missional church

Bearing the Cross (Sermon November 2, 2014)

Matthew 23:1–12 (NRSV)

Jesus Denounces Scribes and Pharisees

(Mk 12:38–40; Lk 20:45–47)

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ² “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; ³ therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. ⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶ They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷ and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸ But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. ⁹ And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. ¹⁰ Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹ The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Every year at the end of October the children across our land engage in a festive and fun filled evening of trick or treating. It is a day that has been surrounded with fun, legend, and myth. Called things from the devil’s birthday to a high church holiday for centuries because there is much history behind this holiday, Halloween. Many claim that it is a pagan holiday because it is connected to the Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), which is the holiday that the ancient Gaelic people celebrated which marked the end of harvest and the beginning of winter, which also corresponds to the darker half of the year. Of course this day is filled with spooky tales and mischief, mainly because as darkness falls our imagination can get the better of us. I also mentioned that this time of year is also a high church holiday. How can the church celebrate a pagan feast day one might ask, the answer is actually easier than you might think. November 1^st marks the feast of All Saints or All Hallows, this is the day where the people of the church would remember those great and faithful people that moved the church through the dark days and into light. November 2^nd, All souls day, which very similar to All saints except it focuses on remembering those people that may not have been well known throughout the church but have been of great importance to your own spiritual life. Why do I mention these holidays that we barely know of and as Quakers have never celebrated, because they are very important days.

Before the invention of calendars religious people of all faiths and traditions used the pathways of the sun and stars, and the cycles of the moon to mark time. They became very good at studying the paths and judging what the sun, moon, and stars would do in the future. Making the star gazers seem almost magical when in reality they were just really good at observation. So every religion from the Druids to the Hebrews to the Hindu in India all had their stargazers that would mark the time and would make observations and suggestions. Even scripture encouraged the Hebrew people to use the moon to mark the time for their various feasts. So every religion around the world has holy days that correspond with other religions. There are often similarities to the holy days as well, I am not saying that they are the same but similar because ancient religions would often use nature to illustrate their religious teachings. The transitioning days from October to November is important because that is the time-frame where the days become shorter and nights become longer. Imagine in a time before artificial lights how those days would make you feel. There are powerful teachings that can happen in the days of darkness.

Darkness has always represented fear and death, when the darkness overtakes the day the world itself seems to die just a bit. The days are colder, the plants wither, and the leaves fall to the ground. It is easy to become depressed and frightened, because nothing is growing and the weather becomes harsh, survival is a struggle. That is why All Saints day is on November 1, to remind us of all those that have gone before us that have faced dark days and have carried the light into that darkness. But October 31, All Hallows eve, or Halloween holds another important nugget of history. It was on October 31 in the year 1517 a man nailed a document to a door of a church that sparked a reformation throughout the western church. The document was nailed to the church door on the evening before All Saints day to tell the church that they had failed to live up to their calling and instead of bringing light into the darkness they are snuffing out the candles of those saints that were bearing the light.

I bring up this short little history lesson, because this is the very sort of thing that Jesus is doing in the passage that we read today. The Reformation was not intended on splitting the church apart but was to breathe new life into it. In today’s scripture Jesus is also saying that he was not intending on ripping the Jewish faith apart, but was encouraging all who listened to follow the teachings of the religious leaders. Why would Jesus, who spent so much time criticizing the teachings of the various religious leaders tell his own disciples to follow their teachings? Because they were not totally wrong. They taught from the scriptures, they knew the words to say that would lead to a life with God, but they did lack something. Jesus then said do not do what they do. Jesus was starting a reformation, he was encouraging people to return to the foundations of the faith instead of participating in a show.

Jesus looks out at the diverse multitude before him, there are common people and rabbis, there are lawyers and laborers, there are priest and peasants and He says listen to the words and live by them, but do not do what they do because they do not practice what they teach. He then proceeds to list off grievances that he has with the teachers of the crowd. He speaks about the burden the teachers place on the people, the fashion of the teachers, the titles and honors they give to one another. Which are wonderful if you are the teacher but they do very little to encourage those that are listening.

They make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. This statement may seem foreign to most of us because it is foreign. A phylactery is the box of scripture that the devout would wear on their foreheads or bound to their arms. They were worn to remind them of the law throughout the day, the image of a phylactery is what the Revelation to John refers to when speaking of the mark of the beast instead of the phylactery of God a phylactery of man being bound to the forehead or the hand. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself it is just a simple reminder to follow God in every aspect of our lives, but it became a form of idolatry because they would make highly ornamental phylacteries that would detract attention from the reason behind the ornament and instead direct the attention to the one wearing it. A broad phylactery is a symbol of a very religious person just as a big, well-worn bible shows the world how religious we are today. The long fringes are the white and blue threads that hang off the edges of their prayer shawls and their undershirts, these fringes have a symbolic meaning behind them as a tangible reminder of how to stay connected with God. They are like the prongs of an extension cord connecting a lamp to the power source. Like the phylactery the fringe or tzitzit (pronounced SiSit) represents the commands of God that surround the person. The long fringes are to attract attention to the one wearing the garment instead of being a subtle reminder to the one being clothed to focus their attention to God.

These sorts of things are the very sort of things that sparked the reformation the church as well. The church leadership became focused on themselves instead of on God. They built massive cathedrals to house their bishops to show the rest of the world their own greatness, they used terms and titles that detracted from God and focused the attention of the people to what the man before them could do by giving or withhold grace. Traveling priests would use a day like today, All Souls day, to raise money for themselves or their projects by guaranteeing the faithful that their ancestors would get out of purgatory if only they would give all their money to the priest.

Heavy burdens, flashy attire, fancy titles are things that Jesus would not stand for. Simplicity of faith is what he demanded. You have one instructor, one father, one rabbi, and no matter how long the fringes are on your clothes you have only one way to God. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

The teachings of the early Friends looked at this passage very closely and made it foundational in their faith and practice. They removed all symbolism from their worship, all hierarchy from their governance so that all members were equal and focused on a singular idea. Every person is a minister of God, and lead by the Spirit of God. I liken this reformation to the process of distilling. When one is to distill something like water, you bring it to a boil to create steam, the steam then is funneled through cooling coils where it condenses back to a liquid form free from all impurities, simple pure water. Simple pure faith free from additives and impurities, a faith that is focused on loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Each of the reformation periods of history has done some form of this distilling process, maybe not to the same degree as Friends, but they have removed aspects of religion that detract from God so that God can be praised unhindered by the vanity of man. But as time moves forward often the fire lessens and the impurities again make their way into the faith.

That very thing is what we are seeing all around us. We are seeing the beginning of a new era in church history, an era where there is less focus on the little nuances of the established religious expression and more focus on the reality of the mission. Even in a simple church like the Society of Friends, traditions can cloud the purity of the faithful and the fires need to be stoked to bring us to a boil. But the question is why? Jesus did not condemn religion, he condemned the vanity of the religious.

The first thing that Jesus mentioned was the heavy burden placed on people. These burdens are the very thing that keep people from engaging in a relationship with God. It is the burdens that religious people place on the outsiders that binds them to their sin instead of releasing them to experience the freedom of Christ. They bind the people in their judgment but do not lift a finger to help. Think about that for a moment. As we consider the words and our actions are we adding weight to people’s shoulders or are we helping them along the way.

Jesus says that if we are to be his disciples we must take up the cross and follow him. I have often struggled with this statement, I have walked in faith not knowing what that cross really is. I have often heard people make comments about some struggle in their lives as being the cross that they have to bear, and usually I wanted to laugh at the statement because their cross never seemed as serious as the cross of Christ. But even as I scoff I am pained because I am not really helping them. This week though that statement became clear to me. The cross we bear is one of faith. One hand is stretching out to God as we struggle and strive to live our lives for him, and the other is reached out to those around us in ministry. God and man are pulling our bodies in different directions stretching us as we try to encourage all that we meet to reach out to God as they see us live among them. That is the cross we bear. It is the cross of becoming a servant, the cross of humility where we do not look at ourselves. Bearing that cross we lift the burden of others off of their shoulders and carry it for them so that they are free to reach across our bodies and grab hold of the hand of God.

