“Reformation: How Martin Luther found Freedom in the Word of God…and how we can, too!”

Reformation Sunday

October 28, 2012

John 8:31-36

 On October 31, 1517…a mere 495 years ago, a relatively unknown monk living in a small city in Germany performed an act that would, unbeknownst to him at the time, turn the church upside down.  When he tacked his writings on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Luther may have had some inclination of what awaited him at the hand of the King Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Leo X…but he had even more of an inclination that the power of the word of God had set him free to challenge the abuses he saw in the church, namely, the selling of indulgences as a fundraiser to build St Peters in Rome. 

Had Martin Luther been around 50 or 100 years earlier, this never would have happened…but the advent of the printing press made it possible for his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to be read by anyone who was literate.  Before the creation of the printing press, folks like Luther who challenged Rome would be silently “removed” from the situation, most commonly by being burned at the stake.  And to be honest, had it not been for the intervention of Saxony’s Prince Fredrick the Wise, Luther would have wound up burnt on a stake and the Reformation may not have happened.  But there he stood, at the door of the castle church with a hammer, a nail, and 95 theses in his hands, having found the freedom to Sin Boldly, freedom which he found in the word of God.

Luther hadn’t always had that freedom to challenge the status quo in the church.  In his earlier years as a monk, Luther was enslaved by his own sin and the feelings of guilt surrounding those sins.  He had become enslaved by an image of God as an angry, judgmental God, ready to swat down a sinner like someone chasing a fly with a fly swatter.  He was enslaved by the idea that there was absolutely nothing that he could do to earn the love of this image of God’s and that he was doomed to suffer in the bowels of purgatory or hell.  So Luther, almost literally, enslaved himself to the practices of penance - fasting, long hours of prayer, he would whip himself, and he spent many, many hours in the confessional, all in attempts to make peace with his image of an angry God.  And the more he tried to find peace with God, the more and more he became enslaved by the thought that this would never happen for a sinner such as he thought he was.

So where did Luther find this freedom to sin boldly and call the church out for its abuses?

Luther’s superior, Johann Van Staupitz, in seeing the depth of Luther’s struggle, sent him to Wittenburg to study and to teach. It was in these academic studies that Luther became so deeply exposed to the bible, and particularly the New Testament…it was in these academic studies that Luther finally grasped the words “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed,” and “We hold that a person is justified by faith, apart from works, as prescribed by the law.”  Luther realized in his reading of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels and Romans, that salvation isn’t about what you do, it’s about who you are as a beloved child of God.  Luther found the peace and the freedom that he was looking for in the word of God…and I’m not just talking about the words written in the bible…I’m talking about the Word made Flesh. 

When Luther found the grace that comes to us through Christ, as revealed in the scriptures, it opened up a whole new world for him.  One in which an angry, vengeful, God was replaced by a God who loves and who seeks the lost and the broken and brings them peace. 

This is the freedom that Luther needed to allow him to preach and teach to the people of Wittenburg, it is this freedom that gave Luther the courage to call the Pope, and the church in Rome, out on its abuses perpetrated in the selling of indulgences, taking advantage of an illiterate public that had never had the opportunity to read the bible for themselves and selling them a vision of fire and brimstone that could only be escaped by purchasing get out of purgatory free cards, so that the capital campaign to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome could be funded.  It is this freedom that caused Luther to stand firm in his challenges to Rome at his trials, for he could do no other…and it is this freedom that inspired Luther to take another step towards treason against the church when he translated the New Testament, and eventually the whole bible into German so that the Word of God could be placed into the hands of the people who before had to rely on the testimony of the priests to learn about faith.  

