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09/09/12

03:00:00 pm, by Robert Arbogast , 1628 words  
Categories: Ordinary Time 2012, Psalms

Enemy Surveillance

Sermon Preached by the Rev. Robert A. Arbogast
Olentangy Church, Columbus, Ohio
September 9, 2012

For an audio version of this sermon, click here.

Scripture Readings
Nahum 1:1-8
Psalm 139
Revelation 2:1-7
Matthew 5:43-48

Sermon
In the 21st century, we’re under surveillance more than ever before. Cameras watch what we do at busy intersections. Kroger records what we buy at the grocery store. It’s creepy.

Psalm 139 paints a picture of divine surveillance. And it’s anything but creepy. Even though God sees everything. You see, God isn’t watching us like some totalitarian bureaucrat. No. God is watching over us. God is looking after us. Before we’re born. After we die. And all along the way. God is forming us. God is leading us. God is holding on to us. Always keeping a father’s eye on us. It’s a lovely picture. And it makes Psalm 139 one of the best-loved psalms.

But then something happens. From the comfort and security of intimacy with God, the psalmist cries out for blood:

Oh, that you would slay the wicked!

And from the heart of love, the psalmist erupts with hate:

Do I not hate those who hate you?
Do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with a perfect hatred.
They have become my own enemies.

It’s heartbreaking to read those lines. They shatter the idyllic picture. Intimacy gives birth to bloodlust. That can’t be right. Can it? Well . . .

The prophet Nahum doesn’t share our discomfort. His eye is on God’s chief enemy, Israel’s chief enemy. The nation responsible for Israel’s exile. Assyria. Assyria and its capital Nineveh. Angry. Arrogant. Violent. Brutal. Proud. That was Assyria. So when Nineveh is destroyed, Nahum dances on its grave. Nineveh got what it had coming. Nahum celebrates its doom.

To hear Nahum tell it, God destroyed Nineveh. And it was an act of destruction that expressed the Name of God, the essential character of God. The Name of God is revealed by the actions of God. And after Nineveh is destroyed, Nahum has a revised understanding of that Name.
Remember a few weeks ago, when I referred to Exodus 34? That’s where the Lord proclaims his name to Moses:

The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
but who will by no means clear the guilty,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers
on the children and the children's children,
to the third and the fourth generation. (vv. 6-7)

That passage is referenced again and again by the prophets and in the psalms. But not the part about punishment. Never. Only Nahum does that. Actually, that’s about the only part that Nahum mentions. He says, The Lord is slow to anger. But before that and after that, he chronicles an angry and vengeful God, a God with devastating wrath.

Nahum agrees that the Lord is good. But for the most part, the Lord is an avenger. And Nahum loves it. He loves it because he hates Nineveh.

Do you remember the story of Jonah? Jonah is sent to Nineveh, the same city. He’s sent with a warning:

The axe of God’s wrath is about to fall.
Forty days!
That’s all you have.

Jonah had no interest in bringing that message to Nineveh. He had no mercy in his heart for Nineveh. And he didn’t want to offer Nineveh a chance to slip the noose! That’s why he went the other way. Because he knew what would happen. God would forgive Nineveh. Why did Jonah think that? Because,

I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and ready to relent from punishing.

That’s Exodus 34. That’s the Name of God. That’s how Jonah remembered it, a Name and a God overflowing with mercy.
But now, as far as Nahum is concerned, the Lord has rewritten his Name. And Nahum is in full accord with the edit. His attitude is in lockstep with the psalmist:

Do I not hate those who hate you?
Do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with a perfect hatred.
They have become my own enemies.

With Nahum, hate finds a home in the Name of God.

Fast forward to the book of Revelation. There’s something similar there. A shared hate. The Lord tells the church in Ephesus, I’m troubled by your lackluster love. But then he commends them for their hate:

This is to your credit:
you hate the works of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate.

It’s like the psalm. A mutual enemy, ripe for wrath. With both the church and the Lord united in hate.

