Reflecting on the new year, 1.5.14

Lamentations 3:21-26

21But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. 26It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.


Psalm 90

1Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

2Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”

4For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past,

or like a watch in the night.

5You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;

6in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.


7For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.

8You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

9For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.

10The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;

even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

11Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

12So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

13Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!

14Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
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One of the greatest strengths of the biblical faith we share with our Jewish neighbors is the ability to take in trouble and still rest in God’s care. We don’t read from Lamentations very often. As you might guess from the title, it’s sort of a depressing book.


Lamentations is a series of poems reflecting on the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem. It is heartbreaking poetry because the poet’s heart is broken. His city, not only his home, but the center of his religious and national life has been destroyed. The city lies in ruins. Many of the poet’s friends and family have probably been killed. The dead are still lying in the street.

The poet takes it all in and pours out his grief openly, mournfully and honestly. But right in the middle of this tragic book come the words we just read together: “But this I call to mind and so I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”


There’s no covering over the shame and pain and grief. There is no disguising or pretending about the hardship that is still to come. And yet, there is still hope. God’s mercies never end; God’s love shines through even in the darkest night. We fail and fall, we suffer and we grieve, we get sick and we die. Through it all, God is faithful. Through it all, God loves us.


God is with us when things are going well, even though sometimes we’re too busy to notice. God is with us when things are just plodding along, when things are neither great nor terrible but just status quo. God’s faithfulness is great; God is steady and constant.


At the same time as God is constant, God’s mercies are new every morning. Each morning brings new joys and new challenges. There are new places we need God’s help, new failings and hurts that need God’s mercies. So every morning, every moment, God is finding new ways to show grace and love and care; we just have to open our eyes, open our hearts and receive.


The Bible teaches us about God. It also teaches us about ourselves. The new year is a natural time to reflect on our lives, on how we’ve done in the last year and what we want to do with the year to come. Psalm 90 is a great New Year’s passage because it invites us to that reflection.


God is eternal, but we are not. We ignore that fact at our peril. Our culture is so scared of death and illness that we are unable to face those things honestly or well. Instead, we rush around trying to cram as much as we can into our time while almost denying the reality of death. I’ve seen families in the hospital refuse to admit that their loved one is dying even in their last days. Most patients don’t take full advantage of the extra care available through hospice services because patients, families and doctors keep battling death long after the outcome is clear.


The psalmist encourages us to count our days so we can gain wise hearts. That means that we need to think about our life, our days and weeks and years, knowing that they are limited. Our time on earth is precious because we don’t have forever.


The trouble is, sometimes when we think of our time as precious, it makes us stingy with it, and that’s different than taking it seriously. We want to be generous with our time, like with our money and energy. We want to give freely, partly because that means we enjoy them (our energy, time and money) more than if we clutch them with white knuckles. At the same time, we don’t want to throw away our days because we can’t ever get them back.


Having a wise heart is not just about being generous with our time either. It’s about knowing our time on earth is precious and limited, but also that our impact is limited. We are fragile and, in the grand scheme of things, nothing we do will last forever either. The psalmist imagines us returning to the dust from which we came and pictures our days like grass springing up in the morning and withering away at the end of the day. Our lives, our accomplishments, the things that seem so important in the moment are fragile and temporary.


At first that sounds discouraging; it almost makes us think, “Why bother?” But ultimately it is liberating. We tend to get caught up in ourselves, caught up in our work or our family struggles or our decisions. The stakes feel so high; everything feels like an emergency, so we rush around constantly trying to manage situations to keep them from getting out of hand.


Thinking about life from the perspective of God’s time frame reminds us of that in a thousand years, whatever we are so worried about now will not matter. No one is going to remember why we were so mad at someone else. No one will care about the church budget or the rent or the election.


The moment at hand is both precious and ephemeral; both important and fleeting. That means taking our time, our decisions, our work seriously because they are precious. It also means taking them with a grain of salt because none of it lasts forever. It seems like those two things are opposites, but they aren’t. Holding on to our time and decisions lightly actually helps us make the most of them because it helps us see them more clearly, while treating every issue like a crisis makes us more likely to mess up. In almost everything we do, humans perform better if we are relaxed.


