The Invitation

Scripture Lessons: 2nd Samuel 11: 1-5 and Song of Solomon 2: 8-13 Sermon title: The Invitation Preached on July 29, 2018 Back in Tennessee we had a big back yard. The lots in our neighborhood there were large but moving here to Marietta we knew we wanted to be close to the Square, close to the Church, close to our girl’s school, so we bought a house with a smaller backyard. Perfectly suitable to our needs and less grass to mow, but closer to our neighbors, which has made us aware of how loud we are. We are. It’s true. We’re loud. And the loudest of us all, the bane of our neighborhood is the Coon Hound we got from the pound back in Tennessee. We were at a neighborhood dinner last Fall. Everyone was introducing themselves – “we’re the Smith’s and we’re the ones who have been having the pool installed, sorry about that.” Then everyone laughed politely, excusing and understanding the slight inconvenience. Then Sara says, “We’re the Evans family and we’re the one with the hound dog who barks all the time.” No one laughed. So, when we went out of town last week we were worried about what was going to happen with these neighbors who agreed to watch our dogs, and we emphasized how free they should feel to shut Junebug the coon hound inside if there were a cat around that she couldn’t stop barking at. Our kind neighbor assured us that everything would be fine, but then she contacted us on our way back into town with some bad news. A possum made herself a home under our deck. Junebug knew that it was there, but this deck is right on the ground, she couldn’t get to it, and she wouldn’t stop barking. Our neighbor shut our dog inside where her barks were at least muffled, and when we got home first order of business was to sell the house and leave the neighborhood before they run us out. No. Not really. First order of business was to buy a trap and catch the possum. I had to shop around to buy the kind I wanted. Lowe’s sells them. The humane kind. Only problem with the humane kind is then you have to release what you’ve trapped, but I knew the code to my neighbor’s garage and planned on leaving it in there. Just kidding – I was planning on releasing it in the woods a couple miles from the house, but before setting the trap, Sara asked me how I was feeling about trapping this wild animal. I told her that I was feeling a little sorry for the possum, that after a nice meal of possum bait she’d be spending a cold night inside a metal trap. Sara said, “Just think about how happy this possum will be living in the woods instead of having a coon hound bark in her ear incessantly.” And that was a good point, but after catching her and releasing her, I watched as the dirty old marsupial waddled off into her new home, and I couldn’t help thinking about how it is an accepted practice to trap a possum and take it somewhere else. How you can do all kinds of things to a possum without asking her permission. A human is allowed to ignore the will of a pest, but to abuse power is to treat a person like a possum. For a man to treat another human, not like a person but like an animal, that’s wrong. For a King to treat citizens, not like self-determining individuals with minds and bodies and rights to decide, but as subjects who need to be told what to do. How wrong it is for the people’s representative, for God’s chosen king, to manipulate the truth to suit him, and dispose of those whose testimony might discredit him. It is an abuse of power for a tyrant to look down from his roof to see a woman bathing, and to see her as something that he wants. It’s a tragic truth that these are all things that King David did. We just read in our First Scripture Lesson: It happened late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. [Then] David sent messengers to get her. That’s not how it’s supposed to happen, but that’s how David did it as he becomes the kind of king that the Prophet Samul warned Israel about. Do you remember what the Prophet Samuel said? Rev. Lisa Majores reminded me that the Prophet Samuel warned the people when they asked for a king. The prophet told them that, “He will take your sons. He will take your daughters. He will take the best of your fields. And in that day, you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves.” No one would have thought that gentle David would become such a king – the kind who looks down from his roof to see what he might take, but this is the way of human corruption. This is what too often happens in the hearts of men when given power. There’s no need to go down the list of powerful men who did what David did. You know who they are, and I pray that you have personally been blessed to steer clear of all of them, because too much harm has been done by those who abuse their power. But today I won’t name names or go on about condemning those who are guilty of abusing their power. The truth will come out with or without this preacher. What I feel called to speak about today, is what it’s supposed to look like. School starts again this week, and every parent thinks that school is about learning, but every student knows it’s really about socializing. And with socializing comes friendship, then later, dating. In either case it’s important to know how it’s supposed to look, how it was intended to be, for throughout life there will be those who look at you and see something that they want, but there