Cheating

One of the things that will come to mind first when you start to watch Maury Povich (That's Jeremy Kyle if you're British), is that you should be doing something better with your life.

After you've come to that crushing realization, then the very next thing you should be doing is to check out what happens with cheating couples.  For it is always cheating couples.  It's all paternity tests, and lie detector tests, and hidden cameras and all that noise.  And here's the thing, is that in a
marriage type situation, in which people make vows, and promise to abide by them, and then don't, the relationship can go one of two ways.  Either the couple breaks up (usually unamicably), or the couple agrees to get back together.  But here's the thing about these couples in crisis - if you're the one cheating, and you want to get back together, if you want to grovel and seek forgiveness, you don't get to make the rules anymore.  You don't get to be the one who sets conditions and insists on who can and can't do things in the relationship.  Not anymore.  That province is the province of the person who was cheated on.  They get to decide if they're going to take you back, and they get to set the conditions.  They get to be the ones who decide how the relationship is going to go from now on.

The reading that we had from the Old Testament touches on that, talking about how Israel is God's bride, and he is her husband.  And this relationship explains why the Lord our God is a Jealous God.  we entered into a covenant relationship with him, we signed up for a covenant relationship with him, and we broke that covenant.  Time and time again, we broke the covenant that God set before us.  The rules weren't unknown, the contitions weren't too hard to work out, it wasn't as though you had a Ashley Madison isn't full of people who haven't realized that they're not supposed to cheat on their spouses, it's full of people who are happy to cheat as long as they don't get caught.
hard time figuring out what to do with things, no, it's a matter of knowing what you ought to do, and then not doing it.  In the same way as people who cheat know what their marriage is all about, they just choose not to follow through with it.

Now, this is our relationship with God.  We are his spouse, and he is jealous for us like we all are for our spouses.  And our unfaithfulness is best explained to us in the story of Hosea, the prophet from the Old Testament.  Hosea lived out the life we live with God in his own life, taking for himself a wife of unfaithfulness, taking for himself a prostitute and children of unfaithfulness.  And as you watch Hosea with his wife, Gomer, you feel like screaming at him "What are you doing?  Leave that woman, she brings you nothing but heartache and hurt!"  Yes, that's true.  And looking at that, it makes sense that Hosea should leave Gomer.  But he doesn't.  Because through him, God is teaching us all a lesson about what it is like to love us.

As it frequently does, it comes back to David. It comes back to David, who found himself a new bride in Bathsheba, and to get her, had her husband killed.  And after that happened, David went back to his bedchamber with his new bride, fat and happy, and relaxed, thinking that he'd gotten away with it.  But when Nathan the prophet comes to David, he does so to explain to David the problems with what he had done.  But Nathan is smart enough to realize that everybody believes that they're a hero in their own eyes.  Nobody using Ashley Madison believes that they're a cheating dirtbag.  Everybody believes that they were pushed into it, that they didn't have a choice, that they have a right to be happy, and so on.  This is what happens to us.  And when David broke God's law, Nathan knew that David wouldn't listen to a scolding based on what he had done.  Instead, David listened to a story about a man, and a sheep, and David was able to correctly ascertain that this was a problem.  And that's when Nathan was able to tell him 'you are the man.'  In other words, you are the person who is the problem here, whether you see it or not.

When you read the story of Hosea, you look at a man who is being played for a chump by his wife, his cheating, unfaithful wife, you get angry.  You get angry at her for cheating, and you get angry at him for sticking around, the schlub.  If he had any self respect, he'd be gone.  But this is the story of

us and God.  It's the story of someone sticking around through all our unfaithfulness, the story of someone putting up with our cheating, and realizing that based on the old rules that we signed up for, that our marriage was never going to work.  So instead of that, he made new rules.  A new covenant. A new covenant was going to be set up based not on our ability to keep God's laws, but on his capacity to forgive.  The new covenant was to be based on God forgiving our iniquity and remembering our sin no more.

How is this miracle to happen?  Through the work of Christ.  As he says in the Gospel reading, that the one who is going to be the first, must be the servant to everyone.  Whoever wishes to be the first among us must be the slave of all of us.  They have to drink the cup that Christ is to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that Christ is baptized with. Can they do it?  No.  Nobody can except Christ, who takes our sin upon him, and walks it all the way to the cross.  He is going to be drink that cup that is only for him, the cup of service, the cup of suffering, the cup of sour wine at the cross.  And in doing so, he changes the relationship between us and God.  No longer about good going to heaven and bad going to hell, no longer about us keeping our covenant with God in order that we might be blessed - it's about God's sacrifice for us.  Because we aren't faithful, if we are to continue in this relationship, we must by definition play by the rules of the faithful spouse, and that faithful spouse is God, who will keep on taking us back again and again, just like Hosea to Gomer.