This is our God. Our God is good. The psalm declares it. Nahum admits it. Our God is good, sending rain on the evil and on the good. But come the harvest, the enemies of God will reap divine vengeance! Simple as that. Simple as that.

Except there is still the Gospel. The Gospel has a way of complicating what would otherwise be simple. Listen to the words of Jesus:

You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you,
Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.

This doesn’t sound like Nahum. This doesn’t sound like the psalm. Do these words of Jesus trump Nahum? Do they trump the psalm? Does love tump hate?

Or is Jesus maybe making a distinction, a distinction between our enemies (the ones we have to love and pray for) and God’s enemies (the ones we can hate with a perfect hatred). After all, the psalm talks about hating God’s enemies, not my personal enemies. And Nahum’s glee is over the downfall of an arrogant nation that defied God. Why would those kinds of enemies be anything but the object of hate?

But wait. Jesus says your enemies are those who persecute you. That means they’re enemies of Jesus! Do you remember what we read last week? Jesus said, Whatever you do to the members of my family, you do to me. And do you remember what Jesus said to Saul on the road to Damascus, Saul who was violently persecuting the church? He said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? In other words, the church’s enemies are the Lord’s enemies. So Jesus tells us to love and to pray for the enemies of God.

It’s only natural for us to want to hate people who are doing wrong, especially when they’re doing wrong to us. And it’s only natural for those of us who are pious and devout to want to hate people who are enemies of God, people who hate and reject God, people who use God for their own purposes. But Jesus is telling us to do what’s unnatural. To do what Gentiles and tax collectors would never do. To do something completely unexpected.

Maybe that’s the lesson from these various scriptures today. That Jesus expects more from us than what seems religiously appropriate. That Jesus expects more from us than what our culture would dictate. That there should be something noticeably different about us, even when it comes to something as basic as love and hate—there should be something noticeably different about us exactly because we are following Jesus and not doing what’s expected.

Last week Democrats were cheering again about the death of Osama Bin Laden. Lots of us cheered when it happened a year and a half ago. Like Nahum gloating over the destruction of Nineveh, we celebrated the end of a man who had killed thousands of innocent people. Why wouldn’t we celebrate?

But Jesus says, Love your enemies and pray for them. Jesus says, Don’t do what comes natural, which is what people outside the Kingdom do. Embrace your enemies. Honor their humanity. Which isn’t to say that we deny their evil. Which isn’t to say that we deny the wrong they have done. No. We acknowledge them as enemies, maybe even as enemies of God. But judgment and vengeance—that belongs to God, not to us.

Maybe that kind of attitude doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’ll never work practically. But I’m persuaded that the Kingdom of God isn’t about being practical. (What was practical about Jesus surrendering himself to a Roman cross?) The Kingdom of God isn’t about being practical. It’s about being faithful. Faithful to the God who can handle his own enemies and ours. Faithful to the God who has us under surveillance. Faithful to the God who watches over us in such a way that nothing can take us from his hand, not even the worst our enemies can do.

In just a few minutes, we’re going to approach the Lord’s Table again. We do it again and again, Sunday after Sunday, because we always have something to celebrate. And because we always have something to tell. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in our neighborhood. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in our homes. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the church. And it doesn’t matter what’s going on in our hearts. We always have something to celebrate. We always have something to tell.

We come to the Table to celebrate a death. But not the death of our enemies. The death of Jesus our Savior. And we come to the Table to tell the story of his death, the story of his body and blood. And, of course, we always come remembering that he died for us while we were enemies of God.


In the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

09/02/12

01:00:00 pm, by Robert Arbogast , 1502 words  
Categories: Ordinary Time 2012, Psalms

Partisan Loyalty

Sermon Preached by the Rev. Robert A. Arbogast
Olentangy Church, Columbus, Ohio
September 2, 2012

For an audio version of this sermon, click here.

