In the name of God, who creates, redeems, and
sustains. Amen.
“The
message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us
who are being saved it is the power of God.” So says St. Paul in his first
letter to the Corinthian church. The British writer and theologian GK
Chesterton put it this way- “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found
wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” The way of the cross is
absolute foolishness and extremely demanding. Thus, many have instead adopted a
tamer version of Christianity. As we continue our Lenten exploration of
covenant, we will consider the way in which living as members of the covenant
is both foolish and challenging.
Over
the past few Sundays, you’ll recall that we’ve explored the way in which the
covenant between God and humanity defines God as steadfast and us as the
beloved of God. The covenant also tunes us into the deeper reality of the world,
enabling us to receive and share the blessings of God. But this understanding
of the covenant is counter-cultural. When I preach at weddings, I often mention
that a covenant is not a contract. Contracts are commonplace and we generally
understand how they work. But covenants are more confusing. What do you mean
there is no “out clause”? What does “for better, for worse” actually mean? At
weddings, I encourage those in attendance to support the couple in their new
relationship precisely because covenants are hard work.
We live in a world where if you’ve had a smartphone for
more than two years, it is woefully out of date. My big clothing decision each
morning is “black shoes or brown shoes,” so I’m not the right person to ask, but
I hear that fashion actually changes on an annual basis. And when it comes to
marriage, we now have the phrase “starter marriage,” which acknowledges that the
challenges of covenantal living can be hard to overcome. We live in a world of
retribution and revenge, but covenants are intended to be full of grace and reconciliation.
Our culture is one of planned obsolescence, but covenants are intended to bind
us together for eternity. Often the Biblical covenant is framed in the language
of steadfast love. So consider the passage that we often hear at weddings when
we replace the word “love” with “covenant”- Covenants are patient; covenants
are kind; covenants are not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. They do
not insist on their own way; but rejoice in the truth. Covenants bear all
things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. Covenants never
end.
But that doesn’t sound like what you’ll encounter on a
daily basis in the world. Covenants define us in ways that are dissonant with
the fast-paced, competitive, and individualistic nature of culture. Consider
the Ten Commandments, which we heard read from Exodus this morning. A lot of
people read the Ten Commandments as a list of rules, and as such, think they should
be written at the entrances to our courthouses. But that is not at all the
purpose of the Ten Commandments. That would be what you do with a contract. But
God’s relationship with us is one of covenant. Instead, the better place to put
the Ten Commandments would be your bathroom mirror. The Ten Commandments are
descriptive, not prescriptive. They do not tell us what to do and not to do, instead
they define who we are.
In the Ancient Near East, and in modern day America,
there were lots of religious beliefs that you could subscribe to. The issue for
the Hebrew people was that of identity. Through the covenant they were claimed
as God’s people. But the question becomes, how does that covenant shape us?
Those in ancient Israel would have seen a group of people who didn’t kill, who
didn’t steal, who respected their parents, and perhaps most identifiably, who
rested one day a week on the Sabbath and said “those people are different, they
must be Jews.” Again, the Ten Commandments don’t tell the people of God how to
act, instead they describe the people of God. Jesus furthers this idea of formative
identity when he says “by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples,
that you love one another.” A great question to consider is this- if you were
put on trial for being a disciple of Jesus, would there be enough evidence to
convict you?
What
happens in our society if you practice your faith in public? You often hear
phrases such as “faith should be a private matter.” If in a business meeting or
when you’re talking to a client you said something like “as a disciple of Jesus
I can’t do that,” what would the reaction be? If you allow yourself to be
defined by the covenant, you will be labeled as “different.” For all of us, our
day to day standard of living is determined not by the Kingdom of God, but by
the economy of the world. While we might acknowledge that we are the beloved of
God, it seems that the perception of others is something that we put attention
into addressing. I’ve quoted CS Lewis’ The
Screwtape Letters before, and there is a great line that comes from the
mentor demon to the pupil demon: “Talk to him about ‘moderation in all things’.
If you can once get him to the point of thinking that ‘religion is all very
well up to a point’, you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated
religion is as good for us as no religion at all, and more amusing.” In order
to have worldly success, we often make concessions when it comes to the
covenant.
At its core, the covenant
is about binding us to God and each other. In fact, the Latin root of the word “covenant”
means to “come together” and “religion” comes from a word meaning “to bind
together.” The story of the Bible is the story of God’s love affair with
Creation and of God’s desire to have this love make us all one. If you consider
the narrative arc of Scripture, you can see a growth in the relationship
between God and Creation as we move deeper into the covenant. In Genesis, God
is wholly present to Adam and Eve, but as the story goes on, things don’t quite
work out. Often in Scripture, God is not so clearly manifest, but instead shows
up in dreams. As the people grow in their relationship with God, God’s presence
among them comes to be understood in different ways. For a while, God is the
pillar of smoke and fire as the people leave Egypt in the Exodus. Then God
dwells in a tent in the wilderness. Eventually a Temple is built and God’s
presence is seen as being in the sanctuary, the innermost part of that Temple.
But then something radical happens. And this is where our reading from John
today picks up.
“The people then said to
him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ They then said, ‘This
temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it
up in three days?’” The assumption was that God’s presence was in the Temple,
and while God had great power, that was the place that God was located. It’s
almost a contractual understanding of God’s presence, because it is rather
prescriptive. But the covenant, as it always does, pushes us further and
becomes counter-cultural. Earlier in John, the gospeller writes “And the Word
became flesh and lived among us.” This is the radical claim that God is no
longer to be found only in the Temple, but was out on the loose in the person
of Jesus, and through the Spirit still is among us.
You can see why Jesus so
angered those in power, he was upsetting their understanding of the world and
the way worship worked. As Jesus enters the Temple and overturns the
marketplace that was set up, I can’t help but wonder what Jesus might do today.
American Christianity has become far too consumeristic, much more so than what
was going on in this passage from John. We’ve been trained that “the customer is
always right” and we’ve brought this approach to our faith. And we all fall
into the trap. Churches spend so much time and energy on programs and trying to
answer the question “what ministries can you provide for me and my family?”
That’s got the question backwards. The ministries were never supposed to be for
us, but rather for God.
The way we use words
often describes the deeper cultural practices that are going on, and so the
phrase “church shopping” really should raise a red flag. Yet, that phrase is
quite common. Now, hear what I’m saying and what I’m not saying. Jesus makes
the point that he is the temple, that he, not a place, is what we worship. I am
not suggesting that we shouldn’t seek out a worshipping community that allows
us to worship God most fully, but the consumeristic attitude with which we approach
worship is a concern. We would do well to read this lesson in John and consider
how we might transform the aspects of our faith and church experience that are
too much like transactional contracts into a covenant of belonging and
beloving.
But as St. Paul puts it,
this is absolute foolishness. Consultants will tell you that people want
programs, comfortable pews, and entertaining worship. No one can ignore the
growth of mega-churches that blur the line between worship and shopping mall. Brand
experts will tell you that you should update your corporate logo every few
years, your website at least once a year, and your product line should always
keep up with the current trends. And when compared to that wisdom, the cross
and covenant, which are both several millennia old, appear to be quite foolish
and demanding. The covenant though has never been about church growth, but
rather growing more deeply into a loving relationship with God and all of
Creation.
As we strive to be more
aware of the covenant of which are a part, we will run into the obstacles and assumptions
of the world. So may God grant us the discernment to know how to live for the
Kingdom, the courage to follow the foolish way of the cross, and the grace to
do so in a way that will testify to the love of God that motivates us. Amen.
