And God Saw That It Was
Good. (6/11/17)
"St. Patrick's Bad Analogies" by Hans Fiene
This past Sunday was Trinity Sunday. It's important for any pastor to avoid committing accidental heresies in explaining the Trinity. (See the video above; it's really funny!) This means that you have to be really careful when you write your sermon and stay on the script. But I forgot to upload my script and I had to wing it. As I told my congregation, ministry forces you to confront your fears. On Sunday, I confronted my fear of working without a script; my congregation confronted their fear of a 45-minute sermon. Read on if you're curious about the sermon as it was written.
Sermon
Good morning. How many of you watched the Penguins’ game on
Thursday? I hope you enjoyed it—I only saw the highlights. You see, we had a
session meeting on Thursday, so everyone who was at the meeting missed the
entire first period of the game. That means the game was pretty much over by
the time any of us turned it on.
I listened to the second period on the way home from the
meeting. Normally, the drive home from a session meeting really wears me out.
But at least I got to listen to the Pens score three more goals. Now I’m not
complaining about my drive home—I know that some of you have longer commutes
than I do. And I’m not complaining about missing most of the game—some very
important things were discussed at that meeting. I’m just really happy that the
Penguins won the game. For that reason, I’m calling for another session meeting
tonight at 8:00, so that we give them some extra luck.
Today is Trinity Sunday, which presents quite a challenge
for any pastor. That is: How do I preach about the Trinity without turning this
sermon into a lecture? It’s really easy for me to go into academic theology and
start lecturing, but we’re not here for a lecture; we’re here for worship. And
we worship for the same reason that the people of ancient Israel worshiped: we
come here, on the Lord’s day, to give thanks to God for everything in our lives
and for all the ways that God remains faithful to us, all of God’s covenants.
We remain in those covenants by responding in faith to God, and worship is the
formation and practice of our community of faith.[1] That is, we are Christians
because we believe in God’s promises
to humanity, expressed through the witness of Scripture and the entry of Jesus
Christ into the world. And because we
believe those things, we gather as the community of faith and give our thanks
and praise to God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We cannot be
Christians without worshiping as a community and giving thanks and praise to
God. That’s who we are and what we do.
We give thanks for the love in which God created each and
every one of us. In this, we acknowledge that each of us is a part of that
story that begins in the account of the creation of the world in the first
chapter of the Book of Genesis. Now let me be clear about something: Genesis 1
is not a science textbook. It doesn’t
explain anything about biology, chemistry, or physics.
Genesis, Chapter 1, is a statement of faith; it expresses
the theology of Israel, God’s chosen people. This story was part of worship and
it describes the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. That
relationship begins with the creation of the world. According to Walter
Brueggemann:
In the faith of ancient
Israel, the relation of God and the world is not arbitrary, but one in which
God’s generative power to create a fruitful, life-sustaining system is
exercised as an act of fidelity that evokes glad, ready obedience in response.[2]
That is to say, God
didn’t create the world on a whim, nor does God interact with us in random or
arbitrary ways, but rather, God interacts with us out of love and faithfulness.
The fullness of God’s creation is enough to sustain us, and therefore, we
respond in joy and faith. Our obedience assures “that the world as God’s creation
will be well ordered in life-giving, life-enhancing ways.”[3]
I love this idea that God creates and provides order, and
from that order, we draw life and we gain renewal. Life can be overwhelming.
Honestly, life seems a lot more complicated than it used to be. And as a
society, we seem to be a lot busier than we used to be. We feel less secure in
our jobs and we have many more sources of anxiety. I think a lot of people feel
exhausted, even in this congregation.
At the session meeting on Thursday, one of the elders
expressed concern over this. He noted that fewer people are participating in
committee work and congregational leadership. Another elder pointed out that
lots of members have long commutes. I know that a number of you work in
Pittsburgh. I know what it’s like to make that drive at rush hour. I made that
commute from the Mon Valley to Pittsburgh twenty years ago. Now that I’m 45, I
wouldn’t want to do it again. I don’t have the energy.
The world that most of us grew up in was very different.
Most of our parents didn’t have to drive more than 15 or 20 minutes to get to
work. When I was a kid, most people worked 35-40 hours a week. Some factory
workers and miners worked overtime—if they wanted to make extra money. My
parents never had jobs that asked them to work 50 or 60 hours a week, or more.
My parents never took work home with them.
Today, work follows everyone home. By a show of hands, how
many of you check your work email at night, after you get home? Or check it
before you leave for work? Or over the weekend? I did. And if you have a job
that pays well, it’s just expected that you answer every email that comes your
way and you’ll work on projects at night when you’re at home. Because if you
don’t, they might find someone else who’ll work more hours. This induces
anxiety and fatigue. It turns church into one more activity, one more thing
that competes for our time and attention and energy. When that happens, we all
suffer.
