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4 Epiphany, Year
B
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
God Sets A Good Example “The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion . . . he is ever mindful of his covenant.” Earlier this month, I had the privilege of providing a wedding ceremony for a couple – Joe and Sherry -- in Marietta, Georgia. As I explained to them, a bride and groom are the “ministers of the ceremony.” They marry each other. I merely provided them with a solemn, structured forum in which to take their vows. There they made their marriage covenant public and binding before God and witnesses. I even did that old-fashioned thing of having them grasp each other’s forearms while I tied my stole in a knot around their wrists. As my dear old Granny used to say, they tied a knot with their tongues they could not untie with their teeth. The language in the marriage ceremony that precedes “I will” is legal language. Joe and Sherry declared that they will “live together in the covenant of marriage.” It sounds like contract language – this for that – quid pro quo. You fulfill your side of the bargain; I’ll fulfill mine. You wash the car; I’ll take out the trash. But the marriage language is really that of a covenant. Covenant language in the Biblical sense covers much more ground than a mere contract. God does not have a contract with us. God has a covenant with us. God’s covenant with us has been sealed with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The covenant mentioned in our Psalm for today reveals the grace of God. It reveals that there is strong feeling between the two parties making the agreement. The focus is on the relationship. In the marriage ceremony, the couple declares that their relationship will last until they are separated by death. Sadly, it doesn’t always end up that way. Our relationship with God, on the other hand, is not ever going to end. God already tied the knot with us, so to speak, when we took our baptismal vows. In a covenant relationship, people talk to each other. There is some give and take that keeps the conversation going. In Old Testament times, covenants between God and his people were initiated by God. They were sheer grace. Noah, for example, found “grace in the eyes of the Lord.” God used covenants to demonstrate his love to people who did not know his love. God gave. The people were the recipients. The least little glimmer of faith on the part of the people pleased God greatly. By using covenants, God set the example for us to live by. The covenants were usually something like this: If the people God dealt with would abide by his laws – the Ten Commandments, for example, then they would flourish. There was mutual responsibility. My parents used to quote this one to their five children: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the earth.” I think the miracle of God’s covenants with humans is the fact that God was willing to enter into any kind of an agreement with us. After all, God is God, and God could have made us robots without wills. Then we would have served God with no questions asked. However, God gave us free wills with which we can choose to love God or choose not to love God. It’s up to us. But God honors any spark of enthusiasm that we show toward him. If we are looking for God and seeking God, we will find God and be found by him. One of the earliest covenants God made was with Noah and all the animals after the Great Flood. As a sign of God’s promise to Noah that he would never again destroy the earth with water, God put a rainbow in the clouds. We still have rainbows. I hope you think of God and Noah when you see one. In the wedding ceremony that I provided, the happy couple made promises. They did so because they are very much in love with each other and with God. God is the source of faithfulness and covenant love. We know that as Christians we are called upon to set an example of the love of God. But where did we get such an idea in the first place? Actually, it was God’s idea. We probably would never have come up with this by ourselves. The example that the Lord sets for us is that, first of all, he is gracious and compassionate. Secondly, God remembers his covenant and his promises. In our passage from 1 Corinthians, we see St. Paul setting a good example for his flock. In turn, he asks them to set a good example for their community. These must have been exciting times for the Church. They were definitely breaking new ground. Christianity was new to all of them, Jews and Gentiles alike. So, they were learning to live together in grace and compassion. They were learning to be like God. The Christians at Corinth had, for the most part, recently converted from paganism. They had been worshipping something, but they had not been worshipping the true and living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The idols these people had been worshipping had been put before them by the culture. They had been put before them by the Roman government, which was in charge of Corinth. Just for a moment, let’s think about the situation in Corinth. It was located in northern Greece. Although the site had been inhabited for over 4000 years, Corinth had been rebuilt by the Roman government. Their retired soldiers lived there. It was at the crossroads of major trade routes. There was a lot of commercial and religious activity. Into this scene comes St. Paul with the intention of founding a church. So he does just that. He gathers together some people who respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ. He baptizes some of them, and those coming after him baptize others. Pretty soon they had a full-blown church. Now what were they going to do with it? The old issue of worshipping idols had crept back into the lives of his people. Here is a possible reason: A lot of the meat in the meat markets of the day had probably been “offered to idols” when it was being prepared for sale. These people had to live in their surroundings. They couldn’t go off and live in a monastery. They had families to feed. Paul was telling them that the culture itself was neutral. The “idols” they were worshipping were not alive. Idols did not really “exist.” There is only one God. The Corinthian Christians had the freedom to come and go as they pleased. But, Paul says, take care not to flaunt this liberty in the face of those who did not feel so free. Paul was just trying to get them to be like God. He was trying to get them to be gracious and full of compassion. To be mindful of the covenant they had made at Baptism, especially the part about renouncing evil and turning to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Paul wanted the Christians at Corinth to be distinguished from non-Christians by their faith and example of life. This is the wish and dream of every pastor. God went to great lengths to make us like himself and to give us the ability to have fellowship with God. God created humankind in his image, hung with us through our thick and thin of obedience and disobedience. Finally God sent Jesus Christ, his only and eternal son to take us by the hand and lead us back to God. God calls us into relationship with him because God wants us to love the way he loves. God wants us to be gracious and full of compassion, and every mindful of our covenant with him.
On the grounds of Honey Creek
The Rev. Linda McCloud, Pastor |