That’s where our passages come together. Our lives are temporary and precious. God is trustworthy and loving. God is faithful in hard times and in good times, and, while our lives are short, we also have the chance to be part of the work of God’s kingdom, which is eternal. God calls us to share in building up community, in making life better for others, to work for peace and reconciliation. That can be as involved as starting a hospital and as simple as saying a kind word to a stranger. Our calling as disciples of Jesus touches every part of our lives. We’re freed from the anxiety of our own lives because it’s really not about us in the end.


The new year is a great time to step back and take a look at our life. How are we doing at trusting God? Are we spending our time in a way that fits with our true priorities? Are we treating others kindly, like their lives and feelings are precious? What do you want to do differently this year?


The new year is also a time to think about our life and future as a church. As you probably know, I’m leaving this coming summer. That’s sad for me to think about because I love serving with you; this is a wonderful church. We have been a good fit for each other and we have grown together. There’s going to be a time to say goodbye to each other, but now isn’t that time.


Now is the time to think about how to use the time we have together to get ready for what’s next. We’ll be talking about that the next couple of weeks, including right after worship. Pastoral transition has not always been kind to Laurelton, but here we have time to do it right. So think about what do we need to work on together to help you take the next steps with courage and confidence.


A church is not about a pastor. It’s about a community making God’s love real through relationships and ministry. It’s about finding ways to make God’s eternal faithfulness make sense to people in everyday actions and words. It’s about growing together in trust, in faith and in love. It’s about learning to trust each other, to be honest and open with each other and to treat each other like the precious children of God we are. It’s also about having fun together because the message of faith is good news for all people.


This church has so many of the gifts the wider church and the world needs. You are relaxed and able to absorb change, which equips you well for the world we live in. You are open to all kinds of people, so you can welcome the community and invite them in to God’s story. You are committed, generous givers of time and money and energy. You have the gifts you need to thrive in ministry. This next six months we will work together to consolidate and polish your gifts and to discern how God is calling you in the next step of your ministry.


In our lives as individual disciples and our life as a church, a new year is a new beginning. It’s also a small part of the great tapestry of God’s love. God has been faithful in the past and God will be faithful in the future. This moment is full of potential for joyful, exciting ministry. So let us number our days, gain a wise heart and rest in God’s endless grace as we spend the precious time God has given us.


Thanks be to God.

Job, suffering, faith and truth, 10.20.13

Job 3:1-7, 10-11, 20-22

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ²Job said: ³“Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’ ⁴Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it. ⁵Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. ⁶That night—let thick darkness seize it! let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. ⁷Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it… ¹⁰because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.

¹¹“Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?... ²⁰“Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, ²¹who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; ²²who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave?

Job 4:1-11, 5:12-19

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ²“If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking? ³See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands. ⁴Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. ⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. ⁶Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? ⁸As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. ⁹By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. ¹⁴They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope at noonday as in the night. ¹⁵But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth, from the hand of the mighty. ¹⁶So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

¹⁷“How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. ¹⁸For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal. ¹⁹He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you.

Job 21:1-14

Then Job answered: ²“Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation. ³Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on. ⁴As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals? Why should I not be impatient? ⁵Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. ⁶When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

⁷Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? ⁸Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. ⁹Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. ¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and never miscarries. ¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance around. ¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. ¹³They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

¹⁴They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways. ¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’ ¹⁶Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement? The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.

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            Job is a challenging and wonderful book. It’s got a beginning and an end to tell the story and the rest of the book is basically poetry. The different characters argue with each other, or rather, Job’s friends argue with him. They come to comfort him, but they can’t take the raw emotion of Job’s grief and they worry that his claims of injustice go against God.

            Religion taught that good people were rewarded and bad people were punished. We still generally think that in some way. We may call it Karma or say “what goes around, comes around,” but some part of us wants to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It’s not just a religious belief, but a cultural one as well. We know it’s not true all the time, but we still want to believe it will all get sorted out correctly in the end.