That is the cross that Jesus bore for each of us, he gave his life so that we could become friends of God. He took on our sin and our shame so that we could freely reach out to the hand that God himself has stretched out to us. And as we take on Christ in our own lives we are there with him on that cross stretching out over the void between life and death, between hope and hopelessness, and on the border between light and dark. Are we willing to become that type of person? Are we willing to follow our God into that type of life? Or will we instead sit back with our big well-worn bibles and fancy clothes patting ourselves on our back that we are so much better than those people? Jesus is calling us to something more, something pure, something better and more satisfying, but the only way to get there is for us to humble ourselves and reach out our arms to those bound by heavy burdens, and to become the light bearers in the dark days of their souls.

As we enter into our time of open worship and holy expectancy, let us remember all those people in our lives that have taken up that cross for us and lifted the burden we had carried so that we could see Christ. Let us praise and thank God for those souls that offered themselves to be used by you so that we could be freed. And let us be willing to stretch out our own arms to become the reflection of Christ, and a bearer of light in these dark days of uncertainty and change.

Who is Lord? (Sermon, October 19, 2014)

Matthew 22:15–22 (NRSV)

The Question about Paying Taxes

(Mk 12:13–17; Lk 20:20–26)

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. ¹⁶ So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. ¹⁷ Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰ Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” ²¹ They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²² When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens in religious groups, something that happens with nearly every type of religious group no matter what the religion is. They make images of a god that meets their personal or corporate desires. In the pagan cultures there were gods of war, goddesses of love, gods of death, and gods of the harvest each of these gods represented facets of our human desires for hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Around each of these gods cults developed with religious rites and activities that one could participate in to gain favor with whatever deity they needed help from. You may say but that is pagan, in our Judeo-Christian culture we do not have a pantheon of gods like that, we worship one God. There is a problem with that statement because often we focus on an aspect of God more heavily than other aspect and even in our monotheistic faith we have set up images of God that often resemble personal ideologies.

I bring this up because faith and culture seems to be highlighted in the media constantly. For many of us we find this to be a great comfort, for others we find it discouraging. Our response has a lot to do with the image of God that we have idolized. But guess what this is not new in the history of religion. Similar situations like the ones we find ourselves in today have cycled throughout history. It was a cycle such as this that brought about the emergence of the Religious Society of Friends from which our church is rooted, it was a cycle like this that brought about the reformation of the church in the days of Calvin and Luther, it was a cycle such as this that separated the east from the west, it was a cycle like this that the first century Jewish culture in which Jesus lived and ministered to found themselves. These cycles are uncomfortable, they make us question everything about our society and the future of the world as we know it, but it is during these cycles that God brings about a new era and revival.

God is about to do and is doing great things around us. The kingdom of God is about to expand in a way that will lead us into a new era of the Church. But as time cycles on those of us caught in the whirlwind of history are left wondering what He is about to do. We look at the world around us questioning if this is the end or a new beginning. The answer can be found in the image of God that you have based your faith.

The first century, in which Jesus lived, was a social and political hot spot, war was always electrifying the very air that the people breathed, thunder bolts striking at any random moment as the energy ignited. There were groups of people drawn together by common goals and ideas, each of these groups would argue and fight over which was right and if for a moment you did not toe the line you would become a threat and an enemy to the common good as seen in their eyes. In today’s passage we meet two of those groups, the Pharisees and the Herodians, but they are not the only two groups by any stretch of the imagination.

It is important to note these two groups because they are not often seen in the same circles. The Herodians were a faction of people within Israel that supported the royalty of the Herod family. This is important because we often see rule of Herod as being a puppet of Rome, so we often think of the Herodians as being those that supported the rule of Rome. But that is not exactly the full truth. This royal family can trace back to the rebellion of the Maccabees which brought the nation of Israel to independence for the first time since their exile in Babylon. Herod the Great gained this kingdom and title by marrying the last heir of the Hasmonean Dynasty. So although he was a king under the rule of Rome, those that supported his rule and the rule of his heirs were not exactly happy with their overlords, but sought an earthly kingdom of Israel.

The Pharisees are a group we are more aware of, but often our view of them is skewed. The Pharisees wanted to bring about a spiritual and pure nation devoted to the books of the Law and teachings of the prophets. They were missionaries that actually converted gentiles into the Jewish faith. The Herod family was one of those gentile families that converted. The Pharisees set up schools, built synagogues, and took the faith out of the temple and into the communities where people spent their daily lives. But they were strict in their teachings. If you were a member of their synagogues you had to follow strict rules or face consequences.

The Pharisees promoted a theocracy and the Herodians promoted a monarchy. The Pharisees promoted a kingdom based on their teachings, while the Herodians promoted a kingdom based on cultural heritage. Both opposed outside influences from the polytheistic empire that ruled over them.

These two groups usually at odds with each other found common ground in their opposition of Jesus, because Jesus did not meet either groups’ ideologies. So they decided to put Him to the test. Notice how they approach, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” They acknowledge that there is truth in what Jesus has to say, yet they reject his teaching. This speak to the image of God that each of the groups hold. They say that He speaks truth because Jesus taught straight out of scripture, but he did not put the same twist on the words that they did. They did not know how to handle his indifference to their idolized images of God. Because He refused to judge people in the same way the Pharisees did He was seen as an enemy of God, and because he did not show partiality to position as the Herodians did again he was seen as an enemy of God. Each group had an image of what God regarded as important and what the anointed messiah would be. The problem with Jesus is that he did not fit in their image.

“Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”  Remember this is a question from the first century not today. Although we can see parallels due to the cyclical nature of history. Is it lawful to pay taxes to a government that you oppose? The conversation continues, “’Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax. ‘And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’”

I want each of us to really contemplate this discourse, let it soak down into marrow of your being. This exchange speaks deeply to our image of God and His relationship with mankind. It leads us to question where we draw the line between what is holy and what is common. It speaks to our understanding of sacred and secular, spiritual and material. It asks, “Who is the lord of our lives.”

This was not an answer that they expected. Both groups wanted Jesus to take a political stance supporting an independent Israel, but Jesus stepped around the question and made them face the reality that their image of God was nothing more than an idol. Jesus looked them in the eyes and told them that their view of God was in error, that they were chasing after the things of man and totally missing what was important in the eyes of God.

So often we equate success and wealth with God’s favor, but it is what we do with what God has given us that matters. These two groups opposed the government that ruled over them, and justified their rebellion in their religious fervor, but what they were actually supporting was not Godliness but greed. That is why Jesus asked to see the coin, and that is why Jesus asked whose image was on the coin. They wanted to keep their worldly wealth to themselves maybe throwing some out into some charitable cause but ultimately they were living in rebellious greed. They wanted the benefits of living in a system that provided their wealth but rebelled against the demands that system required. We could sit on this for some time debating, but we need to move on.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” What is the emperor’s and what is God’s? Our image of God, the image that so often times is skewed to justify our own actions, will dictate our answer to this question. But there is an inference In Jesus’ statement that is shocking, “You own nothing!” There can be only one ruler over mankind, man or God, and all that we are and all that we have belongs to one those rulers.

I know we do not like to hear that, especially in America. To speak those words makes me sound like a communist, but it is the truth. How can I say such a thing? I say this because where does all the fruit of our labors go in the end, we ourselves do not take anything with us when we go beyond the veil. All we have will be left to others.

We own nothing but are stewards. A steward in ancient cultures did not own the property they managed but was given the authority to make investments for their lord. So when Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” He is asking, “Who is lord?” Are we ruled by the ways of man or are we ruled by God? Do we invest the wealth that has been entrusted to us in the things of man or do we invest in the things of God? Are we building empires of man or expanding the kingdom of God?

How are we answering those questions? Be careful because it may reveal something about our image of God. I hope that it has made us a bit uncomfortable. I hope that these words have caused us to consider, even for a moment, that we might be wrong. I hope that in that discomfort we will be driven to seek an answer.

These were the questions that those of first century faced, and they are questions that we face today. This is the very reason why Jesus came at that moment, because it is in moments like these that the answers shape the future for the next generations. Jesus came to reveal God to us. He came to show us what is important to God and how to live a holy rhythm with Him. He not only show us by the example He has given but provides for us the way to live that life, through Himself. And He is calling each of us to join Him in that life of worship, prayer, and service. Through that holy rhythm we discern how to invest in the kingdom though investing in the lives of the people He has called us to minister to. If we choose to neglect that rhythm we are then ruled by the empires of man.

