Overcoming Obstacles: Living a Life that Matters

A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on October 23, 2011

at the First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

"Overcoming Obstacles: Living a Life that Matters"

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

If tomorrow was your last day, what would your legacy be?  What will you leave with the world when your time comes?

The legacy Moses leaves is unmatched.  It is extraordinary.  With God’s power and direction, he led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, across the Red Sea with God’s help hiked through the wilderness of Sin an now stand on the verge of the promised land of Canaan.  From Mount Nebo, God allows Moses to see the entire Promised Land.  He can see it, but Moses will not enter it because of the actions of the past generation broke faith with God.  This moment represents the culmination of a life lived as God’s faithful servant.  His day is done; his life complete.  And that’s where he dies, on the mountain top.  He was buried, the people mourned and the torch of leadership was passed to Joshua, son of Nun. 

Although Moses is dead, his legacy lives on established with Joshua and all the people through his teaching of the Torah, his very life and how he lived.  His legacy is a lasting one. 

I believe nobody starts out in life saying, “I want to live a life that’s mediocre, ordinary, plain; one that doesn’t ask too much from me or too much from others.”  We are given a drive deep within to discover the person God has created us to be and what our calling in life is, what is our purpose for living and where is my place in this world.  Psychologist Carl Jung says that, “act one of a young person’s life is the story of his or her setting out to conquer the world.”[1]  What will your legacy be?

We all want to live a life that matters.  We need to know that matter to someone; we matter to the world and that the world takes us seriously.[2]  We all want to know we made a difference with our life. 

Author and speaker Stephen Covey wrote about leaving a legacy: “The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence and contribution.”

Evangelist and author Billy Graham says it this way, “Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.”

What will your legacy be? 

So many days in my life I feel I wasted away; so many days wasted on meaningless, purpose-less stuff that has never made a lasting impact.  And I think about the financial resources I have squandered over the years.  I remember when I moved to Chicago after college and began attending a church there in the city.  The stewardship campaign was in full swing when I received my financial commitment card from the church asking me to prayerfully consider giving of my resources to the church.

I thought to myself, “What resources?”  I’m twenty-two years old in my first full-time job and working a part-time job, too, to make ends meet.  After the rent is paid and my other monthly bills taken care of, there are not many resources left.  I had nothing to give to the church… or so I thought.

That all changed one Sunday when Dr. Buchanan said in his sermon these words, “The life of faith is very much a journey”.  The scripture was Joshua, chapter 1, where God promises Joshua that he will be with him and the Israelites as they move forward into the Promised Land.  God wants Joshua to trust, to be strong and courageous, knowing God is with him and the people wherever they go. 

Then one of the elders gave a moment for mission on the stewardship campaign when he said, “When we dig deep to give to the church, it helps us re-order our priorities.”  He went on to ask, “If not now, when.  And if not us, who?”  When will the right time come for each of us to give sacrificially to our savior Jesus Christ and the ministry of his church? 

Who among us will step up; give sacrificially to God, and with faith, conviction and courage trust in the gracious gifts God has for us?

That evening I was looking closely at where I committed my financial resources every month.  I noticed I spent more on clothes in a month than what I gave to the church.  I noticed I spent more on eating out for lunch while at work in a month’s time than I gave to the church.  I realized this was not right.  I re-ordered my priorities and made what I believed at the time was a sacrificial financial commitment to the church: gracious living through gracious giving.  I bought fewer clothes and made my lunch at home to bring to work.

What will your legacy be?

As a young Irishwoman working in England in the late 1800s, Amy Carmichael decided to answer God’s call to serve in the mission field. She was sent to India.

The young missionary soon discovered that the way to reach the Indian people was not through preaching but through sacrifice.

So she reached out to the poorest, youngest, and most despised among them, especially the babies and children given to the Hindu temples who were forced to serve as slaves and were tortured if they were caught trying to escape. She said, “There were days when the sky turned black for me because of what I heard and knew was true. Sometimes it was as if I saw the Lord Jesus Christ kneeling alone, as he knelt long ago under the olive trees. And the only thing that one who cared could do was to go softly and kneel down beside him, so that he would not be alone in his sorrow over the little children.”

Amy not only felt sorrow for the children, but she was spurred to action. She rescued them, built a home, and recruited a staff to care for them. To those who profited from the enslavement practices, she was known as “the white woman who steals children.”

