Romans 13:11 - 14

Holland Presbyterian Church, New Jersey, November 2, 2007

¹²¹³¹⁴Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

At the end of Romans chapter 13, Paul encourages his readers to wake up. Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep, he says. This idea of waking up as a metaphor for being prepared for Christ’s coming is hard for me to relate to. To me, the literal moment of waking from sleep is miserable. I have a very comfortable mattress, a very comfortable pillow, and a snooze button on my alarm clock which I make great use of. There are many times of the day that I enjoy – the time when I eat lunch, the time when I go for a walk, the time when I read a magazine, the time when I talk on the phone with a friend – but the time of day when I wake from my sleep is pretty close to the bottom of my list. I almost always would rather stay in bed a little longer.

Even so, “waking up” is a metaphor that Paul uses here to refer to the fact that this age will someday end, and we are in a period of waiting for a new age to come. “Waiting” is a word that we have heard already several times this morning, and it’s a word that we’ll continue to hear for the next three Sundays leading up to Christmas. This is the time of Advent, which is a time of waiting. We are waiting, liturgically, for Jesus to come and be born on Christmas Day. We are also waiting, liturgically and literally, for Jesus to come a second time and bring his salvation to completion.

How is it that you define yourself as a person? There are several ways you could do this. One is to focus on the present. For example, my name is Rebecca Jordan Heys, I am currently a seminary student, I live in Princeton, New Jersey, I am a preacher, I am a singer, I am a wife, and a friend. This is one way of describing my identity.

But just looking at the present doesn’t tell you the whole story. To truly understand someone, you need to define her according to her past as well. I was born Rebecca Lea Jordan, I grew up in Fremont, Michigan, I grew up in a Christian family. As a kid I tried successfully to play the piano; I tried unsuccessfully to play team sports. I used to want to teach English literature – at some point I decided to come to seminary. My past defines me. All of these past stories tell you very important things about who I am. Even without telling you these details about my childhood, simply showing you my family tree would tell you a lot of very important things about who I am. My parents, my community, my genetics – my past has a lot to do with what defines me as a person.

There is still a third approach to defining your identity. That is to define yourself by the future. Where I have been and where I am right now don’t limit me as a person. I still may change and grow, and that is part of my identity as well. My hopes and dreams for the future are also a part of who I am. I hope to graduate from seminary, I hope to be a pastor of a church, I hope to become a mother, I hope to travel to many new places. These things about my future make me who I am, just as my past and my present make me who I am.

All three: past, present, and future – define a person. One of the three might be more important than the others for different people, depending on their age, their culture, or their personality, but we can’t ignore any one of the three when we ask, “Who am I?”

It’s not just individual persons who are defined by past, present, and future. All of us, as Christians, are defined by our past, our present, and our future.

Our past: Part of our identity, and part of Advent, too, is about our past. In the past, Mary waited for her son Jesus to be born. We remember that waiting during Advent, and we anticipate our celebration of that great day in our past, the day when Christ was born. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus brought salvation to all people and to all of creation. Our identity as Christians is defined by this salvation in our past, 2000 years ago.

Our future: Another part of our identity, and of Advent, is about our future. We know that God’s complete salvation has not yet been realized. There are still so many things wrong with the world, but we Christians are also defined by our future. We have a hope and a promise that Christ will come again and make all things new. We live out our current waiting during Advent. Our identity as Christians is defined by the hope of salvation in our future.

And then there is our present. Who are we now? Jesus, in his first coming, ushered in a new era of God’s work in the world. Jesus, in his second coming, will usher in the final era of God’s work in the world. Right now, we are in the middle – we’re in the waiting time. Advent really expresses something that is true for us all year round – we are waiting.

As I thought about Advent, I thought how ironic it is that our lives are lives of waiting, and yet, in our lifestyles today, there is almost nothing that we have to wait for. Instead of waiting to see my family in Michigan, I call them on the phone. Instead of waiting for a loaf of bread to bake, I order a pizza. Instead of waiting to receive a letter in the mail, I get an instantaneous e-mail. I order things on-line instead of waiting in line at a store. There is not a lot that we have to wait for.

And yet, strangely, the only thing that we do is wait. We have hope for the future, but it hasn’t been fully realized yet. We are in the in between time – in between what Jesus has already done and what Jesus has not yet done. This waiting is so much a part of the Christian faith that theologians often just call it the “already/not yet tension.” Salvation has already happened, and salvation has not yet happened. Both of these things are true at the same time. We Christians are people who wait.

At the end of Romans 13, Paul brings a new character to all of this waiting. He knows that our future is one of the things that shape our identity. He takes the way that we are defined by our future and drags that future right into our present. He says, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.” When he says “salvation,” he means the complete salvation of the future. In some ways, Paul’s statement seems completely obvious. “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers,” is like saying “Tomorrow is closer to us today than it was yesterday.” In other ways, though, no matter how obvious it is, we really need to hear this.

We get so caught up in our present life that we forget that this is not the whole story. We get so discouraged about what we can see that we forget the hope of what we cannot yet see. We get so caught up in who we have been and in who we are now that we forget that the future defines us as well. Who we will become and what will happen to us when Jesus comes again actually has everything to do with who we are right now!

This is what Paul is saying in Romans 13. He’s saying “the end is near.” When I think of that statement, “the end is near,” I think of someone in a city park with a sandwich board sign, someone who claims to know exactly when the end will come. Our text from Romans, and the other text we heard this morning from Matthew, show us that this is not the New Testament picture of the end. The New Testament does not make any claims about when the end will come. Even Jesus does not know the exact time of his return. What the New Testament does claim is that the end will come. This life is not the whole story. We have a promise from God that God’s salvation will one day be complete.

Since this is not a sandwich board kind of promise, “the end is near,” we do not have to feel the kind of fear that those signs are sometimes meant to inspire. Instead, we can live into our hope in freedom. The future defines our identity, and it guides what we are to do in the meantime. Paul lists some practices in this present time that can distract us from our hope about the future. The list includes reveling and drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy. Instead, we, the people of the future, are free to be rid of those things, and to “put on” Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ defines our past in his first coming, and Jesus Christ defines our future in his coming again. Our hope for this coming allows us to live freely in the power of his love.

The more common title for our Savior in the New Testament is “Jesus Christ the Lord.” In this text, he is instead called “the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Lord” comes first here to show that Jesus is in charge over the evil that we see, in charge over the suffering of this age. Jesus is in charge of it now, because we have a promise that Jesus will completely get rid of it in the future. Hope in Jesus Christ is a powerful thing – more powerful than any evil that seems to have power in the world today.

The song that the choir will sing during the offering is called “View the Present Through the Promise.” I would like to read you the words to this song now, and invite you to reflect on them further as we sing in a few minutes.

View the present through the promise, Christ will come again.

Trust despite the deepening darkness, Christ will come again.

Lift the world above its grieving through your watching and believing

in the hope past hope’s conceiving: Christ will come again.

Probe the present with the promise, Christ will come again.

Let your daily actions witness, Christ will come again.

