A Season of Doing

James 17-27

Ordinary 23 Year B

Joint Service of First Clarksville and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

September 9, 2012

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

 

          There is a great scene toward the end of the romantic comedy Moonstruck.  Having learned that her husband had been stepping out with someone else, Olympia Dukakis’ character begins to search for the answer of why he does it.  She finally decides he does it because he is afraid of death.  Later that night, sitting in the living room she waits for him to come home.  When he does, she looks him in the eye and with a deadpan look on her face she says, “Cosmo, no matter what you do, you’re gonna die.  Just wanted you to know.”

          No matter what you do, you’re gonna die.  It is a true statement.  We are all going to die.  One day each of us will shuffle off this mortal coil and go on to what we hope will confess will be our eternal rest with God.  It is our universal truth.

          And what is true for us is also true for congregations.  No matter what congregations do, they’re going to die. 

          One day. 

          Perhaps not today. 

          Perhaps not tomorrow. 

          But one day every congregation will die.  Just remember that every single church mentioned in the bible has been closed by its presbytery!

          Not what you were expecting this morning was it?  This is the good news for us today, we are, individually and corporately, going to die.

          For much of the 20^th century the western world was caught in a whirlpool of despair about this reality.  If there is nothing we can do to avoid it we may as well surrender to it.  Give up, give in.  And theology was no better.  There was a sense of underlying despair in much of the theology in the church of the 20^th century. 

          Thankfully, the last 25 or so years that has started to change.  Rather than focus in despair on the end, the church has learned to quit spending so much time looking at or beyond the unkonwn and started focusing on today.  Right here, right now.  We have begun to develop a vocabulary of present hope rather than future hope rooted in present anxieties.

          And that brings us to James. 

          The book of James has had a troubled history with Protestants.  Martin Luther called it the epistle of straw.  At one point, he became so enraged by it that he actually ripped the pages from his bible!  James stands in sharp and distinct contrast to Paul.  James writes that faith without works is dead.  Paul that faith stands alone.  For generations it was assumed that there was no way to knit together these two opposing ideas.  Theologians in the Protestant tradition have taught for centuries that the theology of Paul and the theology of James will eternally resist one another.

          They are like magnets.

          Have you ever tried to hold two magnets together only to have them resist one another, refusing to bond?  If they are similarly charged they resist each other, each pushing the other away.  But if you turn one around, and place the opposites together they form a tight bond.  The same is true with Paul and James.  When we try to cram them into identical categories and attempt to make them say the same things, they resist and push apart.  But when we let them come together as the opposites they are, as two perspectives on the same faith, they form a bond- they complement one another.

          Far from the irreconcilable forces Luther and others assumed, Paul and James are two sides of the same coin.  Each preaches the ethics of Christ- one from the perspective of how those ethics inform our lives of faith and the other how those ethics inform our lives of action.  Together they paint a fulsome picture of what it means to live in the light of Jesus Christ.

          In our reading this morning, James outlines his theological project in some detail.  The chapter culminates saying, “the True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.”

          To our contemporary ears, that line is not terribly climactic.  Of course we should care for widows and orphans and anyone who is in need.  What, we ask, is so revolutionary about that?

          As with so much of scripture, to really understand what James is asking of us, we have to understand his context.  What did it mean to care for widows and orphans in James’ time?  It means if they are hungry, you take the food from your own table and feed them.  If they are homeless, you give them your bed.  There was no United Way, no Interfaith Service Network, no Rice Depot to do the work for you.  No agency to slip 20 bucks here and there.  To care for the widows and orphans meant doing it yourself; being hands on.  It meant literally giving the food from your table and the bed you make for yourself. 

          What is so extraordinary about this instruction from James is that orphans and widows were the least powerful and most vulnerable in their societies.  They had no recourse to change their station in life.  They were forced to rely wholly on the kindness of strangers.  This, James tells us, is how far into the depths of vulnerability we are called to reach in our work in the world.  We are called to reach into the depths of human need and help those who find themselves at the bottom of the social ladder and, when we do, we cannot help but encounter others as well.

