Repent and Live!

Ezekiel 18: 1-4, 25-32

Matthew 21: 23-32
 

There were 3 preachers in a Starbuck’s Coffee shop who were discussing the time when life began. They each gave their opinion of when life begins.

One preacher said "Life begins when the child takes his/her first breath."

The other said "NO," then he finished, "It begins when the child is conceived."

But the last preacher said "You both have the wrong answer! Life begins when the last child leaves home and the dog dies!"

Prayer: Lord, I am glad to say that life begins when we give our sins to Jesus. Thank you Lord that we are able to come to an altar of repentance and say... I need you Lord, I need you! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 Today we are going to speak of repentance and salvation using the two texts we read earlier. The passage in Ezekiel speaks of repentance in the typical OT way. The Lord tells the Israelites that it used to be that if the mother or father would sin, then the children were punished, if a tribe of Israel sinned the descendents of the tribe were punished as well. But the Lord tells them through Ezekiel that no longer will this be true.

 Instead, a person’s sins are their own and only they would deal with consequences. In the text of Matthew at first it would seem that Jesus is speaking only on authority and obedience. But at the end, he ends with this response: “And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him”.  Jesus is also sharing with the Jews how they may be saved and that is through repentance of their past sins just as God had told the Israelites in the book of Ezekiel.

 Since we are speaking of repentance and salvation today, let us take a deeper look at them both. Repentance is another word for contriteness, sorrow, regret, and guilt. However, in the Hebrew language the word for repentance literally meant to turn your back on or turn away from. So when a person repented of their sin they would promise to do the exact opposite of what they regretted doing in the first place.

In a remote portion of Canada, there is a small town called Wabush, which was completely isolated for many years. But as it always seems to happen, eventually civilization reached Wabush and a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and thus, only one road leading out. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there is only way he or she could leave---by turning around.

Each of us, by virtue of our human nature, arrives in a town called Sin. As in Wabush, there is only one way out--a road built by Jesus himself. But in order to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there is no way out of town.

We repent because we are sorry for the awful deeds we have committed. We do not understand the depth of our sinful nature until God has already forgiven us. That may seem strange to think about. We say we are sorry after God has already forgiven us? I can just see some of you thinking, “Isn’t that like closing the barn door after the horse escaped?”

The fact that God forgives us and blesses us when we don’t deserve it and even before we have realized the depth of our sin against God is what makes grace such a risky thing.

Author Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, calls these things loopholes. We all understand loopholes. Webster’s defines a loophole as a means of evading something unpleasant - a hole that provides a means of escape.

Yancey notes that in his book he provides what he calls "a one-sided picture of grace - portraying God as a lovesick father eager to forgive, and grace as a force potent enough to break the chains that bind us. He writes: "depicting grace in such sweeping terms makes people nervous, and I concede that I have skated to the very edge of danger. I have done so because I believe the New Testament does, too."

He then proceeds to tell the story of a friend of his he called Daniel. Daniel was about to leave his wife of 15 years for another woman, someone younger and prettier. He knew the personal and moral consequences of what he was about to do. But he had a larger concern - and he asked his friend "Do you think God can forgive something as awful as I am about to do?"

What a question, huh?

Yancey pondered, "How can I dissuade my friend from committing a terrible mistake if he knows forgiveness lies just around the corner?"

C.S. Lewis once wrote, "God gives where he finds empty hands." Then Lewis noted that a man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. Yancey agreed with this because he reflected, "Grace must be received. Lewis explains that what I have termed “grace abuse” stems from a confusion of condoning and forgiving. To condone an evil is simply to ignore it, to treat it as if it were good. But forgiveness needs to be accepted, as well as offered, if it is to be complete…and a person who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness." Ultimately, Yancey told his friend that, yes, of course, God could forgive him. But he also challenged him with these thoughts:

What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God. We change in the very act of rebellion, and there is no guarantee we will ever come back. He said to his friend, "You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?"

Consider what a tremendous risk God took by announcing forgiveness in advance. Yancey says that the scandal of grace involves a transfer of that risk to us. So yes, we are forgiven before we even admit remorse, and God forgiving us is often what provides the catalyst for our contrition.

 However, we must always be careful to not take it too far. If we assume that we are forgiven even before we have committed an act of sinfulness we have abused God’s grace. We must take on our own sense of responsibility for our actions and our knowledge of God. God tells us in Ezekiel that our sins are our own and we will pay for them. Jesus tells us with the story of the two brothers that our choices hold bigger consequences than our words.

 While one boy said he would go, he did not. The other said he wouldn’t help, but he did. Jesus uses this story to speak to us of not only the chief priests’ actions toward John the Baptist and Jesus, but the way we act toward God.

 We may say that we are Christians and that we love the Lord and our neighbors, but if our actions do not speak just as loudly, then we are like the first son. However, there are many people in this world that say they are not Christians, they say they do not follow God, and yet their actions show that God is with them. We sometimes reject the very people that God has accepted.