Let your loving and your giving and your justice and forgiving

be a sign to all the living: Christ will come again.

Match the present to the promise, Christ will come again.

Make this hope your guiding premise, Christ will come again.

Pattern all your calculating and the world you are creating

to the advent you are waiting: Christ will come again.

I mentioned earlier that waking up in the morning is my least favorite time of day. I think, though, that Paul did not have in mind an adult who is a little short on sleep when he used this metaphor. Instead, I think it is more fitting of the eager anticipation of Advent to picture a child the night before his birthday. He has trouble falling asleep because he is so excited about the activities that the next day will bring. When he does wake up in the morning, his eyes snap open, his feet hit the floor, and his little legs carry him dashing into his parents’ bedroom to wake them up so that the day’s festivities will begin as soon as possible.

Advent is a season of waiting, but it is not a waiting that has to do with a distant, disconnected future. We wait with eager anticipation a future that already breaks into our present with hope. A new day is dawning – let us live as people of the rising sun!

Judges 6:36 - 40

PR240 "Text to Sermon" Princeton Theological Seminary November 29, 2007

Then Gideon said to God, “In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.” And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, “Do not let your anger burn against me, let me speak one more time; let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.

When I started thinking about Gideon, I thought of him as the guy who had a miraculous decision-making process. Fleece wet, attack Midianites; fleece dry, stay home. Sometimes, he would mix it up just to keep God on God’s toes. This time, fleece dry, attack Midianites; fleece wet, stay home.

But the closer I paid attention to this story, the more I noticed something that you may be noticing about Gideon as well. I don’t think that this story is really about a decision-making process. I think there’s something else going on here with the character of Gideon.

Earlier in chapter 6, in verse 14, God calls Gideon to attack the Midianites. God is pretty straightforward with Gideon. If there ever were a decision to be made, it seems like God has already made it. “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you,” God says to Gideon. Gideon won’t believe it. “But sir, how can I deliver Israel?” God won’t take no for an answer, and replies, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.”

Even after this, and before the whole fleece incident, Gideon asks for a sign to confirm God’s promise. God gives him a face-to-face meeting with an angel, and for a while, Gideon seems convinced. But then we come to our text for today.

Gideon introduces the test of the fleece by saying to God, “In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said…” “As you have said.” In other words, Gideon knows what he is supposed to do. He knows exactly what God said to him, he’s just afraid to do it!

God answers the first test of the fleece affirmatively. “When he [Gideon] rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.” Even after this, Gideon asks for another test with the fleece. If you add them all up, I think this makes test number three or four.

In the book of Judges, the Israelites are the protagonists. By chapter 6, we know that they have their ups and downs, but we’re on their side. We’re cheering for their success. At this point in the story of Gideon, we’re thinking, “If this is the guy who God called to lead Israel, things are not looking good.” Get the point already, Gideon – the answer to your question is yes!

But, in that very answer, in our very discouragement about the spineless Gideon, we find hope in this story. The question that Gideon is asking is, “Will you deliver Israel by my hand?” Even though we are beginning to ask the same question as we get to know the doubtful Gideon, “Are you going to deliver Israel through this guy?”, God still answers with an overwhelming yes. “He wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.” Not just a few drops of water for this weak servant of God, but a whole bowlful. The might of God is shown through this weak servant.

Gideon does go to fight the Midianites, and God not only brings victory for Israel, but brings it using only 300 troops. By using a small army, God continues to work through the weak things of the world. Gideon had to ask twice with the fleece, but if we know God, we knew this victory was coming all along. Even through someone like Gideon, the answer from God is “Yes. I will deliver you.”

We Christians know that God works in this strange way. Our Savior, the incarnate God in whom we put our trust, was just that: incarnate. There is so much humanity about Jesus that it makes us wonder: the young unwed mother, the stable birth, growing up in Nazareth (can anything good come out of that town?), a carpenter hanging out with some fishermen, some tax collectors, and some prostitutes. Is this the God whom we worship?

Yes, this is the Son of David, the Messiah, but even the crowds who called out “Hosanna” did not anticipate what would happen next. Not only did Jesus live a humble life, but that life ended in crucifixion. Before he could conquer Israel’s foes and reign as their king, Jesus died as a common criminal. This was not the kind of Messiah they had been waiting for.

But this is the God who answered the cowardly Gideon with a resounding yes. Yes, Gideon, you, even you, will be the instrument of God’s deliverance. The son of God was incarnate and died on a cross, but it is in that very death, in that lowly and weak suffering, that Jesus once and for all brought about the redemption of all creation.

“Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross,” Philippians tells us, and it is in that death that Jesus accomplished God’s greatest act of deliverance. It doesn’t stop there, either. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

We might look down on Gideon when we read his story in the book of Judges. What a coward. He couldn’t even believe that God could deliver Israel. It took him three or four tests, including the ones with the fleece, before he would even try going into battle in obedience to God. But perhaps, before pointing the finger, we should look at ourselves. We often doubt that God is actually doing works of deliverance in us and through us. God is good: we know that and we cling to that, but the idea that we could actually have something to do with God’s deliverance is a little too much to take.

Quite frankly, we are right to doubt ourselves. Gideon wondered if God would really deliver Israel by his hand. We say things like, “God, I went into ministry because I’m great at worship planning. I have no idea what to do for a woman in the hospital with a stillborn child!” or “God, I love people, and that’s why I’m in ministry, but I’m going crazy from loneliness because no one wants to invite the pastor when they go to grab a beer.” Are we really up to all of this? The answer, we painfully recognize, is no.

But sisters and brothers, the God who calls us to ministry calls us in the name of Jesus, who was crucified in weakness and rose in victory. The God who calls us to ministry is the God who saturated the fleece on the threshing floor for his cowardly servant Gideon. If the God who calls us to ministry is the God who brought victory for Israel with only 300 troops and a weak-kneed leader, then the God who calls us to ministry will use even us for God’s purpose of deliverance.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” The God revealed to us in Jesus Christ chose Gideon, and the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ chose you and me.

We may be scared. We may need to set out a fleece, saying, “Do not let your anger burn against me, Lord, but I need to ask you one more time. Are you really going to deliver Israel by my hand?” And in the midst of this, our moment of weakness, God makes sure that there is enough dew on the fleece to fill a bowl with water. “Yes, my child, even if I have to make the fleece dry next time, yes, and even if you have to ask me a dozen more times, the answer is yes.”

1 Corinthians 1:1 - 9

Princeton Theological Seminary morning worship, September 21, 2007

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

My husband tells a story about hearing a testimony at his church when he was a child. The testimony was told by a missionary who described being called by God to the mission field. “God grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go,” said the missionary. “Even though I came kicking and screaming, and it was the last thing I wanted to do, God called me to be a missionary.”

After hearing this testimony, my husband, who was 10 years old at the time, had trouble falling asleep for weeks. He would lay in bed worriedly, thinking to himself, “Oh no! What if God is (gasp) calling me to be a pastor?” He actually pictured, with fear, a divine tractor beam, ready to suck him up at any moment. As an adult, he has actually found a calling as a high school teacher and a pastor’s husband. My own call to ministry has been much less traumatic than my husband imagined as a child. It’s been a process of discovering the things I love to do and the ways I can contribute to the church. I know that everyone’s call story is different, but I don’t feel like I’m being dragged into a certain career.

Even so, there is something that I can relate to in the 10 year old boy hearing the missionary’s testimony. Sometimes, the idea of being called by God to a life of Christian discipleship in whatever career you choose can be intimidating. Christian discipleship is a high call! This call can be inspiring, motivating, or encouraging, but it can also be terrifying.

Our text this morning from 1 Corinthians 1 is a traditional greeting and thanksgiving by an author who self-identifies as Paul. He names himself as the sender and names the Corinthian church as the recipients of his letter. He gives a blessing in the name of Jesus. He gives thanks for the recipients of the letter. All of this is surrounded by talk about God’s calling. It’s important for Paul to remind his readers about God’s call here at the beginning, because all the instructions that he gives them later in the letter are supposed to be lived in response to God’s call.

It’s the end of the first week of the 07-08 academic year at PTS. We are preparing to once again engage in the intense work of building this community as we respond to God’s call. Some of us are here for the first time this year, and are wondering what we’ve gotten ourselves into. Some of us are looking at all the syllabi we’ve collected this week or handed out this week and the actual number of days in the semester, and we’re wondering how it all adds up. Some of us enjoyed the extra time with our families this summer, and are finding it difficult to gear up for another year of busy seminary life. Responding to God’s call in this time and place can be terrifying.

In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Calvin writes that we can have confidence in spite of our fear because, “we are members of Christ, who cannot possibly fail.” Sisters and brothers, we need not be afraid. We are not called to discipleship by a strange god, but by the God who has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Paul ends the Corinthian greeting by saying, “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We are not called to discipleship by a tyrant, but by a faithful God. “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We are not called to discipleship which leaves us alone, but into fellowship. “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We are not called to discipleship by a god who has not experienced pain as we have, but by the Father of Jesus Christ. “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We are not called to discipleship by a man from Nazareth who stayed in the grave, but by Jesus Christ our risen Lord! “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The call to Christian discipleship that sounds forth in your life can be exciting. It can also be terrifying. Friends, we do not serve an easy God, but we serve a good God. God is faithful; by God you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God is faithful; in that faithfulness may you find comfort and peace. God is faithful; in that faithfulness may you go forth in Christian discipleship, with the words of the psalmist on your lips, “I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations. I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.” Thanks be to God.

Luke 16:19 - 31

Devotional booklet for Synod Cloud of Witnesses, June, 2007

Women have been ministering in the Christian Reformed Church for 150 years. No, I’m not confused; I know that women have been ordained as ministers of the word in our denomination for just over a decade. But the various barriers to ordination have not stopped hundreds of women from responding to God’s call in their lives by ministering.

Johanna Veenstra was a missionary in Sudan in the 1920s. After moving to the United States from China, Ruby Liu taught at Creston Christian School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jo Boomsma established a women’s and children’s shelter in Kentucky. Many of you can include stories of your mothers and grandmothers in this list. These four women that I mentioned have died, leaving an amazing legacy of faith and service.

In Luke 16, a rich man (traditionally called “Dives”) who has died asks a poor man, Lazarus, who has also died, to go back to the land of the living. Dives wants Lazarus to warn his rich brothers to care for the poor, because now that Dives has died he truly understands God’s great reversal of rich and poor.

When I read this story, I sometimes wonder what things the deceased would warn us about if they came back to talk to us. Dives wanted Lazarus to warn his brothers to care for the poor. What about these women ministers in the Christian Reformed Church? From their heavenly perspective, what would they say? What would they warn us to do?

I suppose that making decisions at Synod would be a lot easier if someone came back from the dead and told us all what to do. This is especially true on an issue that has been so difficult for the CRC: women in ordained ministry. We don’t have a heavenly perspective yet; we are still trying to struggle through the messiness of life as a Christian community on earth.

Dives wished that Lazarus would come back from the dead to provide some clarity, to let his brothers know that they could not afford to ignore the poor any longer. But when Dives asked Abraham about this, Abraham told him about the way things really worked. He couldn’t send someone back from the dead; even if he could, it wouldn’t actually make things any clearer for his brothers! Instead, the brothers had to rely on what they already had. They had the witness of scripture, and they had the poor who still lived in their midst. By reading their Hebrew Bible, they could already learn about God’s command to care for the poor.

Unlike Dives’ brothers, we do have someone who has come back from the dead: Jesus Christ. Like the brothers, we also have the scriptures, and by reading those scriptures through the lens of the liberating power of the One who arose from the dead, we already have guidance for what to do. Through the scriptures, we already know that God reverses the hierarchy of rich and poor. Through the scriptures, we already know that God breaks down barriers between women and men. Finally, just as the brothers had the poor, the Christian Reformed Church has women, both those who have died and those who are alive and ready to use their gifts in ministry today.

The lives of these women prove what we learn in the scriptures by echoing the words of that early baptismal liturgy: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27 – 28)

Let us listen to the One who has come back from the dead, who is attested to in the scriptures, and let us pay attention to the women in our midst who are ready to fully live into their baptismal call.

Prayer:

God, we confess that we are not always open to the ways that your word in scripture challenges us. Forgive us and open our eyes to see the ways that we may live into your world-reversing gospel. Amen.

Luke 10:38 - 42

First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck July 22, 2007

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

What does a typical day in your life look like? For most of us, it’s usually busier than we would like. Maybe you’re a full-time mom, maybe you commute to work and then work long hours, even if you are a kid or if you are retired, you have a schedule to keep, and you probably love the idea of sitting and relaxing for just a few more minutes. Grab your favorite novel, curl up in a chair, and sip a glass of lemonade while the worries of the world slip away.

Contrast that picture with a picture of busily preparing Thanksgiving dinner in a hot kitchen for your entire family. You never know if the turkey will live up to everyone’s expectations, and there are just so many things to keep track of! Kids run around underfoot, and then the house has to be clean before the family arrives. We can suddenly see what is appealing about the story of Mary and Martha. Mary is the one who sits and relaxes, and she’s the one who does the right thing, according to Jesus! It sounds like Jesus is saying to us, “Sit down and stop worrying so much. Grab a glass of lemonade, the new Harry Potter book, and kick up your feet and relax.”

This sounds great, and in a way, I think that this is what Jesus is saying here. Our recreation time is very important, and many of us Americans probably need to take some more time to relax. In another way, though, an encounter with Jesus goes beyond just our down time. As he typically does, Jesus goes beyond our expectations here. Yes, Jesus wants the too-busy Martha to change her schedule, but he wants her to go further than just that. Martha knows that following Jesus is about serving, but in this story Jesus tells her that she first needs to listen to his word. Jesus tells Martha, and us, that our love and service to Jesus and to our neighbors needs to be rooted in our knowledge of Jesus’ love and service to us.

To get deeper into this story, let’s take a look at the character of Martha. At first, she sounds like a very admirable woman. She welcomes Jesus into her home. In the ancient world, hospitality was extremely important, and in the gospels, hospitality to Jesus is even more important. By serving food to Jesus, Martha is doing a very important job.

We can learn just how important by looking at another story by the same author: the book of Acts. Luke probably wrote both Luke and Acts, and there is a story in Acts 6 that reminds me of this story in Luke 10. On first reading our text for today, we may be tempted to quickly write Martha off as the “wrong” sister, but I think that when we read Acts 6 we see that there is more to Martha than first meets the eye.

In Acts 6, we learn about the very first deacons of the Christian church. Some widows in the community were not getting enough food, but the twelve disciples said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.” The “word” here is the same “word” that Mary listens to at Jesus’ feet. The word for “waiting on tables” is diakoneo, from which we get the word “deacon.” Martha does this exact same thing when she prepares the meal – she is “deaconing” for Jesus. I’ll bet that when Luke wrote Luke 10 and Acts 6, he had both stories in mind. Here’s how the story goes in Acts: “’It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.’ What they said pleased the whole community.”

The job of deacon, when it was instituted, was a very important job that only highly respected people could hold. They are described as “men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” These were the kind of people who would do the meal preparation, so Martha was a deacon before the church had even begun. She welcomed Jesus into her home and prepared a meal for him. This was a high and holy calling, to serve Jesus in a very practical way, and Martha lived into this calling in this story.

I don’t have kids, which I hear makes you very busy. For me, the busiest time in my life so far was my last couple of years in college. I had a lot of homework, a part-time job, and several student organizations to participate in. I was too busy. I knew I had to cut some of it out, but all of it seemed so good and worthwhile. After a while, though, the same thing happened to me that happened to Martha. I stopped thinking about how good and worthwhile everything was; I only thought about how much it was. Luke says that Martha was “distracted by her many tasks,” and Jesus says that she is “worried and distracted by many things.”

If we read the Bible as a whole, we recognize that all Christians, like the first deacons and like Martha, are called to hospitality and service. Our service should be like a name tag for us, identifying us as those who love Jesus. Martha showed her love for Jesus through service, but something went wrong. The story doesn’t tell us just what went wrong, but it is not hard for us 21^st century American Christians to imagine. We too fill our lives with important, Christian service, but sometimes we forget our reason for doing it. We know how to show our love for Jesus, but sometimes we lose track of why. Whether this service is through the church, in our families, or in our professional lives, we forget that all of it is service to the God who created all of these things.

The Christian tradition has sometimes used the story of Mary and Martha to set up the active life against the contemplative life. That is, which is the better way to serve Jesus? Is it through service, through feeding the hungry and caring for the poor? Or is it through quiet devotion to Jesus, through prayer and meditation on the Scriptures? Jesus says that Mary has “chosen the better part,” so many Christians have said that contemplation is more important, and that service is only secondary. Martin Luther even made Mary and Martha into symbols of justification by works and justification by grace. He wrote, “Martha, your work must be punished and regarded for nothing….I do not want any work but Mary’s, and that is faith.”

Now, there were reasons for Luther to write this in the 16^th century, but I do not think that we can write Martha off so quickly. In Luke, the story that Jesus tells just before visiting Martha’s home is very interesting. It is the story of the Good Samaritan. Right before Jesus visits the home of a certain woman named Martha, he has a conversation with a certain lawyer about what it means to love one’s neighbor. In the Good Samaritan story, obeying God is about service. The Good Samaritan stops to help the stranger by the side of the road, provides him with shelter and money, and goes on his way. Martha was on her way to being the Good Samaritan, but she lost her purpose in going there.

So, Martha may be more like a tragic hero than a villain. Even so, as we search for the best way to follow Jesus today, how do we avoid her fate? What does it mean for us to be like Mary? Well, I wonder why Luke places this story right next to the story of the Good Samaritan. It could be that, as we read through this part of the gospel, we are getting a lesson in what Christian discipleship looks like. The Good Samaritan tells us that following Jesus means serving those around us. Mary and Martha tell us that we can never keep this service up if we forget that it’s Jesus who we’re following. We need service, but not empty service. Not a busy schedule for the sake of a busy schedule, but a life rich in serving others because of what Jesus has already done for us.

Martha had the service part down, but she wasn’t able to sit and listen to the word of Jesus to her. What about us? We sometimes have the service part down, but why? Why do we serve? Christian service is not in contrast to quietly listening to Jesus’ word, but it is because we have listened to Jesus’ word to us that we serve. Flip a few chapters back to Luke 8:21, where Jesus says that his family includes “those who hear the word of God and do it.” “Those who hear the word of God and do it.” This is a great way to define Good Samaritan discipleship and Mary discipleship: hearing the word of God and doing it. So, is contemplation or action more important for the Christian? Fred Craddock writes, “If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, the Samaritan or Mary, his answer would probably be Yes.”

Some women from Dutch Neck went on a retreat this spring. The theme of the retreat was “Having a Mary heart in a Martha world.” I like this title because it emphasizes Mary’s heart. We are indeed called to service and hospitality like Martha, but the world does this with Martha’s heart. We are called to serve with a Mary heart. Do we serve because it makes us look good? Do we serve because it will give us a better chance of getting into a good college? Do we serve because being busy makes us feel important? I think this was why I made myself so busy in college. Or do we serve because we listen to God’s word and hear in that word the joyful news that God loves us in spite of all our bad motivations? Our service should consist not in being worried and distracted by many things, but in hearing the word of God’s love for us and in responding with joyful gratitude by serving those around us.

Another group from Dutch Neck gathered in Trenton to help build a Habitat for Humanity home a few weeks ago. One of the work days was followed by a festive dinner back at the church. This dinner reflects the true nature of the entire day of work: a celebration. For many of you who went, the service was done not out of drudgery or obligation, but out of joy and gratitude. We are a people who are loved by God. Because of that, we do not need to be worried and distracted by anything. Because we are a people who are loved by God, we can serve our neighbors. Because we are a people who are loved by God, hearing Jesus’ word enables us to do this service. Because we are a people who are loved by God, we can welcome Jesus into our hearts, sit at his feet, and serve him.

Luke 15:1 - 32

Devotional booklet for "Synod Cloud of Witnesses" June 2007

We sing about “amazing grace,” “wonderful grace of Jesus,” and “the glories of God’s grace” for good reason. God’s grace is amazing, wonderful, and glorious. But sometime, I would like to write a hymn called, “A little too much grace for us to handle.”

That’s why Jesus told this parable in the first place, after all. The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling about the fact that Jesus ate with sinners. Jesus gave his intimate meal-time companionship to people who didn’t deserve the ground Jesus walked on! This was too much to handle. They thought that Jesus should take a stand for morality and purity by refusing to eat with these people, but Jesus shocked them with his extravagant grace.

To really drive the point home, Jesus told the Pharisees and scribes a now-familiar parable: the story of the prodigal son. In this story, the younger of two sons demands his inheritance from his father, telling him in effect that he considers him to be dead. He takes off to another country and wastes the money.

When a famine arises in that country, the son is left with nothing. The reasonable ending to this story, the ending that we could handle, is the ending that the son imagines. His father is a reasonable man, and maybe he will take him back in as a servant and give him something to eat.

But this is a parable, and parables have a way of completely sidestepping our expectations. Verse 20 says, “But while [the son] was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” And then he proceeds to throw a huge party for him.

This is too much grace for just a prodigal. The son says it himself, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” (vs. 19 and 21) For the older brother, this is a little too much grace to handle. He protests by refusing to join the party, so the father pleads with him to come inside.

The story ends here, and we never find out how the older brother responds. I would like to think that Luke is including us, the readers, in the story at this point. We are often greeted with a grace that is too much for us to handle. Our expectations about other people, about the church, and about the way that God works in the world are often surpassed by a God whose grace is too much for us to handle. Will we, cast as the older brother, remain outside the party, unable to handle this extravagant grace? Or will we grow to accept the outrageous things that God does, and join in the celebration over the lost and found brother?

Many of the challenges that we encounter are in places where the grace of God seems mysteriously absent. In these places, we continue to struggle and pray that God will work. But perhaps there are other challenges that we encounter in places where the grace of God is all too present. This grace is sometimes so extravagant that it is too much to handle. Let us grow to accept and acknowledge this grace, because God is inviting us to come inside and join the celebration!

As I write this in May, I don’t know what’s going to happen at Synod 2007. Perhaps a decision will be made in which you feel that the church “squanders its money in a far country,” like the prodigal son. In that case, take heart! We still worship a God who is gracious, and we still worship a God who will continue to surprise us with divine grace in the future. Perhaps a decision will be made in which you feel the extravagant grace of God working in our church. In that case, come inside and join the celebration!

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, your extravagant grace shocks us, your prodigal children. Thank you for this grace, and give us more grace to accept the marvelous ways that you work in the world. Amen.

Revelation 7:9-17

First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck, April 29, 2007

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,
“Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”

I said to him,
“Sir, you are the one that knows.”

Then he said to me,
“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Several weeks ago I went with the confirmation class on a retreat to Camp Johnsonburg. On our retreat, we were split into small groups. In these groups, we had discussions, asked each other questions, and reflected on our faith together. In one of the small group sessions, we were asked, “What questions do you have for God? What do you want to ask God?” We wrote them down on big sheets of paper and then hung the questions from all the small groups on a wall in our common meeting room.

The theme of the retreat was “go deeper,” and the questions that these 8^th graders expressed showed that they were ready to go deeper. They asked amazing questions. Some of these questions have come up in our confirmation classes at Dutch Neck as well. The questions are so profound that I often feel like the first thing I have to say is, “That’s a really good question.” They are good questions, so it’s the first thing I think to say – “that’s a really good question.” At our last class meeting, one of the confirmands asked a question and I gave this response again – “that’s a really good question.” When I said it, another confirmand piped up, “That’s what they say when they don’t know the answer.” I was caught red-handed.

Many of the questions on the big sheets of paper at the retreat were about heaven. What will we do all day in heaven? Will my dog or cat be in heaven? Will my Muslim friend be in heaven? What does heaven look like? These aren’t questions that only kids have. Many of you adults probably wonder about heaven too, and what it will be like. To you who are wondering about heaven, I say, that’s a really good question!

The truth is, none of us knows exactly what heaven is like. We haven’t been there. We have some ideas, but most of our questions will not be answered until we are actually in heaven.

We heard a reading from the book of Revelation today. Revelation gives us a couple of clues about heaven, but that’s not the book’s main purpose. It tells us who God is for Christians who are suffering today.

In this text, we hear that a huge crowd of people praise God. We hear that God is seated on a throne. We hear blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might ascribed to God. This God is a God who is strong and powerful, strong enough to give care and protection to the crowd gathered in heaven.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Psalm 23 is the Psalm of today, a classic. When Revelation refers to God as a shepherd, it sounds familiar to us because of this Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

This is such a comforting picture. God really cares for us, like a shepherd cares for his sheep. The world can be a scary place, but we are in the care of a loving shepherd God.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

In the ancient near east, kings sometimes referred to themselves as the shepherds of their people. If a king had a strong army, he could be to his people as a shepherd, protecting them from the wolves of other attacking armies. So, a shepherd was a symbol of strength and might and protection. When Jesus taught, he referred to himself as a shepherd. His listeners may have thought, “Okay, like a king. We get it.” But then he said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This was crazy. In fact, some of his listeners thought he might be possessed by a demon and out of his mind when he said this. This was not what a king was supposed to be like.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Does this describe the God that we have in our minds? Well, we can definitely buy the picture of God as shepherd, caring for us. We can definitely buy the idea that God wipes away tears from our eyes. But a lamb? A cute, fuzzy, helpless lamb? This seems very different from the blessing-and-glory-and-wisdom-and-thanksgiving-and-honor-and-power-and-might kind of God.

But this is the Christian God. This is a God who is both weak and strong, both lamb and shepherd. The lamb is on a royal throne. Just this picture alone captures what our God is about. A baby sheep sitting on the throne of the universe.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This shepherd who is a lamb is the same Jesus who experiences both Good Friday and Easter, the same Jesus who, by dying, conquered death. This is the same God who says to Paul, “Power is made perfect in weakness.” This is the same God who uses Moses, who can’t even speak well, to lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. This God is a shepherd who is a lamb.

God is powerful, but God works through the weak things of the world to show God’s power. Jesus brought salvation, but he brought it by being willing to die. Because he is a weak lamb, our strong shepherd can guide us to springs of the water of life.

One of my favorite writers, Lewis Smedes, says that he would be devastated if God were not a God of weakness. He writes, “Maybe I feel this way about God because I feel very weak and want with all my heart for God to be on my side. And because I see and feel so much weakness in other people, so much pain, so much craziness, so much poorness. God has to be on our side, and he has to make sense as the God who works inside, feels inside, suffers inside, and finally triumphs in and under and through weakness. He has to, I say, because otherwise he isn’t the God of the Bible and he isn’t the God we need.” The shepherd who is a lamb is not a weak God, but a God of weakness.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

It is because the lamb is weak, it is because the lamb was crucified that the lamb now sits on the center of the throne. It is because this shepherd is a lamb that the crowds in heaven shout, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might!” What a paradox!

