THE READINGS (TNIV)
First Reading: 2 Corinthians 5: 17-20.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to [the Creator] in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And [God] has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making [the divine] appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
Gospel Reading: Luke 22: 24-30
A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as [God, my parent] conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God of heaven and earth, we ask You to walk beside us on our journey this and every day. We thank You for leading us deeper and deeper into a life blessed by You. We seek Your guidance today. May my words about the journey and all the mediations of our hearts be pleasing to you, O God, our creator. Amen.
I started this sermon over four times. Now I have shared with you before that I have come to know that God is not in the business of making easy revelations and that I am honored when the Spirit causes me to wrestle with God over the texts—to struggle with them—to bring them to life in such a way that they are meaningful in our hearing and, most of all, in our living. And this week brought struggle and even some frustration as I carried with me our texts throughout the week and pondered what God was going to say to us on this day. Sometimes, the process makes itself clear, other times I feel as if what God is trying to say is just beyond my grasp, until, all at once, it becomes clear. Perhaps life itself is much like that—it remains somewhat confusing until it, well, isn’t. And so, this week, I spent extra time reflecting on these scriptures and our 4-week journey and I trust that God will use my words to bring this sermon series on the experience of Holy Communion to a close in a manner that allows us to honor and incorporate what we have garnered along the way into an ever-increasingly meaningful celebration of coming to the Table in this community in this time.
Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians does what Paul does best—he calls the people to come to an understanding of the grace they have been given. Listen: “… if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” And lest we be confused about who should get the credit for this, Paul states, “ All this is from God, who reconciled us through Christ “. But, wait, God isn’t done with us, God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation”. In our week of study regarding “right relationship” we took a brief look at reconciliation—that notion that we are made right with God through the life and sacrifice of Christ Jesus. And here we are, being given the ministry of reconciliation by this same God. It is not enough to merely experience our own reconciliation, we must spread the ministry beyond our own isolated experience. Our Gospel passage relates here.
In a rather somewhat strange, though sadly predictable chain of events, the disciples are having a discussion just after they participate with Jesus in the celebration of passing the cup and bread in remembrance of his life and coming death. Now you would think that their minds would be on spiritual things—focused on the work of God in their lives. Alas, the disciples have done it again. Tripping over themselves and their lack of understanding, the disciples are engaged in a rather unflattering argument. Luke records it this way: “A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, ‘… the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.’” Jesus, himself, tells them that he is a servant among them and challenges them to turn their routine upside down. His call to servanthood is the key to our understanding the path of responsibility that leads away from the Table each week. Nevertheless, my choice of the word responsibility, may take some unpacking.
I think that part of our confusion about responsibility comes from the way we traditionally use the word. The adults in my childhood routinely talked about “learning” responsibility. Like being responsible was an unpleasant task that one could accomplish by acquiring certain skills and abilities—chiefly around things such as obeying laws and making enough money so as not to be a burden on society. I don’t mean to be sarcastic here. I truly think that my well-meaning, down-to-earth, mid-western relatives believed that these two things were the primary things that make us ‘responsible”. I learned that education was primarily for the purpose of securing a sufficiently-paying job and that any aesthetic pleasure associated with learning was a nice side effect if it happened, but certainly not the most important aspect of learning. I learned that it was important to be able to take care of yourself and your family and to understand that one should not look to others for things that you could and should be providing for yourself. And while your experience may have differed from mine somewhat, I think that the outcome may have been similar. The word responsible has at least a sweet and sour taste in our mouths as we often make judgments about our own responsibility and, more likely, the responsibility of others.
Dictionaries define responsibility as 1) being responsible: as a moral, legal, or mental accountability or 2) reliability, trustworthiness or, finally, something for which one is responsible as in burden. No wonder we do not want to think about a path of responsibility leading from the Table into the rest of our lives. Here, however, the word responsibility refers to our ability to respond to this newness of life and creation that Paul calls us to. Jesus, then, shows us the nature of that response—the taking on of servanthood with all those who walk this way with us.
What if we begin to think of responsibility like this? R-E-S-P-O-N-S-E A-B-I-L-I-T-Y. What if we begin to discuss our actions after we leave this Table as focused on the notion of our ability to respond to the new creation that we have become by God grace in Christ Jesus. What if servanthood becomes the logical response in humility as we come to more deeply and truly understand that the new covenant is a covenant of grace—not something that we have earned, but something that God has freely given. What if we begin to view our on-going reconciliation in the process of righting all relationships with God, each other, ourselves and the world as the necessary response to the grace we so bountifully enjoy in God’s exceeding abundance? Here’s what I think…
I believe that we are called on to be ever-new, ever-changing creations in response to this new covenant that God has graced us with. I believe that we are called upon to listen to the still, soft voice of the Spirit as we are led by the rushing of the Holy Spirit to explore the deeper and deeper aspects of our spiritual lives each week—to listen to that voice call us into greater and greater reconciliation with our God, our selves, and our world. I believe that God is calling us to experience radical reconciliation with those whom have never before felt welcome in church—any church of any kind. I believe that God is calling us to focus on reconciliation with the rest of creation—with the earth, with marginalized peoples everywhere, and with our selves. I believe that the new covenant calls us to unearth the long-held, deeply buried voices of our past that tell us that we cannot be all that God calls us to be, not as people or not as a church. I believe that God is calling us to lovingly say ‘no’ to those limits that we have placed on ourselves or allowed others to place on us in the past.
What would it look like if we came each week to this Table and opened ourselves up to each other, to our innermost selves, and, most of all, to the working of the Holy Spirit in new and challenging ways? What would it feel like to say, “Ok, God, you’ve got my attention, my full attention…I’m open to you today, really open. With whom have I failed to be reconciled? With the earth? With myself over some long ago hurt or wound? This is the path of response ability—the responsibility that we freely take on to be always open to God’s call to be more than we limit ourselves to be, more than we limit this church to be.
And as we allow ourselves to be fully servant to our fellow travelers and to God, I believe that God will lead us into an increasingly abundant experience of the New Covenant—to an experience that allows us to find ourselves in the loving and serving of all of creation. For, we are in Christ and the new creation has come…come taste and see, “the old has gone, the new is here!” Amen and amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment