I Will Give To You . . .
10th Sunday after Pentecost
Psalm 105:1-11
Genesis 28:15-28
Romans 8:25-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
My friends who read my sermons – you know, my preacher friends – get a little antsy when I try to find something connective with all four of the lectionary scriptures, and then comment on them in a single sermon. There is a lot of material here, usually, and from time to time, I do have to stretch a point to make a point. I hope you don’t think that’s what I’ve done when you finish hearing my thoughts this morning. So I offer four vignettes of thought that, for me, bring together the scriptures we have heard this morning.
Let’s start with the psalm. Psalm 105. The psalmist expresses emotion and praise to God, and in the process, indicates that we are to do the same. We are to give to God. That may seem, at first, as a silly thing to attempt – to give something to God that God needs. Truth of the matter is, we don’t understand enough about God to understand why God would need, desire, or encourage our praise – but He does. And we gladly respond – from our hearts, from our minds, with our lips and our whole beings. We respond to God. We give back to the One Who has given all to us.
A person wouldn’t have to study our worship liturgy here very long to notice that we begin with praise. We open our experience of worship with the reading of a psalm of praise, and then we generally move into a series of hymns and choruses designed to help us approach God in humility and thankfulness. It is wise of us to begin our time with God with praise. I don’t know about you, but I never think of this as burdensome, or even think of it as a task that has to be done for the sake of the relationship. Rather, I view our opportunity to praise as a wondrous thing – in those moments, I am enraptured by thoughts of our God – of His goodness to us, of His love for us, of His provision for us – praise to our God is something of ease, and I count it as a real privilege, as well as a pleasure.
Our praise of God begins with our lips and our minds and our attitudes, and becomes something of a lifestyle for us. I was reminded of this at Youth camp last week, as the theme for the week centered around four statements, and five simple truths – laugh out loud, listen out loud, love out loud, and live out loud – those were the statements. Laughing, listening, loving, and living are means by which we express our gratitude to God, and means by which we manifest our ministry of proclaiming God in all quarters. Those are the four statements, but the fifth truth is the “out loud” part – all that we do, we do in a visible fashion, as testimony to others about the astounding greatness of our God, and our pleasure at returning thanksgiving and praise to the One Who created us, redeemed us, restored us, and now works with and through us to accomplish His purposes.
Well, that’s the first vignette this morning. We offer praise to God as a part of our general lifestyle. A few years ago, really more than ten years ago now, I was reading Robert Capon on how he interpreted the parables of Jesus. Among many others, he made one rather interesting point – the relationship we have with Christ is exactly that – relational. Most of us think of our relationship with God and Christ as transactional – God will do something for us if we do something for Him. There is a sense in which we come to that conclusion as a result of the covenants we read about in scripture. God established covenants with our forefathers, and those covenants were, seemingly, transactional. In our minds and in our theology, we have simply translated that thought about transaction to our contemporary theology, and to our understanding regarding our relationship with Christ. But Father Capon advocated in his writings, and I happen to concur with his teaching on this point, that our relationship with Christ in New Testament times is not transactional, but rather it is relational. Rather constantly, Jesus uses familial illustrations to describe our relationship to God. We know that familial relationships, when they are noteworthy and good, are indeed relational – for instance, my children will always be my children because I love them. They didn’t get to be my kiddos because of some great thing they did, nor do I disown them because of their occasional disappointing behavior. They are my children now, and they will always be my children. They are not made my children by anything which we exchange – as in a transaction. Our relationship is not transactional, it is relational.
I mention this, because the next three vignettes this morning consider those things God gives us as a result of the relationship, and it would be possible for someone to get the impression that God only gives these things to those with whom God “transacts.” I do not believe that to be the case. Rather, those who are the children of God are made more fully aware of the goodness and giving nature of our God.
Our Old Testament story for today comes from Genesis. We’ve been following the burgeoning relationship between God and His chosen people through the lineage of Abraham for the past several weeks. Today’s story finds us watching the trickster, Jacob, having the ultimate trick pulled on him by his prospective father-in-law. When it comes to women, it seems even the savviest of men let down their defenses. Here’s the story. Jacob meets Rachel. Jacob is smitten by Rachel. Jacob trots over to Laban’s tent to work out an arrangement for his younger daughter. He is most happy to agree, and since young Jacob is so “hot to trot” for his daughter, they agree to seven years hard labor. In Jacob’s eyes, it’s a steal of a deal. The years pass as days. Seven years roll along, and the wedding day comes. Jacob asks for his wife, Laban throws a party, the men of the camp gather round to toast the new groom, and papa Laban slips his older and weak-eyed daughter, Leah, into the tent for the honeymoon. Next morning, when Jacob discovers the situation, He has to work out another seven year deal with papa for the one he really loves.
You may think I’m making too much of a stretch on this one, but I couldn’t help noticing the number seven – seven years for Rachel, only to receive Leah, and Cornerstone has been around seven years.
You know, we have a wonderful church. If you were to poll all of us as a group, I suspect that the vast majority would incline that God has given us this church. It’s a good place – we have a sufficient space for the number of people we now minister to, we have a new parking lot, we have air-conditioning when the preacher remembers to turn it on and when the units are fully charged with freon – all in all, it’s not a bad deal. Let me ask you a question – what if we have been working for Leah for these past seven years, and God has yet to give us our Rachel? What if our best, our true love, is just around the corner, and we serve another seven years to truly become people of the promise? What if . . .?
Well, that’s just speculation. The point of this story is that God provides – God gives to God’s people - a promise and a hope of future glory. Throughout this elongated story of our patriarchs, God says to God’s people, “and I will give to you . . .” There is always a future element to the promise of God, and we find ourselves waiting expectantly for the fulfillment of that promise. We are given a hope, a promise, a future by God, even as we become the chosen people of God.
That is not dissimilar to our gospel story for this morning. The testimony of these parables is that the kingdom of heaven is near to us – and that the kingdom of heaven is something of a mystery. There is both a present and a future element to the kingdom of God. But most of what we know about the kingdom of God is that it is mysterious. Now, at the very moment the preacher says that the kingdom of God is mysterious, we expect to hear an explanation of the kingdom, don’t we. And we should – it’s only human of us to do so. But the kingdom of God is more mysterious than mere explanations. We do get a few hints. For example, the kingdom is near. That’s a reality. The kingdom is not some far off reality – it is a nearby reality. Near in time, near in proximity. The kingdom of God is near. The kingdom of God comes in a smallish form sometimes. Like a mustard seed. I’ve seen these seeds – they’re tiny, but they flavor rather mightily. The kingdom of God is small. The kingdom of God is always being hidden – in the field, in the meal for the flower, as a pearl in an oyster, like a fish in the sea. The kingdom of heaven is near, it is small, it is hidden. Tell me what else we really know about the kingdom of God. We suspect a great many things, but we know so very little – it is a mystery. We do know something about mysteries – they are generally revealed – in time. In time.
Our fourth vignette comes from the epistle of Romans. Chapter 8 has been my favorite passage of scripture for a lot of years. It speaks of our ability to know something of this promise of God, this hope of glory, and at the same time the mystery of the kingdom of God. That revelation comes to us in the form of – in the person of – the Spirit of God. Verse 26 – “and in the same way the Spirit . . .” Truth of the matter is that what you and I know about God has been revealed to us by God. What we know about our relationship and our future comes to us through and as an intentional by-product of the presence of the Spirit in our lives. What we know about the mystery of the kingdom of God as it permeates our lives and our society and our world comes to us through and as an intentional byproduct of the presence of the Spirit in our lives. God comes to us and at our invitation, God indwells us. In that indwelling, we discover our promise, our future, our place in the kingdom, and interestingly enough, increased motivation for our praise of God.
This is our authentic story about the relationship we share with God. You and I encounter people every day of the world who can’t believe that we believe what we believe, that we give up a portion of a day every week to worship God, and that we give our money to the church for the expansion of the kingdom of God. They have trouble believing that our story is authentic.
Let me tell you another story. A couple of years ago, I was on a trip to another state, and I visited some friends of mine.
“After dinner, we sat around and talked. The children played with the family dog, a large, long, narrow sort of dog.