We own nothing, but are stewards. Are we stewards of man’s empire or of the Kingdom of God? As we enter into a time of Holy Expectancy let us consider this, struggle with the discomfort that it gives us, and consider who our Lord really is. And as we answer that question, ask your lord for wisdom as you invest in the kingdom you choose to live.

The Kingdom of the Vengeance of Man or the Kingdom of the Forgiveness of God? (Sermon September 14, 2014)

Matthew 18:21–35 (NRSV)

Forgiveness

²¹ Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Riot police in Ukraine fell to their knees to ask for forgiveness for their colleagues who shot and beat antigovernment protesters in the recent Kiev massacre. PUBLISHED: 06:12 EST, 25 February 2014 | UPDATED: 10:10 EST, 25 February 2014 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567420/Begging-forgiveness-riot-police-blamed-dozens-deaths-Kiev-Brutal-security-forces-knees-greeted-shouts-shame.html#ixzz3DG9t9yAA Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

²³ “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴ When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; ²⁵ and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. ³² Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. ³⁵ So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Of all the disciplines of Christianity forgiveness is probably one of the hardest and most necessary ones. It is forgiveness that sets the followers of Jesus apart from the other faiths. Not so much that the other faiths do not have forgiveness included in their tenets but because the conditions for forgiveness are radically different.

Most people believe that forgiveness has conditions, meaning that if someone is remorseful then you should forgive. This is not how Christ taught his followers to forgive. They forgive first and then would seek repentance for the wrong doing after forgiveness has already happened. Last week we discussed how if someone in your community were to sin against you, or to hinder or cause harm to your relationship that it is your responsibility to go to them to attempt to restore the relationship. If they do not respond to you then you were to take others with you to again try to restore the relationship. And if they still do not respond to take the community or church with you, if they still do not respond then we are then to treat them as gentiles and begin the ministry of building a relationship all over. We cannot do this without forgiveness being at the very core of our faith.

To forgive is to let go, to leave behind, and to depart from. If we are forgiving sin or actions that have caused harm to our relationships we are letting go of the hurt not allowing it to control the future of our relationship. That I think is the key. Not letting the hurt control the future of the relationship. When we let the harm someone has done to us, either intentionally or un-intentionally, control the future of our relationship we are letting sin, or anything that hinders our relationships with others or with God, control our lives.

Have you ever really thought about that? When we lack forgiveness we are letting sin control our lives. Jesus came to free us from the grips of sin, he suffered on the cross to release the bondage of sin from our lives. He lived to teach and show us a lifestyle where forgiveness and grace dominated and vengeance faded to the background. But it is extremely difficult to live a lifestyle of forgiveness and grace because we live around people that are just plain irritating.

This is where the great theologian Peter comes to help us out. Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”  Before we move on I want us all to recognize that Peter is actually being very gracious when he says this. The rabbinical teachings of the day said that it was only necessary to forgive someone three times, so Peter knowing that Jesus was teaching grace, repentance and forgiveness of sins was actually going above and beyond the teachings of the religious leaders. Seven is a good number, it is filled with powerful symbolism, and grace. The number six is the number that represents mankind, yet the number seven represents the completeness of man in communion with God during the Sabbath, where all has been created and God rested in the pleasure of his creation and we rest in his glory as well. So by suggesting the sevenfold forgiveness he is actually using the creative and imaginative portions of his brain to interact with God. It is actually a great suggestion and if we would actually forgive a mere seven times our world and our relationships with each other would be much stronger.  But Jesus answers him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

This is where the language and translations get pretty interesting, because other translations will translate this passage as seventy times seven. For most of us because we live in an era where we have things like mathematic and algebra we immediately begin to calculate this in our minds and we come up with a number 490. This is a pretty big number, and even if our minds do the math we get the general idea of what is being said, that we need to forgive a lot. But ancient cultures did not do math in the same ways that we do. If you think common core is confusing the mathematics of the ancient pre-Arabic number systems is even more confusing. Because of this very few people knew much about numbers so when they use large numbers it is generally in the figurative sense, so in this case it simply means un-calculable. So how many of us are actually going to keep a chart to track our forgiving of sin to the 490^th time?