Scripture Readings
Genesis 12:1-3
Psalm 122
Hebrews 10:32-39
Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon
I had to go to Grand Rapids, Michigan, last Thursday. On Friday I drove down to Kalamazoo to see a friend. I thought about going by our old house. I didn’t though. I still feel an attachment to that old farm house. But I stayed away. It’s hard to see the place in someone else's hands.

Is it right for me to feel that way? I’m not sure. But I do know this, and I know it for sure. There are certain things that deserve our loyalty, certain things that demand our attention and affection, certain things that even demand love and sacrifice from us.

That’s how the psalmist felt about Jerusalem. He was devoted to the city and to all it represented. He invited others to join him in expressing the same devotion. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, he said. And he gave them the words to do it with:

May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls
and quietness within your towers.
I pray for your prosperity.
I will seek to do you good.

The psalmist was loyal to Jerusalem without a doubt. And do you know why? Because of the house of the Lord our God. Because of the Temple. The Temple was the throne of God—the place where God was present in the world. That gave the Temple—and Jerusalem—cosmic significance.

There’s a story behind the psalmist’s devotion. It’s the story of God’s saving love for his creation. That story first comes into focus in Genesis 12, with God’s promise to make Abraham a blessing for the whole world. God unfolds that promise through the people of Israel and through his presence with them from the mud pits of Egypt to the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple.

The story takes a tragic turn when God abandons the Temple at the time of the exile. But after a long absence, God returns to Jerusalem, coming in the glory of a brand new Temple. That new Temple is Jesus Christ. He is the living presence of God in the world. Once, the Jerusalem Temple was the junction point of heaven and earth. But now Jesus, who is both fully God and fully human—Jesus is forever the place where heaven and earth have become one.

Our doctrinal tradition says that, through the bread and the cup of Holy Communion, the Holy Spirit unites us by faith with the body and blood of Christ, who is in heaven. I used to think of that as entirely spiritual. But I’m not so sure any more.

Sitting in a meeting in Grand Rapids last Thursday evening, something dawned on me. The traditional picture of God’s creation puts a solid earth under our feet and an ethereal heaven up, way up, somewhere. But there's a layer of biblical testimony that pictures heaven and earth right next to each other, even mixed up and inseparable. It’s just that we can’t see heaven.

In the Jerusalem Temple, the close, side-by-side existence of heaven and earth became apparent. It’s the same with Jesus. In his flesh, heaven and earth are united. So in his flesh, heaven itself becomes visible.

Well, here’s what dawned on me the other evening (and I'm just trying this out; I haven't worked out all the particulars). If side-by-side heaven and earth come together in the flesh of Jesus Christ, then the Supper does not merely unite us spiritually with a faraway Jesus. No. The Supper unites us more than spiritually with a Jesus whose physical presence is not far away at all!

When the heaven where Jesus is is united to the earth where we are, then we commune somehow with the flesh-and-blood, physical presence of Jesus through the bread and the cup of the Supper. And the church . . . the church is the place, the church is the people, among whom Jesus is present in the world in this way.

Now let’s go back to the psalm. The psalmist is a loyal partisan of Jerusalem. Why? Because Jerusalem is the place where heaven and earth meet and where God is present, in the Temple. If the psalmist is a loyal partisan of Jerusalem, how much more should we be loyal partisans of the church! Among us, heaven and earth meet and Jesus is present, on a humble Table!

If, like the psalmist, we are loyal partisans of the church, we will seek the church’s welfare. We’ll do that first of all because of a proper devotion to the presence and the glory of God in the church. But we’ll also seek the church’s welfare for our own sake. Because what Jeremiah said to the exiles in their new home of Babylon is certainly true of our home, the church: that in its welfare we will find our own welfare (cp. Jeremiah 29:7). To put it in the terms that God spoke to Abraham: I will bless those who bless the church.

Not sure about that? Then think about the parable of the sheep and the goats. It’s a familiar story. But notice two things. First, notice that nations are being judged, communities of people, in other words. And second, notice the standard of judgment. It’s a question of how those communities have treated the church—the members of my family, that’s what the Son of Man says, and he means the church—it’s a question of how those communities have treated the church, how they have responded when the church has been in trouble or in need.

