1 Samuel 3:1-21
John 20:21-23
Mark 10:35-45
We have a hard time understanding the messages we receive from God. We really do. We have a hard time understanding scripture, for example. Here in today’s passages we hear something in each one that is hard to understand. In the Samuel passage we hear God promising to harm an entire family of people “forever” for something that the sons of Eli said. In the John passage it sounds like Jesus is saying that if his disciples don’t forgive someone, neither will God forgive them. And the passage from Mark might be read as saying that God chose from the beginning who would be included or put next to Jesus and that there is no influence from the choices people make in this lifetime: how people act or what they believe or anything that has to do with what a person is or does themself. These are all hard to understand, at least for me. And you will get many different responses or understandings when you read about them.
Starting with the Samuel passage,
some commentators talk about God’s judgment and wrath, seeming to accept this
declaration of Eli’s family’s destruction at face value. Other commentators talk about how easy it is
for Samuel to misunderstand God and what God might be trying to communicate
here. And still others say that the
point of this story is just that the prophetic torch has passed from Eli to
Samuel. And from this perspective, Eli
is amazing in that he doesn’t fight this, doesn’t deny it, but just accepts
that this is God’s will and God’s will is what is paramount in every situation.
Even the biblical scholars, then,
disagree about what is being communicated here.
And the same is true of the other passages. For example, this passage from John that
declares that if a disciple doesn’t forgive someone they won’t be forgiven. Some say this means that God has given them
the ability to decide who is ultimately forgivable. Some have pointed out that this passage has
been abused by pastors and priests to claim that they have the right of
absolution from sins (and equally the right of withholding that
absolution). But others say that this was
spoken not just to the disciples but to all those following Jesus. And that John’s understanding of sin was not
moral or behavioral transgression but “being blind to the revelation of God in
Jesus”. According to this understanding
then, it is the community that has failed if people are still blind to this
understanding. In other words, this
story is simply meant to communicate that they still have work to do.
The
point here is that even those who study scripture for a living, spend all of
their time doing nothing but reading, praying, discerning – they still disagree
with one another, which means they are still struggling to really understand
the message that God is sending.
Similarly with the disciples to Jesus’ words. Some want to sit next to him, others think
this is an unfair request. They all
misunderstand him by even having this debate.
They also misunderstand him when he talks about his upcoming death: they
try to reason him out of that prediction and try to dissuade him from
acting. We know that Judas in particular
disagreed with the way Jesus was doing things and what Jesus was saying. He betrayed Jesus as a way to spur Jesus into
action: into rising up against the tyranny of the Roman empire and when Jesus
instead was killed, this was so devastating to him that his response was to
commit suicide. They didn’t
understand. Not one of them understood. This is a consistent theme throughout the
gospels: the lack of understanding of those closest to Jesus. If those closest to Jesus did not understand,
how are we supposed to understand? How
are we supposed to read the messages from God with accuracy? How are we to understand scripture? But even beyond that, how are we to
understand God, human relationships to God, human relationships to each other
and even our very selves?
I think about the story we read
about a month ago about Abraham believing he was called by God to sacrifice
Isaac. While God stopped him, there is
an Islamic midrash on that story that says that Abraham was just crazy: was
hearing voices that he decided were God’s.
According to this midrash Sarah saw what was happening and she is the
one who brought the ram out for Abraham to find, saving HER only son from being
sacrificed. According to this midrash
then, God was working through Sarah to stop crazy behavior. We read these stories in different ways. We understand them in different ways, and as
a result we also hear God’s voice in different ways and we interpret what is
God’s voice is VERY different ways.
I saw something recently that
said in effect, “Fundamentalists understand Love through the laws of scripture. Other Christians understand scripture through
the eyes of Love.” Or, as Arun Gandhi
said it, “People of the book risk putting the book above people.” But this too, mirrors my understanding. As Jesus said it, “Sabbath was made for
humans, not humans for the Sabbath.”
