Pick me! Pick me!
Commentary
The children gather on the playground for a game: perhaps kickball, or basketball, or touch football. All the eligible players line up in front of the two captains, and then the great process begins: picking teams.
Perhaps some of the kids stand quietly, even shyly, waiting, hoping to be picked. Not the eager ones, though. They do not stand quietly. They raise and wave their hands! "Hey, over here! Pick me! Pick me!"
If it's a football game, they will likely do the same thing out on the field. Eager for the quarterback to throw the ball to them, they will wave their arms and call, "Over here! I'm open! Throw it to me!"
The man or woman of God ought to have something of that eagerness: the readiness to be chosen and used by God. Raise your hand and wave your arms for God -- here I am! Pick me! Use me!
The Christian who presents himself and his members to God; the disciple, along with the one who gives him a cup of water; Abraham: all available to God.
Genesis 22:1-14
Do you have a caller ID feature on your telephone? Have you ever used it to determine whether or not you would answer a particular call? Would we answer if the caller ID tipped us off that the incoming call was from God?
God called Abraham, and Abraham answered. On the one hand, this was the same God who had forced him to leave his home and his kin to move to a strange land and live as an alien. On the other hand, this was the same God who had been Abraham's companion, provider, protector, and friend for so many years and so many miles; the same God who had made so many marvelous promises, and who had miraculously fulfilled the most precious of those promises in the form of Abraham's beloved son, Isaac.
God called, and Abraham answered. That was a courageous thing to do, for it seems that every such contact with God was a life-changing one for Abraham. In chapter 12, the Lord spoke, and Abraham had to pull up his roots to leave his home in favor of a strange and distant land. In chapter 13, the Lord spoke, and Abraham was promised property as far as the eye could see, though he owned not an acre of it at the time, and he lived and died as an alien in the land. In chapter 15, the Lord spoke, and promised Abraham a galaxy of descendants, though Sarah's scheme to help make it happen became a headache and a heartache. In chapter 17, the Lord spoke, and Abraham was given the (probably unwelcome) sign of circumcision. (Isn't there just a contract I could sign?) It was for him, for his household, and all of the yet unseen branches of his family tree. In chapter 18, the Lord spoke, and Sarah laughed. The Lord spoke, and an old man's life was promised to be changed forever, again. The Lord spoke, and divine judgment seemed imminent for Abraham's only kinfolk in the whole land. In chapter 21, the Lord spoke, and Ishmael was sent away from his home and his father.
And now, in chapter 22, the Lord spoke again. The Lord called, and Abraham answered. We could preach on Abraham under the theme, "Answering The Call."
It seems that Abraham couldn't answer a call from God without his life being disrupted. At this advanced age, wasn't he a little weary of having his life disrupted? Wouldn't he want just to be left alone?
God called. Abraham answered. And a few moments later, he must have wished that he hadn't.
The Lord was requiring the unthinkable of Abraham: "Take your son ... whom you love ... and offer him there as a burnt offering." What loving parent would do such a thing? And what loving God would request such a thing?
The text reports that Abraham "rose early the next morning, saddled his donkey," and set out on his unthinkable journey. The immediacy of Abraham's obedience -- "early the next morning" -- seems to be characteristic of him. In Genesis 12, the Lord requires Abram to pull up his roots and move to an unknown destination, and one verse later we read: "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him" (12:4). No evidence of a hesitation or delay (cf. Lot and his wife in Genesis 19:16 and 19:26, respectively). Later, Peter, Andrew, James, and John will respond to the Lord's call with comparable quickness: no hesitation; they just dropped their nets and followed him. Abraham followed God's command -- his unthinkable command -- first thing the next morning.
How painful is this journey for this old man? A father and son should relish walks and trips together, but this poor father betrays his young son's love and trust by inviting him on this particular journey. Does little Isaac make innocuous, childish conversation, while Abraham silently carries the weight of a breaking heart within? And how much more painful when the innocuous conversation becomes a pointed question! "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" the innocent asked.
