/spirituality/sermons
Spirituality
Sermons
Being Something Beautiful
First given November 21, 1999
Based in part on common lectionary readings for Year A, Pentecost 27
Have you ever planted a garden? If not, you certainly know someone who
has. Sometimes, despite out best efforts, things don't go as we
planned. There is a red tulip growing right in the middle of the yellow
tulips. A green pepper plant is in the midst of our red peppers.
That can be very irritating. Our garden is not as orderly and uniform as we would like.
Have you ever noticed that not all sheep are white? A whole flock of
sheep, and some are colored differently than others. You'd think that
would drive a shepherd to distraction.
Yes, we do like order, conformity, and uniformity. We like things to be
as we expect them to be, predictable, comfortable, unchallenging.
Is that the way God likes life? Does God desire a uniform creation?
Try entering God's garden. I've been to Alaska and seen places
where no human foot has set. I've been to the desert in the Southwest
and seen the dry arid land where no human being lives. In those places,
I've never seen two of anything alike. I've never seen anything we
would call orderly.
So then, what about people? Should we all be alike?
We know society is afraid of different people. Not long ago, our own
culture thought of left-handedness as evil. Teachers and parents
corrected school children, sometimes forcefully, to use their right
hands as the dominant hand. Left-handedness was strange, different, and
didn't conform to what society thought of as normal.
Society also turned against other different people. Jews, people of
color, feminists, the differently-abled, these and many others have
been hurt by society's attempt to make itself predictable and
homogenous. Society also turns against those who do not behave as
expected based on their genders. Whether a boy grows up to fall in love
with another man, or a girl grows up to be an auto mechanic, society is
troubled. Whether a son becomes a daughter, or a daughter likes to wear
ties, parents are concerned. We have colored outside the lines. We have
broken the rules by becoming something other than ordinary.
How does God feel about people who are different? Does God desire
conformity in this one part of creation? Let's look at some Biblical
examples of people who stood apart from the crowd.
God made a covenant with Abraham and Sarah, promising them a son.
Because they had been unable to have children, Sarah sent her servant
to her husband so they might have a child through her. No, surrogate
mothers are not a new idea. Though the servant, Hagar, had a son, God
told Abraham and Sarah that the two of them would have a son. At this
point, Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah 90 and past menopause. In
these days, fertility specialists would probably not even speak to a
couple of this age about having children, let alone when the wife has
been unable to become pregnant ever in her life. Yet the unexpected
happens: Sarah gives birth to Isaac, and through Isaac a nation is
built up.
Skip ahead to Joseph. This story is so good they made a musical out of
it and got Donny Osmond to play the lead. Here's a kid who is his
father's favorite, so special he gets a beautiful coat from Dad. He has
dreams where his brothers' stacks of grain bow down to him; and where
eleven stars, the sun, and moon bow down to him. Naturally, his
brothers are a little fed up, and eventually sell him to the
Midianites, who in turn sell him to the Egyptians. Things look bleak,
yet Joseph ends up saving his family from starvation. Because of his
interpretation of Pharaoh's dream, the Egyptians store up grain during
the seven years of abundance to prepare for the seven years of famine.
Because Pharaoh appoints Joseph Governor of Egypt, he is in a position
to save his family. His brothers hated him, and yet God took care of
Joseph. Joseph recognized this, and in Genesis 50, we read that Joseph
said to his brothers "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for
good to accomplish what is now being done".
The next Pharaoh fears the people of Israel, and decides to have male
children killed at birth. One, however, is spared and raised in
Pharaoh's household. I doubt Pharaoh expected that. I doubt he expected
Moses to become the one who would lead the people of Israel out of
Egypt.
Deborah was the only female judge of Israel we can find on record in
the Bible. As if this were not exception enough, we find that, when she
gave Barak God's command to go into battle against their oppressor
Sisera, Barak refused to go unless she went with him! The penalty for
this lack of faith on Barak's part was that the fatal blow to Sisera
came at the hands of a woman named Jael. We know of this woman in part
because the Song of Deborah is one of the greatest and earliest known
examples of Hebrew poetry. Imagine that: a woman whose story is among
the greatest in Hebrew scripture.
There are Ruth, and David, and many more examples, but the story
of Jesus is particularly fascinating. When the people of Israel,
oppressed by the Romans, anticipated the coming of a warrior of noble
birth, instead Jesus was born to an unwed mother. Jesus wasn't a
warrior; he called for peace and tolerance. He disagreed with the
popular spiritual leaders of the time. He called as his friends some of
the least admired people of that society: fishers, tax collectors,
prostitutes, lepers, and half-breeds. This is not what the people of
Israel expected, but I believe we are blessed by our Savior.
So far, I've been preaching to the choir. I think everyone here
believes that God loves us as we are, that we are called into being in
diversity. Some of us may even believe we are blessed by our
differences. But that is not why I gave these examples. When we get to
the point where we say, "God loves me as I am," we are only beginning.
True, all these people were blessed, but they were much more than
that. These people were blessings from God to others. God calls us into
uniqueness not just so we can be our own special selves, but so that we
can each do something no one else can. We are not exceptions; we are
exceptional. We are not called to be ordinary; we are called to be
extraordinary.
Today's Old Covenant reading tells us that God loves us. In it, God,
through Ezekiel, tells us that we will be made to "lie down". That is
an image of rest, of peace, of serenity. How many of us have felt
tired, exhausted, and wish we could just take some time out? God says
the crippled will be bound up, the weak strengthened, the hungry fed.
This is a wonderful promise. Clearly, God loves us enough to take care
of us, all of us!
It is interesting, however, to read the beginning of the chapter.
Chapter 34 begins with the commandment to Ezekiel to prophesy against
the shepherds of Israel and say "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who
only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the
flock?"
So we need not only be concerned with our salvation, but with the needs
of others. Our works may not save us, but our works are evidence of
what is in our hearts.
Our Epistle lesson points out that all things will be put under
Christ's direction and Christ under God's direction. Even death cannot
withstand the power of Christ. So if everything is subject to Christ,
maybe we ought to see what Christ has to say about how we use our
uniqueness.
In our Gospel lesson, Christ separates all the nations into two groups.
Christ invites one group in and calls them blessed, turns the other
away and calls them cursed. Christ tells the blessed they tended to
Christ's needs, and tells the cursed they did not. Both groups are
astonished! Both groups claim they never saw Christ ill, or jailed, or
hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or as a stranger.
Like Joseph was hurt by his family, many of us have been hurt. We
can do three things with that pain: learn to cause the same pain in
others, isolate ourselves, or use our sympathy to soothe the pain in
others. We can tear down, hide, or build up.
Christ says, "as you did to the least of my brothers and sisters, you
did to me." That is a powerful thought, isn't it? If we saw Jesus
begging on the street (and knew it was Jesus), what would we offer? If
Jesus were a man with AIDS, would we visit him? If Jesus were a woman
with breast cancer, would we visit her? Would we invite Jesus to come
have dinner with us? I think we would all answer similarly to these
questions. But if our hearts are right, if we are true followers of
Christ, if we truly have that Christian love of one another, we will
show that love in how we treat each other. Do we welcome strangers? Do
we love people we do not even know?
God blesses each of us with certain gifts. I like to think of them more
as tools, resources, we can use in God's service. We are called not to
hoard these resources for ourselves, building greater monuments to our
own greatness; nor to fear that if we use these resources, we will have
nothing left. We are called to use these resources in building a living
monument to God. Even our lives, which differ from the more common
experiences in society, can help us to learn how to be more Christ like
in our daily lives.
When faced with a situation where we are unsure of what to do, we can
look at Christ's example. If this person were Jesus, would I visit and
comfort? If this hungry person were Jesus, would I feed? If Jesus were
the pastor of this church, how enthusiastic would I be about it? I
think if we can look a little deeper, we can see how we can take the
blessings we have been given and turn them into blessings for others.
Many of you know I have returned to college, and so now, I get
homework again. I have decided to look at homework as a blessing, and
so I want to share that blessing with you in the form of an assignment
for the week. I will not be collecting it, and I will not be grading
it, but I encourage you do the assignment anyway.
Your assignment is to research your blessings. What I would like you to
do is to offer up a prayer. You may pray aloud, silently, or just open
your heart to the guidance. Ask God to show you what resources you have
been given. Ask God why you are a purple flower in a sea of yellow. Ask
God to guide and direct your will so that you may be a good shepherd,
tending the flock in its needs. Ask for this guidance with an open
heart and an open mind, and let God bless others through you. I trust
that if you will do this, that God will make something beautiful of
your life.