This parable in Matthew presupposes the rejection of Jesus by the chief priests and elders and by many of the Jews. As religious leaders they claim to be faithfully obedient to God, but they are blind to the fact that authentic obedience includes responding in faith to the new things God is doing. Do we commit the same sin?

Their refusal to see God at work in John’s ministry is anticipated in their rejection of Jesus. The sinners of Israel such as the tax collectors and prostitutes who had carelessly ignored the demands of their religion, will take a place in the kingdom while Jesus’ adversaries will be shut out.

Sometimes, religious followers become so blinded by their rituals, their ideas about culture and society and even about following the exact demands of God, that they become lost to what God is really up to. It happened two thousand years ago to the Jewish leaders and followers. It makes me wonder if it is happening today.

When I see so many denominations fighting over things like if we should baptize children or adults. Should we give communion by intinction or in the pews? Should we use the trust fund money to rebuild our crumbling church or help feed families who have lost their source of income? Should we allow openly gay members to be leaders of the church or should we not? Should we join two, three churches together to save money or allow all of us to struggle to support our individual buildings? These are the things we fight over. These are the things we allow to divide us.

Christians can also become blind to what God is doing in the world around them. How easily “Church work” degenerates into little more than simply maintaining the institution, with no excitement concerning what God’s active grace is doing and consequently no enthusiasm for evangelism and renewal! We say that we are going to work in the vineyard, but instead of harvesting the grapes we spend our time rearranging the stones along the path!

Repentance is the only way to accept salvation, it is the only way to get back to that Spirit of revival and renewal. We too often condone our bad behavior by focusing on the letter of the law instead of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit helps us to follow Jesus the way we are supposed too. Not by just miming what he has told us to do, but by truly changing us, helping us to turn our backs on our past sins and turn toward a future filled with life-eternal life.

Amen.

Grumble, Grumble

Exodus 16:2-15

Matthew 20:1-16

The two scriptures passages we read today are about people who grumble against God because they have lost sight of what God has done for them already and what God will continue to do for them into eternity. These two passages have much to teach us because we often find ourselves grumbling to God about our lives and the unjust ways we are treated.

 The story in Exodus is about a food crisis which leads to a faith crisis for the Israelites.  God responds to this crisis of faith with very little anger. He tells Moses, “I will rain bread on you!”  God gives the Israelites what they need – food for their stomachs and in doing so their faith is restored in God. The story in Matthew is also about God’s generosity told through the story of a generous vineyard owner. In both stories, the people are grumbling about their conditions because they have lost sight of what God is all about. Our God can be found not just in the extraordinary blessings of life, but in the ordinary blessings as well.

 God gives us blessings and life through ordinary means, things that happen to us every day. This is important because if God only blessed us in ways that happen outside the ordinary, we would absent God from our everyday life. No longer would we see God in the laughter of children, or in a moment spent with our families, or in the way a stranger opens a door for us so we may go first. The result of losing God in the ordinary by looking for God in the extraordinary is that we will feel empty and lost in the world. We are searching for God and cannot find God except by miraculous means because we have forgotten that God is everywhere and in everything. Miracles do not occur everyday. If we look for God only in the miraculous, we will spend most of our lives never seeing God. And yet, God is with us everyday of our lives – if we only know where to look.

 God gives the Israelites the food to help their faith crisis as well as their food crisis. He says that in giving them this they shall know that YHWH is their God and that it is God that provides them with all things. God will appear to them to connect the food to God – thereby connecting the ordinary to the extraordinary presence of God. This is one of the reasons why we say a blessing upon our meals before we eat. It reminds us that our food comes not just by our hard work, but by God’s generosity. It reminds us that every meal is a moment to commune with God through accepting that blessing of food and being grateful.

Material and spiritual well-being are closely connected. It is often found that there is strife in households that are hungry or in poor health. The lack of provisions and ability to care for family causes fear which turns to anger, distrust, and often violence. A full belly and a warm bed at night go a long way to alleviate anger and the propensity toward violence. As white middle income Americans, we do not know very much about severe poverty, hunger, and the abuse it often generates. However, that does not mean we cannot appreciate what we have and help others to receive the same blessings of food to eat and a place to sleep. And by helping those people, just as God helped the Israelites, it will bring them back to God.

 As a church, we need to make sure we are not looking for God only in the extraordinary, but also in the everyday dealings of our lives. It makes a difference in how we behave as a church and how we deal with life outside of this church. In finding God in the daily routines we are able to return to the confession that the Israelites were finally able to see once God had provided them with food:  It is you God that gives us what we need. It is you that brings us out of slavery and self-imposed exiles, you are God and you are Lord Almighty.  This confession is one that helps bring us back to God and to find God wherever we look, instead of fruitlessly searching for the miraculous.