Abraham is losing two of the most precious things in his life. Shortly, he will forfeit his beloved son. And already he must have felt that he had lost his beloved God, for this God who requires the murder of his own gift cannot have seemed to Abraham like the God he had known and served before.
In the midst of it all, Abraham demonstrated an unblinking faith. "God himself will provide a lamb," Abraham confidently declared, even as his heart must have been breaking. Abraham was right. God did indeed provide a sacrifice. For Abraham, for Isaac, for you, and for me: God did provide.
Romans 6:12-23
We human beings seem to have a love-hate relationship with our bodies. We feed them, we rest them, we do all that we can to get them fixed when they are broken or diseased, and sometimes we cater to them at the expense of more important things.
On the other hand, we find we often resent both the limitations and the needs of our bodies. Our blemished and feeble flesh weighs us down. The spirit is willing, but the flesh -- the poor, stupid flesh -- gets in the way of what we might otherwise be and do.
As Christians, we are challenged to achieve and maintain a healthy balance in relation to our bodies. Our superficial culture is preoccupied with the body, exalting its appearance and its appetites above all else, as though your physique were the most important part of you. On the other hand, the spiritual focus of some folks' faith has historically led them to disregard, neglect, or mistreat their bodies as a temporary and disposal nuisance.
Paul's attitude toward the body is a study all its own. He identifies it as a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19), finds in it a meaningful illustration of the church (1 Corinthians 12:12-27), and affirms its resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35-53). On the other hand, he is realistic about its relative importance (1 Timothy 4:8), as well as its fallenness (Romans 7:21-24). He knows that it is natural for us to love and care for our bodies (Ephesians 5:28-30), yet he warns about living to satisfy them (Galatians 5:16-21).
In this particular passage, Paul's attitude toward the body is a theologically pragmatic one: your body is going to belong to someone, is going to serve someone, so make sure that it belongs to and serves the Lord.
In our culture, we are so emphatic about personal freedom that we do not take easily to Paul's paradigm, for he assumes our slavery. We are not without a choice when it comes to our master, mind you, but that we will have a master -- that we will be enslaved to one thing or another -- that is a given for Paul.
Paul's use of the term "members" in this exhortation to be "slaves to righteousness" rather than "slaves to impurity" is reminiscent of an earlier use of the same Greek word. When Jesus offers his pragmatic, though startling, teaching about cutting off a hand that causes one to sin, or gouging out an eye that leads to sin, he employs the same term: "It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell" (Matthew 5:29).
Paul concludes this passage with a famous and cherished affirmation: "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life." It is a simple and picturesque statement of grace. "Wages" refers to what one earns, which stands in contrast to a "free gift" that is quite independent of what has been earned or deserved. My "wages" are what I have coming to me; in that respect, my wages are a reflection on me. A "free gift," by contrast, is not necessarily something I have coming; and it is, therefore, much more of a reflection on the giver than the recipient.
Death is what I have coming to me. Death is what I deserve, for that is what I have earned by my sin. Eternal life, however, is quite separate from what I have earned or deserved; it is a gift, and as such it is a reflection on the grace, kindness, and generosity of the giver.
While this familiar statement is best employed as an explanation of what it means to be saved by grace, it might also be used to refute a rather common heresy afloat in our day. Many folks in our churches have borrowed from the surrounding culture a presumption about an afterlife. How we imagine that afterlife may differ from one person, one belief system to the next, but the basic assumption is quite common. And many Christians, in turn, have come to equate the generic notion of an "afterlife" with the biblical concept of "eternal life." If some afterlife awaits everyone, then it must be different from the eternal life Paul references here as "a free gift of God ... in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Matthew 10:40-42
Jesus describes a two-way flow. The one way is conventional wisdom. The other way, however, is dramatic and new.