          Reach deep in your works of generosity and care, James tells us.

          There is a second part of his instruction about what makes “True devotion” to God in Christ.  First we reach deep in our works of mercy and second, “keep the world from contaminating us.” 

          Keep the world from contaminating you.  An easy reading of this phrase might persuade us that James is saying don’t watch too much TV or follow the newest fad.  Or to use Paul’s words, be in the world but not of the world.  As a surface read, that is probably more right than it is wrong.  But I am not convinced that is what James is asking of us.

          This admonition to keep the world from contaminating us comes right on the heels of that command to reach deep in our works of generosity and care.  An honest reading of that whole verse forces us, I believe, to understand the two in tandem.  First, here is your ethic of care and second, don’t let the world corrupt you in the living of that ethic.  The call to care for God’s children and to create a world of nurture and care for them is our charge and nothing in this world should distract us from that.

          James gives us a roadmap for that calling.

          Care for God’s children and create a world of nurture and care for them and do not let the world distract you from your work.  Do not let the world distract you from that work.

          The word in Greek for something that gets in your way or causes you to misstep on your path is “scandalon.”  There are many scandaloi on our path of faithful living in the church. 

          God calls us to care for those who are right here right now, but we hear the siren call of the mega-church saying , “Bigger is better.  Bigger is more faithful.”  How often does the church fail to care for the ones who are here out of anxiety that there are not more here?

          God call us to live lives of benevolence without regard to whether or not the one in need is deserving or whether their need has been sufficiently vetted.  How often does the church fail to care for the hungry and the needy out of surrender to our political culture of exclusion and judgement?

          God calls us to live lives of faithful obedience and faithful engagement with God’s world not just when we are children but throughout our lives.  How often do we, in our individual lives, get distracted by our busyness and fail to take the time to engage God in study, prayer and worship?

          God calls us to be the church right here right now.  How often do we, in our corporate lives, become so anxious about the future and so envious of the past that we lose sight of the gift of God’s right now?

         Today, this day, God calls us to be congregations of action.  Is the future uncertain? Yes it is.  Is there reason for us to proceed thoughtfully and diligently as we prepare for that future?  Of course.  But what God reminds us through James is that though our eyes remain fixed on the horizon of God’s promised tomorrow, our lives must be lived in this moment… today.

          We are entering a season of not only thinking about the faith, but living it. 

          A season of doing as well as believing. 

          A season of demonstrating to the world that faith in Jesus Christ is not a faith that can be contained to the contemplation of the mind or the solemn traditions of the church.

          My challenge to each of us today is this.  As we embark on a new program year, find one thing new.  One thing you have not done before, one ministry you have not tried before, one faithful practice you have not observed before and do it.  Take the faith in your heart and put it into action in one new way.   There is no better time than the present to answer the call of God for faithful living in the world.

          Let’s be the church right here, right now; bold, faithful, hopeful, caring for God’s children in the world yet undeterred by the nay saying of the world.

          Let’s be the churches God is calling us to be; places of true devotion and active faith.

          Sola Deo Gloria.  To God alone be the glory! Amen.

In Spite Of

In Spite Of

Psalm 87

John 6:56-69

First Presbyterian Church, Clarksville

and

Harmony Presbyterian Church

Ordinary 21   August 26, 2012

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

          Mr. Holt was a nice man.  Intimidating, but nice.  I suppose that was part of what made him so good at his job as principal of Stephens Intermediate School.  Outside his office there were three chairs.  Over its sixty year history, those chairs played host to many students waiting that long wait to be summoned into the principal’s office.  I would like to say that was an experience foreign to me and that my 4^th-6^th grade years were marked by nothing short of angelic and beatific compliance to the rules.

            I would like to say that.