As we gather here, 495 years after Luther tacked the 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenburg, it is very tempting for us as people who live with the freedom to worship however and wherever we wish, to echo the words of the Jews who believed in Jesus “we are children of Abraham, and have never been slaves to anyone.”  But when we do this, we ignore two realities, the reality of our history of slavery, and the reality that we share with our dear brother Martin.  Like him, we too have enslaved ourselves to things that keep us from being able to live fully, love fully, and serve fully.  We have become enslaved to fear, enslaved to wealth, enslaved to possessions, enslaved to own self-consciousness, our own sin and our own guilt.  And these things that enslave us keep us from being able to stand up and sin boldly for the sake of the Gospel. 

But just as Luther found freedom in the Word of God, so can we.  There is freedom waiting for us in the Word made Flesh in the person of Jesus Christ whose death and resurrection, the acts that freed us from our sin and granted us life, are revealed to us in the words of scripture.  There is freedom waiting for us in the grace that God provides for us as beloved children of God who are saved and set free from our sin not because of anything we do or do not do, but rather because of the love, hope, and peace that God grants us in this gift. 

We are children of a God of love, one who looks into our hearts and consistently finds the best that is within us and tries to draw that out of us.  We are children of a God who freed us, through Christ, to live fully, to love fully, to serve fully, with total confidence in God’s love and grace, without fear of making mistakes, without the guilt that can overcome us when we mess up, without the chains that our sin has tried to shackle us with.  We are free to live as people of God…to sin boldly as sinners who have been set free to be saints of God…to continue to walk in the steps of Martin Luther, working for justice and peace in the church and out in the world. 

“Cut it off? No, Cut it Out!”

Pentecost 17

September 30, 2012

Mark 9:38-50

 

Can you imagine the side conversations going on between the disciples after Jesus’ teaching here?

What does he mean cut your hand off if it causes you to stumble? Doesn’t he know how much that is going to hurt?  Is he serious?  And what exactly does stumble mean?  What are the rules we have to follow if we are going to do just what Jesus said we should do?   But again, is he really serious?  Cause I gave that other exorcist a dirty look earlier for not following the rules…does that mean I should go take my eye out?  I don’t know if I could do that.

And it all started because John and the disciples were threatened that there was someone outside of the twelve who was able to cast out demons in Jesus’ name…and they had had some trouble with it.  He wasn’t one of them…he hadn’t been in the inner circle…how was he able to cast out demons in Jesus’ name…that’s not fair…Jesus, make him stop…he’s not following us!

Wait us? I thought you were all following Jesus…shouldn’t John have said he’s not following you? Actually, he couldn’t have really said that because it wouldn’t have been true. The man was following Jesus and had apparently picked up some tricks in regards to casting out demons in Jesus’ name. 

So Jesus responds to John “don’t stop him from doing deeds of power in my name.  He’s making a difference, and if you stop him, the deeds of power being done by him in my name are going to end.  And there’s really no reason for you to be worried, someone who does a deed of power in my name isn’t going to be speaking ill of me anytime soon.” 

That’s when Jesus launches into the better than’s…it would be better for you if a millstone were tied around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to make a little one who believes in me stumble…it would be better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have a hand or foot that causes you to sin…it you would be better for you to have one eye, than two eyes that cause you do things you shouldn’t.   

And we repeat…boy, I really hope he’s not serious.

And Jesus isn’t serious.  He doesn’t want us to cut off our hands and feet or tear our eye out if they cause us to sin.  There would sure by a lot of bloodshed if that happened.  Instead, Jesus takes the opportunity to employ a bit of exaggeration to get the attention of the disciples…and our attention as well.  Be careful of the things we say, the things we do, and the way we look at people sometimes.  It’s easy to be hurtful when we are not careful.  And it happens to all of us, when we get cut off in traffic, when someone participates in an activity that we don’t approve of, we a project we are working on gets messed up, or when someone steals the spotlight from us…when we get annoyed, or frustrated, or become focused solely on ourselves, it gets easy to say and act in ways that we wish we could take back later. 

