Send In the Clones!

 

Send in the Clones

 

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Thanksgiving for the church at Thessalonica 

 

1:1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

 

1:2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly

 

1:3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

1:4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you,

 

1:5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.

 

1:6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired from the Holy Spirit,

 

1:7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

 

1:8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it.

 

1:9 For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God,

 

1:10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

 

Who remembers Dolly, the sheep? What was special about her? Yeah, she was the first successfully CLONED mammal. That happened in Scotland, back in 1996, and Dolly lived a relatively normal life, dying in 2003. After Dolly, many other animals have been cloned successfully. Cloning involves using the DNA from a donor cell and putting it into an ovum of the species. The resulting animal is genetically identical to the animal from which this somatic cell is used in the cloning process. As far as anyone knows, no human has been cloned, despite shady “reports” that this has been tried in China. If you want to see a humorous movie scene involving cloning, watch Woody Allen’s “Sleeper.” He and Diane Keaton are dissidents in a future totalitarian society, masquerading as cloning scientists, and they are charged with cloning a dictator from his nose, the only part of him found after he was assassinated by a bomb. They have no idea what they are doing, and while trying to fool the authorities, they lay out a suit of clothes from the late dictator’s wardrobe, place the nose where the face should be, and tell the gathered political operatives that they will attempt to “clone him into his clothes.” 

 

While cloning may never be the most popular way to replicate life, it is part of the latest generation of disease-fighting drugs called “monoclonal antibodies,” which are cloned from a single white blood cell, and produced to attack specific diseases such as types of cancer, in a specific patient. Years ago, in the early days of monoclonal antibodies, I had a young parishioner who was experimentally treated for juvenile-onset rheumatoid arthritis with them, and the results left her to live a mostly normal life, after an early fear of debilitation. 

 

So we know a little about cloning, now, but what does this have to do with our Bible passage this weekend? We’ll get there; be patient.

 

How do we make disciples in the church, today? This is an important question, especially for United Methodist Christians, as we are charged with “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” First of all, I have to confess that, while I strongly affirmed the “vision” of making disciples of Jesus Christ, for this IS what Jesus told us to do, I have always balked at the phrase added years ago by the bishops, “for the transformation of the world.” While we Christ followers DO believe that becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ may help bring about a new and better world, especially if we live according to the teachings of Jesus, this particular phrase, “for the transformation of the world” sounds crusading, to me. It has the potential for leaning toward exclusivism—might we believe that ONLY disciples of Jesus Christ can participate in bringing about a better world? I sincerely hope not. And what are we “transforming the world” into? A “Christian” world? Things can be “transformed” but not always in a positive way. It is safe to say that Vladimer Lenin “transformed” Russia and Mao Tse-Tung “transformed” China, but not necessarily in ways we are happy about. The designated hitter rule has “transformed” Major League Baseball, but again, not all of us are happy about that, either. You see what I mean? One has to read a lot more verbiage from the United Methodist Church to get a picture of just how we would like to see the world “transformed,” and not all of us see that the same, either. A whole pile of people and churches opted out because THEY didn’t like our view of transformation, and the two resulting factions may be working against each other, thanks to these divergent views. But, back to disciple-making.

 

How DO we make disciples? Some would say through preaching, Christian education, Bible study, etc., which have been the standard Modus Operandi of the Christian church for millennia. While I wouldn’t argue against this formula, it is clear that we are now in an age when more people eschew attending a church (or a church-related class) than DO attend, so these methods aren’t effective unless someone parks it in the pew. Oh, I realize that COVID opened the floodgates to “streaming” our services to the masses, but again, if someone isn’t already acclimated to the “church scene,” they probably aren’t going to sit through your worship service on YouTube or Facebook. Some churches have been effective with iterations of the “The Church has Left the Building” campaigns, enlisting people—including some “unchurched folk”—into acts of Christian mission or charity, and thereby exposing them to the values of discipleship. Even this, though, has had a limited effect, and rather quickly became somewhat trite, as for many in the “target” audience, the whole idea of “church” continues to be a non-starter, whether it is in the building or OUT of it. I’m not saying that the church is out of the picture when it comes to making disciples, but it should see itself as the “training ground” for disciple-makers, and as a “vehicle” for facilitating this process. 