‘That’s a full-blooded greyhound,’ my friend, the father in the house proudly told me. ‘We got him after his racing days were finished. He is great with children.’
The children rolled on his back, their head between his paws. He licked them affectionately. Well, eventually, it was time for the kids to go to bed. The parents gathered them up and made for the bedroom, leaving me alone with the dog.
I asked the dog, ‘What’s it like to be a greyhound and race professionally? I have never been to a greyhound race myself.’
‘It’s not a bad life,’ said the greyhound. ‘They treat you like a king. Feed you well. I had it made down there in Florida, racing.’
‘Well why did you leave? Did you just age out? You don’t look that old to me,’ I said.
‘No, I’m not old enough for retirement. I quit.’
I persisted, ‘Well, what made you quit?’
He replied, ‘Well, if you had ever been to a greyhound race, you might understand. In every greyhound race, all of the dogs line up, we are released, and then we follow a little white rabbit thing around the track. It’s not really a rabbit, it’s just some sort of stuffed thing that is white and is pulled around the track. We all chase it. One day, after a race, I got a close look at that rabbit. To my shock, I found out the rabbit wasn’t real! That meant the race was not real. So I quit. I was almost ashamed to have spent so much of my life chasing a fake rabbit.’”[1]
While others wonder about their eternal fate, and serve so many other inauthentic Gods, we serve the authentic, true God, who first loved us, created us, redeemed us, and brought us into His kingdom’s work. He continues to offer all of His good gifts to us, not as a transaction, but as a confirmation of the wonderful relationship we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Richard W. Dunn, Ph.D
[1] Shamelessly, I have borrowed this story from Will Willimon (Pulpit Resource, Vol. 33, No. 3, p.19), who in turn borrowed it from Fred Craddock (Craddock Stories, Chalice Press, pp106-7).
Psalm 105:1-11
Genesis 28:15-28
Romans 8:25-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
My friends who read my sermons – you know, my preacher friends – get a little antsy when I try to find something connective with all four of the lectionary scriptures, and then comment on them in a single sermon. There is a lot of material here, usually, and from time to time, I do have to stretch a point to make a point. I hope you don’t think that’s what I’ve done when you finish hearing my thoughts this morning. So I offer four vignettes of thought that, for me, bring together the scriptures we have heard this morning.
Let’s start with the psalm. Psalm 105. The psalmist expresses emotion and praise to God, and in the process, indicates that we are to do the same. We are to give to God. That may seem, at first, as a silly thing to attempt – to give something to God that God needs. Truth of the matter is, we don’t understand enough about God to understand why God would need, desire, or encourage our praise – but He does. And we gladly respond – from our hearts, from our minds, with our lips and our whole beings. We respond to God. We give back to the One Who has given all to us.
A person wouldn’t have to study our worship liturgy here very long to notice that we begin with praise. We open our experience of worship with the reading of a psalm of praise, and then we generally move into a series of hymns and choruses designed to help us approach God in humility and thankfulness. It is wise of us to begin our time with God with praise. I don’t know about you, but I never think of this as burdensome, or even think of it as a task that has to be done for the sake of the relationship. Rather, I view our opportunity to praise as a wondrous thing – in those moments, I am enraptured by thoughts of our God – of His goodness to us, of His love for us, of His provision for us – praise to our God is something of ease, and I count it as a real privilege, as well as a pleasure.
Our praise of God begins with our lips and our minds and our attitudes, and becomes something of a lifestyle for us. I was reminded of this at Youth camp last week, as the theme for the week centered around four statements, and five simple truths – laugh out loud, listen out loud, love out loud, and live out loud – those were the statements. Laughing, listening, loving, and living are means by which we express our gratitude to God, and means by which we manifest our ministry of proclaiming God in all quarters. Those are the four statements, but the fifth truth is the “out loud” part – all that we do, we do in a visible fashion, as testimony to others about the astounding greatness of our God, and our pleasure at returning thanksgiving and praise to the One Who created us, redeemed us, restored us, and now works with and through us to accomplish His purposes.