Notice what happens in the parable. Communities who treat the church well are blessed. But communities who treat the church shabbily are cursed. I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse. That’s what God said to Abraham, and that word is good to the end.

But why the focus on the church? What about other people who are in need? Aren’t they worthy of care also? Of course. But there’s a special concern being highlighted in the parable, the concern that’s evident in the psalm and also in Hebrews 10.

It’s not that the church is filled with wonderful people who are more deserving of blessing than anyone else in the world. Not at all. It’s just that the church is the people among whom heaven and earth come together, the people among whom Jesus is present to be received by our ears, by our minds, by our hands, by our mouths. So it is right to pray for and to work for the peace and prosperity of the church, because Jesus is present in the church, present in the church for the blessing of the world.

That being the case, the church deserves our loyalty. The church demands our attention and affection. The church even demands love and sacrifice from us. The life of the church and the mission of the church—and the mission is to be a blessing—the life and the mission of the church require our prayers, our time, our money, our imagination, our sweat, our tears, our passion, our love. And all that is true, not just about the church in general, but also and especially for us about this improbable little church that is our home, that is us.

Lots of people these days think of the church as a business. In this case, a business that markets high quality religious entertainment, life-changing spiritual experiences, and a dynamic youth ministry for the kids. But the church is not a business, and we are not customers. We are the church. The church is our shared life. The church is our shared work.

Jesus said that he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mark 10:45). So we don’t come to the church to be served. We don’t come looking to have our own needs satisfied. We come in order to serve, in order to join with brothers and sisters in a mission to the world, to be a blessing to the world, beginning with our neighbors, beginning with the city we call home.

It’s hard to go by a house you used to live in and love. It’s hard to see it in someone else's hands. There’s not much you can do about it though. It’s not like you can move back in!

But the church . . . I am the church. You are the church. We are the church. This congregation and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of others. We are the church together. We are the people among whom Christ is present in body and blood for the blessing of the world. And there’s no other way for us to be, than to be fierce loyalists who pray for and live for the peace and prosperity of the church.



In the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

08/26/12

03:55:00 pm, by Robert Arbogast , 1598 words  
Categories: Ordinary Time 2012, Psalms

Holding Our Noses, Holding Our Breath

Sermon Preached by the Rev. Robert A. Arbogast
Olentangy Church, Columbus, Ohio
August 26, 2012

For an audio version of this sermon, click here.

Scripture Readings
Jeremiah 29:4-7
Psalm 146
Romans 13:1-7
Matthew 2:1-6

Sermon
Some years ago, Jan and I went to a popular restaurant in Plainwell, Michigan. We had to wait for a table. So did fifteen to twenty other people. When one of the parties was led to a table, another man erupted. He complained loudly that his party had been there first, that they were being treated unfairly, that they were insulted. It was quite the scene. The man’s behavior was excessive. And it was embarrassing. It made us feel really uncomfortable, like we wanted to leave.

It’s not so different these days with our political leaders and their surrogates. The way they go on, when they’re in campaign mode! It’s shameful. It’s embarrassing. And they’re always in campaign mode. It makes us feel really uncomfortable. We don’t want to be around it. We don’t want to have to explain it to our kids. It’s enough to make you want to move to Canada!

Can we expect anything different? Should we? And suppose they ever do get beyond campaigning and get on with the business of governing. What can we expect from our political leaders then? Hope and change? Reform, prosperity, and peace? To hear them tell it, our political leaders or would-be political leaders are going to transform our city, our state, our nation, even our world. They’re going to unleash businesses, create jobs, and rebuild prosperity. They’re going to bring healing to the sick and all manner of blessings to the middle class. And they’re going to let us keep more of our own money.

Of course, we’re savvy enough not to be taken in by the slogans and the promises. Still, come November 6, we’ll stop holding our noses and start holding our breath, waiting to see who wins, hoping that it’s our team. Because we’re convinced that, for better or for worse, elections have consequences. And they do.