 

Individual witnessing has been, for the longest time, the preferred method of the evangelical community for “bringing people to Christ.” Unfortunately, unlike the original twelve disciples—and most especially Andrew, who was good at literally bringing people TO Jesus—“soul-winning” became a kind of pelt-collecting enterprise. Some “technique,” be it the infamous “Four Spiritual Laws” of Campus Crusade for Christ, or the tasteless, scary theology of the little, cartoon “witnessing” tracts by evangelical author/artist Jack Chick, was used to “break the ice” to talk to a friend, family member, or even a total stranger, “about Jesus.” Questions like “Do you know Christ as your personal Savior?” or “If you were to die tonight, are you sure you would go to heaven?” were the openers, any variation of which reduced a complicated understanding of the “eternal soul” to a punchline. The “goal” was to get the targeted individual to “confess” that they “needed” Jesus, and to say the “sinner’s prayer,” after which their soul was believed to be “saved,” and the witnessing individual could check them off the list of the damned. An effort may or may not be made to “connect” the “saved” individual to any kind of supportive, spiritual community, and often, no conversation about the individual’s religious history was even broached. Now, let me say that there is NOTHING WRONG with witnessing one’s faith in Christ to another person, provided it is done in love of God and this “neighbor,” and not just as a “technique” or as a bragging rite. I always told my congregations that one of the best witnesses (other than just being a loving neighbor and doing kind, caring, “acts of mercy” as Mr. Wesley would call them) a person could do was to offer to pray for a person going through some ordeal, and ask if it would be OK to put them on our church’s prayer list, so that others may pray for them, too. Most all folk will acquiesce to this, and when some positive change happens in their situation, they will “seek you out,” and will often want to hear more about a person and a church that would pray for someone they didn’t even know. I would tell my parishioners that it is much easier to witness to your faith when you are on the other end of such an “interview,” than it is to use some scary line to “cold call” a witness, such as the “Four Spiritual Laws” types might do. “Scary” is an important word here, as often the “cold call” witness uses fear (of sin, death, hell) to “sell” the target on “meeting Jesus.” Faith that begins with such a fear often is lived out in fear, rather than in the “perfect love” that the Bible tells us should “cast out” all fear. It is also unfortunate that so many folk left in our churches today, began their faith journey with such fear, and have been quasi-paralyzed by it, since. If our church “smells” of this kind of fearful language and theology in its effort to “bring people to Jesus,” most modern folk—especially the younger ones—will not apply. 

 

Now, on to the main point of this meandering sermon…in this text from First Thessalonians, the Pauline author introduces one of the major themes in Paul’s teachings. Paul’s idea of “witnessing” or leading people to faith in Jesus Christ is to CLONE them! Read verse 6: “you became imitators of us and of the Lord...” Throughout the teachings of Paul, as reflected in the writings reflecting them, Paul basically tells his audiences, “If you want to know how to follow Jesus, FOLLOW ME,” or “Do what I do.” He often literally says “imitate me,” or “imitate US,” as he does in this passage. You see, Paul had developed his faith into something he was CONFIDENT was truly a “discipling” and genuine faith, and he believed that if a prospective disciple were to “do as I do,” this person would join Paul and other Christians on the path of discipleship. One of the important phrases that comes out of the Alcoholics Anonymous “rooms” is this: “If you don’t have faith, act as if you DO have faith, and faith will be imparted to you,” otherwise known by AA folk as “Fake it until you make it.” DO what is necessary to “look” like a disciple, and you will be formed INTO one. This is precisely what Paul is saying here! He wasn’t concerned with “saving souls,” as he believed that if a person was to join others on the Christian faith journey, they would be embraced by the “exceeding abundant” grace of God (saved) AND would be embraced by other Christians in the community of faith, leading to both healthy nurture and effective Christian mission and service, both of which would “build up” the Body of Christ, and partner with God in unfolding the Kingdom of God on earth. Paul’s idea was so much more “organic” than either the evangelical “button-holing” witness OR the various “systems” the church had manufactured over the centuries to “make disciples.” 

 

I have seen this Holy Spirit-based “cloning” work on multiple levels. I have witnessed church folk inviting non-churched folk on mission projects such as Habitat for Humanity-type building restorations in poor communities, to assembling cleaning buckets for UMCOR, to helping at a food pantry. The invitee gets to do something that makes them “feel good” about themselves, and that witnesses to an “authentic” manifestation of human (and even divine?) compassion. Relationships are formed, and trust is built. Often, at some point, the invited individual begins to ask about the kind of FAITH that leads one to DO these things, not just out of curiosity, but out of a real interest in trying such a faith on for size, personally. By being invited to join in the work, and in seeing genuine Christianity in practice, they “build their own theological bridge” to belief. They have been “cloned” by others, led only by a legitimate love for them, and a desire to expand the circle of caring, support, and service.

 

Here’s a story I heard from a colleague years ago. She was assigned to a rural charge of a couple tiny, struggling churches that were “hand-wringing” over the fact that they were sort of dying off, and that their own “children” were no longer interested in attending worship. This new pastor asked them, “What are you good at doing?” After the typical moments of awkward silence in the wake of a question such as this, one person said, “We make REALLY GREAT funeral dinners, or so we have been told.” The pastor suggested that they might consider offering themselves out to MAKE funeral dinners for other local churches, for when they had funerals. They decided to give that a try, and the small “team” began to get a few funeral gigs. As their efforts were warmly received and appreciated (and unexpectedly had become effective fund-raisers!), they needed more people to help fix and serve the dinners, so they invited their “kids” to help, as well as other friends beyond their small church. These agreed, not only to help with a noble cause, but because they also heard they were having a lot of fun DOING it together. Soon, the funeral dinner team was asked if they might serve the “commitment dinner” for a much larger church that was embarking on a building program, and so they did, but this required even more volunteers. Sunday mornings became a time to “celebrate” the work they were doing for others, AND to plan the upcoming dinners. Sunday mornings had become both FUN and purposeful again, and guess what? The churches grew, and many of their “kids” were back! They cloned themselves through compassionate service and witness. Very “Pauline” of them!

 

John Wesley, the “father” of Methodism, did believe not only in “systems” of spiritual formation and discipleship, but also in Paul’s “do as I do” philosophy, as well. If you were raised in the Methodist/United Methodist tradition, you know about the “Holy Club” at Oxford and the “bands” or “class meetings” that Wesley had his people engaged in. Each group was a “discipling” group wherein participants were accountable to one another as well as to God, for their spiritual development, prayer life, attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and acts of mercy to those in need. Holy Club members gave of themselves financially, even to the point of sacrifice, to fund the work they did for the poor, the destitute, and the incarcerated. This was all part of Wesley’s system. However, his overall goal was to raise up OTHER disciples by having his adherents “live out” the Gospel in such a way that others would “see” Christ alive in them, and in their acts of mercy and grace, and would want to align their own lives with these others; in short, they would want to “clone themselves” to be the good and caring people they saw in Methodists. It certainly worked in John Wesley’s day, and personally, I believe this iteration of Paul’s “If you want to follow Christ, follow me” idea will work again in our time. So many are skeptical of the wide swath of people and philosophies that are labeled “Christian” in our day. In the name of Christ, some are endorsing a form of autocratic government that is squeezing the life out of people, especially the marginalized. In the name of Christ, others are baptizing (or at least looking the other way) as refugees and immigrants are being rounded up, separated from family members, incarcerated in “centers” that sure look like the internment camps utilized against Asians during the Second World War, or are being exiled to countries far from the ones they came from. In the name of Christ, some have so robbed women of their reproductive rights that they are being relegated to second-class citizens, or are made to feel they are the “possessions” of their male counterparts. Still others preach doctrines and dogmas that exclude people whom God loves, or that so tightly defines who is “in” and who is “out” in the Kingdom of God that reasonable people are choosing to stay away from their “brand.” The term “Christian” has become a derogatory term in much of our American society, due to these excesses and abuses. 

 

It is time to hear Paul’s words, and to begin “cloning” again, but this will require those of us who care to “re-enlist” as serious disciples who will sacrifice personal “rights” and privileges in order to become the “somatic cells” necessary for the process. Many years ago, I heard a wise preacher say, “YOU may be the only Bible some people read.” If the Christ we represent by our lifestyle and our priorities is not one true to the Jesus Christ of the Bible, or is so distorted by human-derived rules and practices that scare others away, then we are doing a disservice to God. There’s a famous quote attributed to Ghandi that goes like this: “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” Ghandi didn’t say it, of course; it was actually written by a more modern newspaper columnist, but it does carry some of Ghandi’s philosophy, namely that people will see in us what they will see. If what they see is not what we WANT them to see, then WE must change. Hence, if we DO want people to see our lives as a reflection of Jesus Christ, we must act more like Jesus and live into his teachings, especially those of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five and following. 