Amy Carmichael’s mission trip ended 55 years later, when she died at the age of 83. During that time she rescued over 1,000 abused, abandoned, and enslaved children. And though her stories, prayers, and devotions filled 35 books back in Britain, not once did she return to hear the praises of her friends and supporters. To Amy anything that called attention to her stole attention from the God she served. In fact in 1919, her name was published in a British honors list. When she found out about it, she wrote back to England asking to have her name removed.  It troubled her to “have an experience so different from his who was despised and rejected—not kindly honored.”

Ironically, the woman who wanted no honor other than that of being Christ’s servant became famous nonetheless, as tens of thousands of readers in Britain and America were moved by her writings. Her example of sacrificial love has encouraged countless numbers of Christians to follow her into the mission field.

            The path to a truly successful and significant life is through the relationships we form, through family, friends and through acts of generosity and self-sacrifice.  When we sacrifice ourselves for the life of another person, we make a difference in the world; we make a lasting impact on another and prove that in fact we do matter. 

What will my legacy be?  I am not a man of great financial wealth.  I won’t be leaving millions of dollars to the church or my alma maters or anybody.  So what will my legacy be?  It will be based on what kind of friend I am to others, what kind of husband I am to D’Anna, what kind of dad I am to Michael and Marissa, what kind of brother, son, cousin, nephew I am, what kind of pastor I am, on what words I say, what actions I take, on the decisions I make.  But most of all, it will be based on my relationship with God in Christ Jesus and living life in the sweet sound of God amazing grace.

When we give graciously to Christ and Christ’s church, we sacrifice ourselves and proclaim to the world that giving to the church is the answer to the idols of consumerism, materialism and acquisition that run rampant in our culture.  The challenge we face is not wealth itself.  Rather, it is the understanding that living a life that matters is not based on what we own, the home we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear and more.  It’s in the people whose lives touched ours and the lives we touched.  The legacy we leave is grounded in knowing we are all children of God because this is the place where we find comfort, hope, meaning and generosity for our lives.  Living a life that matters and leaving a legacy in the name of Jesus Christ clearly shows the world that life is not all about getting, but that true joy comes from joyful living; gracious living through gracious giving.  The offering we take every Sunday is not about the church’s need to receive, but about our need as disciples of Jesus Christ to give graciously of ourselves. 

            Moses gave himself fully to serve God and lead the Israelites to the Promised Land.  This is the legacy he left his people and all the people of the world.  He didn’t get the earthly prize, but he lived a life that mattered, a life of impact, a life of sacrifice, a life of service to God and the people.  What will your legacy be?

A legacy makes an impact that cannot always be seen or fully known.  It takes courage and faith to give sacrificially and make a significant impact to the ministry of the church.  We can trust in God to help us do this.  We can trust the one who began a good work in each of us will see it to completion in Christ Jesus our Lord.  We can trust in the one in whom all things are possible.  We can trust in the one who formed our inward parts; who knit us together in our mother’s womb.  We can trust in the one in whose book were written all the days that were formed for us, when none of them as yet existed.  We can trust God to help us leave a legacy, to live a life that matters.

Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah who declares, “I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might and he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2)

Now is the time; the time for each one of us to take courage, stand firm, trust in Him and give.  Give.

It’s our time.  Will we do it?  Of course we will.  Of course we will.

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[1] Kushner, Harold, Living a Life that Matters. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, 2001) p.4

[2] Kushner, Harold. Living a Life that Matters. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, 2001) p.5

A Fork in the Road

A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on October 16, 2011

at the First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

“A Fork in the Road”

Luke 13:10-17

             Her anger and frustration turned into apathy and indifference.  For years, one doctor after another tried to diagnose her affliction.  Every doctor visit brought some hope that she would finally know what was going on, but what little hope she had quickly faded as each doctor would come back with no answers.  She was resigned to the fact that she could not be healed.

            She had been wrestling with this medical riddle for over eighteen years.  Walking around hunched over at the waist is painful and uncomfortable.  People avoided her and kept their distance.  She was kicked out, pushed out, locked out and kept out on the fringes of society.  Loneliness and sadness were her only companions.

            Yet even with her physical issues, she was faithful to her God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  It was the Sabbath.  She made her way to the synagogue for worship.  As she is quietly sneaking into the service that had already begun, the rabbi calls her out from the crowd to come over to him.  She’s thinking to herself, “What does he want with me?  Am I in trouble?  Am I behind on my stewardship commitment?  What does he want with me?”