            The truth is that on more than one occasion I found myself sitting in that office and hearing Mr. Holt’s admonitions that the decisions we make today will have impact far beyond the 4^th or 5^th grade.  Misdeeds then would be enshrined in your permanent record.  As a nervous 11 year old I was convinced that your permanent record began in grade school, followed you through high school and eventually would make its way into the mysterious halls of the FBI.

            That playground incident would plague me the rest of my life.  I was sure of it.  My permanent record was sullied.  What would ever become of me?

            Much of our collective imagination about how God encounters us and our lives is rooted in that notion of the permanent record.  All of our deeds and misdeeds collected, collated, catalogued and fully known to our maker and our judge.

            There is good reason for this perspective to be sure.  John the Baptist stood on the banks of the river and demanded repentance.  The Levitical laws and the traditions of ancient Israel are filled with rituals and prayers and social customs designed to cleanse our spiritual permanent records. 

            When we gather here each week and say the Prayer of Confession, we offer a liturgical petition that our permanent records be wiped clean and we get a fresh start.  We say those prayers because we believe in the promise of the resurrection and the forgiveness we know in Christ Jesus. 

            Much of our lives are defined by our past. 

            Transcripts and test scores determine whether or not you get into college. 

            Resumes and experience often determine whether or not a job opportunity will be open to you.

            We have all heard the admonition that, for better or for worse, your reputation precedes you wherever you go.

            The past gives shape and often context to the present.  It defines much of what we know about one another and ourselves.  The past is our shared truth.

            But not for Judas.

            These last verses of the sixth chapter of John’s gospel offer the first mention of Judas.  To this point he is an unknown character in the unfolding gospel story and the first thing we learn; the first defining  words about Judas are words of condemnation for a deed he has yet to commit.  It may not be fair, but Judas is judged guilty for what he is going to do and not for what he has done.

            Of course, Judas would prove as good as Jesus’ words and would indeed betray his teacher and friend and the story of what ensues is, well there is no need to retell the story we all know by heart.

            Judas is defined not by what he has done but by what he has not yet done.  It may not be fair, but it is true.

            If there is a theological lesson for us in this short passage, perhaps it is this; our lives are defined not only by the life we have lived but the life we have yet to live. 

            We are known to Jesus not only by the choices we have made but by the choices we will yet make.

            That thought has given me pause more than once over the last few days as I worked to complete this sermon.  Will I honor or betray my Lord with the life I have yet to live?

            It is an important question for us as individuals and for us as a community.  Will we honor or betray the Lord of life with our tomorrows?

            Betrayal, in our cultural vernacular, has come to mean breaking a promise or a covenant, to use stronger more theological language.  It is the word that is used when one spouse breaks a marriage vow, or a pastor stumbles on his pride and falls into disrepute, or when a politician acts against the interests of the people who put her in office.  Betrayal is tied very closely to promise keeping and promise breaking.

            There is certainly a measure of that sense of the word in this passage from John.  Judas was a disciple of this enegmatic rabbi and he broke the covenant of rabbi and follower.  A promise was made and a promise was broken.  But there is something else at work in this betrayal, something that is not evident in our contemporary vernacular. 

            The word John uses for betrayal means literally to hand or give over.  Judas hands Jesus over to the authorities.  That is his betrayal to be sure.  Judas' sin does not end there; that is not the only betrayal that will come to pass in that garden later in John's account.

            Judas' betrayed not only Jesus but himself.  He hands Jesus over to the authorities to be crucified but in order to do that Judas had first to betray something within himself.  He had to betray the hope that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He had to betray his own soul in order to betray his rabbi; his savior; his Christ. 

            Now, to be clear, Judas’ motives are not really clear in scripture.  Yes, he betrays him for thirty pieces of silver, but he was in charge of the disciple’s money bag.  He was the treasurer and surely he had more than ample opportunity to embezzle.  Greed is not the final word on Judas’ betrayal. 

            John does not offer a motive and Luke blames Satan for entering Judas and giving rise to a “the devil made me do it” defense.  In truth, I think Judas’ motive was more basic than that.  Judas just plain got scared.  And when he did, he did not only hand over Jesus he handed over his own hope and faith in his rabbi; he betrayed Jesus and he also betrayed himself.

