Expecting the unexpected
Commentary
I have a confession to make -- I am a member of Packrats Anonymous. PA is a 12-step program for those of us who find it difficult to part with anything no matter how useless it may seem to others. You may have heard of some of our members, like the guy who saved bits of string, tying end to end until he had a ball of string over six feet high. He was not really trying to create the world's largest ball of twine; it's just that like the rest of us he never knew when a certain length of string might come in handy.
One of the side effects of being a Packrat is that we are confined to living in the same residence for all of our life. It is not that we could not move if we wanted to, but rather that the expense of moving all of our accumulated treasures is prohibitive. Not only that, but we live in mortal fear that our spouses might take the occasion of such a move to weed out our storage units.
We do not hold yard sales -- we go to yard sales. It astounds us that other folks would actually be willing to part with items that might be needed for some unexpected project. And that is what makes us Packrats -- the belief that someday, somehow, somewhere we will need all 1,003 same-sized hex nuts we have stored up in mayonnaise jars.
We, the PA's of the world, always expect the unexpected.
Exodus 3:1-15
Chapter 3 of Exodus is one of those biblical passages, so rich in material and possibilities, that the preacher could spend an entire season with this text and still not exhaust its resources. First, there is the fire that would not go out. The burning bush, while certainly unexpected, was not really the main attraction of this encounter -- it was merely the means to an end. What is truly important is Moses' encounter with God. Yet, what we most focus on and most remember is the burning bush, or to put it another way, too often we home in on the messenger to the neglect of the message. Against all odds a person recovers from a serious illness and friends and family celebrate the miracle, but fail to ask what it is God might be trying to say through the miracle. A prayer, which has burdened the heart for a long time, is finally answered, but beyond the answering one seldom wonders whether God might be saying more than what was expected. Life's burning bushes are the places where one encounters God and it is the encounter, not the burning bush that transforms the heart.
Moving on, I believe the most important verses in this chapter are verses 7 and 8. The entire pre-exodus account in the book of Exodus depicts a cosmic battle fought out on terra firma. In one corner you have the patriarchal God, recently revealed to Moses as YHWH. In the other corner there are the various deities worshiped by the Egyptians represented by their iconographic manifestations of sun, Nile, bull, etc. Even before the fireworks begin the reader is given a warning that this YHWH is no ordinary deity. Indeed, this God does what is inconceivable for any other god. Notice especially the action verbs used in these two verses. YHWH sees, hears, knows, and acts. Of special importance among these verbs is the one translated "know." As elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures this word implies an intimacy and might well be translated "to experience with." All of this is to fulfill a promise God made to Abraham, a promise likely forgotten by everyone but God.
In order for God to do what God desires, a human agent becomes necessary. This fact does not diminish God, but rather takes seriously God's intention in creation to make humankind dominion-sharers and image-bearers of God. It is not to argue that God cannot operate unilaterally; rather that more often than not. God chooses not to operate unilaterally -- especially if one of God's human creatures can be persuaded to join God in the activity at hand. Thus, God called Moses and thus, he continues to call to us to join with God in contemporary re-creative acts.
But Moses demurs. I do not believe that the protestations of Moses represent a false modesty or even untruthfulness. Moses fully understood himself to be a flawed individual, and I would suggest that God would have agreed with Moses in that assessment. Flawed individuals are the raw material from which God works -- for the simple reason that that is the only material available.
However, what I find more important than Moses' arguments are God's responses -- and these responses are not what one might expect. In response to Moses' "who am I" question, God responds that clarity and certainty will come when Moses returns to this same mountain with the people of Israel. In other words, certainty and confirmation will only come after the fact! Moses is to act in faith, not in certainty. He is to go as God leads, still full of doubts and self-questioning. Only when Moses completes the task for which he has been commissioned can he look back over the experience and say, "Yeah, God was in that." God treats us no differently. It is only in the doing that God is to be recognized -- everything else is the definition of faith
As the First Lesson Focus points out, God's response to Moses' desire for a divine calling card is to provide a verb form combination that has proven terribly illusive to translators. Maybe what God is saying to Moses and to us is, "Hey, I am mystery -- get used to it." Short of that, however, my favorite take on God's name is "I will be what I have been." In other words, if anyone wants to know who I am, just have them take a look back over their history and they will understand. Remember when Abraham needed a road map? That was me. Remember when Isaac needed a stand-in sacrifice? That was me. Remember when Jacob needed a friend? That was me. Remember when Joseph needed protection? That was me. "What I have been," God said, "I will continue to be. Not just for now, but for all generations to come." This is the word of the LORD. Thanks be to God.
Romans 12:9-21
The Apostle Paul is a study in contrasts. For the writers of Emphasis much of the interpretive work done in Romans for the past several weeks has been an attempt to bring clarity out of an oftentimes confusing and contextually challenging letter. In today's passage, however, Paul could not be clearer about what it means. That clarity, nevertheless, does not make Paul's writing easier to swallow. Indeed, if praxis was the criteria by which one judged the difficulty of a passage, then today's text may be among the most difficult of all.
In each of his letters Paul moves from the theoretical (early in the letter) to the practical (later in the letter). In Romans that transition is made beginning with chapter 12. Any one of the admonitions of today's lesson is sufficient for an entire sermon, but there are several worthy of a closer look.
"Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good." In an ideal world this admonition would not only make sense, but it would not be terribly difficult to follow. For most folks that which is clearly evil is detested and what is clearly good is embraced, but we do not live in an ideal world. Rather we live in a world where even the good is smeared with evil and where some redeeming value can be seen in most evil. The difficulty for the modern person is in trying to distinguish the good from the bad when the tentacles of one are so intertwined in the outreach of the other. The tendency of many serious church folk is either to be so focused on evil that they are unable to celebrate the relative good, or conversely to be so focused on seeing the positive in life that evil slips in under the moral radar. Paul invites his reader to struggle with the reality of both good and evil and to find a way to keep each in its proper perspective.
"Extend hospitality to strangers." In trying to calm the anxiety of a nation on edge Franklin Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself." Our nation is once again on edge, only this time it seems that we have allowed our fears to conquer our better selves. This fearfulness is perhaps seen most clearly in how we respond to the stranger (the other; the one unlike how we are) among us. Specifically, this is seen in how we are invited by our leaders to regard the person of Middle-Eastern descent: be cautious, report suspicious activity, be on guard against activity we might consider abnormal. By contrast, our faith encourages us to welcome the stranger, to practice hospitality, to extend ourselves toward others in a manner reciprocal to our own expectations. The question implicit in Paul is, "As followers of Christ are we going to be led by our fears or by our faith?"
"Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly." There is an old saying that a person is known by the company that he/she keeps. Whenever my mother would remind me of this adage, it was always in the context of taking care not to hang out with those folks who would likely get me into trouble. Like so many others, I learned that lesson so well that now I only associate with "my kind of people." It is not that I consciously snub those who are economically, socially, educationally, or otherwise different than I am; it is just that I don't often think of them at all. This self-confession causes me a fair amount of dis-ease, but I suspect that if truth be told, I do not stand alone in my haughtiness.
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil." The last section of today's reading cautions us against acting as judge, jury and executioner against those who act in hurtful and demeaning ways. The temptation is great to become like those we hate, and few there are who are able to overcome that temptation. As a nation we deplore the taking of innocent life, especially if we are the victims, while we defend as collateral damage civilian casualties caused by our own actions. We teach our children to fight back when confronted, all the while defending such teaching as in keeping with Christian principles. When do you suppose we will ever get around to practicing the last part of this passage, "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty give them something to drink"? Or when will we do it without thinking that such kindness is just a more subtle form of vengeance?
No, Paul is not unclear in the passage. In fact, he is painfully clear.
Matthew 16:21-28
For a college instructor teaching first-year college students, one of the most challenging undertakings is moving a student from considering the factuality of an event or idea to considering the meaning of an event or idea. For instance, it is one thing to know that Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan in December 1941; it is something else to know the significance of that event on U.S. policy, politics, and self-consciousness.
Jesus had something of the same problem in moving the disciples from the factuality of his messiahship to the meaning and significance of that reality on those who chose to follow him. Today's passage follows hard on the heels of Peter's confession (speaking for his colleagues) that Jesus was the Messiah, the Promised One of God. Accepting that designation, Jesus proceeds to tell the disciples what that truth means for them.
Following this discourse, Peter takes Jesus aside in an effort to correct Jesus' messianic theology. For Peter, as for most messianic-minded Jews of that day, the advent of the Messiah meant the end of suffering, not more of it; it meant glorification not humiliation; it meant subjecting the Roman overlords, not being further subjected by them; and it certainly did not involve death and resurrection. For Jesus, by contrast, messianic understandings meant above all obedience to God, even if that obedience led ultimately to the giving up of one's life. Jesus fully understood the disconnect between his understanding and that of his disciples, and he began to instruct them more fully about that which they only knew in part.
One question worth considering is whether Jesus in his response to Peter is referring to Peter as Satan or if Jesus saw a powerful satanic temptation in the idea to which Peter gave voice. In other words, is Jesus rebuking Peter or is he rebuking the idea of Peter? The point may seem insignificant, but I tend to think that there is an important difference between dismissing a person and dismissing that person's misconception.
Jesus then addresses the disciples reminding them that anyone who wishes to be considered a follower of his must understand the concepts underlying self-denial, cross-bearing, and "followship." These are not new concepts to us moderns -- any cursory reading of the Gospels will bring the reader into repeated contact with these claims. As facts, we understand them. About how these "facts" play out in the life of the individual believer, we are less certain.
What exactly does self-denial "mean"? Are there limits to how much of the self one is to deny? Does self-denial mean purchasing a three-year-old Saturn rather than a new Explorer? Does it mean that all personal desires are sublimated to the wishes of the other, no matter who that other may be? Understanding the modern equivalency of cross-bearing is no easier. Is cross-bearing merely putting up with a disagreeable relative or acquaintance? Or does it mean something more serious and demanding? And what about following Jesus? Do any of us have even the faintest understanding of what life would look like if we took this command seriously?
There may indeed be no profit in gaining the world but losing one's soul, yet I suspect that most of us live as if gaining the world is a gamble we are willing to take. It is not the facts of faith that give us so much trouble; it is the content of faith.
Application
Exodus recounts for us the story of Moses minding his own business, tending sheep on the backside of nowhere, when all of a sudden he happened upon a fiery shrub that wouldn't quit. The text does not tell us what Moses might have expected to see in that grass deprived stretch of wilderness, but one thing is for sure -- a burning bush wasn't it.