 There are times when we resent God’s generosity. We do not resent it when God is being generous with us, but when we think of people we believe are unworthy. There are many times when I have heard someone say, “Why do bad things happen to good people, but the bad people die old, happy, and rich?” We sometimes grumble to God about what other people have received and think that what we have been given is not enough.

 The parable in Matthew is targeting a specific group of people. There were some Jewish Christians that resented being lead by former pagans. They resented that these former pagans had put in less time than them and yet had received leadership positions in the church. Sometimes we feel the same way. We see someone being recognized for their hard work in the church or at work and we think, “What about me?! I’m constantly working long, hard hours and no one pays any attention.” It is easy to grumble to ourselves or to others when some seem to get the recognition and we get nothing. Such resentment can be overcome only by fixing our gaze on the goodness of God who is generous to all.

 The parable in Matthew is often offensive to us, because as Americans many of us believe in a capitalist system which rewards a person based on what they have done. If you do more, you receive more, if you do less you receive less. This is also about a sense of justice; Americans have a highly developed sense of justice, perhaps too highly developed because we have taken over the court systems with petty grievances.

 We empathize then with the grumbling workers in verse 12, we too have known capricious employers who reward lazy workers more generously than faithful, hardworking employees. But this passage begs us to ask, can GOD be so unfair?

 Since the beginning of time, human beings have tried to bargain with their many gods. We make promises, “God if you do this for me, I will do this in return.” In Genesis 28, Jacob tries to bargain with God for protection and sustenance, promising to reward God with a tithing of his income. We will often do the same thing. “I went to church this week, I paid my dues Lord, now you owe ME something!” However, the climax of this parable is what the vineyard owner tells the workers, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” The vineyard owner claims the right to pay his workers not on the basis of their merits but on the basis of his own compassion. This is what God does as well.

 Jesus has brought salvation to all people, no matter when or where they come to God in their life. They may be a murderer, a drunk, a hardworking school teacher, a child, an IRS agent or a person of another faith. But if they come to Jesus and profess belief and humility, if they begin to have love in their hearts for God and humanity – Jesus will give them eternal salvation. The same salvation we have been given and yet we come to church every Sunday, we offer up money and time and prayers. We may feel we have done more to earn our salvation, but the vineyard owner tells us that it is not about us, it never has been about what we do.

 It is all about God’s generosity. God gives salvation to us because Jesus Christ died for us. Otherwise we would ALL be condemned to hell. There is nothing you can do to earn salvation. You have not worked harder for it than the atheist who comes to God in the last three minute’s of her life. You have not earned God’s blessings because you tithe more than everyone else on your block. That is not the way God works.

Why should such generosity be condemned as injustice? God is good to all. Jesus reveled in the incredible magnanimity of God. Of course Jesus believed in the God of Justice, but in his vision of God the divine compassion greatly outshone the divine justice. Those who worship such a God must imitate his generosity, not begrudge it.

What it comes down to there is nothing we can do to earn what is freely given out of love. Not to mention the gift being given so completely outshines anything we have done or could do, that in the end – we are all eleventh hour workers. None of us deserves the glorious future that God has prepared.

 These two passages leave us with this truth, a confession we must make often when we forget ourselves and begin to grumble. It is you God that gives us what we need. It is you that brings us out of our self-absorption and self-imposed exiles, it is you, God, that makes us good and holy, you are God and you are Lord Almighty. I confess Lord; I am an eleventh hour worker. It may not seem fair to us that the neighbor who never goes to church will get to go to heaven too, but Lord, I thank you that even though I am a sinner, you are generous and loving to me.

Amen.

Judging Our Brothers and Sisters

Genesis 50: 15-21

Romans 14:1-12

Our human condition often has us treating people with contempt. We ignore our own weaknesses and pick out other people’s to make us feel better. Yet God, who is perfect and good and holy, does not pick on us and does not point out our weaknesses. Instead, God loves us as we are and helps us to become better people through that love.

 As Christian people, we are to be the same as God. We are not to hold people in contempt but instead we are to love them and try to understand them. Paul gives several different examples of the different ways people worship God and how sometimes we use the different ways of worship to hold ourselves apart from other people. We tell ourselves that our way of doing things is better than another denomination and we have nothing to do with them. When someone in our church has an idea to do something differently, sometimes we look down upon them instead of thinking on what they are saying and why they are saying it. We are supposed to be tolerant and loving as well as accepting.

  In the same way, Paul tells us here in the letter to the Romans that some of us are stronger than others, but in their strength they must also be tolerant and accepting. He is addressing the problem in Rome where there are not many Christians and the few that there are have been fighting over whether to eat meat that has been sacrificed to another god. Some of those early Christians saw nothing wrong with eating the meat, they felt that no matter what god it had been sacrificed to, they knew that our one true God would never be threatened by imaginary gods and people’s sacrifices to them. Therefore they saw the meat as safe to eat without blemishing their own belief in Jesus. Yet other early Christians saw this as blasphemous because of the Ten Commandments that said there is only one God and we shall not bow down before other gods. They felt that eating the sacrificed meat was bowing down and worshipping these other people’s gods.

