8th Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ
grace and peace to you
from the one who destined us for adoption as Children of God. Amen
 
Identity and purpose,
these are the threads that run through our scripture today,
 calling us to consider who we are
 and what that means for our lives.
 
 And who we are,
 Primarily
 are people chosen by God.
 
 Our reading from Ephesians
 hammers this home again and again,
 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ… He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will...In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance...you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.”
 
God has acted decisively in regard to our identity,
there can be no question,
we are God’s
and while we use a variety of images
to try to explain this,
the end result is always the same,
 
God has chosen us,
not because of anything we have done or earned
 but because that’s who God is.
 
 We are God’s because of the grace of God.
 
And the appropriate response is to live for the praise of God’s glory.
 
When faced with such a gift,
what can we do but offer praise to God?
 
And how do we praise God?
In worship, prayer and song certainly
but also with how we live our lives,
consciously living out God’s vision for the redemption of the world,
a vision lived and taught by Jesus,
 
 one where all people have value
 and are treated accordingly,
value that is based on their God given identity
 and not on the many ways that the world has found
 to define and divide people,
 rich or poor,
 healthy or sick,
 by place of birth,
color of skin,
what value they’ll add to the economy, age,
the list goes on
 
And here’s the hard part,
 the world,
 those with power
don’t like when we live for the praise of God’s glory in this way,
 
 and sometimes we have to admit
that when we have power,
we aren’t always comfortable living for the praise of God’s glory either,
 because at times the blessings of the world
 seem to outweigh the blessings of God.
 
But that doesn’t change who we are
 and what we are supposed to do,
 and yes this is difficult,
 
our passage from Ephesians
 is a kind of pep talk to the community,
 building them back up before sending them out into the world again,
a world that is unreceptive to their message,
that will resist it in all ways possible.
 
The prophets are familiar with this resistance,
 two prophets join us today,
 in the Hebrew scriptures and in the gospel.
 
 Amos is called by God to pronounce judgement on Israel,
 and when he does he is confronted by the priest
 on behalf of the king,
who says ‘I know you have a message, just go someplace else and share it, the king and the land can’t take it, I won’t kill you, just go away.’
 
to which Amos responds (I paraphrase of course)
 ‘I feel you buddy, I was minding my own business tending my farm and my flock when God told me to go prophesy to the people. I don’t see myself as a professional prophet, just someone who is doing what God told them to do.’
 
In other words,
 this isn’t about earning a living as the priest suggests
 but a response to the call of God,
however inconvenient that may be.
God works through all of us,
 not just the professionals.
 
And then we have our friend John the Baptist
and the end of his story,
 
John who dared to tell the King what everyone knew,
 that it wasn’t lawful for him to marry his brother’s wife Herodias,
who hated John for pointing that out
because she had more power married to Herod than his brother Philip.
 
 So Herod puts John in prison
but protects him
because he has some respect for John as a holy man,
 
 but then comes the night where Herod hosts a banquet
and is pleased by his daughter’s dancing,
 and in front of everyone present,
all his officials
Herod promises to give her whatever she wants.
 
She consults her mother
and runs back to ask for the head of John on a platter
and Herod is presented with a choice:
 protect a man who he knows to be righteous and holy
 in front of all his officials
or maintain the facade of his benevolent power and do as requested.
 
And we know which he chooses
John is beheaded in prison
 and that is the end of that prophet.
Everything is at stake when we proclaim the message of God.
 John lost his head,
Jesus was crucified,
 but that was not the end.
 
God is bigger than the resistance the world puts up
bigger even than death,
in God life goes on,
and so does the message we are called to proclaim,
and more than proclaim we are called to live,
 
The message that God
 “set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
 
And when God says all, God means all.
Even the people we don’t think deserve it.
 
At the youth gathering
 Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber spoke about grace
and her struggle with the fact that God’s grace is
 “Both for me and my haters.”
 
 She confessed she struggles with the wideness of God’s grace,
Her struggle is not a particular to her
 we all do at times,
because it just doesn’t seem fair
 
 and yet the only way that God’s good news
 can be good news for us,
is if it is good news for the people we can’t stand,
even for the people who have hurt us,
 because when it comes down to it,
we don’t deserve God’s grace either.
 
