Sunday, August 11,
2019
Slavery
is evil. One human or set of humans
expresses cruel mastery over another set of humans. How can slaves ever, in any circumstance, be
called “blessed?” Yet, the New Testament,
from Luke to Paul’s letters, consistently likens the most devoted and most
blessed followers of God as slaves of Jesus. Today’s sermon title demands an
explanation. Blessed Slaves?
To
get there, we turn to the prophet Isaiah who spoke to the southern kings of the
Israelite people ruling in Judah, in Jerusalem, in the late 8th and
early 7th centuries BC. In
Isaiah 1:2, God says, “Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth for the Lord has
spoken. I reared up children and brought
them up, but they have rebelled against me.”
God
expects God’s people to behave in a certain way. The 10 Commandments lead us to revere God and
only God, to acknowledge God as Lord, and honor and respect our fellow human
beings. In the Sermon on the Mount and
his other teachings, Jesus illustrates and amplifies God’s expectations. We are to turn the other cheek in
conflicts. We are to love our enemies
and pray for those who persecute us. We
are to go the extra mile in helping other people thrive in life.
Helping
others and glorifying God is what Jesus has in mind in Luke 12:31 when he says,
“Strive for [God’s] kingdom, and these things [all that we need] will be given
to [us].” The picture Jesus paints is of
a relationship of absolute trust. If we
devote our lives to worship and helping other people, instead of ensuring our
own survival and advancement, God will make sure we survive and flourish. We have to trust God and help others.
God
expects His people to live in this way.
Anyone who puts their trust in Jesus are included among people of God. Originally, God chose the people of Israel to
be God’s chosen ones. Again, Isaiah 1:2:
“I reared up children and brought them up.”
God’s vision was to reveal Himself and His ways for human life to His
chosen ones, the ancient Hebrew people.
Through their worship of Him and relationships with each other, God
would be revealed to the world.
In
Jesus, all the promises to Israel and expectations of Israel were
fulfilled. Thus, all people who come to
God through faith in Jesus become a part of the people of God. Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not fear,
little flock.” Referring to them as his
sheep is the affectionate way He says, you
are mine and I am yours. That
invitation to relational intimacy extends to all who come to faith in him and
follow Him as His disciples. We are the
little flock he says need not fear.
In
Isaiah 1:10-15, God laments that His chosen ones have turned from Him by
worshipping idols. Calling Israel,
“Sodom and Gomorrah,” city names synonymous with unrestrained evil, God rejects
Israel’s worship. “I have had enough of
burnt offerings. … I do not delight in
the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. … Your festivals my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me. When
you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not
listen.” It would be like God getting so
angry at us He tells us, no more praise
songs. No more sermons. Stop taking communion and stop baptizing new
believers. The institutional
sinfulness was so great, the community’s worship became meaningless.
Hearing
the prophet’s poetic utterance of God’s frustrated anger with His chosen
people, we must get to the heart of the specific nature of their sin. What is it?
What did Israel do, or fail to do?
Is it a sin we are failing to do as well? Is it something God expects us to do, and
we’re not doing it? We pick up Isaiah’s
depiction of God’s voice in verse 16.
“Wash
yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before
my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good.”
OK. How? We know this involves repentance, turning
from sin and turning to God. How is
Israel to stop rejecting God and begin living the identity God has given them
as His chosen people? How do we turn
from our evil to God’s good?
Verse
17 offers a straightforward answer.
“Seek justice. Rescue the
oppressed. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow.” Two major conclusions jump out from Isaiah
1:17. First, God defines justice as
those with power and resources working in society to protect and advance those
who lack power and resources. That’s
Biblical justice. The second conclusion
is this: the call for justice applies to all people. The story arc of the entire Old Testament and
the entire Bible shows that God’s compassion reaches beyond just the chosen
people and extends to all the nations of the earth.
All
cultures have widows and orphans, the poor, the disabled, and others with
distinct social disadvantages. In our
country today, this might include people with learning disabilities or physical
disabilities. It certainly includes
immigrants and refugees. We’re talking
about children from divorced families, addicts, and victims of domestic
abuse. We’re talking about everyone
being detained at the U.S.-Mexican border.
God
is not concerned about American policy.
