Sermon-Sunday January 18, 2009
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today I would like to dispel for you a myth that has been perpetuated at least since the earliest days of the Church and probably long before that also. And this is the myth that the God of the Bible, the God who created the universe, the God who sent His Son to lay down His life for us and take upon Himself the burden of all of our sins is not inclusive. Now it is somewhat timely that I bring this up with the presidential inauguration coming up this week.
I am sure that some, if not all of you have heard about the controversy surrounding soon to be President Barrack Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. If any of you are not familiar with Rick Warren, he is the pastor of a very large megachurch in southern California and the author of a very successful book called The Purpose-Driven Life. Initially it was member’s of the homosexual community who were primarily upset at the selection of Warren because of Warren’s support of proposition 8 in California which upheld the traditional, and biblical understanding of marriage.
But now, atheists are getting in on the act. And they are not upset so much that Warren was selected but that there should be an invocation, which is basically an opening prayer. But, conceding that there is going to be an invocation, the atheists are now saying “Well he better not mention Jesus’ name.” Because they believe that if he did, then anyone who did not consider themselves a Christian would be left out in the cold or would be excluded.
And there you have it. There is one of the lies and myths that sin and the devil have been trying to fool people into believing for centuries; and that is the myth that the name of Jesus, the name above all names invokes exclusivism or is not inclusive. And actually nothing could be further from the truth. For you see the problem is not that the love of Christ excludes itself from anyone, but rather that we exclude ourselves from the love of Christ.
The truth is that this God whom we run from every day in sin, has been coming after us, seeking to include us in his great and glorious Kingdom since before even the foundation of the world. For the words that the psalmist spoke are true of all of God’s creation; He is acquainted with all our ways, even before a word is on our tongue, He knows it completely, He made each and every one of us, forming our inward parts and knitting us together in our mother’s womb.
We were made in His glorious image and He wanted nothing less for us than His perfect righteousness, and for us to be a part of His glorious kingdom. But we wouldn’t have it. Right from the beginning we showed ourselves to want nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. For being a part of a Kingdom involves submitting oneself to the will of the King, and that is just not something that we are inclined to do.
This One who has searched us and knows us better than we even know ourselves and whose knowledge is far too wonderful for us is the One who we run from every day with even the most seemingly obscure or harmless sinful thought or action. This One whose knowledge is far too vast for us to even begin to try to wrap our minds around is the One whom we show that we think we know better than as we continually and repeatedly try to re-mold and re-fashion His perfect image and His perfect will so as to better accommodate our self-serving desires. And it began when the devil, in the form of a serpent appeared to us and asked “Did God say ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’” This is the question which, since the dawn of creation, we have sought to come up with reasons to answer with an emphatic ‘no.’
Even Eli, the teacher and mentor of Samuel who would be one of the great prophets in the history of God’s people, fell short and ignored the iniquity of his sons and so God brought punishment upon the house of Eli. And yet even in the face of the declaration of this judgment as it was pronounced to Eli through the words of Samuel, we see Eli submitting himself to God’s will when he says “It is the Lord; let Him do what seems good to Him.”
And although, as we see in the lesson from Samuel there were times when the Word of the Lord would seem rare, God would not abandon His people. Our Lord would continue to come after us, calling us to Himself, looking to include us in His great and glorious Kingdom.
He would continue to come after us with a Word all the while pointing to the fullness of time when the Word would come to us not merely through the proclamation of a sinful prophet, but incarnate in the flesh, born of a virgin in a manger.
He would come among us, be among us, live among us, live the perfect and sinless life among us and then, though sinless this incarnate One, the Son of God, Christ Jesus would take upon Himself all of our sin born of our desire to be our own gods and reject the One who created us, and He would pay the price for our rejection and rebellion when He laid down His life on the cross for us; not just the rebellion and rejection that we had inflicted upon Him up to that point, but also including the rejection that we inflict upon Him every day, even the rejection of the very ones who persecuted Him.