 

It is important to note that this personal transformation project is meant by Paul to be a JOYOUS one, and not a chore. Paul tells the folks in the church at Thessalonica that even though they are under strong persecution, the “joy of the Lord” and the Holy Spirit will keep their spirits buoyant and celebratory. Following Jesus is a loving, joyful thing, not like “boot camp” or a “war.” After all, who on the outside looking in would want to pattern their lives after a people who are always wailing, weeping, and “gnashing” their teeth? Or who are marked more by their drudgery to “duty” than to celebrating their redemption? 

 

From Paul’s and Wesley’s perspectives, the way the church can AGAIN become relevant in today’s world is to “Send OUT the clones!” It’s time we begin to again “mirror” Jesus more than we mirror the world. Amen.

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Get These Farm Animals on a LEASH!

Get These Farm Animals on a LEASH!

 

Exodus 32:1-14

The golden calf 

 

32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

 

32:2 Aaron said to them, "Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me."

 

32:3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.

32:4He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf, and they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"

 

32:5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD."

 

32:6 They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.

 

32:7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;

 

32:8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'"

 

32:9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.

 

32:10 Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation."

 

32:11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

 

32:12 Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.

 

32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"

 

32:14 And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

 

In case you’re wondering, today’s sermon title is a paraphrase of a line actor/comedian Jon Lovitz screams out in his character of Ernie Capadino, in the popular film, “A League of Their Own”: “Get these FARM ANIMALS on a LEASH!” The city kid recruiting the first players of an all-girls baseball team for Branch Rickey out in the rural lands of America, almost trips over some free-range chickens, prompting the humorous line. Why do I bring it up here? Well, first of all because I love this film, its humor, and its history. But most of all, because it gives us a clue what Satan might have said to God numerous times throughout human history about US! A leash, indeed. 

 

Are we “farm animals?” Think of how we anthropomorphize most animals, giving them human attributes, naming them with human names, and believing they understand everything we tell them. Kitties, doggies, and even hamsters get treated like children, pampered, overfed, and deeply mourned when they “cross the rainbow bridge.”? I’m guessing that better than half the most-watched YouTube clips and Facebook Reels are about the hijinks of animals, and the humans who love them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We DO like to superimpose many of our higher hopes and ambitions upon our animals. Now that I’m living in a more rural town, I’m back to going to county fairs again, and watching the hard transformation that 4-H kids have to experience as they put their beloved cattle and pigs up for auction, knowing that most of them will wind up as a main course. You do have to wonder if God has put God’s own best hopes on US, kind of like we do our pets? Please don’t take this line of thought too far, as it will break down in a hurry, but remember that leash part, too. Maybe there is something to that.

 

Turning to our text for today, which is one of my favorites in the whole Bible, I might add, we hear a word that NONE of us likes to hear, and one that has, from time to time, brought the world a whole load of trouble: DELAY. Moses is delayed, coming down from the mountain and his little tete a tete with God. We do not like delays, of any kind. Road construction causes all manner of unexpected delays, even when we know full well it is happening. Don’t you hate it when some special item you have ordered online is delayed in shipping? A vivid memory I have as a young teen is the time when I sublet a friend’s newspaper route for the Summer, did some painting for my uncle, and picked up a number of other odd jobs to raise enough money to mail order myself a significant camera for my budding photography hobby. After I ordered it, I waited every single day for the UPS truck to bring it to my house, akin to the famous “Wells Fargo Wagon” scene in “The Music Man.” Day after day, I watched for that stupid truck, and disappointment after disappointment when it either didn’t come, or it DID, but with no package for me. Finally, FINALLY, it stopped in front of our house, and the driver handed me my precious package. Upon opening it, I found that the camera’s lens had been broken in shipment, and had to go back. I was so bummed that the wait the second time around seems much shorter, and my high expectations had been rather dampened. Even when the replacement camera arrived undamaged and pristine, I felt more relief than euphoria. Delays can sure rain on our parade, or at least dampen our spirits. In Moses’ case, one almost precipitated an apocalypse.

