THE TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY OF
ORDINARY TIME—A
October 19, 2014
THE
OLD TESTAMENT
Exodus 33:12-23
12Moses
said to the Lord, “Look, you keep
telling me, ‘Bring this people up,’ and you haven’t let me know whom you will
send with me; and you keep saying, ‘I know you by name, and you have found
favor in my eyes.’
13“Now,
if I really have found favor in your eyes, teach me your ways so that I can
know that I really have found favor in your eyes, and show your people, this
great nation.”
14He
said, “You will go before me and I will give you rest.”
15He
said to him, “If you won’t go with us, don’t bring us up from this place. 16How can anyone tell that I have
found favor in your eyes, I and your people, unless you walk with us? Isn’t that what makes us different, I and
your people from every other people all over the world?”
17The
Lord said to Moses, “I will do
this thing also, the thing you have asked, because you have found favor in my
eyes, and I know you by name.”
18Moses
said to him, “Show me your glory.”
19He
said, “I will cause all my greatness to cross over before you, and I will
proclaim before you my name, ‘The Lord
who is gracious to whomever he is gracious and who has compassion on whomever
he has compassion.’ 20But you
cannot see my face. No human being can
see my face and live.”
21The
Lord said, “See, there is a place
with me, and I will set you on a rock. 22When
my glory passes before you, I will put you in a crevice in the rock, and you
will stand on that rock. 23I
will place my hand on you, and you will see my back, but my face cannot be
seen.”
THE PSALTER
Psalm 99
1. The
Lord is king! Let the peoples tremble! Enthroned on cherubim! Let the seas reel!
2. The
Lord in Zion is great, and he is
high above all the peoples.
3. Let
them thank your name, great and fearful.
Holy is he!
4. The
strong King loves justice. You have established
the upright ones.
5. Exalt
the Lord our God, and worship at
his footstool. Holy is he!
6. Moses
and Aaron were among his priests,
and
Samuel among those who call on his name.
They would
call on the Lord and he would
answer them.
7. In
a pillar of cloud he would speak to them.
They
kept his precepts and the statutes he gave them.
8. Lord our God, you answered them.
You were a
forgiving God to them, avenging on those who who rose up against them.
9. Exalt
the Lord our God, and worship
toward his holy mountain.
For
great is the Lord our God!
THE
EPISTLE
I Thessalonians 1
1Paul
and Silvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace to
y’all and peace.
2We
always thank God for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers, never
failing to 3remember your work of faith and labor of love and
endurance of hope on behalf of our Lord Jesus Christ before God our Father, 4knowing,
family loved by God, our election, 5that our gospel did not come to
you in word alone but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and great undeniable
wisdom, just as you know what kind of people we were toward you for your
benefit. 6And you became
imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in much tribulation with
the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7so that you now are examples to all the
believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8The
word the Lord has gone out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also
in every place your faith in God has been heard, so that we don’t need to say a
word! 9They themselves tell
us what kind of entrance we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God, 10and how made your hearts a home
for his heavenly Son, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivered us
from the coming wrath.
THE
GOSPEL
Matthew 22:15-22
15Then
the Pharisees put their heads together and decided to try to trap him in his
words. 16They sent some of
their disciples, with some of the Herodians, to say, “Teacher, we know that you
are true and you are teaching the true Word of God and you do not worry about
what people think about you. 17Tell
us what you think: is it right to pay
taxes to Caesar or not?”
18Jesus
recognized their trickery, and said, “Why are trying to
trap me, you hypocrites? 19Show me
the coin you use to pay the tax.”
20Then
he said to them, “Whose picture is this? Whose name is
engraved on this?”
21They
said, “Caesar’s.”
Then he said
to them, “If it’s Caesar’s, give it to him; and give God what is God’s.”
22They
were amazed when they heard that, and they left him alone.
R
E L A T I O N S H I P S : L E A R N I
N G T O F L Y
A SERMON FOR THE 24TH
SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME—A
October 19, 2014
by William F. Thomas II
THE
SCRIPTURES: Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; I Thessalonians 1;
Matthew 22:15-22
THE MESSAGE: It is out of our discomforts
that we grow.
THE DOCTRINE: Christian Perfection
THE RESPONSE: Begin to look for the
win/win.
THE SEMINAL OUTLINE:
A. FIGHTING
N. FRICTION
S. FORGIVING
V. FORWARD!
A. FAITH
THE RESPONSE:
A. FIGHTING
1. Moses
and God?!?
N. FRICTION
1. Too
much like us
S. FORGIVING
1. Not a bad thing
2. If
we both agree on everything
3. Teaching
eagles to fly
4. Show
me your glory
V. FORWARD!
1. What
if…family
2. What
if…church
3. What
if…yourself
A. FAITH
1. What
does the cross mean?
