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Joel 2:23-32
23 O
children of Zion, be glad
and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for
he has given the early rain for your vindication,
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the later rain, as before.
24
The threshing floors shall be full of grain,
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 I
will repay you for the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the
hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent against you.
26
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And
my people shall never again be put to shame.
27
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I, the Lord, am your God and there
is no other.
And
my people shall never again be put to shame.
28
Then afterward
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
30 I
will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns
of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before
the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 32 Then everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall
be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be
those whom the Lord calls.
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2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
6 As
for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure
has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept
the faith. 8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to
me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
16
At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not
be counted against them! 17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so
that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles
might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue
me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the
glory forever and ever. Amen.
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Once
upon a time…
Two
people went to the local church to pray, one a well-known clergy leader and the
other a despised politician.
The
clergy leader, standing at the front of the church, began loudly praying,
“Gracious God – my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer – I give you thanks that I
am not like other people: like those greedy CEOs or those slanderous
journalists or those corrupt police officers or even that politician over
there. I’m in the church at least five days a week; I lead people in worship of
you. I am your gift to the world.
But
the politician, sitting far off in the back pew, could not even hold their head
up high, avoiding the heavens. With tightly clenched hands and tears pouring
from their eyes, the politician kept muttering, “Hey God, it’s me again, I
really need your grace. I’m failing here; I’m failing you and I’m failing your
people. I don’t even really know what I am asking. I just really need you.”
--
Friends,
who was the one who justified themselves in the eyes of the Lord? Who was the
one who humbled themself? The clergy or the politician?
Maybe
you know this story; maybe you’ve heard it before. This story… is actually a
parable once told by Jesus. It had different characters in a different setting
with different prayers, but the story itself is the same. Brief and
straightforward, this is a story of two characters contrasted against one
another: a self-righteous, publicly pious clergy with a quiet, contrite,
desperate politician.
In
this parable, Jesus challenged his listeners to find themselves in the story.
Which leader are they? What kind of follower of Christ will they be? Are they
the exalted rule followers, judgmental and aloof to all that is around them? Or
are they honest and vulnerable, hoping that God will be merciful upon them?
It’s
one of those parables you hear and you instantly say to yourself and maybe to
the others around you, “Wow, I am like the politician. I’m honest. I’m humble.
I know I need God’s help, and I will tell everyone that.”
But
then when you say that, you are filled a little bit of doubt or maybe even
guilt or shame that you so quickly assumed that you were the humbled one in
this story and that by so quickly assuming that, you actually exalted yourself
which makes you more like the clergy in this story.
And
by saying that you must be the politician in this story – because anyone who
hears this story would know that God is calling us to be like the politician – by
saying that you must be the politician in this story actually makes you more
self-righteous similar to the clergy. You then say to yourself, “Wait, am I
like the clergy in this story..?” And that doesn’t feel so good so you brush
this parable off and give it no more thought.
Yeah,
I had those thoughts too. I think that’s why I’m able to explain how some of us
are feeling from this parable.
I
know enough as a clergy person to know that I do not want to be equated to the
clergy person in this story. But if I’m being honest like the honesty of the
politician, I’m not exactly often at the same point of hopeful desperation as
the politician.
You
all know me pretty well. I am not a person who follows God’s law to perfection…
or actually even always tries to follow God’s law to perfection. One of the
most common questions I get when I meet someone new and tell them my
profession, for better or for worse, is, “Wait, are you really a pastor..?” And
every time they ask me that, I think to myself, I must be doing something
incredibly wrong.. or maybe something incredibly right. A few weeks ago, some
of our junior high students came up to me and asked, “Pastor Taylor, have you
ever said a ‘bad word’ in the church?” And I quickly thought to myself, “I
either tell them the truth… or I commit another ‘sin’ within this church and go
ahead a lie.”
So
I’m not totally like the clergy person in this story, self-righteous and set
apart. But I’m also not so totally like the politician either, where I so
vulnerably bare my soul to God before others, naming all my short-comings and
asking for grace.
If I
don’t have it all together, I at least want it to look like I have it all
together, especially in front of others; especially in front of all of you.
It’s difficult to sometimes to pray just how desperately I need grace or
forgiveness or mercy or help or hope or really anything from God in some sort
of divine intervention.
Maybe
you’re like me. It’s hard to say what we need.
Well,
that is, one thing I feel comfortable saying I need is.. food. I feel
comfortable letting people know when I am hungry. Friends and family, I’ll let
them know when I’m hungry. Sunnysiders, I definitely let you know when I’m
hungry as I race down the stairs to our all church lunches. Now one of the
greatest things I learned from Jamie that he never explicitly said out loud to
teach as a lesson but rather something he quietly did, whether people noticed
or not, was Jamie always ate last at our meals. No matter how hungry he was, I
remember Jamie would wait until everyone else had a plate before he grabbed one
for himself. It was a simple, sacred way Jamie as a pastor would humble
himself.