But the Bible has a way of putting it all in perspective. Let’s start with Psalm 146:

Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth,
for there is no help in them.

That verse is just one salvo in a sustained biblical assault on the pretensions of people in power. And in this political season, it tempers our expectations.

Essentially, the psalm says we shouldn’t count on our leaders for much. Instead, it says we should count on the Lord. Even the best of our leaders don’t last, and their most enlightened policies fade as quickly as they do. So the psalm says we should look to the Lord, who reigns forever.

If you want justice, look to the Lord. If you want to see the hungry and the blind and the weak tended to, look to the Lord. If you want proper treatment for immigrants and for single mothers and their kids, look to the Lord. The Lord is the source of prosperity and peace and every blessing. So look to the Lord, and don’t put your trust in rulers.

That doesn’t let our leaders off the hook. Not by a long shot. If you don’t believe it, take a look at the first part of Romans 13. That passage speaks directly to the relationship between the Christian community and political leaders.

For a long time Romans 13 has been used by law and order types and by people with a vested interest in the status quo to overrule resistance and rebellion by Christians. Christians are to submit to their rulers. Christians are to obey their political leaders. Why? Because those rulers have been placed in authority by none other than God. Again and again in the first seven verses of Romans 13, the Apostle Paul says that the governing authorities have been appointed by God. That’s why we’re supposed to submit and obey.

But hold it right there! That’s not the only way to read Paul. And it’s certainly not the best way to read Paul. When Paul says, again and again, that rulers have been given authority by God, that’s not a blanket endorsement of their authority. Just the opposite.

Political leaders through the ages have often imagined themselves to have an unlimited and unquestioned legitimacy. This has been true of caesars and soviet dictators, as well as any number of big city mayors and more than a few presidents and prime ministers. Sometimes these rulers pay lip service to God. But too often they imagine themselves to have an inherent right to rule.

But when Paul says that rulers have been appointed by God, he is taking aim at their self-serving imagination. To say that they have been appointed by God is to say that they are obligated to serve God and to serve God’s purposes. In other words, they are obligated to serve the justice of God. And they are obligated to wield their authority not for their own good and for the good of their cronies and big campaign contributors—they are obligated to wield their authority for the good of all.

Listen to what the Lord provides for his people. That will give you a sense of what the Lord expects rulers to provide for those under their authority. Listen:

The Lord gives justice to those who are oppressed,
the Lord gives food to those who hunger.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
The Lord loves the righteous;
the Lord cares for the stranger;
the Lord sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.

With this in mind, the question is, O ruler, why are you not doing the same? Why are you not doing the works of the Lord after him? Your power was given to you by God. That power is yours only to serve God’s purposes.

Of course, we’ve been around long enough, we have enough sense of our own times, we have enough sense of history, to know how it goes with rulers and political leaders and with powerful people in general. In itself, that could bring us to despair. And the current state of our political processes could bring us to despair, too.

But the Bible’s scathing critique of the powerful is laced with a note of hope. Take the psalm. It moves quickly, shifting our attention from bad experience with political leaders to a broad and sustained hope in the Lord. Rulers may imagine themselves to be powerful and firmly ensconced in their authority. But the Lord is at work, at work right under their royal noses!

We see this in Matthew’s gospel. It’s during the days of King Herod. Herod was the regional authority in Judea. He had been appointed by Caesar himself. Yet while they were busy exercising their royal prerogatives—Herod in Jerusalem, Caesar in Rome— while they were busy, a king was born in Bethlehem. This king had an authority that was recognized by strange visitors from faraway lands. And in the end, this king’s authority would be over all the earth. Before this king, Matthew is asking, who is Herod? Before this king, who is Caesar?

Don’t expect Herod to bring justice and prosperity and peace to Judea. Don’t expect Caesar to bring justice and prosperity and peace to the Mediterranean world or even just to Rome. And certainly don’t expect Barack Obama or Mitt Romney to bring justice and prosperity and peace to our world. And don’t expect Mike Coleman to bring justice and prosperity and peace to Columbus.

Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth,
for there is no help in them.

So what do we do? Do we wash our hands of the whole business? Do we say, A pox on all your houses!? Do we leave the sordid business of politics to others? Do we hunker down and pray and trust God to look after everything, while we keep our hands clean?

I don’t think so. First of all, this is our city, this is our land, this is our world. Like the old exiles, we have to actively seek the welfare of this place. Because our welfare is in its welfare. Can we promote the welfare of this place, if we withdraw from the political process?

Then there’s that statement in Romans 13. They may run ugly campaigns. They may disgust us with their half-truths. They may try to deceive us with their slogans and their promises. Then come November 6, we may elect them. But it’s God who appoints our political leaders. Like it or not. And we’re supposed to submit to their authority.

At the same time, though, let’s never forget our obligation to speak the truth to the powerful. And the truth is this: that God gives them authority for the sake of us all; that it’s in the welfare of the community and its people, in the welfare of the nation and its people, in the welfare of the world and its peoples, that they will find their own welfare; and that if they pursue their own good or the good of a few and not the good of all, then they are not serving the God who appointed them. And the Lord will not take that lightly!

That’s the truth. And we can speak that truth to the powerful. Or we can just leave the restaurant, because we’re embarrassed by them and uncomfortable around them. I wonder what would Jesus do.


In the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

08/19/12

01:00:00 pm, by Robert Arbogast , 1308 words  
Categories: Ordinary Time 2012, Psalms

Through the Window

Sermon Preached by the Rev. Robert A. Arbogast
Olentangy Church, Columbus, Ohio
August 19, 2012

For an audio version of this sermon, click here.

Scripture Readings
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Psalm 63
Philippians 3:2-11
John 17:1-5

Sermon
Do you find it as hard as I do to pay attention to God? You go through the day with all its routines and surprises. And the big surprise at the end of the day is that you haven’t had a thought for God. Only it’s not a surprise at all.

Maybe you started the day with good intentions, even got down on your knees and said a prayer. Then you got busy with your to-do list: housework, homework, meetings, shopping, phone calls, books to read, shows to watch. That night in bed, you realized that you didn’t have a thought for God all day. And it’s not a surprise. Because that’s how most days go.

Then there’s Psalm 63. It sounds like it’s from another world, a world that doesn’t match our experience.

O God, eagerly I seek you
my soul thirsts for you
my flesh faints for you
I have gazed upon you
I will bless you
I remember you
I meditate on you
my soul clings to you.

It’s a beautiful picture. Body and soul, heart and mind, fixed on God. Aching and unsatisfied apart from God, but full and whole with God. It’s a beautiful picture, but it’s not a familiar one. Not to me. Not most of the time. And probably not familiar to you either. Not most of the time.

You know I’ve been reading the psalms for months now. Every day. Morning and evening. One hundred fifty psalms a month. It’s a good exercise. It provides a great opportunity to turn my thoughts to God, to listen for God, to speak to God. That’s a beautiful picture. But it’s not a familiar one to me. Not most of the time.

Too often, the reading becomes a rote activity. It’s the same way our prayers can be, where we say the words, say the prayer-formulas, but our mind and heart, they’re not in it. And I can hardly believe how my mind wanders in the course of reading a few psalms, even reading them out loud. I keep reading, but I’m thinking about a phone call I need to make, or about putting out the trash, or even about how my mind is wandering. What’s going on here? And what’s going on with our day-to-day inattentiveness to God? Can we ever say to God, My soul clings to you?

It’s easy to read Psalm 63 as a rebuke. As if the psalm is asking, What’s wrong with you? Why isn’t your relationship with God like this? Are you sure you really are a servant of God? But the psalm is not a rebuke. It’s a window, a window onto a beautiful world.

In that world, we never stop celebrating the power and the glory of God. In that world, we wake up praising God for the wonder of a new day, and we fall asleep thanking God for the gifts of the day just ended. In that world, God is our life, and more than anything we want to be near to God. Because God alone satisfies our hunger and thirst. In that world, we may struggle and we may suffer, but God is always our shelter and our shield, and we never stop praising God.