            At its heart, betrayal is in truth both; betrayal of other and betrayal of self. 

            So when Jesus remarks about Judas' pending betrayal, he knows this not only as the object of the betrayal; as the one who is to be handed over.  He also sees it as the betrayal of faith and hope that accompanies the betrayal of another. 

            I like to think that I will not fall as Judas did.  I like to think that betrayal is beyond my capacity to sin.  My guess is that we all like to think that.

            If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we are not immune to the sort of hopelessness and despair that Judas felt. Each of us, from time to time, loses sight of the gospel message and in those moments, we sin; we even betray.

            I am comforted by the knowledge that although he knew what was to come, Jesus did not kick Judas to the curb.  He knew the betrayal that was to come.  He knew what that betrayal would mean.  He knew.  He knew and still Judas remains with him.  Jesus does not rebuke him or send him away or turn his eyes so he no longer has to look at his face. 

            As much as Jesus foreknowledge of my sins gave me pause in writing this sermon, this realization has given me even more comfort.  Imagine what depth of care and forgiveness it takes to hold fast knowing that not only will you be betrayed but one you were sent to love and to save will suffer that betrayal as well.  How much must Christ love us knowing as he does what is yet to come from our sinful lives, that he still yearns even unto death on the cross to love and care for us?

            As a form of the traditional assurance of pardon for sin says, “The proof of God’s amazing love is this, that though we are yet  sinners, Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in glory for us.” 

            Though we are yet sinners;

                        though we are yet betrayers of Savior and self;

                                    though there is far more to condemn us than just the past enshrined in our permanent records;         

            “Christ lived for us, Christ died for us, Christ rose again in glory for us.”

            That is the promise that is at the heart of the gospel.  It is the promise that God will relentlessly pursue us in loving devotion and forgiving care no matter how far or how hard we will run. 

            God will, in time and by the grace of Jesus Christ, save us in spite of our selves.        

            Sitting here outside the principal’s office, knowing that one day I will be judged, if for no other reason, this text gives me hope because if Judas can survive John chapter 6, maybe there is hope for me!  In spite of myself.

            Sola Deo Gloria!  To God alone be the glory!

            Amen.

             

Stones or Cross?

* This sermon is a revision of one I posted on my theology blog a few days ago.  In the wake of the tragedy in Aurora, CO I felt that the time was ripe for preaching this sermon. 

1 Samuel 17

First Presbyterian, Clarksville

Harmony Presbyterian

July 22, 2012

Ordinary 17

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.

He stood ten feet tall, this Philistine, this one called Goliath.  The breadth of his shoulders matched only by the sight of his armor.  The earth must have shook under his feet as he emerged from behind the lines of Philistine chariots perched atop the mountain.  They too would have been a site to behold; the smoke rising behind them from the encampment, the noise of armaments being prepared for battle, the sound of thousands of men shuffling around, finding their places in line and dressing ranks to face the enemy. 

Facing them across the valley on the opposite side were the Israelites.  Led by Saul, they gathered to face this long time nemesis.  The battle would not be a fair match.  It never was.  The Philistines always seemed to have more men, more arms, more…luck.  The Israelites, making due with what they had, managed to win a few battles, skirmishes really, but all in all the scales tipped on the Philistines side.

Surely the appearance of Goliath would signal yet another trouncing at the hands of the Philistines.  Taunting the Israelites, Goliath issues a challenge.   If the Israelites can find one man who will fight Goliath and defeat him, the Philistines will not only surrender their army, but they will surrender their very selves as servants to Israel. 

Certainly there is one.  There must be one man.

There must be one in the whole nation of Israel who can face down the giant and free the people from the threat of the Philistines.

Of course there was.  YHWH would choose one from among the whole of the people.  An unexpected choice to be certain, but YHWH’s choice nonetheless.  David.  The shepherd boy.  The son of Jesse. 