 

Israel’s response to the tardy Moses was to manufacture their own god, which is rarely a good idea. In this case, they called upon their religious leader—Aaron—to design one for them, using the two things most precious to them, gold and bovine. Hardly any culture in history eschewed the love of gold, and in the case of the Jews under Moses’ care, a cow was most precious. Why? Well, Jews weren’t allowed to fool with pigs at all, and cows gave milk, made for good grilling, and served as sacrifices. So, a cow it was, only in this case a calf, which required less gold to make. The good thing about false gods is that we maintain full control over them, unlike the real one, and if we tire of them, there is always the gold to recover, (or the money from our stocks, or the trade-in value of our Mercades). Many a man, upon hearing that his house was possibly on fire, made sure the wife and kids got out safely, but went back in for the golf clubs. We pooh-pooh Israel when we read this famous story out of Exodus, but believe me, we can make our own gods even better than they did, and unfortunately, we DO have some religious leaders who will help design them for us. (Think “prosperity gospel,” or even that wonderful idol of “biblical authority.” Yes, we like to make the Bible our idol, as this way we can control it, instead of being transformed by it, so many times.)

 

So, Israel makes a farm animal into a god. Who SHOULD have been on a leash, in this story? And why in the world did a man like Aaron go along with this scheme? Was he too timid to “speak the truth” to Israel for fear of being pilloried himself? Was he beginning to believe that Moses might be much more than “delayed” on the mountain, and was tempted to carve out his own niche as Israel’s “supreme leader”? We may never know, but it was not looked upon by Yahweh as a nice thing, and to quote another old movie line, “Death stalked the mountains.”

 

In the midst of their conversation, according to the text, God tips Moses off as to what is going on down in the “barnyard.” God further suggests to Moses that maybe God will just have a little wrath tantrum and start over with Moses’ as breeding stock. Unlike the lily-livered politicians of our day, Moses wasn’t afraid of speaking truth to power, in this case, THE power behind everything! Moses debates God over this starting over plan, and WINS. I don’t know how you understand the verse that says that God “changed God’s mind” over the “disaster” God was thinking about bringing upon Israel, but that’s something! Moses should have some kind of trophy for that little bit of forensics. It was time to get Israel on a leash, not only to get them back in line with the God who loved them and who had truly delivered them, but to keep them from straying yet again. 

 

Let’s look at this text as a kind of parable meant to teach us something, instead of an historical account of what surely must sound a bit preposterous. Israel is clearly an analog for all humans who, when their hopes for safety, security, and wealth are “delayed,” too often take matters into their own hands. Aaron is a metaphor for those who “guide” us when the chips are down, especially religious leaders either trying to sooth the savage beast in us all, OR who decide it’s a great time to stir up the flock in an attempt to “grow the church” or add to its coffers. Just this week, Jim Bakker, the scandalous TV evangelist, passed away at 86. He and his late wife Tammy Fay, started out as puppet-wielding “soul-winners,” but got a glimpse of fame and fortune, and it went to their heads, and their pocketbooks. Aaron was likewise a “good guy,” but it didn’t take much of a “delay” to open a dark door for him to step through, and step he did. I’d hate to think that there are many religious leaders who fall prey to such temptations, but history tells a sadder tale. Let’s imagine Moses as a metaphor for God, in this “parable.” The little “court case” in the story between God and Moses is kind of like the cartoon image of a character being tempted by the little devil on one shoulder and a guardian angel on the other. I’m sure there were MANY times when God vacillated between allowing us to go “free range,” and wanting to put us on a tight leash. Jesus came to offer humanity pardon and reconciliation, once and for all, kind of like Moses “winning” his debate with the Almighty.

 

If the modern Christian church is to redeem ourselves as the “Aaron” in the story, we must find better ways to connect with our audience, and make God’s “leash” a harbinger of safety, security, and guidance, rather than just a tool of control. Dara and I have been attending the Edinboro United Methodist Church since retiring to Meadville, PA. That church is learning how to live out its theme of welcoming “Doubters, Dreamers, and Disciples” into its fold. Any church that can’t welcome the “doubters” will simply not survive this millennium. Without the “dreamers,” we will perish, too, even as we read in the book of Proverbs. And “disciples”? These are the folk who mature in the faith and gladly put on the “yoke” of service, obedience, and mission—indeed, a self-donned “leash.” All healthy, vital churches will be places where the “doubters, dreamers, and disciples” can find acceptance, cast visions, and thrive through doing justice and loving others via service. Going back to our animal metaphor, a leash may either limit an animal’s movement by tethering it to an anchor point, or it may lovingly guide it along as it walks with its “master,” thus keeping it on course and secure.

