Romans 6:12-23 and Matthew 10:40-42
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| Valentin de Boulogne, Saint Paul Writing His Epistles 1618-1620 (PD) |
I’m beat! It’s been a long couple of weeks and I have to be honest with you all, I am exhausted.
Oddly enough, the most exhausting thing that has transpired has nothing to do with the pace of things around here or the number of things that have been on my “to do list.”
More than anything, it has to do with the synod youth event I was attending this past week called Kairos.
Kairos has been going on in the Virginia Synod for decades and it is considered to be the pinnacle of all the youth events for our high school youth.
There are a number of reasons for this.
First of all, it is longer than the other events that usually only last a weekend.
It also takes place at Roanoke College which allows the youth to stay in college dorms with roommates and eat in a college cafeteria
So, you can eat pizza and desserts until you explode.
Most of all, as one of the youth from our synod so eloquently stated at one point, many of the youth are excited that there are so many “cute (attractive) Lutheran _______” attending the event.
Now, as a chaperone, a father, and a pastor that perspective scared me a little bit.
But as a middle aged man who himself once had hormones AND HAIR much like these high schoolers just a mere 20 years ago, I was TERRIFIED.
I couldn’t help but murmur aloud how there needed to be strictly enforced rules and consequences!
I was on the edge of my seat waiting to be instructed on the technique of maneuvering a blown up balloon between teenagers as I asked them to “leave a little room for Jesus”
I even took my own pack of balloons!!!
But as you can see, I never opened them.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t the lack of sleep or the action packed schedule that wore me out, it was my own paranoia over this passionate group losing control due to a lack of rewards for good behavior and strict consequences for bad behavior.
You see?
While there are many rules for behavior at Kairos, they are given a lot of freedom at this event to build a sense of community with one another.
And while there are rules at this event, they are entrusted to live by these rules.
Surprisingly, they don’t even seem to enforce the rules for one another, “policing their own” so to speak because, for the most part, they value the trust that they are given and they honor the rules as a response to the trust and love that they have received!
Sisters and brothers, this is not a new concept, in fact it is quite biblical.
On top of it all, I realized this past week as I wandered the Roanoke College campus with my balloons in hand, our youth were better at living out their lives responsibly, free of consequences and rewards than most of us are!
At least at this particular youth event, that was the case.
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Today’s second reading from Romans and the Gospel from Matthew addresses the issue of rewards and consequences.
In the 10th chapter of Matthew, we encounter the disciples in the midst of their “new employee orientation” and much like most new employee orientations, Jesus saves the perks, the “bennies” for last.
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| Duccio di Buoninsegna, Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles 1308-1311 (PD) |
It is one of the five discourses of Matthew’s Gospel, known as the “Missionary discourse,” and it is focused on the mission and the immense challenges they will face.
Consider it Matthew’s version of a disciple or employee handbook.
And much like all new employee orientations, they save the benefits for last.
Now, one would think that after being warned that most folks are going to slam the door in your face, you’re being sent out like sheep in the midst of wolves, and everyone is going to apparently turn into rage filled lunatics before everything is said and done,
But, oh, by the way “Don’t be afraid because the Spirit will give you some pretty good words if you get in a pinch?”
You would think the perks are gonna be pretty amazing, right?
A nice pension, maybe a 401k?
A gold watch would be nice, don’t ya think?
A company car, floating vacation time, loan reimbursement, housing allowances, premium health care….
something good!
But the only perk of this deal mentioned is a nice, frosty, cold, SHORT glass of … water.
All the other perks are anything but clear.
It is assured that the reward will not be lost if one serves faithfully or rewards one of the disciples with a dollar menu glass of water, but just what kind of physical reward is assured?
Nothing!
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Last week, Stephen threw something down that seemed to stick.
In all honesty, I was thrilled he did.
He mentioned that he wants to stop hearing that certain things that take place, both good and bad, are “God’s will.”
And I know he said he is going to keep saying it, but I’m gonna steal a little bit of his thunder.
I’m going to pick up what he threw down last week and take it a step farther.
Because when we say that something bad or good is God’s will, it is not to provide comfort, it is to provide an easy answer.
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| Daan Stevens; Zottegen, Belgian; Photo Courtesy of Unsplash |
Nor does it provide comfort to the one hearing that kind of assurance.
What it does is it assures the one hearing it that their situation in life is a direct reward or consequence for their actions.
It places us on some magical chessboard where the gods move us from square to square like pieces in some divine game.
That isn’t a Christian view of God, that is a pagan view of those “other gods”.
It is an easy answer to give and sometimes, when we experience good things in life, it is a nice reassurance that we have received some divine reward that no one can challenge.
But it leaves us at odds with a God whose love comes into question when tragedy strikes, and that is a cruel action to take against another.
What’s more, it is a cruel action to take against the God whose love cannot be compared to any love we have ever known or shared.
This past week, I saw the true reward that is promised in Matthew’s Gospel modeled, perhaps not without flaw but within that Kairos community, I saw that reward come to life.
The reward that is promised in Matthew’s Gospel today is simple, we receive the Word.
God’s Word, made flesh among us.
Impacting us and our lives together.
And in receiving that reward, bit by bit we can catch a glimpse of what such a world would look like that fully receives that Word; Jesus the Christ.
But it is often short lived as so many of our youth in attendance claimed, when they admitted they leave the event feeling filled, only to lose that feeling within weeks or days.
And so Kairos becomes just what the word originally meant in greek, “a short moment in time.”
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Paul’s letter to the Romans addresses the same issue in our second reading today, only from a different angle.
He talks about consequences rather than reward.
It would seem that the concept of a loving God who does not use negative consequences to enforce the ways Romans were living, was as difficult for them to grasp as it is for us.
Probably because within the Roman cults that was the way their gods functioned, blessing those who offered the best sacrifices or served that particular god’s purpose well.
For example, a Roman soldier would praise the Roman god Mars in order to be blessed in battle, but a Roman soldier’s defeat would certainly be a testament to his failure to worship Mars.
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| Denarius with Mars depicted on the coin CC BY-SA 3.0 |
And so we can see that the Romans too believed they were pawns on this very same chessboard.
So Paul has his work cut out for him and this is what makes Romans Paul’s magnum opus,
Because he claims over and over and over again that we are freed from such a cold petty god as this,
Instead being united with THE God who bleeds and dies with us, for us, and while embracing us!
And that should evoke a response, a response that is free of reward or consequences.
A freedom to live our lives, sometimes in ways that are holy and oftentimes in ways that are sinful.
Living lives that are both free from the bondage of sin and enslaved to it.
Living lives in response to, not the consequences of our actions or the rewards for our deeds, but to the love of the One who first loved us.
But, we will return to that place we always go when tragedy strikes.
We will lose sight of our Kairos moments and justify our victories and losses by claiming that they are consequences or rewards tied directly to the spiteful will of a Roman god.
So I will leave you with the second most powerful witness to this Truth that I know of, the first being God’s Word for today, the second being the story of Horatio Spafford.
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Spafford was a Presbyterian attorney who was deeply invested in Chicago real estate.
In 1871, during the Great Fire of Chicago, Spafford's investments were burned to the ground, leaving he and his family near financial ruin.
That same year, one of Spafford’s four children died of scarlet fever.
Two years later, he had planned a holiday for he and his family to England but just prior to their departure he was delayed due to his attempt to recoup his financial losses from two years earlier.
Assuring he would board the next available ship, he sent his wife Anna along with their children ahead.
On November 22, 1873, their steamship was struck by an iron sailing vessel.
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| The sinking of the steamship Ville du Havre circa 1873, Created and Published by Currier & Ives, New York (PD) |
Upon being rescued and reaching England, Anna sent her husband a telegram with two words on it.
It read “Saved alone.”
In response to the telegram, Horatio Spafford immediately boarded a ship to meet his wife in England and retrieve the remains of their three children.
As he was crossing the Atlantic, he sought solace in writing and he wrote the words to the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul”
And to this day, when I hear the words to this hymn I have come to pray that I can have a faith like that of Horatio Spafford.
Especially when he proclaimed these words in the face of events that many considered to be his own rewards and consequences;
"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pain shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul."
Amen
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| Cross marker at the sunken cemetery in Bonbon, Catarman (Camiguin). Photo by Wolfgang Hägele, May 12, 2010 (CC) |
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