Doulos Christou

Exodus 1: 1– 14; 3: 1– 15

John 8: 1– 11

Galatians 5: 1, 13– 15

When Moses encountered God through the burning bush, the Israelites had become slaves in Egypt. God called Moses to participate with God in liberating the people of Israel. God tells Moses, “when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” God tells Moses to say to the Israelites, “The Lord has sent me to you.” Not “an alternate Lord”, or “a new Lord”, or “a different Lord” – but THE LORD.  The one and only. The people will be freed from slavery in Egypt, so that they can worship and serve THE LORD. The one and only. Not the Pharoah, or any other king – but THE LORD. In fact, that becomes the First of the Ten Commandments.

In the story in John’s gospel telling about when Jesus encountered the woman who was about to be stoned for adultery, Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees who have decided her fate, based on the Law, “which one of you is without sin? Let that one throw the first stone.” And one by one, they go away, until only Jesus and the woman are left. He frees her from their condemnation and from his. He redeems her.

And in his letter to the Galatians, Paul is reminding a group of Gentiles who believe they need to be circumcised in order to be Christian, because of the Law requiring it of the people of God, that they have been freed in Christ, so they should not submit to another form of slavery to the Law. He also reminds them, though, that this freedom is not the same as autonomy, not the same as defining their own laws. Rather, they are called to follow the commandment that Christ said encompassed the whole law – to love your neighbor as yourself. And so, according to Paul, they must become slaves to one another.

I think I have said this to you before, but one of the things that draws me to be a follower of Christ is the kinds of paradoxes that our faith is based upon. In weakness is strength; in death is new life; and in freedom is slavery. It’s kind of discouraging, isn’t it, to think that the freedom we have been given in Christ is freedom to be slaves to Christ, to one another, to God as Lord and Master? But that is what we are. The title of today’s sermon is “Doulos Christou”, which is Greek for “slave of Christ”. And that is what we are.

When I’ve talked to some of you about this over the past week, we have talked about the fact that sometimes this term “doulos” gets translated into English as “servant” rather than “slave”, and that we tend to like that word better. We like the way it reflects the choice we make to follow Jesus, the free will we have in how we live our lives.

But the Greek word literally does mean “slave”. So I would like for us to consider the distinction between servanthood and slavery, as we seek to understand what it means to be a slave of Christ.

And what better way to think about servanthood, really, than Downton Abbey? How many of you are Downton Abbey fans? How many have ever watched it?

Well, for those of you who have never seen it, Downton Abbey is a British show, carried on PBS, that is about the lives of the people of Downton, Earl Grantham and his family, “the upstairs people”, and the staff of servants who keep the place going, “the downstairs people”. The time frame for the series is between 1912 and 1924, or maybe a bit longer depending on when the last season will take us to. I am a Downton Abbey regular, and I have totally been taken in by the lives of both the upstairs people and the downstairs people, the servants. So it has given me a bit of a glimpse into what it means to be a servant, what the life of a servant is like.

In addition, I recently read a book called The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd. This book is about a judge and his family, who own a plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1800s. It tells the story of a family who owns slaves, and also the story of the slaves who are owned by them. So we have the same sort of upstairs / downstairs comparisons as with Downton Abbey. In particular, one of the judge’s daughters is born at the same time as a daughter of a woman who is a slave. They spend their early years playing together, but as soon as the judge’s daughter, Sarah, turns 11, she is given her playmate, Haddy, as a slave of her own. As soon as she figures out what this means, she writes a letter of emancipation, trying to free her friend, but her parents tear it up, and punish her, and so the two of them grow into adulthood in this strange relationship.

From these two stories, both historically-based fictions, we can see a glimpse of the distinctions between servant and slave.

·      First, a servant is hired, and a slave is bought, or is born into the slavery of the parent. Downton Abbey’s servants come and go, either of their own free will or if they are let go for some work-related reason. The Charleston slaves have no say in where they are slaves, or for how long. They are property. They are owned by the master, and the only way to get out of being a slave is to escape, and spend the rest of their life on the run and in hiding, or to try to save money if they somehow can take on an additional job, and then to try to convince their master to let them buy their freedom.