I
reflect on this: the notion of letting people know when we are hungry while
also simultaneously humbling ourselves before one another.
I
reflect on this because I believe this is why God gave us the meal at the Table, and why
generations later the act continues to survive as a holy sacrament.
This
past month we have been talking about the Table of the Lord, a Table all of us
frequently visit to join together as the body of Christ. We’ve covered how God
sets the Table for us and how God then invites us to the Table. The youth
taught us and showed us how God feeds us at the Table, through nourishment of
the Word. So the Table has been set, we’ve been invited, and now we’ve been fed.
Now just like any other time at a table after we have finished our meal, we get up and go until the next one. We don’t just sit at the table and wait for the next meal; no, we leave and live our lives so that the cycle can repeat; so that the table can be set, so we can be invited, and so we can be fed once more. At the end of the meal, especially at the Table of our Lord, we are commissioned to get up, go out, and do ministry.
And Christ does this for us. We are so often fed, especially in moments we need it most, so that we have the energy and the strength and even the hope to do something great and good.
And Christ does this for us. We are so often fed, especially in moments we need it most, so that we have the energy and the strength and even the hope to do something great and good.
Today
is Reformation Sunday, a day in which protestants like us remember when God
commissioned us to do something great and good. Hundreds of years ago people
were hungry for reform, and so people like Martin Luther and John Calvin and
Ulrich Zwingli and John Knox after being fed from the Word 501 years ago or so
were commissioned to help transform the church into the body of Christ they
believed it was called to be. And then people like Friedrich Schleiermacher and
Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were fed and commissioned to continue to
reform and transform the church. And then we had people like Margaret Towner
and Rachel Henderlite who were fed by the Word and commissioned to be the first
women ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA). And then Katie Geneva Canon
and Rebecca Reyes and Elizabeth Kwon and Holly Haile Smith Davis were fed at
the Table and commissioned to be the first women of color to be ordained in the
PC(USA). Then early in this decade Scott Anderson was fed and commissioned to
be the first openly gay ordained Presbyterian minister and then even just this
year, about a month ago, Alex McNeill was fed and commissioned to be our first
openly transgender man to be ordained within our denomination. And friends,
there are so many others, others I know and others that you know and others that
we all are unaware about, who God set the Table for, who God then invited to
the Table, who God fed at the Table, so that they can be commissioned from the
Table to go and do great and good things.
See,
the Reformation may have happened 501 years ago, but the Reformation lives on
today in every moment we approach and depart from the Table.
Think
of Paul, the author of 2 Timothy, which is the last of his letters written, right
before he was executed as one of the first prominent followers of the Way of
Christ. His ministry is almost over as he knows his life is almost over, and in
this moment he lifts up how God gave him strength to fight the good fight, to
finish the race, to keep the faith. But Paul doesn’t just see God’s nourishment
to him as a thing of the past that is almost over. In in his approaching death,
Paul knows the Lord will be with him, as a shield and protector, a presence of
salvation and glory. Even in death, Paul is fed and commissioned to give glory
to God so that the church of the past will be a church that survives today.
Because
the Words of God prophesized by Joel before Christ was born, which we spoken
again on the Day of Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ, live on today:
“I
will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your children shall prophesy, your old
shall dream dreams, and your young shall see visions. Even on all slaves; all
people; I will pour out my Spirit.”
Maybe
all of us need to be more honest and say to God what we need, to be vulnerable
and open. It can be as simple as saying, “God, I am hungry… I am hungry.”
Because God will pour out the Spirit on all flesh, all of us, when we feel
empty, even at our worst. When we feel like we have nothing and no way ahead of
us, Jesus comes to fill us with the Word. When we humble ourselves and admit
that we need help, those on this journey who too know what it means to be
hungry and to need help, will come to our aid and the Spirit of God will be
poured out among us in the form of Christ’s body the church.
I
love the Reformed Church, because every time we feel empty or bad or guilty or
ashamed or uncomfortable with ourselves or with the church, we come to the
Table to be fed once again; by bread and wine, Word and deed; to be nourished
by our Lord.
With
that, we are commissioned to give as we are able, to forgive as we are called, to
love as we have been loved, to be strengthened to do what is right, to hope for
a better tomorrow, and to reform and transform when needed. We are the Reformed
Church, ever Reforming… reforming every time we approach and depart from the
Table.
The
Table has been set for you. You have been invited. You have been fed. And now
you are commissioned to do great and good things in the name of our Lord.
And
friends, guess what? Next week the cycle restarts and the Table will be set and
once again you will be invited, fed, and commissioned. And the reformation will
continue. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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