Sermon for Matthew 9:35-10:8
Father’s Day 2008
The new ELCA motto or slogan is God’s Work! Our Hands! Through God, through the Spirit our Hands are to care for this glorious creation and one another. God’s Work! Our Hands!
Seeing that today is Father’s Day, I’m going to share with you the greatest story ever told—it is a story about a Father’s Love! A love story that has the power to change lives and situations. It is a love that runs through the beginning to the end of the Holy Scriptures. The Love story begins with, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Your Father has created you, blessed you, and given you all a purpose in life! Be fruitful!
Remember, YOU are in the image of God. God is actually your biological Father! You therefore are to follow in your Father’s footsteps and become co-creators to the world, to the air, the soil, the water, the animals, to each other, always caring for and bringing along. You are to be a blessing for others, like God has done with us. Be Fruitful! That’s our purpose! How are we doing?
Well we sort of know the answer to that. Dads and Mothers we all know that our children don’t always behave the way we would like. Many times it seems the children feel they know more than their Fathers, and Mothers, and that is pretty much what happens with the very first children on earth—Adam and Eve.
They had it all. So do we!
But in this true story, God has created such a good world and basically given it to his two children, created in the Father’s image, asking only two simple things—Please take good care of this wonderful creation I have so freely given. Take care of each other. And do not eat from that one single tree in the middle of the garden—The tree of Knowledge.
Yet all the goodness and responsibility much have caused some type of brain damage, that happens in most children, because for some ungodly reason that is not enough. What do we do? We desire God’s infinite knowledge. So immediately we reach up and take some of that forbidden fruit because it is a delight to ones eyes, without thinking once of the Father’s command, causing our lives more misery than we could have imagined.
Dads, Moms does this sound familiar? How many of our own children don’t realize that we as parents have the best interest of those created in our image? We desire what is best for them even though they may not know it—just as God desires what’s best for you even though you may not know it.
Yet when our children fail and disobey, usually dads, and moms are fairly forgiving. Even though we fail and disobey, God is always and extravagantly forgiving!
However, there are consequences to our actions. For Adam and Eve the command to be fruitful has just been complicated because of our lack of trusting the Father who makes certain we are taken care of in all situations. Through the stories of the Holy Scriptures one hopefully learns and experiences that the Father’s love is never ending and all encompassing, offering Hope and Forgiveness no matter what!
Throughout the history of the world, once again told through the stories of the Bible, one gets to hopefully see and begin to understand first hand the extremes the Father goes through to get his children to be fruitful—take care of creation and one another—simply put to behave like someone in the image of God.
We see there maybe a limit to the Father’s patience in the stories such as Noah, where no one—not a single person behaved like a child of God—except Noah and his family. And we also see the heart of God in His regret and the promise never to do it again. Yet this means your Father must find other ways to show his concern and mercy offering hope and forgiveness to His children. How? God’s Work! Our Hands!
Last week we learned how God intends to Work through Abram’s hands. An old man with no children, and a simple promise of hope that turned him into a Father of many nations—now get this whose purpose is to teach those around them about the Love of God offering that same forgiveness and hope, and of our task to take care of creation and all that is in it. What’s amazing is that this ludicrous promise came true! Abraham does become the Father of many Nations—Judism, Christianity, Islam! Can we start to believe that God’s promises are true?
The stories of the Bible teach us No! We don’t. And through our lack of faith, we constantly find ourselves and the characters/people of the Bible in situations seemly beyond their control, much of it caused by this lack of faith.
For example in today’s text. The people who were supposed to share God’s message and did not, find themselves struggling in slavery for some 400 years. Once again through God’s work and Moses hands they are led to freedom with the promise of land and greatness. God speaks to Moses, who speaks to the people, who speaks to us today and says,
“Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and holy nation.” God’s Work! Our Hands!
And through the stories of the Holy Scriptures we learn that the people brought from slavery, a promise of land and protection do not become fruitful and share the message of God’s Love and Mercy. Instead they turn to their own power, their own knowledge, their own Work.
Still God’s Love is endless, sending prophet after prophet teaching us to obey and trust the Creator of All there ever was, all there ever is, and all there ever will be.
Even all this doesn’t work. What in the world does it take to get our attention? If I’m God, or even as Father, at some point while maybe I still love my children, at some point, I might be tempted to say, “Enough, I’ve done all I can!” But our Father doesn’t!
