Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Choose
this day whom you will serve.” Those words were spoken to the people of Israel
by Joshua as they are entering the Promised Land. Will they serve the God of
their ancestors who brought them out of Egypt and sustained them in the
wilderness, or will they serve the local gods of the region? Will they serve the
Lord who demands steadfast fidelity,
working for justice, and a humble heart? Or will they serve gods who promise to
give them pleasure without commitment and prosperity without justice? I know
that most of us haven’t even had the chance to cast a ballot, but we’re already
tired of making choices. But today’s readings urge us to choose whom we will
serve. What choice will we make?
In
our first reading from 1 Kings, we heard about a choice between the Lord and a local god known as Baal. Elijah
asks the people “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If
the Lord is God, follow him; but
if Baal, then follow him.” In modern terms, we might phrase this as “If you
want to be a disciple of Jesus, do that; but if you want to just be a cultural
Christian, then stop playing charades.”
To
persuade the people about which is the true god, they have a contest. All of
the priests of Baal plead all day for Baal to send down fire upon the
sacrifice, but nothing happens. Elijah engages in what can only be labeled as “trash
talking”: Surely your god is just asleep, or is deep in thought, or has “wandered
away” which is a euphemism for using the restroom.
Then
it is Elijah’s turn to pray to the Lord. And
he ups the stakes by drenching the altar in water, just before it’s supposed to
be lit on fire. And the fire comes down and the people know that the Lord indeed is God. Which god will they
follow? The impotent and non-existent Baal, or the living Lord? The god of empty promises and
false hopes, or the Lord of all
Creation?
The
next example of a choice being required comes in Galatians. Galatia was a
community that Paul had evangelized. After he left, some others came in behind
him and were trying to undo some of Paul’s work. Paul had preached Jesus Christ
to the Galatians, but from what we can tell by his letter, he didn’t spend much
time at all on the story of Israel – of Abraham, Moses, and David. So these
people, known as the “Judaizers,” apparently came to Galatia saying things like
“That’s typical Paul for you, not giving you the whole story and ignoring the
Torah. I bet Paul even told you that you don’t have to be circumcised to be a
follower of Jesus, didn’t he?”
In
response to reports about these Judaizers, Paul wrote the letter known as
Galatians; and he writes “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the
one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel
– not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you
and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” And then Paul asks a pointed
question that is just as sharp and relevant today as it was then: “Am I now
seeking human approval, or God’s approval?” Do we use Law in order to protect
people in the name of love, or do we use laws to put boundaries up around love?
Do we focus on doing justice in the name of God or in the name of ourselves? Do
we follow Jesus, the man who ate with outcasts, who washed his disciples feet, who
was executed as a criminal; or do we follow some perversion of the Gospel that
is exclusionary, focused on condemning people to hell, and easy to follow?
And
then in the reading from Luke, we are presented with another story of choice – between
God and Empire. It’s a fascinating story about a Roman centurion. While it can
be difficult to draw exact comparisons to our modern military ranks, a
centurion would have been roughly equivalent to a colonel. In his own words,
this centurion is a part of the Roman power structure – telling someone to “go”
and they do. He is a man of power, of prestige, of influence, and yet, he
recognizes that there are limits to these powers given to him by empire. He has
no power to heal his slave, he has no ability to see this sick person as just
another slave; but with compassion in his heart, he cannot sit still, and yet
he is powerless. And so he calls on Jesus.
When
you are at the end of your rope, where do you turn? Who do you call upon when
your back is against the wall? When our souls cry out for justice, do we
petition a broken political system or do we offer our prayers to God? Both
Trump and Sanders are getting a lot of support around the country from people
who are fed up, feeling ignored. Those who are supporting those candidates are
doing all bunch of hand wringing and shaking their fists, while others can’t bring themselves to hear the
pain expressed by those left behind by America’s version of democracy. And the
question that is on my mind is this – what if, regardless of political affiliation, instead of wringing our hands,
we folded them in prayer? What if instead of trying to be our own superheroes,
we called on God to save us, to guide us, to make us more loving? As the Swiss
theologian Karl Barth said “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an
uprising against the disorder of the world.” Will we turn to God or to empire?