I think the Book of Genesis offers some clues to a better
way, a way out of this cycle of busyness and exhaustion.
In this account of creation, God doesn’t start from
nothing. Rather, God begins the act of creation in the midst of chaos; God
orders the chaos by separating light from darkness, land from water.[4] The text of Genesis
asserts that:
God willed a productive,
coherent system of food production; that God designated human persons (male and
female) to oversee the generative system; and that God blessed the whole to be an
arena of abundant life.
And God saw that it was good.
It wasn’t just good, it was very good.
After that, God rested.
God. Rested.
This is the culmination of the creation story: God imposes
order on the chaos, and then God rests. The Sabbath celebrates rest. It
signifies a world that is free of anxiety and it is a sign of a “community that
regularly enacts, by its Sabbath, the ordered, reliable, life-giving character
of the world as a gift of God.”[5] The practice of the
Sabbath defined the Jewish faith in ancient times.
Keeping the Sabbath holy is one of the Ten Commandments.
This is foundational—for Jews and Christians, alike. Remember, the Ten
Commandments appear in two slightly different versions. First, they appear in
Exodus, and then they appear in Deuteronomy, with perhaps a little bit more explanation.
In Deuteronomy, the Fourth Commandment is grounded in
Israel’s memory of slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh demanded more and more production
out of the people; the quotas were raised; the people were pressured to work
every day of the week. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Does Pharaoh demand
that you answer your work email over the weekend?
The people who were called Israel chose to act differently;
they refused to give their lives over to Pharaoh’s demand for more work. In
that context, observing the Sabbath “is an act of resistance against having
one’s life defined by one’s productivity.”[6] The Israelite slaves were
only useful and valuable to Pharaoh for what they could produce. They were not
intrinsically valuable. To Pharaoh, they were neither good nor bad, they were
simply the means to an end. The Israelites were a commodity. Their lives were
ordered by Pharaoh’s needs and whims. They resisted. According to Brueggemann:
Sabbath provides a
visible testimony that God is at the center of life—that production and
consumption take place in a world ordered, blessed, and restrained by the God
of all creation. Reordering social time around Sabbath is a visible declaration
that all times are in God’s hands….[7]
How are we doing with the practice of Sabbath? Are we
allowing our lives to be ordered by Pharaoh, or are we putting God at the
center? We are part of God’s sacred creation. We are good; we are inherently
valuable in God’s eyes. God created order in the midst of chaos, so that we
might live abundantly and joyfully. But we seem all too willing to embrace the
chaos at the margins of our lives. We will work for Pharaoh if he simply offers
to pay us enough money. And we really like the stuff that we buy with that
money.
Practicing Sabbath begins with our worship on Sunday
morning, but it doesn’t end when I offer the benediction. The practice of
Sabbath involves letting go of our work lives and remembering that our true
identity is in Christ, not in the jobs we hold; that identity is part of the
covenant relationship between God and Israel that begins in the story of
creation. And the practice of Sabbath involves all of the things that we do to
preserve and equip this congregation for worship.
Obviously, the practice of Sabbath requires your financial
support. More than that, it requires all of us to offer our time outside of
worship. It means we have to do things like serve on committees and go to
meetings. And for those of you who are already doing that, it means you have to
teach others to serve, because you need to practice Sabbath from church
leadership, too.
But Pharaoh is a demanding boss, and most of us are a
little afraid of losing our jobs. To put God, and the Sabbath, back at the
center of our lives, we have to start small. We have to work at de-cluttering
our lives, so that we are less anxious. And if your life is really cluttered,
you need to raise your hand and ask for help. On the other hand, if you’re
already serving in leadership and you think you’re doing a good job of putting
God at the center of your life, then look around. Look for the other people you
might help. And always feel free to talk to me. I don’t claim to have all the
answers, but I can always listen. Perhaps this is where the renewal might begin
in this congregation. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that
we are called to be a part of the ongoing work of God’s creation. Go forth and
be instruments of God’s love and peace and reconciliation—but remember to rest,
so that you are not consumed by the chaos of this world. Do not return evil for
evil to any person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are
called to reflect that love to everyone we meet. Go forth and be the salt of the
earth and the light of the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, let
all God’s children say, Amen!
[1]
Walter Brueggemann. Reverberations of
Faith: A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes. Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox Press (2002); p. 237.
[2]
Brueggemann, p. 40.
[3]
Brueggemann, p. 40.
[4]
Brueggemann, p. 40.
[5]
Brueggemann, pp. 40-41.
[6]
Brueggemann, p. 181.
[7]
Brueggemann, p. 181.
No comments:
Post a Comment