Nor was Moses expecting what came next -- the voice of the Divine calling to him out of the blazing bush. Had Jethro told Moses not to be surprised if he should encounter God near the Mountain of God, still what God asked Moses to do could hardly have been anticipated by Jethro. What this passage invites us to consider is that one who desires to encounter God in this world had better learn to expect the unexpected.
Paul concludes his letter to the Roman congregation with an admonition for the Christian community to act in unexpected ways. In a world torn apart by strife and conflict, they were encouraged to live at peace with all persons. In a society where the Golden Rule was do unto others before they do unto you, Paul urged his readers to treat those who might be enemies with love and compassion. In a religious climate where faith commitments were fickle, the Romans were prompted toward steadfast obedience to God. Paul was saying that if one wants to make a difference for good and for God in the world, then one should practice the unexpected.
In Matthew, Peter and the others thought they had this Messiah thing figured out. The Messiah would come, the ins would be out and the outs would be in, and they would hold prime cabinet positions in the new order. Jesus not only assaults their preconceptions, but with this self-denying and cross-bearing stuff, he assaults our preconceptions as well. The disciples were certainly not prepared to hear words about death and resurrection. All of which teaches us that a follower of Jesus must come to believe the unexpected.
Alternative Applications
1) Exodus 3:1-15: In returning to Egypt, Moses was forced to come face-to-face with his past. The Egyptians may not have remembered Moses' crime, but chances are he could not forget it. When God calls us to service, oftentimes that call involves facing a past of which we are ashamed or embarrassed. This text could well be used to talk about not only the difficulty, but also the necessity of coming to grips with what is behind us so that we can be better servants for what is before us.
2) Romans 12:9-21: Paul encourages his readers to keep their spiritual fervor in serving the Lord. At the same time he tells the reader to let their love be genuine. Sometimes we serve the Lord not out of zeal, but out of obligation. Sometimes our spiritual fervor is a false faÁade hiding all manner of negative feelings. So how might one strike a balance between persistent zeal and genuine love? Is zealousness the only indicator of genuine love? Can there be times when genuineness and zeal are antithetical?
First Lesson Focus
Exodus 3:1-15
Moses is tending the flocks of Jethro near the base of Mount Sinai or Horeb in the Arabian peninsula, when he is confronted by the strange sight of a bush covered with fire and yet not burned up. In the Bible, fire is frequently associated with the presence of God, and the burning bush is no different. God speaks to Moses out of the fire, tells him he is standing on holy ground, and identifies himself as the same God who spoke to his forbears Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The Hebrew slaves in Egypt know nothing about such a God, nor does Moses at this point. So God must identify himself to Moses. Moreover, he tells Moses why he is confronting him. God has seen the affliction of his people and heard their cries, and he has come down to deliver them and to lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey. In other words, God is working toward the fulfillment of his ancient promise to Abraham. But God is also laying claim to the Hebrews as his own people. He is adopting them, making them members of his family -- Hosea says he adopts them as his "son" (Hosea 11:1). From this time forward, Israel belongs to God, much like you and I belong to God and are adopted by him in our baptisms (cf. Galatians 4:1-4).
The important point to note is the character of the Lord. First, he is a promise-keeping God, working to fulfill his word to Israel's forbears. But he is above all a redeeming and loving God who knows his people's suffering and who wishes to redeem them from their terrible bondage, as he wished in Jesus Christ to redeem us from ours. Israel, of course, doesn't even know God at this point, and she deserves nothing of his love, any more than we deserve the love of God in Christ. But God knows Israel and her need, as he came down in his begotten Son to know ours. And he works to supply Israel's need and ours, and to save the people whom he loves from bondage.
In order to deliver the Hebrews out of Egypt, however, the Lord needs a prophet who will tell the people what is happening and who will go at their head as leader. God therefore chooses Moses and commands him to return to Egypt with the message, "Let my (that is, God's) people go." But Moses wants no part of it. He's just a shepherd, pursuing his occupation. Lord, choose someone else.
The assurance the Lord gives to Moses to prop up Moses' courage is, "I will be with you." But Moses doesn't know this God and neither do the Hebrews. So he replies to the Lord, "Whom shall I say has sent me? What is your name, God?" The power of a deity is contained in his name, and if Moses knows God's name he can call on the God for assistance and command his power. But the supposed name with which the Lord answers Moses is strange. In the Hebrew it is 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh. Tradition has translated that, "I am who I am." But what the Hebrew really means, according to many scholars, is "I will indeed be with you." In other words, God doesn't give Moses his name, because God cannot be commanded or summoned by any human being. Rather, God simply repeats his promise. "I will be with you." And it is with that assurance that Moses is to return to face the king of the Egyptian Empire.
That seems like a flimsy guarantee, doesn't it, to have only the promise of the presence of the Lord when confronting the principalities and powers and evils of this world? But finally, that is the only guarantee that the Lord gives us also, good Christians. "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:20). No other assurance is given us that there are other helpers who will come to our aid, no other written life-insurance policy, no other signed and sealed guarantee. We have only that promise of our Lord: "I am with you." But if you stop to think about all that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has done in the past for us -- giving us all the Old Testament story about his working, sending us his only Son, redeeming us from sin and death, supporting us all our lives long, always keeping his words of promise, then perhaps we can conclude that simple sentence is enough. "I am with you." Yes, that is enough.
Lutheran Option -- Jeremiah 15:15-21
This passage is often called one of the Confessions of Jeremiah, but actually its first four verses form a prayer of lament that was uttered by the prophet sometime around 604-601 B.C. And the last three verses then give us the Lord's answer to that prayer.
