Dancing with David

This is the audio of my sermon from Sunday. We talked the week before about Saul, Israel's first king. Israel wanted a king to bring stability after a chaotic period under the judges. They were also surrounded by more powerful nations, so they wanted a strong military leader. The Prophet (and last Judge) Samuel anointed Saul as Israel's King, but before long Saul turned away from God.

At that point, God chooses a new king, David, and has Samuel anoint him for service. The audio for this sermon is loud, so start with the volume low. I'm always grateful for your feedback.

God bless,
Sam

Opened the scriptures, 4.15.12

1 Timothy 4:6-16

6 If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed. ⁷Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives’ tales. Train yourself in godliness, ⁸for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. ⁹The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. ¹⁰For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

11 These are the things you must insist on and teach. ¹²Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. ¹³Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching. ¹⁴Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. ¹⁵Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. ¹⁶Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Luke 24:13-35

¹³Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.

¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” ¹⁹He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”

²⁵Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. ²⁸As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.

³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

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            This series of sermons is loosely organized around Easter, in particular what the risen Jesus did. Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time with his disciples after the resurrection because he was taken up to heaven. Since his time was short, Jesus had to spend it wisely. He needed to prepare his disciples for their ministry spreading the good news of forgiveness. We’re going to look at a few different things Jesus did over the next couple weeks; today we see that Jesus explained scripture to his disciples.

When Jesus appears to these two otherwise unknown disciples on the road they don’t recognize him. First, Jesus plays dumb by pretending not to know the events they’re talking about; then he reprimands the disciples for not understanding what he had told them during the journey to Jerusalem. He calls them “slow of heart” because they didn’t figure out that what had happened to him was what the prophets had written about.

We can understand Jesus’ frustration, the frustration of a teacher who has gone over and over a lesson with his disciples for years, but they haven’t gotten it. Jesus told his disciples three times that he would be killed and rise again, but his arrest still took them totally by surprise. Jesus predicted while his disciples looked at him blankly and suffered as they fled, just like he’d said they would. We can understand why Jesus is frustrated to see these disciples still confused about the events unfolding around them.

We can also see it from the disciples’ point of few. The week has given them too much to digest, too much to put together. From adorning crowds, to a bloodthirsty mob; from a royal procession to a traitor’s kiss, it would be hard to make sense of the week and hard to imagine the future.

In terms of the prophets, it is way too simple to say that they foretold what would happen to Jesus. It’s true that Isaiah’s words about the suffering servant being despised and rejected fit powerfully with Jesus. It’s true that other words of prophesy point to Jesus as well. At the same time, if you were to read all the prophesy about the Messiah and put it together into a story you would never come up with Jesus.

Frankly, the prophesy about a savior is varied and diverse. Most are passages that look forward to a powerful king. From that people expected a Messiah much like King David, a man to lead Israel’s armies and reestablish Israel as a strong, independent nation. Jesus doesn’t look anything like that: his armies are in heaven and he has no interest in the world’s power.

To understand what the prophets predicted about Jesus, you had to know the story of Jesus. Jesus fulfilled scripture, but not in the way you would expect from reading the prophets. So it makes sense that when Jesus rose from the dead one of his priorities would be to explain scripture to his disciples. He starts with these two and when they return to the rest of the community Jesus appears to the whole gathering to offer his explanation again. Scripture points to Jesus, but Jesus has to open it up to them so they can understand how it all fits together.

This time, the lesson takes. When we see the disciples on their mission to tell the world about Jesus in Acts or the letters, they show a keen understanding of how Jesus fulfills scripture. Whenever they make their case to people who know the Bible they build their arguments for faith in Christ from scripture. Jesus’ time with the disciples explaining scripture pays off because they can understand and explain to others the surprising ways God keeps promises.

Paul emphasizes scripture as well when he writes to instruct and encourage his young protégée, Timothy. He encourages Timothy to focus on reading scripture publically and to let his own progress in faith be an example to the community he leads. The risen Jesus and the Apostle Paul both highlighted the importance of scripture when they prepared leaders for the church, because God’s word is food and light for the church. Churches grow and thrive when they are engaged in scripture; they languish and die when they are not.

We know the Bible is important, so why is it so hard to making it a part of our daily life? For one thing, the Bible is big and it can be intimidating. Sometimes we feel like there’s so much we don’t know about its background or history that we can’t understand it on our own. While learning about the context and history of the Bible can deepen our understanding, most of what we need to understand the Bible is in the Bible. If we pick it up and read we will discover a world that is both strange and familiar. Like a novel, the Bible will introduce us to the characters we need to know and we’ll be able to follow the story as we go.

