Blog Archives
My Precious!!!! – A Sermon on Exodus 19:2-8 with help from LOTR
My Precious!
(People)
Exodus 19:2-8
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ convince you how passionately God desires you to be part of His life!
- Gollum’s Passion
In the books and movies based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, there is an odd character named Gollum. Some people find him disgusting and pathetic, and others pity him.
All of his life has been spent guarding or chasing after a ring, a treasure he calls his “precious” When it is lost and found by others, he will do anything to get back this ring, this treasure whose value is beyond the value he places on his own life.
As Frodo the Hobbit tosses the ring into the volcano, Gollum is so intent on getting his precious back, he dives after it…. His passion so strong that even death can’t stop it.
Now Gollum’s obsession with the ring was not healthy, it was about gaining power. God the Father’s obsession is healthy; it is the passion which He chases His people with is just as strong…
Even to the point of His Son’s embracing death, if it means His precious will be His, again.
One perverted passion, one Holy passion, both seeking to make a treasure their own….
- The Set up – look at these two
In the Old Testament reading from Exodus this morning, Moses climbs Mount Sinai to talk with God…. And is given a message to share with the sin-plagued people of God who await him at the base of the mountain.
They are a people in the midst of change, having left the burden and slavery of Egypt, dwelling in the presence of God, but not yet in a place they could call home. They haven’t even been given what we call the 10 commandments yet, nor have they sinned in a way that resulted in a generation of wandering in the wilderness…
Yet they are God’s people… trying to learn what that means…. Just as we are this morning. We need to hear the message that He gave them for ourselves, and come to embrace Him as He embraces us…or….
- Response #1 The Egyptian Route
God plays it pretty hard to start the message,
‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians.”
Not long before, the Egyptians had suffered through the ten plagues because their King was stubborn. They chased after the Israeli’s, unable to learn to listen to God.
And like Gollum, they perished, drowned not in a volcano, but in the Red Sea. Neither way sounds all that fun, but sin eats us up that way. It creates a hunger, and obsession that is not quenchable until it destroys us.
God has to let us know the consequences of our actions, and even more, the cost of walking away from Him. It is what the Egyptians did… and were drowned because of it.
That is the power of sin, but the option is incredible…
- Response 2 – your flight is boarding
The second group God describes – is the people of God…
You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
God promised Abraham that he would save his descendants in Egypt, and He did, carrying them away to Sinai where He met with them. That is where they are at, well aware of the miracles, for they witnessed the Sea dividing, they saw these miracles happen before them, much as we see it when someone is saved as God baptizes them, or strengthens them as He gives them the body and blood of Christ at the altar.
He has saved us from so much – as he did the people of Israel. But He brought us into His presence, revealing that we dwell in His presence.
Everything we are, and everything we do has to be based on this incredible truth. We are His, that we dwell in His presence.
We need to be reminded of this, at least I do, for life. That is the point of the rest of the message
5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation
That phrase, “my own special treasure” is also translated as my peculiar possession. Peculiar in the sense of very different, very special. Or as I simply prefer it—precious.
Both peculiar and precious seem like olde words. Words that aren’t used all that much anymore…. And since the Lord of the Rings, people look at you a little strange when you call something “precious!”
But that is the relationship we have with God, this idea that out of all creation, God treasures us more than anything.
And He proved it by heading to the cross in the same way Gollum dove off the precipice after the ring.
Setting aside the shame – but for the joy set before Him, Hebrews tells us – Jesus endured the cross.
But there is a difference…
Alleluia! Jesus is risen!
And therefore, we are risen indeed.
- Give this message to the people!
We are God the Father’s peculiar, precious treasure.
This is what Israel struggled to understand in the desert. They couldn’t understand a God who desired to be their God, to be present and active in their lives.
They couldn’t see a God who would embrace agony because He treasured us. Who would do everything in His power to rescue us, and bring us out of where we were… to be with Him.
God told Moses, “this is the message you must give to the people of Israel”
Moses told them it all about God making them His people–then…and they responded with great joy…and the promise to live in this relationship.
We have an advantage over them. We have the cross and knowing what happened there. Our relationship is based on so much more!
It is based on the Jesus who died, and rose… and having risen, walks with us today. AMEN!
So now I’ve told you—what are you going to do?
Confronting The Inner Pharisee…
Devotional Thought fo the Day:
13 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven* before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. NABRE Matt 23:13-15
I have loved thy beauty, and the place of the habitation of the glory of my Lord, thy builder and possessor. Let my wayfaring sigh after thee, and I say to Him that made thee, let Him take possession of me also in thee, seeing He hath made me likewise. I have gone astray like a lost sheep: yet upon the shoulders of my Shepherd, thy builder, hope I to be brought back to thee. (1)
As I come to Matthew 23 in my devotions, I feel the necessity to guard my heart. It is all too easy as Jesus begins to challenge Pharisees and Sadducees to begin to name their modern counterparts.
I know them, as they sit on either end of the spectrum, trying to create a system out of the covenant relationship God calls us into being , as His children, His beloved. As they create rules and rubrics, best practices and by-laws, assuring others that doing so is faithful and proper, missional and confessional.
