More Christian?

Genesis 22:1-14; Matthew 10:40-42

You might notice a contrast between two of our scripture stories this morning.

The first story we heard is called the akedah, the “binding,” in the Hebrew tradition.  God instructs Abraham to take his beloved son to Moriah, and offer him on the altar on the mountain.  And Abraham does it! 
He goes off to the mountain with Isaac, binds his son on the altar and reaches for a knife to kill Isaac before (finally!) God interrupts, and provides a ram for the offering.

There’s no disguising the fact that this is a scary and very disturbing story.

And then we come to the gospel, where we hear Jesus’ talking to his disciples as he sends them out to preach and teach and heal:

Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me. And those who welcome a prophet, or a righteous person, or even one of the nobodies, receives a reward.  

Welcome everyone!  It’s rewarding!

Now tell me honestly, which of those stories sounds more like being a good Christian to you?

The binding of Isaac?

Or welcome everyone?

Well, there’s good news and bad news about the results of this little poll: you’re all wrong. Or equally, you’re all right, including those of you who had a hard time deciding.

You see, even though they sound so different, both of these stories are about putting God ahead of absolutely everything else.  Putting God ahead of our love, our convenience, our hearts, even our faith!

I am absolutely certain that God never approves of child sacrifice – the prophets warn Israel and everyone else against it – and that God definitely doesn’t want any of us to get ideas about killing our children.

It helps to remember as we read Isaac’s story, that even though God tells Abraham to offer Isaac on the altar, God has already made sure that Isaac will never be in actual danger.

But Abraham really does have to trust God even more than he trusts himself. 

He has to trust God even more than he loves and values his son (and that’s a lot!).

God has to trust Abraham a lot, too, because God could lose both Isaac and Abraham by inviting them to this heart-breaking altar – if Abraham doesn’t actually trust God that much.

But there’s evidence of Abraham’s trust throughout the story.

When Isaac asks about the missing lamb for the offering, Abraham answers “God himself will provide the lamb.”  (It’s the only time in the Bible when we actually hear the familiar phrase “God will provide” – and when you use it, remember it’s a high stakes trust, here!)

And earlier in the story, when they leave Abraham’s servants behind, Abraham tells them to wait because we – both he and Isaac – will return.

It takes a powerful, painful, gut-wrenching kind of trust to bind your own son and reach for a knife, still trusting that God will provide. 

And thank God, God doesn’t ask that of you and me.

But God still demands some pretty powerful trust from us.  

There’s evidence of that in the gospel story.

You see, welcoming people the way Jesus means it is not about being nice, polite, or friendly. Welcoming people is actually about extra and unusual effort to treat people as God would treat them. 

To proactively, intentionally, seek out the opportunity to make people at home in your community; to show guests that they are valued and served and cared for just as you would care for God.

It may mean giving up privacy and familiarity in your home to welcome someone God needs you to care for.  It may mean going way out of your comfort zone to greet strangers, pray in public or in your workplace, because we’re called to welcome God’s people who aren’t ready for or interested in coming through our church doors.

We’ve been talking about welcome in Vestry this year.  You’ve heard us talk about “Refresh, Renew, Revive,” and about how we want to change up our entryway and our fellowship space to make our building more welcoming, encourage conversation, and put physical form on our hospitality.

But we also remind ourselves in those conversations that to welcome a prophet, or a righteous person, or a “little one” – Jesus’ term for “no account” people, the people who clearly don’t matter – to welcome any or all of those people is about a lot more than furniture and name tags.

The building is the easy part.  Advertising and seriously inviting people from outside – face to face is harder – it’s the sort of things that make Episcopalians squirm. 

But what Jesus is talking about is even more.

Jesus is asking us to work on our hearts – on looking actively and intently for ways we can incorporate people into our life together, ways we can help others see that their whole selves are welcomed by God, even if they seem “different” than us. 

It means paying more attention to inviting, involving, and serving others than to whether we’re comfortable or happy in worship. 

It means going even further than we do now to put kids and people with walkers ahead of our sense of proper space and normal worship.

It means being excited about the challenges of changing our assumptions; embracing differences that make people with different colors, cultures, food, music, and ways of celebrating just as much at home at Calvary as you or I could be.

To do all that we have to trust God more than we care about our own comfort, or our families, or friends.

That’s not being “nice” at all.

That’s being gut-wrenchingly Christian.

Which brings us right back to Abraham and Isaac, and to trusting God.

Trusting God so much that you don’t fear the loss of whatever you hold most dear, even in the moment that you’re preparing to sacrifice that darling to God.

Trusting God so much that you’ll go far out of your way to do what God wants – even though you have serious doubts about whether it will make you happy.

Trusting God so much that you’ll consciously try to welcome when that means uprooting unconscious habits or comfort.

Geez, that’s a lot of trust!

And that is exactly what being Christian – being “Christ-like” – is  all about. 

About trusting God so much that we can embrace discomfort, doubt, and fear – just like Jesus did – to offer up what’s dearest to us, and go out of our way to welcome others as we would serve and honor God.

That trust means ongoing work; it’s not a one time deal.

You don’t have to be nice to people (you can, though), you don’t have to sacrifice your children, but you do have to trust God above even the things that are closest to your heart.

You and I have already been invited to that nerve-wracking altar.  Even welcomed by God. 

Now we’re called to trust beyond trust, and to welcome others.

Jesus promised us that it’s rewarding – that’s important to remember.

And God’s waiting with us – just like with Abraham – to see what happens.

What do you think it will be?

Mystery

Genesis 1:1-2:4; Matthew 28:16-20

I love the Genesis story we heard this morning.  It’s a long story, but a good one.

I love it for the poetic way that God brings life and beauty out of chaos, out of the “formless void.”

I love it, because it gives meaning to the way we experience our world, telling us that we share the resources of the earth with birds and “creeping things that creep upon the earth” and everything that breathes; telling us most of all that all of creation: light and dark, water and land, trees and snails and vultures and zebras and dogs and stars and people, all of creation is good.

Very good.

And I love it because the delightfully concrete details like the provision of “plants yielding seed and trees bearing fruit with the seed in it” as food for everything that breathes don’t obscure the sense of mystery, of wonder and joy, at the miracle of creation.

It’s a story that tells important truths but still knows it doesn’t have all the answers. And it’s a story whose truths and meanings we humans are still trying to figure out.

Just look at the interest and conversation generated by the recent Fox series “Cosmos,” where my personal hero, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, a brilliant physicist with a sense of humor, takes viewers on beautifully designed tours of what we know of the universe, from DNA to stars, from tectonic plates to atmosphere, and much between and beyond, and shows us the questions that haven’t been answered.

Both the ultra-contemporary “Cosmos” and the ancient creation stories of the Bible remind us that the appeal of both science and theology is to ask and answer questions like

“How did we get here?”

“What is the world like?”

and the perennial mystery, “Why mosquitoes?”

(why, oh God, why??)

Science and theology take somewhat different approaches to how we answer those questions, but there’s still a lot of overlap in the mystery and in the questions.

I’m particularly glad we read that biblical mystery story today, because today is the day the Church calls “Trinity Sunday.”  It’s a perfect day for mystery and wonder and questions, because today is the day we celebrate what we know – and even more, what we don’t know – about who God is.

Technically, we are celebrating the church’s long proclaimed truth that three “persons,” Father, Son and Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; are all one God, a mathematical and logical impossibility that reminds us how much mystery there still is in our relationship with God.

We know God is one.

That’s actually the radical truth that our Genesis creation story proclaimed when it was first told – in a world where most people told creation stories about struggles between multiple gods.

We know that God is one.

And we also know that Jesus was God, walking around on the earth in one human body and talking to God in heaven, calling God, “Father,” – but still, Jesus was God.

So we know that God is two.  But still one.

And we’ve been talking about the Spirit of God ever since the beginning; the Spirit who hovers over creation, who fills us with the presence of God in daily inspiration, sent to us and the world by the Creator, or by Jesus, or both…which makes three, if you’re still counting.

But we still know that God is One.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Well, it’s not supposed to make logical sense.  But it’s all truth.

Just like the Elephant.

Do you know the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant?

One famous version of the story explains that six scholars, all blind, wanted to really know what an elephant was like.  So they found an elephant to observe (very scientific of them!).

One touched the trunk, and knew that an elephant was like a snake. Another embraced a leg, and knew the elephant was like a tree. One fell against the elephant’s side, and recognized a wall; another felt the ear and knew it was like a fan.  The final two felt the tail – obviously like a rope, and the tusk, sharp and solid, like a spear.

In some versions of the story the scholars argue and disagree.  In other versions, they pool their knowledge, ending up with a bigger picture.  But the blind men never get to “see” the whole elephant, a being greater than the sum of its parts.

It’s a perfect metaphor for our own descriptions of God, and even of God’s creation and action in the world.

We never get to see all of God or God’s actions for ourselves. We can only tell the truth of what we experience and what we already know; and listen to what others experience.

We can talk about the experiences we have of God as Creator when we marvel at the wonders of nature, or of human beings; God as Redeemer when we celebrate our salvation; God as  Sanctifier when we feel the presence of God within and among us. We can talk about God as Father, Son and Spirit; and we do, in scripture and sermons and conversations and song and prayer.

But we can’t gain a complete picture of God, except by saying that all these ways we know God are truths – but not the whole truth – of one undivided God.

Which brings us back to mystery.

Mystery which permeates the stories of creation that both scientists and theologians tell.

And sometimes mystery itself is enough truth to go on with, when we don’t know it all; even enough to help us live our lives, and grow in our relationship to God.

Mystery – of creation, of the Trinity – means that our relationship with God requires a life-long willingness to explore our hopes, our questions, our experience, and even our doubts.

And it means that we have to tell the truth of what we know before we know the whole truth. We have to share our experience of the fan and the tree and the rope, our experience of God the Creator, God the Savior, God the Counselor and Guide, so that everyone can see more of the elephant, more of God, than any of us can alone.

That’s the last instruction Jesus left with his disciples, after all. We heard it in today’s gospel story: after the resurrection, the disciples are gathered around Jesus, hearts full of both worship and doubt. And that’s when Jesus says, “Go, and make disciples among all peoples, teaching them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The disciples certainly didn’t know the whole truth, but they knew God the Son, so they knew God the Father, and the Spirit.  And Jesus sent them out to tell what they knew.

That’s an invitation – not just to the disciples so long ago, but to us today – to delight in the mystery, to seek out many different experiences of God, and to share them, so that we know God, even when we don’t know it all and never will. Because the truth isn’t defined by answers, but by our experience of God from the moment of creation, and our willingness to wonder, and to embrace the mystery.

Powerful

Acts 1:6-14

It’s the end of the story.

You can tell, because all the characters are standing on the stage, looking up into the sky, waiting for the heavenly credits to roll.

It’s the Ascension.

It’s the last big moment in the narrative of Jesus’ life.  The last of his face-to-face interactions with his disciples.  It happens forty days after the Resurrection. And it’s the first story we heard today:

Jesus gathers the disciples on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem.  They ask him about how the story is supposed to end – Now are you ready to restore the rule of God to our nation? Are we there yet?? – and Jesus being Jesus,  he doesn’t answer that question.

No, you won’t know when, or exactly what God is doing about that. But I’ve got a job for you – you are to be my witnesses.

(Jesus always does that, darn it! You ask a simple question, you get a gospel chore.)

And then, while they’re still soaking up this latest assignment, the story ends.

Jesus is lifted up, embraced in cloud (an obvious indication of divine intervention), and the disciples are left staring into heaven, eyes raised, watching the credits roll, and wondering if they’re satisfied with the end of the story.

They get called on it.

Never mind that Jesus is gone, God still finds ways to nudge us into doing our jobs.

“Stop staring into heaven,” say two angels, messengers who just happen by.

“Jesus is gone, Jesus is coming. The story’s over, yes, but wait for the next one.”

So the disciples stop watching the clouds, and go back to Jerusalem to pray.

You see, that’s actually the beginning of the story.

It’s the beginning of the story we’ll tell next week, when we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, and the gift of the Holy Spirit:  that somewhat more famous story where the disciples all find themselves on fire to preach the gospel in every language of the known world.

Today, though, is where that story begins: this disappearance of Jesus with a promise, and an assignment.

Listen again to what Jesus says when the disciples ask him about the end of the story:
“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

You will receive power.

You – hey, you; yes YOU.

You will receive power,

You will be my witnesses, tell my story, begin the gospel story, at home and abroad to all the ends of the earth.

YOU. Me, too. We become powerful people. Powerful enough to change the ends of the earth. And that’s the just the beginning of the story.

Are you used to thinking of yourself as a powerful person?

Show of hands – if  you wake up in the morning and assume that you’re a powerful person.

I don’t wake up that way, and honestly, a lot of the time I feel more helpless than powerful. But I am powerful. So are you. We just forget.

So I got some help to remember that power from my friends on the internet, including some of you, and this is what we remembered:

You have power to listen, and make others’ voices heard.

Power to change someone’s day with something as simple as eye contact and a smile.

Some of us have power to shape infants and young people into adults we are proud to have in the world.  Or power to create life.

We have power to share our joy, and our grief – and both can change the world.

You have power to heal, or encourage, or welcome, or build, or brighten, or nurture, or invent, or teach in the use of your unique gifts and talents.

You may have power to run, leap, dance; you certainly have power to display the amazing grace of your body, and power to create stillness. 

Power to organize, to speak, to choose.

You have – I have – the power to forgive.  And won’t that change the world, when we exercise our power!

You have power behind the wheel of a car; in your voter registration card.

Power in your hands with matches, and pens or keyboards,

and every day you choose how to use that power, over and over.

All those things add up to the power to change lives, whether you know it or not,

and the power to change the world.

So, do you think of yourself as a powerful person now?

You should.

You are.

Some of that power is born into, or earned by, each of us.

Some of it is God’s power, though.

God’s power, entrusted to us; and your own power, multiplied by the Holy Spirit:

We become powerful people, you and I, because the gospel needs to spread to the ends of the earth, and to all the little cul-de-sacs and neighborhoods in between.

Right now, listen to your heart, and to the Holy Spirit, and write down or draw the power that you have.

You have power.  Name it.

Anyone want to share?

Now that you know your power, what will you do with it?

Write that down, too.

Hang on to what you wrote, or what you drew.  Tuck it in your wallet; hang it on your fridge.  Because you need to remember your power; remember God’s power, in you.

Remember, and use your power.

Because that’s why Jesus left, back at the end of the story.

If Jesus never leaves, there’s no need for us.

And God needs us, needs you, wants us to receive power, to be powerful, and to live the gospel story in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, in Lombard and Chicago and “downstate,” and all the ends of the earth.

That brings us again to the beginning of the story.

The beginning of the gospel story, our gospel story, the story that begins as the Holy Spirit comes and we recognize that God’s already given us power.

Real, godly, power, from here unto the ends of the earth.

This story begins with the question: What are you going to do with that power?

So let’s begin.