Everyone in the original audience for this brief message understood this first principle. When a potentate sends an emissary, that emissary is a representative of the one who sent him. He carries his king's message, and the reception he receives is a plain demonstration of respect or disrespect for the one who sent him.
Several places in scripture we see this principle at work. King David, for example, takes as a personal affront the mistreatment that his emissaries receive at the hands of the Ammonites (see 2 Samuel 10). Likewise, the owner of the vineyard in Jesus' parable (Luke 20:9-18) reasons that his servants, messengers, and ultimately his son will be respected by the tenants to whom they are sent. And when they are mistreated, the owner responds with unmitigated vengeance.
When Jesus makes a correlation, therefore, between the sender and the ones sent, he is working within the framework of conventional wisdom. Everyone understood the vicarious role of ambassadors, emissaries, messengers, and such.
Of course, the implications for Jesus' missionaries -- that is, literally, those who are sent out by him -- are quite heady. We represent Jesus, who sent us, as well as the Father, who sent him. Our demeanor and our message, therefore, are nothing less than a reflection on God. And people's receptiveness and responsiveness to us is a form of receiving and responding to God.
The surprising part of Jesus' teaching is that the current also flows in the other direction. Just as the individual's response to a servant of God is, by extension, a response to God, so too, the reward that belongs to God's servant is also extended to the one who receives God's servant. That is quite remarkable.
Mistreat the king's messenger, and your punishment is to be expected. But receive the king's messenger and, consequently, receive the king's messenger's reward? That is a dramatic twist and an uncommon generosity.
Set aside for the moment any speculation about what the rewards actually are. Let us think only in terms of human responsibilities and human compensation. The newspaper compensates the young men and women who deliver their papers to homes and neighborhoods. But will that newspaper pay the same wage to anyone and everyone who is hospitable or receptive to those paper carriers? It's an extraordinary proposition.
And yet, at the same time, it is also quite consistent.
In Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells a story of another vineyard owner. This one is hiring laborers to harvest his vineyard, and he hires them in several shifts throughout the day. When the work and the day have come to an end, he gathers all the workers to pay them, and he surprises them all by paying the same wage across the board. The ones who worked all day are rightly paid for a full day's work; and the ones who worked only the last and smallest stretch were also paid for a full day's work. The first group thinks the policy is unfair. In fact, of course, the owner is not being less than fair to them; it's just that he is being more than fair to the others.
Such is the characteristic extravagance of God. This Lord doesn't just miraculously feed 5,000; he provides too much -- there are leftovers! This Lord does not just faithfully lead his people through the wilderness; he also keeps their sandals good as new. This Lord does not just set his people free from slavery; he makes sure that they are laden with gifts and gold as they go. And this Lord does not just provide a good catch for the fisherman; he provides a catch that exceeds the boat's capacity.
It stands to reason, then, that he would be unreasonably generous. He doesn't just have rewards in mind and in store for his servants; he has rewards in mind and in store for those who treat his servants well.
Application
"Here I am." That's what Abraham says. He says it three different times in the course of the one episode from Genesis 22. It is Abraham's response when God spoke to him at the beginning. It is his response when his son, Isaac, raised a question. And it is Abraham's response when the Lord called out to stop him from sacrificing Isaac.
"Here I am." That is Abraham's response.
"Here I am" is what you say when you are willing to be found, willing to be interrupted, willing to be used. It is what Abraham says in this passage. It is what Isaiah said in his call scene (Isaiah 6:8). And it is, of course, the essence of what Jonah did not say to God, as he hightailed it to Tarshish "to flee ... from the presence of the Lord" (Jonah 1:3).
The Hebrew behind Abraham and Isaiah's "here I am" is interesting. Literally, it is the interjection "behold" with the first-person, singular suffix tacked on the end.
The Lord asks, "Whom shall we send?" and Isaiah says, "Behold me!" The Lord calls to Abraham, and he responds, "Behold me!"