Well, that’s the first vignette this morning. We offer praise to God as a part of our general lifestyle. A few years ago, really more than ten years ago now, I was reading Robert Capon on how he interpreted the parables of Jesus. Among many others, he made one rather interesting point – the relationship we have with Christ is exactly that – relational. Most of us think of our relationship with God and Christ as transactional – God will do something for us if we do something for Him. There is a sense in which we come to that conclusion as a result of the covenants we read about in scripture. God established covenants with our forefathers, and those covenants were, seemingly, transactional. In our minds and in our theology, we have simply translated that thought about transaction to our contemporary theology, and to our understanding regarding our relationship with Christ. But Father Capon advocated in his writings, and I happen to concur with his teaching on this point, that our relationship with Christ in New Testament times is not transactional, but rather it is relational. Rather constantly, Jesus uses familial illustrations to describe our relationship to God. We know that familial relationships, when they are noteworthy and good, are indeed relational – for instance, my children will always be my children because I love them. They didn’t get to be my kiddos because of some great thing they did, nor do I disown them because of their occasional disappointing behavior. They are my children now, and they will always be my children. They are not made my children by anything which we exchange – as in a transaction. Our relationship is not transactional, it is relational.
I mention this, because the next three vignettes this morning consider those things God gives us as a result of the relationship, and it would be possible for someone to get the impression that God only gives these things to those with whom God “transacts.” I do not believe that to be the case. Rather, those who are the children of God are made more fully aware of the goodness and giving nature of our God.
Our Old Testament story for today comes from Genesis. We’ve been following the burgeoning relationship between God and His chosen people through the lineage of Abraham for the past several weeks. Today’s story finds us watching the trickster, Jacob, having the ultimate trick pulled on him by his prospective father-in-law. When it comes to women, it seems even the savviest of men let down their defenses. Here’s the story. Jacob meets Rachel. Jacob is smitten by Rachel. Jacob trots over to Laban’s tent to work out an arrangement for his younger daughter. He is most happy to agree, and since young Jacob is so “hot to trot” for his daughter, they agree to seven years hard labor. In Jacob’s eyes, it’s a steal of a deal. The years pass as days. Seven years roll along, and the wedding day comes. Jacob asks for his wife, Laban throws a party, the men of the camp gather round to toast the new groom, and papa Laban slips his older and weak-eyed daughter, Leah, into the tent for the honeymoon. Next morning, when Jacob discovers the situation, He has to work out another seven year deal with papa for the one he really loves.
You may think I’m making too much of a stretch on this one, but I couldn’t help noticing the number seven – seven years for Rachel, only to receive Leah, and Cornerstone has been around seven years.
You know, we have a wonderful church. If you were to poll all of us as a group, I suspect that the vast majority would incline that God has given us this church. It’s a good place – we have a sufficient space for the number of people we now minister to, we have a new parking lot, we have air-conditioning when the preacher remembers to turn it on and when the units are fully charged with freon – all in all, it’s not a bad deal. Let me ask you a question – what if we have been working for Leah for these past seven years, and God has yet to give us our Rachel? What if our best, our true love, is just around the corner, and we serve another seven years to truly become people of the promise? What if . . .?
Well, that’s just speculation. The point of this story is that God provides – God gives to God’s people - a promise and a hope of future glory. Throughout this elongated story of our patriarchs, God says to God’s people, “and I will give to you . . .” There is always a future element to the promise of God, and we find ourselves waiting expectantly for the fulfillment of that promise. We are given a hope, a promise, a future by God, even as we become the chosen people of God.
That is not dissimilar to our gospel story for this morning. The testimony of these parables is that the kingdom of heaven is near to us – and that the kingdom of heaven is something of a mystery. There is both a present and a future element to the kingdom of God. But most of what we know about the kingdom of God is that it is mysterious. Now, at the very moment the preacher says that the kingdom of God is mysterious, we expect to hear an explanation of the kingdom, don’t we. And we should – it’s only human of us to do so. But the kingdom of God is more mysterious than mere explanations. We do get a few hints. For example, the kingdom is near. That’s a reality. The kingdom is not some far off reality – it is a nearby reality. Near in time, near in proximity. The kingdom of God is near. The kingdom of God comes in a smallish form sometimes. Like a mustard seed. I’ve seen these seeds – they’re tiny, but they flavor rather mightily. The kingdom of God is small. The kingdom of God is always being hidden – in the field, in the meal for the flower, as a pearl in an oyster, like a fish in the sea. The kingdom of heaven is near, it is small, it is hidden. Tell me what else we really know about the kingdom of God. We suspect a great many things, but we know so very little – it is a mystery. We do know something about mysteries – they are generally revealed – in time. In time.
