As for me

Joshua 24: 1-18, OT page 215-216 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors – Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor – lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac; and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Essau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in its midst; and afterwards I brought you out. When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. When they cried out to the Lord, the Lord put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them; and your eyes saw what I did to Egypt. Afterwards you lived in the wilderness a long time. Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan; they fought with you, and I handed them to you, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you. Then King Balak son of Zippor of Moab, set out to fight against Israel. He sent and invited Balaam son of Beor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you; so I rescued you out of his hand. When you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I handed them over to you. I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and town that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant. “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. The Lord protected us along the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for the Lord is our God.” Sermon My grandmother loved to decorate her house, and one of the most interesting objects from her house looked like a little cat curled up sleeping. She had two or three of these decorative cats, and she used them to accent a couch that was more for admiring than sitting in and a bed that took a long time to make and a long time to get into because in addition to the decorative cat there were at least 500 throw pillows. That was the bed my grandmother was the most proud of, so when Sara would come to stay she always insisted that we sleep there. The only problem was that Sara was sure the decorative cat had at one time been a real cat, so before getting into bed she would always burry that cat under the 500 throw pillows. As it turned out, Sara was right. The local paper published an article about a Chinese company that stuffed real stray cats, molded their bodies into that curled up sleeping position, and exported them to the United States where they were sold, even at Tomlinson’s, the store my grandmother shopped in every single day of her life whether she needed anything from there or not. After reading this article about the unfortunate origin of her decorative cats she drove right over to Tomlinson’s, went straight to the front desk and addressed the lady who was running the store, “isn’t it just awful about those decorative cats.” “Yes it is Mrs. Bivens,” the woman replied, “I’m so sorry that we sold you a pair of them, I’m just as embarrassed by all this as I could be, but I want you to know that we’ve boxed every one that we have left, as well as a few others that people have returned, and we’re sending them all back where they came from.” Now I want to stop my story there rather than tell you what my grandmother said next, to emphasize the fact that you may already have an idea about what happens next based on your idea of what you would do if you found yourself in the same situation. Or you might have an idea about what happens next in my story based on your idea of what your own grandmother would do if she found herself in the same situation. When it comes to what happens next, whether in a story or in real life, we all make assumptions about the future based on the past, and when we are making assumptions about what someone will do next we make assumptions based on what we know this person has done before. You’re not going to give the restaurant that made you sick a second chance, but you’re going to assume that they’ll do it again. No one goes back for a second or a third bad haircut, if she made you look like a poodle once then once is enough. We all make assumptions for the future based on the past, and if you really knew my grandmother then you wouldn’t be surprised that she looked the sales lady in the eyes and said, “if you’re just going to ship all those cats back to China then it really won’t be any trouble to give me a couple more to take back home with me will it?” If you really knew the lady then you could have seen it coming, and considering our scripture lesson from the 24th chapter of Joshua, it’s because Joshua really knows God that Joshua can anticipate what God is going to do next, even while so many around him falter. As the Israelites began their life as a people, free from slavery in Egypt, done wandering through the wilderness, and finally at home in the land that God had promised, some of them began to wonder about what kind of a people they would become and what kind of religion they would adopt. After all, the people must have thought, what guarantee do any of us have that the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Moses will even be around for us in the same way that God was present to Moses – now that Moses is gone how do we know that God will still be with us? I believe that this is an important question, especially for Joshua. How would he know for sure that God would still be there to deliver and provide for him and his people? How would he know for sure that God would not abandon him? How could he be certain that the blessings God had provided in the past would not dry up in the future? He could consult a fortune teller to find out whether blessings or curses were in his future, or he could do what he feared his people would do – turn to other gods, either those of their ancient ancestors or the gods of the people whose land they had invaded, whose ways seemed easier to predict. This issue of other gods is a theme throughout the Old Testament. Despite God’s mighty deeds of power the people’s faith falters and they turn to other gods and adopt other ways of life that do not honor the one who delivered them from slavery in Egypt. You would think that they had more reason to believe than any of us, but the truth is that putting your faith in God has always been a struggle for God’s people. This issue of faith and doubt has always been there – and the only way to gain any grasp on what God will do in the future is to remember what God has done in the past. So Joshua reminds the people: thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. When they cried out to the Lord, I put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them; and your eyes saw what I did to Egypt.” But how do you know that God will do it again for you? How do you know that God hasn’t left, moved on, fallen asleep on the job? How do you know that God still listens, still delivers, still suffers alongside people just like you and can set you free just as the Lord set the Israelites free? How do you know that God can still break down whatever walls stands in the way of your freedom, that God can do the impossible, divide the sea and whatever obstacle stands before you to set your feet upon the shores of new life? How do you know? Because the Lord has done it before, the Lord will do it again. That’s why I can say, “As for me – we will serve the Lord.” But what about you?