It's a risky business to answer God's call. But the eager, obedient ones wave their arms and cry out, "Over here! Pick me!"
An Alternative Application
Genesis 22:1-14. "What Kind of God Is This?" I imagine a sermon comprised of two scenes, carefully drawn for the congregation with words. The first scene shows a father and a son, each one bearing a heavy load up a hill.
The son's heavy load is wood. Some of us know well how heavy a load of wood can by to carry for any distance. It's the wood for a sacrifice that they'll make at the top of the hill.
The father is not carrying a physical load like the son. The heaviness is found in his heart. It's a heaviness of dread, of grief, of love. It's the heaviness of a breaking heart. Many of us know how heavy that load can be to carry.
It turns out, of course, that the father and the son are carrying the same load: that is, the weight of the son's sacrifice. The son innocently carries the instrument of it; the father carries the knowledge of it. And who has imposed this terrible load on this father and son? The Lord God. He required Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved.
Now comes the wondering aloud. What kind of God would ask such a thing? What kind of God promises a son, gives a son, and then takes that son away? What kind of God would break an old man's heart and needlessly steal a young man's life? And so on.
The second picture is a parallel. The Son carrying a load of wood up a hill; wood for a sacrifice; wood on which he himself will be sacrificed. The Father, meanwhile, bears the unspeakably heavy heart. But it is his doing. "It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain ... make his life an offering for sin" (Isaiah 53:10).
And then comes the wondering aloud. What kind of God would do such a thing? What kind of a God would offer his own son on behalf of sinners? What kind of God would bear an offense twice: the offense of human disobedience, and then the penalty for that offense, too? "What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul, what wondrous love is this, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul, to bear the dreadful curse for my soul."
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18
(This is the alternative psalm for Proper 8)
This is a lengthy psalm, rich in theological themes. It begins with a celebration of the Lord's hesed, or steadfast love (v. 1). Verse 3 recalls God's covenant, in verse 5 there is the theme of creation bearing witness to God. An ongoing theme (vv. 1, 2, 5, 8, 14, 24, 33) is God's faithfulness. A word-study on any one of these concepts could provide rich ground for a sermon.
While the first part of this psalm (from which today's lectionary selection is taken) is primarily a hymn of praise, the latter sections reveal catastrophic events that have led to a faith-crisis for the author. Beginning with verse 38, there are descriptions of the fall of the nation -- probably at the time of the Babylonian exile. The royal crown has been "defiled in the dust," and the walls of the capital have been breached. Everything worth cherishing, it seems, lies in ruins.
The first part sets the scene for the later complaint of national catastrophe. The psalmist is eager to establish the fact of the Lord's essential goodness and faithfulness, which will later be contrasted to the people's unfaithfulness. The collapse of the nation, therefore, is not the Lord's fault, but the fault of the people. God has only been fair and just, finally calling down judgment upon the wayward nation. "Lord, where is your steadfast love of old?" laments the author in verse 49. This is in stark contrast to the confident declaration of verse 1, "I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever."
There is a tension in this psalm, a contrast between faith and doubt, which is never completely resolved. Thus it is true to life, psychologically speaking. Faith in God is always a dynamic enterprise. In different seasons of life, and under widely varying circumstances, certainty gives way to questioning; faith gives way to doubt; gratitude gives way to lament. And then, in time, the winds of providence change, restoring a positive outlook once again. This psalm has it all.
Expanding beyond the range of verses cited in the lectionary, it is possible to preach this entire psalm as a microcosm of the human religious experience. There is something extremely powerful about proclaiming God's steadfast love and faithfulness amidst the chaos life sometimes brings. We may only half-believe in God's steadfast love, in such times, but we speak the words of praise and thanksgiving anyway, and one day we realize it has become easier to say them.
Although his viewpoint comes from outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition, these words spoken by the Native-American chief, Tecumseh, express this kind of resolute determination to praise God in all circumstances: "Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself."
