Psalm 33.12-22; Luke 12.32-40
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
The deepest assurance …
Jesus goes on:
Sell your possession … give alms … be dressed for action … have your lamps lit … you must be ready …
The ragged edge of life …
We live in two worlds … the assurance of God’s love … and the ragged edge of life.
We see the two worlds in the LORD’s Prayer … give us this day our daily bread … and forgive us our debts … lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil …
The Apostles’ Creed: Jesus Christ his only son our LORD …suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell.
We hear it in the Hail Mary: Hail Mary full of grace, the LORD is with thee … and then, Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners in the hour of our death.
The great theologian, Karl Barth, once said, read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other …
The two worlds …
Both worlds are good, created by God …
We live best, when we live in both.
When I meet with a pre-wedding couple, I always end with a little Marriage 101 … one of the questions, “Do either of you have a will?”
Most don’t … so we talk a little bit about having a will.
I say, “I don’t like to talk about these things, but the unimaginable could happen.”
The couples always acknowledge this … yes, they know … because we all know … we know it in our bones …
Jesus says: you belong to God … but you must also be ready … the thief will come some time, and no one knows when.
We hold these two worlds together … but they’re easy to split apart … split apart, we end up with half-truths … and that’s a problem … and it can be a terrible with religion.
If religion loses sight of reality, religion tends to oversell the assurance of God … outlandish promises, promises of health, wealth, and happiness - the power of prayer … name it and claim it … pray this way, and you’ll get what you want.
Nothing worse then overselling religion … why?
It always disappoints … sooner or later, the house of cards collapses …
And rather than blaming the hucksters, those who over-blow the promises of God’s assurance, God’s love … folks blame themselves …
People feel guilty, ashamed, angry, angry at themselves, when it’s not working … so they try to have MORE faith, they try to pray harder, give more money, because the preacher said “there will be showers of blessing.”
Some folks end up in funk, some are just plain destroyed, some come to hate God, some live the half-truth for years … and put on a happy smile, but they know it’s not working.
I know … I’ve helped a lot of folks pick up the pieces of their souls, shattered by half-truth religion and trumped up promises.
“May the Lord open all the closed doors in your life in Jesus name..Whoever is planning evil against you and your family, it will not work in Jesus name. You are rising higher....God is giving you total victory....You will smile again.,.You will laugh again.,.You will rejoice again.,.You will be happy again....in Jesus name..I'm praying for you.. May you receive what you have been praying for.It is going to be like a dream when the Lord intervene[s]. Many will wish if they had supported you from the beginning. Just wait and see what the Lord is about to do in your life.Amen. Be Blessed. Amen”
Not exactly the LORD’s prayer, is it? … bits and pieces of truth here and there, but compromised truth, fiddled truth … half-truth …
Why do I care?
Because this stuff hurts people …
Confuses and confounds them.
It’s just plain misleading.
A friend of ours suffered a major health crisis - her daughter, part of a very conservative church, posted prayer requests.
The prayers came roaring in: “My God has this” … “God will hear your prayers and heal your mother” … “God has your back” … “God is a God of miracles” … “miracles are coming” … “Jesus is wonderful” … “Jesus is gonna heal your mother” … and on and on and on it went, full of half-truths … all assurance … no hint of the ragged edge of life, and not a whole lot of sympathy.
The mother eventually awakened, with severe complications … now, months later, no recovery.
The prayer chain went silent - they didn’t know what to say in the face of reality.
Kindness wasn’t good enough, the deep assurance of God’s love wasn’t good enough … it had to be trumped up with noise - shouts of victory, overcoming, powerful miracles, outlandish claims, noise and nonsense …
How much better to have said, “We’re praying for you and your mother,” … “ We’re here for you” … “God is with you, and so are we” … “How terrible this must be for you” … “Is there anything you need right now? How’s your dad doing?” … the simple things - the simple things of kindness, mercy, sympathy, decency, in the face of suffering and sorrow.
We need the whole truth …
The assurance of God’s love … AND the ragged edge of life.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want … yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …
Both worlds - and in both worlds, the love of God … we don’t need noise and nonsense to bolster the faith … the Holy Spirit does the work … Christ is trustworthy … God does not fail …
Here in this place, the Tower still stands … the tower points upward, points to the vast mysteries of God … not to deflect our focus from here and now, but to sharpen our focus for the here and now, that we might live well … as well as we can … in both worlds.
As in the trailer for the new Star Wars adventure, “Andor” … a leader of the Rebellion says to Andor, “The Empire is choking us so slowly, we’re starting not to notice. All I’m asking is this - wouldn’t you rather give it all … to something real?”
To give it all … to something real … this IS what we do here … what we’re trying to do … give ourselves to something real:
The real world of Christ, the assurance of God’s love …
The real world of time, the ragged edge of life …
A world of forever … a world of yesterdays and tomorrows …
A world shaped by endless mystery, the other, by the march of time …
To live in both worlds, is to live the love of God.
Hallelujah and Amen!
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