A Forgetful, Forgiving God
Exodus
20:1-17
Then God spoke all these
words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not
make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God
am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third
and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to
the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You
shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will
not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it
holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a
sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your
daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in
your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all
that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the
sabbath day and consecrated it.
Honor your father and your
mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is
giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not
steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not
covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male
or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
For the message about the
cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one
who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God
made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the
world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of
our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks
desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and
foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser
than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
John
2:13-22 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went
up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and
doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords,
he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also
poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told
those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making
my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written,
“Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign
can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been
under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three
days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from
the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the
scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
I know, I know. You’re thinking what is up with
three readings - in a row! You ought to thank me, I almost put the Psalm
reading in there too! Trust me, I think I know what I am doing! I wanted them
to all come at you like that. Boom -boom-boom! I guess I just wanted to try to
recapture the effect that it had on me when I read these passages.
Do not get me wrong, it’s not as if when I read
these three passages I immediately had an idea for a sermon pop into my head.
That hardly ever happens. Usually one passage will pop out at me I will let
that marinate for a bit. I will kick it around in my head, re-read it a few
times a day. Usually, something will come to me - an idea, a theme, a general
outline - something that I believe I can work with.
Sometimes it comes relatively easy. Sometimes
not so much. This week was neither hard, nor was it easy. I was just a bit
lost, I suppose. I read the passages several time, but nothing was really
jumping out at me. I guess I could have forced something, but usually when I do
that I end up throwing away an almost written sermon, at the last minute, in
order to go in a different direction.
Usually, like most people who preach. (notice I
did not call myself a preacher; I just think of myself as someone who preaches
sometimes. Think of it this way, just because you can bake a cake that does not
make you a pastry chef!)
But I digress, I usually, like most people who
preach, pick two passages from the lectionary readings. Out of those two I will
typically focus on one and maybe, manage to work in the other reading as well.
This time it was different. As I mentioned, I
could not come up with any one idea that I really liked. Then, as I was reading
through them all again, in order, just like we heard this morning, it hit me. I
think I know why this sermon wasn’t coming so easily.
Let me preface this by saying that no one likes
to be told all about themselves. You know that moment. It’s awful. We have all
had moments in our lives when someone - a wife, mother, brother, sister,
friend, etc - has taken us to task. However, what makes these moments worse is
when you know, in the very depth of your heart and mind that the other person
is right. All that you can do is listen.
I think that is what God is doing in these three
passages. He is telling us all about ourselves. I believe that we should
listen.
Let us start with the Exodus passage. The Ten
Commandments. What exactly are the Ten Commandments? Sure, obviously, they are
commandments. Well, duh. I mean, commandment is in the title.
This is an instruction manual. A behaviour
manual for the human race, if you will. We obviously were not then, and are not
now, going to figure it out for ourselves. I mean, think about it. Have we
really come that far from those days? Sure technology has advanced the way we
break the Commandments, but it hasn’t changed that fact that we still break
them. Constantly.
We don’t bow down to actual golden calves these
days. Instead we bow down to and create idols of a myriad of other things. We
sit in front of a box and let it entertain us, we bury our faces in our phones
and our computers. We make idols out of all of these things we have. Things
that really do what? Distract us. Amuse us. Make us feel good. At least
temporarily, they do. Where does that get us?
Think about some of the ways that the Lord’s
name in used these days. If that is not taking his name in vain what is?
Consider this: when is the last time you truly
rested on the Sabbath?
Have you heard the way that some kids talk to or
about their parent’s these days? Very little honor there.
We don’t kill each other with rock any more. We
have bombs and guns for that.
People still commit actual physical adultery
these days, for sure. Why do that? Get all the lust you want by turning
on the TV or getting on your computer.
People still steal, but now people can steal
with a few keystrokes.
We all still lie and we all still covet, Oh my,
how we all still covet.
God knows how people are. When I say the way
“are” I don’t mean he knows how we are in this day in age. God knows man and
what is in him on a level we can’t comprehend. He knows that we need to be told
how to not behave badly. We need reminders of what bad behavior is.
I have heard many preachers divide the
the Ten Commandments divided into two parts. 1-4 are about how our
relationship with God should be and 5-10 are about how we should interact with
each other.
These are reminders from a holy God as to how we
are to interact with Him and with all of those around us. Think we don’t need
reminded these days? Turn on the news or read a paper.