It’s in these cases that it’s good to know that Jesus isn’t always dead serious when he teaches…that sometimes he bit of a flare for the dramatic when trying to get a point across.  It’s also a good thing that there really is no such thing as a true biblical literalist.  Otherwise, there would be a lot of people out there walking around missing an eye, a hand, a foot…maybe even a tongue.  If we did take everything in the bible literally, then maybe the group of disciples would look like what Pastor Michael Coffey, from Austin, Texas, described in this poem. 

"One of them came in wet with a millstone and a rope

knotted around his throat gasping for air having dragged

the darn thing up from the bottom of the river

where he once was baptized a while back

because he had cursed at a child for high pitched screaming

Another came in with her right hand

hacked off – she was left-handed –

and she dripped crimson drops all the way

down the hall to Jesus' living room

admitting she had used the missing appendage

to flip someone off in traffic for cutting in

One more limped in with a lopped off foot

in his hand and he dropped to the floor sobbing

because he had tripped someone in line

in front of him to get a better seat

at the Bruce Springstein concert

Then there was the disciple who had an eye patch

and fumbled her way through the door

having glared at her next door neighbor with

a rude stare because she looked way too  good

in that new dress and those shoes with red soles

and wished she would trip and tear her ACL

The poem doesn’t end here.  But what comes next really hits what Jesus was trying to get across to the disciples.  And to us. 

They gathered around Jesus, each face

with a seriousness that puzzled the good Lord

except for the one with the plucked out eye –

it was hard to look puzzled with the patch and all.

He looked at them and said,

holding back an uncharacteristic chuckle:

For God’s sake, stop damaging yourselves.

You know I was kidding, right? 

Have you heard of hyperbole, people?

Just don’t do those mean things anymore

and if you do, say you’re sorry, make amends, and move on.

Lift up the lowly and respect the helpless.  

 It’s just not that hard.

Come on, folks!  Get over yourselves!

You're not that bad, and you're not that good."

There’s no actual call for us to damage ourselves when we do wrong by our neighbors…but rather, a call to do our best to be at peace with each other, to keep our actions and our words in check, because we never really know what the reactions will be to them.   None of us are perfect, we’re all going to offend someone at some point, whether we mean to or not…it’s a fact of life.   

And knowing that none of us are perfect and that sometimes it is hard for us to be at peace with each other, Jesus went to the cross and initiated the peace making process.  For in that act, Jesus made peace between us and God, which opened up for us a pathway through which we can to be at peace with one another.  To make amends when we mess up, to love one another and to be that salt that adds flavor to one another’s lives.  That sounds like a much better deal that cutting our limbs off.    

Questions?

Pentecost 17

September 23, 2012

Mark 9:30-37

Have you ever wondered if the disciples are actually paying attention to what is going on as they have been following Jesus?  In the time between last week’s Gospel reading, in which Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah and then promptly sticks his foot in his mouth, and this morning’s text, a lot has happened.  Jesus has gone up the mountain with Peter, James, and John and been Transfigured, then upon returning from the mountain, he heals a boy with an unclean spirit that the disciples had been unable to heal because, apparently, they didn’t pray.  And now, Jesus is again foretelling his death and resurrection, and pointing to a child as a model of discipleship.  That’s a lot to process in a couple of days…surely there had to be some questions from the disciples in regards to what was going on…but, then, why is it that all but one of the questions that Mark mentions in this portion of chapter 9 comes from Jesus? 

The only question that comes from the disciples was ‘why couldn’t we cast the demon out?’

But Jesus’ questions are a little more pointed: ‘What are you arguing about with them?’ 

‘You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? 

‘What were you arguing about on the way?’

I imagine this is the rabbi version of a mother asking her children “do I have to come back there and separate you?”

Why were the disciples so afraid to ask Jesus questions when they didn’t understand what was going on?  Were they afraid that Jesus would rebuke them like he did Peter when Peter stuck his foot in his mouth?  Were they afraid that they would look silly if they asked the wrong question?  Were they afraid that Jesus would just ask another pointed question in return?

