Feb. 28, 2010 Sermon

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35 

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As most of you know, in my life outside of these four walls, I have both my feet planted firmly in this earthly world. I prepare taxes and my work keeps me surrounded with tax law and paper work for a very many hours each week. During this time of the year especially having even one toe in heaven is a giant step.

As I sat before the blank monitor of my computer thinking about the readings for today that fact hit me right between the eyes.

As our Lent continues, we are reminded again today, about our earthly ties. This connection to the earth was first discussed on Ash Wednesday, when we were reminded that we are dust and to dust we will return. As the ashes retraced the sign of the cross that was made on our forehead at baptism, we were again reminded of our mortality. In the readings last week Jesus, as man, when tempted by the devil, resisted all the temptations put in front of him. He overcame them. This is but a snapshot of our lives. We are constantly being tempted and lead down paths we never intended to travel. Evil stands at our side, taunting us and giving us such good reasons to follow. We are constantly being drawn to make our life easier, but this is not always the way to a closer relationship with our Lord.

It is very difficult to be a member of humanity and be a spiritual being, to have one foot on earth and one foot in heaven. We may pray and meditate the first thing in the morning, spending some good quality time with God in Morning Prayer. We may begin our day with all the best intentions for a wonderfully spirit-filled day and, the next thing you know, reality sets in. We may be cursing at the driver of the car that just cut us off or wishing our boss would go fly a kite – or worse. Sometimes we might even say or feel things we have not even thought yet. Such is the life of an earthly being.

We as Christians are not immune to this behavior. We are encouraged by Paul today to remember and live out our citizenship in heaven. Will we lose all the desires and thoughts of our earthly lives? Probably not, unfortunately.

We are often led by an easier way, a way that looks so much better than the way we have now. The bigger, brighter and maybe easier way, is the way to go. Temptations are all around us every day…...Faster cars, more megabytes of computer memory and organizations that offer us the promise of the right way, with lots of catchy phrases. Paul warns us about false prophets who are promising just that, an easier, quicker, way to Christ. Paul calls them the enemies of the cross of Christ. Remember our citizenship is in heaven.

In our Old Testament lesson today even Abraham has difficulty in remembering who he is talking to. Abraham has finished doing what God had told him to do. He up and moved his entire household at God’s command. Abraham still does not have any children. God reminds him he will have decedents, but again Abraham questions him. God, who can do more than we can ask or even imagine, is being second guessed by a man. God has to make a covenant with him to get him to believe this promise.

The Gospel lesson today is another example of human’s inability to have faith and trust. Herod feared John the Baptist and Jesus. The people of Jerusalem feared Herod. Herod had a lot of power. He could withhold food and other things that common people needed for existence. Although, Jesus was helping the people of Jerusalem, they were so afraid of being without the necessities of life that they were moving against him.

Luke recounts Jesus’ conversation with the people. Jesus begins by being a little irritated with this seeming inability to trust in God’s love. This irritation soon gives way to a huge weight of sadness and grief.

The people of Jerusalem didn’t seem to have the ability to understand how much God really loved them. God wanted to care for them and protect them. But, instead of the people choosing to live in God’s love which is abundant, they chose to live in Herod’s world, a world where the lives of the people were pretty controlled by the government.

Now I have never been a fan of the Psalms that were sad and groaning. I much prefer the uplifting and praise type of Psalms. But a couple of years ago I started a discipline of reading all of them, even the depressing ones. Had I not started this new discipline, I probably would have avoided discussing today’s Gospel at all.

Jesus was a Jew of his time. In his tradition, Jesus prayed the Psalms, not only the happy ones, full of praise and thanksgiving, but the sad ones. Many of these Psalms were full of despair and grief. Jesus lamenting, Jesus sad, Jesus’ love for the city and the people of Jerusalem was not given in return. The people would rather have looked to a ruler that did not even care about them than to a God that loved them more than they could have even imagined.

In our day and time public display of emotion is not as accepted as in Jesus day. We keep a stiff upper lip, especially in northern Minnesota, where there a lot of Scandinavian folks, like myself. Weeping and gnashing of teeth is not normal behavior in Grand Rapids. But for Jesus, an extreme display of emotion and grief was not only acceptable, but normal. Sadness was accompanied by groaning. Jesus grieves the fact that the people, his people have turned from God, have hardened their hearts and are looking for the easy way. They would rather not rock the boat. The people of Jerusalem had already decided to stay stuck in the physical world they lived in, a world filled with hunger and fear, a world where everyone was under the thumb of a malevolent ruler.

This kind of human thinking has not changed in over two thousand years. We still see hardened hearts and people who live under the rule of truly evil people. We see people starving and living in very difficult conditions. And we see people turning away when they see the reality of the human condition.

Jesus still grieves in many places in the world. He calls us to action, we are his voice. The inability of people to see his love, his desire to gather his people like a hen would gather her chicks, under the loving arms of our father, Jesus lamenting could be the beginning of something new, something different. Lamenting and grief may open us to a new beginning.

Being trusting, faithful and attentive to our Lord is not necessarily the fast and easy way. It is probably just the opposite. It is time consuming and sometimes downright difficult, in a society where commercialism, wealth and speed have a strong arm grip on its members, to remember that deepening our relationship with God, our family, and friends is the way of truth and love.

Have you ever had a little rock in your shoe? Most of us have at one time or another. When that happens to me sometimes I will try to ignore it. I might keep walking trying not to think about it. Maybe try to shift it to one side or the other, hoping it would not be a bother anymore or maybe it will miraculously disappear. I might not want to take the time to sit down, untie my shoe, shake out the rock and then put my shoe on again. Maybe I don’t have time, Maybe it is not a good place to sit down. Maybe I am in public and I don’t want to be embarrassed. At any rate, if I just keep on going and ignore it I will continue to hope that it will just go away. But, you know what, sooner or later, I am going to have to sit down, take off my shoe, shake out that stone and put my shoe back on.

We are given the opportunity every year during lent to sit down and shake the rocks out of our shoes. If we don’t have time or a place to sit down, during the course of the year, Lent affords us that opportunity. We have a break, a season specifically meant to help us shake out all the little grains of sand, the small little rocks and even some big boulders we may carrying in our shoes. Just removing one of them might make our journey a little easier. The journey to Holy week and the cross will be less a trudge and more a stroll. We will be able to walk a little closer to Christ.