That’s the world we see through the window of the psalm. It’s a beautiful world. In that world, our attention isn’t drawn away from God. In that world, we don’t forget God for most of the day. If only that world were matched by our experience!

But the psalm is more than a window. It’s also an invitation. It’s an invitation to pass through the window, an invitation to begin living in that beautiful world, the beautiful world beyond our experience, in which God is all in all.

When he was still Saul, Paul the Apostle knew who he was and what his life was about:

circumcised on the eighth day,
a member of the people of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as to the law, a Pharisee;
as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Philippians 3:5-6)

But after he ran into Jesus on the road to Damascus, all of that stuff turned into nothing. Paul found himself in a new world. In that world, Paul said, the surpassing value is knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (v. 8). In that world, Paul said, what matters most is gain[ing] Christ and be[ing] found in him (v. 9). This left Paul with one desire. He said, I want to know Christ. I want to become like Christ in his death and resurrection (v. 10).

It’s about knowing Christ. That is the invitation. It’s an invitation to life, to a new way of life. John’s gospel puts it this way: to know Jesus Christ and to know the God who sent him is eternal life (cf. John 17:3). Which is to say that to know Jesus and the Father is to live the life of the world that’s coming. Or to put it another way, to know Jesus and the Father is to live in the beautiful world we see through the window of the psalm. And how do we know God? By his name. Which is to say, by who God is and by what God does.

So the invitation is an invitation to faith in the gospel. To believe, to trust that our world belongs to God, our world and everything in it; to believe, to trust that God has answered the world’s aching question, and the answer is Jesus Christ, the King of Israel; to believe, to trust that through Abraham and Israel and finally through Jesus Christ, God has given his answer to sin and evil, to death and corruption; to believe, to trust that the whole creation has been redeemed, including all the children of God; to believe, to trust that on the last day, the day of resurrection, all the children of God will be restored and renewed and all creation with them.

To know God, to know Christ, is to know this story. This is God’s name. This is who God is. God is the god who does not abandon his world, but saves it through Jesus Christ. God is the god who does not abandon you his child, but saves you through Jesus Christ.

The invitation is to trust that story—not the story told by any political party or pundit, not the story told by the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, not the story told by the Ohio State University or by Nationwide Insurance, not the story told by these gods or by any other gods—the invitation is to trust the story about God and Jesus as the world’s story and as your story. The invitation is to see, through that story as through a window—to see a beautiful world. And the invitation is to begin living in that beautiful world now, by having faith and by expressing your faith as the Spirit moves you. To pray and to praise. To sing and to read. To listen and to hear. To eat and to drink. To give and to heal. To help and to correct. To befriend and to love.

Psalm 63 is no rebuke. With all of Scripture, it is both a window onto and an invitation into the glorious, redeeming work of God in Jesus Christ. Sure, your attention, my attention, may wander. And there will be times when we will forget altogether. But God is faithful, and God is merciful. And because of the gospel, we trust not in ourselves, but only in God. Always in God. 


In the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

08/12/12

01:00:00 pm, by Robert Arbogast , 1169 words  
Categories: Ordinary Time 2012, Psalms

Your Name and Your Word

Sermon Preached by the Rev. Robert A. Arbogast
Olentangy Church, Columbus, Ohio
August 12, 2012

For an audio version of this sermon, click here.

Scripture Readings
Exodus 34:5-8
Psalm 138
John 1:9-14

Sermon
The psalms are the ancient prayers of God’s people. With attention and with patience, they can become our prayers, prayers we take upon our lips and offer to God. We might be able to do it only a piece at a time. That’s okay. We could do worse than to pray this, from Psalm 138:

Lord, you have glorified your Name
and your Word above all things.

Lord, you have glorified your Name above all things. In the third chapter of the book of Exodus, we find Moses standing barefoot before a burning bush. He’s hiding his face from the fiery presence of God. In no time, God gives Moses a job. And in no time, Moses asks God for some credentials.

