Feb 12, 2012 - Billy Mays v. Elisha

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. ²Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” ⁴So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. ⁵And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. ⁶He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” ⁷When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” ⁸But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”
⁹So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” ¹¹But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! ¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. ¹³But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” ¹⁴So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

¹⁵Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.” ¹⁶But he said, “As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!” He urged him to accept, but he refused. ¹⁷Then Naaman said, “If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord.

            Infomercials can be really amusing to watch.  No matter what the item is, it can instantly revolutionize your life and make it easier and better.  Having trouble pouring water out of a pot, constantly burning yourself?  Have we got the item for you!  Do you not want to take your dog outside during the winter?  Buy our item and stay nice and warm inside!  Or the king of all infomercials, OxiClean!  Your whites will be whiter, you will get wine out of your carpet, and nothing will be harmed!  Billy Mays made millions for Oxiclean with his commercials, where for only 19.95 you got not only the six pound tub of Oxiclean, you got Orange Clean, made from real oranges, and a squirt bottle, and not just a shammy, but  Super Shammy!    Isn’t that a lot for so little?  Won’t the happiness and joy of having even cleaner floors and clothing be worth shelling out your cash for it? 
            Then we have Elisha in today’s first reading.  He would be a terrible infomercial host.  Billy Mays would have wiped the floor with him, even that guy from the ShamWow commercials would bring in more cash than Elisha.  Why?  Because while the guys on the infomercials claim “It’s like we are giving it away,” Elisha actually does give it away.  Naaman offers gifts to Elisha for the curing of his body, but Elisha turns them all away.  God is not for sale, instead God serves for free.  Money and possessions are not motivations for God, God already has all of creation and has all of His children to love and care for, these trinkets are not what God asks for in return.  In fact, if we read further into the story, when Elisha’s servant decides that Naaman should pay something, and goes and gets some money and clothing from him, Naaman’s leprosy is transferred not only onto the servant, but also on the servant’s descendents.  Serving God is not a for-profit reality, there is not fame and fortune in the service of God.  We serve no to increase wealth, but rather out of love and devotion to God and all of our fellow children of God.
            It takes Naaman some time to figure it out though.  When he is first healed, he offers to pay Elisha, just as one would pay any doctor.  He doesn’t see the majesty of God or the freedom that God gives.  Instead, he sees a transaction, a business deal.  But God is not in the business of deals.  God’s love is not for sale, nor does he do miracles or forgive sins because of a payoff.  Instead does all of this out of care and compassion for His people.  This may have seemed blasphemous to some, in fact to many, since Naaman is an outsider.  He’s not an Israelite, he’s not one of God’s chosen people.  He’s an army commander for a foreign nation, but God still heals him.  Why?  Because of God’s love for all of His children, of every nation and every race and indeed of every faith.  God heals him and cares for him because he is God’s child. 
            It is because of this love that God doesn’t even make it heard of Naaman to be healed.  God doesn’t require the 14 years of labor that Laban required of Jacob for Rachel’s hand in marriage, nor does He require Naaman to do a series of quests, like Hercules had to do, nor does God even require him to lift a heavy object with his mind, like Yoda with Luke.  No, all that God has him do is to bath in the water.  Just do what you normally do and you will be made whole, because of God’s love and power.  Naaman is astonished at this, and even moves to go home and not do it until his unnamed servants convince him to give it a try.  Naaman was valuing that which was familiar to him and his own pride. He had come all the way out to see Elisha and instead he got a messenger.  He was told not to do some great feat of strength, where he could show off and earn God’s healing, but instead was told to bathe, and instead of being allowed to bathe in his home waters, he would have to bathe in the waters in Israel instead.  But happily for Naaman, his wise servants win over his pride and he washes in the waters and is cured of his leprosy, with nothing expected from him in return. 
            That’s it.  That’s all he had to do.  How often is life so simple, or how often would we accept things to be so simple?  We are Americans after all, the country that bases almost everything’s worth on how much it costs us.  If something is cheap to buy, it can be easily replaced, if its free it can get tossed in a drawer or in the trash, since it can’t be worth much of anything.  But the things that we strive and save up for, those are worth something, those are what we hold dear… So the whole idea of God’s love and our healing and salvation being free is completely foreign to us, just as it was to Naaman.  We want to work and be able to earn our salvation at times.  We want there to be merit badges with requirements, we want God to look down on us and say “You are worthy of my love and my compassion, because you have been such a good child.  Now you may have eternal life, and a cookie.”  But that’s not what happens at all.  Instead we have this God who gives away that forgiveness, who makes us whole and who gives us purpose in our lives, all out of love and compassion.  And there is absolutely no price tag attached to it.  No amount of money can buy it and no amount of deeds can earn it.  It doesn’t matter if we are powerful, like Naaman, who lowly as his servants, God loves and cares for us.  As with all those infomercial products, “It’s just that easy!” Just without all the monthly payments an outrageous shipping and handling fees.  And God’s gifts to us are vastly better than free squirt bottles and cleaning products.  God cleans us up, removes all the tar of Sin, and sees us as His beloved children, clothed in sparkling white, brighter than anything Oxiclean can do.  For this we praise our God, and we treasure God’s work in our lives, which gives us hope and meaning.
            That’s why we gather here together.  We gather in order to see once again the cleaning power of God, who in the waters of Baptism cleanses us of all Sin and fills us with the Holy Spirit, and who through His Son’s Body and Blood fills us with good things and empowers us.  All of which s free, free to all who walk in these doors, no matter who you are or where you have come from, you are free and welcome to partake in God’s meal and to hear again how God has brought us salvation and wholeness and purpose.  And it is free because God wills it to be and so that we may not say that we have earned it, we can’t look down on other’s and say that we bought it, that we got what was coming to us.  No, just like Naaman, we are cleansed because of God’s love, and for no other reason and with no price, except that paid by God’s only Son, Jesus Christ.
            So let us rejoice together in God’s mercy and love.  Let us rejoice, for our God is capable of all things and decides to use that power to help his children, to give us fresh starts with forgiveness and gives us families to be a part of, both biological and here as the family of God, all of us united.  Let us rejoice, for we are freed from fear, freed from worry about our salvation.  Be reassured, it has been given to us already, purely out of compassion and care from our God.  Thanks God for free things that truly matter and change our lives for the better.