God now comes to our garden! Walking with us, eating with us. Not through power but through participation, not through might but through self-emptying. God takes on the burden of our struggles! God incarnate and crucified bears with us and for us the “weight of sin” that truly is the root cause of our senseless struggles. That my friend is a story worth hearing and telling.
To be human is to have our share of struggle, I know that, you know that and God knows that. Yet God’s desire remain for you to have abundant life! That is why God suffers also—on a cruel and inhuman cross. It is where God meets his children.
It is the one place where all persons-presidents, pastors, moms, dads, drug addicts and prostitutes-recognize themselves as frail, struggling, sinful human beings in need of God’s saving love—shown ever so clearly through the Holy Scriptures.
Our earthly struggles can brings us closer to God and God closer to us. Suffering, despite all its pain and cruelty, however strange it may sound, enables humans to long for true life. Find it, treasure it, and defend it with all their might.
That’s what Paul is trying to teach us so passionately in today’s lesson. Through his hands he is trying to share with us God’s work that will lead to a more abundant way of life. He writes, “Since we are made right with God simply by our trust, we can begin to experience Peace.” Isn’t that what we all desire?
And Paul continues to write, “God proves his love for you that while you are still a sinner, Christ died for you!” God didn’t wait for you to get your act together. God didn’t even wait for you to have faith.
The Father’s Love just keeps reaching down, over and over and over again, giving you and I something that not one single earthly thing can even come close to offering—A hope of sharing the glory of God!
Paul goes on to say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with glory about to be revealed to us! Notice that! Our struggles here are now are not even worth comparing—Wow! Not only that, Paul claims “All things—all things can and will somehow someway come out on the side of good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” The purpose once again of caring for creation and each other—A priestly kingdom—A Holy nation.
Where are you going to find this type of promise? Once again, may I venture to say nowhere!
You might ask, “How do I know this to be true?” I don’t! Yet God has not lied to me yet and I have incredible Hope that it is true! And that my friends is how you and I are saved, through our hope—through our trust—through our faith. Not our knowledge—that’s what got us into trouble in the first place.
Paul writes some very amazing words, “In Hope we’re saved! Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?”
I like messing with some of the Pentecostal types that come knocking at the door. I know I shouldn’t, but my sinful nature gets the best of me. When they ask me if I am saved, I answer, “I sure hope so!” One particular time the fellow said if I didn’t know I was saved for sure then I wasn’t. I read my judgmental friend Paul passage and replied, “If hope is what saves and if I know for certain that I’m saved, am I really saved?” The look on the man’s face said a thousand words.
In Hope we are Saved! For hope that is seen is not hope. And believe you me, I have a whole lot of hope!
Remember it is God Work and Our Hands!
However, the command given to Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, the Israelites, the prophets, the Disciples, the people of Gloria Dei, to You remains the same—Be fruitful—Take care of the Father’s creation and one another! Share with them the story about a Father’s Love. Can the cycle of obedience be continued through your Hands?
Here’s where the challenge comes into play. Many of are thinking, I can’t go out into the world and share God’s message. Especially a message that I’m not even quite certain is true. Remember, I like saying what a thing really is.
You don’t have to go to everyone on the street shouting the gospel from the rooftop. Jesus even tells us to be as wise as serpents--
Jesus tells his disciples not to go to the Gentiles, or any of towns surrounding them, but go first to your own people.
There a statistic floating around that claim the average Lutheran invites someone to worship only twice in their lifetime—that one person every 40 years or so. Sure you don’t have to shout from your rooftop, but you can go to your family members, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors—and at least whisper a secret about a Father Love. The harvest is most definitely plentiful!
Truthfully speaking each of us this week could, could—we won’t, but we could probably invite 5-10 people of our own kind to Church to hear a message about a Father Love offering forgiveness and incredible hope in our struggles, changing lives and situation for the Good!
You probably run into the same about of children this week you could invite to VBS this summer to hear about that same Father’s Love perhaps changing the life of one young person forever. After all Billy Graham states the changing moment in his young life was a elderly farmer who offered to let him drive is truck if he came to VBS with him.
I think sometimes we under estimate the power of the gospel—the Holy Scriptures—the greatest Love Story ever told. God’s Work! Our Hands! Remember, God is actually your biological Father. I think maybe it’s time we start sharing our family story!
Happy Father’s Day! Amen.