God looks into the hearts of His people – the followers of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah. Isaiah 1:17 is painfully clear. Learn to do good. Seek justice.
Rescue the oppressed – Hondurans fleeing for their lives from criminal
warlords their government cannot control.
Defend the orphan. Plead for the
widow. God looks into the hearts of His
followers to see if we will live as our Lord lived, or if we will relegate
Jesus to Sunday mornings as we live the rest of our lives futilely attempting
to maintain our own comfort while disregarding the pain of the people God wants
us to help and love.
In
a simple sentence which we might miss if we read too quickly, Jesus, in Luke
12, indicates how we live out the Isaiah 1:17 instruction to pursue
justice. Pay very close attention to the
sequence of statements.
First
in Luke 12:32 Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock.” One of the biggest the fears in America is we
who are white giving up our power and our positions and our privilege. If we share it by helping black and brown
people have opportunities for graduate degrees, professional jobs, and
positions of leadership, we will lose our hold on those privileges. If we let all these refugees in, terrorists
will sneak in with them and the ones who aren’t terrorists will take all our
jobs. Institutional racism is based in
fear. If “they” – “they” representing
whatever is not “me” – if they come in, what will happen to me. But Jesus says straight up, “fear not.” There’s no place for fear in faith. Fear
not.
Next
he says, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” There’s no better place or condition of
existence than the kingdom of God. Jesus
flatly states, God wants to give us this kingdom. God happily invites us into His kingdom. We don’t pursue happiness, not after we’ve
decided to follow Jesus. We live
generously and work to help people around us flourish. God gives happiness a gift. What we receive as a gift from God is far
better than any happiness we might earn.
First,
do not fear. Second, God wants to give
you the kingdom. Third, “Sell your
possessions and give alms.” He doesn’t
say, “Sell all your possessions,”
although some might need to do that to be fully sold-out for Jesus. Sell some and share – give alms so that
others might be blessed. This is
voluntary.
What
exactly does Jesus mean when he says “give alms?” The Greek word translated “alms” actually
means sympathy. We have sympathy when we
see another person’s pain. So to give
alms is to see another’s suffering and to do our best to help alleviate their
suffering.
When
you meet a hungry person, buy him a meal, and sit with him as he eats and hear
his story. When you do this, you’re
giving alms. You’re trying to alleviate
his immediate pain, hunger, and his deeper, bigger emotional pain, loneliness
and rejection. When we try to attack
unjust systems at the societal level, things like institutional, generational
racism, and white supremacy, we are giving alms but in a different way. We are striving for the justice God defined
in Isaiah 1:17 at the systemic level. In
both ways we align our lives with Jesus.
His
promise in Luke 12 brings us back to the beginning, the premise with which I
opened this messaged entitled “Blessed slaves.” Verse 37 – “Blessed are those slaves [read
“Jesus followers,” us] who the Master [Jesus] finds alert when he comes.” When we are alert, we are living in his
grace, giving alms, alleviating the suffering of those around us, and sharing
the good news of Jesus. When we share
hope by following Jesus and loving others, we are alert in the way Jesus means
it in Luke 12:37. “Blessed are those
slaves who the master finds alert when he comes [and Jesus is coming]; truly I
tell you, he will … have them sit down, and he will serve them.”
Wait. What?
We follow Jesus, worship God and love each other, and help the poor, and
Jesus catches us doing this (become he comes at an unpredictable hour) and he
says, “OK, everyone, around the table.” Obediently,
we sit down. And he comes along and
takes our drink orders? He brings out our salads? He, the Master and Lord of the universe, asks
if we want the steak, chicken, or fish, and then brings what we requested? From Isaiah 1:19 to Luke 12:37, yes, that’s
what Jesus is saying.
Note
that in Luke 12:46, in graphic, bloody, and violent terms, Jesus depicts what
happens to his people who are not doing what He said to do, not giving alms,
not trusting God. Judgment. Violent, final, judgment. Similar judgment is indicated at the end of
the Isaiah reading. I won’t go into the
judgment part. You look that up.
My
concern is those blessed slaves – us. We
belong to Jesus. When we work for
justice by extending ourselves to help the poor and powerless, we are living Biblically
as today’s readings and 100 other Bible verses show. And Jesus has something for us. A privileged seat as honored guests at the
king’s table.
AMEN
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