muscle to muscle
& toe to toe
Les Mis is
in theaters. It's gotten Oscar nods. I've heard it is good from everyone who
has seen it, so I am sure it is a lovely film. I haven't seen this film, but I
will. I have read the book though, and seen the touring cast preform the music.
The music is
wonderful and the story is just splendid. Bono of U2 said the most interesting
songs are ones about people running to, or away from, God. And I think this is
true. That is what is so captivating about Les Mis - the cast is huge but one
of the most compelling story lines is that of Jean Valjean.
Locked away
for stealing bread to feed his children, upon release Jean tries to steal the
candelabra from a priest. And as the adage goes, Jean cannot catch any luck.
Nearly
immediately he is apprehended by the police, and just when he thinks he is
going back to the "clink," the priest comes to save the day.
The priest
says he gave Jean the candles and that he forgot the silverware, too.
By grace,
Jean is saved.
He spends
the rest of that story running to catch up to that grace.
It is a
compelling storyline, and we can all, in one way or another, relate. That is
what brings us here week after week, isn't it?
At some
point in our lives grace has grabbed us, grace has changed everything, and now
we're running, just trying to catch up...
Now I've
never stolen from a priest or been locked away for stealing bread, but I can
remember, very clearly, a moment in my life when grace flipped everything
around. Since that evening I've been running, just trying to catch up with what
already happened.
It was my
senior year of college. I had been diligently studying theology, preparing for
seminary. In fact, at this point I had already been accepted into the call
process to become a pastor, and I had been accepted to seminary.
I was
working on my senior essay. The essay was comparing how Reinhold Niebuhr, an
ethicist, spoke about grace to the way Martin Luther spoke about grace.
Pretty
interesting, huh?
Don't worry,
I won't be preaching that essay anytime soon.
In fact, it
is remarkable God's grace was able to break through such an abstract
enterprise. Probably, all the coffee consumed and the fact that it was well
after mid-night, might have had something to do with the revelation.
I was
reading Gerhard Forde's explanation of grace when his words struck me. They
really came alive from the page and struck me. In fact, I physically felt a
sense of vertigo!
I don't have
the exact quote but what Forde was pointing out is that we are so trapped in
sin that we think freedom means just being able to do whatever we want.
Forde
pointed out that the freedom just to do what we wants means we're bound to
ourselves; we can never really freely serve another person as long as freedom
only means being able to do what we want.
As those
words struck me, I felt like I was falling, right there in the library.
Suddenly up felt like down, and left felt like right.
I realized I
had been speaking about theology completely wrong!
I wanted to
go back and rewrite every essay I had ever turned in! I figured all my
professors, seminary faculty and ELCA call staff must have though I was a
complete baffoon!
But you
never can go back, can you? Since that evening, I've been running to catch up
to the incredible work God has already done.
As it turned
out, though, the work God had started much, much before that evening...
It isn't
just folks like you and I, though, who run to catch up with what God is already
done.
Even the
writers of the Gospel have a hard time keeping up with God. Just look at
today's Gospel.
Today's
Gospel is the "Baptism of Our Lord."
This baptism
stirred some controversy. You can see the scandal in the fact that each Gospel
writer tries to fix the conundrum of Jesus being baptized. Each Gospel writer
does something different with Jesus' baptism, in Luke John is clear that Jesus
is more divine than him, and Luke even takes pains to get John out of the scene
of Jesus' baptism.
The scandal
is pretty obvious; why would Jesus, God in the flesh, need to be baptized?
Did Jesus
sin?!?
And then
there is the problem that Jesus' baptism could seem like Jesus was submitting
to John's teaching, not John submitting to Jesus' teaching. So each of the
Gospel writers tries to ease these difficulties created by Jesus being baptized
away.
The simple
fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, radically enters into this broken world in
such a way that even God would need to be baptized is too scandalous! It is
just too much for our Gospel author's piety.
God's
holiness must to be protected!
God gets so
fleshy, so sinful, that even the Gospel writers get queasy, and at this moment
they flinch!
They try to
fix the problems of Jesus being baptized.
The fact
that God gets so close to the muck of this world is too much, and the Gospel
writers try to fix the problem of God's decision to radically enter into the
world. The fact that God gets so involved in the life that we know so well and,
frankly, need so badly for God to be with us in is just too unholy for God and
the Gospel writers try to fix God's lack of care for all things pure.
So it isn't
just for literary characters like Jean, or folks like you and me, even the Gospel
writers find themselves running to catch up to the work God already does.
And when
push comes to shove, we all too often find ourselves trying to do the same
theological fixing that the gospel authors get involved in.
Just look at
today's lesson from Acts. That giving of the Holy Spirit gets us a little
squirmish...
We hear that
the folks in Samaria had been baptized, but the Holy Spirit hadn't come to them
yet. For those of us who practice infant baptism, we start to get a little
concerned.
We look over
our shoulders to make sure none of those folks who practice believers baptism
are around!
Jeez if they
are we're in a heap of trouble! In fact, we can already hear the "I told
you so's" coming! Quickly we flip through our Bibles to find an example of
infant baptism (of which, there are none!) to proof-text our way back into
being right.
But to
engage in this kind of sloppy, self-centered exegesis is miss the point
completely!
Peter and
John are not sent to Samaria to confirm the people's faith there. No
Peter and John are sent to Samaria so God can confirm to Peter and John, and
all Jerusalem, that the Samaritans faith is valid.
After all,
let's not forget who the Samaritans we're...
The
samaritans were despised by Judeans. That is part of the scandal of Jesus'
parable of the Good Samaritan.
Good?!?! How
could a Samaritan, one of those people,
be good, any good Judean would have wondered.
When the
Christian mission began in Jerusalem then, Samaria was probably the last place
they had in mind to spread God's Word.
But low and
behold, God's Word goes even there, and what do those crazy Samaritans do?
They accept
God's Word!
And so now
Pete and John go Samaria, not to confirm the faith of the Samaritans, God had
already done that.
No, John and
Peter go to Samaria so God can show them, and all Jerusalem, that God has
already been at work, even among the Samaritans!
So it is not
just among folks like you and me, or even the Gospel writers, but even the
saints.
Yes even the
saints, those heroes we look up to!
Even Pete
and John find themselves running to catch up to the work God has already done.
Like Jean Valjean, like you and me, God has already acted, and that incredible
grace of God has changed everything.
Earlier I
noted that God's incredible work began well before that evening when I was in
the library.
As many of
you know, I didn't grow up Lutheran.
For most of
my time growing up, my mother took me to a fine Pentecostal church, one that
didn't have infant baptism.
When I was
born, though, my folks weren't really going to any church.
When my
Dad's mom heard this, she wouldn't have it.
I needed to
be baptized. I mean, what if, God forbid, something happened to me? I needed to
be baptized.
So I was.
Yup - I got
the fire insurance at a young age.
In the
baptism, I can not be sure how seriously the clergy took the vows that were
made, and honestly I can't be sure how seriously my family took those vows.
In fact, I
don't think I ever set foot in that church again...
But do you
know what, the church I was baptized in was a Lutheran church.
Yes, I just
went there for the fire insurance; but low and behold, I became a Lutheran
pastor...
In that act,
a can of worms was opened and the lid could not be put back on.
Well even
before I knew it, I had been running to catch up to that work God had already
begun.
That,
finally, is the story of the Bible.
It isn't
about having the perfect, completed theology. It isn't about knowing what
communion or baptism means, as if any of us do. It isn't even about having the
catechism memorized, as if we need to anymore in the era of the smartphone.
The story of
the Bible is the story of humans running to catch up to the work already done
by God!
You'll
notice I've been projecting images and the sound of running water.
Yes, it is
to help the story of Jesus' baptism to come alive, but it is also to remind us
that the work of God is ever running; living water.
We've been
washed in that water and so now we find ourselves caught up in that ever moving
water, that ever running work God has already done. We've been reborn into a
new threshold, everything is different, we cannot turn around, we cannot undue
this work that has been begun.
We are
caught up in the grace of God's work.
God leads,
let us follow!
Amen.
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