Jeremiah is in terrible straits at this time. He has been called by God as a prophet to pronounce judgment on Judah because of her unfaithfulness to the Lord and to foretell her destruction and exile by the armies of the Babylonian Empire. (Jeremiah 7:8-15 gives a good summary of the sins of Judah.) According to Jeremiah 5:1-5, not one faithful person can be found in the whole country, and according to Jeremiah 8:4-7, none of the Judeans repents. So Jeremiah proclaims the words that God gives to him, and he finds delight in his calling by the Lord (Jeremiah 15:16). In fact, he even gladly suffers for the sake of God, sitting alone (15:17), because God has forbidden him to marry or attend a party or go to a funeral (16:2, 5, 8). Those functions are all gifts of God's grace, and God is withdrawing his grace from Judah.
The difficulty is that although the prophet has announced the coming judgment of God on his sinful people, the judgment has not come. And Jeremiah has become the object of scorn and persecution by his family, friends, and compatriots. Jeremiah therefore accuses the Lord of deceiving him, and he does so in the strongest words. "Are you like some little desert wadi," he cries out to God, "that runs full of water when it rains and then immediately dries up?" In other words, "Lord, you can't be trusted. You haven't kept your word. You claim to be a 'fountain of living water' (2:13), but you're nothing but a dry ditch."
Usually when we find such laments in the Psalms, for example, they are answered by words of assurance and salvation from God (cf. Psalm 31:19-24). But not here. Instead, Jeremiah's lament is answered by a rebuke from the Lord (15:19). Jeremiah needs to turn, to repent, to utter what is precious and not what is worthless. In his prayer, out of the midst of his suffering, the prophet has spoken his own words and voiced a lack of trust, so that God cannot use him. But God does not therefore discard his prophet as useless. He leaves the door open to Jeremiah to return to him. And God assures his sobbing prophet that he will be with him to save and deliver him from the hands of his enemies.
We sometimes find ourselves in similar situations, do we not? We think the Lord has deceived us. "God!" we cry out. "How can you do this to me? Why haven't you been gracious to me?" And the Lord God hears our anguished prayers, and he bears with us and pardons us and leaves the door open for us to rush once more into the comfort and support of his everlasting arms. This is a very patient and forgiving God whom we worship, friends. He will never throw us away.
The Political Pulpit
Romans 12:9-21
In view of the wide range of positions in the American church on capital punishment, preaching on the subject may not seem wise. But when coupled with recent data, this text opens fresh possibilities for examining capital punishment without alienating members or being heard as merely the preacher's private opinion.
To be sure, Paul is not directly addressing the question of capital punishment. But his exhortation that Christians are to bless those who persecute them, not to repay anyone evil for evil and never to avenge themselves (since vengeance is the Lord's) raises questions about the motives for capital punishment. Why are we putting people to death? Is it to get even, to avenge ourselves? This would not be in the spirit of Paul.
On the other hand, the Bible can also be cited for precedents for capital punishment. The "law of retaliation" of Exodus 21:24-25 (eye for an eye, wound for wound, etc.) seems to lend biblical support for the ultimate punishment. Exodus 21:12, 15, 17 and Leviticus 24:14-17 offer outright affirmations of the punishment. The Bible clearly does not in principle reject capital punishment.
Consideration of these pericopes indicates that their real purpose is to set strictures on what is fair and just punishment. Thus justice, what is good for the community and not vengeance, is the criterion for the Hebrew Bible's openness to capital punishment. If it is not just and good for the community as a whole (purifying the community through deterring impurity and evil), if criminals are put to death merely for the sake of retribution, the punishments advocated in these texts are not in accord with the biblical witness. The assigned pericope makes most sense as an elaboration, not an outright rejection, of the Old Testament openness to capital punishment. It merely reminds us of reasons not to take another life.
Turn to our contemporary situation. Does capital punishment purify the community, deter crime? No hard statistical evidence has been produced by proponents to answer that affirmatively. Crime rates have certainly not been markedly reduced since the Supreme Court in 1976 sanctioned the reinstitution of the death penalty.
Is the system just? Consider these sobering statistics. In 2000, there were 85 executions. Of those executed, 48 were white, 36 were black, and 1 was from another ethnic background. This is not a statistical glitch. Of the 4,542 executions from 1930 to 2000, more than half were black (Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2001, 203). Recall that African-Americans comprise roughly 12 percent of the American population. Can we really be confident of the system's administration of equal justice in view of the sobering statistics that suggest that 12 percent of the population is responsible for more than 50 percent of the capital crimes? Does the black "hood" really produce that many hardened criminals?
Let's not forget the system's recently well-publicized mistakes that DNA testing has revealed. As a result of these proven errors, Illinois has imposed moratoriums on executions. Maryland has done the same pending a study of whether the death penalty is being meted out according to standards of racial discrimination. Is it time for the rest of the nation to undertake such moratoriums? Things like that only happen if the public and the media exert pressure. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court setting limits on capital punishment suggest a climate of public concern critical of the practice. The American church's position on this matter can be crucial in building such a public consensus. Our word need not be one of advocacy. We are split in our own ranks. But can we not get our members to approach the questions with the same questions in mind: Does capital punishment deter? Is it being administered justly? If we can build consensus among American Christians about the relevance of these considerations, I am confident that the statistics and the realities will lead us to contribute to a social consensus that will put an end to capital punishment.
