Sinners! It’s not how we
like to see ourselves. It’s not how we want to be seen. It’s not even something
we like to talk about. It makes us squirm. Because we know it’s true. The
Apostle Paul made it quite clear in his letter to the church in Rome. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.” But we already know the truth of that. We know deep within
ourselves that we are sinners. There’s no escaping it. And there’s no escaping
the consequences of it. In his writing to that church in Rome, Paul also wrote,
“For the wages of sin is death.” Great.
Sin is nothing new. It’s been with us
since the beginning of the human family, as told in the story of Adam and Eve
in the garden. God gave them free will and freedom of choice. According to the
story, they chose wrong. And that, the Bible tells us, is how sin came into our
lives.
Why in the world did God grant us the
freedom to mess up our own lives and the lives of other people? Wouldn’t you
have thought an all-knowing God would have put some constraints on us—at least
for the sake of the innocent people we impact? But no. God creates us, gives us
freedom we’re hardly prepared to handle, then steps aside.
Oh, the guidelines are there—or if you
prefer, the rules. Back in biblical times they called them laws. These were the
conditions under which we were to live our lives. God handed ten of them to
Moses on the mountain. Drawing from and interpreting scripture, the legal minds
of the nation of Israel expanded those ten into 613 mitzvot. That’s 613 rules
or laws for the people, which govern every aspect of their lives.1
How could they possibly keep all those rules? Jesus said they couldn’t,
the burden was too great. I think that’s one of the reasons he offered the
invitation. “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you
rest… my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
When asked what was most important of all the laws, Jesus boiled it down
to two: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and
mind. That’s one. The second, he said, was along the same lines: love your
neighbor as yourself. Jesus is concerned about relationship—relationship with
God and relationship with each other.
But even with just two things to focus on, we have a hard time. We know
very well what is right and what is wrong. What in heaven’s name makes us
choose wrongly? What leads us into words and actions that we know are hurtful?
What leads us to silence and inaction when we know the right thing to do is
speak out and to take action? . I know to do good, yet I do the very opposite.
And the things I claim that I hate, that’s exactly what I do.” Have you been
there? I’m betting we all have.
The Apostle Paul understood that. He struggled with it himself. You know what’s right. You want to do what’s right, you resolve to do what’s right. Yet despite your good intentions and
good desires, there you go again, doing the exact opposite of your resolve and
desire. Who would think that keeping two pretty straightforward commandments
would be so difficult?
Oh, the big stuff is pretty easy to
avoid—murder, kidnapping, assault, robbery, extortion, torture. It’s the less
lethal ones we struggle with. How are you on gossiping? Lying? Judging? How do
you handle jealousy? Refusing to forgive? Resentment? What’s your generosity
factor? Compassion? Peacemaking? Justice? How do you rate on the playground
bully scale—putting people down, making fun of them, calling names, belittling
others to build yourself up? How about something easy like kindness? Or is that
selective based on whether you think the other person deserves the kindness?
I know to do good. I want to do good.
I resolve to do good and then I turn around and do the very thing I hate. I
want to give others the benefit of the doubt, but then I turn around and am
suspicious of their motives. I really mean to be a peacemaker, but then when I
disagree with someone I start spouting those inflammatory words. I want to
stand for justice, but when there’s an incident, I pretend I don’t see it or
look the other way. I try to be patient, but when someone lets me down, I snap
at them. I mean to be generous and help those in need, but don’t I need that
new … car, rifle, coat, trip, toy?
Two simple commandments: love God,
love my neighbor. These examples I’ve just listed pertain to both. These things
all pertain to how we relate or interact; whether what we do is healing and
good, whether it builds someone up, is in the best interest of the other, whether
it promotes human dignity, is kind and nurturing or whether it is in some way
hurtful and self focused. Does it demonstrate a love of neighbor?
Jesus defined who our neighbor is in
the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s not just about those we choose to be in relationship with. It’s
how we treat other people, period. It’s how we treat our family, our
co-workers, our neighbors, those in community activities, those we differ with
politically, those who stand in the way of what we want, those we don’t like,
those we might like except for the fact that they don’t like us. The list is as
wide as the world.
And how we treat all of those affects
our relationship with God. Because God happens to love all of them … and you. God’s desire and vision for the
world is one of love, harmony, community, shalom. When we go against what God
wants that impacts how we live out our relationship with God. We know to do good. We want to do good. We resolve
to do good. But we want what we want
more than we want to do good. We want to have it all. We want to look good. We
want to be in control. We want wealth. We want power. We want to be right.
Often we dismiss human relations from
the sin category, but deep down we know the truth. We know it goes against what
God wants for us. We struggle with our ego-based sinful tendencies. Though we
want to do what’s right, we keep messing up. Our actions and inactions can
weigh heavily on us. We expect there to be consequences and we put that onto
God.
Humans have taken the story of God’s
relationship with his beloved children and turned it into a crime and
punishment drama. Is God constantly watching over your shoulder to catch you
doing wrong, eager to punish you for it? Is God keeping a scoresheet on each of
us so that at some end judgement time, God can toss us into an eternal fire of
damnation if we don’t tip the scales in the right direction?
