In the last couple of weeks we barely got to revel
in
the wonderful natural display of the total solar eclipse
before
we were on to the next crisis – Hurricane Harvey.
And we have been so absorbed in the flooding
beyond
anything we have seen before,
that
we might have missed the even greater flood devastation
happening
simultaneously
in
India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
In those three countries the human death toll is over
1,200,
and
half the country of Bangladesh has been underwater.
Aside from the natural
disasters, we have also been witnessing political upheavals
that
also are crises on various different issues,
such
as racism, terrorism and threat of thermal nuclear war.
I’m not going into all that right now;
I’m
just noting how we are personally affected by these stresses.
How do we live in the midst of it all?
How do we live our faith as
Christians when that name Christian gets politicized?
What is an authentic way to be a follower of Jesus?
These
are the questions we can ask ourselves and reflect on
in
the light of the scripture readings for today,
three very good and significant passages we really should to
pay attention to.
The passage from Exodus 3 is one of the most important in
the Old Testament,
the
Jewish scriptures,
and
relates directly to the Gospel reading for today,
and
I’ll tell you how.
This is the story of Moses and the bush that was burning,
but not burning up.
That bush was an angel, a messenger from God, to get
Moses’ attention,
so
that he could learn something incredibly important about
who
God is:
not a name, but simply put, “I AM,” Life, being,
consciousness.
Moses is given a significant prophetic action to carry out
–
deliver
the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt,
but that deliverance is for the sake of God who is their
Life.
In the Gospel reading, verse 25 Jesus says,
For those who want to save their
life will lose it,
and
those who lose their life for my sake
will find it.
Let’s look for a moment at our opening hymn for today,
in particular verse three. We sang:
To
all life thou givest, to both great and small;
In
all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We
blossom and flourish, like leaves on the tree,
Then
wither and perish, but not changeth thee.
God lives in all life, - that verse says – or rather all
life lives in God.
When we sing these words, we may be focusing on the
eternal nature of God,
but
what the words are also saying is that all life is lived in God’s life.
You and I are expressions of the One Life,
unique
and individual yet also only a part of that One Life.
Those who engage in the
spiritual practice of meditation get a sense of that.
And this One Life, God’s Life, is the true life of all of
us.
What we identify as ourselves is what we see
blossoming
and flourishing and withering and dying, as the hymn says.
But what does not change is the true life,
what
we can find when we lose the life we have been identifying with.
Matthew 16:25
For
those who want to save their life will lose it,
and
those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
And then verse 27:
For the Son of Man is to come with
his angels in the glory of his Father, and
then he will reward each one according to their praxis.
That is the literal translation. The Greek word is praxis
–
which
means practice, action, deeds, behavior, the model of action.
The reward is going to those who lose their life for the
sake of Jesus,
in
other words, his disciples.
Praxis is fundamental to discipleship.
We are baptized into Jesus and what we then do flows out
of New Life.
It requires that we leave all behind, right down to our
own self identification,
how
we define ourselves.
Because when we lose that,
then
we can find our true self, who we really are.
To put it more baldy
when
we come to know who we are in Jesus, in relationship with him,
then
we can be equipped to be real disciples in action.
Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has spoken of the need
for the Church
to
express itself as a Jesus Movement,
and the response has been to be enthusiastic about Matthew
25 ministry.
You
remember that:
“Inasmuch
as you have done it unto the lease of these,
you
have done it unto me.”
But in the “Jesus Movement” the key word is Jesus.
If you don’t begin with relationship with Jesus,
then
you are just running a social justice program
not a real Jesus Movement.
It is so easy to push by Jesus and just get down to work.
And Romans 12 is a great action plan for addressing this
crisis
or
any crisis, and all the needs we see around us.
Let love be
genuine;
hate
what is evil, hold fast to what is good;
love
one another with mutual affection; …
be
patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
Contribute
to the needs of the saints;
extend
hospitality to strangers.
Bless
those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. …
Live
in harmony with one another; …
Do
not repay anyone evil for evil,
but
take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. …
Do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
There it all is
– a whole plan of action, a moral standard, a Christian life style.
You should tear
out this page from the liturgy booklet
and
take it home and put it on the refrigerator door
or
tape it to the bathroom mirror
or
on the inside of the front door so that every time you go out
you
can see these words and remember to take them with you
in
your behavior, your action, your praxis.
But we have got to understand
that this is not just a morality
for
us to try to live out from our own effort.
Romans 12 is a prescription for life in the Christian
community,
the
life style of a Christian community,
and the first verse in this reading sets the parameters
for all that follows:
Love
must be genuine, authentic.
The
Greek word here for genuine means
literally not hypocritical.
And the word for love here is agaph,
the
love which is beyond all other forms of love,
love
which surpasses family love,
godly
love, as in “God is love.”
Love that makes no distinction, does not objectify, but
unites with the other.
It is like the true life one finds when the imagined self
is no longer clung to,
but
let go of, lost.
Let love be genuine,
and then everything else that follows in Romans 12 will be
possible.
Because love that is genuine comes as a gift from Jesus
to
enable us for effective discipleship.
“We love, because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
Now back to the Gospel reading: Verse 28, Jesus said,
Truly
I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death
before
they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
…To see the
Son of man coming in his kingdom,
and
that kingdom is expressed as resurrection.
The reward for those disciples is in seeing the
resurrected Jesus,
and
resurrection then leads to the empowerment of the disciples
on
the day of Pentecost
to become apostles, to be
witnesses of Jesus – that’s the original Jesus Movement.
If we are to be a witness in the world of a Jesus
Movement,
it
must be by our seeing kingdom come in Jesus
through
the power of the resurrection,
by which we then are empowered in God’s love and life.
In a short while I will be issuing an altar call for all
of you to come forward
in
order to be empowered for action/for praxis in the world.
You will recognize the altar call when you hear the words,
The Gifts of God for the People of God,
for
those gifts are gifts of God’s Life in you.
Discern the Body and Blood of Jesus being placed in your
hands,
and
what that reality can do in you.
Then you can pray,
“Send
us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and
serve you with gladness and singleness of heart.”