 The point Paul makes is that both are correct. Isn’t that interesting? He tells neither side they are wrong, but instead tells them to co-exist in their rightness. The reason they are both right is because of how passionate they are about their belief. To the second group, to eat the sacrificed meat would be to falter in their faith and they could not do that. So Paul tells the first group to make allowances for the other’s feelings on this matter and to not push their confidence that God would not mind about the meat upon the other. In this way, he said that the first group of Christians was stronger in their faith and could eat the meat without faltering in their faith, but to understand that not everyone is that strong or that sure about their faith.

 This passage is underscored by the first text we read today in Genesis. Joseph’s brothers were weak men. They were jealous and petty and vindictive in their younger years and after their father died, they feared for their very lives because of the way they had treated their brother Joseph. Many of us would have felt the same fear. We have all done selfish things that have hurt other people. Sometimes the person we hurt retaliates quickly, but sometimes that person waits for just the right moment to seek revenge. We fear them and what they will do. We worry about it and think on how they might hurt us back. Instead of coming to the injured party with our metaphorical hat in our hand and an apology on our lips, we plot ways to escape the outcome of our actions.

 This is exactly what Joseph’s brothers did as well. They still had not learned a lot about God and about their brother in the time they had spent with him since he revealed himself to them. So when their father died, they got together and began to plan – the same way they had done when they were young and threw him into that pit. They decided to use their dead father to promote peace and forgiveness through what I’m sure they considered a minor deception.

 But Joseph knew his brothers. Perhaps he knew them better than they knew themselves, certainly better than the brothers knew Joseph. Even though he saw through their little deception, he did not hold it against them. He saw something that his weaker family could not. Joseph saw the hand of God in all that had transpired. Joseph knew that everything that had happened occurred because it needed to. Joseph suffered as a young man so that God could put him in the position to save thousands of people, including his beloved father and his brothers.

 As all of you are aware, today is the tenth year since the 9/11 attacks. There have been many stories being replayed about that time, many personal events recounted and even some untold stories have been shared. One story, about a security guard named Rick Rescorla reminded me of the story of Joseph. Rick worked as the director of security at Morgan Stanley in the South Tower. He was a dedicated man who held fire drills twice a year no matter what and when he heard what happened to the first tower, against orders to stay put, he put his emergency evacuation plan into effect. He saved 2,500 people’s lives that day and gave up his own to do it. The last glimpse anyone had of him, he was on the tenth floor of the South Tower and headed upstairs.

 We are here today because of people like Rick Rescorla and Joseph. These are people that are willing to put others before themselves. They understand that life is not just about taking all you can for yourself, but that sometimes we are meant for better things. We are meant to be God’s workers. I believe that Rick was a man that listened to the voice of God and even though his bosses told him to do nothing, that everything was okay – he instead listened to his heart, listened to the voice inside of him that said, “Get those people out of there. Now.”

 I began this sermon by telling you that we often treat people with contempt to make ourselves feel better. We judge other people as lesser or ourselves as better than them. I also said that God is holy and good and we become better people by experiencing God’s love. A strong person, a strong Christian is one that knows they are not perfect, but we see glimpses of perfection at times. When a person sacrifices their life to save another, when a person gives up their dream job so they can put food on the table, when any one of us gives up our wants to help another person in need – that is God’s perfect love in action. There is no time to be judgmental or hateful. There is no room for it.

9/11 was a terrible, awful experience. And yet, I look at that time as a miraculous one as well. So many people did the right thing that day instead of the easy, selfish thing. Rick’s story is one of thousands. I’m not sure how God does it, but 9/11 was not a victory for the terrorists that attacked the United States. God was the victor that day because even in the midst of all that destruction, God created goodness and mercy and love so that when we look back ten years later, we can see faith and hope even while staring at the awful pictures of pain and death.

That is the Christian legacy. That is God’s love in action. Christ is always victorious. As a church, we should learn from these things. It would be easy to hate all Muslims for the actions of radicals. It is easy to judge harshly, but it is much harder to be forgiving and loving toward everyone. But as Christians we hold in our hearts that God is always the victor because as Paul said to us today in Romans, “For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’  So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God”.  Let those words steady and strengthen you in your faith so that you may love even those whom others would despise.

Amen.

Different Gifts, One Body

Isaiah 51: 1, 6-8

Romans 12: 1-8

 We often say that the children of this church are our future. Not only do I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, I have also made the same comment a time or two. It is good that we know the children are precious and we need to be there for them. But I cannot help but think about the present when we start thinking about the future.  

Sometimes we put too much emphasis on the future and not enough on the present. While our children are our future, we are the present. If we do not do what is proper and right, there will be no future for our children. In the current political and economic climate, we have a few hard decisions to make which will affect our children’s future for some time to come.