2. What
does your pain mean?
3. If
it was easy…
R
E L A T I O N S H I P S : L E A R N I
N G T O F L Y
A SERMON FOR THE 24TH
SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME—A
October 19, 2014
by William F. Thomas II
Moses and God had a fight.
Moses and God disagreed more than
once. But this was their first
fight. After bringing all of the Children
of Israel out of Egypt after the Ten Plagues and the Parting of the Red Sea, God
revealed himself to them all with a loud, terrifying spectacle: flames and smoke and the sound of trumpets
blaring and his own overwhelming voice: “I
AM THE LORD YOUR GOD. YOU WILL HAVE NO OTHER
GODS BEFORE ME! YOU WILL NOT MAKE ANY
IMAGES OF ANYTHING IN THE EARTH OR IN THE WATER OR IN THE SKY!” Pretty impressive, right? Borderline unforgettable!
Then God called Moses out of town
for a few days. Well, forty. And the Children of Israel threw a bunch of
golden jewelry into a fire and formed it into a golden calf to worship.
Have you ever had a conversation
with your spouse that begins, “Did you see what THAT SON OF YOURS did?” “Did you hear what THAT DAUGHTER OF YOURS
said?” God said to Moses, “Hey, Moses,
those people YOU BROUGHT UP OUT OF EGYPT…”
God wanted to wipe ‘em all out. And after a while Moses started to sound like
Laura Petrie from the old “Dick van Dyke Show”:
“YOU DON’T LOVE ME ANYMORE!”
That’s what Moses said! Well, literally, he said, “You said I have
found favor in your sight! You said you
know me by name!”
“You said you love me!”
God said, “That’s right, I do.”
Moses said, “Well, if you really
love me, you won’t give up on YOUR people.”
God said, “Okay, okay, you got
it.
“But I won’t walk with them! If I’m with them for more than five minutes
I’m liable to lose my temper and somebody’s going to die!”
“IF YOU REALLY LOVED ME you’d go
with us! You wouldn’t send some angel to
lead us! And if you don’t, just leave us
here to die! If you won’t take them, I’m
not going either!”
Like many a long-suffering spouse (I
don’t say long-suffering husband, ladies.
It works both ways, right?) Like
many a long-suffering spouse, God finally said, “Okay, you win. I really do love you. We’ll do it your way.”
Is this making anyone
uncomfortable? I have paraphrased a
thing or two, but I have actually told it pretty much the way the Bible tells
it. Look it up. Exodus 32 and 33.
“But surely God really wasn’t going
to KILL them? Surely he was just testing
Moses, or trying to train Moses, or something, RIGHT?”
Okay. The Bible doesn’t say that’s what was in God’s
mind. It doesn’t say it wasn’t on God’s
mind. I could speculate, and MANY people
have. But the Bible doesn’t say more
than that. In fact, a lot of people put
a lot of effort into cleaning up the biblical image of God. It’s like they’re trying to housebreak God,
make God somehow more acceptable to our modern tastes and sensibilities. We have to SPIN God. We have to PR God. I mean, we can’t let the biblical account of
God stand on its OWN, right? I mean, it’s
hard enough to get people in church as it is without the Bloodthirsty Tyrant of
the Old Testament being allowed to testify in his own behalf, right?
My wife and I celebrated our 25th
wedding anniversary June 10 of this year.
And it hasn’t been easy, every step of the way. It’s been wonderful, but it hasn’t been easy,
not all of it. I know couples who tell
me things like, “We’ve been married 45 years and we’ve never had a fight!” I smile and say, “That’s wonderful!” but what
I’m thinking is, “Yeah, right! You’re
either lying, or you’ve spent a half century in opposite sides of the house
never talking to each other!”
In real relationships, if you spend
enough time together, there will be friction.
In fact, I guarantee, if you do it right, after you’ve been married a
while, one day you’ll wake up, see the face of your beloved snoozing on the
pillow, and you’ll begin to pray this prayer:
“O God! What have I done?” Amen?
When I was in seminary, the mother
of a friend gave me a book called Notes
on Love and Courage by Hugh Prather.
Some of it I found wonderful, one or two places I found
blasphemous. Some of it made no sense to
me at all, but, to my credit, I considered his age (in his 40’s) and mine
(mid-20’s), and I decided those parts might make a lot more sense a dozen or so
years down the road.
He talked about his marriage. He told the story of getting his lovely
fiancée into a car, driving across the state line into Oklahoma, and getting
married before a justice of the peace. Then he said if he hadn’t made it expensive,
difficult, and publicly humiliating to leave her, he wouldn’t have stayed. But, he also says, if he hadn’t stayed, he would
have missed out not only on the love of his, he would have missed out on some
of the most valuable growth experiences of his life.
