November 6, 2016
Good morning. Thank you, Wendy, and thank all of you who create this worship space for us every Sunday.
I stand here in the footsteps and shadows of spiritual giants, whose intellectual and spiritual depth I could never hope to equal. If we look back just in the recent past: three weeks ago, John Cook gave a teaching in just a few minutes that was more impactful than most of the sermons I have ever heard that were twice or three times as long. The idea of “unrelenting love” is still resonating with me.
And two weeks ago, Emily, whose spiritual wisdom and depth is beyond both her years and mine, wove together ALL FOUR of the lectionary scriptures into a cohesive and meaningful teaching, earning not only our continued respect but special “use-of-lectionary bonus points” stars in her crown. I struggled with today’s Psalm since David wrote it from the perspective of a righteous man unjustly persecuted and I just couldn’t in good conscience read it so I gave up any thought of competing with her for that award.
And last week, while I was of course officially and outwardly very sorry that I was out of town for Steve’s teaching, I breathed an inner sigh of relief that I didn’t have to hear his teaching and be even further intimidated …. And then he proceeded to send it out to the listserve so I didn’t have a choice but to read it and be in awe of its beauty and depth. So, Steve, thanks a bunch for that.
Obviously just from the past three Sundays alone I should be far more nervous standing here in front of you than I am. As I prepared for today I wondered how that could be the case.
I believe part of it is because David Hilfiker, my friend and spiritual mentor, greatly reduced the stress of my preparation by saying “they just want to hear you” – although I realize that statement is probably only true before you hear me for the first time!
Part of it is because I look out and see a dear friend from outside the 8th Day community who has come today just to support me and I am in awe of the grace he has shown me consistently for the relatively short time I have known him.
But I think the biggest reason I am so comfortable is because you have created a community in all the true and best senses of the word and I feel safe and loved and supported. I’ll never be able to thank you for all you have done for me.
I do have a couple pieces of advice for any of you who have not yet been asked to bring a teaching but might be in the future:
- First, check your personal calendars and make sure the Sunday to which you commit is free of other things like major choir concerts in which you are singing.
- Second, it is a good idea to check the lectionary before you accept a date and make sure it is one of the “easy ones”. When Gail first mentioned that the Worship Mission Group would like to have me bring the teaching, I was thinking along the lines of the Prodigal Son, since I am pretty much the ultimate example of that, or maybe the “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” passage from Hebrews, for which I could just stand in the middle of the room and talk about how incredible you all are.
But of course, surrendering ourselves to God’s will doesn’t guarantee us the easy path. As a congregant of lectionary-based churches for many years I have appreciated being taken through the scope of the Bible during each church year and the structure that to some extent prevents the “pick the out-of-context Bible passage that supports your narrow agenda” style of preaching popular in some areas of our faith. Over the past weeks I have learned that is easier to enjoy the lectionary as a congregant than as someone preparing the message based on scripture that was “chosen” for me. I now have even deeper respect for my pastor friends who do this every week.
But after this experience I now have even more value for the lectionary approach, as I have found that instead of plowing ahead based on what I thought I should talk about, I had to find my message and my path through study, prayer and opening myself up to the spirit speaking through me. What a concept!
In fact, upon further reflection the process of preparing a lectionary-based teaching is a metaphor for how we live our lives. We want to proceed toward our goals and desires – or what we would like to think God’s goals and desires are for us. It is only when, for whatever reason, we are in some way sidetracked and “our way” is not available to us that we realize that what we want isn’t the point, and to find God’s plan for our lives we must pray and be open to the Spirit.
I would like to take for my primary text today’s Old Testament scripture: Job chapter 19, verses 23 through 27:
“Oh, that my words were written down,
inscribed on a scroll
24 with an iron instrument and lead,
forever engraved on stone.
25 But I know that my redeemer[b] is alive
and afterward he’ll rise upon the dust.
26 After my skin has been torn apart this way—
then from my flesh[c] I’ll see God,
27 whom I’ll see myself—
my eyes see,[d] and not a stranger’s.
I am utterly dejected.”
I started preparing for today by reading all of today’s lectionary passages. When I read this passage from Job, I remember being surprised that the passage, so familiar to me because it is the text of one of the most beautiful solos in Handel’s Messiah, was in the Old Testament. (And that surprise is in itself a testament to my poor short-term memory since I read it only a few months ago in my annual journey through the Bible in a year). But, since I think we are supposed to favor the Gospel, I initially focused my preparation on the Gospel passage from Luke recounting the Sadducees’ esoteric question about to which of the seven brothers the woman who had successively married and been widowed by them would be married after the resurrection. I asked my own esoteric question about the Sadducees in an email to Fred Taylor, and Fred gently pointed me away from my rather academic pursuit and encouraged me to pay attention to the Job passage and, especially, “I know my redeemer is alive.”
Even though I have incredible respect for Fred’s wisdom and spiritual guidance, I am somewhat hardheaded (I guess that is one of the things that qualifies me to be a part of this community), so I went back to pondering the Gospel passage, albeit in a less esoteric light. But slowly – with the surety of the Spirit – I was led back to the Job passage. I started studying and praying about the passage and came to the realization (which was further confirmed by additional events I will relate in a bit) that, for my first teaching, the passage is a wonderful statement of my faith. I do know that my Redeemer is alive and afterward he will rise upon the dust of this earth.