            Job and his friends all make good points. They all make good points that echo other parts of the Bible and resonate with our own experience. I remember the first time I really read Job was in college. I wrote down a quote from almost every page. There’s some really wise stuff being said in this book and powerful poetry to go with it.

            That’s the irony of the book: each speaker makes good points, but they never come to an understanding. That’s the irony of suffering in general and why it’s so difficult for us to deal with. It just doesn’t make sense. We can’t understand it; we feel like serious, innocent suffering makes a mockery of everything holy we want to believe in.

            People of every religious background and level of commitment get hung up on this question. How can God be all-powerful and loving and still allow such terrible suffering? It doesn’t make sense; we can’t wrap our heads around it.

            So we try to figure it out. We come up with explanations like Job’s friends. Maybe your kids sinned, so God punished them. Maybe God is using this experience to lead you away from sin and make you even better. Maybe it’s a test of your faith. Maybe you’re not as innocent as you claim to be, after all, everyone sins. Everything happens for a reason.

            There’s truth in all the discussion. Scripture often talks about how God’s correction and discipline leads us to greater faithfulness. And we know the best of us still fall short sometimes. Job’s friends have their heart in the right place. The first seven days they spent with him they simply sat with him in silence to comfort him. Even in our second passage, when Eliphaz responds to Job for the first time, we can see that he wants to be encouraging and comforting. He tries to be gentle, but he’s also afraid.

            He’s afraid because grief as powerful as Job’s is hard to face. Job is in such despair he not only wishes he were dead, he wishes he had never been born and wants to erase his birthday from the universe. It’s hard to face raw emotion like that. More than that, Job’s deep suffering threatens the theological order of the universe. There are a few questions like that, questions that have the potential to shatter our understanding of the world or God or faith. Questions like why is there suffering? Is God real? Is the Bible true? These questions shake the foundations of our world, so we turn away from them.

It’s much easier to face the world with certainty. It’s much easier to get up in the morning if we understand the basic rules. For Job’s friends one important rule of the world was that living a righteous life led to success. And that rule had been working really well for Job too; he was very righteous and very successful. He was someone a parent could point to and tell their children, “If you follow God’s commandments and treat other people with justice, God will take care of you like he takes care of Job.”

            So when all that falls apart; when Job’s world collapses, what is the parent supposed to tell the child? What are the friends supposed to tell themselves? It’s much easier to look for a reason for Job’s suffering; so Job’s friends keep looking for a fault in Job with increasing desperation. Without a reason for Job’s suffering they are faced with a world that doesn’t make sense.

Job refuses to accept those answers. He says, “Look at me and be appalled.” He is exhibit A. As much as his friends want Job’s suffering to make sense, he hasn’t gone off the path of God’s commandments. The narrator confirms it too; right from the beginning we’re told that there was no one as righteous as Job. Even God lifts up Job as an example of what a human should be.

            Now, of course, in real life Job’s claim is dangerous because none of us is perfect. And Job’s friends are on to something: the first thing we should take a look at when things go wrong for us is how we might be contributing to the problem. But the truth of Job’s complaint is inescapable too; sometimes terrible things happen to people for no good reason. Sometimes suffering is simply unfair, unjust and incomprehensible.

            Too often the wicked do prosper. We see so many examples of people getting ahead by cutting corners or taking advantage of other people that it doesn’t even surprise us anymore. We see companies profit by destroying the environment. We see corrupt leaders who live out a comfortable retirement even when they are removed from power.

            Too often the innocent suffer. Ask the mother whose two year old was killed by a random bullet through the window. Ask the children starving in the mountains of Syria or the toddlers growing weak from malaria in South Sudan. Too often the innocent suffer, and too often the wicked thrive. The easy answers don’t do justice to the heartrending facts.