In each generation there is a tipping point, there is a moment that defines the people. For some it was WWII and for others it was the feel-good era of the fifties. For others it was the social movements of the 60s or the free spirited 70’s. Some people think of the Wall Street crash in the 80’s and others think of Desert Storm in the 90’s. This last decade I’m sure many of my generation consider the wars to be one of the biggest things happening in the world and then there are others whose whole life was turned upside down by this Recession.

As a church in the middle of all these defining points in people’s lives, we should be making an impact as well. The scriptures from Isaiah and Romans tell us how we may do that. Isaiah speaks to us about looking to the rock from which you were cast and from the quarry from which you were hewn. Since we are church that was built from stone from a mountain quarry, this image is especially powerful. We come from a group of people who were willing to carry down huge piles of stone after they worked hard to cut them from the mountain to create this beautiful church. We come from people who were once four separate churches that understood God’s call to be one church and one body and so they formed the UCC.

In a more personal way, the rocks we are cut from are our parents and the quarry that we were hewn from is our family. We look to them, our past, to help us stay true to our path in the present. God tells us it is important to pay attention to where you come from and those that came before us. It is important to respect our roots and traditions even as we look to the future for new ideas and new ways to grow.   

It’s easy to be discouraged when we look at the past. Too often all we see is our failures. We see the fights with family members or that time we lost a job or when we hurt someone we loved by being selfish. In Isaiah we are told that we are to lift our eyes to the heavens, to see the wonder and glory of God Almighty. Why? Because even the worst of things will seem like nothing at all when compared to God. Our God who offers us eternal life and Isaiah said that if we accept, salvation will be ours forever, God will never forsake us. 

Isaiah does not leave us with just those words though. He says them again, “Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart: (That would be us and all Christians) He goes on to say we should not fear what mortals offer us, we should not be terrified by anything they will try to do to us. We should not fear because God is the creator of everything around us and God has complete control of what God created. There is a plan; there is a reason for it all. We may not understand now, but we trust in God for our salvation.          

In Romans, Paul is reiterating what Isaiah has said. What happens in this world is temporary and we are not to be tempted to bend to the dictates of evil because we have been given the gift of a higher power. If we do not conform, if we stay true to God’s path we will be able to see what he has in store for us more clearly, we will be able to understand more, and we will be strengthened even more as a result. Every action has a reaction. Every decision a consequence. Weigh your actions and decisions carefully against the measure of eternity.

Paul then tells us that humility is the only way to make it through this life without messing up too badly. When we are humble we hesitate to do what we want because we are not sure our wants are what are best. Instead, we look to the faith God has given to each of us, the grace he has bestowed upon us to help us figure out if what we are doing is God’s will or our own. We look to each other as a church to help us figure out what God wants us to do, to help us stay true to God’s will.

Paul reminds us that we are many people, but one body in Christ because the weight of every decision a church makes is upon all our shoulders. Therefore, if the church makes a fatal error in judgment, we all carry the burden for it. That means we should never let just one person make the decisions but it should be a collective of voices. And each person here should be given a chance to speak because each person is important to this church, each person will carry the burden of our decisions upon them. It is one of the reasons our committees and Consistory only last for a couple years so everyone may have a chance to lead us, to have a voice in what we accomplish.

We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. The beautiful part about letting every person have a chance to speak is that we benefit from the different gifts of each person. Some of us are good speakers, but not good conversationalists. Some of us are very comfortable walking into hospital rooms to help the sick, but others of us are much better working with our hands. Some of us are good with money and are able to help us grow the church while others of us have a mind for details and are good at organizing church functions. We need each person here. We need the gifts we all offer because that is how a church grows. 

When we keep in mind that each person has a purpose, each person is important to the future of this church, it helps to keep our own pride in check. It helps us to acknowledge differing opinions and to accept that sometimes we will not win every battle just because are sure we are right and everyone else is wrong. No one person can be right all the time, no one has that ability but Jesus. This is why each voice is important because it is the collective of voices, individual in their own rights but coming together as a whole that make the Christian church as well as the UCC special. We want to hear from all of you. We want each of you to have a place here. You are welcome and you are appreciated and you are loved.

May the Lord bless each of you and may each of you use your gifts to help make the future of this church one that is bright and promising.

Amen.

Forgiveness

Genesis 45: 1-15
Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32

I was reading one of the Grimm’s Brothers fairytales the other night and there was this lady who had been taken up into heaven to be raised by the Virgin Mary. When she’s about 14 years old she does something she’s not supposed to and then she lies about it. She lies three times straight to the Virgin Mary’s face and is then cast down to earth. While on earth she eventually meets a man who happens to be a king and they get married and have a son.

On the night of his birth the Virgin Mary appears to the woman and asks her again to tell the truth or she would lose her son. The woman lies to her again and Mary takes her son away. The next year she gives birth again, and again Mary comes to her in the night and again the woman lies so Mary takes her second son up into heaven. The third year she gives birth to a baby girl and Mary comes to her. Once again, the woman looks Mary full in the face and lies to her so Mary takes her daughter too.