Expecting the worst, she gets the surprise of her life when he says, “Woman, you are set free from your aliment” and places his hands on her hunched shoulders and crooked back and immediately she could stand up straight: chest out, stomach in and her head held high.  Her aliment is gone.  Her eighteen years of suffering, gone.  Her eighteen years of one disappointment after another, gone.  Her anger and frustration, gone. 

Her indifference and apathy are quickly transformed into excitement, joy, amazement and awe.  After eighteen years, imprisoned by her aliment, she is free.  Free from the evil spirit that bound her for far too long; free from Satan’s power, influence and control over her life.  Jesus takes the initiative and the healing becomes a sign of a larger truth.  She is a new creation by God’s transforming power; a power made accessible only through Jesus Christ.

            For Jesus has authority over the forces of Satan that left this woman badly crippled for so long.  This demonstrates something very important for us to see and know: it demonstrates the breaking-in of God’s rule in human life meeting us, you could say, at a fork in the road.  In other words, since Jesus is the son of God and God is not bound by the limits of time and space, God in Jesus Christ intersects linear, human time and enters our world fully human and fully God.  At one time, God’s power was inaccessible, kept at a distance, as illustrated in the Israelites journey from slavery in Egypt to forty years in the wilderness to their arrival in the Promise Land.  Now we have unlimited access to God’s transforming power through Jesus Christ.  The healing Jesus performs is a call to decision, a call to “repentance and changed lives”. 

            Of course with any change comes some resistance.  Throughout his ministry, people got mad and upset with Jesus because of the things he did and said, especially the religious leaders of his day.  When Jesus chooses to heal the crippled woman in the synagogue on the Sabbath, the leader of the synagogue was indignant.  He was consumed with rage and self-righteous anger over what he witnessed.  He was convinced that he was absolutely right and Jesus was absolutely wrong. His interpretation of the Law is strict and without compromise.  He follows the “letter” of the law: healing was considered work and work was prohibited on the Sabbath.

            Jesus interprets the law differently.  He knows the “letter” of the law, but he also knows the “spirit” of the law.  Jesus does not mince words when he confronts the leader directly.  The plural “hypocrites” is an indictment of the leader and all his colleagues in this conflict who are blind to the truth and evidence of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus’ argument is irrefutable.  If you are allowed to free an animal to lead it to water on the Sabbath, then why not this daughter of Abraham be freed and released from Satan’s grip on the Sabbath?  The leader has no response to Jesus.  The people at the synagogue rejoice.  He refutes the limited, human interpretation of the law with God’s unlimited interpretation. 

            This is a sign of the breaking-in of God’s rule, the Kingdom of God, into human life.  In Jesus Christ, we have access to God’s power.  The gates are open.  The User ID and password are removed and we have free, unlimited, Wi-Fi access to the God of the universe.  The peace of the way things have always been was shattered by Jesus.  As Pastor Fred Craddock puts it, “If helping a stooped woman creates a crisis, then a crisis it has to be.”

            This is a crisis that raises a moral issue of how the law is to be interpreted.  The religious leaders are blind to the real meaning of things because they do not perceive the presence and influence of the Kingdom of God on earth.  They do not perceive that they are in a time of crisis, a time for repentance and changed lives.  The breaking-in of the Kingdom of God into human life is turning the world as they know it upside down. 

            The leader of the synagogue is “blind” to the remarkable restoration of a daughter of Abraham.  Crippled and destitute, the woman was a social outcast and excluded from the community.  With her healing restoration, she is reinstated into membership in the community of Israel. 

Imagine if our new member class turned people away because they were crippled in some way, or they were too old or too young or they didn’t make enough money or their skin was the wrong color or they have an unusual accent or the wrong sexual orientation or they were too tall or too short or they didn’t pray enough.  The leader of the synagogue and so many others fail to see the hand of God at work in the present.

            We today live in a time of crisis, a time for repentance and changed lives.  How are we to respond?  God took the first step to change the world by bringing us back to Him through his son Jesus Christ.  What is our plan of action?

            Have you noticed that when times are good, when life is humming along, that we stop adapting, growing and transforming ourselves?  But when times are tough, uncertain, and challenging, that’s when we grow as individuals, as a community and as a church.

            Pastor, author and radio host Leith Anderson describes it this way, “Adversity is often the window of opportunity for change.  Few people or organizations want to change when there is prosperity and peace.  Major changes are often precipitated by necessity.” 

