that I have blessed you greatly and now it is time for you to share that blessing with those around you. It isn’t right to hold onto the blessings of God without sharing them. It isn’t right to use the blessings of God just for yourself. Throughout the Bible, whenever anyone is blessed by God, there is the expectation that they will use the blessings to make a difference for others. Freely you have received, freely give.

And then, like the monks in the story I started with this morning, the disciples weren’t to take what they needed with them. They weren’t to plan ahead. They weren’t to even bring extra clothing. Rather they were to head out on the mission that God had given them and rely on God to meet their needs fully as they traveled from town to town. Scary. In today’s world this might mean going on a mission trip before you have raised enough money to do so. Or it might mean that a church should spend more energy and time and money (all of which are precious) to reach out to their community and meet the needs around them instead of focusing on themselves. As individuals it might mean that when you feel that God is calling you in a certain direction, moving you to a certain action, you not allow yourself to second-guess it, but rather begin to head in that direction and allow God to work.

The concept of going around in a boat with no oars is a scary one. Relying on God to point your rudder is much less comfortable than having your own hand on the rudder, guiding you where you need to go. And yet when Jesus calls us to follow him, to go where he sends us, he wants us to allow him to be in control. He promises to provide for us and he reminds us that we shouldn’t rely on ourselves and our own strengths.

III. A Few Workers

But I also want to look a bit at the scripture right before where Jesus sends his disciples out. You see, I believe that in sending his disciples off at this point, Jesus was preparing them for what they would deal with after his death and resurrection. But I also believe that he sent them off because he looked at the world around him and truly saw a world that needed help and he knew that twelve people spreading the good news of the Kingdom of God was better than just one person.

Jesus used a great farming metaphor. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” He looked around and saw that work needed to be done, and he saw that it was more than he could do on his own. It’s like that small window of opportunity that you have to plant, or to harvest. If you don’t get the corn in the ground by a certain time, then even though you are using the same seed, even though you have the same soil, you will lose bushels because you were late getting it in. There is a timing involved in farming, a timing that is important, a timing that sometimes makes it a bit stressful to be a farmer. And Jesus was looking around at the people around him, people in need, people who needed to hear the good news of the kingdom, people who needed to be healed from a world that caused them pain. And Jesus saw their need, he saw that they were ready to hear that good news if only he had enough workers to share it. The time was short and the message needed to get out there. And so he took the disciples, who didn’t feel like they were ready, and he sent them out to share that good news.

I believe that the same is true for us today. God is taking us because once again the people around us are in need, they are needing to hear about the good news of the kingdom of God, they are needing to be healed from a world that causes them pain. And he is ready to send us out to preach the good news, to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is near. And he wants us to stop relying on ourselves, and worrying about how we’re going to do it. Rather, he wants us to rely on his power, on his guidance, and allow him to work through us. Jesus sent out his disciples because he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He knew there was too much work for just one person to accomplish it all. The same is true today. We cannot rely on the pastor to do it all, we cannot say that the church board is going to do all the work at the church and all we have to do is come. No God is calling all of us to move forward in our faith, to reach out to the world around us, to share the good news of the kingdom of heaven. We might feel overwhelmed; we might feel that we aren’t capable of doing it all. But the disciples felt the same thing, and they relied on God to give them the tools they needed. God will do the same for us if we just go where he is calling us to go. Amen.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Genesis 12:1-9; Hosea 5:15-6:6 "Return to your Purpose"

In his latest blockbuster adventure, the archeologist, Indiana Jones, finds himself searching for a crystal skull so that he can return it to its resting place. As he fights communists and braves the elements, he fulfills a mission over five hundred years in the making. You see, the crystal skull had been taken from its resting place by Spanish Conquistadors and it needed to be returned. And Indiana Jones and his group of friends and companions took it upon themselves to return it.

It is interesting that a blockbuster about an archeologist who is known more as a grave robber than anything else, as a collector of antiquities, has him trying not to get something but to return something. It is also interesting that the word return shows up so prominently in the movie. Of course the movie is about the return of an action hero who hasn’t been on the screen for 18 years. But Indy’s mission to return something to its proper place is a new kind of mission for him, and an important mission for each of us.

You see, we all have in us a need to return to a place we don’t really know. We all are called to return to right relationship with God, though we have never known that right relationship. And yet we were created to be in that right relationship. We were created to be God’s people, and even though we might have strayed away from that call on our lives, God is calling for us to return to that right relationship. So, that’s right, we’ve got the same call on our lives that Indiana Jones had in his blockbuster movie, “Return”. But instead of returning a nick-knack to its place of origin, we are called to return our very lives to the God who created us.