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

It is because the shepherd is a lamb that this shepherd can wipe every tear from our eyes. God knows what it is like to be human, and the God who rules over heaven and earth is a God who can sympathize with us in our weakness. God experiences our pain with us and then wipes the tears from our eyes, because the shepherd is a lamb.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

So, what does this have to do with our questions about heaven? We know something of who God is – God is a paradoxical God who is both lamb and shepherd, both weak and strong. If heaven is ruled by a lamb at the center of the throne, then heaven is a place for those who are weak. If heaven is ruled by a lamb at the center of the throne, then heaven is a place for us. We can rest in the arms of our heavenly shepherd now, and we can hope in the assurance that those arms will hold us forever.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Luke 2:36-38

PR261 Exploring Women's Traditions in Preaching Not delivered

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Anna is a minor character in the gospel of Luke. Our text today is only 3 short verses. Jesus, as a character in this story, gets pretty much the whole book. Simeon, whose story is told right before Anna’s, gets 11 verses. It’s not just men who get more verses than Anna, though. Mary gets 32 verses in the first chapter of Luke. So if Anna only gets 3 verses, why is she even here? What is Luke adding to his gospel by telling Anna’s story that he couldn’t have just said in Simeon’s story?

After all, Simeon puts into words what Anna seems unable to express. We hear that Anna “praised God” when she encountered the infant Jesus, but we get to hear what Simeon actually said in praise of God. This song, the Nunc Dimittis in Christian tradition, has survived for centuries of evensong services. From Anna, we have no words – only the fact that she praised God and spoke (something) about Jesus to those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Luke does this with a lot of stories, actually – pairs up a story about a man and a story about a woman. Zechariah gets an announcement about the birth of his son John, and then Mary gets an announcement about the birth of her son Jesus. Mary sings a song, and then Zechariah sings a song. Jesus tells a parable about a man losing a sheep, and then Jesus tells a parable about a woman losing a coin. In the same way, a man, Simeon, greets the baby Jesus with joy and then a woman, Anna, greets the baby Jesus with joy. Perhaps Luke wanted a complete gospel, one that included both halves of humanity. This isn’t just about men responding to Jesus; it’s about women responding to Jesus also.

But still, why Anna? The Zechariah/Mary pair of stories in Luke chapter 1 makes sense, because both Mary and Zechariah have something important to contribute to the story. But Anna? What does she contribute in only 3 verses? She doesn’t even say anything.

Well, let’s read these verses more carefully to see what we can figure out about Anna in these verses. We know that she is a prophet. We know the name of her father, Phanuel, and the name of her tribe, Asher. We know that she was once married, but that her husband died after they had been married for 7 years. We know that she is 84 years old. We know how she spends all of her days and nights: she is in the temple, praying and fasting as a way of worshipping God. That’s a lot of biographical detail for just 3 verses. Most of the space in these verses is taken up by this biography of Anna, and the actual story seems sort of like a footnote at the end.

Because of all this detail in such a short passage, I get the feeling when I read it that Anna was a real person. She wasn’t a generic woman who happened to meet Jesus when he was a baby. She was a real woman who met Jesus and was impacted by the experience.

Maybe Anna is here to show us that Jesus wants to meet real people. We talk a lot about how Jesus is here for the whole world, not just individual people. Jesus saves the whole world, not just individual souls. But I think there’s a difference between saying that Jesus saves the whole world and saying that Jesus saves the whole world generically. Jesus saves the whole world, which includes distinct individuals whom Jesus longs to love and know.

This is part of why we baptize in the Christian church. The baptism doesn’t do something magical for the person’s soul who is being baptized. Their salvation occurred in Jesus 2000 years ago, not in the sprinkling of or immersing in water. But the salvation that occurred in Jesus is not generic. It is specifically for that person who is being baptized. And so when we baptize, we address the baptized by their first name, their individual name. Sometimes we say also to this infant, child, or adult, “For you God created the universe. For you God sent Jesus Christ to be born in Bethlehem. For you he lived. For you he died. For you he rose from the grave.” For you. And for the whole world, certainly, but he did not do it because it sounded like a good way to spend some time. He did it for you.

Jesus was only a baby when he showed up in the midst of Anna’s real life. But even this infant encounter prompted the old woman to praise God. She also spoke about Jesus to those who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Did she know that Jesus was the one who would redeem Jerusalem? Who knows. Maybe she had a suspicion, and she wanted to ask others what they thought. Whatever the case, Jesus showed up in the midst of her life, and she couldn’t help but respond in praise.

As we approach Jesus today, we don’t bring lives that are perfectly ready to approach him. Anna probably wasn’t looking for a little baby to redeem Jerusalem, and we are not always looking for Jesus in the places he shows up in our lives as well. But we approach Jesus nonetheless, not with the lives that we think we should have, but with the lives that we actually do have.

At the beginning of our worship service, we say a prayer of confession. This is not some way of changing ourselves before we can approach God. It is a way of acknowledging who we are, after which God allows us to approach anyway! Jesus is the one who changes us. There is nothing we can do to change ourselves before we encounter him. He encounters us as we are.

If there were 3 verses in the Bible telling your story, what would they say? As Anna’s story did, your story might include your career or job title, the names of people in your family, your “tribe” or ethnicity, your past history of relationships or life circumstances, and even the way that you spend your time day to day. If it took up a few verses, you yourself might even read it and say, “Why is this in here? It’s so short, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with Jesus, does it?” But what if, right after this little biography, there was a story about how Jesus suddenly showed up to you? Right in the middle of your career as an accountant, Jesus showed up? To the daughter of Doug, Jesus showed up? To someone from an Italian-American family, Jesus showed up? To someone who has been divorced and remarried, Jesus showed up? To someone who spends their days watching television in the nursing home, Jesus showed up?

Your life story has everything to do with Jesus, because it is right in the midst of a life like yours that Jesus might just show up. Like Anna, you might not know exactly what it’s all about when it happens. But like Anna, you might just also be prompted to praise the Lord.

Proverbs 31:10-31

PR261 "Exploring Women's Preaching Traditions" Princeton Theological Seminary

April 23, 2007

A capable wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax,
and works with willing hands.
She is like the ships of the merchant,
she brings her food from far away.
She rises while it is still night
and provides food for her household
and tasks for her servant-girls.
She considers a field and buys it;
with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
and makes her arms strong.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.
Her lamp does not go out at night.
She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her hands hold the spindle.
She opens her hand to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
for all her household are clothed in crimson.
She makes herself coverings;
her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the city gates,
taking his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them;
she supplies the merchant with sashes.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her happy;
her husband too, and he praises her:
‘Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.’
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the city gates.

A is for acrostic. Proverbs 31:10-31 is an acrostic poem, or a poem in which each line begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. We can’t tell this when we read the poem in English, but this way of organizing Hebrew poetry pops up here and there in our Old Testament. Psalm 119 is one of the better known of these acrostic poems.

B is for boy, and the book of Proverbs, including this passage about the capable wife, was probably written for boys. The book gives an education in wisdom and practical living for young men in ancient Israel. For that reason, this passage about the ideal woman in ancient Israel is not meant as a suggested schedule for a day in the life of an actual woman. I told a friend that I was preaching on this passage, and his response was similar to mine when I read Proverbs 31. He said, “That woman, I don’t think she ever sleeps.” Indeed, if Christian women today were to try to be like this ideal woman in every way, we would probably be driven to do some very unchristian things out of sheer exhaustion.