Now the Kingdom is up in arms thinking this woman is a baby killer and so they take her out to kill her. As she is about to die she looks up to heaven and cries out, “Yes Mary, I did it!” Immediately, the Virgin Mary saves her, giving back her three children and tells her, “She who repents her sin and acknowledges it, is forgiven.”

Why do our children and why do we lie to others about the truth of our actions? We fear the consequences of telling the truth way more than we fear the consequences of telling a lie. Perhaps the reason for that is because we do not think of the afterlife enough. We do not think or dwell too much on the idea that one day Jesus will judge us and depending on what he decides we will be given eternal life or we will be cast out of heaven.

The young lady who lied to the Virgin Mary six times was more afraid of what would happen if she admitted the truth than if Mary took her children away. I think that is why the ending of this story is even more amazing. The young lady never would have been cast out of heaven if she would have admitted her guilt right away. As soon as she owned her sin, she was forgiven instantly.

There are many times when we would rather lie and cheat than face the consequences of our actions. Here on earth, we sometimes even get away with it. However, there will come a day when we will not be able to hide our sinfulness from the world or from God. We fear punishment and that is why we hide our faults and sins, but Jesus does not need to be our punisher. As often as pastors preach it, we quickly forget the most important part of the Gospel.

Why did Joseph forgive his brothers when they repented their actions against him? Why did Jesus forgive the sinners and the tax collectors? Why did Jesus die for us on the cross? Paul tells us in Romans that “God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” In other words, God knows we are not perfect. God knows we will fall well short of the ten commandments. God knows we have flaws and guilt and anger inside of us. God knows our every thought and our every sin. And yet, God still sent Jesus, his only son, to die for us so that we might have eternal salvation.

Martin Luther once said to “Sin boldly”. Sin boldly and know that the Lord has compassion on the sinner. Compassion and forgiveness are what set God apart from human beings. We fear punishment because we know that other humans are never as forgiving as God. When we are wronged, we want justice. When we are hurt we want vengeance. When our friends are hurt we want the perpetrators caught and punished. Therefore, we know when we do something wrong that other people will feel the same way. Not many of us turn the other cheek. Not many of us can accept a simple apology. Not in the same way that God accepts us and loves us despite our guilt.

Perhaps that is the model we need. Jesus loves us despite what we have done. God forgives us even knowing tomorrow we will do the same thing again. We need to love people not for how great they are but for all their flaws as well. We need to forgive even knowing tomorrow they will do the same thing again because we are no different. It is when we try to elevate ourselves and pretend we are not full of sinfulness that our pride makes us unbending. We try to tell ourselves and the world that we are better than the person who wronged us. We refuse to see their side of things and we hold contempt in our hearts for people who have hurt us.

But does God think that way? Can God forgive a murderer? Will God let a thief go to heaven? Will God let a liar enter the pearly gates and break bread? I sure hope so, because we are all guilty of doing something wrong in God’s eyes. Perhaps that is the key to forgiveness. We understand that none of us are worthy of being forgiven, but God does so anyway. If we are forgiven for the many things we have done against others, then why can’t we forgive those who have hurt us? It’s not easy, but we should make an effort.

When we try to forgive, the Holy Spirit sees our hearts trying to soften and perhaps the Spirit will help us to bend where our pride has made us unbending, to help us to forgive what we thought was unforgivable. After all, isn’t that what we pray to God for every day? Forgiveness for all the things we have done, that after awhile seem unforgivable because we know how much God loves us and it does not seem to stop us from being sinful. It does not seem to stop us from not listening to God. But the moment we own our sin, the moment we confess it to God, we realize it has been wiped away and will never be brought up again.

As forgiven Christians, we should try to follow God’s lead. Take a moment today to think of those who have hurt you, those whom you harbor anger or contempt against. Think about them and think about God. Allow God’s love for your sinful, sorry self to help you love another person the same way, to forgive them for what they have done to you and those you care about. True forgiveness is the kind that never brings up the past again.

Amen.

Sinful Hearts

Zechariah 9: 9-12
Romans 7: 15-2

The NT passage we read today reads like a teenager’s mind. There’s indecision, confusion and personal angst. The truth is that when it comes to sin, all of us experience what feels like a hormonal imbalance which is depicted so accurately in this passage. We struggle, we fight ourselves and we fight the people around us. There is a war being raged inside each of us and according to this passage, although we want God to win, if we are completely honest it is sin that holds the upper hand.

So what do we do about this? The writer of Romans is Paul. He writes quite a bit of the NT and here he is freely admitting that sin holds the upper hand in his body and mind even though he struggles to free himself. Paul was a Jewish man who once persecuted Christians before being converted. Some people think he was a Jewish rabbi because from his letters we can tell he was extremely learned. If anyone knew about God and Jesus Christ it is definitely Paul who was the only one to have seen the Risen and Ascended Jesus, but Paul admits that the law of sin holds him captive even as he tries to follow God’s law.