My guess is that it was a combination of these things.  They were afraid that they would look silly in front of the other disciples and would be put next to Peter as that other disciple that Jesus rebuked.  But, really who could blame them for being afraid to ask Jesus about something they didn’t understand.  For most adults, it’s a normal reaction.  We want to look like we’re on track with the straight A students in our class, we want to seem like we “get it” even though sometimes we don’t…because pretending to get it is a lot easier than having to admit that we don’t get it.  When I was in college, I didn’t get a lot of what was going on in my science classes…probably the first sign I should have majored in religion all along instead of torturing myself with a biology major.  But I was afraid to ask questions because I was so used to being the kid in high school who got it when it came to science.  I didn’t want to be thought of as that girl who asks the silly questions…did she even study the material?  So I didn’t ask questions…but I was also the kid who, in middle school asked all the questions that drove my classmates nuts because it often meant that we wouldn’t get out of confirmation class or math class early.  And I know I’m not the only one…somewhere between the beginning of middle school and the beginning of high school, questions become taboo…the but why? but why? but why? Stage has ended and self-consciousness takes over. 

And sometimes there’s a reason that we become afraid to ask questions…and that’s because we are taught that to question is to lack faith.  I have friends who were taught as children that it’s not ok to ask big questions about God and the church, because it means that you’re starting to go down the wrong path where faith is concerned.  You don’t want to become a doubting Thomas, do you?  One friend was asked by her pastor. 

But what’s wrong with being a doubting Thomas?  Thomas was the only one of the disciples with the boldness to ask questions, to put himself out there, and in the end he was the disciple that really got it.  Sadly, Thomas doesn’t get much play in the gospel of Mark, but I think that this allows Jesus to offer up a better example to the disciples, and to us, of what discipleship is all about…it’s about asking questions and not being afraid to be who you are, even if that means you don’t get it all the time. 

On the way, the disciples had taken up the argument over which one of them was the greatest…it was a common argument to be had amongst people of the time.  But their arguing went totally against the point of Jesus’ mission. Jesus’ mission and ministry wasn’t about being the greatest, it was about being a servant, it was about building up those around you instead of seeking to be built up.  And so he places a small child in the middle of the group of disciples, perhaps the child of one of the disciples and he says to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

The power behind this statement is immeasurable…more so for the disciples than it is for us.  You see, at that time, children were seen as the promise of the future...but in the meantime, they were also a liability.  A child was more likely to become ill and die, a child did participate in the productivity of the household…but not at the level of an adult, and a regardless of the child’s productivity, it was still another mouth to feed.  In other words, a child in the time of Jesus was seen in the same way as a servant…except that the child held a place of honor in the household…which was something that a slave would probably, and could probably, never attain.  The child being held in Jesus’ arms that day was an insider who was placed in the realm of the outsiders until the time in which it was able to be a fully productive member of the household.

But there’s more than that here…have you ever heard a child ask questions?  Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green?  Are we there yet?  But why? But why not?  Have you ever noticed that it is the questions of a child that have the greatest ability to turn a parent or other adults face bright red? 

Children are not afraid to ask questions when they do not understand…they have a sincere curiosity about how the world works.  Chris and I are already preparing a list of ‘go ask your mom’ and ‘go ask your dad’ questions that, our little one might ask one day.  Children yearn for the special knowledge held by adults.  And I can imagine that if the disciples had been children, Jesus would have been answering but why questions all day when it came to the work that they were on a mission to do.  

 “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me”

So how do we welcome those who are not seen at the greatest in the eyes of the world, but who have so much to teach us adults about asking questions when we don’t completely understand something?

How do we truly and 100% welcome the little ones around us who may be antsy in the pew on Sunday morning but who are so eager to learn the ways of the big kids? 

How do you see Jesus in the children that we welcome?   For it was Jesus who freed us to be able to be like children, not worrying about getting all the right answers and not afraid to ask the big, and little, questions.  Amen.

“Carry on my wayward son, there’ll be peace when you are done”

Pentecost 11

August 12, 2012

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

It’s a pretty well-known story, the tale of the prodigal son.  In the Gospel of Luke, it is a story about a son who thought that he knew better than his father, so he set off on his own with his share of the inheritance and eventually comes to his sense while sitting in a pig stall getting ready to fight the pigs for their food. 

The story of Absalom and David found in 2 Samuel is not that story of the prodigal son.  I hesitate to even call Absalom prodigal…wayward probably works a lot better.

Here’s what the lectionary has caused us to miss:  Shortly after the power play that David pulled to take Bathsheba as his own, which resulted in her husband Uriah’s death, David’s oldest son, Amnon, raped David’s daughter, Tamar.  David was furious with Amnon for what he had done, but we are never told that David took any action to punish his son for what he had done.  Infuriated by the incident and David’s lack of action, David’s third son, Absalom, took matters into his own hands and killed Amnon two years later on an evening when Amnon had had a little too much to drink.  After killing his brother, Absalom fled from Jerusalem and remained away for three years, during which time David began to yearn for him.  Upon Absalom’s return, David forgives him…but Absalom wasn’t quite done with his mischief making just yet.  Absalom returned to Jerusalem with a plan to take over for his father, and he worked for four years to usurp his father’s throne.  Eventually, he was successful, being crowned King at Hebron and forcing David to flee Jerusalem to preserve his own life.  Then, as a visible sign to the people that Absalom was now in charge of things, Absalom made it a regular practice of laying with David’s concubines in public. 

Sounds like a really great kid, doesn’t he? The son that every man dreams of having one day, right?  Not so much….

After Absalom usurped the throne, David sent one of his trusted friends into serve on Absalom’s court and spy on him, but otherwise, David took a pretty passive stance on the whole thing, trusting that the Lord would take care of him in the future, regardless of whether he was on the throne or not. Eventually, however, David does muster an army together to go in and take back David’s place on the throne…and this is where our reading from this morning comes in.  David’s army has requested that for his safety, David not be allowed to go into battle.  They reasoned that if people didn’t know who they were and things didn’t go according to plan, they could slip out easier than if David was with them.  David agrees to this, but makes one plea in the presence of his men…and that was to deal gently with his son Absalom.  That’s his only request before sending the troops to battle.

It’s a very interesting request that David makes…for the troops to deal gently with his son.  A son who killed his brother, usurped his father’s throne and attempted to murder his father in the process, slept with his father’s concubines and did everything he could to make a mockery out of his father to prove that he was the one in charge now.  Absalom had not only become a political and military enemy, he had become a threat to David’s very life.  And yet, in this moment of preparation before battle, David chose to be a father before he was a king and to request that the life of his son be spared. 

As a person who is not a parent of a human child, I don’t know that I get it 100%. I know that throughout my entire life I have been reminded by my own parents time and time again that there could never be a reason for them to stop loving me.  But I also am aware of family situations where parent/child relationships have been broken and estranged for reasons that are nowhere near as severe as throne usurping, attempted murder…even though the betrayal felt in those broken relationships may feel that severe in the moment, or even years down the road.

So, in the aftermath of the great betrayal and rebellion of Absalom, I see vast amounts of grace in David’s request that his son be treated gently by David’s army.  But as it turns out, it was the forest that first dealt harshly with Absalom, followed by David’s disobedient men.  Joab disobeys David’s orders and has Absalom killed after finding him stuck in a tree by his hair, and when David is informed of this by the second runner, we see in the end of our text not the joy of a king whose enemy has been vanquished, but the grief of a father who loved his son dearly and without condition.  David was not a perfect man, he was actually a bigger scoundrel than we call him on.  There were times in his life, especially after the incident with Bathsheba where David was anything but a man after God’s heart…but here we see a man who gets it, who put down his crown to cry out in lament for his son.     

