Sermon 070509 4th of July
Mark 6:1-13; 2 Corinthians 12:1-10; Ezekiel 2:1-5
Happy 4th of July Weekend. What comes to mind first when you think of the 4th? Fireworks? BBQ? All good stuff. But there is a reason why we celebrate on the 4th and we can’t forget that! It was the day the day the colonies declared their independence from England. Freedom was declared in some famous words of the Declaration of Independence, which starts:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
And it was signed first by John Hancock and then by representatives from all the states. We still honor John Hancock by saying, “Put your John Hancock on there,” whenever we ask for a signature. If you want to get a blank stare, ask someone for their “Josiah Bartlett.” He’s the second guy to sign, but nobody remembers him.
This was an exciting day! A day of joy and celebration. But what followed was anything but a simple joy or easy. You see, every Independence Day, my thoughts race ahead to what followed July 4th. Actually they run all the way to December of 1776. They go to this point in history because it’s here that that history shows us how brittle and fragile was the hope of independence.
George Washington was commanding an army that was disintegrating before his eyes. It looked as if all hope for victory was gone. He had made a military blunder that had lost New York to the British Army. The Congress had fled from Philadelphia because the city was seen as a lost cause. The Continental Army was low on gunpowder, guns, food, and other supplies. The civilians that had celebrated so heartily on July 4,5,6th, were now wondering if it would be wisest just to give up at this point. Most of the soldiers would finish their enlistments on December 31, and other didn’t wait that long and simply deserted. George Washington’s Army was about to be destroyed by British troops and German Mercenaries (Hessians). The future of America was hanging on by a thread.
Which makes the events of Christmas Day 1776 all the more amazing. Washington led his troops across the Deleware River against incredible odds. There was hail and sleet, and iceflows. The operation took hours longer than originally thought. Two of the generals failed to join in the fight because of the bad conditions. But Washington led his troops against all odds on a nine mile march and defeated the better trained and equipped Hessians and turned the war around. An almost impossible mission completed, and a seemingly undefeatable enemy, defeated. The future hung by a thread, but a thread was all it took. This is our history as Americans, and we ought to cherish it, and be grateful for it.
But for as great as this is, we have a richer and more amazing history and heritage as Christians. We have a great gift in the Bible. We can read our past, present, and future in the God-inspired book. We can look at our history as people of faith and we can see how time and time again it looked like our history hung on by a thread, but a thread was more than enough for God to sustain his people. My prayer is that as we take some time to look back this morning, that we would be inspired to trust God, to trust his provision, to trust his grace as we look to the future, and the times when it seems that our future may be vulnerable, or fragile, or in danger.
Our first lesson for this morning comes from the Prophet Ezekiel. He did his ministry in some very challenging times, to say the least! He received his commission at a time when the people of God were being exiled for 70 years. Tossed out of their promised land to live as prisoners in an oppressor’s country in order that they might have a change of heart. The people had fled to false gods and were dealing with the consequences. But now, instead of listening to God, they were running to false prophets, who offered all kinds of false hopes.
God commissions Ezekiel to be one of the few people who made up the thread. Who were faithful to the Word of God. Fallible, ordinary, sinful people on whose shoulders rested the future of the faith and the faithful. And to be honest, the commissioning isn’t exactly
hope-inspiring!
“Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. 4 The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD.’ 5 And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.
Where do I sign (Josiah Bartlett)! Hardly! What God asks of Ezekiel is impossible for Ezekiel and they both know it. But what they also know is that God will be faithful. That God will provide. And that which God commissions, he will also make happen. Some listened. Some didn’t. But 70 years later, the people returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the city, to rebuild the temple, and to rebuild their spiritual life. All with the help of a God who never gave up on them. The future hung by a thread, but a thread was more than enough for God.
Our Gospel Lesson takes us to another funnel in the story of faith. A point in time where the future of God’s love story for his people rested on the shoulders of a few ordinary people. In the first part of the reading, we see Jesus being dishonored in his own hometown. So much so that Jesus “Marveled because of their unbelief.” This isn’t a real hope-filled situation. Even the Son of God in the flesh faces rejection.
