What Is Wrong With The Ways Of The World?
Good Morning Friends,
There is a law in nature that nothing takes more than it needs and if it does death follows. Sadly, the earth has a growing cancer that believes it has the right to keep more than it can ever use. The air is polluted. The oceans dying. Species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Pride is an all-time high and humility at an all-time low. People in positions of power are corrupt and people are being displaced from their homes at an alarming rate challenging our concept of boarders. While technology keeps increasing but somehow does not provide what we so desperately need. We are depressed and too many are over medicated in the face of growing violence. What is popular supersedes what is prudent. Even nature groans and is fighting back and we have a failure to communicate the one thing that can save us. Perhaps the end of the age is coming…and perhaps it will be celebrated as a wedding or a fought as a war or both. And so, we ask as we investigate the reflection in the spiritual mirror of scripture: What Is Wrong With The Ways Of The World?
Scripture: remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
Ephesians 2:12-22 (NRSV)
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
Luke 12:35-38 (NRSV)
Message: G. K. Chesterton may have been right when he answered today’s question years ago by simply writing a two-word response. “I am.” But what if he was wrong and Christ the “I am” in us is the solution to the madness of this world. Maybe the path does not end in our broken hearts and destruction but begins in our changed minds and hearts. Truly scripture and tradition tell us far more of restoration and redemption than of original sin. No matter how great the number of sins committed, grace was ever greater in the stories of the Bible. In the story of Noah, for example, the rainbow becomes a sign of God’s promise of restoration. Still, for the most part, humans are not all that they were meant to be, even though fearfully and wonderfully made, we seem to have all the ingredients for happiness, but something seems to rob us of joy. Unhappiness and evil in the world are definite problems. Solutions are so elusive. And so, we persevere even as we again ponder the origins of evil in a world created by God who is infinitely good. So, we meditate on the story of Exodus and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit apply this story to our own time through the life of Christ as he in our lectionary journey is approaching Jerusalem for the Passover feast. And then we discover that answering what is wrong with the world is of little help. It is like embracing the pain of all the laws that become overwhelming burdens. So, we must seek an answer to how we can become right. And here the answer to the problem of evil is for God’s love to be revealed in redemption of the cross and the freedom of a new opportunity for God to be in us. And here friends, love…the love of God and that love in us becomes the greatest weapon we can weld. Real love and kindness is contagious. Our hearts were made for God and they will know no rest until they rest in God’s peace…of God’s love. For this desire and love in God’s heart not only moved Him to create us. It also urged Him to go through a process so that He could enter us and make us His expression. Everything Jesus did, said, and thought was a pure expression of God in humanity to be released and made available to us. Christ opened the way for us to receive His divine life that we might become the reproduction of Christ, bringing delight to God’s heart by fulfilling the most important purpose of all. Friends, maybe we are the problem. But this morning I would like to believe that with Christ we are also part of the solution. Our goal should be to bring people together—people who do not naturally come together. Our only hope is diversity. If a church functions as a social club, it is easy for those who are “in” to be a closed group. When we are in a group that is large enough to meet our needs, and small enough to be comfortable, we might not feel a need to make the group larger. Even if we want to include other people in our circle, we are naturally drawn to people like us, or maybe a little more attractive than us, because they can raise the status of our group. It sounds a little like middle school, but it is human nature to value people who have something to offer. But the church of Jesus Christ is not a social club! The church is God’s household, God’s building. He built the foundation long before we were born, beginning in the Old Testament, and continuing with the apostles. God has been building his church for centuries, and he continues to build it. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the building, and the Holy Spirit lives in it. The church does not belong to us, and we do not get to decide who should be part of it. Early Christians understood that God brought people into the church whom they would not have included otherwise. Philip went to the half-breed Samaritans, and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter had a vision of going to unclean gentile “dogs,” and he not only went to Cornelius’ house, but he preached the gospel, and stayed at his house. Jews ate with gentiles, and rich people let dinner get cold until slaves got off work, so they could eat together. Yes, there is evil in the world but just because a person does not look like us, it does not mean that they are bad.
Pray we become more inclusive. Pray we not give up even though some days it is hard to believe even with all we have seen as evidence of God at work in the world. Pray we realize that Jesus exchanged the perfect harmony of heaven for the turmoil of life on earth, with its pressures and pains, trials and tensions, conflicts and crises so we might become right with God and each other. Pray we believe that the one by whom all things were created and who owned every square inch of the Earth had no place to lay his head and even though he had formed every molecule of water still had to ask someone to give him a drink. Pray we realize that Christ’s humiliation was without parallel while at the same moment the splendor of God’s glory is so wonderful that even angels cover their faces in Christ’s presence. Pray we realize that the Incarnation of the Son of God unites earth to heaven so that what was wrong might become right. Pray for redemption and a new creation. Pray our hope is not in vain. Pray we are part of the solution through our love of Christ shared all to the glory of God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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