Lent 5: Isaiah43:16-21; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8
March 21, 2010
Signs of spring
As the weather has begun to warm over recent days and the grass turn green again, I know farmers, are now "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead." They are looking ahead to a new season that hopefully will be a bit more normal than the last couple have been.
It is transition time for many high school and college seniors too as they prepare to leave the past behind and move on to the next phase in their lives – more schooling for some, searching for a job for others, maybe marriage. This is always an anxious time of preparing to let go of what is familiar and predictable in anticipation of something new.
Tiger Woods announced this week that he is coming back to golf and will play in the Masters tournament at the end of April. Based on what we have learned in recent months, there is probably no one more eager than Woods to "forget what lies behind" and move on to something better.
Moving on in the spirit
These are just a few signs which suggest among so many others how life is always in transition. Even churches go through transition and we will soon be considering one here at SUMC as I announced earlier. We will be choosing between the status quo or embarking on a new path. Whatever transition we face though regardless of whether it is personal, a church building project, or a national crisis we can learn a lot from the history of Israel.
Their story is one of both blessing and curse on their spiritual journey. When everything was going well they had a tendency of wanting to stop, enjoy their blessings and preserve them. They became a great nation, prosperous and powerful. But in the process they forgot their purpose and mission as the chosen ones of God. They became comfortable and over confidant and this set them up for a great fall. The armies of Babylonia swept down to capture Jerusalem, destroy the temple and take many of its citizens away as slaves.
And so began the Babylonian Captivity which lasted for roughly 70 years. During this period Israel ceased to exist as a sovereign nation. It seemed impossible to break out of this slump. Was there any hope in God? Or had God abandoned them because of their past sins?
It was the second prophet Isaiah who spoke up during this period of depression and soul searching. He reminded the exiles about the exodus from Egypt long before and how God had delivered them from the Egyptians by parting the waters of the sea so they could escape. But then he says to forget about all that because it will be nothing compared to what God is going to do. God is about to do a new thing, he says and asks "do you not perceive it?"
The prophet was undoubtedly thinking about the great Persian King Cyrus who was on the move. His armies attacked Babylonia and won. Isaiah's vision is that God is using Cyrus to set the captives of Israel free to return home. God will make a way through the wilderness and make streams flow in the desert. Even wild animals will even honor the Lord. Isaiah sees God making a new creation to restore Israel 'the people whom God formed for himself so that they might declare his praise.'
Moving on with God
This history shows a God who is always on the move. The status quo whether good or bad is never final. This was good news when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. At other times this was bad news like when Israel fell in love with preserving its 'blessings' rather than using them for God's mission. When they were down, Israel called on God to save them. But then when they were up and on top of the world, they didn't always obey. And so God disciplined and put his people on probation.
Well, this is not just their story. It is our story too. When there is a calamity and a great crisis we cry out to God. But when everything is going well, we take God for granted. In our consumer driven world it is easy to be distracted from what it means to be a servant and disciple, not just some of the time, not just when we have time, not just when it's convenient, not just when its easy, not just when its popular, but all the time.
Even though Cyrus gave the captives their freedom to go back home to Israel, it is believed only a minority actually made the trip. There may have been good reasons for this when you consider that many of the original captives were either dead or extremely old by the time of Cyrus. Many were also second and third generation exiles. They may not have had the same personal fondness for the land of Israel since they had never lived there. Yet, regardless some did return and worked to rebuild all that had been lost.
This history shows that faith in God is a journey. And this spiritual journey is by choice. It is not automatic or inevitable. Commitment, sincerity, devotion and faith are all needed. And once begun there needs to be more of the same to stay vital and fruitful. In a real sense life in the spirit is always a journey which doesn't end until we die. And we don't even know for sure if it will end then. I tend to believe it will not end because if we are privileged to inhabit eternity then what will we do up there forever?
Well, I think the picture of what we will do in heaven is what God has been trying to show us for centuries now. The idea is to start doing it now in this world. Start following God now. Work on understanding what God's way is and then live it as his disciple and servant. Teach the young so that when they grow up they will not depart from the way. Show the way to those who don't know it. Reach out to those who have strayed and welcome them back. Pray for one another. Care for the sick and the afflicted. Feed the hungry. Forgive one another. Lift up the broken. This is all good training for living in love and fullness of life as God intended. Then we will be ready for the life above. We learn God's way through Jesus because he was the Word of God revealed in human flesh.
The gospel lesson from John today tells of Mary wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair and how the perfume she was using filled the whole house. This scene hints at the coming death of Jesus. But it also hints at what comes in the next chapter of John's gospel, chapter 13, when Jesus will wash the feet of all his disciples during their last meal together. And he will say to them: "If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example that you should do as I have done to you."(Jn 13:14-15)
I wonder if Jesus didn't get the idea of washing the disciples feet from what Mary had done. The smell of the perfume is suggestive too about how much better life is when we emulate the kind of caring and love we see in Jesus. Here we see a servant not concerned for his own ego nor hung up on the worthiness of others, but simply caring for others out of love. Jesus is the model in which we are called to live. This is the "way, the truth and the life."(Jn 14)
Living in Christ is much more than just having the outward form of religion. The Apostle Paul talks about his religious pedigree as it were, the form of his religion as a Jew – a member of the people of Israel, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, in relation to the law he was Pharisee, and he was very zealous for his religion and blameless. Outwardly he had all the form of religion that a person could ever have. But after he met Jesus he counted that stuff as rubbish in comparison to the righteousness from God revealed in Jesus based on faith.
Paul wanted to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and share his sufferings by becoming like him in death so that he might somehow also attain resurrection from the dead. By the time Paul wrote Philippians he had already done so much. And yet he didn't presume that he had it made yet. "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus had made me his own." (Phil 3:12)
If Paul says this about himself, then what about us? Do I(we) presume because of the form of religion we follow that we have it made now? That we have reached the goal? I hope not. Remember with God the status quo whether good or bad is never final.
This is why I'm thankful for the signs of springtime, graduation, even Tiger Woods and certainly the ongoing mission of SUMC. These are all reminders of how life is always in transition, of how we are always letting go of something whether we want to or not. The good news when we're down is God's steadfast love that lifts us up. And the good news when we are well and on top is again God's steadfast love which calls to let go again, don't cling to it because we have not reached the goal yet. The best is always yet to come on our journey with God.
God is always doing something new. Do we perceive it?
"Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but his one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ."(Phil 3:13-14)