With this fresh in the minds of the disciples, he then commissions them to go out and preach the Word: 7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”
I’m not sure about you, but whenever I go on a trip I usually over-pack. I have shoes for running, for going out to dinner, for walking. I have tee-shirts, and button up shirts, and polo shirts. I have shorts for working out, for sleeping, for lounging. Don’t even get me started on pants! I also have a huge folder full of documents. Maps, hotel reservations, flight itineraries, car rental information, and coupons for local attractions. I’m that guy! And that is just on vacation!
Here Jesus Commissions these guys to go and reach out to the whole Galileean countryside! And with no hotel reservations, no calling ahead, no money, no food, no bag of clothes. What a crazy deal! The future of the church and the faith rested, not on an army of men, but in little groups of 2 going out to share the message of the grace and mercy of Christ. It was an impossible Mission that God gave them, and they all knew it. But God made it possible and he made it work.
So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
The whole future of the faith hung on by a thread, in the hands of fishermen in groups of 2, men who struggled with sin, with unbelief, with faith. The future hung on by a thread, but a thread was more than enough for God.
And at last, we get to the time after Christ ascended into heaven. The Apostle Paul writes to a church in Corinth that is struggling with her identity and full of internal strife and arguments. A Church situated in the middle of one of the most notoriously sinful cities in all of recorded human history. The church is divided into fighting factions, it is riddled with sexual immorality, lawsuits, false doctrine, false teachers. And yet God does not abandon them. The truth of God’s grace continues to be proclaimed. People continue to be fed with the Body and Blood of Jesus at the altar. People continue to be baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. It is amazing how the song of the church goes on, even in the midst of such challenging times!
The Lord leaned heavily on Paul to lead and guide this church and many others. Paul struggled with his past, he struggled with temptations and sins, he struggled with frustrations, and hardships that we can only imagine. And on top of all of this, he had one struggle that literally never left his side: A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
Paul begged the Lord to remove it, to relieve him of his suffering: Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. How could God expect to use such a man to a task that they both knew was impossible? The answer is clear in God’s answer to Paul’s prayers: But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” The future of the faith hung on by a thread, but God’s grace would be enough to sustain her. And it did. And it still does. In fact Paul wrote these powerful words in response to the thorn in his flesh (whatever it was):
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong
This summarizes our history and our future as God’s people, doesn’t it! If we go back the beginning, to the Garden of Eden and read all the way through the last sentence of Revelation, we see that our history and our future are wrapped up in the grace and the provision of God. We see that God, time and time again, has shown His strength and his power in the middle of human frailty and weakness. We don’t have to look all the way through the history of the world to see it though, do we? We can look at our own lives, and our own history to see how graceful God is and how powerful he is in the midst of our weakness and failures.
We have been every bit as rebellious as the people in Ezekiel’s Day. We have rejected God every bit as much as those people in his hometown in the Gospel. We have struggled as a church and as God’s people just like the people at the Church in Corinth did. We have prayed for God to remove suffering in our lives rather than wanting to see how he could use it just like Paul did. We have sinned, we have a list of failures that haunts our memories, we have disappointed God more times than we can count. And at times it seems that our future with God doesn’t even hang by a thread, but is hopelessly and irreparably lost.
But we hear those words to Paul in our own lives, “My grace is sufficient for you.” And we realize that our faith never hangs by a thread. But that our faith is rooted in a God who hung on a cross. A God who accomplished the unthinkable. A God who did for us what was impossible for us to do on our own. Our future, our story is rooted in the forgiveness that Jesus bought for us with his own blood, and his own life. Our faith is forever connected to a tomb that was found empty, and a Savior that was found alive. There are not threads when it comes to God’s relationship with you. There is only the solid rock of Grace. The unmovable mountain of forgiveness. The living ocean of Mercy. All given freely to you.
We have been given the gift of faith. It has been passed down to us and by God’s grace it rests in our hands. We have also inherited the struggle. The task of living out our faith and proclaiming our faith in the midst of a rebellious people didn’t die with Ezekiel! And at times it is tempting to give up hope. To be like those people in Washington’s time who said, “there’s no way, let’s just give up!” But I pray God reminds us, over and over again, that he has never given up on us. That we have more than just a brilliant General and Father of a country to rely upon, but we have the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We have the Father of all creation as our Father.
And no matter how improbable the future seems, God will pull us through, and sustain us in the fight, until that day when he calls us home to our true home land. A place with no tears, or struggles, or pain, or sin, or doubt. But until then, the refrain shall echo in our ears, no matter the odds, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
Amen