We live in a time of crisis and adversity.  We took so many things for granted.  Things we thought would always be there have changed.  The use of e-books with a Kindle, a Nook or an iPad has increased dramatically in the last couple of years.  Some predict that e-books will have the same impact today as the printing press did when it was introduced in the early 1500s.  Barnes and Noble, who sells the Nook, have taken notice encouraging their customers to purchase the Nook and their e-books from them.  They see the end of the era of the printed page fast approaching.

            The unemployment rate is currently around 9.1%.  The debt crisis in Greece, the downgrade of our nation’s credit rating, the volatile stock market and our nation’s debt are taking a toll on us.  Businesses of all sizes are not hiring.  I’ve read that most businesses are living with a great deal of uncertainty an anxiety.  With so many people unemployed, the ripple effect extends into all segments of our economy with record house foreclosures, loan defaults, and reduced consumer spending for goods and services.  It is a crisis of not knowing what tomorrow will bring.  It’s a crisis of confidence.

            The good news is that it is in times of crisis and adversity that we as Christians have a prime opportunity to proclaim to the world the one who is stable, unchanging, eternal and a sure hope for tomorrow.  It is in times like these that we can influence and show the world that a life with Jesus is a sure bet, a worthy investment.  It is in times like these that we can proclaim and demonstrate that giving to the church is the answer to the idols of consumerism, materialism and acquisition that run rampant in our culture.  The challenge we face is not wealth itself.  Rather, it is the understanding that our self-worth is based on what we own, the home we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear and much more.  Our identity is grounded in knowing we are all children of God; this is where we find comfort, hope, meaning and generosity for our walk with Christ.  It is in times like these that we can turn the world upside down in the name of Jesus Christ, showing that life is not all about getting, but that true joy comes from joyful living; gracious living through gracious giving.  The offering we take every Sunday is not about the church’s need to receive, but about our need as disciples of Jesus Christ to give graciously of ourselves.  As Walt Whitman put it, “When I give, I give myself.” 

            The healing of the crippled woman in the synagogue broke the status quo of her day.  God stretched out to her, transforming her into a new creation of God in Christ Jesus.

            No matter where we find ourselves, God can take what appears to be our ruined, hopeless lives and turn it around upside down to do good in the world.

Eric Liddell, the famous Olympic athlete and Christian missionary from Britain of whom Chariots of Fire was made, said it best, “Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins.  Our broken lives are not lost or useless.  God comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out his wonderful plan of love.”

As his disciples, we have access to God’s transforming power to bring healing and wholeness to one another and to the world as gracious givers rather than as rampant consumers; to declare to the whole world the saving power of Jesus Christ with our words and actions; our time, talents and treasures. 

With this as our goal, what will you do to make it a reality?

So What's Your Excuse?

A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on October 9, 2011

at the First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

So What’s Your Excuse?

Exodus 32:1-14

I remember on several occasions as a kid when my parents taught me to do one thing, I promised to obey, and then turned around to do something else.  Many times did I incur the wrath of my parents, who would always ask me, “Why did you do that?  We told you not to do it.”  What was my excuse?  “I don’t know.”  I figured out early in life that this answer was the best answer to offer.  I figured if I pleaded stupidity they cut me some slack.  It didn’t work that way.

There was the time I got mad at my younger brother, Andy, and I threw a rock hitting him on the head.  He ran crying to my parents.  My dad came out and asked me, “Why did you do that?”  The reply: “I don’t know.” 

Then there was the classic “I promise to be home before my curfew or I’ll be grounded” promise.  Can you guess how many times I was late getting home and missed my curfew?  The question wasn’t “why” but “where have you been?  Do you realize your late?”  My reply: “I don’t know.  My watch stopped working.”  Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Why are we so prone to excuse ourselves from our promises?

We’ve all made promises in our lives requiring varied degrees of commitment.  They range from promising to be home on time to the promises made in wedding vows; from promising to help a neighbor in need to promising to do a job for the agreed upon wage.  We all strive to keep our promises.  We know it is a sign of integrity and that you are someone who can be trusted and someone who is true to their word.  And yet, we still break our promises routinely making up excuses in some cases: calling in sick to work when we’re not sick or not paying others what we owe them and the list goes on.

Why are we so prone to excuse ourselves from our promises?