And yet
God claims us as Children
Has included us in the inheritance of redemption
And marked us with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit
So how can we not live to the praise of God’s glory? Amen
 

23rd Sunday After Pentecost
Amos 5:18-24
Psalm 70
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who is coming. Amen
 
There was a bumper sticker I saw a few years ago
that I thought was pretty funny,
 it said “Jesus is coming, look busy”
 
the readings for this week
reminded me of that bumper sticker,
before I used it as a sermon illustration
 I looked it up online to make sure I wasn’t imagining things
and found that yes, I had remembered correctly
 and that it is still available in a wide variety of styles.
 
 Which surprised me at first
and then when I thought about it a little,
sadly made sense
because while it is supposed to be a tongue in cheek funny
 I think it actually reflects the view of most Christians these days,
 
The view where though we confess in the words of the apostle’s creed
that we believe that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead,
we rarely think about it
 
 and if we do
our reaction is more like
realizing that family will arrive for thanksgiving in two weeks
 and we haven’t dusted for a while
 and if we don’t mom is going to spend part of her vacation dusting our house,
which let’s be honest,
 wouldn’t be all that bad in the grand scheme of things.
 
We have lost our sense of urgency over Jesus’ coming,
to be fair it has been over two thousand years,
 we are far removed from Paul and the early Christians
 who expected Jesus to come before the end of their lives.
 
 In our reading from 1 Thessalonians
 we hear Paul counseling the community
 over their anxiety that Jesus has not yet returned
 and believers have begun to die,
the Thessalonians are worried
that their loved ones will miss out on life everlasting with Jesus
because they died before Jesus’ coming.
 
Paul assures them
that for the one who died and rose
 death is not a problem
 and that when Jesus comes
 all believers both living and dead will be with the Lord forever.
 
This is the hope to which we cling,
 especially at the death of loved ones.
 That God is coming
and will reunite us with all the Saints
like those we remembered last week.
 
 But in the meantime, we wait.
 
Perhaps the bumper sticker should read:
“Jesus is coming, how are you waiting?”
 
because how we wait matters.
 
We often think of waiting as a passive time
and in some cases
 like when we are waiting for a doctor
 or in line at the post office
the outcome of our waiting
will be the same whether we are impatient or resigned during that time.
 
Then there is active waiting,
the kind of waiting the accompanies an expected event
 like the birth of a baby.
 There are things to do during this kind of waiting,
 a nursery to get ready, purchasing a car seat and little clothes,
 stocking up on diapers, packing the hospital bag,
so that when the time comes,
everything is ready,
or as ready as it can be for the expected baby.
 
This is the kind of waiting which God expects of us
 as we anticipate God’s coming,
waiting that includes preparation
 so that when the time comes,
 everything is ready,
 or as ready as it can be for our expected God.
 
But what if we’re not preparing?
Or we’ve decided to let the dust build up
because mom will take care of it when she comes?
 
 The prophet Amos points out to the people of his day,
 that the way they are acting,
the day of the Lord will not be pleasant for them
 because with the coming of God
 is the coming of a new order,
of justice and mercy,
 
and those who have ignored justice and mercy
will have a hard time adjusting
 even if they have longed for the day of the Lord.
 
 Through the prophet God says to the people
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
 
God is tired of thoughts and prayers without accompanying action.
 
God is tired of being treated like a cosmic vending machine,
 you put the right amount of prayers and festivals in
and your desired godly treat will come out.
 
That’s not the point says God,
the point all along has been to build a relationship between me the God of the Universe
and you the people,
a relationship built on mercy and justice
 so that relationships among the people
 will be built on mercy and justice.
 
God is coming. How are you waiting?
 
Are you sitting back like there’s nothing you can do?
Are you preparing? Working for mercy and justice?
 Perhaps you’re getting tired and need some rest
 because it has already been a long wait.
 
In Matthew Jesus tells the parable of the ten bridesmaids
waiting to greet the groom.
 The groom is delayed and all the bridesmaids fall asleep.
 There is no judgment over this,
they are tired and the wait is long,
 
 the key to the parable comes when the groom finally arrives,
 half the bridesmaids prepared for a delay and brought extra oil,
 the other half did not
and are unable to fulfill their duties.
 
 It seems that Jesus is telling us to be prepared for a delay,
 and being prepared for a delay
 means being prepared to keep God’s vision alive,
 
the lamp lit as it were,
 shining light on the acts of justice, righteousness and peace that keep hope alive,
 hope in the promise that what we are doing in the way of preparation
 is only a fraction of what God will do in the way of justice, righteousness and peace
when God comes.
 
I think our prayer of the day sums all this up best, so let us pray it again.
O God of justice and love, you illumine our way through life with the words of your Son. Give us the light we need and awaken us to the needs of others, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen