Exodus 32: 1-14 Psalm 106: 1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4: 1-9 Matthew 22: 1-14
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
The direction of the sermon for this week has changed a bit…well, more than a bit. It has changed daily. Early in the week, I was thinking about how communities that gather create and long for rituals. I’d read an article about how, on her way out of prison in Perugia, Italy for the last time, Amanda Knox engaged in two rituals for those leaving prison. First, she broke her toothbrush in half and then, in front of the other prisoners, she slid her right foot forward as a sign of hope that they too would move toward freedom someday. I could see how this tied in with our reading from Exodus today, when the people of Israel had grown so bored with waiting for 40 days on Moses to return from the mountain that they decided to engage in building an idol like the ones they’d known in Egypt. Because sometimes what we hold dear are rituals that have no real meaning in our lives.
But then Steve Jobs died. There were so many touching tributes, including some of his own words. Steve Jobs had been baptized a Lutheran, although his later life had offered opportunity for exploring a number of different faith traditions. There were some funny bits, too – like how when he reached the pearly gates, St. Peter was fumbling around in the big book of life, with its pages all over the place and Jobs said to him “you know, there’s an app for that.”
Then, during our Thursday evening Bible study, we began to talk about the different representations of prayer in our readings from Exodus and Philippians. In Exodus, the prayer is a rather heated exchange between God and Moses. God is angry that the people have built this idol and what ensues is this bold, big, argument between God and Moses. First, God tells Moses to go down at once! YOUR people whom YOU brought up out of the land of Egypt have acted perversely, etc…Then Moses responds by saying that these wayward people are YOUR people….and why would you consume them? The Egyptians would just think that you intended to kill them all along. Not only that, Moses continues, but remember the promises you made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel? Remember that? Huh? Huh? What a great example of boldly coming before God. God can handle even our most intense prayers, including our disappointments and disagreements with God.
This prayer theme tied in with Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Paul tells them to let their requests be made known to God with thanksgiving, in prayer. How often do we come to God with our thanksgivings and our requests? How often do we remember to offer our gratitude along with our needs?
And of course, into this sermon stewing came the Gospel reading for today. The reading that Martin Luther called “the terrible Gospel which he did not like to preach.” I agreed. This is a hard reading. It would be easier if it ended at verse ten. We believe that all people are invited into the marriage feast…the good and the bad. All are welcome. But then we have the guest who was not wearing the proper clothes and the hard to explain ending of the story: “for many are called, but few are chosen”. I agree with Luther. But I needed to do some study for our Bible Study group and I decided to study the original language in that last troubling phrase of this reading: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” So, stay with me, here, because this is pretty interesting stuff. The New Testament was written in Greek; Jesus would have spoken Aramaic, closely related. The word for “many” here is polloi and the word for “few” is oligoi. These words can be taken in a sense of quality rather than quantity. So rather than being translated many and few, which are quantities….they could be translated as great and weak or mighty and little, which are qualities. The last sentence could, then, also be translated as: For the great are called but the weak are chosen OR For the mighty are called but the little are chosen. Now that would fit with the Jesus I know. The Jesus who talked about the faith of children. The Jesus who always put the most value on the least, little, and last.
Now, I was getting somewhere. This, I thought, could be a sermon. A sermon about the radical inclusiveness of the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, which is what Jesus was trying to describe in this reading from Matthew today. The kingdom of heaven as a place where some are called, and some are chosen, but all are welcome. I could go with that.
And then…and then….I was driving down Greenwood Ave. on my way to Bible Study at the church and I passed a billboard I’ve passed many times before. It’s related to a web site and a project called Jesus Is. The website is www.jesus-is.org. This is a really interesting project, inviting people to describe, by completing the sentence prompt “Jesus is ________” who Jesus is to them. On the web site there are a number of answers, including: Jesus is grace. Jesus is the reason I am teaching in Japan. Jesus is my provider. Jesus is love. Jesus is fun. Jesus is endorsed by Sarah Palin. Jesus is playing golf with Pastor Wendel.
As you might imagine there are some heartbreaking answers. Jesus is not real. Jesus is a slayer. Jesus is boring. Jesus is a reason for bigoted actions.
But on Greenwood Avenue on Thursday evening, I was stopped dead in my Subaru by what someone had climbed up onto the billboard to spray paint in as their answer. Jesus is…wrong.
Wow. Not Jesus is nonexistent. Not Jesus is making me mad. But Jesus is wrong.
Friends, all I could think of was that if someone thought that Jesus was wrong, the church has done a terrible job of sharing the message that he came to earth to bring. A message of love that is big enough to encompass all people. A message of forgiveness for all of the ways and every way that we fall short. A message of hope…hope for better things and hope for resurrection and hope for life. A message of peace…peace for the world and peace in our hearts and peace in our homes. A message of faith…faith in someone willing to give up his life for us.
I can almost excuse any number of other negative ways of completing the Jesus is project…the suggestions that Jesus is an easy out or an intellectual lightweight. Those answers suggest that someone doesn’t understand what Jesus was about. But to say that Jesus is wrong?
Well, let’s face it…there is too much hatred being spread in the name of Christ. There are those who call themselves Christians and spew all sorts of animosity in our world. It’s usually directed toward anyone who is different than they are… women, blacks, homosexuals, southerners, Jews, Muslims…all have been told they are not worthy, are not loved…and told in the name of Jesus. And that IS wrong. But that’s not what Jesus said.
There is an answer to this. We must share the good news. We must tell the others. If you don’t feel well prepared, if you feel that you don’t have all of the answers, that’s ok. Invite them to worship. Or invite them to a meal or into the garden or to lunch or to your house. Hang out. Bridge whatever gap it is that would compel someone to risk life and limb to boldly claim to all who could see it that Jesus is wrong.
And then, let’s pause and ask ourselves…are we willing to risk as much to boldly claim (otherwise) who Jesus is to us?
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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