But there is also a glimpse of something bigger, as if the story of David and Absalom were to serve as a parable for readers of the Hebrew Scriptures in the same way the parable of the prodigal son reached Gospel readers.  I see in the story of David and Absalom, a representation of the story of God and God’s people. 

All throughout scripture and beyond, we have seen a relationship between God and God’s people that has been rocky, to say the least.  Time after time we have rebelled against God and betrayed God. 

We have fought ill-gotten religious wars in God’s name,

We have murdered our brothers and sisters and treated others like they were less than human,

We have replaced our heavenly father by placing our trust in money, in our jobs, and in ourselves,

We are fighting a culture war brandishing weapons of fried chicken sandwiches and waffle fries while 1 in 5 children in this nation go to bed hungry at night. 

Over and over we have done things as acts of rebellion against our heavenly father that we never should have done and have caused great damage to our relationship with our creator.  And the great irony of the whole thing is that in the midst of the great amounts of pain that we humans have caused each other and our heavenly father throughout the years, God’s love and faithfulness remain steady and unwavering.  Despite all the ways that we have been God’s wayward children, God’s love for us has been so deep…God’s desire for us to be protected from all the wrongs in the world so great, that God took a huge barrier out of our way by sending Jesus to come among us, show us the love of God in the most tangible of ways, cause some holy trouble by eating with the so called “wrong” people, and went to the cross so through that act we could be freed from our sin to have the boldness and confidence to call out to our heavenly parent and know that we will be heard. 

David was an imperfect man with a rebellious son, but in a story of a father’s love for his wayward son, we see God’s love for us, God’s wayward children and a faithfulness that is unwavering. 

So, carry on God’s wayward daughters and sons, there’ll be peace when we are done, lay your weary heads to rest, don’t you cry no more. Amen 

Thankful Thursday - rainy day edition

Yes, that's right, it's a rainy day!!!

At 4:00am I awoke to a loud clap of thunder.  Normally this would bug me, but I was so excited for rain that I was thankful to the thunder for letting me know rain was on its way.

Today I am thankful for:
- Rain
- Thunder and lightning
- The National Youth Gathering
- An opportunity to visit family
- Great conversations with congregation members
- Earl Grey tea
- Gluten free labels at the grocery store
- The freedom to have an opinion and to share that opinion with someone else with out either of us saying "you're wrong"
- Grace
- County and local fairs
- Community

God is Good all the time!
All the time God is good! Amen

An Open Letter to Dan Cathy

Dear Mr. Cathy,

I have struggled for the last week to discern my feelings on the fiasco that has surrounded your company in the past weeks.  I would like to share some of these thoughts with you.

I approach this from the perspective of a Lutheran minister.  As such I view scripture as a living document through which the Holy Spirit breathes the Gospel into the world through both the narratives of the Old Testament and the witness of Jesus Christ and the early church.  I take the witness of the Gospel and it's message of grace, justice, and mercy very seriously.  It is this witness that has informed my outlook.  With this in mind, I want you to know that I respect your views and your right to free speech in regards to those views on marriage.  I do not agree with you, but I respect your opinion.

My reading of scripture has presented me with a variety of different definitions of marriage, from Mary and Joseph; to Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar; to Jacob and his wives and concubines; to Solomon and his 700 wives (yikes!).   There is no black and white definition of marriage in scripture, though I do understand the argument citing Jesus' quotation of Genesis 2 where it is written that a man shall leave his family and cling to his wife as being a basis for a definition of marriage.  So I get it if you do not agree with me on this issue. That's is ok. The world would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything.