Met with derision and surprise, he snaked his way through the lines of soldiers.   After long machinations and negotiations, he is finally led to the field of battle to face Goliath. 

The shepherd boy and the Philistine giant face to face.

So, David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.

Facing Goliath would certainly have been frightening for young David but killing him was easy.  This was not a man it was a Philistine.

As a Philistine, Goliath was an outsider; a worthy target of David’s stone.  Philistines were unclean, undesirable, uncircumcised and, in short, unimportant.  They lived outside the covenant and were, therefore, completely expendable.  The represented everything the Israelites were charged by God not to be.

Killing Goliath was not merely a military act, it was an act of faith.  It was the killing of that which the nation of Israel saw as opposed God and God’s command.  Philistines were not, after all, real people.  They were caricatures.  They were the cartoons drawn to show the folly of all that was outside the nation. 

When David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine, he was striking a blow for purity.  He was striking down the other, the unclean, the great unwashed.   

It is certainly easy to stand there cheering David on to victory.  I know that I locate myself there in the story around verse 51 when young David stands over the body of the slain Goliath and raises the giant’s sword over his head.  I can feel the sun on my face, smell the dust in the air and see the sights of the battlefield.  Fists pumping in the air, I join my voice with the crowd I imagine starting to gather to cheer on the boy who slew the giant.  Chanting DAVID, DAVID, DAVID! 

And surely this is a moment worthy of praise! 

Lying there on the ground is the greatest Philistine, the greatest unbeliever, the greatest of the unclean, unworthy and unfaithful.  The representative of all that is reprehensible, lay dead on the ground and the people were finally free of this menace.   If I could find the way, I wouldn’t mind arriving on the scene a few verses earlier.  Somewhere around verse 48, when Goliath walks out on the battlefield, because then I could pick up a rock.  I could stand there with David and strike a blow for good over evil.   

Eye to eye with evil, David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.

The windswept winter landscape of Wyoming probably did not resemble much of that battlefield of ancient Israel.  There were no armies, no grand generals.  Yet, I imagine that somewhere in their minds Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney thought they were facing a Philistine giant.  Before them was their Philistine.  He was the embodiment of all that is wrong, even evil.  Before them was the face of that which needed to be destroyed.   This giant certainly did not strike the same physical presence as the giant of old.  This giant stood barely 5’7 and may have weighed 8 stone soaking wet.  Nonetheless, these two warriors for good reached into their bags, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.  In fact they struck this Philistine over and over and over again. 

Standing in victory like David, they looked down on the broken body of 20yo Matthew Shepherd and knew that they had done what was good, what was holy, what was right. 

They were heroes.

They were David.

Right?

After all, David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.

The sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church is the last place you would think to find a Philistine giant.  Yet there she was.  Standing at the microphone, recounting the tenants of her personal faith, with her every word the threat grew greater and greater.  We began to squirm in our seats, quietly caucusing in whispers to affirm that we were really hearing what we thought we were hearing.  Short notes passed from one to another until finally she finished and in that moment it was as if she had just emerged from the line of chariots to issue her challenge.  Two of the pastors sitting there in their discomfort, their bags of stones fastened around their waists, stepped to the microphone.  This Philistine, this conservative, was not going to enter their presbytery without a fight.  One by one they reached into their bags, took out a stone, threw it and struck the Philistine.  In fact the stones were thrown one after the other until finally this giant, rather than laying dead on the battlefield, stood defeated in the chancel.  A blow was struck by those pastors for theological purity.

We were heroes.

We were David.

Right?

After all, David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.

And if David is a hero for his victory so, certainly, are we heroes when we cast a stone in the name of good.  Right?

Standing there over the body of the giant with my fingers clinched around the stone I so want to throw, I begin to wonder.  Is this stone really the way past this giant?  Am I really throwing this stone to defeat an enemy of good or am I throwing this stone to defeat my enemy?

My quarrel is not with David.  Even I, with all the things I throw out to you, am not going to second guess the motivation of Israel’s great king.   I chose to believe at face value what scripture tells us here; that the Giant’s challenge was truly a threat that demanded response from the people. 