That is how truly inclusive He is, that as He hung on the cross bleeding and dying He looked down upon those persecutors who rejected Him so violently and offered not a word of condemnation but a word of mercy as He prayed “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
And we get a foreshadowing of this incredible inclusive mercy in today’s Gospel lesson. Nathanael says of Jesus “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael could not believe what Phillip was telling him, that the One whom Moses also wrote about in the law and the prophets, the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, whom Israel was waiting for could possibly come from a backwater town like Nazareth.
But then Jesus sees Nathanael and says of him that he is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael had just questioned whether Jesus was in fact who He said He was, and Jesus says of Nathanael that he is a man in whom there is no deceit. And indeed Nathaneal was simply being honest in his assessment that nothing good can come from Nazareth. And so Jesus doesn’t condemn Nathanael or argue with him or try to wow him to prove that Phillip was in fact right, instead he compliments Nathanel. And in this brief little discourse with Jesus, Nathanael sees that in fact something good has come from Nazareth. Jesus breaks through Nathanael’s exterior and makes him reconsider his assumptions and makes him see Jesus for who Jesus is; the Son of God, the King of Israel.
Christ Jesus is radically inclusive. He meets us where we are at, as we are, but He doesn’t leave us there. Nathanael was not the same after his encounter with Christ Jesus. And, the former persecutor of Christ, Paul was not the same after his encounter with Christ Jesus either. Having had his sin exposed to him, like Nathanael Paul realized that Christ Jesus is in fact the Savior and redeemer His disciples said He was and so the persecutor of Christ became the proclaimer of Christ’s promises.
And so you are changed when you encounter Christ in the waters of baptism and you are claimed by Him and cleansed by Him. And He daily comes to you as He is now, bringing you faith through the proclaiming of the Gospel; as the One who bore the burden of your sin calls you, gathers you, enlightens you, sanctifies you and includes you in the promise of His eternal Kingdom.
And so all that is left for us to do is to respond as Eli did in the Old Testament lesson in faith, believing and trusting that what the Lord has done and is doing for you and to you in Christ is good, and so hear the words of Paul the persecutor turned proclaimer “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.” Through faith in Christ, we are included in Christ’s eternal resurrection and have a place in His eternal Kingdom. And it doesn’t get anymore inclusive than that.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today I would like to dispel for you a myth that has been perpetuated at least since the earliest days of the Church and probably long before that also. And this is the myth that the God of the Bible, the God who created the universe, the God who sent His Son to lay down His life for us and take upon Himself the burden of all of our sins is not inclusive. Now it is somewhat timely that I bring this up with the presidential inauguration coming up this week.
I am sure that some, if not all of you have heard about the controversy surrounding soon to be President Barrack Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. If any of you are not familiar with Rick Warren, he is the pastor of a very large megachurch in southern California and the author of a very successful book called The Purpose-Driven Life. Initially it was member’s of the homosexual community who were primarily upset at the selection of Warren because of Warren’s support of proposition 8 in California which upheld the traditional, and biblical understanding of marriage.
But now, atheists are getting in on the act. And they are not upset so much that Warren was selected but that there should be an invocation, which is basically an opening prayer. But, conceding that there is going to be an invocation, the atheists are now saying “Well he better not mention Jesus’ name.” Because they believe that if he did, then anyone who did not consider themselves a Christian would be left out in the cold or would be excluded.
And there you have it. There is one of the lies and myths that sin and the devil have been trying to fool people into believing for centuries; and that is the myth that the name of Jesus, the name above all names invokes exclusivism or is not inclusive. And actually nothing could be further from the truth. For you see the problem is not that the love of Christ excludes itself from anyone, but rather that we exclude ourselves from the love of Christ.
The truth is that this God whom we run from every day in sin, has been coming after us, seeking to include us in his great and glorious Kingdom since before even the foundation of the world. For the words that the psalmist spoke are true of all of God’s creation; He is acquainted with all our ways, even before a word is on our tongue, He knows it completely, He made each and every one of us, forming our inward parts and knitting us together in our mother’s womb.
We were made in His glorious image and He wanted nothing less for us than His perfect righteousness, and for us to be a part of His glorious kingdom. But we wouldn’t have it. Right from the beginning we showed ourselves to want nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. For being a part of a Kingdom involves submitting oneself to the will of the King, and that is just not something that we are inclined to do.