The Lord is faithful. Our vocation, in response, is to praise.
Perhaps some of the kids stand quietly, even shyly, waiting, hoping to be picked. Not the eager ones, though. They do not stand quietly. They raise and wave their hands! "Hey, over here! Pick me! Pick me!"
If it's a football game, they will likely do the same thing out on the field. Eager for the quarterback to throw the ball to them, they will wave their arms and call, "Over here! I'm open! Throw it to me!"
The man or woman of God ought to have something of that eagerness: the readiness to be chosen and used by God. Raise your hand and wave your arms for God -- here I am! Pick me! Use me!
The Christian who presents himself and his members to God; the disciple, along with the one who gives him a cup of water; Abraham: all available to God.
Genesis 22:1-14
Do you have a caller ID feature on your telephone? Have you ever used it to determine whether or not you would answer a particular call? Would we answer if the caller ID tipped us off that the incoming call was from God?
God called Abraham, and Abraham answered. On the one hand, this was the same God who had forced him to leave his home and his kin to move to a strange land and live as an alien. On the other hand, this was the same God who had been Abraham's companion, provider, protector, and friend for so many years and so many miles; the same God who had made so many marvelous promises, and who had miraculously fulfilled the most precious of those promises in the form of Abraham's beloved son, Isaac.
God called, and Abraham answered. That was a courageous thing to do, for it seems that every such contact with God was a life-changing one for Abraham. In chapter 12, the Lord spoke, and Abraham had to pull up his roots to leave his home in favor of a strange and distant land. In chapter 13, the Lord spoke, and Abraham was promised property as far as the eye could see, though he owned not an acre of it at the time, and he lived and died as an alien in the land. In chapter 15, the Lord spoke, and promised Abraham a galaxy of descendants, though Sarah's scheme to help make it happen became a headache and a heartache. In chapter 17, the Lord spoke, and Abraham was given the (probably unwelcome) sign of circumcision. (Isn't there just a contract I could sign?) It was for him, for his household, and all of the yet unseen branches of his family tree. In chapter 18, the Lord spoke, and Sarah laughed. The Lord spoke, and an old man's life was promised to be changed forever, again. The Lord spoke, and divine judgment seemed imminent for Abraham's only kinfolk in the whole land. In chapter 21, the Lord spoke, and Ishmael was sent away from his home and his father.
And now, in chapter 22, the Lord spoke again. The Lord called, and Abraham answered. We could preach on Abraham under the theme, "Answering The Call."
It seems that Abraham couldn't answer a call from God without his life being disrupted. At this advanced age, wasn't he a little weary of having his life disrupted? Wouldn't he want just to be left alone?
God called. Abraham answered. And a few moments later, he must have wished that he hadn't.
The Lord was requiring the unthinkable of Abraham: "Take your son ... whom you love ... and offer him there as a burnt offering." What loving parent would do such a thing? And what loving God would request such a thing?
The text reports that Abraham "rose early the next morning, saddled his donkey," and set out on his unthinkable journey. The immediacy of Abraham's obedience -- "early the next morning" -- seems to be characteristic of him. In Genesis 12, the Lord requires Abram to pull up his roots and move to an unknown destination, and one verse later we read: "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him" (12:4). No evidence of a hesitation or delay (cf. Lot and his wife in Genesis 19:16 and 19:26, respectively). Later, Peter, Andrew, James, and John will respond to the Lord's call with comparable quickness: no hesitation; they just dropped their nets and followed him. Abraham followed God's command -- his unthinkable command -- first thing the next morning.
How painful is this journey for this old man? A father and son should relish walks and trips together, but this poor father betrays his young son's love and trust by inviting him on this particular journey. Does little Isaac make innocuous, childish conversation, while Abraham silently carries the weight of a breaking heart within? And how much more painful when the innocuous conversation becomes a pointed question! "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" the innocent asked.
Abraham is losing two of the most precious things in his life. Shortly, he will forfeit his beloved son. And already he must have felt that he had lost his beloved God, for this God who requires the murder of his own gift cannot have seemed to Abraham like the God he had known and served before.
In the midst of it all, Abraham demonstrated an unblinking faith. "God himself will provide a lamb," Abraham confidently declared, even as his heart must have been breaking. Abraham was right. God did indeed provide a sacrifice. For Abraham, for Isaac, for you, and for me: God did provide.
Romans 6:12-23
We human beings seem to have a love-hate relationship with our bodies. We feed them, we rest them, we do all that we can to get them fixed when they are broken or diseased, and sometimes we cater to them at the expense of more important things.
On the other hand, we find we often resent both the limitations and the needs of our bodies. Our blemished and feeble flesh weighs us down. The spirit is willing, but the flesh -- the poor, stupid flesh -- gets in the way of what we might otherwise be and do.
As Christians, we are challenged to achieve and maintain a healthy balance in relation to our bodies. Our superficial culture is preoccupied with the body, exalting its appearance and its appetites above all else, as though your physique were the most important part of you. On the other hand, the spiritual focus of some folks' faith has historically led them to disregard, neglect, or mistreat their bodies as a temporary and disposal nuisance.
Paul's attitude toward the body is a study all its own. He identifies it as a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19), finds in it a meaningful illustration of the church (1 Corinthians 12:12-27), and affirms its resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35-53). On the other hand, he is realistic about its relative importance (1 Timothy 4:8), as well as its fallenness (Romans 7:21-24). He knows that it is natural for us to love and care for our bodies (Ephesians 5:28-30), yet he warns about living to satisfy them (Galatians 5:16-21).
In this particular passage, Paul's attitude toward the body is a theologically pragmatic one: your body is going to belong to someone, is going to serve someone, so make sure that it belongs to and serves the Lord.
In our culture, we are so emphatic about personal freedom that we do not take easily to Paul's paradigm, for he assumes our slavery. We are not without a choice when it comes to our master, mind you, but that we will have a master -- that we will be enslaved to one thing or another -- that is a given for Paul.
Paul's use of the term "members" in this exhortation to be "slaves to righteousness" rather than "slaves to impurity" is reminiscent of an earlier use of the same Greek word. When Jesus offers his pragmatic, though startling, teaching about cutting off a hand that causes one to sin, or gouging out an eye that leads to sin, he employs the same term: "It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell" (Matthew 5:29).
Paul concludes this passage with a famous and cherished affirmation: "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life." It is a simple and picturesque statement of grace. "Wages" refers to what one earns, which stands in contrast to a "free gift" that is quite independent of what has been earned or deserved. My "wages" are what I have coming to me; in that respect, my wages are a reflection on me. A "free gift," by contrast, is not necessarily something I have coming; and it is, therefore, much more of a reflection on the giver than the recipient.
Death is what I have coming to me. Death is what I deserve, for that is what I have earned by my sin. Eternal life, however, is quite separate from what I have earned or deserved; it is a gift, and as such it is a reflection on the grace, kindness, and generosity of the giver.
While this familiar statement is best employed as an explanation of what it means to be saved by grace, it might also be used to refute a rather common heresy afloat in our day. Many folks in our churches have borrowed from the surrounding culture a presumption about an afterlife. How we imagine that afterlife may differ from one person, one belief system to the next, but the basic assumption is quite common. And many Christians, in turn, have come to equate the generic notion of an "afterlife" with the biblical concept of "eternal life." If some afterlife awaits everyone, then it must be different from the eternal life Paul references here as "a free gift of God ... in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Matthew 10:40-42
Jesus describes a two-way flow. The one way is conventional wisdom. The other way, however, is dramatic and new.
Everyone in the original audience for this brief message understood this first principle. When a potentate sends an emissary, that emissary is a representative of the one who sent him. He carries his king's message, and the reception he receives is a plain demonstration of respect or disrespect for the one who sent him.