            So what are we supposed to do with all that? Honestly, I don’t have a great answer, at least as far as airtight logic goes. We can sympathize with Job’s friends who try so desperately to uphold the rules of religion as they have been taught. They are afraid of offending God, so they argue on God’s behalf, defending God’s justice. They are also afraid of the possibility Job’s suffering represents, afraid that if the rules they trust of reward and punishment aren’t really true, then maybe the whole foundation of their life is false too.

            That fear leads to rigid faith. It leads to a fear that if we allow any questioning of our core beliefs, we will lose everything. It’s a fear of looking closely at the world because we’re afraid what we will see is not what our religion tells us should be there.

On the other hand, we can imagine a universe ruled only by the laws of physics and biology but no moral law. We can imagine a universe where evil goes unpunished and good goes unrewarded. There’s a logical appeal to that too because then what we see is what we get. There are no mysterious forces at work and no ruler at all; we’re on our own. That view can easily lead to cynicism, resigning ourselves to the worst possible view of the world to protect ourselves from disappointment. We can give up our sense that the world should be better.

            The trouble is those theories don’t do justice to the moral light we know is in us. We can’t prove it, but we feel deep down the desire to do good. We feel better when we help each other than when we hurt each other. We have a sense of right and wrong at our core, and our instinct tells us that moral intelligence reflects our creator. When we read in scripture that God is love, it strikes a chord in our soul; it makes sense to us. We long for it to be true and it is. We see that love in the goodness of creation at the beginning, and in the full redemption of the world promised at the end. We see God’s love especially in the amazing, grace-filled ministry of Jesus and in his courageous, innocent death on the cross.

            Instead of being rigid in his faith and refusing the evidence or being cynical about the world and giving up faith’s power, Job takes a brave middle way. He sees the world as it is, but also as it should be. He proclaims that what is happening isn’t right. He calls out for justice and refuses to be silenced even by his friends telling him he is wrong.

            Job wrestles with the painful uncertainty of not understanding. He doesn’t resolve the tension by letting go of his faith or his grasp of the truth. He doesn’t understand why these terrible things have happened to him, but he knows they are. He refuses to adjust his sense of reality to religious teaching to make things clearer. Instead he demands truth and justice from God.

            He holds on to his faith and to his sense of right and wrong. Even as voices his rage about the wicked at peace, he goes on to say that the way of the wicked is repugnant to him. Even if it does work, even if evil isn’t punished and good doesn’t profit Job, he holds on to good and turns away from evil. Whatever happens, he knows God calls him to be righteous. That’s who he is; that’s the character he has build on a foundation of faith. It’s not the rigid foundation that needs to be right and fit reality to it’s vision. It’s not a soft foundation that goes along with whatever is going on, right or wrong. Instead it’s a firm foundation flexible enough to absorb that the world is not always what it should be, but solid enough to push away from cynicism or relativism.

            Job’s courage is a model we need now. It’s the courage to face the world without having all the answers. It’s the courage to hold on to faith and to hold on to truth. It’s the courage to speak out against injustice even without having all the answers. Job’s courage doesn’t free him from trouble, and our courage won’t either, but it will allow us to face trouble with integrity and to stay faithful even when the way isn’t clear. That’s a courage we need today and always.

Thanks be to God.

           

telling the truth, 5.12.13

Colossians 3:12-17

¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

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Before we dig into our second reading let’s review King David’s story. Starting from the beginning, what are some important events in King David’s life?

-Goliath

-Rise to power

-conflict with Saul

-becomes king

-Bathsheba

-Amnon and Tamar

-Absalom and Amnon

-Absalom’s exile and return

The text never tells us why, but soon after his return to Jerusalem Absalom started thinking a lot about his own power. It started small, but certainly not harmlessly. Absalom recruited an entourage to show he was important. Then he started spending time at the city gate, which is where the elders of the city and other people went to talk about important things. In many ways that was the court in those days. People went to the gate to settle contracts and to seek justice when they were having trouble.