The system is flawed; it makes mistakes; it appears to be racially biased; we should err on the side of not repaying evil for evil, never avenging ourselves (Romans 12:17, 19).
One of the side effects of being a Packrat is that we are confined to living in the same residence for all of our life. It is not that we could not move if we wanted to, but rather that the expense of moving all of our accumulated treasures is prohibitive. Not only that, but we live in mortal fear that our spouses might take the occasion of such a move to weed out our storage units.
We do not hold yard sales -- we go to yard sales. It astounds us that other folks would actually be willing to part with items that might be needed for some unexpected project. And that is what makes us Packrats -- the belief that someday, somehow, somewhere we will need all 1,003 same-sized hex nuts we have stored up in mayonnaise jars.
We, the PA's of the world, always expect the unexpected.
Exodus 3:1-15
Chapter 3 of Exodus is one of those biblical passages, so rich in material and possibilities, that the preacher could spend an entire season with this text and still not exhaust its resources. First, there is the fire that would not go out. The burning bush, while certainly unexpected, was not really the main attraction of this encounter -- it was merely the means to an end. What is truly important is Moses' encounter with God. Yet, what we most focus on and most remember is the burning bush, or to put it another way, too often we home in on the messenger to the neglect of the message. Against all odds a person recovers from a serious illness and friends and family celebrate the miracle, but fail to ask what it is God might be trying to say through the miracle. A prayer, which has burdened the heart for a long time, is finally answered, but beyond the answering one seldom wonders whether God might be saying more than what was expected. Life's burning bushes are the places where one encounters God and it is the encounter, not the burning bush that transforms the heart.
Moving on, I believe the most important verses in this chapter are verses 7 and 8. The entire pre-exodus account in the book of Exodus depicts a cosmic battle fought out on terra firma. In one corner you have the patriarchal God, recently revealed to Moses as YHWH. In the other corner there are the various deities worshiped by the Egyptians represented by their iconographic manifestations of sun, Nile, bull, etc. Even before the fireworks begin the reader is given a warning that this YHWH is no ordinary deity. Indeed, this God does what is inconceivable for any other god. Notice especially the action verbs used in these two verses. YHWH sees, hears, knows, and acts. Of special importance among these verbs is the one translated "know." As elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures this word implies an intimacy and might well be translated "to experience with." All of this is to fulfill a promise God made to Abraham, a promise likely forgotten by everyone but God.
In order for God to do what God desires, a human agent becomes necessary. This fact does not diminish God, but rather takes seriously God's intention in creation to make humankind dominion-sharers and image-bearers of God. It is not to argue that God cannot operate unilaterally; rather that more often than not. God chooses not to operate unilaterally -- especially if one of God's human creatures can be persuaded to join God in the activity at hand. Thus, God called Moses and thus, he continues to call to us to join with God in contemporary re-creative acts.
But Moses demurs. I do not believe that the protestations of Moses represent a false modesty or even untruthfulness. Moses fully understood himself to be a flawed individual, and I would suggest that God would have agreed with Moses in that assessment. Flawed individuals are the raw material from which God works -- for the simple reason that that is the only material available.
However, what I find more important than Moses' arguments are God's responses -- and these responses are not what one might expect. In response to Moses' "who am I" question, God responds that clarity and certainty will come when Moses returns to this same mountain with the people of Israel. In other words, certainty and confirmation will only come after the fact! Moses is to act in faith, not in certainty. He is to go as God leads, still full of doubts and self-questioning. Only when Moses completes the task for which he has been commissioned can he look back over the experience and say, "Yeah, God was in that." God treats us no differently. It is only in the doing that God is to be recognized -- everything else is the definition of faith
As the First Lesson Focus points out, God's response to Moses' desire for a divine calling card is to provide a verb form combination that has proven terribly illusive to translators. Maybe what God is saying to Moses and to us is, "Hey, I am mystery -- get used to it." Short of that, however, my favorite take on God's name is "I will be what I have been." In other words, if anyone wants to know who I am, just have them take a look back over their history and they will understand. Remember when Abraham needed a road map? That was me. Remember when Isaac needed a stand-in sacrifice? That was me. Remember when Jacob needed a friend? That was me. Remember when Joseph needed protection? That was me. "What I have been," God said, "I will continue to be. Not just for now, but for all generations to come." This is the word of the LORD. Thanks be to God.
Romans 12:9-21
The Apostle Paul is a study in contrasts. For the writers of Emphasis much of the interpretive work done in Romans for the past several weeks has been an attempt to bring clarity out of an oftentimes confusing and contextually challenging letter. In today's passage, however, Paul could not be clearer about what it means. That clarity, nevertheless, does not make Paul's writing easier to swallow. Indeed, if praxis was the criteria by which one judged the difficulty of a passage, then today's text may be among the most difficult of all.
In each of his letters Paul moves from the theoretical (early in the letter) to the practical (later in the letter). In Romans that transition is made beginning with chapter 12. Any one of the admonitions of today's lesson is sufficient for an entire sermon, but there are several worthy of a closer look.
"Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good." In an ideal world this admonition would not only make sense, but it would not be terribly difficult to follow. For most folks that which is clearly evil is detested and what is clearly good is embraced, but we do not live in an ideal world. Rather we live in a world where even the good is smeared with evil and where some redeeming value can be seen in most evil. The difficulty for the modern person is in trying to distinguish the good from the bad when the tentacles of one are so intertwined in the outreach of the other. The tendency of many serious church folk is either to be so focused on evil that they are unable to celebrate the relative good, or conversely to be so focused on seeing the positive in life that evil slips in under the moral radar. Paul invites his reader to struggle with the reality of both good and evil and to find a way to keep each in its proper perspective.
"Extend hospitality to strangers." In trying to calm the anxiety of a nation on edge Franklin Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself." Our nation is once again on edge, only this time it seems that we have allowed our fears to conquer our better selves. This fearfulness is perhaps seen most clearly in how we respond to the stranger (the other; the one unlike how we are) among us. Specifically, this is seen in how we are invited by our leaders to regard the person of Middle-Eastern descent: be cautious, report suspicious activity, be on guard against activity we might consider abnormal. By contrast, our faith encourages us to welcome the stranger, to practice hospitality, to extend ourselves toward others in a manner reciprocal to our own expectations. The question implicit in Paul is, "As followers of Christ are we going to be led by our fears or by our faith?"
"Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly." There is an old saying that a person is known by the company that he/she keeps. Whenever my mother would remind me of this adage, it was always in the context of taking care not to hang out with those folks who would likely get me into trouble. Like so many others, I learned that lesson so well that now I only associate with "my kind of people." It is not that I consciously snub those who are economically, socially, educationally, or otherwise different than I am; it is just that I don't often think of them at all. This self-confession causes me a fair amount of dis-ease, but I suspect that if truth be told, I do not stand alone in my haughtiness.
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil." The last section of today's reading cautions us against acting as judge, jury and executioner against those who act in hurtful and demeaning ways. The temptation is great to become like those we hate, and few there are who are able to overcome that temptation. As a nation we deplore the taking of innocent life, especially if we are the victims, while we defend as collateral damage civilian casualties caused by our own actions. We teach our children to fight back when confronted, all the while defending such teaching as in keeping with Christian principles. When do you suppose we will ever get around to practicing the last part of this passage, "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty give them something to drink"? Or when will we do it without thinking that such kindness is just a more subtle form of vengeance?
No, Paul is not unclear in the passage. In fact, he is painfully clear.
Matthew 16:21-28
For a college instructor teaching first-year college students, one of the most challenging undertakings is moving a student from considering the factuality of an event or idea to considering the meaning of an event or idea. For instance, it is one thing to know that Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan in December 1941; it is something else to know the significance of that event on U.S. policy, politics, and self-consciousness.
Jesus had something of the same problem in moving the disciples from the factuality of his messiahship to the meaning and significance of that reality on those who chose to follow him. Today's passage follows hard on the heels of Peter's confession (speaking for his colleagues) that Jesus was the Messiah, the Promised One of God. Accepting that designation, Jesus proceeds to tell the disciples what that truth means for them.
Following this discourse, Peter takes Jesus aside in an effort to correct Jesus' messianic theology. For Peter, as for most messianic-minded Jews of that day, the advent of the Messiah meant the end of suffering, not more of it; it meant glorification not humiliation; it meant subjecting the Roman overlords, not being further subjected by them; and it certainly did not involve death and resurrection. For Jesus, by contrast, messianic understandings meant above all obedience to God, even if that obedience led ultimately to the giving up of one's life. Jesus fully understood the disconnect between his understanding and that of his disciples, and he began to instruct them more fully about that which they only knew in part.
One question worth considering is whether Jesus in his response to Peter is referring to Peter as Satan or if Jesus saw a powerful satanic temptation in the idea to which Peter gave voice. In other words, is Jesus rebuking Peter or is he rebuking the idea of Peter? The point may seem insignificant, but I tend to think that there is an important difference between dismissing a person and dismissing that person's misconception.
Jesus then addresses the disciples reminding them that anyone who wishes to be considered a follower of his must understand the concepts underlying self-denial, cross-bearing, and "followship." These are not new concepts to us moderns -- any cursory reading of the Gospels will bring the reader into repeated contact with these claims. As facts, we understand them. About how these "facts" play out in the life of the individual believer, we are less certain.
What exactly does self-denial "mean"? Are there limits to how much of the self one is to deny? Does self-denial mean purchasing a three-year-old Saturn rather than a new Explorer? Does it mean that all personal desires are sublimated to the wishes of the other, no matter who that other may be? Understanding the modern equivalency of cross-bearing is no easier. Is cross-bearing merely putting up with a disagreeable relative or acquaintance? Or does it mean something more serious and demanding? And what about following Jesus? Do any of us have even the faintest understanding of what life would look like if we took this command seriously?
There may indeed be no profit in gaining the world but losing one's soul, yet I suspect that most of us live as if gaining the world is a gamble we are willing to take. It is not the facts of faith that give us so much trouble; it is the content of faith.
Application
Exodus recounts for us the story of Moses minding his own business, tending sheep on the backside of nowhere, when all of a sudden he happened upon a fiery shrub that wouldn't quit. The text does not tell us what Moses might have expected to see in that grass deprived stretch of wilderness, but one thing is for sure -- a burning bush wasn't it.
Nor was Moses expecting what came next -- the voice of the Divine calling to him out of the blazing bush. Had Jethro told Moses not to be surprised if he should encounter God near the Mountain of God, still what God asked Moses to do could hardly have been anticipated by Jethro. What this passage invites us to consider is that one who desires to encounter God in this world had better learn to expect the unexpected.