Speak

Ephesians 4: 25 – 5:2, page 194 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Sermon Words are dangerously powerful things. Every Sunday I stand here and invite you to listen for God’s word, which has the power to change everything, to build up, encourage, bring hope, change the world. But words, your words included, also have the power to tear down, destroy, and hurt. We have to be careful with how we use our words, especially if people are listening. It wasn’t long ago that Dan Cathy’s words in an interview with a Southern Baptist news outlet erupted. He didn’t actually do anything. He’s not running for office, nor did he call for any kind of action he was going to take or not take, who he would hire or not hire at his chain of Chick-fil-a restaurants. He just spoke. And you know what happened next. I heard about it standing at the bank. I heard about it around the church and when I was out to lunch. I heard about it on TV and I saw it as cars wrapped around our new Chick-fil-a location, all because of one man’s words. Then Chris Fletcher, the editor of our Daily Herald, wrote a piece calling Christians to get excited about voting or eating to support the Family Center at Ruby Tuesday, anything, but it seems to Fletcher as though folks will only get excited about taking their stand on who can get married and who can’t. His words inspired several letters to the editor, who knows how many phone calls from angry readers, not that Chris Fletcher heard them, as I heard he was away in Dallas. Still, even away from his office, his words have extraordinary power, and using this power for strengthening the community of faith is the author of Ephesian’s primary lesson for us. The author of Ephesians in our lesson for this morning calls the new converts of Ephesus to discard their old ways of life in favor of a new way of life modeled after Christ. This new way of life calls for brothers and sisters in Christ to lay down their pride for one another and to use their words to build each other up rather than tear each other down. Our passage begins with a big challenge: “speak the truth”, and I say this is a big challenge because speaking the truth is a big challenge for me. I remember going to a luncheon several years ago where congealed salad was the main course. “Joe, do you like congealed salad?” “Love it,” I said. And then I was met with something like jell-o, only it had vegetables floating in it and was topped with a glob of mayonnaise on top. I ended up liking it just fine, but being honest could have saved me a good bit of anxiety. Speak the truth, the author of Ephesians says, because real relationships can’t be built on a foundation of lies, even white lies. Then comes, “Be angry but do not sin,” which is very different from, “to be angry is to sin.” The author of Ephesians charges you to listen to your anger, but not to react foolishly or violently. Anger can be righteous, but angry people don’t always act righteously. The author continues with the words, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up.” I don’t know about Dan Cathy’s intentions, and he probably didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but what has been built up by his words? And what has been built up by any of our arguments over this issue besides a wall dividing ourselves between for and against? Instead, use your words wisely, for the building up of each other – encouraging, loving, and congratulating. This lesson from Ephesians calls you and me to use our words in such a way that community is fostered and divisions are bridged. “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” To gain what a new life in Christ has to offer so much must be left behind. “Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.” Here in Ephesians, you are invited to catch a glimpse of what Christ intends. A world where all people, even thieves, are invited to contribute as equals. To give up their old ways of life to share with the needy because even thieves have something important to offer. So much of our lives are spent determining who is good and who is bad, where you should eat and where you shouldn’t, who can get married and who can’t. Instead, be mindful of what you can offer this world and how you can contribute. Today ten men and women have been affirmed as this church’s new officers, and over the next three years they will dedicate themselves, offering their time and talents for the good of this congregation. I invite you to always do the same. Model your life after Christ, mindful always of your words, and let your life be a “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Amen.

