THE CHARISMANGLICAN

• “You’ve got to pull yourself up by your own ____________.”
• “God helps those who _______  _________.”
• (sung) “And more, much more than this, I did it _____  ______!”

Abraham couldn’t sing that song.  Abraham didn’t do it his way.  He didn’t choose God; God chose him.  When Abraham decided to obey God’s call, to pack up his family and move to a place that God promised to show him, he became different from all the other people living in Mesopotamia.  He became odd.  The people that lived in ancient Mesopotamia already had gods.  They didn’t need another one.  And yet, when God called Abraham to an unfamiliar land, Abraham obeyed.  The writer of the book of Hebrews calls that “faith.”  Another way to say it is: dependence.  Abraham was willing to become dependent on God and his promises.

We often think that our faith is supposed to be a comfort for us.  But Abraham’s faith didn’t give his life stability or comfort.  It made him strange to the people in the world around him.  Abraham’s faith took away his stability, his security and his identity as a Mesopotamian.  Faith makes us radically dependent on God’s call and God’s promises.  It is more likely to make us uncomfortable than to make us comfortable.  It is more likely to make us strangers in the world than to earn us admirers.

Have you ever checked your pulse?  Here are some questions that can help us take the “pulse” of our faith and our dependence upon God:

Today’s Psalm also reminds us of our dependence on God.  Something that set God’s people apart from other nations was this strange belief that God is their king.  Since earliest history, the nations of this world have always had powerful kings. In Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome the emperors even claimed to be divine.  The power of the gods was invoked to prop up the power of the human authorities.  Although God’s people actually had human kings for a time, the scriptures clearly demonstrate this experiment in being like other nations as almost complete failure.  God never wanted his people to have any other king.

Did you know that in the Episcopal Church tomorrow is the 4th of July? What I mean is, Independence Day is bumped to the 5th of July when it falls on a Sunday.  Now, I must confess to you that I struggle to understand why the Episcopal Church includes Independence Day on the liturgical calendar at all.  Jesus told Pilate matter-of-factly that his kingdom is not of this world.  Our lesson from Hebrews says Abraham lived as a stranger in a foreign land, and that he was waiting for a city built by God.  The apostle Paul says that we are citizens of the heavenly city.  For these reasons and more, Christians are resident aliens in the world, not citizens.  I think it’s a step in the right direction that when the 4th of July falls on a Sunday, Episcopalians bump it to the 5th.  What a practical way of demonstrating that our true citizenship is in heaven and that God alone is our king.

The Psalm reminds us that we are dependent on God as king, but it also introduces the idea that we are dependent on each other.  It says we gather together to praise God, that God takes pleasure in his people, and that although they are humble he crowns them. In this case, “humble” isn’t a personal virtue. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that what makes us extraordinary is not something within ourselves, but rather that God has gathered us.  He is described not only as king, but as “maker.”  This isn’t to say that the Lord Almighty is “maker of heaven and earth” (although that is true). In this context,  he is called “maker” because he has made us into a people, a nation.

At the Episcopal Church’s general convention last year, our presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schiori, raised a lot of eyebrows by calling the idea “that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God” the “great Western heresy.”  She is exactly right.  You are not the God’s person (that is, ‘you’ singular).  You are God’s people.  He is a king, and therefore we are citizens of a kingdom.  We don’t have a “personal” relationship with God, as if our faith is something private.  As I shared on Trinity Sunday, God himself isn’t merely personal but interpersonal.  We have an interpersonal relationship with God.  That is why it says this in the fourth chapter of the first epistle of John: “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.”  We depend on each other to be God’s faithful people.

Now that we know that God is king and that we are dependent on each other, let’s ask some new questions to take the “pulse” of our faith:

Deuteronomy is one of the first five books of the bible which are known as Torah, or the Law.  It’s interesting how God’s law isn’t based on abstract notions of fairness or justice; it isn’t impersonal or blind.  Instead, God’s law is based on his character.  God says: “This is what I do.  This is what I care about.  This is who I love.  If you’re going to be my people, you’re going to have to do the things that I do, care about the things that I care about, and love the people that I love.”