We too, work hard to follow the laws of God. We teach our children not to steal or curse in God’s name, to believe in only one God, to honor their father and mother and to not be jealous of what others have. Some of us even try to follow the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy by eating kosher foods, eating fish on Fridays but not shellfish, and not mixing synthetic fibers. But eventually, we all slip up in following the letter of the law.

It’s hard work, trying to be good all the time. We’re constantly thinking of what Jesus would do in this situation or thinking about God shaking his head when we say things like curse words or petty and sarcastic comments about people. Sometimes all that hard work and then failing to actually be a good person 24/7 can burn us out. We become disheartened, and disillusioned. We make excuses for why we say Gosh darnit or we stop noticing we said it at all. We explain away our petty comments about people by saying that person really IS a jerk that no one likes and you’re just telling it as it is. Sometimes we can even explain away worse things like stealing and adultery.

For example, in today’s economy everyone is concerned about the deficit and the government’s excessive spending. We see Fox News and CNN telling us that Molly Housewife knows that if you make a hundred bucks a month then spending two hundred and fifty is not going to work. Then the next thing we see is the wars America is involved in and how much they cost to fund. Not only are we tired of our children, husbands and wives sacrificing their lives for a war we don’t understand anymore, but we’re tired of not having money to give our children and grandchildren better education, after school programs and health care not to mention better roads and open parks.

So, when something like the situation in Libya happens, no one wants to make it our fight. We have two wars already and a deficit that’s climbing. We have social injustice here in the U.S. let Libya fight its own war. This weekend we celebrate the Independence day. We celebrate a group of people, our ancestors, who were willing to break away from a government and a leader that was treating them unfairly. That was suppressing what they considered their God-given rights. Freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There was lot of countries that were against the colonies fighting England because England was the head honcho. They were the superpower and they promised retribution to many if America continued.

Christians are called to fight injustice. Not when it is easy or convenient or inexpensive. We understand the arguments people make against the US helping Libya, we understand the frustration Americans feel with our government and our own social injustices, but we also know that rarely does the chance to make a difference happen on our own time table. Maybe all we are supposed to do to help Libya is pray for those people that have been abused and oppressed. Maybe our job is a lot more than that. It’s a fight we have to figure out - an internal one inside our hearts to do what we know is right and what we feel is easier.

That is what Romans and St. Paul are speaking of. That internal struggle we all face to do what we know is right and fighting the desires we have of doing what is easier. It’s easier to walk away from injustice. It’s easier to ignore our sins. But what Paul tells us is that when we ignore our sinfulness, when we stop fighting that inner battle, sin has won and we are lost. So then we get back to the exhaustion of a constant fight. The exhaustion of two wars a decade long and another on the horizon. We want to duck and cover. We want to hide and pretend we do not see any of it so that we can concentrate on ourselves.

Paul tells us that is not going to work. At least, not for long. We’re concentrating on the law, we’re concentrating on the black and the white. The truth is not found in the law, the life of a person, of a society is not black and white. Instead, Paul tells us, “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” There is where the truth lies, not in the law but with God.

When we look at the world through the lens of the law, we can justify many things as well as condemn ourselves for our sins. But when we look through the lens of Jesus Christ, the world is a different place. There is a kaleidoscope of colors and each situation has a different shape and feel to it. Each person means something different to Jesus.

In Italy, there is a company that looks at the world in black and white. Italy has been a patriarchal society for a long time and it has created an imbalance of power between men and women. This is an industrialized, 21st century country that treats its women like second class citizens. So the company in Italy that sees women as second class workers and providers, decided when they were having financial difficulties to lay off all of the women workers and none of the men. They said, "We are firing the women so they can stay at home and look after the children. In any case, what they bring in is a second income."

This is the danger of only seeing in black and white. These women are not secondary. They are not a lower class to the men. But because it has always been that way and because it suits this company’s purpose to see them that way, they keep the injustice alive and well because it is easier. We too, do this in our own lives because we try to look at the world through the eyes of the law. We look at our lives in terms of sinful and good.

Jesus takes all of that away. In Jesus there is no sin, there is only good. With eyes turned toward God our hearts will soon follow. With hearts that follow Jesus, our actions will be Godly actions. Are you seeing how this works? The internal struggles will cease. The wars we fight inside of ourselves, the wars we fight as a country and as a society will cease. With Jesus as our leader we forget about petty things like what a person wears, what side of the tracks they grew up on, and even gender.

With Jesus in our hearts, we will not struggle against injustice because injustice will be no more. I know it sound idealistic, but if just once we make this change, if just one of us stands up and says no more – it really will make a difference. We saw it when a group of people in Boston decided to throw English tea into the water and said no more taxation without representation. We saw it when a group of people said no more slavery and then no more segregation. We saw it when a group of people in Egypt said no more to an unjust dictator and now more people and more countries are realizing they can change the world by standing up for what is right. With Jesus Christ, all things are possible.