When we put the law above real people, their needs, their souls, we miss
the whole point of all of this.
For me, in the end, I believe
everything must be measured against the great commandments. The great commandments are two: Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, soul and mind.
And, Love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus told us that it is on these two laws that all the prophets and all
the writings stand. That this is a
summary of all that is in scripture. So
for me, personally, if I don’t understand it, I go back to these two
rules. How, in light of these two laws,
does this passage make sense? What does
it mean in light of these two great commandments? Love.
It is the guidepost by which I weigh and understand everything
else.
But what about when it comes to
understanding God? Well, if those are
the laws of God, they reflect God. So
for me, they, too, describe God: wholeness, fullness, holiness. Love.
That’s the bottom line of who God is, just as it was the bottom line of
what we are called to do and be.
But am I right? All these Christians understanding God
differently. The disciples all
understanding Jesus differently. And
none of the disciples had it right. But
they were all on the journey. They all
sought to be with Jesus, they all wanted to be his disciples, they all chose to
follow in the way. And they did this,
despite the fact that Jesus kept telling them “you don’t understand!” And kept
correcting them and kept challenging them.
As I sat with this, I found
myself thinking about the Kansas song, song “Carry On My Wayward Son” line:
“And if I claim to be a wise man, well it surely means that I don't know.” In the end, we are called to have humility in
our understandings. Those I fear the
most are those who claim with absolute conviction that God told them to do
something, or that God put them in charge of something, or that they know
without a doubt – anything, really.
We are all on this journey. All of us.
I come here and I tell you what I learned, and what I think and what I
believe. But that is my journey. And I recognize that yours is different. Your needs and your experiences, your lessons
and your mentors, your relationships: both with others and with God. They are your own.
There is a reason that one of the
key phrases for me in the Presbyterian Book of Order is “God alone is Lord of
the Conscience.” We recognize that
discernment is a challenge and NOT ONE PERSON in this whole world and in this
whole life will always be right about anything, and that includes about faith
issues. Discernment is hard.
So why is that? Why would God
create a world in which discernment is not easy? Why would God create a world with so many,
many different ways of understanding the exact same book, the exact same words,
the exact same scenario? I love what God
in Joan of Arcadia said to Joan in one episode when she asks God why there are
so many religions, “It's because various people need various ways of relating
to the divine.” I think that there are deep reasons why Jesus spoke mostly in
parables. Parables all have multiple
interpretations, multiple points, multiple understandings. And in that, they are gifts to different
people in different ways. No two of us will ever agree on
everything. It isn’t realistic. It isn’t honest. And that’s a beautiful part of our world and
our life. That diversity of thought is a
gift to us if we can choose to be open to it, listen through our differences,
learn from them.
How, then, do we relate this back to our faith? A final quote from Joan of Arcadia that I want to share with you: “People manage to believe in me, even though they have no idea what I am; they trust me even in the silence.”
God’s presence is there as a gift
to us. God’s love is there to hold us,
sustain us, carry us through. We don’t
have to understand everything. We don’t
have to agree with one another. We are
invited to learn from one another, but we don’t in the end have to come to the
same understanding. Still, we are
invited to trust, to rest in the love of the God who creates us, carries us,
holds us, and graces us into being.
Some of these biblical passages,
such as the one we read today, are hard for us to understand. And sometimes the world and nature and
people’s behaviors are a challenge for us to understand. But there is more to this world than
understanding. And there is much that is
beautiful that goes far beyond our ability to understand. Resting in God’s presence is more important,
more needed, more reviving and restoring that knowing. So, as Isaiah said it so profoundly, “Be
still and know that God is God.” That is
all the knowing, ultimately that we need.
The rest is relationship: the rest is listening, caring, talking, and
being with God. More important than
anything else we can do.
And so, I want to end this
shorter sermon with a moment of silence.
But rather than reflection, I invite you to rest in the loving,
caring arms of God. Rest, be, accept the
love and grace that is offered you in this moment. Amen.
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