Here is where the rub comes in - While I respect your opinion, I am very uncomfortable with the fact that some of the money that I have spent on food at chick-fil-a has been used to support organizations that promote discrimination and hate.  I am also uncomfortable with the fact that you wish to speak on behalf of God and, in essence put yourself in the judgment seat. We hear too much of this negative and hateful talk from  folks. My reading of scripture, specifically my reading of the witness of Jesus Christ in the Gospels does not fit in with a reading of scripture that shows a God ready to tear us limb from limb because we choose to love and show mercy to all people regardless of who they are.  The God I have read about in scripture is one who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  Jesus Christ routinely ate with the outcast, the poor, and the so-called "unclean," much to the chagrin of those who thought they knew who was "in" and who was "out." In fact, it was because of this that Jesus went to the cross.  As Christians, we are called to follow in the steps of Christ, to love our neighbors as God in Christ first loved us.  In my understanding, that means being people of grace and love to seek justice and equality for our neighbors just as Christ sought equality for those that his society deemed to be unworthy.

In essence, Mr. Cathy, I support your right to your own opinion and your right to free speech, but I do not support your actions on behalf of the chick-fil-a name.  My reading of scripture speaks of a God who broke down barriers and, through the death and resurrection of Christ destroyed the walls that separate us, making us to be one body to be the hands and feet of God in the world.  As Christians, we do work against the work of Christ when we support hate and inequality.  So, it not because of your opinion on what defines marriage, but rather your actions on behalf of chick-fil-a which support the building up of walls that divide that has moved me to decide that I cannot in good conscience continue to be a patron of your chain of restaurants.

In God's peace,
Pastor Jen Kiefer  

Radically Loving God - A sermon of the festival of St. James the Greater

This past Sunday, I was blessed to have the honor to preach at St. James Lutheran Church in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI.  St. James is my home congregation.  They sponsored my throughout seminary and were home to both my ordination and my wedding.  They are a loving and welcoming congregation and I could not ask for a better congregation to call home.  Below is the sermon I preached for the celebration of their Saint Day.   

Pentecost 9 - July 29, 2012

2 Samuel 11:1-15

St. James Lutheran, GPF

Have you ever known someone that you thought the world of and believed that they would go far and do all these great things only to have them fall into a self-destruct cycle leaving you watching and silently screaming “no!”? 

That’s how I feel when I read this story about David.  You see, I am fan of David, the underdog who went far, the psalmist and musician described as being after God’s own heart even though he was far from perfect. 

At the beginning of David’s story, he’s got a lot going for him.  He is anointed by Samuel to be the person who would follow Saul on the throne even though he was the youngest, and probably the most insignificant, of Jesse’s sons.  Through the power and wisdom God gave him, David defeated Goliath and was victorious on many fields of battle.  David showed mercy to Saul, his nemesis, when he had the opportunity to kill him and when Saul and Jonathan died on the field of battle, David showed the people what it meant to truly lament a great loss…but it gets a little rocky after that.

When David was having the Ark of the Lord brought into Jerusalem, there’s a snafu when he decided to have the Ark carried on a cart instead of the poles that God said the ark had to be carried on and a priest ends up dead after getting zapped while trying to steady the ark on the cart.  So this delayed the arrival of the Ark into Jerusalem for three months.  Once it got there, David danced with great joy…much to the dismay of one of his wives.  Then David decided that it was time to build God a house to replace the tent that God had been dwelling in with the Ark of the Covenant since Sinai, a tent that allowed God to go where the people went.  And while his intentions were great, in a way…the timing wasn’t right and it seemed to be more about David than about God. 

And after this, it seems that David gets back on the straight and narrow.  He was victorious in battle over the Philistines and showed compassion to Jonathan’s last remaining son, who had crippled feet.

And then we get to this mornings reading and as we watch the scene play out reactions range from “bad move, David,” to “really?”  to “no! don’t do it!”  to “sigh” while David slides further and further into self destruct mode.  And then we sweep the story under the rug and jump right to Nathan reading David the riot act and David repenting. 

