Be with us, O Lord, for if you are with us nothing else matters; and if you are not with us, nothing else matters. Amen.
The
word in question means something like a lair, cave, or den. Yes, it is a dwelling
place, but it’s a place of security and safety, even hiddenness. Dwelling place
– well, that might be a home, but it also might be an uncomfortable hotel room.
“Refuge” is such a fuller word because that is what God is for us: our refuge,
our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home. We not only live,
move, and have our being in God, but God also gives us comfort, assurance, and
rest. Though it seems like a minor point, having God as our refuge is a message
of hope.
And
hope is what we need more of these days. If you haven’t found it yet, I commend
to you the online liturgy we produced and released this past week. It is called
“Prayers for the Beloved Community” and includes a Psalm, Scripture reading,
and prayers for healing in the midst of a pandemic, racial injustice and tensions,
a partisan national election, and concludes with the Great Litany. The whole
liturgy is 40 minutes and I hope you will give it your prayerful attention this
week. You can find it on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, or weekly email.
Regardless
of your political leanings or what you think about 2020, there is no denying
that this is a year that history will remember. While it’s always true that we
are living in history, 2020 is more than that; it is a historical moment. And
while that’s been great for people who write opinion columns, for those of us
weathering the storm, it’s a rather disconcerting time. But the Lord is our refuge
from one generation to another. And so despite the tumult and the chaos, we can
say that we are safe and secure from all alarms because from age to age, God is
God.
This
idea of safety and rest in God has been the theme for our stewardship efforts
this year. Imagine having a stewardship campaign in a year in which the vast
majority of the congregation hasn’t set foot in the building in 8 months. But
the thing is, as wonderful and lovely as this building is, it is not our refuge,
God is. That’s something that we’ve had to learn this year – how are we the
Church when we can’t gather for “church?” I’m so incredibly proud of our staff
for making adjustments, for learning new things, for practicing flexibility.
And I’m thankful for you all – for those of you who have joined us during this
pandemic and have found God as a refuge through our online offerings, for those
of you who have been patient with us as we’ve adapted to online worship, for
those of you who have continued to support the church financially so that a
funding shortage has not been one of the things we’ve had to worry about, for
those of you who have sent me notes of encouragement and gratitude.
The
thing about this pandemic is that it has given us the opportunity, even forced
us to reconsider our priorities. When simple things like going to a restaurant
or the grocery store now carry more risk, we have to think about what we will
do and who we will do it with in ways that we’ve never had to before. And some
of those decisions, I know, have been difficult. There’s been a lot of economic
uncertainty, and so we’ve all had to think about our financial situations
differently as well. And it is my hope that in all of these deliberations, you’ve
been aware of just how central faith and St. Luke’s are in your lives because
of the refuge that God provides.
Another
Psalm, the forty-sixth, says: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, and
though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea; though its waters
rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble at its tumult. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of
Jacob is our stronghold.” Yes, the waters have raged this year, it seems as
mountains have been toppled with all that has been upset this year. And yet,
God is our refuge and our strength. I pray that through all of the upheaval this
year, your hearts have come to trust that all shall be well and that all manner
of things shall be well. And all shall be well because God, our refuge, is with
us.
The reason why the
Church prioritizes pledging is that it follows the wisdom that Jesus gives us –
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Generosity is not
us buying peace or favor from God, so it’s not as if we receive those things in
return for our financial contributions; rather, with our resources, we invest
in the peace of God so that our hearts will rest secure in the refuge of God’s
love. Yes, I want you to give to St. Luke’s so that we can give our staff the
compensation packages that they deserve and so that we can grow our ministries
that focus on abundant grace, intentional worship, and beloved community.
But, honestly,
more than that, I want you to give your money away so that it is clear that God
is your refuge, not your bank account. No pile of money will save your soul,
make you sleep well at night, forgive your sins, or give you worth. Instead,
God is our refuge, the one from whom all peace, joy, mercy, and blessings flow.