Our scripture reading today from Exodus is disturbing.  Moses is up on Mt. Sinai chatting with God about the Torah, the Law.  Having already received the Ten Commandments, Moses has shared them with the people of Israel and they promised to obey and follow these commandments.  They formed a covenant with God.  This story is disturbing to me because of how quickly the nation of Israel has turned away from its promises to God.  This moment of great importance in the drama of Israel’s salvation by God is followed by a shameful denial by the people of the very love and power that has saved them.  Having been compassionately embraced and delivered from the peril, the people, in their anxiety, turn away from God to the gods of gold.[1]  Why all the anxiety?

Moses was late.  He missed his curfew, the one set by the Israelites.  In their eyes, Moses was missing.  Their leader was missing.  Moses has made several trip up Mount Sinai to receive more details and clarity on the Torah.   He would sometimes take Aaron and other leaders of the people with him.  For Moses, to be on these excursions was not unusual.  But this time he went alone.  Even though Moses promised to return, they don’t think he’s coming back this time.  To Israel Moses was a man of God, the channel of God’s guidance and strength for a people who desperately needed it more than anything.  Israel was acting out of their fears and impatience about the apparent absence of divine and human leadership, instead of trusting in the Lord’s promises of his abiding presence and then acting accordingly.[2]

Why are we so prone to excuse ourselves from our promises?

The people plead for new leadership; “to make gods for us, who shall go before us” (Exodus 32:2).  And the golden calf was born!  Let the celebration begin!

We are not immune from the desire to have gods made for us.  We are not immune from idolatry.  We make idols of anybody and anything we can.  Here are some search results from an Internet search for "We have made an idol…"

·         We have made an idol of progress

·         We have made an idol of our families

·         We have made an idol out of our past

·         We have made an idol out of God

·         We have made an idol of our church building

·         We have made an idol of our own opinion

·         We have made an idol of our own wants

·         We have made an idol of youth, to name just a few.

Everyone kneels before the golden calf, even those of us who have received the saving love and grace of God with less than the full devotion and commitment that it demands. How are we to remain faithful and keep our promise to God through obedience of the law’s requirements?

The golden calf was to be the Israelites’ new god, but instead it was an idol, and the second commandment explicitly prohibited the Israelites from making idols (Exodus 20:4-5).  The promises the Israelites made with God are broken.  The covenant is null and void because of their unfaithfulness.  And God is furious!

God is so indignant, so angry, he does not call them his people.  They’re Moses’ people.  God essentially threatens to disown the Israelites.  God declares that his anger is so hot that he will consume all the people and start over with Moses. 

Moses could have said, “You can do that?  Of course you can.  Blast them off the surface of the earth.  Besides, I am sick of their complaining.”  But he didn’t.

            Moses becomes the mediator between the God of the universe and God’s stiff-necked people on earth.   His reasoning is brilliant and effective:  1) Why give the Egyptians a reason to judge God as evil for killing his people in the desert, and 2) Reminding God of the promises originally made to Abraham, Issac and Jacob to multiply their descendants and to live in the Promised Land forever.  And God changes his mind.  He decides not to exterminate his people from the face of the earth.

            God accepts dialogue such as our prayers of thanksgiving, confession and pleas for mercy.  God’s ultimate purposes remain firm, but the means and timing to carry them out is open to change.

            As Moses interceded for the Israelites, so we, too, have one who intercedes on our behalf with God, Jesus Christ; because we cannot keep our promises to God and to others on our own, by ourselves.  We all need help.  We all need a savior to intercede on our behalf, to bless us with grace and mercy.

Grace is unmerited favor. It is the startling act of God working on behalf of the very ones who have violated his covenant and substituted gods of their own making for him. Grace can be understood by contrasting it to mercy, which is another divine attribute. Mercy is God's withholding punishment we deserve; grace is God's giving us blessings we don't deserve.

How important is it when we have failed to live up to our promises to him, that God still lives up to his promises to us?

Yes, there's judgment. Yes, there's accountability. But there's also grace, and any image of God that leaves that out is no more than a calf of gold.

Writer Kathleen Norris tells of being at an airport departure gate one day where she noticed a young couple with an infant. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, no matter if it were young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried-looking, he would respond with absolute delight. Norris writes:

“It was beautiful to see. Our drab departure gate had become the gate of heaven. And as I watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, I ... realized that this is how God looks as us, staring into our faces in order to be delighted, to see the creature he made and called good, along with the rest of creation. And, as Psalm 139 puts it, darkness is as nothing to God, who can look right through whatever evil we've done in our lives to the creature made in the divine image.”

Possibly "only God and well-loved infants can see this way," Norris says, but it means that God can look right through our guilt trips, our failures and our agonies, our phoniness, our invented deities and our sins, and see someone he loves.[3]

“God has promised to keep his people, and he will keep his promise.”[4]  This is the Good News of the Gospel. Believe it and live it.  Amen.

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[1] Texts for Preaching, Year A, Proper 23: Ordinary Time 28 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) p.516.

[2] Homiletics, vol. 23, number 5, October 2011, p. 50 commentary.

[3] Norris, Kathleen. Amazing Grace. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998, 150-51.

[4] Spurgeon, Charles. 1001 Quotes, Illustrations, & Humorous Stories for Preachers, Teachers and Writers. Edward K. Rowell, editor. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996, p.139.

If You Love Me, Then Prove It - 9/25/11

A sermon preached by the Reverend Scott D. Nowack on September 25, 2011

at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

If You Love Me, Then Prove It

Exodus 17:1-7

There was a game we played in youth group called, “If you love me, won’t you please smile?”  Everybody would grab a chair and sit in a circle.  One person was "it".  They were in the middle without a chair.  The person who was "It" had to ask someone the big question, “If you love me, won’t you please smile?”  If the targeted person must say without laughing, "I love you, but I just can't smile." If the targeted person laughs at any time, then that person is "It".  If the targeted person does not laugh, then "it" must find another person to target.  In order to get someone to smile, one could resort to a limited but effective bag of tricks.  You could make funny faces.  You could speak in a weird, strange voice.  But you couldn’t touch or tickle them.  And some people where harder to crack than others. 

            As the Israelites move by stages through the wilderness, this is one of their favorite games to play.  First, it starts by asking God, “If you love us, give us something to eat.”  Now they’re making the same complaint, but this time it is for water: “If you love us, give us water to drink.”  The ultimate question they are asking is found in verse 7, “Is the Lord among us or not?”  In other words, “You say that you love us, Yahweh.  And if you really do, you’ll give us what we want.”

            Israel is STILL not sure that God is faithful or reliable.  God had promised to keep the people safe if they listened to his voice and did what was right in his sight (15:26), but they still complained and were impatient.  Israel appears to be testing God, to find out about God’s power and might.  They are looking for a way in which God can be coerced to act or show himself to be faithful and trustworthy. 

            These are the same people who witnessed first-hand the power of God: the gifts of quail in the evening and manna in the morning, the plagues unleashed in Egypt, and the walls of water crashing down and destroying the Egyptian army after crossing the Red Sea. 

            How often do we put God in Christ Jesus to the test?  How often do we pray, ‘Lord, if you do a, b, and c, then I’ll do d, e, and f.’  How often do we dictate the terms of our relationship with God?  Have you ever said, “Oh God, if you help me out of this situation, then I’ll go to church every Sunday no matter what.”  Or “If you’re really here with me, then give me a sign.” 

            Asking these questions is to set God up, to try to force God’s hand in order to determine concretely whether God is really present or not.  Israel’s testing of God went like this: if we are to believe that God is really present, then God must show us in a concrete way by making water materialize.  It is to make one’s faith and belief in God contingent upon such a demonstration.  In essence, it is an attempt to turn faith into sight. 

Do they not understand that having saved and protected them thus far, God does not intend to let them perish in the wilderness through dehydration?  God has invested a great deal of time and resources to bring the Israelites out of slavery to get them to the Promised Land.  In a place that is empty of resources for life is filled with God’s resolve to preserve life.  God is going to do whatever he has to do to make this work.  He does not have to answer to a CEO or shareholders on what’s happening with this project.  The water they receive from God through the rock is pure, unconditional grace and mercy.  God is not going anywhere.

If you love me, then prove it!  The proof of God’s amazing love for the Israelites is that he continues, time and time again, to meet their needs and not their greeds.  And not only that, but he promises to sustain them in the days to come in a far more significant manner than with simple food and drink, and that is with the principles and ordinances by which they are to live: the law of God beginning with the Ten Commandments.

It’s easy for us today to read about the Israelites situation and point out their lack of faith and not believing that the God who led them out of slavery to freedom to be faithful or reliable or trustworthy.  Let’s be honest with ourselves and one another: we would much rather turn our faith into sight, to turn what is unseen to what is seen.  I want God at my disposal.  I want him right where I can see him.  I want the “God” app on my iPhone or for God to be one of MY followers on my Twitter account.  We place God in the role of the servant, placing him at our beck and call whenever we need him. 

Such an attitude endangers our understanding of faith.  It leads to destructive attitudes such as: “God did not heal or protect you, because you did not have enough faith.  If you had, God would have acted.”  This is to put God to the test, demonstrating an inappropriate belief system that God is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do grants our "wishes" and our earthly "desires".

When good things are happening and life is going our way, we so readily give thanks to God for blessing us with so much goodness.  But when the tables turn on us, and life is not going our way anymore, one of the first questions we ask is, “God, where are you?  Why would you let this happen?  Are you among us or not?”  Or even worse, we forget about God altogether.

People today are troubled by this same question, “Is the Lord among us or not?”.  It lurks secretly behind a façade of piety and proper practice as a member of a church.  The deepest thirst of people today is to get this question answered, this issue resolved.  Is the Lord among us or not?

Here’s the awesome and amazing truth: the answer is yes!  God is among the Israelites meeting their needs and not their greeds.  And God is among us today.  The Bible says that the proof of God’s amazing love and grace is this: while we were still sinners, Jesus Christ, the son of God, died for our sins on our behalf.  We didn’t earn this.  We don’t deserve it.  You and I do not have to have our act together, we don’t have to wear the right clothes to church, we don’t have to pretend we are perfect in order to fool everyone around us into thinking we are something we are not.  Why?  Because while you and I were still imperfect, unfinished, unpolished diamonds in the rough, the God of all creation, the God of the universe, the one who made the stars and gave the earth it’s frame, said to each one of us, “I love you and I’ll always be here with you, no matter what.  I love you so much that I want to be in a relationship with you and if that means that I must sacrifice my only son, Jesus the Christ, to make it happen, then so be it!  I'll do whatever it takes! 

Through our scripture reading today and throughout the Bible, God has shown us time and time again that God is with us and will never leave us or forsake us.  Each one of us is called by God to be a disciple of Jesus Christ no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done or left undone.  We are precious children of God.

Twentieth century pastor and author Andrew Murray puts it this way: “God has no more precious gift to a church or any time in history than a man or woman who lives as an embodiment of his will, and inspires those around him or her with the faith of what grace can do.”

We are called to answer the question, “Is the Lord among us or not?” with how we live our lives every day, showing those whom we encounter the amazing grace of God.  This is where God wants us to serve, so we can demonstrate what grace can do.

And as long as the Lord of the universe is with us, then we are right where we are supposed to be.  Where else would you want to be?

This is the good news of the Gospel.  Amen.

The Mystery of Mercy - 9/18/11

A sermon preached by The Reverend Scott Dennis Nowack

on September 18, 2011 at the First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore, Texas.

The Mystery of Mercy

Exodus 16:2-15

A large dog walks into a butcher shop carrying a purse in its mouth. He puts the purse down and sits in front of the meat case.

"What is it, boy?" the butcher jokingly asks. "Want to buy some meat?"

"Woof!" barks the dog.

"Hmm," says the butcher. "What kind? Liver, bacon, steak?" 

"Woof!" interrupts the dog.

"And how much steak? Half a pound, one pound . . ."

"Woof!"

The amazed butcher wraps up the meat and finds the money in the dog's purse. As the dog leaves the butcher decides to follow. The dog enters an apartment house, climbs to the third floor and begins scratching at a door. With that, the door swings open and an angry man starts shouting at the dog.

"Stop!" yells the butcher. "He's the most intelligent animal I've ever seen!"

"Intelligent?" says the man. "This is the third time this week he's forgotten his key." 

Some people are impossible to please.  And some of those people include the recently released Israelites.

In one of the most astounding displays of ingratitude in the Bible, just one and a half months after being freed from captivity in Egypt, the Israelites began grumbling and complaining to their leaders about traveling conditions, and even insisted that their leaders, Moses and Aaron, were trying to kill them in the desert by starving them to death!  The Israelites are acting like an institutionalized criminal released from prison after decades of incarceration scared of how to live in a world of freedom.  The Israelites recall with selective memory their days as slaves in Egypt to be a much better place than living in freedom with their God. 