Absalom didn’t go to the city gates to help his father or to find out how things were going. Instead, when someone came to Jerusalem with a problem Absalom would tell them that their complaint was right, but that there wasn’t anyone in David’s administration who would listen to it. Then he would go on to say how much he wanted to help people get justice. Little by little, Absalom built up a following, all the while keeping the problems from ever making their way to David’s ears.

Finally, when he felt he had enough people following him, he went to Hebron, where David had first been crowned, and had himself declared king. Surprisingly, David panicked and abandoned Jerusalem with his leaders. Many others followed him as well.

Absalom took over the city of Jerusalem and plotted his next move. Meanwhile, David and his followers mourned and worried. Then they got ready for the battle. David was not going to give up the throne, so they needed to fight. David split his forces into three groups, each led by trusted leaders. Joab, David’s chief general led one group. David’s commanders convinced David not to go into battle himself and he sent them out begging them to be kind to Absalom.

Of course, battle is a hard place to be kind. I’m not a parent, but the biggest flaw David has shown so far in his parenting is not stepping in when his kids are doing the wrong thing. He didn’t do anything when Amnon raped Tamar, so Absalom felt like he had to be the one to execute justice. Then, as Absalom was building his power base, David ignored that problem too. At this point in the story, I think it’s too late to be kind.

Joab thinks so too. Joab is a favorite character of mine in the story of King David. He is fiercely loyal to King David. He is a brilliant strategist and ruthless realist. He is also ruthless about looking after his own interests. At two other points in the story David tries to appoint another commander in chief of the army and both times Joab kills them. I’m not going to hold Joab up as a moral example in any way, but he is loyal to David.

In this case, even though he has heard the King’s command to be gentle with Absalom, Joab does what he think needs to be done. One of his men discovers Absalom hanging from a tree by his hair. Joab and his closest followers kill him and bury him in a pile of rocks. Then Joab blows the trumpet to signal that the battle is over and sends a runner to bring the good news to King David.

The runner announces to David that the battle is won, but all David wants to know is whether Absalom is safe. The messenger says, “May the Lord grant that all the enemies of my lord the king be like that young man.” David leaves the command post to go to his room weeping for the life of his son. That’s where our story for today picks up:

1 Kings 19:1-8

It was told Joab, “The king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” ²So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the troops; for the troops heard that day, “The king is grieving for his son.” ³The troops stole into the city that day as soldiers steal in who are ashamed when they flee in battle. ⁴The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

⁵Then Joab came into the house to the king, and said, “Today you have covered with shame the faces of all your officers who have saved your life today, and the lives of your sons and your daughters, and the lives of your wives and your concubines, ⁶for love of those who hate you and for hatred of those who love you. You have made it clear today that commanders and officers are nothing to you; for I perceive that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.

⁷So go out at once and speak kindly to your servants; for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night; and this will be worse for you than any disaster that has come upon you from your youth until now.” ⁸Then the king got up and took his seat in the gate. The troops were all told, “See, the king is sitting in the gate”; and all the troops came before the king. Meanwhile, all the Israelites had fled to their homes.

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            I think we can identify with David’s grief. Too many parents know the pain of a child’s death. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like if that child died in battle against the parent. David has lost his son. In the terrible tension of waiting for the battle to be over he must have thought about the possibilities. He must have tortured himself with the should haves and would haves, with reexamining his actions and imagining what he could have done differently to avoid the horrible situation he’s in now.

            David was a great battle commander himself, so the logical part of his mind knows that this can really only end two ways. His troops can lose the battle and Absalom will be king or his troops can win and Absalom will probably die. He knows that, but in his heart he still holds out hope that everything can miraculously turn out right. Maybe somehow he can win without Absalom dying. Maybe somehow he and his son can be reconciled and their mistakes won’t have to be the end of their story together.

            Kings are human, and they feel grief like anyone else. But kings and other leaders often have to put their feelings aside. One of the hardest thing about power is that when it is used right it is much more obligation than privilege. David’s first duty here is to his soldiers and followers, to those who have stayed loyal to him in the hardship of rebellion and flight. David is usually a natural leader with an instinct for doing the right thing. In this case, his grief and guilt make him forget his duty. All he can think about is his dead son.