I. God’s Ambassadors

Throughout the Old Testament, there is a constant call for the people of Israel to return to God, to return to his plan for them, to return to his purpose for their lives. We see that call illustrated in today’s second scripture, found in Hosea. “Come, let us return to the Lord,” it calls! “He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. He will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”

To understand this scripture, to understand what God is calling his people to, we need to understand the pattern that the people of Israel seemed to fall into. Looking back at the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 12, we are told of God’s covenant with Abraham. We are told that God will make Abraham into a great nation. And we are told that God will bless Abraham and his descendants. But we are also told that Abraham and his descendants are called to be a blessing to those around them. This is the center of the people of Israel’s identity. It is who they are. They are a people blessed by God so that they can be a blessing to the nations around them. As you look at the first 12 chapters of Genesis, you see that God had created the world, created a good world, and it had been corrupted by sin. Because of the corruption, God was calling for the people of the world to return to right relationship with him, but instead the people were moving farther and farther away from God, falling more and more into their own depravity. Then God tried destroying the world in a flood and starting over, but this didn’t work. And so God decided to infect the world with his goodness in a different way. He decided to take Abraham and make him into a great nation. He decided to take this nation of his followers and use them to bring blessings to the world around them. They would be God’s ambassadors to a world that didn’t know him. “I will make your name great, I will bless you and you will be a blessing.”

And yet the ambassadors for God weren’t interested in being a blessing to the world around them. They were too interested in their own lives and what they could get from God. And if they thought that God wasn’t going to give them what they wanted in this world, then they’d turn wherever they could to get it. And so we see a continuing struggle throughout the Old Testament where God is trying to get his people into right relationship with him so they can begin to share that relationship with those around them.

II. Israel’s Purpose

You see, it’s not just that God wanted a relationship with Israel. It’s that God had a purpose for his people. He had a plan and he was relying on them to carry it out. But they spent most of their lives focused on themselves and not interested in God’s plan at all. Sure they wanted to be blessed, but they had no desire to be a blessing. Sure they wanted God’s favor, but they didn’t feel that they should share that favor with their neighbors. The big struggle that God had with the people of Israel was that he wanted them to fulfill a purpose for him and they just wanted him to bless them and nothing else. The people of Israel had a mentality of “what’s in it for me” and when they thought that God wasn’t delivering for them the way they wanted, they turned away from him and looked for other things that might deliver better. Sometimes these other things were other false gods and idols. At other times these other things were foreign kings who they felt they could rely on for protection. And still other times they would rely on themselves instead of anybody else, because they were all they had.

But in Hosea, and throughout the Old Testament, God is calling for them to return to him. He is calling for them to return to their relationship with him. He is calling for them to return to their purpose. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.” God wants them to acknowledge him, but more than that he wants them to live lives of mercy, to be about the purpose that he has planned for them.

III. Our Purpose

You see, I believe the same is true about us. I think that when we look at the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we will notice that we sometimes find ourselves in the same predicament that they were in. And we find ourselves struggling with the same things they were struggling with. Oh, we might not be worshipping at Asherah Poles or the false god, Baal, but we are allowing ourselves to get away from the purpose that God has for us.

God sent his son, Jesus, to save us. He sent him to bring us into right relationship with God because we are unable to do this ourselves. God sent Jesus to bless us with eternal and abundant life. But many of us seem to think that this is the fullness of the gospel. Many of us seem to think that once we’ve accepted Jesus’ salvation, our job is done. And yet we understand that our purpose is the same purpose that God made known to Abraham so many years ago. We are blessed by God so that we can be a blessing to those around us. We are called to be God’s ambassadors to a world that so desperately needs him.

Our purpose isn’t just to get to heaven. Our purpose isn’t just to survive this world and celebrate eternally in the next. These are things that we get to do, but they aren’t our purpose. God has a purpose for us and we are called to live in it. This means that when we are just focusing on ourselves we are not being about what God has called us to be. This means that when we are caught up in our own world, we are missing out on the plans that God has for us.

I believe that God is saying the same thing to the Church today that Hosea said to the people of Israel in his day. God is calling for the Church today to “return.” God wants us to be about more than just ourselves. God wants us to be about mercy. God wants us to move past just worshiping and sacrificing and instead he wants us to be his ambassadors to the world around us, sharing his truth and his love with those around us. God has blessed his Church. He has given us much. But he doesn’t want the story to end there. He is calling us to be a blessing. He is calling for us to return to our purpose. Amen.