This One who has searched us and knows us better than we even know ourselves and whose knowledge is far too wonderful for us is the One who we run from every day with even the most seemingly obscure or harmless sinful thought or action. This One whose knowledge is far too vast for us to even begin to try to wrap our minds around is the One whom we show that we think we know better than as we continually and repeatedly try to re-mold and re-fashion His perfect image and His perfect will so as to better accommodate our self-serving desires. And it began when the devil, in the form of a serpent appeared to us and asked “Did God say ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’” This is the question which, since the dawn of creation, we have sought to come up with reasons to answer with an emphatic ‘no.’
Even Eli, the teacher and mentor of Samuel who would be one of the great prophets in the history of God’s people, fell short and ignored the iniquity of his sons and so God brought punishment upon the house of Eli. And yet even in the face of the declaration of this judgment as it was pronounced to Eli through the words of Samuel, we see Eli submitting himself to God’s will when he says “It is the Lord; let Him do what seems good to Him.”
And although, as we see in the lesson from Samuel there were times when the Word of the Lord would seem rare, God would not abandon His people. Our Lord would continue to come after us, calling us to Himself, looking to include us in His great and glorious Kingdom.
He would continue to come after us with a Word all the while pointing to the fullness of time when the Word would come to us not merely through the proclamation of a sinful prophet, but incarnate in the flesh, born of a virgin in a manger.
He would come among us, be among us, live among us, live the perfect and sinless life among us and then, though sinless this incarnate One, the Son of God, Christ Jesus would take upon Himself all of our sin born of our desire to be our own gods and reject the One who created us, and He would pay the price for our rejection and rebellion when He laid down His life on the cross for us; not just the rebellion and rejection that we had inflicted upon Him up to that point, but also including the rejection that we inflict upon Him every day, even the rejection of the very ones who persecuted Him.
That is how truly inclusive He is, that as He hung on the cross bleeding and dying He looked down upon those persecutors who rejected Him so violently and offered not a word of condemnation but a word of mercy as He prayed “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
And we get a foreshadowing of this incredible inclusive mercy in today’s Gospel lesson. Nathanael says of Jesus “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael could not believe what Phillip was telling him, that the One whom Moses also wrote about in the law and the prophets, the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, whom Israel was waiting for could possibly come from a backwater town like Nazareth.
But then Jesus sees Nathanael and says of him that he is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael had just questioned whether Jesus was in fact who He said He was, and Jesus says of Nathanael that he is a man in whom there is no deceit. And indeed Nathaneal was simply being honest in his assessment that nothing good can come from Nazareth. And so Jesus doesn’t condemn Nathanael or argue with him or try to wow him to prove that Phillip was in fact right, instead he compliments Nathanel. And in this brief little discourse with Jesus, Nathanael sees that in fact something good has come from Nazareth. Jesus breaks through Nathanael’s exterior and makes him reconsider his assumptions and makes him see Jesus for who Jesus is; the Son of God, the King of Israel.
Christ Jesus is radically inclusive. He meets us where we are at, as we are, but He doesn’t leave us there. Nathanael was not the same after his encounter with Christ Jesus. And, the former persecutor of Christ, Paul was not the same after his encounter with Christ Jesus either. Having had his sin exposed to him, like Nathanael Paul realized that Christ Jesus is in fact the Savior and redeemer His disciples said He was and so the persecutor of Christ became the proclaimer of Christ’s promises.
And so you are changed when you encounter Christ in the waters of baptism and you are claimed by Him and cleansed by Him. And He daily comes to you as He is now, bringing you faith through the proclaiming of the Gospel; as the One who bore the burden of your sin calls you, gathers you, enlightens you, sanctifies you and includes you in the promise of His eternal Kingdom.
And so all that is left for us to do is to respond as Eli did in the Old Testament lesson in faith, believing and trusting that what the Lord has done and is doing for you and to you in Christ is good, and so hear the words of Paul the persecutor turned proclaimer “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.” Through faith in Christ, we are included in Christ’s eternal resurrection and have a place in His eternal Kingdom. And it doesn’t get anymore inclusive than that.
Amen
posted by Steve at 5:13 PM
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