Sacramental Living

26th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 27)
Year A

Readings for the week:
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

For a people who spent a generation on the move, this text is the call to stay put in the land YHWH promised their forebears, and to serve the LORD their God alone.  Joshua reminds the people several times here to serve God alone.

Joshua knows that it is all too easy for us to fall back on what we’ve known and miss experiencing the new.  Joshua had witnessed these people complaining while in the wilderness.  He had heard them beg to go back to Egypt, because liberation was not what they thought it would be.  He knew they fashioned a god into something they were comfortable with–a golden calf–when God Almighty became uncomfortable.

Joshua knows this history and so when the people vow, “Yes, of course we’ll serve God and God alone,” Joshua challenges them:  “You can’t do it; you’re not able to worship the LORD. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won’t put up with your fooling around and sinning.”

Have we held to our vow any better?  Don’t think on just an individual basis, think on a communal level.  Has your family, your neighborhood, your faith community, your tribe worshipped the LORD our God alone?  Have I and my family?

Or have we rather served the gods of money, stability, status quo, government, politics, career, prestige, opinion?

What a great text to call us again to answer this simple and profound question:  Who owns you?  And to answer that question, it seems we need to look at what has consumed our time, energy, resources, thoughts, and feelings this past week, month, year?

The apostle James spoke truth when he admonished the Church to let their actions speak.  For a credible communal life speaks louder than any words.

Psalm 78:1-7

Lest we ever forget our mission, the psalmist here poetically calls us to account: Trust in God; never forget the works of God, but keep his commands to the letter.

This text is like a guide to the drama of our lives.  We are to be constantly in dress rehearsal mode.  Rehearse the acts of God to our children, over and over and over again.  Why?  So that we are ready when God reveals himself.  By rehearsing the acts of our LORD, we remind ourselves–whether we are on the mountaintop, in the valley, or in exile–that our God is real, our God cares for us, our God will redeem us, our God will act.

The surprising part is the mystery of how God acts.  Unless we have been rehearsing God’s story, we might miss the “how;” because God often surprised us in how he chooses to redeem.

I Thessalonians 4:13-18

This text has spawned quite a bit of theologically irresponsible notions, such as the rapture.  The Left Behind series is testament to that.  Did you know the word “rapture” does not appear in Scripture?  In fact, the very idea that we will leave this earth at the Second Coming of Christ is not biblical at all.

Stop, take a breath.  I know that sounds heretical.  But read the entire Book of the Revelation.  Especially the ending chapters.  It’s clear that the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John is about the end our salvation story.  And we will not be leaving.  Instead, Christ will return to this world in bodily form, making a new heaven and a new earth, and we will dwell with Jesus in this newly reconciled world!  What a concept.

A biblical view of the end of story does not trivilize salvation as some “get out of earth and hell” card.  Instead, salvation history is the story of God reconciling all things … ALL THINGS … to himself.  How?  I don’t know.  But he’s promised to do it:  “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”

Paul’s emphasis in this text is not on the particulars of the Advent of Christ.  Then what is it on?  Hope.  Paul is encouraging people who have legitimate questions about what comes after death that even in death we will not be out of God’s care.  What a joy to know that because of Christ even death cannot separate us from the faithful love of our Creator.

And Paul urges us to encourage each other continually in light of this great hope.

Matthew 25:1-13

Are we ready to rejoice?  Do we live in a state of expectant joy?  In these final weeks before we celebrate the beginning of the Church Year with Advent, the theme of waiting is already beginning.

There are two ways to wait on the LORD:

1. In a sleepy state, sadly unprepared, or …
2. Ready, joyful, expectant.

This wonderful story Jesus tells of the ten bridesmaids illustrates two different ways to live life: in the kingdom or unaware of the kingdom.  Imagine if we actually lived like our prayer “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” we already being answered in a multitude of ways?  What if we lived like the kingdom of Christ was already breaking into this world?

Guess what … it is!  That is the statement of Christ’s Resurrection.  The world as we have known it has ended.  Death will not win.  God’s care cannot be stifled.  We can never fall out of God’s grace.  Yes, we can reject it, we can choose not to lean into the Spirit’s presence.  But God’s grace is extended to us in all ways in all places.

Do we see it?  Do we see this reality of heaven on earth breaking through the cracks of our false realities?  Jesus preached a kingdom where the poor are cared for, the disenfranchised are the important people in the community, the naked are clothed, the hungry are fed, the blind are given sight.  Where is this happening around us?  When we see it, we should recognize is as the presence of Jesus the Nazarene!

Better yet, we should be part of it.  We should be like the five bridesmaids who were eagerly waiting for the groom.  We should have our lights on, joyful, ready to break out in song and dance when one of the least of these is comforted.

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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