Paul concludes his letter to the Roman congregation with an admonition for the Christian community to act in unexpected ways. In a world torn apart by strife and conflict, they were encouraged to live at peace with all persons. In a society where the Golden Rule was do unto others before they do unto you, Paul urged his readers to treat those who might be enemies with love and compassion. In a religious climate where faith commitments were fickle, the Romans were prompted toward steadfast obedience to God. Paul was saying that if one wants to make a difference for good and for God in the world, then one should practice the unexpected.
In Matthew, Peter and the others thought they had this Messiah thing figured out. The Messiah would come, the ins would be out and the outs would be in, and they would hold prime cabinet positions in the new order. Jesus not only assaults their preconceptions, but with this self-denying and cross-bearing stuff, he assaults our preconceptions as well. The disciples were certainly not prepared to hear words about death and resurrection. All of which teaches us that a follower of Jesus must come to believe the unexpected.
Alternative Applications
1) Exodus 3:1-15: In returning to Egypt, Moses was forced to come face-to-face with his past. The Egyptians may not have remembered Moses' crime, but chances are he could not forget it. When God calls us to service, oftentimes that call involves facing a past of which we are ashamed or embarrassed. This text could well be used to talk about not only the difficulty, but also the necessity of coming to grips with what is behind us so that we can be better servants for what is before us.
2) Romans 12:9-21: Paul encourages his readers to keep their spiritual fervor in serving the Lord. At the same time he tells the reader to let their love be genuine. Sometimes we serve the Lord not out of zeal, but out of obligation. Sometimes our spiritual fervor is a false faÁade hiding all manner of negative feelings. So how might one strike a balance between persistent zeal and genuine love? Is zealousness the only indicator of genuine love? Can there be times when genuineness and zeal are antithetical?
First Lesson Focus
Exodus 3:1-15
Moses is tending the flocks of Jethro near the base of Mount Sinai or Horeb in the Arabian peninsula, when he is confronted by the strange sight of a bush covered with fire and yet not burned up. In the Bible, fire is frequently associated with the presence of God, and the burning bush is no different. God speaks to Moses out of the fire, tells him he is standing on holy ground, and identifies himself as the same God who spoke to his forbears Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The Hebrew slaves in Egypt know nothing about such a God, nor does Moses at this point. So God must identify himself to Moses. Moreover, he tells Moses why he is confronting him. God has seen the affliction of his people and heard their cries, and he has come down to deliver them and to lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey. In other words, God is working toward the fulfillment of his ancient promise to Abraham. But God is also laying claim to the Hebrews as his own people. He is adopting them, making them members of his family -- Hosea says he adopts them as his "son" (Hosea 11:1). From this time forward, Israel belongs to God, much like you and I belong to God and are adopted by him in our baptisms (cf. Galatians 4:1-4).
The important point to note is the character of the Lord. First, he is a promise-keeping God, working to fulfill his word to Israel's forbears. But he is above all a redeeming and loving God who knows his people's suffering and who wishes to redeem them from their terrible bondage, as he wished in Jesus Christ to redeem us from ours. Israel, of course, doesn't even know God at this point, and she deserves nothing of his love, any more than we deserve the love of God in Christ. But God knows Israel and her need, as he came down in his begotten Son to know ours. And he works to supply Israel's need and ours, and to save the people whom he loves from bondage.
In order to deliver the Hebrews out of Egypt, however, the Lord needs a prophet who will tell the people what is happening and who will go at their head as leader. God therefore chooses Moses and commands him to return to Egypt with the message, "Let my (that is, God's) people go." But Moses wants no part of it. He's just a shepherd, pursuing his occupation. Lord, choose someone else.
The assurance the Lord gives to Moses to prop up Moses' courage is, "I will be with you." But Moses doesn't know this God and neither do the Hebrews. So he replies to the Lord, "Whom shall I say has sent me? What is your name, God?" The power of a deity is contained in his name, and if Moses knows God's name he can call on the God for assistance and command his power. But the supposed name with which the Lord answers Moses is strange. In the Hebrew it is 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh. Tradition has translated that, "I am who I am." But what the Hebrew really means, according to many scholars, is "I will indeed be with you." In other words, God doesn't give Moses his name, because God cannot be commanded or summoned by any human being. Rather, God simply repeats his promise. "I will be with you." And it is with that assurance that Moses is to return to face the king of the Egyptian Empire.
That seems like a flimsy guarantee, doesn't it, to have only the promise of the presence of the Lord when confronting the principalities and powers and evils of this world? But finally, that is the only guarantee that the Lord gives us also, good Christians. "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:20). No other assurance is given us that there are other helpers who will come to our aid, no other written life-insurance policy, no other signed and sealed guarantee. We have only that promise of our Lord: "I am with you." But if you stop to think about all that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has done in the past for us -- giving us all the Old Testament story about his working, sending us his only Son, redeeming us from sin and death, supporting us all our lives long, always keeping his words of promise, then perhaps we can conclude that simple sentence is enough. "I am with you." Yes, that is enough.
Lutheran Option -- Jeremiah 15:15-21
This passage is often called one of the Confessions of Jeremiah, but actually its first four verses form a prayer of lament that was uttered by the prophet sometime around 604-601 B.C. And the last three verses then give us the Lord's answer to that prayer.