I do believe we have a great deal to learn from this woman. But when we read this passage today, we want to go deeper than what it says to an ancient Israelite boy and see what it has to say to C, the Christian community today. How does it guide us on our way of D discipleship? The answer to this question comes only through a careful reading of this passage in conversation with the community of believers. We seminarians know this word – E is for exegesis.

So, let’s look at this picture of the ideal woman. What are our F first impressions of her? I’ve already said that she leaves G giant shoes to fill. But what, more specifically, does the book of Proverbs take care to point out about her?

Well, for one she has H: a hot sense of fashion. “She seeks wool and flax…all her household are clothed in crimson. She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple…She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes.” These clothes are not just the clothes of an Israelite housewife; they are the clothes of royalty. This woman looks great.

But for this passage, that’s not the whole story. As wonderful as her literal clothing is, it’s something else that really defines this woman’s hot sense of fashion. After describing all of these fine royal garments, the writer tells us that “Strength and dignity are her clothing…” Far more beautiful than any royal garments are the strength and dignity which surround this woman like clothing.

A second thing we notice about this woman is that she is I industrious. Her hands are mentioned frequently in this passage. Her hands work, they plant, they spin, they are opened to the poor, they reach out to the needy. We see that in addition to taking care of her own wealthy household, the woman also has an interest in J justice. Her hands are capable of great things.

Besides the hot fashion sense and the industriousness, there’s one more important thing about this woman that I want us to K know. L is for Lord, and the ideal woman fears the Lord. In fact, it is for this reason that she is praised! Charm and beauty are not what this woman is all about. Her power and her value are drawn from a deeper well than that.

It’s interesting to notice that this Lord whom she fears is different from an M man. This is the Lord, the God of Israel, the God of this woman’s ancestors, the God who delivered God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. A man, the woman’s husband, is referred to throughout the passage. We read that the husband is proud of his wife. Hopefully she is proud of him as well, but he is not to be worshipped by her. This woman fears the Lord, and the Lord alone.

After talking about the woman’s industriousness and her strength and dignity, it may seem strange for the text to suddenly jump in with this statement about how she fears the Lord. After all, this is the only time that God shows up in the entire passage, isn’t it? Well, we’re talking about an ideal woman. In an ideal world, the work that gives this woman so much joy would be her God-given vocation. In real-life ancient Israel, I assume there were many women who were not thrilled with their work and who were not able to do what God called them to do. As we read this passage and think about the ideal world, this woman would be performing these tasks not out of compulsion, but as a natural result of her fear of the Lord. In this case, the whole passage, including the strength, the dignity, and the industriousness, would really be about the woman’s fear of God.

N is for now. If someone were to write this passage for the ideal modern American woman instead of the ideal biblical woman, what would it say? In 21^st century America, who is the woman of worth?

O is for oh my, what a contrast! Well, I suppose there are some things that are the same. The woman of worth today is P pretty just as the woman from Proverbs was, but I don’t think that fashion magazines often run articles on how well strength goes with denim, or how dignity is the new black this season. The ideal woman of today is clothed in physical beauty, and strength and dignity often take second place to this outer beauty. This physical beauty is not celebrated for all types of women, either, but is celebrated when it is in the form of a woman who is thin, usually white, and wearing expensive clothing.

Q is for quiet, because when a woman or a girl is so focused on this picture of ideal womanhood, her voice cannot be heard. She is literally seen but not heard. Her strength, her dignity, and her industriousness are of no importance, since her body is the most valuable thing that she has to offer.

This is the world in which we are raising our daughters and the daughters of the church. It’s more than sad – it’s frightening.

Friends, the good news in the middle of this bad news is that R is for redeem. God is redeeming our world and is redeeming us as women and men. For the ideal woman in Proverbs, the world saw her as a possession, a prize to be gained by the husband who was wise. But the Lord, whom she feared, redeemed her. The Lord, whom she feared, saw her as a woman of strength and dignity. The Lord, whom she feared, did not see her work as “only woman’s work” but as strong leadership of her household and a valuable contribution to the society.

For women of today, the world sees us and our sisters and daughters as bodies to be analyzed. Is she thin enough? Pretty enough? Rich enough to wear the right clothes? But the Lord, whom we fear, redeems us. The Lord, whom we fear, sees us as women of strength and dignity. The Lord, whom we fear, calls us beyond the culture’s expectations of us and into the diligent work of which we are truly capable. S is for strength and T is for thanksgiving, and it is in strength that we respond with thanksgiving to the God who has redeemed us.

Our thankful response to God includes helping our daughters and the daughters of our church to U understand the source of their strength and dignity. Their strength lies not in matching up to someone else’s ideal of physical beauty, but their strength lies in a God who loves them. Our thankful response also includes an understanding of our V vocation. Whatever women do, in the workplace and in the home, we can do it not because of what the culture tells us we are allowed to do, but because of our thankful response to a God who loves us. If a woman is a full-time mom, let her do it out of a sense of God-given vocation. If a woman is a professional athlete, let her do it out of a sense of God-given vocation. If a woman runs for president or is a teacher or is an orchestra conductor or is a retired volunteer, let her do it for no other reason than that God has called her to do this thing, and her industrious work in this area is her thankful response to the Lord whom she fears. W is for woman, and a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Romans 8:31 - 39

Second Christian Reformed Church, Fremont, Michigan December 31, 2006

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Brothers and sisters, happy New Year! This is a time of year when we often take stock of where we have been in the past year and look at where we may be a year from now. It is always interesting to me how much can happen in just a year. If we live for 90 or more years, just one year doesn’t seem so big in the grand scheme of things. But think of what can happen in a year. A baby can be conceived and born. A teenager can graduate, move out of the house, and go to college. A couple can become engaged and get married. A couple can also retire, sell their house, and move to Florida in just one year. A couple could even start and finish a bicycle trip across the United States. Think of what has happened to you in 2006. Now think back to New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2005. How many of your life events did you predict would happen?

There is so much that we don’t know about what is going to happen in our lives. Look at the next year ahead of you - 2007. You might get a new job. You might lose an old friend. You might come into a large sum of money. You might get sick. Your congregation might call someone as a pastor. All of this is completely unknown to you right now.

This can be frightening. We try to predict the future to make it less frightening. Some may read their horoscopes or visit a fortune teller. Well, that may be too superstitious for many of us. Still, we try to make the plans for our futures by ourselves. We plan our families, our jobs, our vacations. But try as we might, we have no idea about what the future will be like. It is beyond our control, and it is beyond our knowledge. The world might even end before we see the beginning of another year. There is so much that is uncertain about the future.

In the midst of all of this uncertainty, these words from Romans 8 come to us this morning. These verses, verses 31 through 39, have something to say about our uncertainty. The apostle Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, tells us that there is something that is certain. The only thing that we can be certain about is that the love of God will always be with us. Nothing, Paul writes (and if you have your Bibles open you can turn to verse 39), nothing at all, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He asks a whole series of rhetorical questions, ruling out everything that could possibly separate us from God’s love. Trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, death, life, angels, demons, the present, the future, powers, height, depth, anything else in all creation: everything falls away in the light of this truth that is both amazingly simple and too great to understand: God is for us. You can never be separated from the fact that God is for you.

