Sermons

Sermon 8/8/2010 by Annal Frenz

Aliens and the Dead

Scriptures:

Genesis 15:1-6

Psalm 33:12-22 (22)

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Luke 12:32-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord.

Well, it’s pretty clear that the guys who put together the lectionary readings for today wanted us to focus on the idea of faith and the kingdom of God. I mean look at this: we’ve got Abram’s response to God’s promise of descendants “as many as stars in the sky,” Hebrews builds on that image and brings in the idea of a new homeland, a new city for people of faith, and Luke caps it off with the imagery of the faithful flock waiting for the moment of Christ’s return.

So there you are, a nice, neat package of really important and meaty things to think about. We could talk about the beauty of faith, of the strength it both requires of you and the strength it gives you; of the reward of faith – being welcome into the kingdom, being righteous/in good standing with God, of the anticipation of entering the kingdom. All good things. But, sadly, that’s not where my mind went. Instead, I got caught by the imagery evoked in these passages: Abram the man Hebrews refers to as one “as good as dead,” by the references to aliens and foreigners dwelling in a strange land, to the slaves of Jesus’ parable. These are not happy images, not even necessarily powerful images.

Images of great faith you’d think would be strong, powerful. When we think about people of great faith - not necessarily real people of faith that we know, but our ideas of what it looks like - extraordinary people come to mind. In art, the classic image is a saint with eyes cast up to heaven, arms outspread, accepting the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We think of words like obedient, devout, reverent, pious, meek, humble. But our lessons talk about foreigners and slaves – not our usual heroic types.

Never having been a slave, that one is hard to relate to – but I have been a foreigner, as have a number of you too. So we can relate a little to that sense of not quite belonging, not quite getting it, not knowing exactly how things work, even to a certain extent, that feeling of being at the mercy of others who don’t quite think or act the same way we do. But I think only someone who has lived for a long while in a foreign country, or who has emigrated to this one, can really get the imagery offered in the Hebrews passage. According to Hebrews then, being of the faith means feeling a bit insecure in our world, unsure of our welcome, unsure of our reactions to it. We’re not really at home in this world; our homeland isn’t this world – it’s God’s kingdom.

So let’s think about that kingdom, about our homeland, about what it means to be aliens living in a country not our own. Because, while we are indeed in the world, we’re not really supposed to be part of the world; at least not from the perspective of sharing its world view. Hebrews 11:13 says that many of the faithful “confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth.” Ok, let’s think about that one for a minute. These faithful people were “strangers’ “foreigners” and are linked in the text to those who have died without seeing God’s promise fulfilled – so we’re closer to the dead or those as good as dead than we are to those living in the world. Why? What makes us so different? It’s not our good deeds; lots of non-believers do good deeds. It’s not concern or care or even belief in and of itself. The most worldly person has a boatload of belief in things “unseen” – like justice and love. I mean, good grief, you can’t exactly accuse Gandhi as lacking in faith. So, why are we foreigners in a strange land? Or at least – why should we try to see ourselves that way? In fact, should we?

Well, I kind of think so. Hebrews certainly seems to think so – and so does the gospel of Luke. Today’s lesson takes up where some of the previous (and future) chapters have gone. You’re being urged to be always prepared for the kingdom, to anticipate being in the kingdom, being part of God’s realm. Ok, so here’s word that needs a little pulling apart – the word “kingdom.” Jesus talks a lot about the “kingdom” in the gospels – in fact, just one chapter back, we have Luke’s presentation of the Lord’s Prayer which includes the phrase “your kingdom come”. What’s more even beyond these more direct references by Jesus, many of the parables (especially in Mt and Mk) begin with the phrase “the kingdom of heaven is like…” and it may be that we can get a better sense about what Jesus might have meant about the “kingdom” from these more indirect and sometimes downright confusing analogies.

But first we have to figure out what is meant by “kingdom.” The first problem with the word “kingdom” is that in English it’s a pretty geographic term – a kingdom is a place with borders and boundaries, with a distinct location. But the Greek term “basileia” doesn’t really convey that same meaning. Instead, it’s a word that really means something like “the king’s area of power or influence.” In other words, it’s not a location – it’s a state of being. You are either under the king’s authority (you’re “in” the kingdom) or you’re not. Modern translators prefer to use the term “reign” – the reign of heaven or the reign of God – since it has more of that sense of action – more of a verb than a noun. So when Jesus is talking about the “kingdom” he’s not necessarily talking about being in a place, but rather, being part of an action or part of a group that acknowledges the same king – in this case, God. If you are a part of a group that acknowledges this one king, then you’re not really a citizen of any other power. Oh, sure, you can live under another power, obey its laws, follow its customs, live there. But your true allegiance is to God. And you will never really feel totally at home under any other authority than God’s. And, of course, if God’s authority comes into conflict with this country you live in, you’ll choose God. So when Hebrews says you are a foreigner living in a strange land – that’s what is being suggested.

