The Economy of a Faith Community

Micah 5:2-4, 6:6-8

Many years back I was the facilitator of a weekly Wednesday Bible Study.  I inherited this Bible Study from the Senior Pastor who inherited it from his Senior Pastor when he was an associate there.  So goes the life of Bible Study sometimes.  The clergy come and go but the people remain strong and faithful. 

Well in this Bible Study there was a woman, Barbara, who was a regular attender as she had been for many moons.  Barbara has since crossed over to the shores of the great beyond, no doubt in a very secure, loving and Godly place.  And I will remember her.  We would study, dialogue and debate the merits of the Apostle Paul, the value of scientific discovery and  creationism, the theology of Calvin and Luther and their buddies, what Jesus said and did, a few recipes every now and then, and then of course our lives.

Inevitably, and without fail somewhere along the way in each and every session Barbara would turn to me and a lull in the discussion and say, “I just don’t know what God wants for me”, “I don’t know what God wants me to do”.  Well you can imagine that after hearing this over and over again like a broken record or a scratched CD I was getting impatient with her (internally!!!) 

I’d try to rationalize, give her some ideas, some thoughts and then finally one day I turned to her out of desperation and with quite an emphatic voice, “Barbara, what does the Lord require of you????  To do justice, love kindness, and to walk with him [sic].  How you do it, that’s entirely up to you”.  She looked at me with her big blue eyes and nodded.  I thought she understood.

The next week of course came and at the end of the Study Barbara said, “Suzanne, I dunno, I just don’t know what the Lord wants from me”.  I looked at her and said, “Barbara, I dunno either”.  We both shook our heads and moved on.  The next week came and so did the next, status quo, nothing changed.

Seemed to me that I gave her a pretty clear picture of what God wanted from her, or for any of us for that matter.  And, like I told her and I truly believe it, how we do justice, love kindness, and walk with God is entirely up to our creative, wild and imaginative minds.  I find that rather exciting personally. 

Today is our yearly Stewardship sermon.  It's the day I talk about money and church and giving from the pulpit.  Many people say the church is always talking about money but really I preach about money only once a year even though 11 out of the 39 parables that Jesus preached were about money, even though 25% of the Gospels is either about  money, stewardship and the resources that God has given us.  I know the limits you place on me even though they are not orally expressed.  

However before we get there I want to lay some historical context for our scripture from where this often quoted passage – do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly - comes from. 

It was the second half of the 8^th Century BCE and the people of the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel had turned their backs on God’s law once again.  They were in danger of losing the covenant promises that God had made with them.  They were cheating on God with other deities, they were cheating in general and they were robbing from the poor.

Micah then describes how there was a widespread public show of their ‘religious’ devotion or rather the lip service that they were paying to God without earnest intent.  And, God really didn’t want that. So Micah tells them that there will be a new ruler to help them, that failed leadership is not the end of the story for them.  Also that this new ruler rise up from a small little town outside of Jerusalem, someone of humble means, lowly status. 

SCRIPTURE

 From Eugene Peterson's The Message

Yes, that often quoted verse comes from the Book of Micah in the Hebrew Bible.  He tells the people that this new relationship with God will not be dependent upon scorekeeping, what can we do, what can we sacrifice (ram, turtledove, goat) to get God off our backs rather he tells them that God doesn’t want any of that, what God wants from them is to treat one another with respect and kindness, to make right what is wrong and to love, simply love.  That’s it!

Today I will talk about faith, action, and money or, the economy of our faith community. 

Economy, for all intents and purposes and for our consideration today is the production, consumption and expenditures of goods and services of a community.  It's the way in which a community or organization organizes itself to do business or to achieve a collaborative goal with whatever resources it has.  It's a matter of getting money, spending money, and saving money for a particular purpose and we are no different when it comes to that. 

But of course we are very different than our friends and businesses down on the Post Road.  We are guided and called together for a different purpose, a Godly purpose.  We are called together to worship and love God, to study the Gospel message of Jesus Christ and to live and walk in his ways.  How we do that is entirely up to our creative, wild and imaginative minds. 

Now I know that there are creative, wild and imaginative minds out there!  Don’t think I don’t know you.  There are some great and wonderful ideas out there of how and who Orange Congregational can be and that’s all good.  The spirit is definitely alive here.  But folks, much of what you envision takes money. Nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars, your pledge.

