Sunday, October 12, 2014
Is it easier to hug another
person or to avoid being involved with that other person? This is kind of tricky. Some folks are huggers: they just hug
everybody. For others, it is less
certain. Maybe they came from a family
of hand-shakers. Maybe in their
experience, there has not been much physical affection. It could be their culture is not as
affectionate as other cultures. I went through
a phase in my early 20’s where the only real contact I wanted with other people
was of the violent kind that came in rugby matches; no hugging or
affection! I walked around proudly
showing off my bruises and blackened eyes.
Then I went on a trip to Mexico.
All the men hugged me and all the women kissed me. I had more affection in one week than two
years. It was great.
But, be careful with this. In my life now, in the sexual climate of the
United States, I have to be aware of how my actions could be perceived. It would be foolishly irresponsible for me to
be oblivious to how someone might interpret what I do or how I do it. I hug female friends, but I also watch for
cues or hints that someone might misunderstand my intentions.
Hugging comes with risks. Innuendo is one. Vulnerability is another, and here I mean
literally the act of the embrace, and metaphorically, the posture of embrace. The best book out there on this is titled Exclusion and Embrace by theologian
Miroslav Volf. To present yourself to
another, arm open, face inviting, heart expectant is to let your defenses
down. You have opened the gate in the
wall that is safeguarding your heart.
You are saying to the other, this
is how close I want to be. I want to pull your body to me. This is not sexual. It is intimate. Intimacy scares us. Vulnerability scares us.
It is also risky. What if you decide the hug is worth it, the
relationship is worth it and the other feels differently. You open, and the other closes. Now what?
Are you embarrassed? I certainly
am when that happens. It definitely does
happen. I am left there, arms opened. More significantly, I have opened my heart,
and the other’s closed posture is an unmistakable message. Stay
back. Stay at a distance. I do not want you close to me – not in body,
not in spirit.
Mistaken intentions, unwanted
vulnerability, terrifying intimacy, needless risk – is the posture of embrace
worth it? We could leave the gate in the
wall locked up tight. We could protect
ourselves by never opening ourselves to anyone.
A lot of people live this way, emotions withheld, arms stiff, bodies
rigid; it is a cold way to be.
To live rejecting embrace – this is
so isolating. Those who live this way
lose the art of living in relationship and God made us to live in
relationship. To live in a perpetual
defense mode keeping the world at bay is to say to the creator God, I know you made me to walk with others, but
I cannot. We all go through seasons
in which we shut others out. Sometimes
solitude is necessary. But if rejection
becomes our life, we in effect say to God, I
know you created me for relationship, but it hurts too much. I have been beaten up by lovers, by friends,
by family, and by strangers. I cannot do
it. Then your experience becomes
more powerful in defining your life than God’s wisdom.
Yes, embrace is confusing, exposing,
intimate, and risky. It is all those
things. If you choose to embrace others
and relationships of love with other humans who sin as much you do, you will
get bruised and burned. You will also be
living in the way God created you to live – life in relationship. I intend to show that faith is comprised of a
life in which we live by God’s designs even when our experience would suggests
this is not always the best idea. No, it
is not easier to hug than to not hug.
But it is better. Embrace is the
pathway to life lived as people who are made in the image of God.
Is it easier to worship God or to
rely on the self? I know that I am
asking it in the midst of a worship service.
The answer might seem painfully obvious.
But, let us look at it.
When we truly worship – worship in
spirit and in truth as Jesus says (John 4) – certain realities are in
play. First, we really believe there is
a force, a personality, a being, a reality present – one we cannot necessarily
see, feel, or hear. But this thing – God
– is here. We set ourselves up for a
diagnosis of some mental illness. We
gather, study, sing to, pray to, and give our allegiance to this empty space
that we claim is occupied by … what?
God. What is God?
Moreover, we not only claim God is
real. We also assert God is all
powerful. Dina typed out the worship
bulletin. Starlyn selected the songs –
song that were written by people, humans and sung by the humans you see up on
the stage. I wrote this sermon. Yet, we all conspire to say God is the one
who is in control. Are we sure? Are you?
If we are truly worshipping, we have to be pretty convinced that this
whole idea of God is real.
