Preached at Canadochly and Grace on June 2, 2019
Preaching text: None
I hadn’t intended it this way, but this Easter season has become a pair of mini-sermon series. The first one, towards the beginning of the season, was about all the things that get us stuck and prevent us from following Jesus the way he or even we would like. That was three sermons. Then, two weeks ago, I preached on the New Commandment: Love one another as Jesus has loved us. That led to a challenge where a congregation member asked me “How do we love?” So I tried to answer that in the following sermon; last week. Today, as we mark the Ascension of Jesus into heaven at the end of his earthly ministry, I find myself drawn to answer another question related to the New Commandment: Why?
Why should we love as Christ has loved? So part three of my second sermon series this Easter season.
Some of you who helped out on Tuesday got to meet some of my gamer friends. They’re a diverse and interesting bunch. Some are Christian, many are not. Some are agnostic or atheist and are quite skeptical of any religion, including and often particularly ours. Some are quite critical or even derisive towards Christianity. I try not to let them get under my skin when they start doing that. Instead, I try to understand why they think and feel what they do about God and about Christians. One of the more taunting things say about God is they’ll call him the “invisible sky god.”
You know, there’s a lot of truth to that mocking title. Most of us, I think, understand heaven to be “elsewhere,” but for simplicity’s sake, we typically refer to it as above us, in the sky. As to invisible, well, yeah. We don’t see or experience God with our physical senses. Walk by faith, not by sight, and all that.
Now when Jesus was here on Earth, God was tangible to us. We could see him, talk to him, touch him, hear his voice. He was “real” in a physical sense. But that was 2000 years ago and Jesus has long sense left this world in a bodily sense. We no longer see him, touch him, listen to him with our physical senses. He is invisible once more.
Now I firmly believe that God understands this to be a bit of a problem. It is easier for us physical creatures to believe and trust in that which we can experience in this physical reality. That is why we are gifted with the sacraments. In those holy rites, God gives us something physical, something we can see, touch, taste, hear, and experience with our bodily senses. He gives us his presence in and through the water, the wine, and the bread. He makes himself real to us in a physical sense yet again.
But that is our gift here in the Church. A gift we receive in faith that has little meaning to those out there. But what makes God real to all of them? What is their sacrament? After all, God hardly limits his grace and love to the Church alone, but his heart beats for all the world and all its people. How does he become “real” to them?
Well, you can probably guess the answer. We are the world’s sacrament.
You, me, all of us. We are the ones that make God real to the world. There’s an old saying, “You may be the only Bible some people ever read.” And that’s true. What does your life say to them?
No pressure.
Truth is, it really isn’t that hard. Most of us have a heart for God. We want to become better people, better believers. We want to grow in faith and love. We want the world to be a better place. By in large, our motives align closely with our creator, even if our actions don’t always align with those motives. That’s sin, our seemingly constant plague and our inability to perfectly follow even our best of intentions.
But, you know something. We fail, but God picks us up, lovingly brushes off the dirt, and tells us to try again. That’s forgiveness, another wonderful gift of his. We fail all the time, but as he never stops forgiving, we also are driven to never stop trying.
So be kind. Be loving. Welcome the stranger. Aid the sick. Speak up for the voiceless. Stand up against evil. Love one another. And as we do that, together and individually, the world will start to see God. He will become real to them because his love will become real in and through us.
People will start to realize how important they are. How much they matter. How beloved they are. Jesus is not here in body, but he’s passed the torch to us. What was once his job is now ours.
A long time ago, back right after I graduated from college, I remember we were having one of our late night parties. Pretty sure we were drinking. One of my friends let the booze get to his head a little too much and he got real dark. Started talking about how worthless he felt and how his life was meaningless. He was dead serious and we started getting worried. Where was he going with this? Was he going to do something dangerous? So we rallied around him, starting telling him how much he meant to each of us. How important he was. All his good qualities. How we believed in him and trusted him and cared about him. College age guys aren’t usually the type to pour their hearts out like that, but we did it. It was a holy moment and it’s stayed with me for almost 25 years.
That not-so-young (now, anyway) man is married, father of two kids, great job, veteran of our armed services. He got his life together. He’s also now a believer. That is what Jesus is talking about. That is what “love one another” does. It makes God real. It makes his love real. That’s our job. Now that Jesus has ascended, it falls to us. Can we make God real for those we encounter in our lives? I hope so. Love one another. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment