God's "Yes" to Humanity

Blech.  Sometimes, the scariest part about preaching is that sometimes the words on the page and the words in one's head (or a combination thereof) don't do or say what one hopes they will.  Sometimes, in relationship to the text and to one another, it's all a little more messy than I would like it to be.  I think this is one of those weeks.  Bear with me, friends.

Today’s reading from Mark bothers me.  I don’t like saying, “The Gospel of the Lord,” when it seems like there is nothing Gospel about it.  At the same time, I don’t think that ignoring texts that bother, confound, or scare us does us any good either.  There are moments in the text that I think, “How in the world does God work through this?”  “Does God work through this?”  What do you think Herod was feeling at this moment?  Guilt?  Regret?  Fear?  I think he was haunted by this memory.  I can see his face going ghastly white as he hears the words, “John the Baptizer has been raised.”  Feeling hot and as though the room was becoming too small, the occurrences of his birthday came back to him.  He had a man beheaded because it was too uncomfortable for him to stand up and say, “No.” 

I wonder if part of the reason I don’t like this text is because it reminds me of the times that I sat quiet, accepting my complicity in whatever was going on around me.  Too apathetic to stand up and say, “No,” I watched as people I wanted to respect me and like me behave in ways I didn’t like or respect.  I wonder how many times things happen and we look the other way, acting as though it is none of our business, as someone gets hurt, someone goes without, someone takes the blame for something that they had nothing to do with.  I think most of us are haunted by the memory of the times that we should have done something, the times we could have done something, the times we would have done something if we had only known where the situation would end up.

I think this happens even in the most innocent of situations.  In the Large Catechism, Martin Luther expands and complicates what, exactly, is asked of us in the 10 Commandments.  Regarding the 5^th Commandment (You Shall Not Murder), he writes: “Under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him, and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; if you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto, for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved.”

I can already hear the protest in my own voice, “But that’s impossible!  There is no way I can possibly do this!  There’s no way I can feed all of the hungry or give all of the thirsty something to drink or clothe all of the naked.”  In response I hear the words, “Yes, but how many times have you withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit by which his life would be saved?”  And we say nothing. 

The truth is: I want this to be more convenient.  I want to benefit from all that Christ has done for me and not worry about my neighbor.  Most of us can say, “That’s not true: look, I have done this and this and this and this…” but our protest makes evident that we want to earn grace cheaply.  We do not want it to be free.  We want it to be cheap.  We do not want to look at the things we have done, the things we have failed to do, or the times we have refused to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Each week, we confess these things, but I’m not convinced we actually mean them.  This is where it becomes hard: it is not until we look at the ourselves in the mirror and recognize the things we have done and the things we have failed to do have, however inadvertently, affected the world around us.  We don’t want to name what we see in ourselves: brokenness and sins, because we’re afraid if we name those things, we’ll have let the cat out of the bag and never be able to get it back in.  Strangely, it is as we name a thing for what it is: sin for sin and brokenness for brokenness, that we recognize what, exactly, Christ did for us on the cross. 

The cross is God’s “Yes,” in the face of humanity’s “No.”  It was more than a payment; it was more than a reward.  I think that’s part of the problem with how we look at ourselves, at each other, at the Bible, and at God.  We want God’s “Yes” to us to be something that has happened because we have somehow gotten better, or somehow earned it.  We don’t want to find that God’s “Yes,” comes in spite of the times we have failed.  Out of shame and embarrassment, we make God’s “Yes,” smaller and less powerful, because we somehow want to earn it. It is strange; this is the very place that Jesus begins.  The very thing we are too scared to confess: that we are sinners, afraid that the only thing anyone can see are the things that haunt us. 

It starts here, with our confession.  It is this naming of our selves that helps us to let go of the things that we carry, guilt or memories or actions or fears that we will inadvertently pick up again sometimes during the week and need to be reminded that it is not ours to carry.  Part of what I love about having the confession and forgiveness at the beginning of worship is to be reminded that this is the place where we have been named and claimed as who we are.  It is as though Jesus says, “Yes, I know you.  The story of your sin is not the whole story; now let’s get on with it.”  It is here we realize the story is not just about us and what we have done; it is about us and this God, who sends fools and liars out to spread the Gospel, who asks the impossible of us: belief, and gives us faith the size of a mustard seed to do it.  It is this God that inspires the author of Ephesians to write a sentence that is over 10 verses long (it had to be broken up to make any sense in English) to describe the actions of this God.  This God is a God on the move.  Christ has come, and you are the witnesses of this “Yes.”

You have been made free.  You are not made free so that you don’t have to worry about your neighbor.  You have been made free so that you, being unbound from all that seeks to hold you down, might unbind your neighbor as well.  It is God’s “Yes,” to us that inspires our ability to seek ourselves as connected to our brothers and sisters and neighbors as children of God, reconciling us to the times we have failed to see this, and giving us the courage to look at the world with new eyes. 

All of the times you have said no, have watched as you should have, could have, would have done something, pale in comparison to God’s “yes” to you.  You have been made free by Christ to see yourself as who you are: a sinner and yet a saint, broken and yet holy, unlovable and yet loved beyond measure… and you have been given the treasure of the mystery of faith, by the riches of grace that has been lavished upon you through Jesus Christ.  It wasn’t just enough grace to get by, just barely enough to forgive you but not enough to save you; it is grace upon grace upon grace, so that you know - it is God’s yes to you, from the foundation of all creation, that has made all the difference.