Yet, we cannot be because doubt always has
seat in our gatherings. Some Sundays,
you are so in touch with God, you feel a light and see a heat in the sanctuary
that normal human senses could not perceive.
You don’t need convincing any more than you would need someone to prove
water is wet. Some Sundays, you know
God. But someone a few rows behind you
isn’t so sure. He got himself here. He came.
The effort to do that was all he could muster. He is right now hearing this sermon and
thinking, oh, I don’t know. This whole thing might be a farce.
He leaves less convinced than when
he came in. But then, over time, he sees
God. Others don’t what he’s talking
about, but he knows it is God. And in a
month, he’s back in church and it is real.
By then, things have happened in your life, and your faith is being hit
by gale force winds and you are unsure.
Is this house built on drifting sand or a firm foundation? You do not know. Then there is the Sunday where you are sure
and your friend is sure and everyone here is absolutely sure of the reality and
presence and love and power of God; everyone except the pastor. He or she has days of doubt too.
To worship is to acknowledge
uncertainty. If we want a positive spin,
we say it is mystery. That sounds
nice. But often mystery is scarier than
it is inviting because it is mysterious.
I mentioned the power of God. That’s another thing to acknowledge when we
are trying to figure out if a life of worship is easier than a life in which we
eschew worship. When we worship, we are
bowing, whether we literally go to our knees or not. We say that God is the one in charge, the one
with the power, not us. Do we want to
say that? Do we want to name our
weakness? Do we want to confess
sins? Do we want to have to ask the
unseen, unfelt, all powerful one for blessing?
Is life easier like this?
No!
No, if we put our hearts into worship, life is not easier. I say this not because getting up for church
on Sundays is all that difficult. It is
not. Thousands of people get up every
Sunday, go church, and they do this without fail all their lives. Not all of them truly worship, truly pour
their hearts before God. For many this
is just part of the weekly routine. If
we really believe God is here right now, there can be nothing routine about
this moment. If we seriously think God
is all-knowing, we cannot hold anything of ourselves back in this moment of
worship. To hold back would be a
pointless waste of the time, time in God’s presence.
I say a life of worship is not easy
because it is a life in which we give up control. We pray, often very specifically, but God
chooses when and how to answer. We seek,
but it is God’s decision as to how God will reveal God’s self. God calls us by God’s initiative. Worship, in one sense, is an exercise in
waiting. In hope and in faith, worship
is a life of waiting to see what God will do in the world and how God will
involve us in what God is doing. Of
course that is not all worship is. Some
might take great offense at this definition.
Fine. Take offense. Or embrace the definition and get to waiting,
but always waiting in faith, expectantly, and hopefully.
No, this life of worship will not
feel easier than a life of ignoring God.
It is though better than the godless life because God does act. God is involved in the world. God indeed does call us before we ever step
toward Him in worship. Giving ourselves
to a life of worship does not guarantee we’ll be in the starting lineup on
God’s team. But it does orient us toward
God – the God of infinite grace and infinite love, the God who calls us to be
His sons and daughters. Living in
worship is better than avoiding God.
Living in worship points us to Him.
However it plays out, to choose the opposite of worship is to choose to
turn away from God’s love.
I have made the claim that embrace
while not easier is better than a relationless life. It is better to choose embrace. I have made the claim that to live in worship
while not easier is better than a godless life.
It is better to live in worship.
What did Jesus name as the two greatest
commandments? Love the Lord your God
with all your, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. Obeying this by loving God begins in worship. The second of the commands Jesus names is
that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Neighbor-love begins when commit ourselves to embrace.
The prophet Ezekiel did his work
about 600 years before Jesus came on the scene.
But what Jesus said about God-love and neighbor-love was as true in
Ezekiel’s days as in Jesus’. In God’s
view of how the world ought to work, God-love and neighbor-love are absolute
truths going back to the very beginning, Adam and Eve. Ezekiel’s prophecies come after God had
determined that his people, the nation of Israel, had worshiped idols of Egypt,
Assyria, and Babylon.
Idolatry is at the root of all sin. Idolatry
is giving worship that belongs to God to someone or something other than
God. It is a failure of Jesus’ first
command – the command to love God. This
failure always leads to a failure of the second command – the failure to love
people.
Ezekiel was an Israelite priest, but
he lived in Babylon. The Babylonians
had overrun Jerusalem, defeated the Israelites in battle and enslaved the most
powerful among the people. Are you one of the educate elite among the
Israelites? Off to slavery in exile
in Babylon you go! Are you an army officer? Off
you go to exile. One of the religious leaders, a priest? Off you go!
The first 25 chapters of Ezekiel are comprised of prophetic allegories
Ezekiel wrote and shared among the exiles in Babylon. He graphically tells of God’s
punishment. Israel practiced idolatry,
exploitation, and host of other sins and did so for many generations.
In Ezekiel 16, the prophet likens Israel to Sodom. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in
Genesis 19. Abraham’s cousin Lot is
lives in Sodom. Along with its sister
city Gomorrah, Sodom is known for sexual excess and perversion. God is going to wipe out both cities, but
first, Lot and his family must be rescued.
Angels come to extract Lot, but when the men of Sodom see the
angels, they have other ideas. These
angels appear as human men. The men of
Sodom are going to spend the night raping them.
Lot shelters the men in his home not knowing that it is they who will
rescue him, not the other way around.
At daybreak, the angels hustle Lot out of town and then Sodom and
Gomorrah are obliterated by fire from Heaven.
Some interpreters believe this story is a condemnation of
homosexuality. The men of Sodom intended
to have relations with these angels whom they took to be men also. That would be rape, a crime of violence that
is sexual in nature but not the same thing as consensual homoerotic
relationships. The Sodom account
definitely relates to sexual purity, but it would be wrong to hold this up as a
cornerstone defense in arguing that homosexuality is sinful. It would be wrong because it would be missing
the point of the story.
Other readers make the case that the real failure in Sodom was a
failure of hospitality. There clearly is
this failure by the men of town. They
want to take something from the visitors instead of offering shelter and food
to the visitors. Just as there was
sexual sin involved in the story, there is the failure to care for
travelers. But again to say the Sodom
account is primarily about the sin of not showing hospitality is to focus on a
detail instead of the overarching theme.
The overarching theme is faithfulness to God. This is seen in worship and neighbor-love. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet says to the people
of God who now wallow as slaves in exile, “The people of Sodom … were never as
sinful as you. … They had everything
they needed [yet] they refused to help the poor and needy” (from Ez. 16:48-49,
CEV). In the verses leading up to this,
Ezekiel rails against the exiles for idolatry (see v. 36). Both idolatry (failure of God-love) and Sodom
(failure of neighbor-love) enrage God.
In verse 60, God reminds the beleaguered exiles that he has not
abandoned them. They have not stopped
being God’s people. They are just under
God’s heavy hand of discipline. God will
one day fulfill all his promises to Israel.
We Christians believe that day came in the life of Jesus, his death on
the cross, his resurrection, and his sending of the Holy Spirit. He is God’s final answer to sin. He defines worship and embrace, God-love and
neighbor-love for us.
We live awaiting the final consummation of the Kingdom – Jesus’
return, the resurrection of all the dead when those in Christ will enter the
Kingdom and those not in Christ will be banished. That’s coming.
Until then, we bear witness to the goodness of God, and we do it in
a posture of embrace as we love our neighbors.
As we await Jesus’ return, we worship, loving God with our heart, soul,
strength, and mind.
In the commentary on Ezekiel Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich
Keil translate the Biblical text into German.
Later, James Martin, translated their work into English. His rendering of their translation of Ezekiel
16:48 sets for me a concept that is the essence of what it is to love in
God-love and neighbor-love, worship and embrace.
“Behold this was the sin of Sodom, [your] sister, [Israel]; pride,
super abdundance of food, and rest had she with her daughters, and the hand of
the poor and needy she did not hold” (p.219).
The hand of the poor and needy,
she did not hold.
We can learn from Israel’s mistake by asking God to help us see
the needy in our midst – the spiritually needy, those who suffer from poverty
of relationships, and the emotionally needy.
Whatever actions of love we show to help someone come from hearts that
beat with love for God. We have embraced
His Gospel when it is said of us they
held the hand of those who needed to be held.
Open your arms in embrace.
Bend your knee in worship. Live
in God-love and neighbor-love. Bear
witness to the Kingdom God and the Lordship of Jesus by holding someone’s
hand.
AMEN
No comments:
Post a Comment