Some parts are easier to read and some harder. Genesis is great reading because it’s full of interesting stories. Occasionally there are boring patches, like genealogies, but the stories continue on the other side. The stories of the Bible are compelling too because they are full of interesting characters. Most of the important people are complex, like real people. They have moments of faith that are truly inspiring and other moments when we wonder what’s wrong with them. Those moments remind us that God calls real people to ministry, not perfect saints. They remind us of ourselves, with all our flaws and distractions, and how we are part of God’s story too.

Challenging parts of the Bible are an invitation to reflection. In a novel or history book if we get confused about why something happens we think about it, putting ourself in the characters’ shoes to imagine why they might have acted a certain way. With the Bible sometimes when we don’t understand something we are tempted to give up, thinking that it is “too hard” for us. Just like with any other book, pausing to reflect often leads to insight and understanding. Plus, sometimes we just don’t understand a piece of something, and that’s OK too. God can do as much with what we don’t understand as with what we do.

When it comes to scripture, there are lots of great resources available. Plus, if you get stuck on something you can always shoot me an email or give me a call. The main point of the church investing so much time and money in my training is so I can help you grow in your faith and understanding. It will make my day to get an email from you saying, “I was reading the Bible and I had a question about…”

"Death to life" Easter, 2012

Luke 23:55-24:12

⁵⁵The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. ⁵⁶Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body.

⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. ⁶Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” ⁸Then they remembered his words, ⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Romans 6:1-11

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 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.

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            Jesus had been traveling for three years. He had healed and taught, welcomed outcasts and called sinners to repentance. Often huge crowds followed him to hear his comforting and challenging words.

Besides the crowds, Jesus had a core group of followers who went everywhere with him. Twelve leaders, called apostles were the most famous, but there were also others Jesus sent out in his name to teach and heal. Other disciples supported and cared for Jesus in his ministry, especially many women.

            Jesus and his followers started to make their way to Jerusalem, the capital of Jewish life and worship. Along the way, Jesus told his disciples that he would be killed in Jerusalem, but that he would rise again. The disciples knew enough to be sad about that prediction, but they didn’t really understand, even though Jesus repeated it three times.

            When they got to Jerusalem, a huge crowd welcomed them with shouts of praise and songs to crown a king. Israel hadn’t really had a king in 600 years, but the people’s hope for someone to trust and follow hadn’t died. A welcome like that must have been a high point for the disciples. All Jesus’ talk about the kingdom of God seemed to be coming true. On top of that, the excitement of the big city at festival time thrilled these small-town fishermen.

            Then things went horribly wrong. The religious leaders had never liked Jesus. They worried about his teachings and were downright terrified of the attention he might bring from the Roman rulers. They also worried that Jesus’ teachings could weaken their power. As Jesus’ ministry continued, the conflict with the religious leaders got more and more intense, until they finally decided to kill him.

            At the Passover supper, Jesus told his closest friends that one of them would betray him and the rest would run away. Despite their passionate denials, that’s exactly what happened on Thursday night when officers from the Temple came to arrest Jesus.

            A whirlwind of interrogation, trial and torture followed, and by Friday evening Jesus had died on a Roman cross and been buried. True to his prediction, the disciples ran away. A few women and a man named Joseph made sure Jesus was buried decently before sunset, and the women made plans to go back to the tomb on Sunday morning after the Sabbath was over.

            That morning, Jesus proved once again that he wasn’t interested in playing by the rules. He’d been surprising people since birth, and death wasn’t going to limit Jesus any more than tradition had. The women came expecting to find their teacher’s body, expecting to anoint him with spices as a sign of their love for him, a last expression of care. Instead, they found the rock door rolled away from the front of the tomb and no body to be found. 

            It’s a great story, but all that happened almost two thousand years ago, so what difference does it make for us today? That answer will be a bit different for everyone since faith is a bit different for each of us, but Paul’s words to the church in Rome ring true today: faith is about deep questions, life and death importance.

            Christian faith is about following Jesus. Like the first disciples, we never do it perfectly. We misunderstand and fall short of our calling. A lot has changed over the two thousand years since the women and Peter found Jesus’ tomb empty. The early church was surrounded by threats from religious leaders and the Roman Empire. Following Jesus was very obviously a matter of life and death.

