June 29th, 2008
From SermonWiki
Lectionary Devotions by Stephen McCutchan
Sunday, June 29
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Contents |
Genesis 22:1-14
Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
This story is one of the most horrifying and troublesome stories in the Bible. It confronts us not only with the literal horror of a father willing to slay his own son but also with the fearful image of the cruelty possible in religious fanaticism. Here we have a man determined to be obedient to God. Just prior to this story, this same Abraham was willing to let his other son, Ishmael, be driven out into the wilderness to die. God had to intervene in that story, too, to save the life of the child. It is helpful to remember the meaning of the two names. Ishmael means “God hears” and Isaac means “laughter.” When we forget that “God hears” the suffering of the oppressed, religion becomes a faith of the powerful. When we are willing to sacrifice “laughter” in our faith, we are easily seduced by the fanatical in religion. One of the decisions of faith has always been whether we will serve God or the powers of our age. In making the choice for God, too often the attempt has been seen as also requiring the sacrifice of laughter. This story suggested that laughter (Isaac) was a special gift of God and critical to the development of the family of faith. Without laughter, we misunderstand the true sacrifice God asks of us. Laughter allows us to step back from our own pretentiousness and hear what God hears. We can become overly serious in our determination to be “perfect” in our faith and sacrifice the very future that God invites us to pursue.
Psalm 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
This classic lament psalm guides us in how we should bring our complaints to God. To hear its personal power, we need only to bring to it any of numerous situations of distress. Imagine that you had lost your job, could not pay the rent, and were forced to depend on soup kitchens. Can you not hear yourself cry out, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” Without money or a place, would you not feel stripped of your dignity? How long before you would feel the disapproving stares of those bothered by your presence? “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long. How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” Picture the burden of just staying alive and the living death of never seeing any prospect for change. Hear yourself cry out to the only source of real help available, “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death.” In that setting, everyone else becomes your adversary — wanting your bed, wanting you off the street, wanting you out of their minds, wanting you to be continually grateful, and refusing to believe that you have thoughts of your own. “And my enemy will say, ‘I have prevailed;’ my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.” Yet there is a source of dignity and strength that you cling to because it keeps clinging to you and telling you that you are a person of worth. It keeps telling you that you are loved. “But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” It is because God keeps surprising you with signs of love that you know that the world is wrong when they dismiss you. It is as if God is putting a tune in your mind that the noise of the world cannot drown out. “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” Now that you have heard the prayer in a context of extreme need, listen to it again but insert your own situation of suffering or distress. Hear again that whatever the situation is that challenges you, God is stronger, and God’s love is full of transforming surprises. Life makes sense in praise, on letting the song out that God has planted in you.
Romans 6:12-23
“So now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification …
There is a temptation in some forms of Protestant thought to become so focused on the moment of experiencing salvation that we forget that it is the beginning and not the end of a lifelong process. To turn from sin and accept Christ as one’s savior is a radical re-orientation of one’s life. As we begin to live this new grace-filled life, we begin to mature in the faith. Sanctification is the process by which we develop a maturity in the faith. When members of a church begin to present themselves “to God as instruments of righteousness,” they enter into the ethical realm of the faith. We engage in ethical actions not in order to be saved but as evidence of our desire to grow in the faith. “But now that you have been freed from sin and are enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification.” Some churches want to avoid becoming involved in taking ethical stands because many of the issues we face as a society are complex and often controversial. The result is that they focus almost exclusively on the personal moment of salvation. The unfortunate result is that they remain “babes in the faith.” To engage in ethical reflection and action is to risk being wrong, but that is why we are saved by grace. We do not sin so that grace may abound, but we risk sinning because we are saved by grace. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Matthew 10:40-42
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
What a frightening and awesome statement! Jesus not only identified completely with God but also completely with the community of his disciples. Perhaps even more frightening, how people receive and perceive Christ’s disciples is how they are going to perceive Jesus and choose to respond to God. God had identified with Jesus’ disciples. Jesus was entrusting the message to his disciples. It is incredible that God, through Jesus, would make the divine self so vulnerable to our response. But if we choose to respond to what God sees in us, there are possibilities for others as well. If we are faithful to God’s call to be a prophet, then those who receive our word receive a prophet’s reward. A prophet’s reward is none other than an identification with God’s word. Such identification at times brings suffering but ultimately means life. Recall the story of Elisha and the Shumanite woman (2 Kings 4:8-37). Those who receive a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. Recall Joseph’s story in Matthew 1:18-25. If we are responsive to God’s word and to right relationships with others, we share in Christ’s complete identification with God and people. Because God has so thoroughly identified with Jesus’ disciples, those who receive such disciples with even the minimum of hospitality will discover they are receiving God (Genesis 18:1-16). The task of a congregation, in response to Jesus’ identification with God and us, is to respond to God’s word and be in right relationship with others because in us others see Christ and, through Christ, God.