            So now David’s soldiers who have stood by him feel abandoned. Instead of celebrating and giving thanks for a hard victory, they sneak back home ashamed. They have done everything right; they’ve stood by their king when it would have been easier to stay home, but when they see their king’s grief all they can do is feel bad about what they have done.

            There aren’t many men who would dare to approach David in his grief. It’s easier to give him the space he so obviously wants. But Joab is a loyal commander and friend. He sees the danger in David’s situation and he goes to save him. Joab knows that the rebellion, the flight and the battle have been hard for the army as well as for David. He knows that they need praise and encouragement, that the men need to be reassured that their courage and sacrifice and suffering has not been for nothing. They need their king’s gratitude and support. The king has to put the duties of command, the duties of royalty ahead of his personal grief.

            So Joab goes and he tells David the truth. He knows David doesn’t want to hear it. He knows David wants to be alone to wallow in his grief, but Joab knows what he needs to do. David needs to know the truth so he can live up to his calling even when he doesn’t want to. That’s what true friends do; they tell us the truth even when they don’t want to and even when they know we don’t want to hear it. They tell us the truth and they keep loving us.

            Deep, faithful, challenging relationships are at the heart of what it means to be a church. Faith in Christ starts with knowing that we are sinners and we need to change our lives. It starts with knowing we can’t do it on our own, that we need Jesus to save us from our selfish ways.

            Once we start the path of discipleship we still need help. We need a community to support us and build us up when we’re having a hard time. We also need the honest, loving accountability of people who care about us too much to watch us take the wrong path. To be the best disciples we can be, we need a community with the kind of hard, loving honesty that Joab gives David.

            That’s what Paul means when he writes: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish each other in all wisdom…” Admonish each other. That means tell your brother when he’s doing the wrong thing. Warn your sister when she’s heading down the wrong path. Don’t just pray for your friend from a distance, let them know that you’re worried about the choices they are making.

            Our culture is weak on relationships. Most of our relationships are very surface level and we have all but lost the art of constructive criticism. We’re great at blasting people from a distance. We excel at sarcastic digs behind people’s backs. We’re skilled at saying we’re fine or telling a coworker their work is good while silently steaming because we will have to redo it.

lamentation and freedom

Psalm 13:1-6

¹    How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
          How long will you hide your face from me?
²   How long must I bear pain in my soul,
          and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
     How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

³   Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!
          Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
⁴   and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
          my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

⁵   But I trusted in your steadfast love;
          my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
⁶   I will sing to the LORD,
          because he has dealt bountifully with me.

I want to spend most of our Bible time with our New Testament lesson, but I just couldn’t let this beautiful Psalm sit untouched. I couldn’t leave this painfully honest Psalm alone because too often the church isn’t painfully honest.

We put on our best faces for church, maybe we put on our best faces for other people in general. Someone asks how we’re doing and we say something socially acceptable. That’s actually an OK habit to be in a lot of the time. It’s not a great idea to pour our guts out to everyone we meet. But when we take it too far it kills genuine community and relationship. 

         When we come to church we are with our brothers and sisters in Christ. That means we are supposed to be in a safe place for honesty; a place we can share our struggles and our pain. We’re family, so we should be able to be vulnerable with each other.

         But that’s not always how it feels. One thing that gets in the way of honesty and openness is Sunday best syndrome. We feel like since our outfits are well put together, we’re supposed to button up our troubles too. We shine our shoes and our smiles and we tuck our problems and doubts under the carpet so we can do church “the right way.”

         That’s the smaller part of the problem. The bigger issue is that we feel we have to be careful with God. We use carefully crafted words and scripted prayers to talk to the God who is high above in heaven. The language in the Bible is stilted and our worship language doesn’t usually sound like how we would have a conversation. We don’t want to say the wrong thing or offend God.