In the US in the 21^st century, we face different threats. We’re free to worship or not, and we’re free to believe whatever we want to. I thank God for our freedom, but I worry that the Christian majority in this country makes it easy to follow Jesus halfway and easy to forget that following Jesus is still a matter of life and death.

When we choose to follow Jesus we aren’t picking a club or a team or a style. We are choosing to join Jesus in his death. We are choosing to leave our sin and selfishness behind, to die to the world and begin a new life with Jesus. We are choosing to put Jesus first, to make him the center of our existence.

Faith can seem complicated and confusing. There are so many churches, so many opinions, so many points of view. Christians think different things about the Bible, politics, organization, money, family and everything else.

At the same time, faith in Jesus is simple because it means choosing to trust and follow Jesus. All the complications are second, and very distantly second. The point is following Jesus; everything else falls into place when we put Jesus first.

love and the cross, 4.1.12

Isaiah 49:13-17

¹³Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. ¹⁴But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” ¹⁵Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. ¹⁶See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. ¹⁷Your builders outdo your destroyers, and those who laid you waste go away from you.

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            There’s a tension in preaching between depth and breath. Should I take one small piece of a passage and focus on that, or try to open the whole thing but not get as deep? When I focus tightly I regret leaving out so much of the passage. When I work with the whole passage, like today, I feel like I’m treating it too superficially. The truth is I can never do enough with God’s word in our short time together. If this is the only dose of scripture you get in your week, you’re not getting enough to grow to your potential as a Christian, so please don’t neglect the word in the rest of your week.

Before we turn to our next passage I want to spend a few minutes with the one Karen just read. Maggie and I were on vacation this past week. We spent the week visiting friends and family along the East Coast including a stop in Baltimore to see one of my best friends and his daughter, Amelia. This was the first time I’d seen Campbell as a dad, and it was amazing.

            Parenting is kind of an alien world to me, but the scene would be familiar to many of you. There’s this beautiful little person in Campbell’s kitchen spitting milk on her sweater and eating peaches off the floor. Campbell is unfazed by her secretions, taking care of boogies and wiping drool from her face every few minutes. He let her do her thing, but she was rarely out of his reach and never out of his sight.

            It was obvious from our short visit that Campbell’s whole life is different than it was before Amelia was born. There’s nothing he does without thinking about her. Like dads and especially moms everywhere, parenthood is a big part of what defines Campbell’s life now.

           

            Isaiah speaks for God to tell Israel that God’s love for them is like a mother’s love and even greater. The tenderness I saw between Campbell and Amelia points to the tenderness God has for her people.

The people of Israel feel abandoned by God in their exile, like Campbell’s daughter felt abandoned when she was in her high chair 45 seconds longer than she wanted to be. Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can Campbell forget his screaming daughter? Of course not.

Even if these examples of devoted love could abandon their children, God cannot abandon his people. Next to God’s love, even our best efforts pale in comparison.

God’s love for us is tender and determined. It’s also cosmic in scope: the prophet invites heaven and earth to join in the songs of praise celebrating God’s redemption of her people. As intimate as a parent and as broad as creation; that’s God’s love for us.

            John gives us a different way of looking at God’s love. We’ll work through this passage together, so go ahead and open your Bible to 1 John 4 beginning with verse 7; you’ll find it on page 241 in the New Testament part of your pew Bible.

1 John 4:7-21

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

            John starts this section with encouragement for his community to follow God’s example and love each other. Love comes from God, so when we love other people we tap into God’s nature. We find new life in God’s family by loving, and in loving others we know God.

If we don’t love other people it’s impossible to know God. Not only is God loving, God is love; so without love anything we say about God is meaningless. With that foundation, John gets more specific about how we know God’s love:

Sin and separation, 3.11

Genesis 3:1-24

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. ⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. ⁸They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

⁹But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” ¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” ¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

¹⁴The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” ¹⁷And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them. ²²Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— ²³therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

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We talked about this story on Wednesday during supper and scripture. There are so many layers to the passage, and it was a great discussion. Today our purpose with this passage is pretty specific, so there are a lot of topics and questions we’re not going to address.

God put the man and woman in a beautiful garden with everything they needed. They had all kinds of plants to eat; trees for shade and flowers to perfume and beautify their world. They lived peacefully with the other animals in the garden; there was plenty to go around and nothing to fight about.

The garden was beautiful and peaceful; it was God’s garden, and God liked to stroll through it in the evening. Take a moment and imagine what it would be like to walk in the garden with God. Picture that closeness and comfort.