So how do we begin?  First and foremost we pray.  We pray that the Holy Spirit of God is with us and beside us in all of the decisions that we make.  We are in the God and Jesus Christ business first.  If we lose that vision, if we fail to base all of our actions and decisions upon the rock of our salvation then we will eventually fail.  So we pray that God direct our actions and grant us wisdom in our decision-making. We pray that our actions follow the work and ministry of Jesus Christ, which, in effect is to do justice, love kindness and walk with God.  We pray that God help us to be good stewards, both individually and collectively of this place that many of your ancestors worked so hard to build.

What we do next is to carefully plan out the ways in which we make real the mission of this Church. Through collaborative efforts, and I place very high emphasis on collaborative, we craft together a budget that will support our plans to further the mission of Jesus.  Each board and committee has submitted a small budget (made up of dollars and cents) that they think will enable them to do their work.  Council is reviewing it and by January will present another healthy, balanced budget for 2015.  Second year in a row!  The budget is based on what we need to do ministry and your pledges that are received.

Adequate money to meet the budget will not come from loose plate change, a dollar here and $10 bill there.  It can only be achieved through your prayerful pledge.  Each pledge counts.  Each pledge is valuable whether it’s $10 a month or $1,000 a month.  Each pledge says that you believe in Jesus Christ and are willing to further his mission. Each pledge says that you believe in the vision of Orange Congregational, not in the nitty grittiness of meetings but that you are willing to stick by OCC for the long run because you value the worship and the community that it provides for you.  Each pledge is an outgrowth of your faith.

I pledge to OCC because I believe the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ.  I believe that I am saved and redeemed each day by the love of God and I am grateful.  And one of the most visible ways in which I want to express that and acknowledge the abundance that God has given to me is through my pledge to OCC.  I believe in THIS church and the work that we do and that we can make a difference in this community and that we can help to transform lives. 

To pledge is important.  Next week we will collect and dedicate your pledge cards.  I pray that the Spirit of God will guide your heart in this endeavor. 

Now back to Barbara.  Although you didn’t know her, she was a living witness to Jesus Christ.  Much of what she did with her time was doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God.  May her memory be for a blessing and may we uphold Gods name on our lips and the living Christ in our hearts.

Amen.

For Whom the Healing Bell Tolls

2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, in our scripture today was the ‘five-star’ general of the king of Aram, what is today Syria.  MacArthur, Eisenhower, Naaman commander and chief, was the top guy, the ultimate strategist in all things war. He was strong, mighty and he was respected.  But Naaman had one problem; it was reported that he was a leper.  Let’s hear the scripture and the story that unfolds. 

Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army. The LORD had helped him and his troops defeat their enemies, so the king of Syria respected Naaman very much. Naaman was a brave soldier, but he had leprosy. One day while the Syrian troops were raiding Israel, they captured a girl, and she became a servant of Naaman's wife. Some time later the girl said, "If your husband Naaman would go to the prophet in Samaria, he would be cured of his leprosy."

There are lots of players in this story, as you will see.  Naaman, of course, and two kings one from Syria, one from Israel.  They are the powerful headliners.  Then you have the ‘extras’, a young Israelite slave girl who was booty from a previous raid, Naaman’s wife (although she did have some power and persuasion here), and servants, lots of them.  And then there is Elisha, the newly appointed prophet if you remember the story of Elijah passing the mantle on to him.  We continue…

When Naaman told the king what the girl had said, the king replied, "Go ahead! I will give you a letter to take to the king of Israel."  Naaman left and took along seven hundred fifty pounds of silver, one hundred fifty pounds of gold, and ten new outfits. He also carried the letter to the king of Israel. It said, "I am sending my servant Naaman to you. Would you cure him of his leprosy?"

Amazingly and to his credit, Naaman listened to what his wife had to say about the slave girl’s ‘referral’ to Elisha.  Clearly Elisha was ‘out of network’ but that didn’t matter for Naaman, he was a man of means.  He also had the backing of the Syrian king who sent with him a letter for the king of Israel, some gold and silver and some new outfits!  In other words, he had very adequate coffers to pay for his healthcare.  However, we know healing can come from the most unlikely sources and people.  Here we begin to see that power doesn’t always have the answer, sometimes the weak win out.   

