The sermon below is a sermon for 'Covenant Sunday'. The texts on which it is based are: Exodus 24:3-11, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 12:1-2 and John 15:1-10.
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Introduction(1)
Imagine with me, if you will, a luxury block of flats in the centre of your favourite holiday city or town. Imagine the view from the top floor of this block of flats: where ever your favourite place is.
Perhaps it’s a beautiful view overlooking hills or even mountains. Perhaps the view is one of lakes or the ocean shore. Where-ever it is, imagine the beauty that you find in that view and the sense of God’s good creation.
Now, I want to introduce you to two new residents in this block of flats: Harry and Emma. Harry lives in Flat number 12 which he just purchased.
When he moved in, he signed a tenancy agreement. He agreed to pay the management company a certain fee every year for the maintenance of the structure of the building and for the upkeep of the common areas. He agreed that he would not make any modifications to the structure of his flat without first consulting the owner of the leasehold. He agreed that his floors would be sound-proofed or carpeted. And he agreed that he would own no dangerous pets.
Now Emma lives in flat number 14 and she didn’t make any such agreement with the leaseholder. In fact, she’s made no agreement with anyone. Emma gets to live in flat number 14 without having signed a tenancy agreement and without having to take responsibility for anything in her flat. In fact, Emma doesn’t even have to make her own meals!
Have you guessed it yet? Emma is only a few weeks old and she lives with her parents. Oh, I forgot to say that Emma is adopted.
The Old Testament Covenant
This morning, we have heard two readings about the theme of ‘covenant’ in the bible.
In the Old Testament, there are many places where we read of an approach to Covenant that sound like the sort of tenancy agreement that Harry entered into: God sets out certain conditions which his people agree to just like a tenancy agreement. The usual format is: ‘I (God speaking) will be your God and you shall be my people’. We’ve heard this format in this morning’s reading from Exodus.
So, it can seem to us that if we break our end of the bargain, if we break our tenancy agreement, then the covenant is broken and we will be evicted.
There are a number of times in the Old Testament where either Israel or Judah are told that punishment will come upon them – or has come upon them - because they have broken their Covenant with God. This is the old form of covenant relationship: a relationship between God and his people under the Law.
The New Covenant
But even before the birth of Christ, we have a biblical witness to a new form of Covenant relationship with God and this New Covenant was expressed in our reading from Jeremiah.
In fact, these verses from Jeremiah are considered to be the key verses in explaining the concept of ‘The New Covenant’ and the key to the entire covenant is actually in the very last phrase that was read: ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.’ This idea of forgiveness is actually the foundation on which the New Covenant rests.
Unlike the Old Covenant, in the New Covenant, our relationship with God is no longer based on the condition that we keep up our end of the bargain. God knows that we can’t be like Harry: we are not going to be a good tenant who keeps his tenancy agreement.
The foundation of the New Covenant is that God forgives first. Once God forgiveness has been granted to us by God, the New Covenant have a firm foundation on which to rest.
God knows that we are actually like baby Emma. Not only can’t we keep up a tenancy agreement, we aren’t even in a position to sign one. Like baby Emma, we are simply incapable of making such an agreement. Just like baby Emma, we need someone else to do it for us.
To stretch this analogy just a bit further let’s imagine that Emma’s adopted father is actually the son of landlord. The building will eventually belong to Emma’s dad, and there is no question that anyone will ever demand that baby Emma be responsible for keeping up the tenancy agreement.
It’s as if, because God knew that there is no chance of any of us ever being able to keep such an agreement, that he decided to adopt us. Because of our adoption as sons and daughters, our inheritance – as it were – becomes part of who we are; it is written on our hearts.
Or, to use the image from today’s Gospel reading, through the forgiveness mediated by Christ, we are grafted on to Christ, who becomes our support and our nourishment. Our relationship with Christ is not dependant upon our clinging on to the vine. It exists because we have been grafted on to the vine. Christ supports us, not the other way around.
The Covenant Prayer
What has any of this got to do with the Covenant Prayer?