 

Interestingly, one of the other lectionary texts for this week is the 23^rd Psalm, another human/animal metaphor! We are God’s “sheep,” and God is our “good shepherd.” In this parable, it is the recognized voice and the protecting “rod” of the shepherd that brings prosperity to the sheep. It’s a much more soothing image than the potential pyrotechnics of the Exodus passage, and there is no scavenger hunt for gold involved. If I’m going to be a “farm animal” of any sort in these biblical metaphors, I’ll go with the sheep, as the only leash involved is a close relationship with the shepherd. What we can surely learn from the Exodus account, though, is that our best purely “human” efforts to build the Kingdom of God will not result in either restoring, nor promoting, a better relationship with our Creator. And that story reminds us that Jesus Christ has served as eternity’s “Moses,” forever “winning the debate” over how to deal with a bunch of rebellious “farm animals.” I’ll finish with this paraphrase of John 8:36: “Whom the Son has set free is FREE RANGE!” Amen!

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God Told Me to Tell You

  

God Told Me to Tell You

 

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

The commandments at Sinai 

 

20:1 Then God spoke all these words,

 

20:2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

 

20:3 you shall have no other gods before me.

 

20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

 

20:7 "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

 

20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.

 

20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

 

20:12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

 

20:13 "You shall not murder.

 

20:14 "You shall not commit adultery.

 

20:15"You shall not steal.

20:16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

 

20:17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

 

20:18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance

 

20:19 and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die."

 

20:20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid, for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin."

 

I don’t know about you, but coming face-to-face with even a small sample of the profound presence of God Almighty is a scary thing. Not because God is “scary” or tends to bully one when suddenly in God’s presence, not at all, but because a direct “audience” with God changes us. When God manifests Godself one-on-one with a person, the message imparted is always life-changing. Always. If it is a “correction” message, the subject of the communication is immediately compelled to “fix” their error, whatever it may be. If a sinful activity, the repentance is swift and powerful, on the part of the one receiving the direct message. I have heard more testimonies of persons who had one of these divine “visits” in the midst of either an errant behavior or a poorly chosen life direction, and each one ends with a change of direction. Immediately. Many years ago, I met a man who was in jail for a variety of small offenses that had added up to an open-ended sentence in the county lockup until a trial could be mustered. In jail, the man “came to himself,” to use biblical parlance, and began to read the Bible given to him when he was incarcerated. One night, as he felt his life was slipping away under the weight of his feeling of meaninglessness, he petitioned God for help. Suddenly, he “felt the presence” right there in the cell with him, and he began a heart-to-heart with what he understood to be God, Godself. He told God that if God could get him out of jail, he would truly turn over a new leaf, and would immediately seek out Christian community. His story was that he “heard” God give him the thumbs up on his proposition, and he immediately feel into a deep sleep. He was awakened in the early evening by two jail guards and a representative from the District Attorney’s office who told him that a decision had been made to release him on his own recognizance, if he signed a form agreeing to attend a hearing. He was shocked—actually beyond shocked. (It actually got better, down the road, as at the subsequent hearing, all charges against him were dropped!). The young man walked out of the jail with the Bible he had been reading, and saw a man walking by whom he knew. Making good on his promise to God, he asked the man if he knew of any Christian fellowship meeting that evening. The man directed him to the home of a couple who opened their home each Monday night to a group of young people for prayer, Bible study, and Christian fellowship, and “Jim” walked across town and presented himself and his remarkable story to a surprised group of young adults in that fellowship. I was among them. (This was long before I answered my own call to ministry, and the couple whose home we met in would one day become my in-laws.) “Jim” stayed true to his word, and the promises he made before God that night in jail were kept for the remainder of his days. 

 

No matter the outcome, it IS a scary thing to find oneself in the presence of the living God. I had my own “first meeting” in college one night in my dorm room. I experienced that “presence,” and found myself engaging in my own dialogue with God. As it turned out, it was God’s way to begin the “calling process” that would come to fruition just shy of a decade later, when I and my family sold our home and moved to seminary. The scary part for me was the massive change in direction my little “visit” with God brought to my life. The loving part of it, though, was that God offered me the same promise God gave Israel, and my friend, Jim: “I will be with you.” And indeed, God has, and IS!