Amen.
           

Feb. 5, 2012 - Who brought you here?

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

¹⁶If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! ¹⁷For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

¹⁹For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. ²⁰To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. ²¹To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. ²³I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

Imagine for a second what it must be like to walk into our sanctuary and worship alongside us, or to go to a Bible Study here, or in any Lutheran church, without having a history of being Lutheran.  We have a whole language that we understand but for whom those who have not been around the church would have no chance of understanding.  How does our service open?  With “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  The communion of the Holy Spirit?  What is that, especially for someone who doesn’t know what communion is or has no understanding of the Trinity.  I mean, at least we are not talking about the Holy Ghost, where people might think about Casper flying around during the service, but what does this mean?  What does it mean to pray for salvation?  What feast are we talking about when we sing “The is the feast of victory for our God” when the only thing that even resembles food is the bread and wine, which we call body and blood, as if they wasn’t disturbing at all. 

There is a reason that the Roman world saw Christians as cannibals.  No one outside the church knew what communion was, except that they heard the Christians were drinking blood and eating flesh.  There is all this confusion, and we have barely even gotten into the service, the Lessons, which sometimes are stories, sometimes lectures, and sometimes something else completely but hardly ever how to do math or take the form of such a lesson, haven’t even been read yet.

            Or think about the phrases that we use flippantly that make no sense to those who have not been taught, such as “we are saved by grace through faith.”  These are all vital parts of our tradition, they are a way for us to express our faith and our understanding of God, but for many it would lead to confusion and tuned out ears if we used them to evangelize, to tell people about the wonderful work of God in this world.  In order to speak to people we need to understand the language that they are speaking, the way in which their lives are lived, and understand what is important to them.  Each life is different, each person has different motivations and different understandings of the world, and each person needs to hear and experience God in a different way.

            Why is it that you are here?  What brought you into faith and to believing that worshipping together with your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ mattered, that it was a way of defining your life?  I would bet that in some way it was someone coming and talking to you, someone who understood your life and your thoughts and your hopes and your dreams, what it was that you needed out of life.  Perhaps it was your parents who taught you to come to church, who helped form you into the person that you are today and who values your faith.  Perhaps it was a friend, who took that step to invite you to join them on Sunday morning for worship or invited you to a youth event or in whom you saw trust in God and a faith that gave them strength. Or perhaps it was your boyfriend or girlfriend, who out of care and compassion for you and in desiring to be closer, asked you to join them.  Or perhaps it was someone else completely.  But each of us has a story, each of us has someone who brought us to church, who helped us to understand our faith once we did get here.  And each of us had a reason for coming and has a need that keeps pulling us back here each week.  And each of us had someone in our lives who brought us here originally.

            When Paul wrote that he was a slave to all, in order that he may win more of them, and when he says he was weak to the weak and that he had become all things to all people, he was meaning that he was meant to serve all people and that he would do what he could to understand and relate with all people in order that he may be able to speak with them about God and help them see God in their lives.  After all, we do not listen to those who we cannot relate with and whom we do not trust.  Its highly doubtful that it was a complete stranger or your worst enemy that brought you to church for the first time.  Rather, it would be someone that you cared about, that you respected, and that you knew cared about you.  Otherwise we would not be here.  Likewise, when we go and speak to people about God, it will be with those whom we respect and care about, and with whom we have a relationship and a shared language.  And by shared language, I don’t mean “we all speak English,” I mean a shared understanding and vocabulary.  I’ve already mentioned the language of Lutheranism, but each community, each group has their own language, their own way of communicating.  Whether it be giving directions to someone in town versus someone who has never been here before, or discussing sports or music of video games, there is a different language, a different way of seeing the world and its interactions.  When we understand these languages, we can begin to truly communicate with one another and share our passions and work with the same metaphors and images, much like when Paul talks about the idol to the unknown god and proclaims that it is our one True God. It is through these relationships that we are able to both teach and to grow in our faith.

            It is through these relationships that we are able to figure out what our faith means.  We are only going to be able to open up and discuss things with people that we trust.  None of us enjoy looking stupid, so when we ask questions about “Why does God matter” and “What is this whole eating the body and drinking the blood thing about?” we are not going to ask strangers, we are going to ask people that we know care about us and who will not judge us.  And these questions are important to ask.  Growing up my pastor told me that “Faith is something that you have to question.  You can’t just accept what people tell you, you can’t just accept what I tell you.  If you do, your faith will not be your own and it will be so thin that whenever trouble comes, you will lose it in an instant.”  It is with people that we trust that we have these conversations and we are able to own our faith.

            Paul understood this.  He didn’t go around proclaiming to everyone the same message nor did he try to bring every conversation back onto God.  Instead He found that he needed to understand the people he was talking to and show that he respected them by learning about them.  He tried to enter their world and speak in their terms in order to show the love and the grace of God.  He did this because he cared so much for people and wanted them to experience the good news of God in their lives.

            We are called in the same way to evangelize, to go out and proclaim the word of God.  Not by standing on street corners with billboards and not by telling every person we meet that they should go to church or by trying to guilt our family and friends into it, but by forming relationships and by being open to people.  Sometimes this means that we are not going to say a word or do anything except listen and hear that person’s story and begin to understand where they are coming from.  We spread the message of God’s love not through judging others for their actions or constantly bemoaning the former glory of the church, but rather through understanding one another, by seeing how God is active not only in our own lives and sharing that story, but also by showing how God is active in another’s life as well.  Faith is not found in logic, but rather it is found within the heart and in the lives of those around us.  When we begin to see God’s activity in our lives, we can begin to understand our worship services and how they help us to grow in our faith.  When surrounded by friends who care about us, by this great family of faith, we have the support necessary to question and to grow and to understand.  And when we show that love and support, when we help one another to grow, and when we proclaim that Gospel to one who hears it and who comes to see God’s activity, we shall know all the reward that we could ever hope for.  So may we join together, in trust and respect and love, so that we may grow together.

Amen

           

           

Jan. 29, 2012 - A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Love builds up.

Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; ³but anyone who loves God is known by him.
⁴Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” ⁵Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

⁷It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸“Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. ⁹But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? ¹¹So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. ¹²But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

                Adiaphora.  It is a word that is beloved by Lutherans, especially those who have gone through seminary.  It means “Those things not essential to salvation.”  It is a wonderful word for Lutherans, who believe that we are saved through grace by faith.  It is not our works, those things that we do and say, that gain us salvation.  Nor is it ritual that gives us everlasting life.  It is only God, God who loves us so much that he took upon Himself flesh and gave his life in order that we may live.  So in essence, everything that is not God is adiaphora, since only God is essential for our salvation.

            This can lead us down a very slippery slope though.  When we say that it is not essential, we can begin to view it as the same thing as “unimportant.”  It reminds me of a story I heard from a mother whose child was confused about us Lutherans.  Her child had been in the locker room at school and one of his friends was sitting there cursing at everything, and his friend’s wrath was especially focused on their teacher, and he called the teacher quite a few improper terms.  This mother’s child asked his friend “I thought you were a Christian.  Why is it that you are being so negative and saying such nasty things?”  And his friend replied “I’m Lutheran.  I’m saved no matter what I do, so I just do whatever I want.”  A little bit of knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.  At the Professional Leaders conference a few weeks ago, there was an illustration of knowledge as knowing what we don’t know.  The image was of the Thinker, and above his head was a little bubble representing the knowledge of the thinker.  The barrier between the bubble and the rest of what was all out in the world was small, showing that he didn’t really have a large area of knowing what he didn’t know.  And it is that kind of understanding that causes us to puff up, in Paul’s words.  When we believe we know basically all that there is to know, we can begin to think too highly of ourselves. 