Well, I think it’s important for us to understand that we are making this prayer under the New Covenant.
We are not ‘making a decision to have a relationship with God’ in this prayer; we are not chasing God down the street and saying ‘Hello! I’ve decided that I want to have a relationship with you now.’ Doing this would be trying to have a relationship under the Old Covenant.
We’d be acting as if we were in a position to keep all these promises under our own strength – as if we were Harry, who could keep his tenancy agreement.
What we are doing when we pray the Covenant Prayer is acknowledging that our relationship with God already exists and that we are aware we had nothing to do with bringing it about. We’re acknowledging that we are like baby Emma: living in a relationship with God because he was gracious enough to adopt us and to offer us a permanent tenancy with him.
When we pray, ‘I am no longer my own but yours’ we’re not saying ‘Once I belonged to myself but now I’ve decided to turn myself over to you.’ We are acknowledging that we understand that we’ve always belonged to God in the first place.
When we pray the Covenant prayer, we don’t give God the gift of ourselves. When we pray the Covenant prayer, we say that we understand that we’ve always belonged to God, that whether we are troubled or at peace, that whether we have work to do or no work to do, that we understand that the Covenant is there and always will be.
As the introduction to the prayer tells us, we are simply accepting our place within a Covenant which already exists because God himself brought it into being.
Preparation for the Prayer
In a few minutes, I will invite those of us who wish to do so to make the covenant prayer.
I invite you now to turn to page 7 in your pink books where the text of the covenant prayer can be found. We will have a few moments of silence to give us all an opportunity to read this prayer and for each of us to consider the manner in which we might make it. As you read, I invite you to read the prayer as if the prayer were God making a promise to you – because that’s what he’s already done.
May the grace of the Triune God be with us all in our consideration. Amen
(1) Credit for the illustration: Rev Andrew Sails, Mint Methodist Church, Exeter, http://www.themint.org.uk/z146.htm
Showing posts with label Jeremiah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeremiah. Show all posts
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Monday, September 10, 2007
Sunday 9 September 2007 - Take Up Your Cross
The sermon below is based on Luke 14:25-33 with a short reference to the Old Testament reading, Jeremiah 18:1-11.
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A Warning
The heading in my bible pretty well sums up the message in this morning’s Gospel reading. The heading is: ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.
Imagine a politician campaigning for office[1] who gets up at the rostrum and tells his or her expectant listeners: ‘Vote for me and your life will be more difficult than it is now. If I’m elected, there will be sacrifices to make. You may lose your homes and your family.’ I wonder what the reaction would be to such a campaign speech? I actually doubt that the reaction would be booing or jeering because I reckon that it’s quite possible that the crowd might be stunned into silence. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you expect to hear from a politician.
But the thing is, today’s Gospel reading is not a campaign speech and it’s not a recruitment speech. Jesus isn’t trying to convince people to follow him. On the contrary, Jesus is addressing a crowd of admirers who are more than eager – at least they think that they are eager – to become his disciples.
And Jesus is trying to give them an informed picture of what exactly is involved in following him. Rather than thinking of him as a politician campaigning for office, it might be more accurate to think of Jesus as a mountain guide, leading an expedition through the mountains to bring life-saving supplies to a remote village. Jesus is not threatening us, but simply informing us of the very real costs of being his disciples.
And what is the cost of being a disciple of Jesus? At least according to this passage in Luke? The cost is that we are called to prefer the way of Jesus to the way of the world. If circumstances require it, Jesus is exhorting us to bear our own cross for the sake of his name.
Hate Your Family?
Before we go any further, I want to take a side-track for a minute and focus on verse 26, where my text reads (NRSV) ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.’
I think that we need to understand the word ‘hate’ the way that Jesus’ hearers would have done. There was a Jewish expression that went: ‘I love A and I hate B’. It was a way of expressing a strong preference. So, if you were to say ‘I love the Japanese and I hate the Chinese’, it wouldn’t mean ‘Every time I meet a Chinese person, I become filled with fury and upset and it’s just about all I can to do keep from punching that person the face.’ The expression would have meant something more like ‘I have a strong preference for Japanese people over Chinese people.’