Amen.

Enter the Gate

Acts 2: 42-47
John 10:1-10

Picture in your mind a very tall fence with a gate, one that is meant to keep people out of whatever it is protecting. Shape it in your mind, is it built in such a way that everyone can see what is inside or does it protect the place from prying eyes as well? Is it made of wood or concrete or steel? Are there spikes on the top of it or barbed wire or perhaps an electrical current to really shock people away? Now picture the Gate’s door. Does it open up by swinging outward or does it swing inward? Do people only come in or only go out?

Many Christians believe in a heaven that is exclusive. It is exclusive because we believe only a certain kind of person gets into those heavenly gates. We tend to think of those people as good, honest, kind and generous. Those are the kind of people in heaven, the people that no one would ever say a bad word against. We reassure ourselves that Aunt Mabel and Grandpa Jack have to be in heaven because they were the greatest people on earth. The longer they have been gone, the greater they seem to us in retrospect.

Yes, heaven is an exclusive place where only the best of the best get in. The ones who tithe their 10% or even more, they are on all the church committees and help at the local SPCA. They are the ones that go to every ballgame and ballet their kids ever had and knew how to do the puzzling Algebra problems when their children asked for help with their homework.

There’s just one thing I have to say about this idea so many of us have about Heaven. I don’t think there is anyone in heaven if that is what is required for us to get there. You see, the problem with all of us thinking about heaven as the place where the good people go, is that none of us are good people. Oh, I know, we like to tell ourselves we’re good people. We tell ourselves that all this hard work we have been doing will earn us brownie points with God. All that time I’ve spent helping the homeless and giving money to poor people has to endear me to God eventually, right? No, not right.

None of us are good enough for heaven. By thinking only good people go to heaven, we put all of our trust in ourselves rather than in God for our eternal life. We put all of our eggs into the basket marked with our name rather than Jesus’ name. The truth is that none of us are going to get to heaven if Jesus is not accompanying us to those heavenly gates. It doesn’t matter how big the gate is or what it is made of or how it opens up because if Jesus is not by our side, there will be no admittance. You will be turned away and told that no one knows you there if Jesus isn’t accompanying you. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a good person because the only thing that matters is whose company you’ve been keeping.

This is great news. Oh, I know some of you are thinking, “Pastor Audra, this is terrible news. I’m worried about Aunt Mabel and Grandpa Jack and now about myself too!” The reason this is great news is because you are no longer in charge of whether you get to heaven or not. The weight and worry has been lifted! The only way you get to heaven is if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Jesus tells us in John 10 that the only way to enter that gate is through Him because he is that gate. All those who enter through Jesus will be saved. They will come in and go out and find a home waiting for them.

So who are Jesus’ sheep? Who are the lucky ones who get to enter the gate and be accepted into heaven? Are Jesus’ followers just the good people? I sure hope not because the good people I talked about earlier are very, very rare. Has no one ever spoken bad about you or been mad at you? Have you never said an angry word to anyone or lied to someone you cared about? Do you always tithe your 10% and tirelessly help the homeless? Well, even if these questions can be answered in a positive way, we need to remember it is not by our deeds that we get to heaven, it is Jesus’ actions that save us. It is Jesus’ faithfulness and belief in God that save his followers, and their faith is a byproduct of Jesus’ faith.

All of these things I’ve mentioned are noble and wonderful deeds that we do, but they do not pay your way to heaven. Only Jesus can do that. And he has paid the way for his followers; those who are willing to love him and be loved by him will find the gates opened to them.

We are back to who are Jesus’ sheep? Who are the ones that get to walk through that narrow gate? Let’s take a look at Mark 2 where the Pharisees are incensed that Jesus was eating with certain people. “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The people that have been called to follow Jesus are not just the righteous, but the sinners. He has come for those who have a less than sterling character according to society. Jesus’ three years of ministry were filled with moments where he ate, slept and laughed with the outcasts of society. These were the people no one wanted to associate with; they were the ones that the good people wouldn’t be caught dead laughing, eating, and sleeping with. But Jesus called these social pariahs his friends. These were the people who Jesus wanted to save.

Take heart, brothers and sisters. Jesus came not for those who were pure and good, but for those who were weak and downtrodden. Jesus came not for the mythical good people, but for the reality of who we really are as human beings. God did not send Jesus to save the perfect humanitarian, but for those people who always fall short of perfection without Jesus by their side. Jesus came for you, and he came for me.

Do not try to be perfect because it isn’t possible. Do not try to always have the answers because only God has all of them. Do not worry about your life or the life of your family. Make sure they know who Jesus is, make sure you know who Jesus is so that when you hear his voice, like the sheep in the parable, you will follow only him. Because Jesus will come one day and escort you through those heavenly gates, as long as you are a sinner who has known God’s perfect love – in other words, as long as you know Jesus Christ. Amen.