            Of course, having more knowledge can lead to the same problem as well, since while those who know more may know that there is more they don’t know, they also know that they know more than those other people who don’t know as much, who don’t study as much.  And there are few things worse than going into a class, whether it be in secular school or a Bible study, where there is that one person who knows the answer to every question the teacher asks, because then the others in the room can begin to feel really stupid.  I know I have had that experience many times, walking out of class just going “Why didn’t I know that?  How did she know that and I didn’t?  Wow, I am just so inadequate.”  Not only does knowledge puff us up, it can also lead to the breakdown of others, and cause people to shut down.

            Now does this mean that we should avoid all knowledge, shut our God-given brains off, and just get through life with as few thoughts as possible?  Of course not.   We are still called to question and to seek out answers in our faith, in order that we may grow closer to understanding God and how to serve Him.  But it does mean that we need to temper our actions with love, in order that the knowledge that we have does not become a stumbling block for others.

            That is the problem with the people in Corinth that Paul is writing too.  They know something.  They know that all the idols that the Roman society prays too are just idols, stone and metal and wood, nothing to them but base material.  There are no other gods out there, only the on true God.  And they also know that meat is yummy.  Now, at that time, almost all of the meat in the area was first sacrificed to one of the Roman gods at a temple, and then the butchers would come and gather the meat to sell in their shops.  Because of this, there were many Jewish Christians, and Jews in general, who were vegetarians.  Eating meat could be construed as worshipping an idol, since it had been offered to one and be part of its worship services, so in order to avoid such impropriety, they simply didn’t eat meat.  Now the church in Corinth knew that there were no other gods, and they knew that the meat was delicious, so they ate it and didn’t think about it.  This became a stumbling block for new followers of Christ, because in their minds the church congregation was saying that it was fine to worship other idols alongside Christ, since they were eating the meat from the animals sacrificed to the Roman gods.  Therefore the new followers were following into polytheism instead of worship solely of God.  Which is why Paul tells the congregation, “Listen, you are destroying the faith of those who are hearing about Jesus.  Yes, I know what you are doing is not hurting your salvation, but guess what, they don’t get it!  So stop it, don’t eat the meat, because you are sending the wrong message.”

            One could easily see this as something set in the past.  After all, our meat comes from animals we hunt ourselves, or animals that we hunt at the grocery store, looking for that perfect piece of meat for the lowest possible cost.  What does it have to do with us?  Well, what did it have to do with the youth in the locker room?  What we do matters.  We may know that something is adiaphora, we may know that God loves us and is with us no matter what, but what we do with our lives and how we treat one another and all people throughout the community and throughout the world matters, because we are the image of God for people who have never experienced God in their lives, who have never known the amazing love of God.  We are not only God’s hands in this world, but we are God’s voice and God’s face.  What we do matters.  When we act in a divisive way, when we ignore the plights of others, and when we turn our back on our promises, we show God to be fickle, and uncaring, and untrustworthy.  I remember growing up, I was told by people not to make the sign of the cross during worship because that is just too Catholic.  Even though the symbol to make it was even in our hymnal, it was just too Catholic.  Well, making the sign of the cross is adiaphora, it’s not essential to our salvation, but it can be a great comfort for people and a sign of their faith and a remembrance of God’s sacrifice for His children, so why would we tell people not to do it just because another denomination also does it?  Why would we show God to be that divisive among His children?

            Or how many of us have experienced walking into church, going to sit down and discovering, horror of all horrors, somebody is visiting and sitting in my pew, as if they should have magically known that that was my pew and they shouldn’t be there?  And what is the most common reaction?  Ignoring the person, and becoming miserable for the worship service.  Where we sit doesn’t matter for our salvation, but it can matter to us greatly.  Yet what is our calling?  To show love.  So maybe we should rejoice and be glad that somebody has joined us, somebody has seen or heard God in their lives and wants to know more, wants to experience the gathering of God’s children.  So we ought to show love, introduce ourselves and be of aid to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, instead of being filled with spite.

            What is the answer to knowledge, according to Paul?  What is it that makes us who we are as Christians if it is not knowledge?  It is Love, that which builds up.  St. Augustine once wrote, “Love, and do as thou will.”  Love and do as you will.  When we act out of love, instead out of egotistical knowledge, we truly do the work of God.  When our lives are rooted in love for all people, our actions will live that out and people may see the love of God through us.  But when we act as a stumbling block out of self-importance or out of a desire to be comfortable, we become the hands and voice of someone else completely.    What does love look like?  To return to Augustine – “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.” 

            If I maybe so bold, I would like to add to St. Augustine.  Love has the eyes that look at others and see ourselves.  It has the mouth that speaks justice and mercy.  It has hands that reach out and lift up.  It has the shoulder that is wet with tears and a mind that remembers the forgotten.  That is what love looks like. 

            Our God truly is an awesome God.  He reigns with love and compassion.  He gives us minds that are active and thirst for knowledge, but also gives us the ability to look past what we know to see how we are to serve and exemplify the life and love of God.  Love and do as you will, for when you act with love you do the work of God.

Amen.