So not just a little, but give it away. Figure out what your income will be in
2021 – give 5% of that number to support the ministries of St. Luke’s and
another 5% to charities and organizations that you believe in. As I’ve said
before, money is an incredibly powerful tool, and if you cannot give your money
away then that’s a sure sign that your money actually controls you instead of
you controlling your money. Give not because the Church needs it, but because you
need to give. We give because with God as our refuge, we have the freedom to
give.
And when it comes to
what sort of refuge God is – as we read in 1 John: God is love. The last few
Sundays we’ve been in Matthew, hearing about Jesus’ encounters with Sadducees,
Pharisees, and Herodians during Holy Week. They’re trying to trap Jesus to be
able to accuse him of something. So a religious scholar asks him – “Teacher, which
commandment in the law is the greatest.” It was a trap in the sense that it
would reveal what is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. We have no idea what the
Pharisees were hoping that Jesus might have said, perhaps it was a trap as simple
as accusing Jesus of picking one verse while ignoring the rest.
Jesus delivers an
answer that we know well – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first
commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In this answer,
Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, linking these two concepts. In 1
John, this is picked up where we read that “Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…. Those
who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those
who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom
they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love
God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And, of course, what makes all
this loving that we are supposed to do possible is that “We love because God
first loved us.”
Jesus does not collapse
loving God and loving our neighbor into the same command, as they are distinct,
even if intertwined. But what Jesus does by linking these two is to say that
from these two loves, all the other commandments follow. Now, the obvious question
is “what is love?” To fully explore that would take more time than I have in
this sermon. But sometimes it’s good to keep it simple. For one, love is an
action, not an emotion. We are not commanded to feel certain things about God
and others, we are commanded to act lovingly. Some things that love does not
guarantee are safety, comfort, or winning. When it comes to love, it really is
as simple as picturing the Cross and hearing those famous words from John: “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” That is the depiction of
love – self-giving, transformative, humble, God-oriented. And this love is our
refuge. Because God loved us so much, we are able to be confident, to be
hopeful, to be bold in participating in this love.
After giving an
unquestionable answer, Jesus then poses an unanswerable question – How can the
Messiah be the son of David if David calls the Messiah Lord? It would be as if
a 5-star general walked up to someone in their first week of bootcamp and
called them “Sir.” This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. What Jesus is getting
at with this trap of his own is that the Messiah isn’t someone that we can
figure out and box in. Sometimes we get too restrictive around dictating what
sorts of people God would love, or what sort of actions God would or would not
condone, or what side of our political arrangement God would side with.
If we’re seen
anything the past few Sundays in Jesus’ interactions at the Temple, it’s clear
that the question we should be asking is not whether or not God is on our side,
but whether or not we are on God’s. Do we dwell in the refuge of God’s love, or
have we set up camp on the grounds of our own pride and ego? As Jesus tells us
in a parable earlier in Matthew, some build on the foundation of sand, things
like our accomplishments, reputation, money, and opinions. But when the rains,
wind, and floods come, we would be swept away as the grass is. The other choice
is to build on the rock of Christ and live in the refuge of God. It doesn’t
mean that the wind and the waves won’t come, but it does mean that our refuge
is secure.
And this refuge is
secure because it is none other than the love of God. It is the love out of
which all things were made. It is the love that came down and was born of Mary.
It is the love that welcomed the outcast, fed the hungry, and healed the sick.
It was the love that challenged all that stands against the grace, mercy, and
peace of God. It was the love that died on a Cross for you and for me. It was the
love that would not be held by the chains of death and rose again on the third
day. It is the love that, by the power of the Spirit, dwells in our hearts. It
is the love that has flowed in and among us from generation to generation. This
love is our refuge, our home, our protector. O God, our help in ages past, our
hope for years to come, be thou our guide while life shall last, and our eternal
home. Amen.