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in fear and shouted, "That Syrian king believes I can cure this man of leprosy! Does he think I'm God with power over life and death? He must be trying to pick a fight with me." As soon as Elisha the prophet  heard what had happened, he sent the Israelite king this message: "Why are you so afraid? Send the man to me, so that he will know there is a prophet in Israel." Naaman left with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. Elisha sent someone outside to say to him, "Go wash seven times in the Jordan River. Then you'll be completely cured." But Naaman stormed off, grumbling, "Why couldn't he come out and talk to me? I thought for sure he would stand in front of me and pray to the LORD his God, then wave his hand over my skin and cure me. What about the Abana River or the Pharpar River? Those rivers in Damascus are just as good as any river in Israel. I could have washed in them and been cured."

Foreign policy aside, this could have been an international incident of epic proportions.  Egos were flying!  Elisha steps in, and a crisis was prevented.  So the procession of horses, chariots and Naaman go to Elisha’s house and stop at the door.  The nerve!  Elisha didn’t even come out which incensed Naaman to no end.  He, in all of his greatness and verbose explosions, wanted Elisha to make a big deal.  He want abracadabra!

Praying to God, waving his hands over Naaman’s diseased skin and sores, Naaman wanted the spotlight.  Naaman, at the very least, expected Elisha to come out and meet him in person, that's akin to going to the dr's office, sitting in the waiting room and getting a diagnosis and meds without even going into the actual dr's office and seeing her.  No wonder he was peeved. 

And then the cure, to go wash in the puny, muddy Jordan River.  Honestly, the Jordan River is not as impressive as we think it is and it is muddy.  Why not the great rivers of Damascus?  Elisha must be crazy.

His servants went over to him and said, "Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it. So why don't you do what he said? Go wash and be cured." Naaman walked down to the Jordan; he waded out into the water and stooped down in it seven times, just as Elisha had told him. Right away, he was cured, and his skin became as smooth as a child's.  Here ends today’s reading.

Hmmm, looks like Naaman got healed and received a nice big slice of humble pie in the end.  What we didn’t hear in our scripture was that he goes back to Elisha and exults the name of the God of Israel.  For all intents and purposes, he becomes a believer!  His body was healed of leprosy and his heart was sealed with humility and he had a ‘come to God’ moment.  There would have been no healing here without his humility here.  I think that Naaman was healed in more ways than one; you see healing comes in many forms and through different means as evidenced in this story.

Cancer.  Heart Disease.  Diabetes.  AIDS.  And now Ebola. 

Sickness of any sort, can take any of us out at any time.  If you live, you will get sick, it’s a fact.  As perfect as God made our bodies and as loved as we are by God, our bodies are still vulnerable to bacterial and viral pathogens. Illness doesn’t discriminate between the powerful or the weak, the rich or the poor or the color of one’s skin.  Illness doesn’t come to us because of our actions or how we live our lives.  God does not visit upon us illness to teach, admonish, or test us.  Ever! 

We live and then we die.  It’s what we do between birth and death that bookend our lives that matter.

In ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’, John Donne said poetically, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main….Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."  When someone died Renaissance England the village bells would toll announcing death.  So Donne asks, who is the bell tolling for next? 

As we remembered the names of the souls, our friends and loved ones who departed this beloved world this year, we are reminded that we are interconnected deeply in the human condition, mortal wants and needs of the soul. When one person passes, it is an acute reminder that we are mortal, our time will come so we live with this tension knowing that we too someday will die.

Pauline Blaney, in this last year when I would see her would always say, ‘today is a bonus day, I thank the Lord for this bonus day’.  What will you do with your bonus day?  The bell tolled for Pauline and all of the others but it hasn’t tolled for us yet.

This tension can be our greatest advantage because God calls us to be in relationship with one another.  Humans just get sick and we need to help one another in our healing. And the good news is you do not have to be a skilled surgeon in order to do so.  Compassion is available to all.  Caring can be had by opening your heart.   

When we live in relationship with one another, and we do, it is incumbent upon us to help one another heal in whatever ways we can.  Whether it is a physical, emotional, or spiritual healing that is needed we can be God’s instruments of healing here on this earth.

When we care for another person during their illness, in their physical ailment and dis-ease, we offer God’s incredible compassion.  A card, a call, a lift to the doctor we become God’s restorative hand that can bring comfort and ease the pain. 

