Ride and Die

Sermon preached Sunday, February 21, 2021, the First Sunday of Lent, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. 

On Wednesday we began a new sermon series at St. John’s. Throughout the season of Lent and up through Easter Sunday, we will be reflecting on the idea of covenant, or promise. What promises has God made to us? What is our role in the covenant? What happens when a covenant is broken? And what does it mean that Jesus came into our world to create a new covenant with God’s people?

With that lens in mind, we approach this morning’s text. We began with a familiar story, the story of Noah. Noah and the Ark is one of those stories that the church teaches even very young children. Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we remember this account!

But how often, really, do we take the time to think about what’s really happening here? Yes, God promises to never flood the earth again—but it’s bigger than that. The bow in the sky is a reminder of the covenant that God makes—not just with humanity, but with all of creation. God makes a covenant to be the God of this earth and to stick it out, through thick and thin.

There’s a phrase that I’m probably going to sound hopelessly uncool for saying, but this is God’s promise to be the ride-or-die divinity for this world. Come what may, God will not abandon us, God will not wipe us out and start over, God will do whatever it takes to stay in relationship with us.

And this first covenant is one that God proves over and over again throughout scriptures. When things get tough, God adapts and finds new ways to reach us. God makes new covenants, but they never erase this primary one.

And this primary covenant finds it’s most fitting confirmation in the person of Jesus.

The lengths that Jesus goes through to evidence how much God loves us are incredible.

His ministry begins with forty days in the desert. Forty days without food, or water, or company, or a comfortable place to rest his head. And, if that wasn’t enough, Satan tempts him—adding even more difficulty to an already trying time.

The following weeks and months are full of conflict and trouble and constantly highlight how much easier it would be for Jesus to just capitulate. To give up. To leave humanity to our own devices.

And, of course, in this season of Lent, we know that the most trying days of all lie ahead. Jesus will be betrayed. Arrested. Mocked. Tortured. Convicted in a sham trial. Executed by the state.

Do you see? God is even more than “ride or die.” God is “ride and die.” Not only will God go to any length to be reconciled to us in life—but God is willing to go further, even to death.

From the first book of the Bible to the last, from Genesis to Revelation, we learn of our God who makes a covenant with us and never relents. Not when Jesus dies. Not when we die. We are God’s, in life and death. There is nothing we can do about it and nothing God will do about it.

That’s what the rainbow really says.

Amen.

Wisdom is a Promise

Sermon preached Sunday, August 19, 2018, the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio can be found here. 

Welcome to Bread—Week Four! We continue in the Gospel of John with Jesus’ teaching on how he is the bread of life. Today, he offers a word of promise that defies the understanding of the Jewish religious leaders. Our lectionary is designed to have readings from the Old Testament and the Epistles that complement the Gospel reading—some Sundays it works out better than others. Today is one of the times it works really well: the Gospel falls in line nicely with the other readings from Proverbs and Ephesians about wisdom.

Oftentimes, when we talk about wisdom and foolishness, we think about the cross. In one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, explains how God’s work defies our logic and what we think we need in order to believe. In that letter, Paul writes:

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)

This letter reminds us that God frequently works in ways we don’t understand and that the cross is the ultimate symbol of God’s subversive salvation. Who would have thought that our salvation would come about through a man who was arrested, tortured and executed instead of a powerful military or political leader?

We know, though, that the cross is not the only place where God works in a way we don’t expect or have trouble comprehending. There are many places in scripture where things don’t end up the way we think they should.

Abraham being told to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Joseph going from being sold into slavery by his brothers to right-hand man to Pharaoh. Moses not actually living long enough to see the promised land. David, an insignificant shepherd boy being anointed as king. Esther, a Jew, becoming Queen of Persia and saving her people. Ruth leaving her homeland to remain with her mother-in-law Naomi. Mary, a teenage girl from an oppressed people, being named the bearer of God.

It’s all over the place in our Bible, but today we see another piece. We hear other writings interpreting God’s wisdom for our lives.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise…” (Ephesians 5:15).

So what makes us wise? What is this wisdom that we are called to?

Wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman.

^“1Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
²She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
³She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
⁴’You that are simple, turn in here!’
To those without sense she says,
⁵’Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
⁶Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.’” (Proverbs 9:1-6)

In other words, Wisdom has prepared her home to invite the most vulnerable and most in need to come and dine. What she offers, she offers freely and without condition.

This is Wisdom? It doesn’t sound like what we might consider to be wise—after all, what guarantees do we have that our generosity will pay off or that the people we care for deserve it? Isn’t that wisdom? …or is it skepticism?

I think we often conflate the two. We are wary of being taken advantage of, or of being naïve and so we are critical or display strength in ways that build ourselves up at the expense of serving others. We hold on to skepticism and cynicism because it keeps us distant from others and keeps us safe in our own silos. …but this is not wisdom, at least not the Wisdom we find in the Bible.

This wisdom of welcome and invitation is what Jesus offers the disciples, the crowds who followed him…really, to everyone. Hear again his words:

“[Jesus said,] ⁵¹’I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ ⁵³So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.’” (John 6:51-58)

The wisdom here isn’t clear to the people listening. They argue among themselves trying to figure out just what it is he’s saying.

The thing to remember here is that it’s not only strange that Jesus is talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood…but this language goes explicitly against Jewish law.

Most of us have at least heard of the Jewish dietary laws and we might know that keeping kosher means not eating pigs or shellfish…but it’s much more than that. To prepare meat properly, to make sure that it is ritually okay, all blood must be drained before it can be cooked. This is because blood is considered unclean. Coming into contact with blood means a ritual cleansing, even something as common as menstrual blood or a little scrape that breaks the skin.

It’s because of these laws that Jesus’ words are not just odd, they are almost blasphemous. Jesus is inviting and even encouraging people to eat his flesh and drink his blood and violate the laws prescribed by their faith.

And so how could this be wisdom? How could this be right? How could this be what God wants them to do?

It’s because of the promise Jesus makes—that’s where Wisdom is found: in the promise, in the invitation, in the abundance at God’s table.

Did you notice that it is, in fact, a promise that’s made? Not an explanation offered or instructions on how it all happens.

Jesus doesn’t go into the metaphysical details of how bread can become skin and muscle and sinew or how wine can become blood cells and platelets and plasma. Jesus doesn’t even get philosophical about it. Jesus doesn’t set a test of understanding for people to pass or an age limit or any other hurdles. No, instead there is only the promise: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life…” (John 6:54a)

God’s wisdom is in the promise and the invitation.

We embrace that wisdom when we take the offer, when we come to the table, when we eat the flesh and drink the blood and receive eternal life. No conditions. No examinations. No limits.

Just a promise.

Amen.