conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

short and sweet

Here's the sermon. I read it aloud about five times this morning. It takes about 12 minutes...thus 15 in the preaching.

I can�t believe the news today
Oh, I can�t close my eyes and make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song?
How long? how long...

�cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...

Broken bottles under children�s feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won�t heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday (sunday bloody sunday...)
(allright lets go!)

The death toll in Russia has reached to more than 300 with hundreds more injured. Children. Teachers. Soldiers. Townspeople. We must even mourn those who are so lost that they would commit such an act. Can there be a greater act of despair? Where is hope? Where is God in this? Whose hand is in this?

The words to the song �Sunday Bloody Sunday� have been running through my head. These words were penned by Bono, the lead singer of the rock group U2 twenty years ago and I find them speaking to me today. I find them echoing in my mind.

And the battle�s just begun
There�s many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart

Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday

I wonder if Bono had this Luke passage in mind when he wrote this song. The immediate sentiment is different, and yet I am reminded of Luke�s very difficult words. Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

I think that this verse can be cruel. When I spoke to Pastor Carol about the readings for today, she suggested that I give a sermon on what we do with difficult passages. Not a bad idea. But, this passage is demanding something more from me. This passage is asking me to read itself into my own life, into my heart. Scripture can transform our hearts, our thinking and even our lives. As Jeremiah�s image of the potter and the clay suggests, we can be transformed by God. God shapes us.

Luke continues�

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, �This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.� Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Here is a rigorous set of standards. This is probably one of the verses baptismal candidates should read before they make that final decision to be baptized. I can hear this tone "Are you sure you want to follow Jesus? It can be a little, well, intense." Luke wants us to be prepared to follow Christ. He wants us to know what it is that we are getting into.

Should we allow these words to be figurative or should we allow them to be read simply, at face value? Am I really supposed to hate my family and friends? Am I supposed to hate myself? Psychologists must love this line of questioning. This is how they put their own children through college.

What does giving it all away look like? Does Jesus want me to be a pauper?

Again, I return to Bono�s words.

And it�s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and tv reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

The real battle yet begun (sunday, bloody sunday)
To claim the victory Jesus won (sunday, bloody sunday)
On Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

There is this desire, I think, as we watch the news on TV, to remove ourselves from the situation emotionally. This is a normal desire, a normal reaction. The images are unreal. They are overwhelming. I find myself imagining them as staged or choreographed. It may then be easier to imagine how I might respond. I know that I have imagined this: I have had fantasies of getting on a plane and going to Russia to help. Somehow, this situation has captivated my attention. This fantasy of mine is an inappropriate and �unreal� response. Fact and fiction have reversed themselves in my heart. I am fighting the wrong battle. I am not, as Luke suggests, prepared as I should be.

It is not that the desire to help is wrong or even misplaced. It is that I am responding to a situation that I do not even understand. I am responding to a situation that exists in my imagination. I am not even certain that I have the courage to do what Luke asks, and thus to see the situation in Russia for what it is. Which battle is it that I wish to fight? How do I seek reconciliation and not revenge or even my own benefit? How do I ignore my mother, father, the children and find the cross instead? Where is the cross in Russia?

�Come, go down to the potter�s house, and there I will let you hear my words.� So I went down to the potter�s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter�s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter�s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Typically when I read this verse, for whatever reason, I often think of retreats and sermons where this "potter/clay" metaphor has been a theme for how God shapes us individually. We are Baptists after all. We typically concern ourselves with the individual first. We do not often think in terms of communities or nations.

And yet, this passage is really about God shaping nations. The nation of Israel is being shaped by God's hands. All nations are, in fact, this very day, being shaped by God's hands. God, is deeply involved in the shaping of nations, of peoples. God is deeply involved in politics. According to Jeremiah, through the relationships between nations, God rewards and punishes. We can talk later about whether or not we particularly enjoy this passage, but the passage is clear that God judges nations. But by what standards? Does the situation in Russia look like God's judgment? What are the criteria?

This may be where Jeremiah begins to make some sense. God has not destroyed Israel. God desires Israel. God desires all nations. In fact, if we look again, God�s promise to Israel stands firm. God can seem to crush Israel, but like the potter, in doing so, he reshapes the nation of Israel. The clay has not been thrown away, only its shape is changed. Israel remains, but changed. What God is asking is what Luke is after�a total change in priorities, a radical shift from national self-interest to the cross. God's judgment is God's very presence, God's reconciling love for humanity.

Vladamir Putin said this: "This is challenge to all of Russia, to all our people. This is an attack against all of us."

As implausible as it sounds, the battle lines are not drawn where we think they are. Luke challenges our assumptions. Perhaps we are to do something that will look like hatred against friends and family. Perhaps we are to give away the benefits of our power and wealth. Perhaps we are to pick up the cross instead.

The real battle yet begun (sunday, bloody sunday)
To claim the victory Jesus won (sunday, bloody sunday)
On Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

The victory Jesus won: a redeemed world, a saved humanity, the fruition of God�s love poured out upon all of creation, there for the asking. It is not an easy road and we must be prepared for it. But this is what we must proclaim: not our own might, not our own cares, but those of God. This is easy for me to say of the situation in Russia. I am thousands of miles away. I have the fiction of TV protecting me. Still, we are called to this task...to look at our own nation, our own tragedies, into our own hearts and ask these questions, to struggle and find God's hands in our lives, to struggle and find the cross.

But as we have seen in Russia and as it was illustrated for us in Jeremiah and even in the song by Bono, this is the most difficult of tasks. We would rather blame God for our troubles. We would rather seek out and destroy our enemies. This makes the most sense to us. This is the natural course of thinking.

Taking up the cross is so difficult that we soon realize that we cannot do it. We dare not do it. We cannot give up all we have, even our will, to God. This is impossible for us. Even Jesus struggles with following the will of God. It is no easy task.

Yet, whose hands are on the clay? Who guides nations? God does. No terrorist group can change that. No military action, no amount of fear, no trade embargo can change the final reality that there is someone else at work: God.

U2�s Bono was writing about the violence in Ireland twenty years ago. He was writing about hunger in the world. Nonetheless, the words can stand well for us this morning. What do we do with the images that are burned in our minds? �Broken bottles under children�s feet. Bodies strewn across a dead end street.�

We must �proclaim the victory that Jesus won� and allow God, The Holy Spirit and the rigorous way of Christ Jesus to shape our hearts, our lives, our nations, and indeed the very world into God�s will.

�cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...
Tonight...

Sunday, bloody sunday (tonight)
Tonight
Sunday, bloody sunday (tonight)
(come get some!)

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
I wipe your tears away
(sunday, bloody sunday)
I wipe your blood shot eyes
(sunday, bloody sunday)

Sunday, bloody sunday (sunday, bloody sunday)
Sunday, bloody sunday (sunday, bloody sunday)

The real battle yet begun (sunday, bloody sunday)
To claim the victory jesus won (sunday, bloody sunday)
On...

Sunday bloody sunday
Sunday bloody sunday

Posted by tripp at September 5, 2004 08:21 AM