·      From a financial standpoint, servants are considered to be a liability. In other words, their pay is considered to be part of the cost of keeping up Downton Abbey. Slaves are considered property – owned assets, from a financial standpoint. They have a value specific to what they can be sold for.

·      If a servant is ineffective, or disobedient, they are either reprimanded or let go, often with a reference to help them find other work. A disobedient slave will be beaten or killed, or sold off to someone else.

·      So being called a slave in this world indicates a much, much greater commitment than that of a servant. And it also, truly, does indicate a lack of viable options.

So being a slave of Christ is a life commitment, a truly big deal. To be a servant does imply a willing choice that we make to follow Christ. But our scripture passages tell us that we have been freed from slavery to other things, so that we can worship God. So that we can be slaves of Christ. So that we can be slaves of one another. So what is this saying about us, about our lives?

First, it tells us both who we are, and also Whose we are. We belong to God. God is sovereign. God is The Lord and Master over us all. Those are terms we do not really use in any other context in today’s society, in the Western world. The head of the family in Downton Abbey was called “Lord Grantham”, and there are still those in Great Britain who receive the honorary title of Lord. And of course, those who still experience slavery around the world have someone who is their master. Even here in the US, with the sex trafficking trade that goes on, women and girls and children are “owned” by the one who sells their bodies to others for a night of pleasure.  But as free people, we do not have an earthly Lord or Master. So when we call the Triune God by the titles of Lord, Master, it matters that we really consider what these terms mean. God is a different kind of Master or sovereign from any that we have ever experienced on earth; and God’s purposes are different from any king or sovereign or ruler on earth.

Because God is good. Because we are beloved. God is our kind and compassionate Lord and Master, our loving parent. God has given us dominion over all things – we are responsible for tending to God’s creation, just as slaves or servants would be responsible for tending the Abbey, or the plantation. We have been given dominion over the earth – but – God has dominion over us. God is sovereign over us. God is Master over us. This is not a question we answer or a choice that we make. This is a truth, it’s a reality, regardless of what we think or decide. Our only choice is how we respond to God’s sovereignty. The degree to which we live our lives and tend the earth with God’s love and compassion in mind is the measure of our faith and our obedience. Scripture shows us the destructiveness and brokenness of lives lived in rejection of this reality, in disobedience to God. Scripture also shows us that God, as our Master, is loving and forgiving beyond our comprehension. Christ modeled this for us, as God Incarnate, as God in the flesh, here on earth. God is loving and forgiving not only to the people who we believe do not deserve it, but also to each of us, even – and especially when we are certain we do not deserve it.

God has freed us from other forms of slavery to worship God, to serve God with all of our lives and our selves. God has freed us from being slaves to fear, slaves to anger, slaves to sin. God has freed us from being slaves to the shiny things we like and want and think we must have. We are freed to take on the yoke of Christ, who said, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. A yoke is the controlling bar that goes over the shoulders of oxen in order to guide them, to turn them, to keep them on the right path. Jesus says, “take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.” Jesus has to guide us into that kind of learning, because it does not come naturally to us, to be gentle, to be humble of heart. And who would we be gentle to? Who would we be humble to? Well, to one another. That is how we become slaves to one another, as Paul says. The way we live as a slave of Christ is to be slaves to one another. To give of our selves in love to one another. And to whom? Jesus says we give to only two types of people – our neighbors and our enemies.

To take on the yoke of Christ is to be guided into the love of our neighbors and our enemies; to turn the other cheek; to go the extra mile. It’s to be redeemed for a life of obedience to Christ.

I spoke to you recently about our relationship with God as I-Thou, and our relationship with everyone and everything else as I-it. I-Thou – us and God, is the primary relationship in our lives. And by that relationship we received the way to handle every other I-It relationship in our lives. In obedience to our Master, we live out our days in generous giving to one another.  The I-Thou is how we fill ourselves up, first and foremost, so that we can then empty ourselves in generous giving to one another.

