Genesis 4:1–17; 6:5–8; 7:1–5; 8:1; 9:7–17
Psalm 51
James 4:1–8
Humanity runs on conflict. And that
is not God’s will for us. This is an overriding theme in today’s scripture
texts.
Conflict in the world began almost
immediately. The very first siblings on earth were Cain and Abel. Their Hebrew
names mean “Spear”and “Fleeting Wind”, which is an early indicator of how
different these two siblings would be. They made different career choices –
Cain was a farmer, and Abel was a sheepherder. They chose different ways of
worshipping God, in the ways they brought sacrifices to God. Cain brought his finest produce, and Abel
brought wonderful meat. And when Cain
saw that God liked Abel’s offering more than his, he became very angry. God
warned him that he wouldn’t always come out on top, but that he should not use
that as an excuse to let sin overtake him. But as soon as Cain thinks he is
“out of sight” of God, he goes out into the field, finds Abel, and kills him.
Now, we know that Cain is not out
of sight of God. And when God seeks him out, and says, “Where is Abel? What have
you done? Cain tries to pretend he has no clue, saying, “Am I my brother’s
keeper?”
But God calls him out, and punishes
him, but also protects him. God does not let the sin go unnoticed, but God
leaves a door open for Cain’s future.
So generations are born, the
population of the earth grows, and so does the wickedness of humankind. The
scripture says, “The Lord saw that humanity had become thoroughly evil on the
earth and that every idea their minds thought up was always completely evil.
The Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and he was heartbroken.” God’s heart was broken by what humanity was
doing.
But Noah found favor in God’s
sight. Even as God decided to flood the
earth, wipe out all the wickedness of humanity, as well as everything else,
Noah and his family were saved, along with a set of animals. God intended to
start over again. And when the waters receded, and the tiny band of people and
animals came out of the ark, God made a covenant for all future generations,
that a flood shall never again destroy the earth. God made a rainbow as a
reminder of the covenant.
Psalm 51 acknowledges us as sinners
right from the start, and asks God to wash us clean, and to teach us wisdom, to
create in us a clean heart and a new and right spirit. It asks for the same
saving grace, the same hope that God exhibited by restarting humanity.
The letter from James clearly
states that conflicts continued into and after the time of Jesus. They are not
wiped away by the flood, and the trust in God that is described in Psalm 51
does not eliminate conflicts either. That’s really no surprise, is it? They will
always be with us. James discusses the sources of conflicts; that they come
from the things we crave and cannot have, because we don’t ask, because we ask
for the wrong things, because our motives are about our own pleasure. Because
we are not focusing on the will of God. James reminds us that God’s Spirit has
been placed in us, and God yearns jealously for that spirit, for our
faithfulness.
After the flood, conflicts
continued.
And after James wrote these words,
almost 2000 years ago, after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
conflicts have continued with no end in sight.
Conflict breaks God’s heart – but
still we continue.
Even though we know that God yearns
for us to kindle the spark of God’s spirit that is within us.
Even though we know that Christ has
called us to unity among all people.
Even though we know that conflict
is caused by the cravings for pleasures that we don’t need.
And conflict is not confined to the
world outside the church; far from it. The universal church has people in it
these days with so many different ideas and opinions about what is right and
what is wrong, what is and is not God’s will. Those who agree with us are part
of our own “we” group, and those who don’t are part of the “they” group. And
even though both groups really are striving to know and to do God’s will, it
seems that we cannot choose to just respect that, and to find ways to work
together that transcend our differences, but instead we only dig deeper and
deeper into our conflicts and the harm that it causes us all.
But there is a more excellent way
for us to live, and we are given that way in scripture. It is the way of love,
the kind of love that is not about warm fuzzy feelings, the kind of love that
requires work, and patience and kindness, in order to love past our
differences. It is the kind of love that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians
chapter 13. And it is the way of reconciliation that is the basis of our own
Confession of 1967.
The Confession of 1967 was the
first new confession of faith adopted by the Presbyterian Church in three
centuries. It was built around a single passage of Scripture…. “In Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself”. It has three sections: God’s work of
Reconciliation, The Ministry of Reconciliation, and the Fulfillment of Reconciliation.
One section is entitled “The New
Life”- and besides the fact that it shares its title with the name of this
church, it directly speaks to our tendency toward conflict and the role of Christ’s
reconciling work in redeeming us and bringing toward unity in Christ. Let’s
read this passage together – Cheryl, will you please bring up the extra slides?
The reconciling work of Jesus was
the supreme crisis in the life of humankind. His cross and resurrection become
personal crisis and present hope for humanity when the gospel is proclaimed and
believed. In this experience the Spirit brings God’s forgiveness to humanity,
moves them to respond in faith, repentance, and obedience, and initiates the
new life in Christ.
The new life takes shape in a
community in which humanity know that God loves and accepts them in spite of
what they are. They therefore accept themselves and love others, knowing that
no one has any ground on which to stand, except God’s grace.
