Epiphany 6A
O God, the strength
of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and
because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the
help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you
both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
One
of my favorite college professors made an observation that I understand much
better now than I did when he said it. Back then, it scared me.
“Your
lives are brimming with possibilities,” he declared. “Right now, as young
adults, you have before you a much wider range of possibilities than you will
have at any other time in your lives. Each choice that you make from now on,
each decision, will take you down one road, and carry you away from other roads.
Throughout our adult lives, the paths narrow, and it’s difficult, if not
impossible, to force them back open again. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just
the way that it is. So decide wisely and carefully,” he advised, “and rejoice
in the full range of choices now before you.”
His
joy-filled words of possibility filled my young heart with worry, rather than with
gratitude. I didn’t like the idea of my choices ever diminishing. I could
imagine choosing the wrong path at some point, and watching doors slam around
me to trap me in my mistake. I could imagine myself on the stage of one of those
game shows. Hidden behind Door Number One was fame and fortune. Behind Door Number
Two was grief and failure. And behind Door Number Three was boredom and failed
potential. But I didn’t know what was behind
those doors, and I had to choose! I only had one choice, one choice that I had better
get right. The clock was ticking. The annoying music was playing. The buzzer
was going to sound. What if I made the wrong decision!?
In
our attempts to prod children and ourselves into making good choices, we often
promote such fear and paralysis. Like Moses, we often warn, “If you follow God’s
commands, then you will be blessed. If you disobey, then you will be punished.”
That kind of language can make us think that God only loves good people. And it
makes us wonder what’s up with God when the good people end up suffering and
the bad guys seem to get away with everything.
Molly,
Gage, and Charlotte, I’m here today to talk about a special kind of freedom
that Jesus offers us—a kind of freedom that leaves no room for bribes and
threats, a kind of freedom that can calm our fear of life's choices. How I wish that I could
package that freedom up for you today and hand it over to you like a
well-wrapped present. But it is a difficult freedom that Jesus offers us—one that
we have to learn at great personal cost. Indeed, today’s Gospel lesson sounds like it
might be full of the same kind of scary talk that your worst nightmare of a
coach or teacher would use. It sounds like Jesus is telling us that if we
don’t do a bunch of totally impossible things, then we “will be liable to the
hell of fire.” This Jesus doesn’t sound like a warm and fuzzy freedom-bearer. He
sounds more like a totally desperate parent, so upset with us that he blows his
top and grounds us “until we’re 35?!” What is going on? Does Jesus really
threaten us with punishment if we do human things like “lust in our hearts,” or
remarry after divorce, or go back on our word, or get angry? How crazy is that?
Often, we Christians like to focus
on how mean Jesus sounds because it excuses us from having to think about doing
the hard things that he asks of us. If your coach asks you to do a hard drill,
isn’t it easier to blow him off as crazy rather than to put your heart and soul
into doing the tough work required by the drill?
Don't blow him off just yet. All of Jesus’ tough punishment-talk
is meant to get our attention. It sure gets mine! Just like he does in the
parables, Jesus is trying to break our “if you do this, then God will do that” logic
by totally exaggerating it. He makes the rules so difficult to follow that, no
matter how hard we try to turn his words into a clear choice between the right
way and the wrong way, Jesus’ words burst open all of our definitions of right
and wrong, giving reign to life-giving ambiguity.
Jesus isn’t saying that God’s laws don’t
matter. He is saying that what is at the heart of the laws matters more than
their outward form. He’s saying that the goal isn’t to make sure that you make
the one right decision—because there’s not really just one right decision. He
wants all of our safe foundations, all of our logic about what is fair, to
crumble before God’s crazy, abundant love for all of creation. What Jesus
offers us at the heart of all rules is a love so great that it envelopes all of
our choices and transforms them. We might think that we have figured out what
God wants of us, and especially what our neighbor should be doing. But what God
wants, what Jesus wants, is for us to put our brother and sister first and to
let love for one another transform us from head to toe. This is actually much
harder than following a clear-cut list of rules.
A few years ago, a friend shared a
story with me that I think will make Jesus’ difficult message to us clearer.
Once upon a time, there was an eight-year-old boy who liked to go down the
street to his friend’s house and play in the afternoons after school. Every
afternoon, his mom would tell him to come home no later than 6:00 for supper.
But he would be having fun with his friend, and he would often forget. When he
would come home late, his mom would fuss at him because the dinner would get
cold. Sometimes his mom would even send him to his room for a time-out. The
little boy didn’t like that. He hated to get in trouble.
One
day the boy and his friend were cleaning up their toy trucks so that the little
boy could get home on time. All of a sudden, his friend noticed that his very
favorite truck, the one that his grandparents had just given him for his
birthday, had cracked, and the back wheels had fallen off. His friend started
to cry, and the little boy stayed with him.
Arriving
home late that evening, the boy saw his mom and dad waiting impatiently in the
kitchen.
“You’ve
broken the rules again! What am I going to do with you?!” cried his mom.
“I
know,” stammered the boy, “but my friend’s favorite truck was broken.”
“Did
you stay to help him fix it?” offered the dad, moved that his son was at least
being helpful.
“No,
I didn’t know how. I just stayed to help him be sad.”
As
the dinner got cold on the table, the mom and the dad took their errant and
compassionate son in their arms and gave him a loving hug.
I
share this story not to give out free ideas on how to break your curfew, but as
a simple example of a difficult choice in which the freedom to choose love, wins
the day.
There’s no denying that life in Christ is
made up of hard and messy choices, but the other part of the good news is that
these choices are made and lived out in loving community. Molly, Gage, and Charlotte,
the adults at St. Andrew’s have made
you a wonderful book full of wisdom that is the fruit of their years of good
and not-so-good choices. They offer it to you with their love. It would be easy
to toss it under your bed, or to roll your eyes at their bad jokes. Instead, I
urge you to read their offerings not as “if you do this, then this will happen”
kind of advice. But take their words, the serious ones and the fun ones, as a
map of experience, a map meant to show you a way to the places in which life,
and God, can be found. One of the blessings of community is that you are not
alone in your decision-making. You can learn from the mistakes and the
difficult decisions of those who have gone before, and those who walk the way
with you now. When you were baptized, the priest made a cross of oil on your
forehead and pronounced that you were “marked as Christ’s own forever.” What
that means is that all of the choices that life puts before you—small choices
and big decisions--will be made “in Christ,” as Paul reminds us today. As part of the body of Christ, you are no longer alone.
Here is where I’d like to add to my
college professor’s advice. While our range of choices do narrow as we grow up
as individuals in the world, our identity within the body of Christ can be
renewed time after time. No matter what decisions we made yesterday, Jesus
offers us a clean slate today. Jesus opens up possibility, over and over again.
Molly, Gage, and Charlotte, I charge you
and me and each one of us here today to help one another to choose the hard
thing. To choose life. Choose the Christ-Life that even death could not ultimately
destroy. Choose the Life that corrupt power cannot hold down. Choose the Life
that prejudice and hatred cannot silence. Choose the Life that lifts up those
who have been cast down. Choose the Life that builds community. And rejoice
with one another at growth and transformation. Being an adult in community is
oh-so-messy, but it is indeed the one true path to Life.
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