will be others who will really see you, and with love in their heart, instead of seeing you as something that they might have, they will see you as someone who might want what they have to give. Listen again to the words of our Second Scripture Lesson: My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” My favorite detail in those verses is where the young man is standing. Why doesn’t he just knock on the door? If you’ve never been a 15-year-old boy you might not know this, but he’s hiding behind the wall because he’s terrified. I remember my mother saying to me, as I was gathering the courage to call a fellow High School student to ask her out on a date. She said, “If I had any idea how timid 15-year-old boys really were, I would have been a much more confident 15-year-old girl.” That’s how it’s supposed to be. The young man has something to offer – and what he has to offer is his heart. This is a gift he wants to give, and he’s terrified because the one who he wants to give his heart to has the power to accept it and treasure it or crush his 15-year-old heart with her rejection. But that’s nothing to worry over. That’s how it’s meant to be, so consider for just a moment the difference between this young man who hides behind the wall, looking through the lattice to catch a glimpse of his beloved, and King David, who looks down from his roof to see a beautiful woman whose name he doesn’t even know. Consider the difference between this young man who speaks and says, “Arise my love, my fair one, and come away,” and King David who doesn’t even say anything to Bathsheba – he just sends for her. Consider the difference in who has agency. Consider the difference in who has control and power. Where is the woman with the chance to say yes or no and where is the woman trapped, like a possum in a cage? It is so important to issue an invitation. For while you can’t control whether the invitation will be accepted, and while your heart may get broken in the process, if the one you are inviting doesn’t have the power to say yes or no there can be no real friendship, and certainly there can be nothing more than that. If there is no invitation there can only be something which is so much less than love. Without an invitation there is only abused power – one who has the power to choose what he wants, and another who is an object to be taken. But with an invitation, there is an open door to love. That’s important to remember in life. It’s important to remember that from the beginning of friendship and into dating. It’s even important to remember that in understanding our relationship with God. The great CS Lewis said that we are like children, happily making mud pies in the alley way, who have been invited to the seashore. With this invitation, what we have is the choice between the life that we know and the abundant life that we don’t, but are invited to. And God knows how much better the beach is to making mud pies in the alleyway – God knows this as much as Sara knows that a possum would rather live in the woods than be trapped under our deck, only God, who issues us this invitation would never trap us and take us to the beach for our own good, because that’s not love. Instead our God simply issues the invitation. The invitation to come away – “for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time for singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” You see – the young man in the Song of Solomon is not just a young man. The ancients kept this love poetry in our Bible so that we would know this great metaphor that God’s love for us is like the love of a young man for a young woman. That the Lord gives to us – an invitation. And we have the choice to go or not, because that’s love. Love is not a power drunk king who looks down from heaven on a people that he wants for his own pleasure. Instead love is a young man in the Song of Solomon – or a Gentle Savior in the Gospels – a Gentle Savior who holds out his heart to his people saying: “Take and eat, this is my body, broken for you.” We had the power to reject him. And we did. What is the Cross, but the sign of God’s abundant love freely offered, and humanity's sin, which chose to slam the door in his face. But even after his rejection, he rose – and offers us his love again today. We are not possums. We are not objects. It is our choice – to say yes, or to say no. That’s how love is supposed to look and that’s how it has to be. Will it break God’s heart if we turn our backs? Maybe. But our God who is the very definition of what love truly is would never look upon us and take what He wants. He’d only call on us to consider again what it is that He has to give. Not just life – abundant life. Not freedom as the world knows it, but freedom from regret and freedom to rest in His mercy. It is vitally important that we as a church remember this as we go out into the world and as we welcome visitors into our doors. If this is your first time here I confess that there’s always a part of me that wants to give you a pledge card right away. But the emphasis of the Gospel is not on what you have, but one what God has to give. This is a church founded on the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ – and here lives are transformed by faith, hope and love. The Gospel is alive here, and that’s what we epmasize. God’s invitation to the whole world – to enjoy abundant life. Amen.