They don’t get it.  They are questioning the methods and work of the God of all creation.  How the Israelites see themselves and their situation does not match up to this new reality; they have not yet become who God created them to be.

How do you respond to someone who complains?  When I was in high school and college, I worked in different types of stores such as American Eagle and CVS.  I interacted regularly with the customers.  Most of the time it was a fun and I enjoyed meeting people.  But there were those few people who were impossible to please; whatever you did it was never good enough.  I was amazed at how well I kept my cool in these situations.  Deep inside I wanted to let them have it!  But I kept my composure and tried to smile a lot.  I would respond in a polite and courtesy manner, although I really wanted to do knock them into next week.  I tried to be a person of grace and mercy.

When God hears us complain about our lives, about what’s going wrong with us, God does not respond with a word of anger; rather, he promises to rain bread from heaven, enough to sustain us for that specific day.    God meets our needs, not our greeds.  In Egypt, the Israelites were completely dependent on the Egyptians to provide them food to eat; they always had enough for the day.  Through Moses and Aaron, God wants to teach the Israelites to place their trust in the gifts of God and be dependent on Him for all their daily needs.  God’s gifts to the Israelites are to be found not only in the extraordinary miracles, but also in the ordinary, the small stuff of everyday; found in our needs and not our greeds.  God’s mercy and presence are demonstrated to us in all parts of our lives, large and small moments, insignificant and significant events.

The sixteenth century poet and minister John Donne put it this way.  He said, “We are God’s tenants here, and yet here he, our landlord, pays us rent – not yearly, nor quarterly, but hourly and quarterly; every minute he renews his mercy.”  God is actively participating in our ordinary lives.

There’s a TV show on the A&E channel called “Hoarders”.  It’s a reality show that tries to help individuals who are unable to get rid of their stuff to clean house and come to grips with their current reality.  Pathological hoarding is the selfish acquisition of possessions (and failure to use or discard them) in excess of socially normative amounts, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. Compulsive hoarding may impair mobility and interfere with basic activities such as cooking, cleaning, hygiene, sanitation and sleeping.  It is not clear whether compulsive hoarding is an isolated disorder, or rather a symptom of another condition, such as OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder.⁽[i]⁾

            This is a troubling condition because of its wide impact on the lives of so many.  They are stuck and overwhelmed by what they have created.  To some degree, we’ve all been stuck with a hoarding mentality.  We have all experienced the fear we will not have enough, that we will run out of money and lose everything we’ve worked so hard to earn; that we will run out of time, missing out on some of the best years of our lives, so we desperately hold on to all we can get our hands on.  Does the church hoard its resources?  In times of decline, how do churches react?  They react by cutting the budget and doing away with ministries in part or altogether.  Since 2008, I’ve met so many ordained ministers who were dismissed from their call because of the economic recession.  It’s a hunker down attitude storing our resources in a safe place as if preparing for a major snowstorm or a major hurricane to blow through, as if the problem is a temporary one that will come and go.  Fear and anxiety of the future replace faith and hope.  The issue becomes learning to primarily rely on God, rather than ourselves, for one’s daily needs, “for where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”(Luke 12:34). 

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we only pray will give us our daily bread, for there will be no hoarding of the gifts of God’s creation, no building of larger and larger barns, no fear about what is lawful to eat, and no anxiety over who is to be included in or excluded from the kingdom of God. 

The increasing gap between rich and poor in our community and in societies around the globe is certainly in part due to the hoarding of manna.  It witnesses to our failure to recognize that all that we have is due to God’s goodness, love and mercy for us, not our ability to gather manna better than anyone else.  The world God made is to be structured so that nobody goes without their basic needs of food, water and shelter.  But yet even in the face of misuse and our failure to disobey God’s commands, God’s gracious mercy prevails.  The manna from God in heaven comes every day without fail as described right up until the Isrealites reach the promised land.

            The mystery of God’s mercy is it is on-going, recurring, non-stop, persistent, never ending and trustworthy gift found in Jesus Christ.  Our worship life and our community life is not simply to focus on the dramatic acts of God, but also to provide remembrances of how the simple, little things often overlooked in our daily lives are undergirded by the sustaining, consistent care of God. 

Some people are impossible to please.  With God in Christ Jesus, all things are possible.

           

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[i] Steketee G, Frost R (December 2003). "Compulsive hoarding: current status of the research". Clin Psychol Rev 23 (7): 905–27. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2003.08.002. PMID 14624821.