No, it is not David who is indicted here, it is we.   We who make up the cheering crowd gathered around the body of the fallen giant.  We, who, with our bags full of stones, looking for places to throw them, seeing in our own reflections the face of God’s anointed, too easily find Philistines behind every corner.  We who locate ourselves in solidarity with the hero king and place on our own shoulders the mantle of responsibility for freeing God’s church, God’s world, even God’s very people from the threat of the Philistines of our own age.

Standing around the fallen giant, seeing in the face of the young heroic shepherd boy David the reflection of our own faces, it is just so easy to appoint ourselves defenders of the right and purveyors of divine justice. 

And like David, we put our hands in our bags, take out a stone, throw it, and strike the Philistine. 

We set ourselves up as defenders and saviors forgetting that it is in truth we who are the defended and we are the saved.  And it is not by the casting of stones but the tragedy of the cross of Christ.

Christ’s victory was won not on the battlefield with heavy stones or weapons of any kind.  His victory, our victory is won in an empty tomb.  It is won over the true enemy- eternal death has been supplanted by eternal life not through great acts of war but a whispered act of obedience… “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

It is in Christ that we are saved.

In Christ, we are relieved of the burden of our bag of stones. 

In Christ, we are delivered from the prison of our fears and even the Philistine giant, the other, the outsider, the object of our deepest fears is made whole. 

David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine, but Christ stretched out his arms, submitted to the cross and once and for all brought the outsider into the fold.    

We, who reside on the near side of the resurrection, are called not to clutch our stones prepared to cast them at the enemy, but to free our hands so we may carry their crosses and our own.  

In light of the events in Aurora, CO and the bombings in eastern Europe and the Middle East, I have been reminded of how easily our fear can lead us to lay down the cross and take up stones.  Yes, yes our fear says it is all well and good that Christ lived, died and rose again to make us all one and to make us whole, but just in case we’d better throw a few stones at those undesirables just in case.  And if we look in David’s face and see our own looking back, then the face of the Philistine must be the face of the other; of them.  

To be sure, it is within us to overcome that fear and find forgiveness inside our souls.  You may recall a few years ago when a troubled man entered an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and killed several children and adults.  In the wake of the slaughter of their families and neighbors, the first public act of that Amish community was not to condemn but to pray for the man who pulled the trigger and offer their full and public forgiveness.

But the Amish are the exception to so many rules.  For most of us, we are defined by the language of vengeance and retribution in our culture.  So we let loose with the stones.

And let’s face it; it is a hell of a lot easier to throw stones at something we don’t like than to accept that in Christ we are made one with them.  It is easier to reach into a bag and grab a stone than to reach out beyond our fears to the Philistine’s of our imagination and with them take up the cross of Jesus Christ.  It is easier to pick up a stone and hurl it at a man who brought terror to an average community at a family movie theatre than it is to seek him out in the prison of his soul and, in the name of Jesus Christ, visit him and extend the hand of forgiveness.

Whether, like those misguided men on a cold Wyoming night, we throw our stones at the object of our fear in the world or, like we misguided pastors judging one of our own, we throw them at the object of our fear in the church, we must put down the cross of Christ to take up the stones. 

David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it and struck the Philistine.

Christ spread wide his arms and submitted to the cross. 

By which example shall we live? 

In which is the Christian life truly found?

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

God Does Love the Pots

God Does Love the Pots

Romans 9:6-33

First Presbyterian Church Clarksville

Harmony Presbyterian Church

July 5, 2012

Ordinary 15

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            Of the many burdens God has laid on me in my life, being popular in high school was certainly not one.  In fact, I was about as far from popular as you could get.

            I worked on the literary magazine, not the school paper.

            I was captain of the debate team, not the football team.

            I actually liked Latin.

            I was, to put it simply, a nerd.  My friends were equally nerdy and we were just young enough not to realize that it is in fact the nerds that end up running the world!  Just ask Bill Gates.

            At the time, that would have been cold comfort.  Walking the halls of Central High for three years, I felt like I was wearing a sign that read, “I am a high school child of Esau.”  I was not in the club; I was not one of the chosen tribe; I was not predestined to the popular life of the Jacobs in our midst.

            If you ask people outside the church- hell, if you ask most people inside the church- what predestination means, you will likely get an answer that includes one of two things.  Either that predestination means that we have no free will OR that predestination determines who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.

            In truth, neither of these is an unfaithful reading of this passage from Paul.  They are faithful and orthodox readings.  Tucked into the words of this short passage is a lot of powerful and influential theological language.  In fact, these few words of Paul’s have caused a great deal of consternation in the church world.   It would be bordering on hyperbole to say that Calvin’s WHOLE understanding of predestination is based on his reading of Romans 9.  But it would not be wholly untrue to say it either.  Calvin’s reading or, as I am going to claim this morning his misreading, of Romans 9 is a text yearning for a new reading for a new era in the life of the church.

            How though do we go about reading anew without just forcing the text to say what we hope it will say?

            Fortunately for us Paul gives us some clues about how to read his writing.  As we have seen throughout this summer,  Paul can be a complicated enigmatic writer with hidden meanings and agendas around every corner in the text.  In reality though, Paul can be pretty straight forward when he wants to be.   And he is in at least part of our text today.

            The particular verses in question, 19-23, recall the imagery of Isaiah of a potter and a lump of clay.  The potter forms the clay in her hands and, according to Paul’s words here, who are we to argue with the potter if she wants to use some of the clay for a beautiful new vessel and some to toss on the trash heap.   Some pots are worth keeping, others get tossed on the trash heap.  It is a short trip from clay pots to heaven and hell when the text is viewed through Calvin’s interpretive lenses. 

            Like Augustine, Calvin often fell back on metaphor as a way to explain and interpret the narrative twists and turns in scripture.  So in his eyes, it made complete sense to equate pretty pots with the favored and ugly pots with disfavored.  It made complete sense to assume that just as the potter decides which are pretty and which are ugly- which are worth keeping and which ought to be thrown away…to hell…for eternity, the same would be true for God and the creation of God’s hands.  Just as God chose Jacob over Esau, God chooses some of us over others.  Forever.

            With theology like that, it is a wonder our pews are not more empty!

            Now I am pretty darn Reformed.  I tend to dwell pretty close to my brother Calvin on many things, but on this one I just can’t do it.  I just can’t reconcile a notion of God that requires the belief that God tosses God’s work on the eternal trash heap with the fullness of the witness of Jesus Christ.

            I question whether Calvin’s or even Luther’s reading of Romans is the only one.  Could there be a different perspective, a new way of approaching this old text that builds on both the perspectives and deep needs of the church today?

            What, I wonder, would a new perspective on Romans 9 look like? 

            The question posed in Romans 9 is a question of inclusion in God’s new community and the promised kingdom.  As we know from the book of Acts, many Jews joined the early Jesus movement that would become the Christian church.  Gentiles joined them and together they began to grow.   This new community begged the question; what happens now to that portion of the Jewish community that has not become part of the new Christian community?   Now that the covenant is fulfilled in Christ resurrected what happens to who is left outside the church?  And where does the God of history fit into the whole equation?

            It is in answer to these questions that Paul uses the metaphor of the pots and the potter that so distracted Calvin.  He poses his questions in a series of what-ifs.

            What if God makes some pots for special purposes and other pots for the garbage heap?

            What if God is patient with the pots made for the garbage heap, for wrath and destruction, so God would have a way “to show his wrath and to make his power known?”

            What if God did all of this to make his mercy and grace even clearer?

            In other words, what if God sacrificed a few so the rest that are made for special purpose might learn the lesson and get the message?

            What if….