So, I want to caution us against thinking that Jesus wants us to hate the members of our family. Such a message does not make sense in the light of Great Commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves nor does it make sense in the light of the commandment to honour our fathers and our mothers.
Bearing Our Crosses
The warning that we are being given from Jesus – our guide who is leading us across a perilous mountain path so that we can bring necessary aid to a suffering world – is that his disciples are to be willing to give up the comforts of this world, our families and our possessions, if we are called upon to do so for the sake of the gospel.
More specifically, we are called to bear the crosses that we are given.
As I think I’ve said before, the biblical concept of ‘bearing our cross’ is about what we are willing to do for the sake of Christ and for the sake of being true to the Gospel. In the bible, the concept of ‘bearing our cross’ does not refer to persevering in the face of illness or tragedy, even if we use the expression in this way today.
It is about sitting lightly to the values of this world in order that all our focus may be on the values of the Kingdom of God. We can certainly enjoy all the blessings that God has given us, but we are to understand that these are not ends in themselves. Christ asks us to be willing to let go of them for his sake, if we are called to do so.
But for many of us, this is not the message that we want hear and it’s not the kind of God we want. God calls us to trust in him to guide us to stand up for Kingdom values, but if we’re honest with ourselves, what we want is a magical magician God who will sort things out for us.
And so some people in our culture protest: There cannot be a good God because otherwise, innocent children would not die. They say that if they cannot have the God with the magic wand who spares all innocent children from injury and destruction, then they are not prepared to believe in God at all.
But Christians are guilty of wanting to believe in the Magical God myth as well. In one version of this myth we declare that God will give his followers status, wealth and prosperity in this world on the condition that we ‘have enough faith’. Or another, subtler version of this is to turn our Christian faith into a transaction where we exchange our conversion for an admission ticket into heaven.
But in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is telling us that being a Christian is not about believing in a Magical God. And that being his disciple is not just about some sort of transaction that lets us into heaven. Jesus is telling us that being his disciple might possibly involve turning our backs on the values of our society and choosing to bear a cross for his sake.
We are not going to get our magical God; but we will be called to bear a cross. Every Christian is called to make choices between following the ways of this world and following the ways of God.
In some countries, being a Christian can very literally put your life in danger. In our culture, being a Christian means being called to use our time, energy and money for goals that are different from those of the world. We are stewards of our resources and our goal is the Kingdom of God where justice and righteousness reign. Christians are not meant to use the precious resources we have been given by God for our own fame, fortune or security.
Imitate Jesus
The images used in the rest of this morning’s gospel readings are interesting ones.
Who would build a tower without a proper foundation? The same people, perhaps, who would build a temple as a focus of national pride but where the true worship of God was absent?
What kind of king would prepare for war without considering whether or not he could win the war? The same kind of king who thought that the war that the Messiah was to fight would be a war against the Romans rather than a war against the forces of Evil?
Who would think that following Jesus meant getting on the bandwagon of the conquering Messiah for an easy ride into the Kingdom of God? Who would think that following the Messiah meant fame, fortune and security? Well, probably the crowd of people who were following Jesus. After all, he had to warn them that being his disciple was difficult rather than easy.
These people probably didn’t want to follow Jesus in order to give anything up. The wanted to follow Jesus in order to enjoy what they had and to get more. (Unlike us, of course!) And Jesus is warning them (and us): being his disciple is not like joining a pleasant hike on a rolling hillside on a sunny summer afternoon. To be his disciple is to be called to navigate dangerous mountain paths in order to bring needed medicine to the world.
To be a disciple of Jesus is to be called to imitate Jesus.
To imitate Jesus is to proclaim the love of God to those who are not respectable and to associate with people who others will not associate with. To imitate Jesus is to proclaim God’s message of justice to people who have enough power to destroy us. To imitate Jesus is visit those who are sick and in prison.
All of this is difficult work. All of it is costly. But Jesus told us that to follow him is to bear our cross.
