Renewed by the Future

I work with lectors now and again, especially folks who are preparing to read for the first time, to talk about the lessons and the skills needed for proclaiming God's Word that are more than just pronouncing words.

This is very serious business, which needs to be approached with awe and wonder.

One of the things that we always discuss is that any reading of the text is also an interpretation of that text.

As a person prepares to read publicly, that person needs to be carefully thinking:

What does this mean?

What is the Word of God trying to accomplish here through these poor meager words of mine.?

This is a tremendous responsibility!

I'm not saying this to frighten or discourage our group of readers, but rather to point our their great significance in the life of the congregation, and to remind them that they are important partners in the proclamation of the Word of God.

The interpretive problems are not all with the pronunciation of 50-cent words, but just as often with how very common ordinary words are being used.

Let's look at the beginning of the First Lesson [Genesis 3:9] and hear what God asks Adam: “Where are you?

How many different ways could we say those three little words?

One of them might remind us of playing hide-and-seek with a toddler, who hides in plain sight behind a table leg, but we pretend that we can't see him.

Where are you?...when you were supposed to be pulling dandelions out in the yard, you were actually in the flower bed, destroying beautiful things.

Let's try one more:

Where were you? ...Everyone else was at the table, except for you. What were you doing?

What is the intent in our verses from Genesis?

Surely it is not a divine hide-and-seek game, for certainly God knows where Adam is without asking.

The Lord demands an answer from Adam: “Where are you?”, not for God's benefit, but for Adam's!

Adam, do you realize where you are?

Notice how Adam's answer is totally inappropriate to the question:

“Well, I was hiding.”

As if one can hide from God!

“Adam, do you realize where you are?”

“You are in the good place that I have made,” says the Lord.

“You have been given great gifts and significant responsibilities in this place, Adam.

You, too, are also mine, one of my creation, placed by my will in the midst of all of these relationships.

Do you recognize this truth, Adam?”

Sadly, the answer is NO.

“I...hid,” is the lame and poor answer that Adam gives.

He doesn't even offer an honest NO, but only excuses that aren't an answer to this question.

God's Word acts in two basic ways, as Gospel and as Law, to offer good gifts and relationships with God, and also to point out how they are being misused.

Everything we have and are and do already belong to God who has entrusted them to us.

There is no question as to who is the owner.

But there are lots of questions about how the Owner's persons and property have been used.

A skeptic knocked on the parsonage door and said to the pastor, “Come on out. I want to talk to you about a problem.”

“No,” said the pastor, “you come on in, because I need to talk to you about sin.”

We hear that exchange as very threatening, an exercise of the law.

But if we were not trying to play silly hide-and-seek games with God like Adam, then we could hear the promise that stands before the demand of that law and will continue after it as well.

Can we see and understand what God has given?

Can we acknowledge it?

“No,” says Adam, “I hid.”

“I lie, I do foolishly, and most of all, I break relationships with you, Lord, with family, and with nature.”

That is what happens in the buck-passing “It's her fault...It's the snake's fault...”

If we wanted to break the relationships and break up the community, we could hardly do it more thoroughly than with this finger-pointing.

So, what does God do?

We know that God would have every justification to declare that he has had enough of this kind of behavior.

He could have let death claim Adam;

but he does not!

There are consequences.

By breaking the relationships, Adam and Eve are bringing tough times upon themselves and all creation.

In our first window at the southwest corner of the nave, the angel is driving them out of the garden.

But even though they do not deserve any consideration, God still grants them a future,

a future not only for judgment, but also for fresh opportunities for grace, for a new chance to receive God's gifts.

“You have a life, Adam, by my gift, and I am going to continue to try to re-establish my relationship with you.

Remember that another part of that window back there refers to the parable of the prodigal sons, where the father welcomes back one or more of the sons who have strayed from the loving embrace of the father.

There are consequences of disobedience:

We have trouble with the serpent,

we have trouble in childbirth,

we have to work hard in the field in order to eat.

But we are clothed by the the hand of God,

and our toil has the possibility of becoming joyful work when we see it and know it in relationship to God.

“So we do not lose hear,” says Paul in our Second Lesson today, “even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”

Things are not going to continue forever with death apparently in charge and winning.

Jesus' resurrection shows us what the future is really like.

All of those old relationships that we have broken, with family, with creation, and most of all, with God, will be re-made by the one who has overcome every obstacle, even death.

Now we come to this tremendous concept transformed by the future.

We're not talking about pie-in-the-sky in the sweet bye-and-bye.

Rather, we're talking about God's future that makes the crucial difference in life right now.

As the concluding line in the controversy in the Gospel today, Jesus says, “All these who hear what I have to say and react with joy are already my brothers and sisters!”

The old brokenness is overcome by the action of God.

No matter how annoyed with get with one another, Jesus reaches out to each of us: This is my body, given for you., and he gives it equally.

When we are baptized, it is not into our private one to one with Jesus, but into a community.

That is what makes this gathering so special, important, and possible.

Centuries ago, the motivation for walking the Camino Santiago was largely religious.

These days, the motivations are of all sorts: adventurers, runaways, broken hearts, solitaries, those in-between life chapters, as well as a few who are praying at the pilgrimage churches along the way.

Yet even this mixed up group was able each evening to come together and share very close quarters,

to agree upon courtesies to one another,

to aid one another in the care of feet,

to become a temporary community.

If that was able to happen in a largely secularized situation, how much more can and should it be happening in the church where our motivation is so much stronger.!?!

When we are baptized, it is not into our private one to one with Jesus, but into a community.

That is what makes this gathering so special, important, and possible.

We may be of different backgrounds, interests, and ages, and yet Jesus' future changes our present and brings us together.

“Where are you?” God asks.

And adds, “I know where you are, and I want you to recognize where you are... in the place and community I have established for you.

And even more I know whose you are;

you are mine, and I am keeping you, maybe in spite of you.”

That is Good News! Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.