When we love another we aid in emotional healing. If we can have a well-balanced mind, trusting and focused on God and can offer that to someone else, then the long road to emotional recovery is possible.  Be grounded and you will ground others. 

What can we do for one another spiritually?  We can pray on behalf of another soul.  We can intercede for another person when spiritual vulnerability and emptiness has overtaken them and they are rendered speechless.  We can sit beside them as a silent and steady witness to the power of God’s love.   We can listen without judgment, not offering solutions or platitudinous answers but genuine compassion.  We can offer each other the good news of Jesus Christ that reconciliation is always within reach, that spiritual healing is possible.

For whom does the healing bell toll?  It tolls for all of us to love now like there is no tomorrow.

Amen.

Called and Called Out

2 Samuel 12:1-9, Psalm 51:1-9

It was the spring of the year, when poppies and anemones dot the landscape and when antsy kings go to war.  So David sent out his warriors under the command of Joab, but David stayed at back at the Palace.  Kings don’t usually get their hands dirty.  He went out on the balcony and saw a lovely woman whose name was Bathsheba.  And lust being what it is, he sent for her and he slept with her.

Now David was a mighty king!  He was a military hero who united the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah, he was a musician and a poet penning beautiful psalms of praise to God and goodness and mercy, of power and justice.  But I’m sorry to say that the mighty King David had some flaws. 

Some deep flaws, you see Bathsheba was not his to take, she was the wife of Uriah who had joined the Israelite community after the land of the Hittites had been conquered.  He was one of David’s warriors.  So when Bathsheba disclosed that she was pregnant to this mighty King David, he conspired to have Uriah murdered in battle.

And when Bathsheba heard that her husband had been killed in war she mourned appropriately for him seven days then David sent for her and brought her to the palace and she bore a son.  Some say that all’s fair in love in love and war.  I think not.

Let us pick up our scripture and continue this story from the second Book of Samuel, the 12^th chapter.

The Lord was angry at what David had done, and he sent Nathan the prophet to tell this story to David:

A rich man and a poor man lived in the same town.  The rich man owned a lot of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had only one little lamb that he had bought and raised. The lamb became a pet for him and his children. He even let it eat from his plate and drink from his cup and sleep on his lap. The lamb was like one of his own children.

One day someone came to visit the rich man, but the rich man didn’t want to kill any of his own sheep or cattle and serve it to the visitor. So he stole the poor man’s little lamb and served it instead.

David was furious with the rich man and said to Nathan, “I swear by the living Lord that the man who did this deserves to die!  And because he didn’t have any pity on the poor man, he will have to pay four times what the lamb was worth.”

Then Nathan told David:

You are that rich man! Now listen to what the Lord God of Israel says to you: “I chose you to be the king of Israel. I kept you safe from Saul  and even gave you his house and his wives. I let you rule Israel and Judah, and if that had not been enough, I would have given you much more.  Why did you disobey me and do such a horrible thing?

You murdered Uriah the Hittite by having the Ammonites kill him, so you could take his wife…..David said, “I have disobeyed the Lord.”  “Yes, you have!” Nathan answered. 

So the Bible isn’t always love, love, love and often the people and stories are questionable.  We are continuing the Biblical narrative from the Hebrew Bible that we don’t always have the opportunity to reflect upon. You have to admit, they’ve been quite thought provoking. We heard last week of Joshua who, upon taking one of his final breaths, charged the people and their households to make the choice to follow God, the one true God, the God of Abraham and Sarah. 

The people do so, or try to at least.  Many years, a couple of hundred as a matter of fact, pass.  They continue to settle land but it was tough without a leader.  They had deliverers and judges to help them, but over and over again they fail and they cry out loudly to the Lord.  Eventually a king is raised up for Israel, Saul and then his son, David.  David is one of the greatest Kings of Israel.  It’s just that there were a few indiscretions along the way and we see that that royal path was not paved entirely of gold for him.

David was really pretty clueless in recognizing himself in the parable but Nathan was bold and spoke in God’s stead. It was Nathan the prophet who ‘spoke the truth in love’ (Eph 4:15) to the mighty and powerful King David.   He held up the parable like a mirror through which David could view himself and how others saw him, and ultimately how God perceived him. 