Then we get to Paul in 1st Corinthians. At it’s
heart it is a really affirming passage. It speaks of the power of the cross of
Jesus Christ to save. Read it a little closer, though. Between the lines if you
will.
There is a huge difference in the thought
process of God as opposed to the thought process of man. Verse 25 says it all,
“For God's foolishness is wiser than human
wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength”.
While this passage is mainly
comparing believers and unbelievers, are we that different from the Jews and
Greeks that Paul is talking about? We think that we are pretty smart sometimes.
I know I do. I also believe that we rely on our own strength way too much.
Especially when you consider that the creator of everything is on our side and
in our corner. Paul tells us we have Jesus. The power and the wisdom of God on
our side. Yet we still don’t trust God’s wisdom. We still don’t rely on his
strength.
Then there is the John
passage. What a passage. Angry Jesus. But first, a word from the prophet
Malachai. (More Scripture!) “ I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.
Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger
of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
But who
can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be
like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and
silver. Then the Lord will have
men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and
Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord,
as in days gone by, as in former years”.
What a passage! That describes
Jesus perfectly at the temple. Who can stand when he appears. Apparently, no
one can! This picture of Jesus has always stood out in my mind.
Here is Jesus so mad that a
harsh rebuke will not suffice! He makes a whip! He is flipping over tables! He
is confronting those in positions of authority and telling them all about
themselves. Why at this time? Why at this place? What was going on here that
caused such a visceral response from the person who extols living peaceably and
turning the other cheek?
Well, to be certain Jesus had
the right to do what he was doing. I have read in a couple of commentaries and
study Bibles that Jesus was showing his authority here. That is, he was
putting people on notice. He was doing a task that only he had the proper
authority to do.
Yet, I think there is more to
this. I always picture Jesus as very frustrated during all of this. The reason
why? These people are just not getting it. If I may quote my study Bible
directly, Jesus “has a zeal for God and keeping holy ordinances holy”. Why does
he feel so strongly about this?
This is his Father’s house. It
is not a place to be abused. This is a place to draw near and worship. A place
to be still and know the Lord. We need that. We need that holy place we can go
to. Now, I am not talking about a building. If you really read the text Jesus
was not talking about a building. We all know that now. In hindsight even the
disciples knew it. Jesus, when he was talking to the leadership of the day,
made a direct correlation between himself and the temple because that is the
place where the Holy Spirit now rested. That was the only temple that mattered
in the long run.
But Jesus knew how important
that relationship with himself, with God, is. That is one of the reasons, in my
opinion, that he is so heated about this. Jesus knows what we need. We need as
direct a path to God as we can get. We need not to encumber ourselves in
that journey. This can be done when we put obstacles in our own way, or when we
trip over the ones already there.
Jesus knows what we really need
and this day at the temple he had enough of seeing people clogging the path to
God.
When you think about it I guess
it can get a little depressing. I wrote an outline for this sermon and I had
these section heading for each of the readings labeled as such. Mind you this
is from God’s perspective, at least in my opinion.
Exodus - This is how you people
need to behave
Corinthians - This is how you
people think
John - Just stop it already!
Like I said. Kind of
depressing. I think that the main thing is that we have to keep this in
perspective. Yes, we are sinners. And, yes, we are good at it. Yet we are
forgiven and loved beyond measure.
My older brother, being a
typical older brother, believes that he know a lot more than me about various
topics. One of his favorite sayings, usually when we are talking about music,
is “I have forgotten more about music than you will ever know”. God can say a
similar thing.
God has forgotten more about
us than we will ever know about ourselves.
We were made for relationship
with God. Each and every one of us. Jesus knows this.
We were not made to hate, kill,
envy or lust. But we do. We always have and we always will.
All of this talk of
commandments, and the way we think, and what we really need in our lives, do we
really need to be reminded of all of that?
I believe we do need to be
reminded.
Not that we should dwell on our
own sins or dwell upon all of the evil in the world. But we must think about
it. We need to think about the ways we all go astray and the things that get in
the way of us deepening our relationship with God. To paraphrase Paul, we need
to start thinking like Jesus. We need the mind of Christ.
What is the end result of all
of this? What if we obeyed the commandments just a little better, individually
and as a society? What if we started thinking just a little more like Jesus?
What if we all tried to remove just some of the clutter in our spiritual lives?
Where do you think that would leave us? Where do you think that would leave the
world?
I know where it would leave us.
It would leave us in a much better place. It would leave us really meaning it
when we prayed “on earth, as it is in heaven” because we would be actively
trying to make that happen, bit by bit.