You shall not die

2nd Samuel 11: 26 – 12: 13, page 285
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.
He brought it up, and it grew with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.
Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.”
Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel; I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in God’s sight? You have stuck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.”
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan said to David, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.”
Sermon
I was 8 or 9 years old, and for the first time my parents gave me permission to meet my friends at the neighborhood pool by myself. We would be unsupervised, for the first time, and that proved to be our parent’s mistake.
I don’t remember what it was that we were doing that was so bad, but whatever it was, our first taste of unsupervised freedom at the neighborhood pool was cut short when the lifeguard kicked all of us out. We all went back to our respective homes, and my Mom was surprised to see me back so early. I never got very good at lying to my parents, and at 8 or 9 my Mom could still read trouble just by looking at my face. The truth spilled out, and my Mom gave me a choice: “either you go back to the pool right now to apologize to the lifeguard, or you don’t go back to the pool for the rest of the summer.”
This lifeguard was probably 15 years old, but I can tell you, the last thing I was about to do was go and apologize to her, so I chose the latter option, “fine, I’ll not go back to the pool.”
“You sure about that?” my mother asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Believe it or not, this was not the most dramatic decision I ever made, and while it seems strange now to squander away something as important as the neighborhood pool during an Atlanta summer, returning to the pool where I had just embarrassed myself and been kicked-out was the last thing I was going to do. In that moment I decided that I would rather run from my shame than go back and face it.
Shame is a powerful force. It can make boys reconsider the value of a pool in the middle of the summer, it’s the reason too many children have come home saying, “I’m never going back to that school again,” and here in the book of 2nd Samuel the prophet Nathan gives David what should sound like some good news, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die,” but because of shame, at that moment, don’t you know David would have chosen death.
David had blocked his mind from recognizing the gravity of his sin, committing adultery with Bathsheba, taking her as though she were an object, and then sending her husband Uriah off to die before Uriah killed him. He had stopped himself from realizing how much hurt he caused, the degree to which he had abused his power, and blinded himself to his own capacity for evil.
People do that sometimes, and in the case of David’s denial, the unfortunate work of helping the King of Israel realize what he had done falls on the prophet Nathan who tricks him into seeing his actions clearly by telling a story: “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and treated like a daughter. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he didn’t want to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, so he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that one for the guest who had come to him.”
David is shocked by this story of the abuse of power. How could any man anywhere be so bold as to take without regard for who he was taking from? So David said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
Nathan said to King David, “You are the man!”
In this moment of realization I can imagine what David was asking himself. Surely at the forefront of his mind were questions that went to the very heart of his being: Who have I become? How could I do such a thing? How will I ever face the people of Israel again?
These are the questions that people ask themselves as shame takes hold, and in this moment never facing the people again, starting over completely somewhere else, hiding under the covers for eternity seems much more appealing than living, still the King of Israel. But much is required of the people of God, including facing shame rather than running from it.
I began this sermon with a story about myself, and this story ends the way many childhood dramas do – eventually my father came home. My Mom and Dad had their official punishment conference meeting in the kitchen, my sister listened from the balcony, and my Dad was soon driving me to the pool where he said something like, “Joe, you’re being stupid.” He then walked me into the pool, right up to the lifeguard and said, “My son has something to say to you.”
There was nowhere to run, so I said, “I’m sorry for the way I acted before.”
“Thank you,” said the lifeguard, “please don’t act that way again.”
My Dad had to help me through my shame, and he was unwilling to let me learn that the only way to deal with mistakes is to hide from them.
That is what the world would have us believe however.
Politicians go to great links to expose the mistakes of their campaign opponents, and all politicians, knowing this to be the case, go to great links to hide their mistakes and to buy off the people whom they have wronged, assuming that you, the voter, would sooner write off than forgive.
We do the same thing to ourselves. We hide and deny and run away from, possessing little faith in our society’s capability for reconciliation.
Assuming that once a mistake has been made there’s no way to make it right again, some hope for death. It’s much simpler: To put down the flawed, to put the lame out of their misery, to move away, move on, give up on the past and any hope of mending what has been broken.
But my Dad was sure it could be done.
Nathan assured David that he would not die and would have to keep going, to stand again before his people even though they all knew the truth.
And in our first scripture lesson there was a father. This father was so kind to his son when he had had the chance to be kind, that even after his son did everything he could possibly do to ruin any chance of a relationship, the son was bold to believe that he might return and serve his father as one of the servants. The relationship would never be right again, of that the son was sure, but it might be different and even a relationship between a servant and a master would be better than the life he had made for himself.
The son returned, and maybe you know what that long and shameful walk home felt like. There’s the chance of being cast away, sent back, or completely ignored. The son prepared himself for the father’s words: “You’ve made your bed now sleep in it,” but then the son is greeted, not by anger, discipline, or death, by his father’s open arms.
This kind of thing can happen. What is wrong can be made right, what is broken can be mended. It can even happen to you.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.