 

As a pastor, I counseled many folk who were “disappointed” that they had never had such a direct encounter with God, nor had they ever felt they had “heard God’s voice.” I offered them a few suggestions as to how they could prepare themselves to be better “listeners” to God, but I always also warned them that if they were successful in their pursuit, they should be ready to have their lives diverted, changed, or otherwise conscripted to move in a new direction, at God’s behest. A few had this experience, including a handful who wound up in some full-time manifestation of Christian ministry, ranging from media, to scholarly pursuits, to the pulpit. One does not hear God’s voice just as an “accessory” or a simple “encouragement” in life. God’s presence, God’s voice, and God’s empowerment usually comes with a contract for “work.”

 

It’s no wonder that Israel asked Moses to be their intermediary with God, not wanting to subject themselves to God’s “scary” presence. In verse 19 of today’s passage, they tell Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” They had witnessed what had happened to Moses since the burning bush days, and they weren’t up for the same kind of life-changing marching orders. Basically they said, “You tell us what God wants to tell us, and we’ll listen.” Honestly, while this “God told me to tell you” tactic provides some insulation from the direct presence of God, it’s not really a good idea. In the earliest days of the Christian charismatic renewal (back in the late 1960s and into the earliest years of the 70s), there was a lot of that going around. On several occasions, during my own foray into the “Jesus Movement” as a young adult, I had several very “spiritual” friends caught up in the “gifts of the Spirit” approach me and say, “God told me to tell you [thus and so].” I guess I had enough of that “Moses spirit” in me to resist this second-hand messaging. If God wanted to tell me something, I fully expected God to “say” it through God’s Word as I studied the Bible myself, or God would pipe up. Seriously, there was a lot of that “God told me to tell you” stuff going on back then, and frankly it often was a manipulative tactic on the part of the “messenger.” It sometimes got ridiculous. Male “leaders” in the movement were using the “God told me to tell you” line to get a girl to go out with them, and one situation to which I was privy, a man I knew used this line to “propose” to a female peer. There were a lot of good things that came out of the Jesus Movement, including some good Christian music, a variety of decent Christian books that aided in my own faith development, and even a few well-regarded translations of the Bible. The “personalization” of one’s practice of the presence of God wasn’t all bad, as before this emphasis of the charismatic renewal, the “standard” spiritual practice was going to church on Sundays and listening to sermons, or maybe attending a curriculum-based Sunday School class. Home “sharing groups” and Bible studies enriched many during this era, and eventually even the church got on board with new ways to nurture their “flocks.”

 

You are probably surprised that I approached this particular passage without focusing on the Ten Commandments, which really are pretty important. The first halfg of them reminds Israel how important it is that “God is with us,” and how to BE “with God,” which was the one common factor that kept them drawn together as a living, thriving, community of faith. The second half of the “Top Ten” gave them the basics of how to live together in mutual respect and harmony. Think of the wonderful summary Jesus gave us to make TWO out of TEN: “Love God; Love Neighbor.” There you have it, and without any “God told me to tell yous.” 

 

Friends, the kind of intimacy Moses had with God led him from herding sheep to delivering the whole people of God in his day, and the writings of his—and their—exploits still inform and inspire us today. Still, each of us must find our way to nurture our faith in such a way that we provide fertile ground—and tuned ears—to hear what God’s Holy Spirit is “saying” to us, even if the Spirit’s enduring presence IS the abiding presence of God with us in the post-Resurrection era. God IS still with God’s people, and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, leads, guides, instructs, imparts wisdom, and empowers God’s people with the gifts and grace necessary to participate in the continual unfolding of the Kingdom of God in our world. Still, I miss the inspiring experiences of the Jesus Movement days, and the charismatic renewal, flawed and sometimes misdirected as they were. My prayer today is that the schism my own denomination just experienced will ignite a new “fire” in the people called United Methodists, and that our church will experience a new age of renewal, not by harkening back to some previous “safe harbor” or by re-embracing dogmas and doctrines that restrict and exclude, but by sampling the newness of what God is doing through the Holy Spirit that will move us FORWARD into a new day, together. And may our inclusiveness and our willingness to follow the leading of the Spirit TOGETHER, in both humility and peace, transform us all. In the name of Jesus, the “author and finisher” of our faith. God’s WORD told me to tell you! Amen.

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