King David, called by God to rule a nation was now called out on his sins.  He couldn’t deny the truth any longer and has to bear the consequences of his actions.  Guilt, shame, humiliation, you name it, I’m sure he felt all of the emotions that humans do when they realize the gravity of what they’ve done, when they finally look into the mirror and admit their wrongdoings and see themselves for who they are and how they’ve hurt others.  David, the mighty, David the fallen.  Seems to happen more often than not to people with power.

Before we come down really hard on David let’s admit that we just don’t get it right either. While maybe we have never fallen as far or hit the bottom of the moral barrel that David did, our living doesn’t always reflect good and healthy behavior.  We try but, you know how it goes, God puts us on the train to fruitful living and we get off at the faux pax and indiscretion station.  It happens and that’s the bad news.

But there is grace and that’s the good news. Nathan accepted the command of God. Nathan was the bearer of God’s grace to David by telling him the parable which, in essence, held up a mirror before David’s beautiful face.  It was a loving rebuke from someone who knew his friend well and so he could confront David with great wisdom. 

He could have defended his friend, after all David was king.  He could have made some sort of a justification for the adultery and death of an innocent man.  He could have just ignored it, but he didn’t.  He helped to turn David back to God, back to the path of right living, to repent and come clean. Now that’s the kind of friend I want!

Wouldn’t it be so nice if we each had a Nathan in our lives?  A friend who can and will tell you when you are going off of the beaten path and close to endangering yourself or others, or one who can say to you, ‘you know, that was not your finest moment, or those weren’t the best words you could have used.’  A friend and mentor put things in perspective for you, not to put you down but to build you up.  It is a friend who will call you out because of love and compassion.  And we, if we care about being a child of God, a lover of the Gospel, need to be open to this correction, when done with the purest intent.

This story of Nathan and David moves us toward a model of genuine repentance.  Being challenged by a friend to see and acknowledge your faults and then doing something about it is a step towards living with a clean heart and a right spirit within us.  It is a step toward restoring the joy of salvation that can be so present in our hearts and lives to that a free spirit can reside in us and sustain us.  This is what God wants for us.  I am convinced.

This is why Christ was sent for us too, so that as we falter in life, like David, we have the assurance of forgiveness.  All we have to do is look into that proverbial mirror that our Nathans hold for us, and be free.

Amen.

Call the Question

Joshua 24: 1-15

For $69.99 at Home Depot you can purchase a 17 inch Cherry wall clock with the phrase “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  At Walmart you can buy Thirstystone Occasion drink coasters for $8.50 with that same verse emblazoned on it.  And if you would like a cotton poly blend sweatshirt with “As for me and my house…” phrase on it you can get it at Café Press for $34.99 and how about a Candle Pot with tea light illuminating these words to go with that sweatshirt for $18 from Grasslands Road Nature’s Elements.

The fact is this Bible verse from Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” has become, for lack of better words, kitsch!  It’s over sentimentalized.  Now I know that there is good, good intent with the wearing or displaying this endearing verse.  It’s a beautiful public statement of religiosity.  But I’d like for us to think much deeper about this Bible verse and its meaning. 

This particular verse is at the very end of our reading today from the Book of Joshua.  Last week we were in Exodus and since then a lot has happened which brings us forward into Joshua today.  The ten commandments were given a second time only this time written on stone. The covenant was renewed.  An ark to house the covenant was built.  Moses dies without ever stepping one foot into the promised land, the sweet land of milk and honey.  Then Joshua was commissioned to lead the people over that glorious border and settle the land.

And those people?  Well they weren’t the same people that Moses had sashayed through the wilderness for forty or so years.  It was their children, maybe even their children’s children.  A long time had passed, generations.  The land had been conquered and redistributed to the tribes of Israel.  They’ve settled in yet the people still grappled with the cultures around them, they still kvetch, they still wonder about who this ‘God’ is that seems to get angry at them but then brings them out of their misery and loves them through it all.  And now we come to another threshold for them.

Let us now hear the word as recorded in the Book of Joshua from the Hebrew Bible, the 24^th chapter.

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.

“‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. But they cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

“‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land. When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you. But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.

“‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

These beloved words that we hang on our walls or wear just happen to be part of Joshua’s final parting words to the people Israel. Not long after this oration that I just read he takes his last breath.  He had been with them for a good long while, through the battles and the trials and triumphs of life. And so he recounts their history reminding them of all of those times in which the God of Israel saved them from demise. 