Because he loves us.  There's no reason to do what he does, nothing compels him to do it, objectively he shouldn't, but he does.  Because he loves us.

Blessings on your Lenten journey.

For God so loved the world that... well... you know.

You know, I had intended to make a particular joke on Sunday, and I missed it. Occupational hazard of being an outline preacher.  The joke I wanted to make was about the GEICO ads, and about how they had generated an honest-to-goodness sitcom, called 'cavemen,' which honestly wasn't that good.

Okay, maybe that sounded better in the original Hebrew.

But here's the deal, is that for a long time GEICO ads were about brand recognition, increasing visibility, and getting their name out there and so on.  But now their name is out there, and out there to the point that now their commercials are getting oddly self-referential.  Take, for example, the strange phenomenon of the GEICO ad in which the beginning of the ad, not the end, states that 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance.  That used to be the end of the ad, now the ads end by saying 'GEICO, 15 minutes can save you.... well... you know.' 

Do you get this? The ads have become so pervasive and so well known that now, they don't even have to bother with the slogan anymore.  It's a masterpiece of marketing, in which the slogan is understood before the ad has even begun.

Now, compare that with John 3:16.  The most well-known, well quoted verse in all the scriptures.  It's the sort of  thing that shows up constantly, and we have it on pencils, bracelets, Bible covers, laptop cases, posters, and a great deal of other things that I can't even think of right now.  And it's like the GEICO slogan by now, where you could start by saying 'For God so loved the world that.... well..... you know.'

John 3:16, everybody knows that.  But do you know the rest of the issues? It's not just a matter of John 3:16 and the rest of the Bible can go hang.  There's way more to the story, and we do it a disservice by condensing it into one verse.  And the great thing about context is that Jesus basically

demands it in this passage.  If you take a second to look at the reading from Sunday, you'll notice that Jesus begins his discussion with Nicodemas by hearkening back to  the events from the book of Numbers.  Yes, even Jesus himself seems to think that you need context for what happens in Holy Scripture.  But it's more than that, it's about what the context says. 

When Jesus talks about John 3:16, he does so in light of the Old Testament, where there were people who had been bitten by serpents in the wilderness, and who were dying.  Their only hope was to look upon the bronze serpent that Moses had erected up in the wilderness, so that they might live.  They'd been bitten by snakes, and their only hope was to look upon the serpent on the pole, and survive.

Now, skip ahead a few thousand years, and this is still us, you know.  It's not enough for us to say 'John 3:16, for God so loved the world that..... well..... you know.'  What is he saving us from?  He's saving us from the same old snakebites we've always had.  From our first parents until now, from Adam and Eve until the present, we have been plagued by being bitten by the same old serpent, the devil.  He continually bites us and scourges us, and we have been wandering around with the threat of death hanging over us this whole time.  We are winding towards destruction, doomed to die from the venom of this same serpent unless something changes.

And this is the thing about snakebites, which is that you're not just going to buck up and get better.  Dealing with sin isn't a matter of us looking at each other and saying 'gosh you should just smarten up and not be sinful anymore.' It's not that simple, neither with snakebites, nor with sin.  Anyone who claims that you can just decide not to sin, that you can just decide to keep God's commandments if you just try harder, well, they're in denial about what sin really is.  it's an infection.  It's poison. It's a killer. 

You know this, because as Paul found, sin drives you to do what you don't want to do.  It pushes you into being a person you don't want to be.  You make decisions you'd rather not make, you do stuff you'd rather not do, and all in all you're pushed into circumstances that you don't want, because you are a sinner, and as a sinner, you are infected by, and being killed by sin.  And that's what snake venom does, you know.  The toxins in snake venom push your body into places it doesn't want to go, and makes it do things you don't want it to do.  This is how it kills you.  This is how you die, is that your body's processes are pulled around by a chemical that forces it to do what you don't want it to do.

And this is us.  with sin.  We know what we want to do, we are well aware of what we want to accomplish, we know what is the right thing to do, and yet we seem to be pushed into what we don't want to do, and it is killing us.  What's your solution? Trying harder? Doing better? Telling your muscles to stop involuntarily contracting? Or is it to take the antivenin that is offered.

That's what Jesus provides to us at the cross.  He provides life to any and all who might look upon him in faith and believe that he is the cure for our sin. 

Now, if I may indulge in a moment, I remember the most excellent movie of all time being released, 'snakes on a plane.'  Yes, the title is the plot.  And in that movie, you had a bunch of people who had been snakebitten, and who needed antivenin.  But the way the plot worked out was that the various

people who had been bitten needed specific antivenin, corresponding to the specific snake that had bitten them.  It was a major plot point, which meant that they had to hang onto the various breeds of snake to identify them to the scientists and eggheads on the ground.  But the deal with John 3:16, is that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  No matter your sin, no matter what the sin is that is plaguing you, no matter your level of guilt or shame, the solution is the same.  To look upon Christ, and to live.  To believe in the one who came to vanquish sin, to suck the poison out of your wounds and to give you life abundantly. 

Good Friday, Holy Week, they're all about this - that the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should have eternal life.  Look up on him.  Gaze upon him.  And live.

Distractions

One of the great things about a Christian worship service with communion, is that it is an immersive experience.  Unlike a great many other things, it has all five senses involved in it.  You can see the pastor, and the congregation, you can hear the music and the words, you can smell and taste and touch the elements of communion, it's an immersive experience.

And it's worth considering the immersive experience of the temple at the time of Jesus.  Jesus, when he walks into the temple, sees the masses of animals and money changers there, and becomes immediately furious with what he sees, and why wouldn't he? For the temple would be even more of an immersive experience than a modern worship service.  As I said on Sunday, we know that there were animals in the temple, we know that there were money changers, but what we don't think about are the sounds, the smells, of being in a space covered with this kind of nonsense.

If you're someone of a certain age, you may find yourself bothered by the noises in an existing service, the children crying, the kids eating snacks, and all the attendant issues that brings.  But here's the thing - imagine yourself in the temple in the first century, and imagine how loud it would be.  The cattle would be lowing, no doubt, and the sheep bleating, the money changers trying to do business, and all the people there as well.  And if that's not enough for you, imagine the smells.  There's a reason that we don't do live nativity scenes inside the church, and that reason has something to do with how much plastic sheeting we would have to put down.  Yes, that's right, this scene from the Gospels comes with a whole lot of real world immersion, and a lot of real world, quite literal BS.

You do realize that in the Temple, there would have been tons of garbage all over the place.  And when Jesus shows up at the Temple, he shows up to drive it all out.  All the layers of filth, all the

You may not know this, but this picture is really clever.

cash, all the mooing and bleating, all the flies, all the stacks of rubbish, everything that was distracting people from the intention of their worship.

It gets to that point, you know.  It gets to that point, where you can lose sight of what's really important in the face of all the decor and accompaniments.  It gets to the point where you can't see what you prioritize, based on all the attendant stuff that goes along with it. That happens for real, and it happened for the Jews at the time of Christ.  These were people who had been told in their holy book that God took no pleasure in burnt offerings, who were told that God wanted them to rend their hearts and not their garments, but they still continued to default to the standard, the desire to make their faith, their worship, about what they were doing, and about their sacrifices, their money, and so on.  Their BS.

So when Jesus drives the animals out, when he drives out the money changers, when he scatters the coins and drives out those selling animals, what is left?  Jesus is left.  And when Jesus is left, those in the temple ask him by what authority he does these things, and he replies 'destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.' Of course, they think he is referring to the temple around him, but he is actually referring to the temple of his body.

And what Jesus has done is to remove all the distractions, to drive out all the mess, all the nonsense, all the barriers, and to leave himself at the centre of it all.  The temple has been laid bare, and there is only Christ at the centre of it, and him crucified.

This is what our Epistle reading for this week was all about.  It was all about Paul wanting to preach only Christ and him crucified.  And that's it.  All the rest of our faith is decoration, is accessories.  But accessories, garnish, they're only good as long as they bring out the best in what we want to be focused on to begin with.  If they don't, then they're useless to us.  And that brings us to lent.  This season in which all the distractions go away.  All the usual distractions we have all around us, all the usual things we have that occupy our thoughts, all the things that draw focus away from Christ and him crucified, all those things go away during Lent.  And in Lent, all we're left with is the stark reality of the cross.  All the banners, the paraments, the decor, the accessories, they all go away, and all we're left with, by the end of the time of Lent, is the cross, bare and naked before us.  The reaction that we have to it, by the time that Good Friday rolls around, should be similar to what officer Malus has at the end of the Wicker Man.  And yes, before you ask, the good version of the Wicker Man.  The stark reality of the cross is something that we forget every once in a while, and that's what the season of Lent helps us with.  It breaks down all the distractions, everything that stands between us and Christ crucified. All the distractions melt away, and we get to see the reality of what we believe in with clarity. We can see what we believe in, and why it's important.  We can see the cross of Christ, and beyond it, the empty tomb.  The celebration of Easter means all the more if you've voyaged through the wilderness of Lent, if you've seen the temple laid bare, if you've been at the foot of the cross, then the resurrection, the breaking of death itself, the unweaving of the fabric of entropy, it means something.  And that's what we believe in.  In Lent, we finally have the focus to see it.

Who do you say that I am?

one of the things that comes up first when you look at Jesus is how popular he is.  He is everywhere, in all places, in all locations.  You can't throw a rock without hitting a picture, an image of Jesus.  His

face is all over the place, his likeness, ever present.  His name is all over the place too, people talk a lot about Jesus and who he is and what he's all about.  But his self is oddly polarizing, when it should be unifying.

Have you ever found it to be strange that there are so many Christian denominations on earth, so many variant groups and sects of Christians who will go off in a wide variety of directions who will be in disagreement about what Jesus is all about.  And this happens because we don't listen to who he says he is.

But we're not the only ones.  We think that this is new, but it isn't.  It's as old as Jesus himself, as old as the first century.  When Jesus asked his disciples, his close followers, who people on the street said that he was, the disciples didn't come up with a cohesive answer.  They didn't say 'people say you're Jesus of Nazareth.....what else would they say?' No, they didn't come up with that cohesive answer.  Their answers were much more all over the place.  Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others say one of the Prophets.

Now, the lack of a cohesive answer should plague us, really, because it's a matter for us for the long term too.  It's not just who the variety of Christian denominations says that Jesus is, it's not just a matter of who the people of Jesus' time said that Jesus was, it's more than that.  It's who we say that he is.

So who do you say that Jesus is?  Odds are, if you're Lutheran, you'll say 'he is the Messiah, the son of the living God,' and call it a day.  But is that really who you say that Jesus is?  All the time? The problem is not that we don't know who Jesus is, but that our perception of who he is changes through

the week.  This is the problem plaguing Christians, is that we have been brought up in the knowledge and faith of God, we have been raised in his word and sacraments, we know all the right answers, but it changes for us through the week.  In a given week, we will find that we say Jesus is a killjoy, an interfering busybody, a great teacher, a coach, a supporter, a miracle worker, a guy who lived two thousand years ago, and Lord and God.  And everything in between.  We don't have a cohesive answer, even when it comes to us.

Think of it this way.  If a married man were to use Ashley Madison, he would still refer to his wife as his wife, obviously, but he wouldn't be treating her that way all week.  That's the way we work with God.  We know who he is, obviously, We know who Jesus is, but how are we feeling about him all the week?  Because to be honest, we're going to get the answer wrong half of, if not most of, the time.
We get this wrong, we get it wrong all the time, which is why the determining factor isn't who we say Jesus is.  If it's up to us to get this right, to bridge the gap between heaven and hell by our words and thoughts, we're in rough shape.  But if it's not, if it's not about that, then we're in better shape.

Part of our desire is to have the right answer, and to have it rest on us.  But it doesn't.  The great thing about the various things that Jesus is called by everyone, is that he doesn't deped on us to get the right answers.  The right answer is his, and always has been.  Everything depends not on us getting

the right answer, heck, even Peter didn't do that twice in a row, and nor do we.  No, it's less about us getting the right answer, and more about us listening to the right answer that Jesus gives.  The question is not who do we say that he is, but who does he say that we are?  who are we?  We are forgiven, redeemed, renewed Children of God.  We are his friends, we are his companions, we are his dear and trusted people.  That's who we are.

Ultimately, it comes down to what we find in John 15:13-17

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Do you see what Jesus calls us? And why? We did not choose him, he chose us.  Chose us as friends. chose us as beloved companions.  Adpoted us as children.  In other words, we can taste salvation because he first loved us.

PJ.