Of course, one of the things that means is that the kingdom in many of Jesus’ references is not a physical place. It’s everywhere God’s power is – which is pretty much everywhere. So that means you have a problem: you have to live in two realms at the same time – the one you see and the one you don’t see. We’re all pretty clear on what it means to live in the world we can see, so let’s think about the one we can’t see – God’ realm. Some of the things we’re told about it are clear too – not necessarily easy to do, but clear. “Sell your possessions; give alms” as Luke says here. “Love one another.” But sometimes, when Jesus tries to explain the kingdom to us it is just plain baffling. For example, there’s this little parable Jesus gives us which is found in both Mt (13:33) and the GTh: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until all was leavened.” Now, the usual way to interpret this parable is to see yeast as a good thing – the woman mixes yeast into flour and it yields wonderful fluffy bread. The problem is that in its original context it’s a lot more confusing. First, remember, the “kingdom” really means a sphere of influence not a place; so, try this:”the rule or reign of heaven” – keep in mind we’re trying to compare something fairly active, not a static location. Then remember that for this society when we’re talking about yeast in connection with the divine – yeast is never good. Yeast is polluting, contaminating, yucky stuff that mucks up your relationship with God. So, now let’s try to hear the parable from Jesus’ audience’s point of view: The reign of heaven is like a woman (untrustworthy creatures women – they do sneaky, tricksy things) – so “the reign of heaven is like a woman sneaking some yeast and hiding it in this huge quantity of flour and polluting a bunch of perfectly good flour.” Ok. This is what we call, the world turned upside down. The kingdom is acting oddly, out of sync with what is normal and customary. The kingdom is doing things contrary to conventional wisdom. And we are members of this weird, out of sync kingdom. The people of faith are people out of sync.

To be of great faith, we seem to think, means to never be shaken, to never doubt either God or that the events in your life are meant for the ultimate best. To be the strong saint in all those medieval and Renaissance paintings. But that’s not what any of our lessons today are telling us. Let’s take a look at our out of sync foreigners, Abram and Sara since they’re being held out to us as models of faith. Did you ever notice something interesting about Abram? He gets all this direct communication from God, but he rarely just bows his head and nods meekly. No, Abram argues with God, he bargains with God. And, as in today’s reading, he’s not afraid to let God know he’s not happy with God. As the text says, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." Keep in mind this is the not the first time Abram has heard this promise – and so far no kids. He’s reproaching God here, not just offering an observation. And as for Sarah – well, as far as I can recall she’s the only person who actually laughs at one of God’s promises; and she’s not laughing for joy. Just a couple chapters further along (18:9-15), God’s messengers are once again telling Abram that he and Sara are going to have a son – note that some years have apparently gone by and they’re both even older now – and still no kids. Now, Sara’s in the tent, hears this and laughs because she’s post-menopausal and not thinking that kids are any too likely. So, she laughs at hearing yet another promise from God that it’s all going to be all right. Yep our “models of faith” get angry with God, argue with God and, yes, even laugh at God. No, Abram and Sara don’t exactly match conventional ideas about people of great faith.

And yet, that’s exactly what they are. Because despite the anger, the frustration, and yes, even the doubt – they stick with God. Look at the final verse we have from Genesis in this passage: 15:6 “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Now, there’s something a little tricky about this sentence. This is the traditional way it’s translated – that Abram’s faith, his belief in God’s promise of a future reward, is seen by God as putting Abram in the righteous category. Now, what does that word “righteous” mean? It’s a tough word because it’s got centuries of English pietism piled onto it, but what it most accurately means is being in right standing with God, or even just being in right standing. It means you accept and keep your obligations to the other person. The way we usually use it, it means you keep up your end of things with God – you try to do right by God. So, great, this passage is pretty straight forward – Abram is showing what a model of faith he is by believing in God (all evidence to the contrary) – so God acknowledges him as being righteous, he’s being true to his commitments and obligations to God. But, like I said, the verse is tricky. It is also quite possible that it reads as “And he believed the Lord, and Abram reckoned it the Lord as righteousness.” In other words, Abram is acknowledging that his early objection to God’s promise has been met – that it is God who is being acknowledged by Abram as being faithful, as someone Abram trusts.

And that brings us to why I think you can still use Abram and Sara as models of faith – not because they never waiver, never doubt, never laugh – but because they do argue and waiver and doubt and laugh and still hang onto God. They still reckon God as righteous; they trust God’s promise is real even if they can’t see it yet. Or, as our lesson from Hebrews puts it: 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” At this point in their story, Abram and Sara aren’t seeing much in the way of tangible results here; but they figure God’s good for it. Which kind of makes them crazy by most people’s standards. I mean if you go to your contractor and ask why the project he said would take 2 weeks is now into its 2^nd month, and he tells you not to worry, he’ll have it done soon – well, it may be time to call in that lawyer. And if you don’t call in the lawyer and two years later you’re still with that same contractor – well, people are pretty much going to figure you deserve whatever you get. Let’s face it, being a believer, following Christ, can get like that sometimes. A lot of the time the world looks at your faith and points to war, and famine, and disease, and death, and poverty, and cruelty, and – well the list goes on – and the world thinks you are nuts. And from the world’s perspective, we are. Which may be why it is so hard sometimes to hang on to faith; after all, we are a part of the world. We cannot help but share in some of their perspective sometimes. Yet, it is that hanging onto God that is supposed to make us foreigners in the world.

So where does that leave us? If faithful people have more in common with foreigners, aliens living in a strange land, with slaves keeping watch over someone else’s house, even with the dead – what does that mean for our lives? It raises a lot of questions about what it means to be both active in the world (selling the possessions, giving alms side of things) and being an outsider in the world. All too often, sadly, I think I see the kingdom of God as being the foreign land and this one as home. As Jesus noted several times in the gospels, it’s not easy to leave this world behind and enter the kingdom. It’s kind of scary to think our goal here is to feel out of sync, foreign, a slave not a master. Maybe some of us will always feel like aliens now in both realms – at least until Christ comes again.

Amen.