Now, you may say, there is something that can separate us from God’s love: sin! We’ve seen pictures that illustrate this separation in the tracts that Christians hand out. There’s a picture of us and God, standing on opposite sides of a canyon, a canyon that is formed by our sinfulness. We have been separated from God, and we’ve done it ourselves.

This is true, and we recognize this as Reformed Christians. Sin does separate us from God. But Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, tells us the end of the story here in Romans 8. That gap between us and God has been bridged, and there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love! In fact, the gap has been bridged by God’s love, showing itself in Jesus Christ.

Let’s look more closely at how Paul describes this bridging of the gap. The imagery and the language here are from a courtroom. Verse 33 says, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” To get a better handle on this, imagine something with me. Picture humanity, better yet, picture yourself as part of humanity, guilty of a crime and sitting at the defense table in a courtroom. You are nervous. You’re about to find out what your punishment will be for the crimes you have committed. However, you will not be accused and no sentence will be rendered, because this is not an ordinary courtroom. Three of the positions in an ordinary courtroom are filled by the same person. There’s no one at the prosecutor’s bench, because the prosecutor is the judge! No one is going to bring a charge against you. This is really not an ordinary courtroom, because the judge is actually your defense lawyer. You need not fear the prosecutor or the judge, because God is the only one who is able to fill both of those roles, and God is your defense lawyer. The judge wants you to win the case.

As with all analogies, there are limits to this analogy. Mostly, it’s just hard for us to picture a courtroom like this. But the point is that there is only one who is innocent and powerful enough to condemn us, and that one has chosen to justify us instead. Our sin cannot separate us from God’s love. No matter how bad we are, we are forgiven. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How does God do this? He did not spare his own son. Check out verse 32. When we think of God not sparing his own son at this time of year, we might think of the manger once again. Right now, we look to the Christmas story when we think of the coming of Christ, and appropriately so. But Paul’s readers would have thought of another Bible story – the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham was so obedient that he did what was unthinkable – when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, he actually almost did it. Abraham did not spare even his own son. Now, in Romans 8, we find out that God has done the same kind of thing. God did not even spare his own son for us. If he did that for us, we can tell that this is the kind of God who will not let anything separate us from his love. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This inseparable love through Christ Jesus has been a hidden theme of the book of Romans all along. Let’s zoom out a bit here. We could divide Romans into three large sections. The first section is chapters 1 through 8, where Paul describes the most important parts of the Christian faith and the most unique parts of the Christian faith. It’s a sort of theological summary of everything that Paul believes, like a long version of the Apostle’s Creed. The second section is chapters 9 through 11, where Paul deals with one specific issue: the relationship of God’s promise to Israel to the new promise in Jesus. The third section is chapters 12 through 16, where Paul tells his readers how to act as Christians. This is where he gets specific and practical. Today we’re at the end of the first section. Paul has been talking about God’s love in Christ for eight chapters. The verses that we heard today are the grand finale of all of this talk about God’s love in Christ. I picture verses 31 through 39 as the end of an African American sermon. In this style of preaching, the sermon builds and builds in intensity until the very end. The preacher is speaking loudly and quickly by now, with great passion. The entire congregation is on their feet, waving their arms and shouting Amen! Paul seems to say, “Do you hear me? I’ve been telling you this whole time. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Each idea piles up on top of the last one, until we are overwhelmed by the greatness of this love.

The point of this passage is to comfort us. This comfort does not come from a generic spiritual force. We certainly can feel God’s presence all around us and within us, but this is a comfort that goes even deeper than that. This is a comfort that comes from a very specific God – the God who was the God of Abraham and the God who did not spare his own Son. This God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and this God and none other is the one whose love will never leave us. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love – and not just the love that’s out there, but the love of God – and not just the love of any god, but the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The love of this God will always be with us.

Sometimes, this unending love is hard for us to believe. We hear it, and it makes sense, but for some reason we keep thinking that something has to depend on us. Maybe you’ve recently made some New Year’s resolutions: you want to read the Bible more frequently, think more holy thoughts, be a better Christian. If New Year’s resolutions are helpful to you, I certainly do not want to discourage you from making them. But whether you make them or not, you need to know that keeping your resolutions is not of eternal importance. If you don’t keep them, you might disappoint yourself, but you will not be separated from God’s love. If you do keep them, God won’t leave you alone, no matter how strong you may be. God has resolved to love us, and no matter what we resolve or what we do, that love is unchanging.

We’ve talked about the unknown future, and about the certainty of God’s love. We’ve talked about our own sin, and about the fact that God’s love doesn’t depend on us – even when we falter, it never stops. But we haven’t talked about the thing in our lives that seems to be the most threatening when it comes to separating us from God’s love. That thing is suffering. When things go wrong in our lives, it can seem like God has abandoned us. It can seem like God doesn’t love us anymore. When an unborn baby is miscarried, where is God’s love? When we are lonely and depressed, where is God’s love? When our business fails and we can’t support our family, where is God’s love? When our bodies don’t work the way they used to, where is God’s love? In times like these, it seems like something has separated us from God’s love – otherwise God would be taking better care of us!

Many of the Psalms in the Bible are called lament Psalms because they are written in times of suffering. The writer cries out to God in pain, feeling like God is far away. Paul knew this, because he quotes from Psalm 44, which is one of these Psalms of lament. “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” There’s not much comfort there.

Not only does Paul know how to quote the Old Testament on suffering, he also knew suffering itself in his own life! He was thrown into prison for preaching the gospel. The book of Romans is a letter, and the people who read this letter also knew suffering. These original readers of the book of Romans were probably living under the reign of Emperor Nero, who was infamous for persecuting and killing Christians. These people knew suffering. When they heard, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God” they might have scoffed at first. They could understand Psalm 44, but they couldn’t understand empty optimism.

Empty optimism is not what they got in Romans 8. When he wrote to these Christians, Paul didn’t ignore their suffering. When we read the book of Romans today, we don’t have to ignore the suffering in our world either. Pain is real, and we can’t just brush it away because we’re Christians. Listen to these questions in verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” It is not that this list of difficulties might happen to us, it is that they will happen to us. Paul is not trying to tell us that we can avoid suffering. He is trying to tell us that even when we do face suffering, even in the very midst of it, God still loves us. We may feel that God is far away, but God’s love is still present. It’s not always obvious, but it’s the truth of the gospel: nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We look with hope towards a future in which there will be no suffering, but until then, we cling to this comfort. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It’s only one comfort, but it’s the greatest comfort that we could ever know. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We’ve heard it before in the Heidelberg Catechism, but it’s worth hearing again: “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” Because we belong to him, we can know that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I don’t know very much about what you will face in the year 2007. But I know a few things. I know that you will face things that you never could have predicted. I know that you will face sin – your own sin and the sin of this world and those around you. I know that you will face suffering, as much as we all pray that you will not. And in the midst of all of this, I know that you will face the inseparable love of God. Nothing, brothers and sisters, nothing will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.