There was God, there were people and there was unity. The man and woman were one with God; words like law, religion, discipleship, and sin wouldn’t have made any sense because God was simply there, the center of the universe. Then everything changed; it changed so much we can even truly imagine our way back to that garden now.

For whatever reason, the serpent wanted to separate humans from God. So with half-truths and subtlety the snake slid a wedge between the woman and God. In place of the trust between that first couple and God the serpent slipped not only doubt, but suspicion: “God only told you not to eat from the tree because God is jealous and wants to keep the best knowledge for himself.” In place of contentment with a perfect world, the serpent stirred up a desire for power and knowledge that wasn’t meant for us.

As soon as the man and woman ate the forbidden fruit everything changed. Instead of comfort in their skin; they felt self-consciousness and shame about their bodies. Instead of joy in God’s presence, when God came walking through the garden the people hid from him. Where before there had been obedience out of love and trust, there was guilt and fear because they knew they had done wrong.

As soon as God started asking questions, guilt became accusation: the man blamed his wife while the woman blamed the serpent. Authority, painful childbirth, hard work for our food and exile from the garden quickly follow, and the next chapter finds the first couple’s children wracked with jealousy to the point of murder. In place of a garden, our world became a mess.

My favorite modern theologian is Paul Tillich. Tillich has shaped the way I think about some central parts of the faith, so I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t give credit where credit is due. His goal was to strip away the baggage from faith-words so we can recover their true meaning and embrace them in a new way.

Tillich talks about the word “sin” and how it has been weakened to mean nothing but breaking rules, often even man-made rules. In the Bible sin is a power that separates us from God. It is not just actions that go against God’s will; it’s first the universal human situation of being separated from God. Tillich often uses the word estrangement in place of sin: there’s a painful gulf between God and people like the gulf between separated spouses or parents divided from their children.

Individual acts of selfishness, dishonesty, lawbreaking, abuse etc. are results of our estrangement from God. The power of sin shows itself in individual sins. This passage from Genesis is the classic story of our estrangement from God, from our neighbors and from our world. It is our situation; everyone’s situation. We are divided from God and from everyone around us. Even in our closest relationships we find miscommunication, heartache and distrust.

Power in the Blood, 3.18

1 John 1:5-10

⁵This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; ⁷but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

⁸If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

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            One of the cool things God does in scripture is give us different ways of looking at things. If you have trouble connecting with Paul’s writing, maybe John will help you see things in a different light.

            In this section John is making two basic points: we’re all sinners in need of God’s grace, and our faith calls us to live differently, to leave sin behind. These two truths are woven together because following Jesus pushes us to do better, but it also reminds us how far we still have to go. The other connection that brings our sin and our calling together is that Jesus’ blood cleanses us from sin, moving us from darkness to light.

            John talks about lying a lot in this passage. If we say we follow Jesus, if we say we’re walking in the light, but we keep walking in the darkness of sin, we’re lying. Following Jesus means leaving the darkness behind and seeking Christ’s light in everything we do.

            At the same time, we’re also lying if we say we’re not sinful. Even while we follow Jesus and try to do the right thing we keep falling short. That’s a fact of life; even though Jesus changes our life and makes us new, we won’t be perfect until Jesus returns. Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes and get better at following, but the more we learn from Jesus the more obvious it is that we are not all the way there yet. So we’re only fooling ourselves and even making Jesus look bad if we claim to be sin-free.

            We’re lying if we claim to be innocent, and we’re lying if we claim to be disciples while continuing in our sin. Instead of either of these dishonest traps Jesus calls us to confess our sins and to trust him to cleanse us. As we put our trust in Jesus and honestly confess, Christ’s blood washes us clean.

            It’s hard for us to understand blood making us clean. Many of us struggle with the whole idea of Christ’s cleansing blood. On the one hand we struggle with why Jesus had to die because it seems so unfair. And on the other hand we wonder how his blood can make us clean anyway. We think of blood as dirty, even dangerous.

For people of Jesus’ time animal sacrifice and the blood related to it was a natural part of religious ritual, like singing or prayer. That was the case for most religions in the Middle East and it was true for Israel’s faith as well.

