Psalm 119.33-40; Matthew 18.15-20
Our reading this morning from Psalm 119 is a prayer …
Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law …
Lead me in the path of your commandments …
Turn my heart to your decrees …
Turn my eyes from looking at vanities …
There is a body of knowledge available to us … a world of guidance and insight …
We are not at a loss as to what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, nor are we at a loss for what it means to love our neighbor as we love ourselves …
The Christian Life is something we all want to achieve … it’s a journey of a lifetime, and then some … we never arrive … we’re always in motion … life is motion, change, movement, all the time …
In the mix of time, the presence of God … the love of God at work in all things, for good … at work in every form of life, in every soul, in every one of God’s creatures, in the ebb and flow time.
We’re connected … connected to God, connected to one another … the whole human race is our kinfolk … as President Biden recently said: “One Earth, one Family, one Future.”
The world is our family, because “this is my Father’s world.”
He’s got the whole world in his hands … he’s got the wind and the rain … the tiny little baby … you and me, brother and sister, in his hands … he’s got everybody here, the whole world, in his hands.
I cannot explain such things - my mind simple isn’t big enough, nor do I have words grand enough.
I cannot explain such things - but I can practice goodness.
I cannot explain such things - but I can dig into the treasure house of God’s Word … yes, the Bible … from Genesis to Revelation, and everything in between, including the index, the footnotes, and the maps.
Now … let’s be clear about something … there are people who fill their lives with the Bible, and live like hell …
Folks came to these shores in search of religious freedom, and quickly took it upon themselves to mistreat and destroy the indigenous population … and they did it in the name of Jesus.
They scoured the coasts of Africa, and took on board thousands of people in chains … and they did it in the name of Jesus.
Every day, I see the news - screaming and scuffling, disrupting - books banned, freedom curtailed, seeds of mistrust and confusion sown all over the land … and much of it in the name of Jesus.
The Rev. Fred Craddock said, “It’s possible to get an A in Bible and still flunk Christianity.”
With that in mind, we pick up this Sacred Text, the Holy Bible, God’s Word, and read it with intelligence, wisdom, restraint, and hope …
Read it like we would any book - parts make sense, parts are downright strange, odd, and even disagreeable.
It’s the story of a people, just like you and me, with good days and bad days, trying to live out the love and purpose of God -
sometimes with success,
sometimes in abject failure …
sometimes proclaiming the gospel of forgiveness,
sometimes smashing the world in the face with hellfire and damnation.
I encourage you to read the Scriptures as often you can … not to understand, but to become familiar with its cadence, the flow of its words … rhythm, beat, rhyme and form …
The stately Creation Storie of Genesis 1,
the struggle for identity in Leviticus …
stories of greatness and failure -
kings and queens, priests and prophets -
the ultimate failure of the whole project …
Israel destroyed under the iron heel of dominant powers
And then that little manger in a little town in a time and a land far away …
a little baby is born and becomes a boy, and then a man, who wades into the Jordan River to be baptized by John …
we can hear and feel his work and words …
and the work and words of the Apostle Paul …
the wisdom of James and Peter … all the way to the wild and wooly Book of Revelation … and the end of time.
I’ve known people to start reading the Bible with great energy, but soon the task is more than most can handle … it’s a daunting book, and too many preachers have misled their people by telling them, “The Bible is simple book!” Which it isn’t.
“Read it in faith,” they say. But all the faith in all the world cannot replace common sense, knowledge, learning, and the diligent study.
Preachers tell preposterous stories.
The Bible in the pocket that saves a soldier’s life from an enemy bullet … impossible stories of healing and wealth, as if the Bible were some kind of magic amulet, a genie’s lamp to be rubbed, a good luck charm, a rabbit’s foot in the pocket.
Preachers read through the Book of Revelation and claim to know how the world will end - they devise elaborate calculations, they twist and turn, dance and prance, and the crowds flock to hear them.
These are catastrophic misreadings of Scripture … they lead to confusion, disappointment, and the growing violence of White Christian Nationalism … it sickens me, and keeps me awake at night.
TV and the internet haven’t helped, either … the preacher in Tennessee who tapes a Bible to a baseball bat and proceeds to smash to smithereens a Barbie playhouse … the audience goes crazy, cheering and screaming, yes, all in the name of Jesus.
It’s up to us, dear friends … to read the Bible well, to read it with care … lest we become lost in some religious foolishness, some religious bigotry, some outlandish nonsense, or simply give up, as so many are doing … abandoning the church, because the church has failed to lift up the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, has failed in the test of time, has spent way too much damning others rather than celebrating life and widening the circles of freedom.
I’ve entitled today’s sermon, “Be Careful What You Say!”
Because words are powerful … are they not?
We try our best to speak with care, but words often come out, jumbled, upside down, and confused.
“What did you say?” we might say to a friend, or they to us.
We might say, “I didn’t mean that,” and our friend thinks, “Well, what the heck did you mean?”
We go to bed at night, our mind churns with the cruel words someone said to us … maybe we lay awake, regretting what we said, in the heat of the moment, in the haste of anger and fear.
On the good side of the ledger:
A teacher compliments a student, and the student goes home with a smile a mile wide … a spouse says, “I love you all the way to the moon and back again,” and life is wonderful … a boss says, “Well done,” and new energy is released.
Words are a gift … by a word, God creates the world and says it’s good … the Word of God is born in Bethlehem …
Whatever we do, it’s best when it’s done together … yes, together, the whole parade can go to hell and march into the pits of darkness - Mussolini’s Black Shirts, Hitler’s Brown Shirts, the mob that stormed the capital. There is power when we’re together, but the power can be demented, evil, destructive, deadly.
But, still, going it alone is a poor subtitle for the goodness of the sacred community, the church of Jesus Christ … not the buildings, the programs, but the people … who speak the language of love.
God speaks to the world … and we learn … we do it together - TOGETHER …
Jesus says: where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.
Jesus, in our midst … that we might know the goodness of God, that we might give ourselves to Christ, learn of Christ, learn the language of Christ, the language of faith, hope, and love; grace, mercy, and peace.
Watch what you say, and you might be surprised, when the words you say have the character and quality of Jesus.
Amen and Amen!
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