I’m going to need something to tell the Israelites, he says,
something that identifies who you really are.
I’m going to need your Name.

It’s not an unreasonable request. And God gives Moses an answer. But it’s an answer that isn’t an answer. It’s an answer that isn’t an answer that is an answer.

Nothing doing! says God.
I will be who I will be.
That’s what you can tell them.
Tell them I will be!

Well, that was no answer. Not at first. But in time, it would become an answer.

There was always the past. God began by saying,

I am the God of your ancestors,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But soon there would be more. When the Israelites stood trembling at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God told them,

I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery.

That was who God had become to them. That was God’s Name. I will be who I will be.

Forty years later, God became

the Lord your God,
who brought you out of slavery in Egypt
and into a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now that was God’s Name, the expression of God’s character and ways. And the Name was tightly linked to God’s glory.

In Exodus 33, Moses asks to see God’s glory. In the next chapter, God responds by telling Moses his Name:

The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness . . .

Now this had become God’s Name. Because this was who God was and who God would be to Israel. The Name of God could never be a simple handle. The Name of God would always be the revelation of God’s glory, a glory unfolding in love and faithfulness, in mercy and justice.

And the only right response to this Name is the response Moses himself made. He bowed his head to the ground and worshiped the Lord, who had glorified his Name above all things.

Lord, you have glorified your Word above all things. Most of the time, when we say the Word of God, we mean the Bible. But the Word of God is more than that before it is that. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that they don’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In other words, they live by what God says.

And what does God say? God says words that create, words that bring things into existence. God says words of promise, words that form and maintain relationships with his people. And God says words that shape his people’s responses within those relationships. I think that’s what’s in view in our prayer: Lord, you have glorified your Word above all things.

Listen to what the psalmist says, just before that part of the prayer:

I will bow down . . .
and praise your Name.
I will praise you because of your love and faithfulness.

Which brings us back to the Word of God to Moses in Exodus 34, the Word that expresses the Name of God:

the Lord, the Lord,
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

So when the psalmist praises God, both the Name of God and the Word of God are bound together.

Lord, you have glorified your Name and your word above all things. At the beginning of his gospel, John tells us that Jesus himself is the Word of God, and that Jesus is the expression of God’s glory, and that Jesus is full of grace and truth. This is John’s way of saying that Jesus, the Word of God, is at the same time the Name of God. In other words, Jesus is the way in which God is among his people in love and faithfulness, in mercy and justice. Jesus is the Word of God come among us. Jesus is the Name of God exalted above us. And he is worthy of adoration and worship.

So how do you respond to Jesus? How do you respond to the glory? Do you worship and adore the Name and the Word?

Do you wait for him, do you welcome him, do you receive him as he comes to you? Do you invite him to come to you? To be the Word in your flesh? To be the glory in your life? To be the Name you honor above all names?

Jesus comes to us as the Word when we read the Scriptures and listen to them. Jesus comes to us as the Word when we proclaim the gospel and submit to it. Jesus comes to us in the flesh when we take the bread and the cup he gives us at the Table. He comes to us in the flesh when we gather together in his Name and when we love each other as his servants.

You know, one of the important ways that Jesus came to Mikhail Popov—besides in the Scriptures, besides in the uniting force of baptism, besides in the holy meal of the Table—one of the important ways that Jesus came to Mikhail was through the loving embrace of this church family. And Mikhail responded by pouring himself out among us, giving glory to God through the offering of the melodies and harmonies of his soul.

Jesus would come to you in so many ways. In fact, he does come to you. He stands at the door and knocks, waiting for us to open. He walks with us along the way and will share our supper, if only we invite him. He waits to meet us in the Scriptures. He waits to meet us in worship. He waits to meet us in prayer. He waits to meet us at the Table. He waits to meet us in this family of faith and in the whole church that is so much more than we ever imagine.

Open your eyes. Open your heart. Seek him. Welcome him. Find him. He is here.


In the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

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