But what is interesting is that even though it simply means that we should be looking at it as forgiving without ceasing, Jesus is also speaking very symbolically. If we would look at Genesis chapter 4 we would get a clearer understanding of what Jesus is saying. This chapter of Genesis gives us one of the clearest pictures of a people devoted to God and people devoted to themselves because this chapter begins with the story of Cain and his brother Abel. Most of us know that Cain and Abel both offered sacrifices to God, Cain offered a gift from the fields and Abel offered a gift from the herds. Some look at this story and see that God accepted the gift of the animal because of the blood, but I think the attitude of the giver had more to do with the acceptance of God than the actual gift, the language used states that Cain brought some of the harvest, where Abel brought the best of the herds. Suggesting that the reason for the rejection is that Cain’s gift was not the best or first of the crop but was what was left after he took his personal portion. But because of the rejection from God Cain became jealous of his brother Abel and killed him. As a result God cursed Cain and then guarded him saying that anyone that would kill Cain out of vengeance would be met with sevenfold vengeance, I want us to remember that number seven. Cain went on to become a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather to the sixth generation. This man of the sixth generation was a man by the name of Lamech. It was Cain’s line that began civilization, Cain built the first city, and Lamech’s family was the one that first began participating in the cultural arts like poetry and metal working. We look at Cain with disdain but I want us to remember that Cain’s descendants are in the genealogy of Jesus as well those from the line of Seth (Adam and Eve’s third child). And Lamech is included in that list of names. With that being said it does not mean that this family and this budding culture that came from Cain’s descendants were good people. Lamech wrote a poem to his wives stating that if Cain was avenged sevenfold than he would be avenged seventy times seven times. From this story we get the separation of the people of God and the people of man. The sons of God were the ones that followed the traditions of Abel, where the sons of man were the ones that followed the paths of Lamech. The path of vengeance and selfishness. Seeking only personal gain instead of building a society based on the completeness of creation in communion with God. Which leads us to the story of Noah, where the sons of God were marrying the daughters of man and thus the world was growing increasingly more selfish and focused on a lifestyle of vengeance and less on grace and communion.

These stories of the ancients were very real to the Hebrew people during the time of Jesus. They grew up listening to these stories and learning from the sins of the past and how the lifestyles of those ancient people would lead to the trouble. Even within the discourse between Peter and Jesus we see a parallel between the conversations between the ancients; Cain would be avenged sevenfold and Peter seeks to forgive sevenfold, Lamech will avenge seventy times seven times and Jesus teaches that we should forgive seventy times seven times. The kingdoms of man live in a culture of cyclical and infinite vengeance and the kingdom of God is a culture built on cyclical and infinite grace.

To me that is profound and powerful. We live in a culture that where vengeance is often the dominant theme. We hear sermons preached from pulpits across the land that tell us to repent or chance the fires of hell, but what are they really teaching, often it has very little to do with the love and grace of the kingdom of God, but instead is focusing on the vengeance of man. We hear on the news of extremist groups perpetuating a culture of death and vengeance and what is the response of many from a nation that claims to be built on the Christian faith and Christian values? Sadly it is not a message of grace, but is often marinated with the same ingredients of vengeance. This is not the Kingdom of God, this is the kingdoms of man working against each other, this is the sons of God becoming intimate with the daughters of man and letting the easy road of selfishness, vengeance and sin dominate the life. Instead of taking the hard road of building up the community on grace.

The kingdom of God is not one that is easy to enter. It is a lifestyle that takes discipline. It is a life that requires a community and a church that meets together to provide encouragement. Where the weak are encouraged and strengthened by those that are stronger. To live the lifestyle of Christ we need the constant communion with God in prayer where the very spirit of God will fill, teach and direct our lives showing us where we have hindered the development of the relationships with mankind and with God and providing the grace and strength to reconcile with each. It also requires that we respond to the Spirit of God and move out into the community around us serve those sons and daughters of Man so that maybe through the example of our lives lived among them they may begin to listen to that voice of God that is ever urging them to repent and turn to God.

As we prepare to enter into this time of open worship, I want us to consider these lifestyles the sevenfold and seventy times sevenfold lifestyles, one built on vengeance and one built on mercy, one built on selfishness the other of grace. I ask which culture are we building in the community around us. Are we living in the Kingdom of man or are we living in the Kingdom of God?