Jeremiah is in terrible straits at this time. He has been called by God as a prophet to pronounce judgment on Judah because of her unfaithfulness to the Lord and to foretell her destruction and exile by the armies of the Babylonian Empire. (Jeremiah 7:8-15 gives a good summary of the sins of Judah.) According to Jeremiah 5:1-5, not one faithful person can be found in the whole country, and according to Jeremiah 8:4-7, none of the Judeans repents. So Jeremiah proclaims the words that God gives to him, and he finds delight in his calling by the Lord (Jeremiah 15:16). In fact, he even gladly suffers for the sake of God, sitting alone (15:17), because God has forbidden him to marry or attend a party or go to a funeral (16:2, 5, 8). Those functions are all gifts of God's grace, and God is withdrawing his grace from Judah.
The difficulty is that although the prophet has announced the coming judgment of God on his sinful people, the judgment has not come. And Jeremiah has become the object of scorn and persecution by his family, friends, and compatriots. Jeremiah therefore accuses the Lord of deceiving him, and he does so in the strongest words. "Are you like some little desert wadi," he cries out to God, "that runs full of water when it rains and then immediately dries up?" In other words, "Lord, you can't be trusted. You haven't kept your word. You claim to be a 'fountain of living water' (2:13), but you're nothing but a dry ditch."
Usually when we find such laments in the Psalms, for example, they are answered by words of assurance and salvation from God (cf. Psalm 31:19-24). But not here. Instead, Jeremiah's lament is answered by a rebuke from the Lord (15:19). Jeremiah needs to turn, to repent, to utter what is precious and not what is worthless. In his prayer, out of the midst of his suffering, the prophet has spoken his own words and voiced a lack of trust, so that God cannot use him. But God does not therefore discard his prophet as useless. He leaves the door open to Jeremiah to return to him. And God assures his sobbing prophet that he will be with him to save and deliver him from the hands of his enemies.
We sometimes find ourselves in similar situations, do we not? We think the Lord has deceived us. "God!" we cry out. "How can you do this to me? Why haven't you been gracious to me?" And the Lord God hears our anguished prayers, and he bears with us and pardons us and leaves the door open for us to rush once more into the comfort and support of his everlasting arms. This is a very patient and forgiving God whom we worship, friends. He will never throw us away.
The Political Pulpit
Romans 12:9-21
In view of the wide range of positions in the American church on capital punishment, preaching on the subject may not seem wise. But when coupled with recent data, this text opens fresh possibilities for examining capital punishment without alienating members or being heard as merely the preacher's private opinion.
To be sure, Paul is not directly addressing the question of capital punishment. But his exhortation that Christians are to bless those who persecute them, not to repay anyone evil for evil and never to avenge themselves (since vengeance is the Lord's) raises questions about the motives for capital punishment. Why are we putting people to death? Is it to get even, to avenge ourselves? This would not be in the spirit of Paul.
On the other hand, the Bible can also be cited for precedents for capital punishment. The "law of retaliation" of Exodus 21:24-25 (eye for an eye, wound for wound, etc.) seems to lend biblical support for the ultimate punishment. Exodus 21:12, 15, 17 and Leviticus 24:14-17 offer outright affirmations of the punishment. The Bible clearly does not in principle reject capital punishment.
Consideration of these pericopes indicates that their real purpose is to set strictures on what is fair and just punishment. Thus justice, what is good for the community and not vengeance, is the criterion for the Hebrew Bible's openness to capital punishment. If it is not just and good for the community as a whole (purifying the community through deterring impurity and evil), if criminals are put to death merely for the sake of retribution, the punishments advocated in these texts are not in accord with the biblical witness. The assigned pericope makes most sense as an elaboration, not an outright rejection, of the Old Testament openness to capital punishment. It merely reminds us of reasons not to take another life.
Turn to our contemporary situation. Does capital punishment purify the community, deter crime? No hard statistical evidence has been produced by proponents to answer that affirmatively. Crime rates have certainly not been markedly reduced since the Supreme Court in 1976 sanctioned the reinstitution of the death penalty.
Is the system just? Consider these sobering statistics. In 2000, there were 85 executions. Of those executed, 48 were white, 36 were black, and 1 was from another ethnic background. This is not a statistical glitch. Of the 4,542 executions from 1930 to 2000, more than half were black (Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2001, 203). Recall that African-Americans comprise roughly 12 percent of the American population. Can we really be confident of the system's administration of equal justice in view of the sobering statistics that suggest that 12 percent of the population is responsible for more than 50 percent of the capital crimes? Does the black "hood" really produce that many hardened criminals?
Let's not forget the system's recently well-publicized mistakes that DNA testing has revealed. As a result of these proven errors, Illinois has imposed moratoriums on executions. Maryland has done the same pending a study of whether the death penalty is being meted out according to standards of racial discrimination. Is it time for the rest of the nation to undertake such moratoriums? Things like that only happen if the public and the media exert pressure. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court setting limits on capital punishment suggest a climate of public concern critical of the practice. The American church's position on this matter can be crucial in building such a public consensus. Our word need not be one of advocacy. We are split in our own ranks. But can we not get our members to approach the questions with the same questions in mind: Does capital punishment deter? Is it being administered justly? If we can build consensus among American Christians about the relevance of these considerations, I am confident that the statistics and the realities will lead us to contribute to a social consensus that will put an end to capital punishment.
The system is flawed; it makes mistakes; it appears to be racially biased; we should err on the side of not repaying evil for evil, never avenging ourselves (Romans 12:17, 19).