The new life does not release a
person from conflict with unbelief, pride, lust, fear. They still have to
struggle with disheartening difficulties and problems. Nevertheless, as they
mature in love and faithfulness in their life with Christ, they live in freedom
and good cheer, bearing witness on good days and evil days, confident that the
new life is pleasing to God and helpful to others.
Amen.
This past week Pope Francis has
been in the US. Many visits and experiences were planned for the short time
that he is here. Gene Robinson is an Episcopal Bishop who had been invited to
the White House to meet and welcome Pope Francis this week. Sister Simone
Campbell was also initially invited. But the Vatican chose to remove them from
the invitation list – Bishop Robinson because he is openly gay, and Sister Simone
because she has been encouraging the Catholic Church to increase the roles of
women.
Bishop Robinson wrote an open
letter to Pope Francis,
and in it he said this:
o
“We disagree in our understandings about
sexuality and the diverse and wonderful ways God has made us. But as far as I
am concerned, that does not keep me from admiring you and praying for you and
your ministry.
o
Our churches disagree on those whom we are
willing to ordain, their gender and their sexual orientation. Still, that does
not keep me from striving to love and serve those entrusted to me, and to pray
for you as you strive to love and serve those entrusted to you. We both care
passionately about the poor, and we share the notion that unfettered capitalism
creates and perpetuates poverty, treating the less fortunate as goods to be
used up and discarded.
o
You and I believe that God has a special place
in God’s heart for those who are marginalized – whether they be refugees,
undocumented immigrants, those living with HIV/AIDS, or those without food,
shelter and healthcare. And we both suspect that God must wonder when we are
going to find the courage to love and care for our beautiful and fragile
planet.
o
We have
so much that binds us together, and so little that separates us. We are probably
never going to settle those differences. As for me, I am willing to
acknowledge the saintly integrity with which you hold your views, even in I
disagree with them, as I hope you might acknowledge my striving for integrity
in mine.
o
It seems
that in these times, the greatest sin would be to write one another off and to
stop caring about one another. This, I think, would break God’s heart.
o
…and
he signed it, A laborer in another part of the Vineyard, Gene.
He says, to write one another off
and to stop caring for one another would, he thinks, break God’s heart. To let
conflict win the day, and to not seek the things that bind us together.
Christopher Joiner, pastor of First
Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, recently wrote a piece
entitled “Why I am [Still] a Presbyterian. He wrote it in response to the
people who, he says, continually ask him, “Why are you still in the PC(USA)?
Don’t you know it is in decline because it is too liberal / too conservative,
too traditional / too trendy, too political / not political enough, etc?”
He gives five reasons. I will state
them all, and expand on a few.
1. God
is big, God is sovereign – and we are not.
2. We
have a lot to learn – and our leaders are educated to be life-long learners. We
place a high value as Presbyterians in thinking for ourselves. Which, he says,
makes us a rather diverse and disputatious lot…
3. We
fight a lot, but we fight fair. “If God is sovereign and education is
paramount, it follows that if you have ten Presbyterians in a room you’ll have
at least twenty opinions. We spend a lot of time in groups talking about what
it means to follow Christ, and sometimes those conversations get heated. But we
spend a considerable amount of time making sure all voices are heard and all
perspectives are honored. Decision making is therefore messy and slow, and we
all spend a fair amount of time complaining about it. But we’ll take messy and
slow if it means honoring all the people of God in their rich diversity. And we
realize diversity extends beyond the relatively small boundaries of our little
denomination, which means….
4. We
think it is important to play well with others. In any city in America, you
will find Presbyterians partnering with persons of other denominations and
other faiths in the work of the Spirit in the world.
5. The
world needs our witness. “The world and the universal church need to
see a group of people who know how to stay together even when they do not
always agree, a group of people who believe at the core of their faith
that they will never know all of God there is to know and who therefore refuse
to narrow-cast. The PCUSA does not do
this perfectly, but it does try to be this kind of witness in a world that
desperately needs it. It defies the easy categories our culture is so good at
imposing (and which we always get asked about) – liberal / conservative,
traditional / contemporary, Democratic / Republican.
6. That’s
why he is Presbyterian – and that’s why I am called to be Presbyterian too.
The world and the universal
church need to see a group of people who know how to stay together even when
they do not always agree…
the greatest sin would be to
write one another off and to stop caring about one another. This, I think,
would break God’s heart.
Here at New Life, we are not strangers
to conflict. And we have experienced the blessings of reconciliation. This does
not mean that we will not face conflict going forward. But my hope and prayer
is not that we will avoid conflicts, or that we will find a position on which
we all agree, but that we will approach any areas of disagreement not as a
win/lose, all-or-nothing proposition, but rather as “a group of people who know how to stay together even when they do not
always agree, a group of people who believe at the core of their faith that
they will never know all of God there is to know and who therefore refuse to
narrow-cast. “ I truly believe this is the hope for our future, as a church
and as a world, and I truly believe that if there is anywhere that it can and
must be modeled, it is the church of Jesus Christ. May God reveal to us the way
to be the ones who show how it can be done.
Sources cited:
We Make the Road By Walking, Brian McLaren: Chapter 5: In Over Our Heads
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