Several places in scripture we see this principle at work. King David, for example, takes as a personal affront the mistreatment that his emissaries receive at the hands of the Ammonites (see 2 Samuel 10). Likewise, the owner of the vineyard in Jesus' parable (Luke 20:9-18) reasons that his servants, messengers, and ultimately his son will be respected by the tenants to whom they are sent. And when they are mistreated, the owner responds with unmitigated vengeance.
When Jesus makes a correlation, therefore, between the sender and the ones sent, he is working within the framework of conventional wisdom. Everyone understood the vicarious role of ambassadors, emissaries, messengers, and such.
Of course, the implications for Jesus' missionaries -- that is, literally, those who are sent out by him -- are quite heady. We represent Jesus, who sent us, as well as the Father, who sent him. Our demeanor and our message, therefore, are nothing less than a reflection on God. And people's receptiveness and responsiveness to us is a form of receiving and responding to God.
The surprising part of Jesus' teaching is that the current also flows in the other direction. Just as the individual's response to a servant of God is, by extension, a response to God, so too, the reward that belongs to God's servant is also extended to the one who receives God's servant. That is quite remarkable.
Mistreat the king's messenger, and your punishment is to be expected. But receive the king's messenger and, consequently, receive the king's messenger's reward? That is a dramatic twist and an uncommon generosity.
Set aside for the moment any speculation about what the rewards actually are. Let us think only in terms of human responsibilities and human compensation. The newspaper compensates the young men and women who deliver their papers to homes and neighborhoods. But will that newspaper pay the same wage to anyone and everyone who is hospitable or receptive to those paper carriers? It's an extraordinary proposition.
And yet, at the same time, it is also quite consistent.
In Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells a story of another vineyard owner. This one is hiring laborers to harvest his vineyard, and he hires them in several shifts throughout the day. When the work and the day have come to an end, he gathers all the workers to pay them, and he surprises them all by paying the same wage across the board. The ones who worked all day are rightly paid for a full day's work; and the ones who worked only the last and smallest stretch were also paid for a full day's work. The first group thinks the policy is unfair. In fact, of course, the owner is not being less than fair to them; it's just that he is being more than fair to the others.
Such is the characteristic extravagance of God. This Lord doesn't just miraculously feed 5,000; he provides too much -- there are leftovers! This Lord does not just faithfully lead his people through the wilderness; he also keeps their sandals good as new. This Lord does not just set his people free from slavery; he makes sure that they are laden with gifts and gold as they go. And this Lord does not just provide a good catch for the fisherman; he provides a catch that exceeds the boat's capacity.
It stands to reason, then, that he would be unreasonably generous. He doesn't just have rewards in mind and in store for his servants; he has rewards in mind and in store for those who treat his servants well.
Application
"Here I am." That's what Abraham says. He says it three different times in the course of the one episode from Genesis 22. It is Abraham's response when God spoke to him at the beginning. It is his response when his son, Isaac, raised a question. And it is Abraham's response when the Lord called out to stop him from sacrificing Isaac.
"Here I am." That is Abraham's response.
"Here I am" is what you say when you are willing to be found, willing to be interrupted, willing to be used. It is what Abraham says in this passage. It is what Isaiah said in his call scene (Isaiah 6:8). And it is, of course, the essence of what Jonah did not say to God, as he hightailed it to Tarshish "to flee ... from the presence of the Lord" (Jonah 1:3).
The Hebrew behind Abraham and Isaiah's "here I am" is interesting. Literally, it is the interjection "behold" with the first-person, singular suffix tacked on the end.
The Lord asks, "Whom shall we send?" and Isaiah says, "Behold me!" The Lord calls to Abraham, and he responds, "Behold me!"
It's a risky business to answer God's call. But the eager, obedient ones wave their arms and cry out, "Over here! Pick me!"