Or can we believe the words of the
psalmist? “The Lord is gracious and
compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has
compassion on all he has made.” Today’s reading from the psalm also says, “The Lord upholds all those who are falling and
lifts up all who are bowed down.” Many translations use the words fall or
fallen as a past tense. You fall down or you have fallen down and God helps you
up. But in the Hebrew it is a participle—those who are falling. That falling or
failing is a process. There are times in our lives when we do something wrong.
Hopefully we regret it. It’s not who we are, but it’s what we have done. Past
tense. A participle is an ongoing process. It’s still happening. We keep doing
it.
So I invite you to
consider the promise of scripture from multiple perspectives. When you fall,
when you’ve hit the ground—spiritually speaking—God will reach out and lift you
back up, back onto your feet, will forgive you, will help you to regain your
footing and enable you to move forward in the way that you should.
In the same way, when you
are falling, even as you are in the process—before you hit bottom—God is there
for you to steady you, help you get your feet back under you, remind you of who
you are, restore you to what you know you should be. For whatever it is that
pulls you down is not who you are, not what you are meant to be, not what God
sees.
God sees a beloved child. The psalmist
proclaims God’s mercy and compassion and love. But don’t we know, didn’t the psalmist know, that there are some people who do
not deserve that compassion? Doesn’t God know we don’t deserve it? But that’s the very definition of grace and
unconditional love. You don’t deserve it but you get it anyway. You don’t have
to keep a list of rules. You don’t have to be perfect. It’s extended to you
anyway. No matter what you’ve done in your life. No matter what you’re going to
do. God loves you. Period.
And God expressed that
love in Jesus. When Paul despaired of his actions, declaring himself a wretched
man, he asked rhetorically, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul
knew how sin, even sin we might label as minor, plays havoc with his life and
faith. But he also knows the answer. “Who will rescue me? … Thanks be to
God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
In Jesus we find
forgiveness and redemption. However we understand atonement, Jesus saves us and
reconciles us to God. We don’t have to carry the heavy burden of our sins.
Jesus offers us a better way and with it, respite. “Come to me, all you who are weary
and bear heavy burdens and I will give you rest…my yoke is easy and my burden
is light.” Our faith, our relationship with God is not meant to be so hard, to
be a heavy burden.
It is, instead, a process of growing
in our faith. At first, we are like a child testing limits. Then we learn more
and more who God is and who God created us to be. We come to understand God’s
love—the extent of that love. We love God back and want to live in a way that
pleases God. But then we go through that struggle Paul spoke of—an internal war
between self and love. When we give in to self, we carry the weight of that
burden. The more we give in to the sinful side, the heavier that burden gets.
And Jesus comes and invites us to
experience a lighter burden—a burden of love. And through that encounter with
Jesus, we find forgiveness and grace from a God who is gracious and
compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Thanks, thanks be to God.
1http://www.jewfaq.org/613.htm
The message of God’s love and grace, our salvation in Jesus Christ has always been shared by people – people like us. That has been enabled through financial gifts but also through the sermon that our lives preach. Are you willing to make your life an offering to God so that the message of grace might be made known?
Holy God, we ask your blessings on the gifts we bring before you--the gifts from our wealth and the gifts of our lives. We make these offerings out of love and gratitude for what your grace has done in our lives. We want others to experience the blessings we have received. Amen.
The Lord’s table is not a piece of wood with clay dishes, but a place in our hearts that connects us to our Lord Jesus. It is a place to which we come as we remember his sacrifice, as we seek to experience his presence, as we are nourished to continue his work, as we recognize our community in him despite whatever distance or disease or obstacle that might separate us. It is the place we come to renew our commitment to continue his ministry and mission. Our Lord invites us to the table without condition, simply because we are loved. Come with grateful hearts. Come with joyful hearts.
It is indeed right, O Holy God, to give thanks for your amazing grace, to praise you for who you are, for who you created us to be. We marvel at the truth that you are with us wherever we may be. Though we worship from home, separated and for some, isolated, it is still in you that we find life and purpose. We are children of grace and nothing can separate us from your love.
You have given us the gift of your Holy Spirit who unites us, binding us together as one body across the miles. By your Spirit of grace transform our social isolation and distance into a holy community, connecting us to each other by your sacred presence.
Bless the elements we each have gathered, elements common to our ordinary lives. Let them represent for us the body and blood of our Savior who gave himself for us. Amen.
As we share these symbols of bread and cup across the distance, we remember the story of Jesus with the disciples that last night before he was arrested. He took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them saying “Take, eat, this is my body, given for you.” And with the cup he said, “This cup is the new covenant, my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink of it, remember me.”
And so we do. As we lift up many pieces in scattered places rather than sharing the same loaf and as we drink from separate cups instead of one, we do so remembering that throughout history God’s people have often been scattered and in exile. Through the power and mystery of the Holy Spirit, we are made one in Christ Jesus. These are the gifts of God for us the children of God.*
Gracious God, you have made us one with all your people in heaven and on earth. You have fed us with the bread of life, and renewed us for your service. Help us who have shared Christ’s body and received his cup, to be his faithful disciples so that our daily living may be part of the life of your kingdom, and our love be your love reaching out into the life of the world; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Your charge for the week is to lighten the load. Remember that Jesus says if we follow his way, the yoke is easy, the burden is light. Let your balloons we talked about last week be a reminder. Be playful. Be joyful.
As you do, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and keep you forever. Grant you peace, perfect peace, courage in every endeavor. Lift up your eyes and see his face and his grace forever. May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and keep you forever.
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