Our fourth vignette comes from the epistle of Romans. Chapter 8 has been my favorite passage of scripture for a lot of years. It speaks of our ability to know something of this promise of God, this hope of glory, and at the same time the mystery of the kingdom of God. That revelation comes to us in the form of – in the person of – the Spirit of God. Verse 26 – “and in the same way the Spirit . . .” Truth of the matter is that what you and I know about God has been revealed to us by God. What we know about our relationship and our future comes to us through and as an intentional by-product of the presence of the Spirit in our lives. What we know about the mystery of the kingdom of God as it permeates our lives and our society and our world comes to us through and as an intentional byproduct of the presence of the Spirit in our lives. God comes to us and at our invitation, God indwells us. In that indwelling, we discover our promise, our future, our place in the kingdom, and interestingly enough, increased motivation for our praise of God.
This is our authentic story about the relationship we share with God. You and I encounter people every day of the world who can’t believe that we believe what we believe, that we give up a portion of a day every week to worship God, and that we give our money to the church for the expansion of the kingdom of God. They have trouble believing that our story is authentic.
Let me tell you another story. A couple of years ago, I was on a trip to another state, and I visited some friends of mine.
“After dinner, we sat around and talked. The children played with the family dog, a large, long, narrow sort of dog.
‘That’s a full-blooded greyhound,’ my friend, the father in the house proudly told me. ‘We got him after his racing days were finished. He is great with children.’
The children rolled on his back, their head between his paws. He licked them affectionately. Well, eventually, it was time for the kids to go to bed. The parents gathered them up and made for the bedroom, leaving me alone with the dog.
I asked the dog, ‘What’s it like to be a greyhound and race professionally? I have never been to a greyhound race myself.’
‘It’s not a bad life,’ said the greyhound. ‘They treat you like a king. Feed you well. I had it made down there in Florida, racing.’
‘Well why did you leave? Did you just age out? You don’t look that old to me,’ I said.
‘No, I’m not old enough for retirement. I quit.’
I persisted, ‘Well, what made you quit?’
He replied, ‘Well, if you had ever been to a greyhound race, you might understand. In every greyhound race, all of the dogs line up, we are released, and then we follow a little white rabbit thing around the track. It’s not really a rabbit, it’s just some sort of stuffed thing that is white and is pulled around the track. We all chase it. One day, after a race, I got a close look at that rabbit. To my shock, I found out the rabbit wasn’t real! That meant the race was not real. So I quit. I was almost ashamed to have spent so much of my life chasing a fake rabbit.’”[1]
While others wonder about their eternal fate, and serve so many other inauthentic Gods, we serve the authentic, true God, who first loved us, created us, redeemed us, and brought us into His kingdom’s work. He continues to offer all of His good gifts to us, not as a transaction, but as a confirmation of the wonderful relationship we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Richard W. Dunn, Ph.D
[1] Shamelessly, I have borrowed this story from Will Willimon (Pulpit Resource, Vol. 33, No. 3, p.19), who in turn borrowed it from Fred Craddock (Craddock Stories, Chalice Press, pp106-7).
posted by the sojourning pilgrim | 8:08 PM
1 Comments:
Great work, Richard. And it's okay to weave all four scriptures in to a twelve minute sermon--the Word is alive after all. But the Willimon-Craddock greyhound story had me wondering: what if "we" (your congregation and mine) are no more worshipping the "real God" than are all the other idol-worshipping Christo-pagans? What if the God behind "God" is either utterly amused our ridiculous efforts to serve It, or throughly disgusted? What if we are idolators too?
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