In today’s reading from Torah we discover that our king loves outcasts.  He defends the fatherless and the widow.  He gives food and clothing to the alien.  We can’t read passages like that in the Bible and then just go about our business.  This is radical stuff!  Recently the state of Arizona passed tough immigration laws to deal with the perceived problem of illegal aliens.  This week I found out that ten more states are considering similar legislation.  If the God we worship loves the stranger and gives food and clothing to the alien, then how should we feel about these campaigns against economic refugees?

In the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus teaches that the measure of what we have done for him is what we do for hungry, the poor, and the prisoners.  We sometimes think that God needs us to love the poor, but that is backwards.  We need the poor in order to love God.  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta knew this. That’s why she said, “Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”

Are you ready to take your pulse again? Here are some questions for us to ask ourselves in light of our dependence upon society’s outcasts:

Our surprising dependence comes to a fever pitch in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says something so radical, so counter-cultural, so against our human nature that it’s a wonder we haven’t edited it out of the Bible.

Love your enemies. Love your enemies!

Everybody here instinctively knows that Jesus has it all wrong.  You’re not supposed to love your enemies.  At the very least you’re supposed to ignore or avoid your enemies.  Sometimes you have to defend yourself against your enemies.  And, in some cases, you should hunt your enemies down and kill them.

The United States military budget this year is $664 billion.  This is half of the discretionary funds the U.S. will spend in 2010 and is roughly equal to the combined military budgets of every other country in the world.  Of all those billions of dollars the U.S. is spending on equipment, personnel and strategies to deal with enemies, does anybody want to guess how much of it is earmarked for “love your enemies”?

We all know you’re not supposed to love your enemies.  So why haven’t we edited that out of the Bible?

Remember how the basis of God’s law is his character?  The reason that we can’t edit out the command to love our enemies is because it’s not just one command among many.  When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he is describing his mission.  Loving your enemies is the very heart of the gospel, the centerpiece of the good news of the kingdom of God.  In Jesus, we find out that God wants to turn enemies into friends.  And, if God can’t turn his enemies into friends, then he would rather die trying.

God’s faithfulness to his creation, the holiness that sets him apart from other gods, is his mission of turning his enemies into friends.  There is no other god like that.  Jesus wants us to know God in that way, so he tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The people of God are nearest to the very heart of God when they respond to their enemies not with fear or violence but with truth and love.  The very people that we wish were never born, that we wish we never met, that we wish would just go away, that hurt us or threaten us…we need those people.  We need them if we are going to know the God who loved us enough to change us from his enemies to his friends.  Our enemies give us the opportunity to enter into Jesus’ prayer on the cross: “Father, forgive them.”  Like Jesus, our hope that those who hurt us, hate us and threaten us will stop being our enemies can only become a reality if we start the painful work of praying for them, forgiving them, and loving them.

I have a confession to make.  Preparing this morning’s message was painful for me.  Let me illustrate with another passage from the Book of Hebrews:

“The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”

The truth hurts.  That was my experience this week as I  meditated on these scriptures.  I know what God wants for his people, but I am painfully aware of my own failure to fully embrace and live out this teaching.  For example, right now I can think of three people that I need to forgive.  But I’m afraid to, because it would require me to tell the truth to that person, to risk rejection, or even to endure more pain.

If you’re like me, you know how easy it is to follow man’s law instead of God’s; how tempting it is to do it my way rather than God’s way.  The habit of independence runs deep in us…yet God persists in calling us his friends, persists in offering himself to us, persists in challenging us to go further and deeper in the way of Jesus.

And so we end where we started: celebrating dependence.  I depend on you to boldly proclaim the word of God to me, even when I don’t want to hear it.  I depend on you, when the word of God lays bare our brokenness, to kneel with me and to say the prayer of repentance.  I depend on you to speak the peace of the Lord into my life, and to continually hold out to me the bread of life and the cup of salvation.  And together we depend on God’s mercy, that he will forgive us all our sin–our greed, our pride, our violence–and lead us in the way of the gospel of peace until every enemy has been turned into a friend.

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* CORRECTION: Today’s lectionary reading was from psalm 145, but I mistakenly used psalm 149. The correct psalm obviously fits better with the other texts and would have made a better homily. My apologies for this careless and unnecessary mistake. Click here to return.