I don’t think he is really sure that they get it, or if they do, he knows how they are mightily tempted to worship other gods which prevents them from following the God of Abraham.  While we may think that it is just a dry lesson in their history, Joshua is really pointing out that they belong, that they are part of a narrative that has been unfolding for many years, in fact many centuries before them, that they now are a part of. 

They are part of an ongoing history of struggle and faith, of doubt and fear, of trusting in this God above all other gods because this God, while perhaps at times displays questionable actions, IS the God of their ancestors, IS the God who continually forgives them, and IS the God who will consistently renew this beautiful covenant of steadfast love.

And so Joshua calls the question!  When debate drones on endlessly, the question is called and you have to vote immediately to determine if the debate should be cut off.  He calls the question and cuts to the chase…. Who will you follow?  Where will your allegiance be?  Are you willing to give up all of those other gods to follow the one true God?  Are you willing to stick with this God through the mucky muck of life, into the wilderness, and still declare that this is your God?  Good questions Joshua!  Thank you very much for raising them for us.

Life was messy for them as I suspect it is for most of us too.  We’re happily skipping along and you come to a fork in the road.  Which path will you choose?  Imperfections of your character or soul manifest at the oddest and most inconvenient of times and you find yourself completely adrift in a sea of unknown. Will you blame God or call upon God? Or will you decide that another sort of god could do a better job for you?

Sometimes the Israelites just wanted other gods.  A household god to make sure that the mana nut bread came out ok, a god of plentiful harvest for the fields, a god who would produce rain during a drought, a warrior god to best their enemies in battle.  I mean, the Amorites had such gods, why couldn’t they? 

It would be so nice to have a specific god in your pocket, wouldn’t it?   A god for the stock market, a more efficient god who will immediately cure ebola, a god who will take terrorists down way low, a god who will straighten out the mess that you woke up to this morning.  But it’s just not that way.  Following God is just not that neat and tidy. There will be unanswered questions and disappointments along the way.  So which god will you choose?

Walter Brueggeman, OT professor says this about what was set in Shechem that day by Joshua. Following God ‘requires a purging of all competing loyalties…for obedience’.  ‘It is a rather elemental decision to reorder life….within an entirely different set of risks and possibilities.’[i]

And to follow ultimately means to serve the Lord.  And to serve is to follow the example of Christ who served his Lord – to welcome anyone and everyone into your home and to sit at your table.  To serve is to look at this world, or the world in you neighborhood and to do something to make it better, to strive for the kingdom of God here on earth. 

Following this GOD of salvation won’t make your life perfect.  But we do know that this God will be the one who is with you, who calls you into the unknown and promises to stay with you until you see some daylight.  It is this God, who, yes, created your imperfections and loves you more deeply because of them.  It is the obedience of choosing God above all others, at all times, and then serving with your most sincere heart and hands.    

Joshua calls the question for us.  Which God will you choose? 

Amen.

---

[i] Walter Brueggeman from ‘Spill the Beans’ Issue 13.

These Ten Words

Exodus 19:1-17; 20:1-17                                                                       

When I packed my bags and trotted off to college I felt like I had been shot out of a canon.  I was charged, energetic, and most definitely ready for an adventure.  Now my home life was not bad, not bad at all.  In fact it was nurturing and loving.  But when you go to a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod grade school and high school, you know the rules.  And you follow them because that’s just what you did.

So when I went off it was a new horizon, uncharted territory, the wild, wild west.  All bets were off, all rules banished and I had to figure out what it meant to be on my own without Mother and the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church to guide my life.

Needless to say, I explored this newfound freedom to its fullest extent.  Party invitation?  Yes, I’m free, I can go.  Cigarettes and beer?  Sure, I’ll have one, or two. Church on Sunday morning?  Uh, gee, I’ve got an exam I have to study for, I’ll pass.  It was a new day and I was developing as a young woman at the tail end of the 60’s and early 70’s. 

Good thing I had those 10 Commandments under my belt to keep me afloat.  Good thing I had to memorize from Luther’s Small Catechism the 10 C’s and their meaning.  Especially number one.  The First Commandment.  Thou shalt have no other gods above Me.  What does this mean? (The Catechism also told you exactly what the commandment meant.) We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

And so I did love and trust in God as I enthusiastically and sometimes recklessly carved out a new existence and identity for myself all of which made me the person I am today, for good or for ill!  I’m sure we all have had to do that for ourselves at different times in our lives.  So did the Israelites!