The use of “redeemer” in this passage rang a bell (so maybe my memory isn’t so bad after all), and my study confirmed that it ties directly to several other parts of the old testament. In the Hebrew, the word typically translated as “redeemer” in this passage is “goel”. This same word is used in Exodus 6 when God tells the Israelites that the Lord God will rescue them from their slavery to the Egyptians. Leviticus specifically defines the responsibility to redeem property sold in desperation or a relative sold into slavery. That person is the goel. It appears in Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel passages about blood avengers obligated to avenge the death of a loved one. And in Ruth it refers to the closest relative, who had the right to purchase the property of the Naomi’s deceased husband. In all of these cases the goel is a very close relative, or next of kin. Many texts refer to this position or responsibility as “kinsman redeemer.”
Easton’s Bible Dictionary defines “Redeemer” as “One charged with restoring the rights of another and avenging his wrongs”.
And Bakers Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology says, “In the Old Testament, redemption involves deliverance from bondage based on the payment of a price by a redeemer.”
The New Interpreter’s Study Bible makes the case that Job had no close relative whom he would have considered as redeemer, so he could not have been talking about an actual person. That makes a strong case for this passage being prophetic and the goel in the passage being a part of the Godhead.
I would like for you to hold the thought goel for a moment while we take a brief look at today’s gospel, Luke 20:27-38:
27 Some Sadducees, who deny that there’s a resurrection, came to Jesus and asked, 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a widow but no children, the brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.[c] 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first man married a woman and then died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third brother married her. Eventually all seven married her, and they all died without leaving any children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven were married to her.”
34 Jesus said to them, “People who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy to participate in that age, that is, in the age of the resurrection from the dead, won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. 36 They can no longer die, because they are like angels and are God’s children since they share in the resurrection. 37 Even Moses demonstrated that the dead are raised—in the passage about the burning bush, when he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.[d] 38 He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive.”
In reading the Gospel passage after spending some time studying the passage from Job, I was struck by how the two passages tie together. Because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection they put together a convoluted argument based on challenges in translating earthly kinship to a resurrected life. But Christ helps them (and more importantly, us) understand that the resurrection is not about any part of our earthly existence, including relationships with those to whom we have been closest. (Although I am curious as to which of the seven brothers that poor woman liked best). Our Redeemer – our next of kin who paid the ultimate price to release us both from the bondage of sin and the bondage of our physical earthly life – is the end-all and be-all of our life after this life is over. I think there is an also implicit reminder in all this that, as difficult as it is, striving for our relationship with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit to be our closest relationship here on earth should also be our main goal and focus.
As we move back to the passage from Job, there is one more thing that struck me (it actually struck me during one of my evening walks that are part of my spiritual disciplines - it is just the latest in the constant stream of blessings, acts of grace and mercy and miracles large and small that I get to experience). Job didn’t say “I believe my Redeemer is alive” – he said “I know my Redeemer is alive.” There is of course a big difference between belief and knowledge – and how much more powerful and affirming is it for Job (and us) to say I know my Redeemer is alive – and that I will see the Godhead with my own eyes. We serve a risen Savior who has paid the price to buy us back from slavery to the things of this earth so we can be with God in the world beyond. It isn’t mere belief – it is fact.
This message of course comes to us throughout the Bible, not just in today’s scripture. As an example of the ways in which God speaks to me through the Spirit, during my routine daily devotionals in the past week I have run across – without consciously looking for them – the following scriptures:
From 1 Peter 1:3:
“You have been born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 4 You have a pure and enduring inheritance that cannot perish—an inheritance that is presently kept safe in heaven for you.”
From John 5:24-26:
24 “I assure you that whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and won’t come under judgment but has passed from death into life.
25 “I assure you that the time is coming—and is here!—when the dead will hear the voice of God’s Son, and those who hear it will live. 26 Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
And finally – and most incredibly – I was sitting in National Presbyterian Church yesterday rehearsing for our concert this afternoon and looked up at the beautiful, tall, narrow stained glass windows alongside the chancel area and noticed these words running along the top of the eight windows:
I KNOW ... THAT MY ... REDEEMER ... LIVETH ... AND AT LAST ... WILL STAND ... UPON THE ... EARTH
Moments after first noticing that, we sang a passage with the words “Ja, der Geist spricht” – “Yes, the Spirit speaks”. I hope I didn’t need convincing of the truth of that or of what I should be saying to you today, but if I did that certainly was it.
But how can we know that in the midst of natural disaster, and violence, and political hatred and paralysis, and millions of people displaced from their homes across the world, and suffering, and injustice?
It is easy for me to say that I know my Redeemer is alive because I am standing here as the most blessed person on earth whose life overflows with acts of grace and mercy, both divine and human – the latest of which is being allowed to stand here and talk to you.
But it is more than that.
I know my Redeemer is alive because the Bible tells all of us – over and over again that we do have a Redeemer and our Redeemer is alive. It is the core of Christian belief.
I know my Redeemer is alive because I see beauty in this incredible world God has made for us.
I know my Redeemer is alive because, in the midst of injustice and misery, I see acts of kindness and love between strangers.
And if all that weren’t enough, I know my redeemer is alive because I see you, the people of 8th Day and Church of the Saviour, who have formed and who nurture a true Christian Community and who live their faith in the world in ways that have made and continue to make an outsized impact in our city and the world. You have done and keep on doing that not because of dead ideas in an old book, or by following time-honored traditions, or by simply doing the “right thing.” You do it because you have allowed yourself to be led by the Spirit of the Living God.
I want to close with a passage from today’s Epistle – 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17:
3 But we always must thank God for you, brothers and sisters who are loved by God. This is because [God] chose you from the beginning to be the first crop of the harvest. This brought salvation, through your dedication to God by the Spirit and through your belief in the truth. 14 God called all of you through our good news so you could possess the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, [sisters and brothers], stand firm and hold on to the traditions we taught you, whether we taught you in person or through our letter. 16 Our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and a good hope. 17 May [God] encourage your hearts and give you strength in every good thing you do or say.”
Amen
All scripture passages from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible