Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Grace *Jesus, Lover of My Soul* Witness of Scripture: Ephesians 2: 1-10 Anthem *How Can I Keep From Singing?* arr. Sherman. Handbell Choir Sermon *What For?* David Spain
Recorded on March 10, 2024
We are halfway through the season of Lent and have asked ourselves foundational questions in our life of faith. What sustains us as we respond to the many challenges and temptations we face almost every day; what endures in a world that can feel fleeting and frivolous; what can possess us as we strive to live God’s covenant? Today we get personal by asking ‘what for,’ in other words what are we here for?
We recall that Frederick Buechner thinks of Lent as an opportune time to ask important, albeit difficult questions about our living. “If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn’t, which side would get your money and why? If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in 25 words or less? Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo, and which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?” We are not inclined to ponder these kinds of questions—except perhaps after a crisis hits and we take stock of our lives. Lent invites us to ask critical questions—something of a spring cleaning for the soul.
The 40 days in Lent are perhaps most popularly given to giving up something.That can certainly be an important move to make, for to give up something is to make space for something else.The church office is currently being remodeled, and as we have relocated things for the reconstruction we have also discovered things that have been forgotten or have been held but no longer need to be kept. So, as we are remodeling, we are also unloading. Lent can be like that, a time for lightening the load. But we are doing something else in this office remodeling—we are not simply purging; more significantly we are prioritizing. When the remodeling is complete, we have a plan for what will go where, what is needed most frequently, what is most important to our doing the work we are called to do. This is a very Lenten thing to do, as we affirm what is most important in our lives, which underneath is always about what we are here for.
A long time ago the apostle Paul wrote a letter that we know as Ephesians. Rather than this being a specific letter to a specific church, it was probably a letter that circulated among several churches in what was then called Asia Minor. When Paul’s letters were collected, this circular letter was likely held in Ephesus and so was given the name Ephesians. Since it was a letter for many churches and not just one church, it is also a letter addressed even to this church all these years later.Paul is waxing theological on the grand scale with this letter. We are not dealing with the minutia of what to eat and what to drink; instead, Paul is telling us about the glorious love of God for everyone. He begins by saying people are separated from God and that distance is destructive, divisive, even deadening. But that is neither a permanent condition nor a final destination, as Paul makes the bold point that from the beginning God had always longed for unity not distance. Sadly however, there is distance, separation, estrangement; so, Paul says God does something about that—even though we were good as dead, God’s great love comes to us to revive, restore, renew. Jesus is that expression of God’s love embodied fully, a love given for everybody.Paul writes some of the most important words he ever wrote—“for by grace you have been saved through faith—and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works so that no one may boast.” Peter Marty writes, “that God would want us or love us just as we are, and not as God might wish we were, is astonishing…biblical faith insists that God doesn’t love us because we are worthy; we have worth and value because God loves us.” (The Christian Century, ‘Loved as is,’ 1/29/20)
In Christian tradition, the fourth Sunday in Lent has been called Laetare Sunday, deriving from the opening words of the Mass ‘Laetare Jerusalem,’ which means ‘Rejoice, O Jerusalem.” Why rejoice?Because it is as Paul tells us—God is not content with whatever distance there is between us and God, so God does something about it. “Out of the great love with which God loves us, God comes to us.” It has always been this way with God—in creation, in liberation, in covenant, in prophets, in Christ God seeks to bridge the distance, seeks to remind us who we are and what we are here for. That was the topic of Jesus’ late night conversation with Nicodemus—a faithful, devout person who nonetheless had come to believe that ‘it is what it is’ is all there is. Jesus tells him, just as Paul is telling us, ‘you may be tired and settled, but God’s spirit can still stir, can still refresh you just like people have with the joy of a new born baby. Rejoice, we say on this 4th Sunday of Lent because God is still making new.
Then Paul proclaims what is most important, proclaims how God is with us, proclaims the what for of our living. Perhaps if we could emblazon this in the forefront of our minds, perhaps if this could be our prayer every morning it could not only reshape our lives but also reshape this world—“For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”Why are we here…what is our “What for?”Good works are to be our way of life—not to earn God’s love but because God’s love is known through good love working.As Bishop Michael Curry said, “the way of Jesus is the way of love…our job is to love, and in the case of Christians, to witness to the way of love that came to us from Jesus’ teachings.” (Love Is the Way, pp. 4,9) Our way of life is to be God’s good works of love.
So, at this halfway point of Lent, we consider our credo statements; we proclaim what is deeply true about our life of faith; what is our ‘what for’ to get up in the morning. To be sure no single answer suffices for everyone because there are many wonderful ways to live God’s love in the good works for which we have been created. Whatever the particular situation, God’s good, loving work always offers redemption. I have a friend whose simple morning prayer is this—“God I do not know what will happen today, but I pray that something of your redeeming love will flow through me and into this hurting world.” Redeeming love means there are places and people and relationships in this world that are broken, wounded, needy. Relationships are messy and hard at times; so, offering love to redeem what is fractured is to share in the work that God has always done and continues to do. No doubt as it is with God and with Christ, so it is with us —redeeming love is risky, is vulnerable and may not be accepted by the other. But wherever it is accepted, wherever it is returned, life changes—whether that change is in the family, in the neighborhood, in the community. Redeeming love makes new, love that redeems—as Nicodemus discovered—is to be born again.
Paul’s letter is an invitation to see the world through God’s eyes, which perhaps is possible in periodic glances but harder to achieve as a steady gaze. And yet, as we read Paul’s letter we can’t help but wonder what difference it would make to filter life through the lens of the gospel? We might wonder if the gospel has ever been life’s primary perspective. Long ago, in Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address he said, “North and South both read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes God’s aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not lest we be judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.The Almighty has His own purposes.” (quoted in Jon Meacham’s American Gospel, p. 118) Lincoln’s words counsel the posture of humility, which is sorely lacking from far too many statements made from the public dais, from particular ideologies, from social media echo chambers, from hate-filled perspectives that employ the gospel to support either individual or communal self-interest or fear. No one is immune from that struggle, and even the Bible has reinterpreted itself over the thousands of years of its being written. And yet, the Biblical story for all its complications tells of the God in whose image we are made and in whose spirit we are to care for the world; the Biblical story for all its complications tells of the God whose love abides; of the God whose temple built by Solomon was dedicated as a sanctuary for all people and not just a chosen few; of the God whose desire for relationship is summarized by the prophet Micah as ‘doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly;” of the God whose golden rule is “to do to others as you would have them do to you.” What for…we know.
Perhaps another core question is what it means to be neighbor? “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is asked before we get past the Bible’s fourth chapter. “Remember to be kind to the alien in your midst for you were once an alien, a stranger,” God implored our Hebrew ancestors. “Who is my neighbor?,” a legal eagle once asked Jesus to which he responded not by giving a party of the first part is beholden to the party of the second part only under these conditions answer; but instead told a story about a Samaritan who cared for a stranger and then said “go and be a neighbor like that.” How wide does the circle of neighbor get drawn in a world that belongs to God?
What is it to be the church? How does this body of Christ live in a world where at times the institution that is the church has not warranted trust nor dependability and has been nothing more than a lackey of the empire? And yet, the church at its best has been a source of deep hope and healing in the good work it has done ever since Jesus said we are his body. What does that body look like in 2024? Beauty, truth, justice, mercy, love. What are we here for?
Again, no single answer ever suffices, because faith is always being worked on and worked out. And yet Paul said, “You are created in Christ for good works which God has prepared beforehand to be your way of life.” John Wesley summarized it this way—“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” May this always be our ‘what for.’