6/21/20

Sermon Notes:

The lectionary passages this week take us deep into the heart of what it means to walk with God, receiving God’s beautiful love and forgiveness, and yet living all the while in such a difficult, often sorrowful world.

Genesis 21:8-21 tells the story of Isaac and Ishmael, two sons of Abraham. While we too often dismiss Ishmael as Sarah’s attempt to play God, we must read the text fearlessly and see that God loves the boy and his mother Hagar, that God protects them and makes a great nation of them as well. We are not called to put anyone above us but God, and it can be difficult to come to terms with the fact that God’s great plan for humanity goes beyond what we are comfortable understanding. Hagar is our model here: when we are lost and alone, we can call out to God for help, and know that help does come.

In Psalm 86 the psalmist cries out for help in just this way. There is desperation in this call. Exhaustion. Fear. And yet there is the sure and certain hope that confidence in God will deliver us.

In the selection from Romans (6:1b-11) Paul takes on the question of what we do with ourselves after God has forgiven us. He is addressing the issue called “cheap grace.” Cheap grace is the kind that gets bandied about when someone wants sinful actions to be overlooked or absolved because “Jesus died for our sins.” Paul talks about the real and rewarding work of responding to God’s grace by living in integrity and honesty about a part of human nature that persists in sin and death, even as we are raised with Christ.

The Gospel reading of Matthew 10:24-39 continues the difficult theme of seeing that the love of Jesus does not grant an immediate utopia. Christ calls us to lose our lives that we may gain something deeper and more wonderful. Like any living, dynamic process, it is hard to describe the exact process of dying to the egocentric self and coming to life as our authentic selves in God. It is a lifelong process, and unique in many ways to each individual, except the steadfast truth that God walks with us as we go.

On Sunday, Matthew will be our first reading, and the sermon will delve into Paul’s notion that in our baptism we died with Christ, and are being raised with Christ as well. In all its difficulty and pain, this is a beautiful life. It is made all the more beautiful that we have each other as examples of what it is like to be “being raised” in Christ day by day.

See you Sunday. 

Grace and Peace, 

Jane

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6/14/20