The good news is that we are owned, in life and in death, by The Lord of heaven and earth, who loves us and forgives us and welcomes us home, over and over again, to live our lives in generous giving to one another,  in the name of the living, loving, eternal, triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Bring Back Together

Genesis 32:22 - 33:11; 50:15-21

Matthew 25: 31-40

Luke 10: 25-37

The Old Testament stories today both tell us how long-term sibling rivalries end up in reconciliation.

The word re-conciliation, includes the Latin word “conciliare”, or, to bring together, and “re-“, or again. So reconciliation means “to bring back together, or to bring together again. To come together after a separation.

These aren’t the only two stories of sibling rivalry with Biblical connections, but they don’t all end up in reconciliation.

We heard about how Jacob and Esau reconcile, and then how Joseph and his brothers reconcile.

But what about the two brothers in the parable of the prodigal son? The son who came home after squandering his inheritance is reconciled with his father, but where the parable ends, the older, obedient son sounds like he is estranged with his brother and potentially his father as well.

And what about Isaac and Ishmael, two half-brothers and sons of Abraham? Each of them founded a great nation and peoples – and they are still rivals today. There are many examples of Muslims and Jews, Muslims and Christians who practice and reflect reconciliation and peace, but there is still much enmity and rivalry as well.

We don’t have to agree in order to reconcile.

We can still see the world differently.

Reconciliation is not about winning or losing.

It is about stepping across the invisible boundary lines we create, the lines that separate us from our less known or less understood brothers or sisters. The lines that separate us from our enemies, even.

What are the boundary lines you have set?

What types of people are “over your line”?

And what happens when you think of them as you think of your own sister or brother?

It doesn’t mean you have to like them or agree with them.

And you don’t have to fix them or change them.

Reconciliation is the act of accepting that in God, we are all family, and that God deeply desires for us all to come back together.

God wants this so much, in fact, that God came to earth to live among us and to show us how it’s done.

But more than that –

God accepted rejection and death on a cross in order to bring us back together – to save us all – to cause us to see ourselves as equal with one another, with all people – to redeem us from the laws that we used to separate ourselves from one another.

The purpose of God’s laws was to make our lives together better; not to give us a basis to draw boundary lines between one another, to separate us from one another, to create and maintain rivalries between us. We took the laws and misused them in that way, manipulated them for our own win/lose, for our own competitiveness, to justify ourselves as superior to “the other”.

So God came down – and took on all of our sin AND all of our suffering – for all time – by suffering and dying on the cross, and then by conquering death, so that death would no longer have the last word for us. So that we could cross that boundary line, too, without fear.

The Confession of 1967 is all about reconciliation. In its opening words, we hear this: “In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” And later, this: “The church disperses to serve God wherever its members are, at work or play, in private or in the life of society….Their daily action in the world is the church in mission to the world. The quality of their relation with other persons is the measure of the church’s fidelity.”

The quality of our relations with other persons is THE measure of the church’s fidelity, its faithfulness. If we are looking for success measures for the church, this confession gives us one – that faithfulness of the church, of its members, is measured by the quality of our relations with other persons.

The good news of salvation is the good news of reconciliation. In Christ, God reconciles us to God’s self. God forgives us, redeems us, and brings us back together, back in right relationship with God and with one another. The kingdom of god is where we all come back together again – and it is not way off in some distant future – it is here and now if we choose to be part of it.

It was impossible to watch the Michigan / Michigan State game yesterday and not think about sibling rivalry – especially since the sports commentators continue to bring up the unfortunate statement that U of M player Mike Hart made eight years ago, calling MSU “our little brother”.  Surely that has helped to keep the fires of competition and rivalry going between these two teams, although they would burn brightly even if that had never been said. Because football is about rivalry. It’s about win / lose. It is pure competition. There is no place for reconciliation. I saw Stan Iobst post on Facebook about the headache he was getting, having rival family members in his house watching the game together.

The line of scrimmage is a lot like the boundary lines we draw, to separate ourselves from others. We work hard in football, in rivalry, to defend those lines, or to advance ourselves beyond them and push the “others” further and further back.

What boundaries, what bright lines do we draw, in order to say “I will not cross this line” – or else “you shall not pass this line”.

Perhaps when it comes to caring for the poor, as Jesus calls us to do, a line we draw might be “they first need to do their part and work for it, to deserve whatever help they might get”.

Perhaps when is about violence, a line we draw might be “it’s acceptable in the case of self-defense”.

Perhaps when it’s about politics, a line we draw might be “it’s important to vote, but don’t talk in the pulpit about issues that have political implications or connections”.

What does reconciliation look like with respect to these sorts of lines?

Reconciliation does not require agreement, or consensus, or even making amends. It does require mutual respect, and compassion, and acceptance of the person as beloved of God, as worthy of redemption, every bit as much as we are worthy. And we are worthy of redemption – God has made it so.

Christ stepped over every line, and abolished them through the cross. Christ removed the conditions for us, so we do not have to worry or fear any of those distinctions anymore.

Again – sisters and brothers – do you agree on everything? Do you have to, in order to love one another?

Did Joseph have to decide his brothers were justified in their behavior? No.

Did Jacob have any ability to pay back to Esau what he had lost by Jacob stealing his birthright, the blessing that Isaac intended for Esau? No.

Did the Good Samaritan expect he would get any sort of payback for his money, his time, his kindness given to the man he found beaten on the side of the road? No.

Revenge means I will pay you back for whatever harm you have done to me, real or perceived, deserved or undeserved.

Reconciliation means I will meet you right where you are, and invite you to go forward with me together.  Reconciliation means we will reflect for others the face of God, so they can see how much God loves them, through our life, our words, our deeds. Let us go and do likewise, as Jesus told the lawyer through the parable. Let us go forth and be God’s reconcilers, showing mercy, trusting in the grace of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

No Time Like the Present

Genesis 18: 9-33; 22: 1-14           

Micah 6: 6-8                                 

Acts 17: 19-34                              

Abraham was 75 years old when God first called him to leave his country and his kindred and go to the land God would show him. The call and the promise came late in life for Abraham. He was at an age when, if he were born today, he could already be receiving his Social Security, getting his AARP discounts, and enjoying the leisure of retirement. We can imagine it would have been hard for him to trust in what the LORD was promising him, as a result of his answering this call. But off Abraham went, not knowing what the path ahead of him looked like, not having a clue how God was going to pull off the incredible things God had spoken of – “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

We can imagine that Abraham did plenty of wondering and imagining himself, as the years wore on and God had not yet gotten about the business of starting Abraham’s descendant pool. The Lord appears to Abraham in a vision, telling him his reward will be very great, and Abraham questions him – what ‘s the point of a reward, when I am still childless and have no one to pass an inheritance on to? God assures him his descendants will number greater than the stars. And so Abraham continues to be faithful, to trust, even though he eventually takes his wife Sarai’s advice, and takes her slave Hagar as a wife, and she conceives and gives birth to Ishmael. Abraham is 86 years old when this happens, so it’s 11 years since he started on this journey of faith.

And now today’s story comes 13 years after that. Abraham is 99 years old. He’s been on the move for God for 24 years now. That’s a long time to be faithful with no sign of action, of outcome, of even beginning to glimpse the start of the promise God has made.

Stop and think a minute about what was going on for you, in your life, 24 years ago……  Now – imagine if God had made a promise to you then, and you were still waiting today to see any sign of that promise taking place. Would you have given up by now? How many times? Would you have attempted to make it come about by your own efforts? What would your relatives and friends be saying if they saw you continuing to trust that someday this thing was going to happen, after all these years? One can imagine that the title of this sermon – “No Time Like the Present” – might have been what Abraham said, out loud or to himself, as he prayed to God every morning, every noontime, every night. Anytime, now, Lord. No Time Like the Present. No Day like Today….

But one day three men show up, and tell Abraham and Sarah that the time is drawing near. And Sarah laughs. But soon after that, she finds herself pregnant, and nine months later, finally, the promised day does come, and Isaac is born, and they name him “laughter”, because of course, it really is hilarious how all this has happened.

And we don’t hear much more about Isaac again until, one morning, the Lord tells Abraham that the day’s plans include him sacrificing his son on an altar. And, in a way that is astonishing to us, Abraham gets up and goes. He obeys, just as he has done each time the Lord has called to him. And at the very last minute, God reveals to Abraham a “way out” – a ram is caught by its horns in a nearby bush, and Abraham is able to sacrifice it instead, and go back down the mountain with his son.

God’s timing is not our timing, and God’s ways are not our ways. It can be hard to wait for God’s plans and purposes to be revealed. God can sometimes seem unknown to us, just like the “unknown God” that the Greeks in Paul’s time had made a shrine for. The Greeks worshipped idols relating to the visible things of earth – believing that if they made those idols happy with them, they would have rain, and good crops, and wealth, and health, and wisdom, and so on. But the God of Abraham was a God they did not know, did not acknowledge, did not understand. And so Paul seizes the opportunity – “No Time Like the Present” –to proclaim that God to the Greeks as the Lord of heaven and earth.

We do not see God as unknown – and yet we can have just as much trouble as Abraham did in understanding what God’s plan is for us, whether we are trying to discern that individually or collectively. But here is the good news – Jesus Christ is our model for living a life in obedience to God. God came to earth to show us what it looks like to what God requires of us – what it looks like to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God, as we heard through the prophet Micah.

These can seem like radical notions – crazy things to do, if we conclude we are to always do them, without condition. We can come up with so many situations and circumstances when it makes no sense to do these things. To love our enemies. To pray for those who curse us. To practice giving our whole selves up in service to God. But these are the day by day practices God calls us to. They give us our daily purpose, even on those days when God’s big plan for us is hard to figure out – when even God seems unknown to us. We can still get up in the morning and spend our day in obedience to God, doing these things.

I heard a story on the BBC radio hour this week about a man named Adriaan Vlok, who lives in South Africa. During the final years of apartheid rule, from 1986 through 1991, he served as the minister of law and order. In this position, he was responsible for upholding the apartheid laws, which included the ability to detain people without trial, to torture and to assassinate those anti-apartheid activists who were seen as a threat to the government. In 1999, he was granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was the only cabinet minister to admit to committing crimes, including the bombing of the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches, even though he considers himself to be a lifelong Christian. In 2006, after having joined the Gideons and, as he put it, read the New Testament for the first time, he committed his life to following Christ. He came forward with public apologies for a number of acts that he had not disclosed before this time. He went to Rev. Frank Chikane, a black pastor whom he had tried to assassinate, and he asked forgiveness in the name of Christ, and he washed the man’s feet. In an interview, he said he did this because he needed to humble himself, to bring himself to see this man and these people of color, whether they were anti-apartheid activists or servants in his household, as equal to him in the eyes of God.

The footwashing was done privately, but Rev. Chikane asked if he could make it public, to help others understand the healing power of humility and reconciliation. But it ignited a public controversy, and Adriaan Vlok found himself being questioned on radio, TV, and newspapers about the details of his additional actions. An article about him tells us this:

“In one interchange before a panel of questioners on a televised talk show, Vlok was pushed on his motivation and his religious identity was scrutinized: - [and these were some of his responses]

"I’m a Christian. … I carry the name of Christ. This is something I had to do.”
“Yes but you were a Christian when you did these things (during apartheid).” 
“I was raised in the Church, but I did not have a relationship with God until about ten years ago.”

 "Then what took you so long?” 
“Who can understand God’s timing? It took a long time for God to deal with me.”

Vlok now lives in a modest apartment and spends each day gathering up leftover food from a nearby bakery and grocery, and delivering it to nearby shelters for persons who are disabled and impoverished.

We know and we don’t know what God is calling us to do. Perhaps we’ve been let in on a glimpse of the big plan for our lives, but we don’t know the details or the timing. Or perhaps we cannot see what the big plan is. No matter what, we do know what God calls us to do each day – to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God. To love our enemies. To love God with everything we have. As we do this, to the best of our abilities, we can know and trust completely that God will forgive our inability to get it right, that God will give us bread for the day, that God will hear our prayers, that God will participate with us in whatever good we try to do, that God will be merciful when we turn away.

There is no time like the present to follow Christ, to change our lives, to love and to serve the Lord.