         The truth is that God can take it. Look at this Psalm: “How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” Have you ever felt that way before? Did you cry out to God like the Psalmist did? Our polite religious tradition is hard to break, but when we open ourselves to God and to each other we learn how to actually trust God. Look where the Psalm ends up: “I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” If we open ourselves up and trust God with our doubt and pain, we’ll find out for ourselves that we can count on God. If we handle God like fragile, precious crystal we’ll never find out how strong and supportive God really is.

OK, like I said, we’re going to spend most of our Bible time on the New Testament reading. It’s kind of a doozie, so we’re going to play with it a little bit in groups. Each of you has a small piece of paper with a number and a piece of our lesson on it. I’d like you to get up and move to the section of the room with your number on it and arrange yourselves in groups of 4 or 5. Introduce yourselves quickly and read the passage together.

Once you’ve done that discuss the passage for a couple of minutes. If you have a hard time starting your discussion, you’ll find a couple of questions on your sheet that might help. In a few minutes we’ll come back together and talk about the whole passage.

Romans 6:3-23

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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          Sometimes we feel trapped and overwhelmed by our lives and situations. We feel the press of bills and family responsibilities. We feel the demands of our job or the stress of looking for work, while we also wrestle with to do lists at home. Sometimes guilt or grief or anger or addiction or hopelessness take hold of our lives and refuse to let go.

Anything that traps us and takes away our freedom releases its grip when we die. If alcohol or gambling or bitterness or fear holds you so tightly you feel like you can’t breath, imagine what happens to that clutching claw when you die. It can’t hold you anymore because those traps and prisons are part of life. They loose their power when we die. That’s why when people feel like they have come to a dead end in their lives suicide can seem like a tempting escape. Suicide is the wrong choice, but when we feel trapped, the temptation makes sense. Death breaks the bonds that trap us.

Jesus died.

In baptism we become part of Jesus’ body.

That means in faith we have already died, and we are set free from all the concerns that take up so much of our energy and weigh so heavily on our shoulders and our souls.

The crazy thing is that Jesus didn’t stay dead, but instead he rose from the grave. By faith in Christ we are also part of his resurrection, which means we move from death to new life. So we are free from the tyranny of life and the cold grasp of death. We are free to do whatever we want with the amazing gift of new life in Christ.

All our responsibilities and relationships can be transformed in our new life in Christ. Instead of being traps and obligations we are free to see them as gifts and opportunities.

         In all the choices of freedom one of our choices is to fall back into sin and selfishness. We are free to get stuck again in the traps that held us before we found freedom in Christ. We don’t have to accept the freedom God offers; it is our choice.

         Sin isn’t an isolated thing. When we use our freedom to sin we become trapped in it, slaves to sin again. When we use our freedom to build up wealth for ourselves, for instance, we gradually become more and more attached to money. We start seeing other people as a threat to our financial security instead of being brothers and sisters we can share with. We use more and more of our time to pursue and secure wealth instead of following our calling to love and enjoy other people. Little by little the choice to make a little money becomes total slavery to possessions.

         We can imagine the same trajectory with any other sin if we want: pride, infidelity, racism, etc. One action leads to another and before long the trap is complete.

         On the other hand, we can use our freedom to follow God. Like with sin, choosing to follow God isn’t really an isolated choice. That choice leads to a life of service, a life even of slavery to righteousness.

When we choose to base our life on love we become trapped in the joy of fellowship, the freedom of giving, the warmth of acceptance. We loose the freedom to treat other people as objects because we know they are our brothers and sisters. We loose the freedom to build walls around ourselves and our possessions because we know we are connected to other people. A life of discipleship is slavery in its own way, because we give our lives to God, but it is a slavery full of joy, peace and fulfillment.

         In the freedom God gives us we choose whom we will serve. Will we choose to serve ourselves and the sinful structures of this world or will we choose to serve God and those who need us most? Will we choose the dead end of selfishness or the joyful road of community and discipleship? Christ sets us free for new life. How will you use your freedom?

Thanks be to God.