I see them as either throwing out the baby with the baptismal water or drowning the baby in it, oblivious to the baby, for the sake of the holy water.
And this is exactly why I have to guard my heart, for Jesus words aren’t just calling them to repentance, but they are calling me to repentance. For I can lock the door on these Pharisees and Sadducees as quickly as they do for those I find myself akin to, those who are broken, lost and trying desperately to hear His voice of hope. What is worse, my cynical and sarcastic response to the Pharisee or Sadducee sets a horrid example for those I am leading, those who I am discipling. An example which doesn’t shepherd them into the presence of Christ who would heal them, but away from Him, into the desert where they will trust no one, eventually including me.
So where is my hope, how can I allow my inner Pharisee to be called to repentance, and see God deal with those who would drive people to a place outside the church?
I think Augustine in his simple brilliance showed me an answer this morning.
Focus on the presence of God! Let him carry you broken back tot he Father. We have to abandon yourself into His care, His guidance, join Him on the cross, and let Him heal us, including killing off our inner pharisee, or at preferably, purifying that devoted pharisee in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We need to let the Father remind us that we are in the presence of God, in His dwelling place, and call our mind back from the pigpens where our brothers were living large.
There is hope for Pharisees, and Sadduccees and so many others…
In the cross, in being carried back, physically or spiritually, into the presence of God’s glory, God’s mercy, God’s love.
And that is where we belong…. AMEN!
(1) Augustine, S., Bishop of Hippo. (1996). The Confessions of St. Augustine. (E. B. Pusey, Trans.). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Do We Teach Them What They Need to Know About Jesus?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:36-39 (NLT)
3 After all, the chief purpose of all ceremonies is to teach the people what they need to know about Christ. (1)
“Biblical worship is rooted in an event that is to be lived, not proven. The purpose of worship is not to prove the Christ it celebrates, but to bring the worshipper so tune with God’s reconciliation through Christ that His death and resurrection becomes a lived experience.” (2)
““As long as I have strength to breathe, I will continue to preach that it is vitally necessary that we be souls of prayer at all times, at every opportunity, and in the most varied of circumstances, because God never abandons us” (no. 247). That was his one and only concern: to pray and to encourage others to do likewise. That was why he brought about in the midst of the world a wonderful “mobilization of people,” as he liked to call it, “who are ready to commit themselves to live Christian lives,” by developing their filial relationship with God our Father. We are many who have learned, from this thoroughly priestly priest, “the great secret of God’s mercy, that we are children of God.” (3)
The quote in blue, from the 24th Article of the Augsburg Confession, is among my favorite quotes from all religious writing. When I teach Worship/Liturgy, Caregiving, or even Preaching, it becomes the 1 statement that MUST be understood, the foundational statement of the course.
As I look at what is being taught and written about; as I consider my own education for the ministry; how I was taught to preach, teach and lead worship, I realize I have to ask the question,
Are we teaching them what they really need to know about Jesus?
I think one of the ways we can measure that is found in the scripture verse above in red.
Are they learning to love God with all they are, and to love their neighbor? (without asking, “are they really my neighbor?
I have to ask, is that the result every aspect of our church services, from the sacraments, the sermons, the singing, the liturgy, and prayers? Is it what results from our Bible studies, the counseling sessions and even the meetings of boards and teams? Do our people love God more, grow in their adoration of Him? Will they share in the lives of those around them? Will they weep with them, laugh with them, share food and life with both those who know Christ, and those who need to know Him?
Can we hold that up as the standard? Does how our people love reflect on whether we’ve told them what they need to know about Jesus?
Webber makes another point worth considering, that reveals a sobering answer to this,
“Liberals turned worship into a time for ethical reflection on the love of God, while conservatives concentrated on an intellection defense of the Gospel. In both cases church leaders gave into to secularism and allowed it to define worship.” (4)
Far too often, we forget what changes people, what creates the love of both God and neighbor. It isn’t just found in nurturing the intellect, or making logical appeals for what is good, ethical and beneficial. This only provides a narrow stimulation, that of the mind. Our teaching, our preaching our worship, has to go deeper. It has to cause, as Webber says, ou words must guide them in living through the death and resurrection of Christ.
It is there, in the presence of God, dwelling in Christ, abiding in Him, that we discover what true love is. That we, the very children of God, live our lives intimately communicating with God. A relationship that goes beyond anything we know, for this relationship reveals the transcendent life of a Christ, what Paul talks about in Colossians.
1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. Colossians 3:1-4 (NLT)
This is what it means to give them what they need to know about Christ, to know His presence, His love, His mercy! To see Him so clearly that the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts of stone into hearts that beat with the love of God, and then can love others.
Whether our people grow in love of God, and their neighbors is how we judge whether our preaching, our administration of the sacraments, our worship, and our very ministry give people what they need to know about Christ.
Lord Have Mercy on Us, even this mercy of revealing to us what we need to know of Christ. AMEN!.
(1) Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 59). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
(2) Webber, Robert: Worship is a Verb Peabody Mass, Hendrickson Publishing
(3) Escriva, Josemaria (2010-11-02). Friends of God (Kindle Locations 136-140). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(4)Webber, Robert: Worship is a Verb Peabody Mass, Hendrickson Publishing