Last week we reflected on Moses leading the Israelites out of the hands of Pharaoh.  They went from an existence of slavery to being free men and women.  Let us now hear their continued story from the 19th & 20th chapters of the Book of Exodus.

Marc Chagall

At Mount Sinai

On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on that very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai. After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.

Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak.  And God spoke all these words:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Well there you have it!  The Decalogue.  Ten Words. The Ten Commandments.   Except for maybe number one, ‘I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before Me’, they are all of equal value and importance, probably not listed in any particular order except to say that the first four commands speak of relationship with God and the remaining six commands help us relate to one another.  It’s where the vertical – God’s presence – and the horizontal – our living - and meet.

There is nothing abstract about them.  Love God.   Spend some quality time with God.  And then don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.  Don’t crave. Don’t murder.  Honor your elders.  Right?  You have to admit there is nothing remotely vague about these ten words. 

And yet it is these ten words that are probably the most difficult to understand because if we are honest with ourselves, and I hope that we are, we like to make exceptions to these words or, at the very least reinterpret them so that there is some wiggle room. 

I mean really, does do not murder mean that I can’t eat the meat of a cow that has been slaughtered by someone else’s hands or swat at and kill a fly?  Does excusing yourself from an invitation by saying you have a family commitment while you sit home on the couch watching ESPN or the Food Network by yourself really constitute a falsehood?   

I suppose that’s how the law and the spirit of the law came to be.  But rather than debate the nature and boundaries of each commandment the larger question for consideration today is what did God intend for us by imparting these ten commandments, these specific ten words?  Why was it important for Moses to trek up Sinai in the blistering heat to receive some newfound wisdom for the free people left below?

It was important because these ten words were to help the Israelites form a new identity, a new nation based upon ethical monotheism.  They were now a free people who had to define an identity with fresh norms in place.  No more would Pharaoh tell them what to do, what to think, or how to act.  They now had the right and liberty to self-determination and governance.  It was up to them to decide who they will become and how they will get there and in whom they would place their trust.  In very simple words, they needed to know how to relate to one another, they needed guidelines for behavior if they were ever going to find their way out of the wilderness.

Forming new identities is never an easy thing to do.  So it is with the Church as we are challenged to find our place, or our new face in this fast paced world.  We know that the Church universal is on the move, that God is breathing a new Spirit within us and it is also true of OCC. 

As we live into redeveloping, repositioning, rejuvenating, and rejoicing we might also want to look at the way we gather ourselves together and for what purpose.  We will be asking soul-searching questions of ourselves as a gathered community of faith.

·      Do we really yearn for the good old days or is it an excuse to not work hard at developing a strong progressive Christian identity that will encompass the cultural change of religious life within our community? 

·      Do we want to develop leaders within who will lead with faith and courage trusting that the past has given us a firm foundation from which we begin the journey into the future?

·      Is our present form of governance the best current practice that will allow for busy lives in this 21^st century landscape of technology and yet keep us fresh, innovative and connected?

·      Are we really going to take steps that will position us for the future diverse church even though we don’t know yet what that is or what it might look like? 

These are hard questions and we will need guidelines to steer our dialogue and live into the community that God called us to be and who God is calling us to become.  We will need to renew our covenant with our Beloved first and foremost and then with one another as we walk forward.   I believe that the Ten Commandments are a good place to start, as stodgy as they may seem, as we build a new identity together.  When framed in another way they are a wonderful affirmation of life giving grace.    

The Rev. Bill Lyons has looked at the Ten Commandments, not as a list of ‘shall nots’ but a list of ‘shalls’: 1. God first
2. Only God
3. Respect God
4. Enjoy God
5. Care for the vulnerable
6. Value life
7. Keep your commitments
8. Live honestly
9. Speak truthfully
10. Be content.   It is paying attention to the vertical, our relationship with God and the horizontal, our relationship with each other based on integrity and mutual trust.

After all, Christ very simply has put it for us in the greatest commandment that encompasses all ten, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22: 37-39) 

We can do it.  We can love God deeply and dearly.  We can also love each other carefully, respectfully, and reverently into the congregation that we are meant to become.