            When the temple was dedicated thousands of animals were sacrificed to make the temple holy to God. Blood was splashed against the altar to clean it and make it ready to offer sacrifice on. The Law of Moses goes into great detail about how many of what kind of animals would be sacrificed for different purposes at different times. The whole idea seems strange, maybe disgusting, to us now, but for our ancient ancestors in the faith sacrifice was a basic part of faith and life. The Letter to the Hebrews is the most detailed explanation of the ancient way of thinking about sin and how blood cleanses from sin.

            When we studied Hebrews in seminary one of my teachers explained it like this: The Temple was a special place that connected heaven and earth. During the year sin built up on the temple because it was close to the people’s sin. We can picture that sin was like a sludge that built up on the temple. Each year the sin had to be cleaned off by rituals of confession and forgiveness including sacrifices of atonement with blood.

            The author of Hebrews talks about how the sanctuary on earth was a copy of the true sanctuary in heaven. The sanctuary on earth had to be purified with animal sacrifices, but the perfect temple in heaven had to be purified with the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. The blood of animals could take away sin temporarily, but animal blood couldn’t deal with sin permanently; only the blood of Jesus could do that.

Social sin, 3.4.12

Amos 5:10-24

¹⁰They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. ¹¹Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. ¹²For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. ¹³Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time. ¹⁴Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. ¹⁵Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: In all the squares there shall be wailing; and in all the streets they shall say, “Alas! alas!” They shall call the farmers to mourning, and those skilled in lamentation, to wailing; ¹⁷in all the vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord. ¹⁸Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; ¹⁹as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. ²⁰Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

²¹I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. ²²Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. ²³Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. ²⁴But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

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I’m not going to lie to you: these first three weeks of Lent are going to be challenging. We’re going to be talking about sin, which can feel very heavy. I like preaching about God’s love much more, and God’s love is always at the heart of the good news we proclaim. At the same time if we don’t face our sin we can’t change our life. Know that I am not speaking as someone who is telling you what you need to do as if I’ve got my act together. I need repentance as much as anyone else. I’m hear as one wrestling with faith and scripture right along with you.

Amos is a little hard to follow in small pieces like this one. The powerful biblical message of social justice is clearer as part of the whole Bible more than in individual texts. You may understand Amos’s message better if you read the whole book when you have a chance; it’s pretty short so that’s manageable.

Amos lived in the eighth century before Christ. He grew up in the Southern Kingdom of Judah but spent much of his prophetic ministry in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

            For both Israel and Judah, faith was an important part of how they saw themselves. God had chosen them as God’s special people, so they were different from the other nations of the region. Throughout Amos we see references to offerings and religious observances, which makes it clear that religion was a big part of life in Israel and Judah.

            Unlike in our own time, people stopped working, buying and selling for the Sabbath and for the first day of the month, which was also a day set aside for worship. In our passage Amos refers to people wanting the “Day of the Lord,” the time God would firmly establish His kingdom on earth. The people of Israel looked forward to God’s kingdom because they knew they were God’s chosen people. Religion was important to Amos’s audience in a big way.

            God commanded the Sabbaths and festivals the people observed. God commanded the offerings and sacrifices Amos talks about. God commanded them, but Amos says that they are not the most important part of following God. Compared with justice, worship and sacrifice don’t even register in God’s priorities.

Israel is called to build a just society where everyone has enough and all people are treated fairly. If society isn’t built on the foundation of justice, all the sacrifices and offerings in the world won’t make up for it. If the poor aren’t treated fairly, worship rings hollow and singing is just noise in God’s ears. When the “Day of the Lord” comes, Israel will be on the wrong side of God’s judgment because of the way they treat the poor.

Amos talks about Israel’s sin not in terms of following the rules or showing up for church, but in terms of justice for all. The people are doing everything right when it comes to worship, but they are not right with God in terms of their community life. He especially criticizes the rich for building nice houses while others go hungry.

I wonder what Amos would say about our culture where we have such great abundance while many are trapped in poverty. What would Amos say about buying big screen TV’s while 25% of the kids in our country struggle with hunger and billions of people world wide live on $2.50 a day or less?

            The causes of poverty are varied and complex, but the fact that thousands of people die of hunger and preventable disease every day is a scandal and a sin. At the most basic level it comes down to valuing lives differently. Whether we admit it or not, we believe that American lives are worth more than other lives.

            Differences of race, language, nationality, education, sexuality and more divide us and make it easier to see others as less human than we are. The powerful use those divisions to keep things the way they are, to keep their power intact. People with a bigger piece of the pie than their neighbors are encouraged to fear others and protect their share while people with less are taught to envy those with more and fear those with less.