Will we choose to create our own messiahs, or will we follow the Messiah that
we have in Jesus? Will we clasp our hands in prayer or will we clench our
fists?
There
is a choice before us this morning. And I’d like to give you a glimpse of what
a choice for the Lord looks like.
In the reading from Galatians, Paul uses a salutation that he uses in ten of
his letters: “grace and peace.” “Grace” was a very typical greeting in the
Greek world, meaning something like “good favor be with you.” “Peace,” being
the Hebrew word shalom, was a common
greeting in Israel. And Paul uses these two words in the majority of his
letters. It’s not just that he uses “grace” when writing to Greeks and “peace”
to Jews, but he uses both, and in doing so, he shows us something about what it
means to choose God.
“Grace”
in Greek is xaris, which is where we
get the words “charism” and “charisma.” Grace is a gift, it something with a
source beyond you. When a dancer or athlete is described as “graceful” or a
speaker handles a difficult question gracefully, we use that word “grace” to
signify something that seems to be coming from outside the person; grace often
describes an extraordinary action.
When
Paul greets his audience with the word “grace” he is blessing them with a
reminder of the gifts of God. He reminds them that what they need, they already
have in God. Grace says “you are enough, you are loved, you are redeemed.”
Grace is an invitation to receive more fully the gift of God’s love that is
already given to you.
Though we chase after
other idols, God’s grace is all we need. Our value is not determined by what we
are able to produce, or how eloquent our speech is, or how many zeroes our bank
account has, or how many heads turn when we walk into a room. Our value is
rooted in God’s gifts, God’s grace, that is always with us. God’s grace is something
that can’t be taken away, and it isn’t something that can be measured. A bishop
has no more grace than someone in rehab. Grace isn’t a competition, it’s not a
race to get more of it, it doesn’t ask anything of you, it is simply something
to receive. Choosing to follow God means knowing God’s grace and favor for you.
It means that you can order your life not around that which is life-draining, but
that which is life-giving.
Paul
though knows that grace does not stand alone, but is in a relationship with
peace. Peace is not about the absence of conflict, but rather Biblical peace is
about wholeness and harmony; peace is about things being the way they ought to
be; peace is what the dream of God looks like. Paul wishes peace on his readers,
that they might be in right relationships. It’s about having peace with
yourself, peace with others, peace with the earth, and peace with God. Peace is
a way of describing what the world would look life if the love of God, the
grace of God that I just talked about, was rooted in all of our hearts.
Peace
is often thought of as tranquility, as something to experience, as something
passive. But this is not the sort of peace which is a hallmark of Christian
faith. Peace is active, not passive. Peace is something that we pursue and
labor for. When we know the grace of God, peace is the work of sharing that
grace with others. Peace is the spark that lights a fire in you to do the work
of justice, to get your hands dirty in doing ministry. Peace is the active part
of the prayer “thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”
And
these two words, grace and peace, flow together. Sometimes you need a word of grace,
a reminder of your infinite and intrinsic value. Other times we need a word of
peace, a call to action. Grace is an inward blessing of God’s love, peace is an
outward blessing of God’s love to the world. When we choose God over idols,
over restrictive views of religion, over the lure of empire, we are choosing
grace and peace.
You
have lots of choices out there. We often think of choice as a good thing, and
we like having lots of options. But social science actually tells us that
having more options doesn’t give us more freedom, but rather that it gives us
more fear and makes us paralyzed to the point that we avoid making a decision,
with the result that we are less happy. There are a lot of places you can put
your trust, a lot of ways to order your life, a lot of gods which promise
salvation. The allure of freedom and autonomy is that we can be the masters of
our own destinies, but grace and peace focus on the Lord as our master and our destiny as the reconciliation of
all Creation. If we choose the Gospel, those other choices may call us crazy,
they may make life harder for us, just as they did to Jesus.
We can devote ourselves
to financial security, to healthy eating choices, to a particular political ideology,
to a particular brand, to our work, to the pursuit of the “American Dream.” But
just like Baal, when the test comes, these false gods will not offer grace.
When the randomness of life strikes, those choices will not give us peace. These
readings are an invitation for us to “Choose this day whom you will serve.” As
you make your choice, may grace and peace be upon you. Amen.