            Paul pulls a pretty swift rhetorical trick on us here.  He asks all of these what-ifs but rather than do his usual rhetorical switch and offer an unexpected answer to his own questions, he leaves the answers to us!  At no point does Paul say, “Yes.  That is exactly what God does- some pots for keeping and some pots for heaping.”

            Paul let’s God’s word answer the question of inclusion and exclusion by quoting from the book of the prophet Hosea:

I will call “my people” those

Who are not my people,

And the one who isn’t well loved,

I will call loved.

By God’s own words, those who are chosen are not rejected but those who are rejected are in fact chosen.  God the potter will gather up all the broken pieces destined for the garbage heap and the sum of God’s wrath upon them will be to call them God’s own and call them loved.

            Hardly the picture of the harsh predestining deity we have become accustomed to laying at Paul’s feet.

            What I find to be the most elegant and persuasive part of this reading of Paul is that far from drawing boundary lines that include some and exclude others as though the kingdom of God were little more than a middle school playground with cool kids and uncool kids, this new reading uncovers an image of God that gathers up the broken and makes them whole.  An image that is, to be sure, far closer to that of the Good Shepherd who does not rest as long as one is missing from the flock.

            By taking off the lenses of preconception and letting Paul stand on his own theological legs, texts that have been held captive for generations are allowed to breathe again and inspire a new generation of the church.   And boy is it just in time.

            For more than a generation, American Christianity has been dominated by a mindset that there are good pots and garbage pots and though they may all be made by the hands of God, only the pretty pots, the popular pots, the unbroken pots will be spared the garbage heap of eternity.  Far too much of the public witness of the broader church today is focused on which pots God will cast out and condemn and damn.  It is the picture of a harsh, uncaring, unfeeling God and hardly worthy of the gentle potter who takes the time and care to make and mold each and every soul from scratch.

            Friends, not only is that an outdated reading of what Paul has to say to us, I believe it is in truth heresy.   Yes, I just declared something to be heresy.  I realize that I have absolutely no authority to draw lines between what is and is not orthodox and I do not wish to put myself in the place of the whole church, but still I say again…a theology that ignores God’s love in and through Jesus Christ for the weak, the broken, the outcast- in other words the broken pots- is heresy!

            From the words of Paul in this small part of his letter to Rome to the fullness of the biblical witness, a portrait is drawn of a God who yearns to make us whole- to mend our broken places and to say otherwise is, well, you heard me the first three times!  To say that God can so casually cast off the creation of God’s own hands is a witness inconsistent with the witness of scripture.

            I admit that part of my motivation here is to keep myself off the garbage heap.  Because, if I am remotely honest with myself, my God and you I have to admit that I am something of a cracked pot (yes that was cracked pot not crackpot!)  I believe that God has a purpose for my life that goes beyond making me an object lesson in what it means to be hated by God.  I may be broken and chipped around the edges, but Jesus Christ fills in the broken places and makes me whole just as he does for you, and for THEM and for every one of the unique creations of the creator’s hands.

            The late theologian Lewis Smedes, ironically himself a Calvinist, has perhaps the best perspective on a text like this.  Smedes wrote that we are all earthen vessels, wonderfully made to hold the Spirit of God poured out on us, and thankfully God has a market for cracked pots. 

            And it is a good thing, because friends, that is what we are.  We are the potter’s work, lovingly made, flaws, cracks, broken pieces and all.  And what does Paul say God will do about the broken pots…

             “I will call ‘my people’ those who are not my people, and the one who is not well loved, I will love.’” 

            Pulling back the curtain we see that this harsh and intimidating fear inducing image of God is little more than the sleight of hand of flawed human beings.  The real image, the one that emerges from the fullness of scripture is not of a scattering deity but of a gathering savior.  There are no more favored pots and trashed pots any more than there are favored Jacobs or rejected Esaus. 

            Stepping back and seeing this text from a new perspective, we see a creating God who loves and cherishes everything that comes from God’s molding and shaping hands.

            Now, if I can just get a new perspective on high school!

            Sola Deo Gloria!  To God alone be the glory!  Amen.