some more proclamation

yesterday's sermon. i kind of liked it. one of those sermons where i figured it would either work really well, or just totally bomb. i think it worked.

it is memorial day in DC. weird.
i will tell you all about that tomorrow. this will be good enough for today.



May 25, 2008
Second Sunday After Pentecost
Matthew 6:24-34 (Isaiah 49:8-16)

Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

God suffers because…
This is what I became aware of last year as I entered into my prophets class. God suffers. God suffers with, because, and for. These are powerful ideas. Isaiah gives us the gut wrenching cries of God suffering because.

Listen again to the Isaiah passage:
“But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show now compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”
Zion, the people of Israel, cry out that God has abandoned them. Listen to God’s response:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?”

God has been rejected by God’s children. The beloved child has turned from the mother that nurtured it. This is not the child running from the abusive parent. This is the child that was raised in a loving home. A home that had boundaries, but also there was love and goodness. This child ran away. God suffers the loss of the child and desperately wants this child to return.

This is not the first time God has experienced this loss.
Nor would it be the last.

Remember the Flood?
Remember Sarah and Abraham trying to have a child?
Remember Esau and Jacob fighting over their blessings?

These were all times when humans did not trust that God would take care of them. They did not trust that God would do what God said.

Back to Isaiah.
The Lord says, “I will not forget you.”

Later in Isaiah, the Lord will say, “Here am I, Here am I,” to a nation that did not call on my name.” This is what my wonderful professor Fretheim says about this:
“Here God recalls how the divine eagerness for intimacy is ignored. God stands and offers himself in a cry that, in view of the invitation having been rejected, is almost heart-rending: “here am I, Here am I.” My heart fills with pain for God when I read this interpretation of Isaiah. Those words, “divine eagerness.” What a powerful image of God. Eager to be with us. Eager to love us. Eager to know us. Then rejected. Over and over again.

Imagine. Imagine being rejected by your loved ones. Desperately wanting a relationship. This is God’s relationship with humans. This is God’s constant relation with creation since the beginning.

Again listen to Prof. Fretheim’s description of God’s rejection:
“God is like a person who has been rejected not only by his spouse but by his children as well. God suffers the effects of the broken relationship at multiple levels of intimacy. The wounds of God are manifold.”

Eventually, God’s grief becomes so much that God sends Jesus into the world. God loves the world so much that Christ must come to heal the broken relationship.

Listen now, to Christ in today’s Gospel:
“No one can serve two masters’ for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Serving two masters is turning away from God. It is turning to a different parent for support. It is turning to a different spouse for love. Christ is reminding the community that heard the Sermon on the Mount that they cannot turn away from God.

As in Isaiah, Christ uses parental images to talk about God. God is the heavenly Father that provides. Matthew writes: “Indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Matthew is referring to clothing and food. God will take care of all these needs. God knows these needs. Just as God knew these needs in Isaiah’s time.

God still knows our needs. God knows that we need food, clothing and shelter. God knows that we worry about today and tomorrow. That is why we are commanded to pray for daily bread. A few verses before this in Matthew, Jesus teaches the Lord’s prayer.

When we pray for daily bread we are praying for today. We are kept in the present and pray for the present’s needs. We do not know what our needs for tomorrow will be. God knows. God will take care of tomorrow. Christ knows that we struggle to maintain our relationship with God. That is why Christ tells us to serve one master. That is why Christ tells us to focus on today.

When we focus on tomorrow, we begin to lose trust that God will provide.
Ask yourself if God has provided for today.
Now, thank God for that.

We can begin to move back into relationship with God. Remember the Lord’s Prayer? Daily bread, forgiveness, praising God, keeping us from temptation, all the basics are covered. This prayer helps restore us to right relation with God. The relationship we turn away from time and time again.

God is waiting for us. God desperately wants to be in relationship. God is divinely eager to be in relationship with you, dearly beloved. This is why Christ was sent to die for you and me. We can trust that as many times as we turn away, Christ will be holding us. Christ will be there. God will be grieving, but there is still the relationship kept alive in Christ. It cannot be broken completely.

All of this because God grieved for so many years. God grieved and could not let go of the relationship with humanity.
Take hope that God’s grief is out of deep love for you. God loves you so much that God gave his only son. God cares so deeply that God gives you all good things you need daily. You do not need to worry about tomorrow, for God will worry about that for you. And know that when relationships in your earthly families are strained, God understands. God knows strained family relationships. God will hear your pain and have compassion.
Take heart in this line from a modern American Prophet, Johnny Cash.
Feeling unknown and you’re all alone
Flesh and Bone, by the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer
I will deliver, you know I’m a forgiver.

God is eager to deliver and to forgive. Johnny still can preach. Let God care for you! Trust and don’t worry about tomorrow. Amen