Did you ever wake up and realize
your spouse has changed overnight? That,
suddenly, things she used to hate she now wants, things he adored yesterday he
finds boring today?
Mr. Prather said at those times,
usually he was pretty satisfied with himself.
He didn’t see that he NEEDED to change.
But she wanted him to.
And he wanted not just to stay
married, but to have the happiest marriage possible.
And, a little way down the road, he
realized that the change he never wanted or even considered had made him a
better man, a better husband, a better Christian.
One of the most influential
Christians in my life was fond of saying, “If you and I agree on everything,
one of us is unnecessary.” If you and I
agree on everything, neither of us is helping the other grow. And like all living beings, we exist in one
of two states: we are either growing, or
we are dying. We are either advancing or
we are stagnating. We are either
learning, or we are atrophying.
We are living beings. Nations are living beings. Communities are living beings.
Churches are living beings. And if you are Church, you cannot stay
still. Hate change all you want, but
change is coming. You either work to
bring about the change of growth, or you sit and watch the change of death.
How come nobody ever shouts AMEN
when I say that?
We must grow or we die. And the kind of growth we need NEVER happens
by accident. It is always
intentional. It is always the result of
determination and work and listening and talking and disagreeing and coming at
last to some kind of consensus. It
cannot be “You listen and I’ll talk” 100% of the time. It cannot be “You’re always right and I’m
always wrong” 100% of the time. It
cannot be “Agree with me or you’re an idiot.”
Sometimes it’s “I’m wrong and you’re
right.”
Sometimes it’s “Okay, let’s try it
your way.”
It’s hard-fought.
But if it’s free isn’t it always
worth what it costs? If it’s easy, isn’t
it always worth what it costs?
What in the Bible or in history in
your experience gave you any idea this life that God gives us for free would be
easy? When in God’s dealing with his
people has he ever been afraid to ask us to do the hard thing?
But what in life, ultimately, is
more cruel and harsh than what you’re stuck with if you take the easy path
every time? I heard a preacher from the
Quaker tradition preach decades ago, and he told us, “Taking the path of least
resistance makes men and rivers crooked.”
Amen!
That influential preacher I was
quoting earlier used to tell the story of how mama eagles teach eaglets to
fly. He said when it’s time for the
eaglets to fly, first mama eagle removes all the soft, comfortable padding from
the nest so the little birds are on hard, sharp branches and thorns, and
they’re uncomfortable and scared. If
they spoke English (Maybe they speak Eaglish!
Sorry about that) Anyway, if they
spoke English, they’d be crying, “Mommy!
Did I do something wrong?
Mommy! Are you mad at me?”
When they’ve come to realize the
soft parts of the nest are NEVER coming back, she shows them how long and strong
her wings are, and puts her wings down at talon-level, until the first one gets
the idea, and climbs on. She takes off,
and shows the little guy how beautiful it is up there, the exhilaration of
flying, the wonder. She brings it back
to the nest. Then she takes it up
again. And again. Until, finally, one time, she shakes the
little guy off and lets it fall. She
catches it. Then she shakes it off
again. And catches it. And again, and again, and again until it
figures out what its wings are for.
She does this for each eaglet until
it can fly.
But its career as a flier begins
with discomfort.
From all my experience, from all my
study in the Bible and theology and Christian history, I can assure you that God
has never picked anybody up, taken them 20,000 feet into the air, and dropped
them. I frankly don’t believe God plans our
discomforts, pains, and losses. They
just happen naturally in our world. But
I do believe God whispers in our ears (and it takes a lot of practice to hear
it), “I wish you didn’t have to hurt, but since this has happened, may I teach
you something? May I help you grow
stronger? May I show you how to be more
like me?”
Moses and God calmed down a
while. And when the fight was over, what
followed is what often follows at the end of, shall we say, a lovers’
quarrel.
Moses said, “Show me your glory.”
That means, “I love you.”
That means, “I missed you.”
That means, “Draw me closer.”
Want to hear something weird? If I never say, “You’re right and I’m wrong,”
I’ll never learn anything. I’ll never
grow.
What if every time you felt the
friction with your spouse, with your child, with your parent, with your friend,
you could say, “Thank you, Lord! I get
to grow!”
What if every time you felt the
friction in your church, with your pastor, with your Sunday School class, with
your committee, you could say, “Thank you, Lord, I get to grow!”
What if any time you felt angry or
scared or depressed or bored, you could say, “Thank you, Lord, I get to grow!”
It won’t be easy. It’s going to take a LOT of practice, and a
LOT of work.
Do you think it might be worth it?