Loading...For so many hours a week we are all inundated with messages from
news, advertising, TV shows, songs, movies, social media, blogs,
and even the old-fashioned means: newspapers, magazines, and books.
We are inundated with messages about success, family, marriage, strength, power, good/bad, men/women, people different than you,
children, inequality, race, and even vacations!
Some messages are quite lovely and well-played. They are even complex and nuanced.
Others promote prejudices such as sexism or racism.
Or, offer a simplistic view of the world.
Still others leave one with the slightly bitter after-taste of
“you’re not quite ______ enough!”
e.g. rich, successful, powerful, smart, savvy, perfect.
Yet, these are the messages we hear over and over again in our culture
even if we don’t realize it or notice it.
After awhile these messages affect us and our thinking about ourselves and other people, usually in negative ways.
So, what’s a person to do?
What’s a person of faith to do?
What’s a person with questions about God, Jesus, church, faith,
or the purpose of life to do?
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I’m not saying that you’ve come to church this morning with these questions on the forefront of your mind,
but they might be somewhere in your mind, in your subconscious brain:
“Just what is a person who has questions about life, the universe, and everything who may or may not consider herself a person of faith to do when faced with all of these negative messages about worth, and value of self or others?”
With that kind of a question floating about in your subconscious, you come here today and are met with Scripture readings that are, at best, puzzling, and at worst, enigmatic!
• A bunch of what sound like commandments from Leviticus (because they are!)
• And, is Jesus telling us to be doormats? Or, does he mean something else?
• Finally, is Paul instructing us in building an actual building in this letter to the Corinthians?
• Or, whatever other questions may have been raised for you in these texts.
Really, truly, we could go through the Bible texts verse by verse to parse out what all of these means,
but that takes too long (that’s what we have Bible study for!),
and we have friends and family with us who probably didn’t sign up for a 40 minute+ sermon!
Plus, I’m not convinced that that would actually help us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
So.
Not to be too simplistic about Scripture (after all, it’s full of complexity!),
like much of what’s in the Bible,
our texts today are training us in how to live as God’s people.
Being a person of faith is not a Sunday morning thing only –
especially not a “just once a month Sunday morning” thing!
Being a person of faith –
even a person with lots of questions –
means that you figure out ways to put that faith into practice.
Every day.
These practices do not need to be big, dramatic gestures of faith
like those of the martyrs.
Nor do they have to be about making moving speeches, or writing books, or making art, or some other Big Thing.
Being a person of faith is about how you live each day:
For example, showing kindness to your neighbor
and not just the folks you know and like!
Showing kindness to people you don’t know,
or who’ve showed unkindness to you,
or, who are different from you in some way.
An example of kindness to show to your neighbor is given in Leviticus.
Very few of us are farmers or have orchards or vineyards,
so the instruction about not reaping the fields to the edges,
and to leave the gleanings in the vineyards for the poor and the “alien” (in other words “immigrant” or “refugee”)
may not seem very relevant.
But, it is relevant!
True, this instruction may be specific to a type of work and to a cultural milieu that is different than our own,
but the intent behind the instruction
is that we share what we have with folks who don’t have enough.
That might mean giving something that you have up in order to make sure that others have enough.
Or, it might mean that you advocate for more social services for those who need them, or for better equality.
Or, it might mean that you help World Relief or other organizations that help refugees settle in our community.
It might mean that you help out at Dinner Table or Blessings Under the Bridge, or another way to make sure folks have enough food to eat.
It means any number of ways to put your faith into action.
Of course, for each one of you, this is going to mean something different.
We don’t all have the same abilities, interests, passions, or assets.
Our lives of faith include questions,
seeking out some answers,
and discerning (e.g. figuring stuff out with God’s help).
Our lives of faith include figuring out what our purpose is:
what God’s plans and purpose for you are.
God intends to use you to share the love and goodness that you know.
God calls you to be the person whom God created you to be –
helping to create a different kind of world than we see in the media:
• a world where violence doesn’t breed more violence and hate doesn’t kindle more hate.
• a world where goodness is stronger than evil.
How?!?
How do we do this?
Some days it may look like the actions of those who marched in Selma in the 60s, or who sat at the lunch counter despite the signs.
Some days we turn the other cheek; we love our enemies; we carry the burden of the one who persecutes us. (Some days, but not always!)
Most days, it looks a lot more like
speaking up – trusting that the Spirit gives words and courage
standing next to – knowing that we are accompanying only because we ourselves are accompanied by God
reaching out – because we know that the work of making the world new is the work of Jesus, and that we are a part of it.
We live this way because we’re asked to live with a purpose, and that is:
being Jesus’ disciples in God’s beloved world.
We are not alone in this purpose, and we are not without tools.
Yet, all along, we are being asked by Jesus to be more than we thought we could be because we have the abiding presence and power of God.
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This brings me to the end of this Gospel text and the tricky verse:
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This verse Trips. Us. Up. every time.
That word “perfect”.
Talk about cultural messages:
Look perfect! Act perfect! Be perfect!!
This is impossible
(and it’s led to many eating disorders, lies and efforts to cheat,
and feelings of despondency).
That word “perfect”.
Except the word that Jesus uses is not at all about morality
or flawlessness. He uses the Greek word “telos”.
And, its meaning is much more about “complete” or “integrity”.
Be the thing that you were created, or meant, to be.
One writer that I turned to this week gave an example of “telos”:
A peace tree is created to produce peaches.
Peaches are meant to come from a peach tree.
You could even say that the purpose of the peach tree is to make peaches!
Pears? Bananas? Kiwi fruit?!? NO!
The peach tree is perfect (complete) because it produces peaches.
With that in mind, let’s rework this last verse, translating it from the original Greek language into an English version that gets closer to what Jesus meant:
“Be the person (and community) God created you to be, just as God is the One God is supposed to be” (David Lose, ...In the Meantime)
Or, as another translation renders it:
“Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
(Eugene Peterson, The Message)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All those messages that we are inundated with day after day, hour after hour fade away.
Turn down the volume of the outside messages (and the ones internalized!) so that you can hear this constant loving invitation from Jesus:
Be the person and the community that God created you to be.
Love each other
Care for one another.
Connect with one another.
Receive this identity that God has given you!
Not to be peach trees, but as Anica, Mary, Bob, Anne, Tim, Marian, Janine, Bill, Mahli, Becca, and all the rest of you.
Become this person
fed and nourished by our worship on Sundays,
and lived out every day –
full of grace and truth,
filled with the gifts of the Spirit,
and free to love and God loves. Amen