He also told us that we were not capable of doing this on our own but that he would send us the Holy Spirit to help us to imitate him. Using Jeremiah’s image, God will form us into the kind of vessels he wants us to be if we will let him.
When we get it wrong – as we all will from time to time – God will not dispose of the clay, but will continue to work to reshape us until we become the creations that he wants us to be.
Conclusion
In a few minutes, we will come to the table of the Lord, a physical sign and symbol of the Kingdom of God on earth where Jesus promised to be present among us. In the prayer called the Great Thanksgiving which we pray before receiving communion, we remember Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross.
We remember that, before sacrificing himself for us, Jesus promised to meet our own weakness, pain and suffering with his presence. We remember that Christ is here and that his Spirit is always with us.
As we come to his communion table, I pray that each one of us will ask Jesus to shape us as according to his will. And I pray that we will each be strengthened for the journey as we meet our risen Lord. Amen
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[1] Illustrations of the politician and the mountain guide taken from: Wright, Tom; Luke for Everyone; SPCK, London 2001. p. 180.
=====
A Warning
The heading in my bible pretty well sums up the message in this morning’s Gospel reading. The heading is: ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.
Imagine a politician campaigning for office[1] who gets up at the rostrum and tells his or her expectant listeners: ‘Vote for me and your life will be more difficult than it is now. If I’m elected, there will be sacrifices to make. You may lose your homes and your family.’ I wonder what the reaction would be to such a campaign speech? I actually doubt that the reaction would be booing or jeering because I reckon that it’s quite possible that the crowd might be stunned into silence. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you expect to hear from a politician.
But the thing is, today’s Gospel reading is not a campaign speech and it’s not a recruitment speech. Jesus isn’t trying to convince people to follow him. On the contrary, Jesus is addressing a crowd of admirers who are more than eager – at least they think that they are eager – to become his disciples.
And Jesus is trying to give them an informed picture of what exactly is involved in following him. Rather than thinking of him as a politician campaigning for office, it might be more accurate to think of Jesus as a mountain guide, leading an expedition through the mountains to bring life-saving supplies to a remote village. Jesus is not threatening us, but simply informing us of the very real costs of being his disciples.
And what is the cost of being a disciple of Jesus? At least according to this passage in Luke? The cost is that we are called to prefer the way of Jesus to the way of the world. If circumstances require it, Jesus is exhorting us to bear our own cross for the sake of his name.
Hate Your Family?
Before we go any further, I want to take a side-track for a minute and focus on verse 26, where my text reads (NRSV) ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.’
I think that we need to understand the word ‘hate’ the way that Jesus’ hearers would have done. There was a Jewish expression that went: ‘I love A and I hate B’. It was a way of expressing a strong preference. So, if you were to say ‘I love the Japanese and I hate the Chinese’, it wouldn’t mean ‘Every time I meet a Chinese person, I become filled with fury and upset and it’s just about all I can to do keep from punching that person the face.’ The expression would have meant something more like ‘I have a strong preference for Japanese people over Chinese people.’
So, I want to caution us against thinking that Jesus wants us to hate the members of our family. Such a message does not make sense in the light of Great Commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves nor does it make sense in the light of the commandment to honour our fathers and our mothers.
Bearing Our Crosses
The warning that we are being given from Jesus – our guide who is leading us across a perilous mountain path so that we can bring necessary aid to a suffering world – is that his disciples are to be willing to give up the comforts of this world, our families and our possessions, if we are called upon to do so for the sake of the gospel.
More specifically, we are called to bear the crosses that we are given.
As I think I’ve said before, the biblical concept of ‘bearing our cross’ is about what we are willing to do for the sake of Christ and for the sake of being true to the Gospel. In the bible, the concept of ‘bearing our cross’ does not refer to persevering in the face of illness or tragedy, even if we use the expression in this way today.
It is about sitting lightly to the values of this world in order that all our focus may be on the values of the Kingdom of God. We can certainly enjoy all the blessings that God has given us, but we are to understand that these are not ends in themselves. Christ asks us to be willing to let go of them for his sake, if we are called to do so.
But for many of us, this is not the message that we want hear and it’s not the kind of God we want. God calls us to trust in him to guide us to stand up for Kingdom values, but if we’re honest with ourselves, what we want is a magical magician God who will sort things out for us.
And so some people in our culture protest: There cannot be a good God because otherwise, innocent children would not die. They say that if they cannot have the God with the magic wand who spares all innocent children from injury and destruction, then they are not prepared to believe in God at all.
But Christians are guilty of wanting to believe in the Magical God myth as well. In one version of this myth we declare that God will give his followers status, wealth and prosperity in this world on the condition that we ‘have enough faith’. Or another, subtler version of this is to turn our Christian faith into a transaction where we exchange our conversion for an admission ticket into heaven.
But in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is telling us that being a Christian is not about believing in a Magical God. And that being his disciple is not just about some sort of transaction that lets us into heaven. Jesus is telling us that being his disciple might possibly involve turning our backs on the values of our society and choosing to bear a cross for his sake.
We are not going to get our magical God; but we will be called to bear a cross. Every Christian is called to make choices between following the ways of this world and following the ways of God.
In some countries, being a Christian can very literally put your life in danger. In our culture, being a Christian means being called to use our time, energy and money for goals that are different from those of the world. We are stewards of our resources and our goal is the Kingdom of God where justice and righteousness reign. Christians are not meant to use the precious resources we have been given by God for our own fame, fortune or security.
Imitate Jesus
The images used in the rest of this morning’s gospel readings are interesting ones.
Who would build a tower without a proper foundation? The same people, perhaps, who would build a temple as a focus of national pride but where the true worship of God was absent?
What kind of king would prepare for war without considering whether or not he could win the war? The same kind of king who thought that the war that the Messiah was to fight would be a war against the Romans rather than a war against the forces of Evil?
Who would think that following Jesus meant getting on the bandwagon of the conquering Messiah for an easy ride into the Kingdom of God? Who would think that following the Messiah meant fame, fortune and security? Well, probably the crowd of people who were following Jesus. After all, he had to warn them that being his disciple was difficult rather than easy.
These people probably didn’t want to follow Jesus in order to give anything up. The wanted to follow Jesus in order to enjoy what they had and to get more. (Unlike us, of course!) And Jesus is warning them (and us): being his disciple is not like joining a pleasant hike on a rolling hillside on a sunny summer afternoon. To be his disciple is to be called to navigate dangerous mountain paths in order to bring needed medicine to the world.
To be a disciple of Jesus is to be called to imitate Jesus.
To imitate Jesus is to proclaim the love of God to those who are not respectable and to associate with people who others will not associate with. To imitate Jesus is to proclaim God’s message of justice to people who have enough power to destroy us. To imitate Jesus is visit those who are sick and in prison.
All of this is difficult work. All of it is costly. But Jesus told us that to follow him is to bear our cross.
He also told us that we were not capable of doing this on our own but that he would send us the Holy Spirit to help us to imitate him. Using Jeremiah’s image, God will form us into the kind of vessels he wants us to be if we will let him.
When we get it wrong – as we all will from time to time – God will not dispose of the clay, but will continue to work to reshape us until we become the creations that he wants us to be.
Conclusion
In a few minutes, we will come to the table of the Lord, a physical sign and symbol of the Kingdom of God on earth where Jesus promised to be present among us. In the prayer called the Great Thanksgiving which we pray before receiving communion, we remember Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross.
We remember that, before sacrificing himself for us, Jesus promised to meet our own weakness, pain and suffering with his presence. We remember that Christ is here and that his Spirit is always with us.
As we come to his communion table, I pray that each one of us will ask Jesus to shape us as according to his will. And I pray that we will each be strengthened for the journey as we meet our risen Lord. Amen
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[1] Illustrations of the politician and the mountain guide taken from: Wright, Tom; Luke for Everyone; SPCK, London 2001. p. 180.
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