But it’s not that easy

It’s not that easy because then we ignore the sins of David…First, David took advantage of Bathsheba, possibly raped her, when he should have been on the field of battle fighting with his men.  Then, when Bathsheba became pregnant with David’s child, he tried to cover it up by doing everything he could to force Uriah to go home and sleep with his wife…ignoring the fact that when the Ark of the Lord was present on the field of battle, soldiers were forbidden to have sex…and when Uriah proved himself to be faithful to his requirements as a soldier, David did the most despicable thing he could think of, he had Uriah killed so he could take Bathsheba as his own wife and save both he and Bathsheba from being stoned to death for their adultery.

And in all of this, the only two words that Bathsheba voices are “I’m pregnant.”  She has no voice when David lays with her, she has no voice when her husband is killed and David takes her as his wife…she has no voice when the child she bore as a result of the adultery with David died.  She only gets those two words. 

So, we’re faced with a story of power and privilege and what can happen when those two things are taken advantage of. 

Last week in New Orleans, the youth that I serve in Lawrence saw the reality of power and privilege as we drove through the 9^th ward, and as we walked down Bourbon Street.  In the lower 9^th ward, we were witness to the neglect facing the Vietnamese neighborhood we served in, whose homes still bear the scars of Katrina, whose doors still bear the X and codes indicating how many people were found in the house and the condition of those people while in more affluent parts of town you couldn’t even tell a hurricane had hit.  And on Bourbon Street, we encountered women who make their living in so called Gentleman’s clubs.  Reactions to these two experiences were completely different.  In the 9^th ward, there was silence as we passed homes with mold on the exterior siding and others without roofs.  On Bourbon street, there were gasps and one of the youth even instructed the others not to look, inadvertently insulting the strippers we passed.  In both cases we talked about power and privilege.  We talked about how a lot of people had left New Orleans after Katrina to restart their lives, but others had no choice but to stay in those moldy, damaged homes.  We talked about how some women do choose to make their living by taking off their clothes for men, but that others are trapped in the sex industry and to get out would be to risk their lives. 

It is the same power and privilege that fuels this story about David, who though he was originally described as a man after God’s own heart, was no man after God’s heart in these destructive acts. 

But here is the thing that makes totally no sense…probably because it’s not supposed to make sense…while God did not let David off the hook for his sins and indiscretions, God still remained faithful to the promises that God had already made to David.  When God revealed to David that he would not be the one to build God a house, God also promised to give David honor, to give him a house…a dynasty, to give him an heir who would take the throne after him.  And God was faithful to these promises to a very imperfect man.  In fact, God was so faithful to these promises that God made David to be the ancestor of one born to an insignificant peasant girl in first century Palestine….one who would be full of grace and truth and would truly be after God’s heart all the while causing trouble left and right.  One who would eat with the strippers and the tax collectors, touch the unclean and heal them on the Sabbath.  One who was not afraid to call folks out for their abuses of power and privilege and who went to the cross so that the debts created by our sin would be forgiven and expunged from our records.

David was an imperfect person.  He was a much bigger scoundrel than we call him on.  But God showed love and faithfulness to David and used both his gifts and his failings to bring about something better for this world…a savior.  If you take a look at scripture, the people who God works through the most are most often the biggest screw ups, the most broken, and the least perfect.  And it doesn’t make sense…but, if you think about it, God doesn’t really make sense.  God’s best and most fruitful works have come from the most broken and most insignificant people, from poor widows and dirty fisherman, from former persecutors of the church and crooked tax collectors, from womanizing kings and unknown peasant women.  Our God is a God who takes people who are flawed and broken and uses both our gifts and our failings and makes beautiful and amazing things grow from them.  He’s done it with you, and he’s done it with me and God will continue to work in ways that don’t make sense to us which leaves us with only one option, to throw our hands up in the air, to stop rationalizing and to accept God’s amazing and radical love for us, we saints and sinners, we broken and flawed people.  We children of an amazingly radical loving God.