An Alternative Application
Genesis 22:1-14. "What Kind of God Is This?" I imagine a sermon comprised of two scenes, carefully drawn for the congregation with words. The first scene shows a father and a son, each one bearing a heavy load up a hill.
The son's heavy load is wood. Some of us know well how heavy a load of wood can by to carry for any distance. It's the wood for a sacrifice that they'll make at the top of the hill.
The father is not carrying a physical load like the son. The heaviness is found in his heart. It's a heaviness of dread, of grief, of love. It's the heaviness of a breaking heart. Many of us know how heavy that load can be to carry.
It turns out, of course, that the father and the son are carrying the same load: that is, the weight of the son's sacrifice. The son innocently carries the instrument of it; the father carries the knowledge of it. And who has imposed this terrible load on this father and son? The Lord God. He required Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved.
Now comes the wondering aloud. What kind of God would ask such a thing? What kind of God promises a son, gives a son, and then takes that son away? What kind of God would break an old man's heart and needlessly steal a young man's life? And so on.
The second picture is a parallel. The Son carrying a load of wood up a hill; wood for a sacrifice; wood on which he himself will be sacrificed. The Father, meanwhile, bears the unspeakably heavy heart. But it is his doing. "It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain ... make his life an offering for sin" (Isaiah 53:10).
And then comes the wondering aloud. What kind of God would do such a thing? What kind of a God would offer his own son on behalf of sinners? What kind of God would bear an offense twice: the offense of human disobedience, and then the penalty for that offense, too? "What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul, what wondrous love is this, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul, to bear the dreadful curse for my soul."
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18
(This is the alternative psalm for Proper 8)
This is a lengthy psalm, rich in theological themes. It begins with a celebration of the Lord's hesed, or steadfast love (v. 1). Verse 3 recalls God's covenant, in verse 5 there is the theme of creation bearing witness to God. An ongoing theme (vv. 1, 2, 5, 8, 14, 24, 33) is God's faithfulness. A word-study on any one of these concepts could provide rich ground for a sermon.
While the first part of this psalm (from which today's lectionary selection is taken) is primarily a hymn of praise, the latter sections reveal catastrophic events that have led to a faith-crisis for the author. Beginning with verse 38, there are descriptions of the fall of the nation -- probably at the time of the Babylonian exile. The royal crown has been "defiled in the dust," and the walls of the capital have been breached. Everything worth cherishing, it seems, lies in ruins.
The first part sets the scene for the later complaint of national catastrophe. The psalmist is eager to establish the fact of the Lord's essential goodness and faithfulness, which will later be contrasted to the people's unfaithfulness. The collapse of the nation, therefore, is not the Lord's fault, but the fault of the people. God has only been fair and just, finally calling down judgment upon the wayward nation. "Lord, where is your steadfast love of old?" laments the author in verse 49. This is in stark contrast to the confident declaration of verse 1, "I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever."
There is a tension in this psalm, a contrast between faith and doubt, which is never completely resolved. Thus it is true to life, psychologically speaking. Faith in God is always a dynamic enterprise. In different seasons of life, and under widely varying circumstances, certainty gives way to questioning; faith gives way to doubt; gratitude gives way to lament. And then, in time, the winds of providence change, restoring a positive outlook once again. This psalm has it all.
Expanding beyond the range of verses cited in the lectionary, it is possible to preach this entire psalm as a microcosm of the human religious experience. There is something extremely powerful about proclaiming God's steadfast love and faithfulness amidst the chaos life sometimes brings. We may only half-believe in God's steadfast love, in such times, but we speak the words of praise and thanksgiving anyway, and one day we realize it has become easier to say them.
Although his viewpoint comes from outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition, these words spoken by the Native-American chief, Tecumseh, express this kind of resolute determination to praise God in all circumstances: "Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself."
The Lord is faithful. Our vocation, in response, is to praise.
