Sermon
O3/27/2022
This is a challenging time to write sermons. The world is suffering. The people of the world are suffering. God's children are suffering. What can we, the clergy, who are called to deliver the Good News of Jesus Christ say in response to this suffering?
Frankly, for me at least, it has been hard to know what to say. As I watch the dangerously escalating situation in Ukraine - the suffering and death of so many men, women, and children, the destruction of entire cities, the displacement of millions - I feel myself becoming numbed by it all. And yet I know that I cannot allow that to happen.
What I/we are seeing and hearing about the war in Ukraine is real; a real and continual act of terrorism of the worst kind, and as Christians we must respond. We must pray for peace to descend upon Ukraine and for the safe haven of the now approximately four million of God's beloved children who are now fleeing from all they know and hold dear. Fleeing in the hope that they will live to be counted among the survivors of the terrifying destruction of their country. And we must join with our global partners to provide humanitarian disaster relief in ways that help and do no further harm. We must seek and serve Christ in all people of Ukraine and strive for their justice and peace.
To avert my potential numbness -of running away from what is a massively complex and tragic situation - I knew that I must dig deep into my faith and to listen closely for what God is saying to me, to all of us, as we witness this tragedy. And so, I have committed to daily readings of scripture and set aside time for reflection and prayer after each reading. I have focused my reading and reflection not only passages from the New Testament, but also from Exodus and Deuteronomy, two books of the Hebrew Bible that deal with God's deliverance of the Israelites from the oppression of Pharaoh and the commandments and promises that God instructed Moses to convey to them on his behalf.
As you may remember, in Deuteronomy God sends Moses down from the mountain with instructions to speak with authority to the Israelites saying:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord;[a] 5 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; 7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut 6:4-9)
God had "set his people free". He heard their desperate cry for deliverance from the domination system of slavery imposed by Pharoah, and God took notice. He observed the misery of his people who were in Egypt and he "came down" to deliver them. But in return for this deliverance from oppression, from the domination system of Pharoah, God insisted upon an exclusive 24/7 relationship with his people. He demanded that their commitment to him, and only him, be securely and eternally in their hearts and souls – forever; and that his commandments, the Law, be followed religiously as part of that commitment.
In the words of the prophet Hosea, God said to his people, "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings". (Hos. 6:6)
God wanted to be known and obeyed.
The point of reading these ancient texts was to study and reflect upon the same sacred scripture that Jesus read and studied as a child. The scripture that he drew upon as he developed a voice of "authority" and became "rabbi", "teacher", and finally savior. As a result of reading and reflecting upon these ancient texts, I have developed a far deeper understanding of the God in whom we profess our faith; the God to whom we have committed our hearts and souls; the God from whom we seek strength, courage, compassion, love, and salvation.
The God that Jesus spoke of was the God of the Hebrew Bible. The God who demanded no less than total commitment from his people if they were to be set free - to be saved - centuries earlier from the oppression of Pharoah's domination and exploitation system and, in Jesus' time, the domination and exploitation system of the Roman Empire.
In his teachings, Jesus affirmed God's commandment as the Greatest commandment and added to it saying, "Which commandment is the greatest of all? "The first is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:26-30)
From the first books of the Hebrew Bible to this very moment in time God commands that we are to have only one God and to love him with all our hearts, and with all our souls, with all our minds, and with all our might. And as followers of Jesus, we have been given an additional commandment to love one another as Jesus, as God, loves us. These basic teachings – obedience to God and love of the other are repeated for centuries on end, by Moses, by the Prophets, By Jesus, and by Paul. They have never changed and will never change – at least on God's part. The big question is, of course, have we, are we, keeping these commandments?
Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians creates some theology based these two great commandments for us to consider. He writes to his beloved church, "If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!" Paul is urging the Corinthians to grasp the depth of their commitment to Jesus Christ. He explains that through our baptism and our commitment to Christ – our “Being in Christ” – we become "new" – and in this "newness" we commit to an all-encompassing relationship with Christ. We are reconciled to God, made new, through Christ; and through our reconciliation with God, we have become Christ's ambassadors. We have been given the task of bringing reconciliation – a change in relationship between God and the world - to the world.
Through our reconciliation to Christ – to God – we are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are called to follow Jesus on his way to the cross, and beyond. And we are committed to holding God's commandments in our heart; to teaching them diligently to our children, and to talking of them when we sit in God's house, and when we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise." This is what God commanded through the voices Moses and Prophets, and now it is Jesus himself who issues these commands to us.
Reading and reflecting on God's words as expressed in the Hebrew Bible and comparing them to the teachings of both Jesus and Paul in the New Testament has given me a deeper understanding of God’s relationship with us and a renewed spiritual strength as I seek, in some small way, to participate in the healing of a suffering of the world. This spiritual strength that stemmed my journey into numbness, generated by so much violence and tragedy. I now have a clearer focus as I continue to discern how I might best offer support to not only Ukrainians, but to all of the people of the world who find themselves displaced by conflict, oppression, and terrorism.
Several of you have expressed your frustration over what feels like the passivity and, yes, perhaps the uselessness of offering just prayer for Ukraine at this moment in time. I understand that frustration, but I disagree. I believe study, prayer, and reflection are critical first steps to creating a "boots on the ground" response to any of the massive number of world tragedies that have occurred, including the war in Ukraine.
In his little, but extremely powerful book on the importance of prayer, Silence and Honeycakes, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams says, "A monk's cell is like the furnace of Babylon where the three young men found the Son of God. And it is like the pillar of cloud where God spoke to Moses."
Through prayer God reveals himself to us and we begin to hear our call to action. Without prayer that seeks God's voice, without hearing God, we have no mandate. We are directionless.
My prayer today is that together,
we may so direct our prayers that God's voice makes clear a call, a path, a way
for us to help Ukraine – to help the world – find the peace of reconciliation
with God; and that the leaders of the world as they are reconciled with God
find ways to govern and to live in unity.
