The Lion Roars!

Sermon for Sunday, January 27, 2008

1. Good morning. Let’s pray . . . O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen

2. Opening comments: Well it’s the Green Season – Ordinary Time, but only for a very short period of time. That will change on Ash Wednesday to the Violet Season – the Season of Lent which begins on February 6. Incidentally, we will hold an Ash Wednesday service on February 6 at 7am (in the morning) and on that evening just prior to our usual Wednesday Night Alive serviced at 6pm.

As I read and reread the Scripture lessons for today I realized the title for this reflection is “The Lion’s Roar.”

OK – let me give us a very brief review of our Scripture readings right now. What I’m going to be doing is trying to relate them all to one central theme.

Here we go – In our Old Testament reading we heard Amos the prophet warning the children of Israel about their coming punishment and he likens God to a Lion. Listen to verse 8.

“A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord has spoken!

The inference being made here is that God cannot be mocked – He’s a Lion – the Lion of Judah and you’d better not mess with Him!

We can’t sin in the shadows and not be seen by Him. God sees all and He is about establishing His righteous Kingdom here on earth. No sin of ours goes unnoticed by Him! The lion will roar – the Lord will reveal our Sins!

The Psalm – Psalm 27 - calls us to affirm “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” This is a deep and absolute affirmation that the Lord and the Lord alone gives me truth – guides me to righteousness - and life! I can find these primary elements only in Him – no one and nothing else!

The Gospel reading is very similar to the passage from Amos in the sense that we see Jesus just like to Old Testament prophet warning the people that judgment is a’comin!

Listen to His words: Matt 4:17 “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

This could hardly be characterized as “happy fair” and yet it was to this apparent dark declaration that His disciples, one by one, responded!

It says, “They immediately left their nets and followed Him.”

Now think about it . . . they must have been responding to something that they perceived as very very compelling – very very powerful. The image of a Lion comes to mind!

They could feel His power – His authority! And they responded immediately! Just try to picture Jesus on earth, the Lion Incarnate, roaring and His good disciples heard His voice and followed Him.

And finally we turn to the Epistle lesson for today and it’s here that I want us to linger for a moment for it’s here that we hear Christ’s roar but this time it’s from His Cross!

Please listen as I read it once more. I’m going to be reading from Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” paraphrase.

As I read this try to discern the pivotal point of St. Paul’s challenge to the people:

1Cor. 1:1

I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other I implore you – I entreat you to get along with each other! You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.

The NIV puts it this way:

1Cor. 1:10

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Now there’s a novel thought that Christians should be of one mind! Oh would that not be a very very special day when all Christians will be of one mind!

What would it take, I wonder, for that to happen today – here and now – not only here at TCC but around the world!

What would it take for there to be unity in the Body of Christ? Put differently, what would it take for there to be no divisions between us?

What would it take for us to “speak the same thing” as St. Paul put it. This is how the Greek should be literally translated. Paul is exhorting us to “speak the same thing” to each other and to the world.

The word “divisions” (schismata, literally “tears” or “cracks”) graphically conveys the idea of the dissensions that were rending the church. He makes this exhortation through (dia) the authority of Jesus Christ (10a), whose name they revere.

Let’s read on:

1Cor. 1:11

  I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among yourselves! 12 I’ll tell you exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.”

Now let’s just stop for a second and try to understand fully what St. Paul is saying here?

Can you relate to this situation at all? What’s happening in this community is “side-taking.” Why do so many of us slip so so easily into this downward spiraling syndrome of “side-taking?”

What could you or I do the next time we feel drawn – even compelled - into taking a side? Well let’s keep listening to see if St. Paul can help us a bit shall we?

1Cor. 1:13

  I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all of our own? Ah! Is Paul touching on the point that when we take a stand and claim our rightness over and against another’s we are, as it were, dividing Jesus up instead of seeking together to find Him whole.

This reminds me of Solomon’s dilemma – do you remember it? Two women came to Him each arguing that a single baby boy was theirs. Apparently the other child had died in bed over night and they were both claiming the remaining child as their own.

Do you remember how Solomon resolved this question? Yes, he proceeded to order that the baby be cut in two and his halves be given to each woman.

Well predictably the real mother couldn’t allow that to happen and so she relinquished her claim to preserve the life of her baby boy.

And immediately Solomon knew who the real mother was.

In the same way when we choose sides it’s as if we’re cutting Jesus up instead of laying down our perhaps legitimate rights for the better good of not dividing Jesus!

Now I know what most of us are thinking – but right is right isn’t it?

Yes, but WHAT IF you and I were to lay down our right just like the ancient mother did – may not God, the true audience of all of our actions, ultimately rule in our favor?

Can you and I entrust ourselves to God’s ultimate arbitration or do we always have to do it ourselves here and now?

Hmmmmmmm. . . something to think about anyway. Let’s read on:

1Cor. 1:13

  I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” 14 I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. 15 At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. 16 (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.)

Now listen carefully to verse 17 because it’s here that Paul pulls it all together:

1Cor. 1:17

Christ didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.

Ah! Paul is drawing his listeners away from their sides by attracting them to the side of Christ of the Cross!

Now at first blush that seems a little counterintuitive don’t you think? But it’s not – not when speaking to Christ’s followers – who love Him so very very much!

Ah! As we look upon our Lord on the Cross together - divisions can melt away.

Why? Why does the Cross dissolve divisions?

You see all petty divisions between brothers and sisters pail before the majestic magnificence of Christ’s love revealed so poignantly on the Cross -– a love that died an excruciating death just for you and me!

We began this reflection with Amos warning his people that God was a lion and was about to roar and exact punishment upon His people but here we see God incarnate – The Lamb of God – who was about to take our rightful punishment upon Himself and by the most majestic act of love to die the death we deserved so that He could reconcile us to God the Father!

The Lamb of God roars alright but this time it’s the roar of Love and It’s this roar that brings His followers to their knees in wonder and love and relinquishment!

Christ on the Cross is the central symbol of our community. You may have heard me say this before – It sets the gold standard, as it were, for all currency in this community.

It’s Christ’s SELF-denying love demonstrated on the Cross that sets the standard of value and pattern for all of our behavior.

If we behave with motives not driven by self-denying love they have no value! They should have no value – they should not be given any value in our community.

Imagine a community in which all thoughts and actions were given value according to how well they measured up to Christ’s love on the Cross.

When you and I take sides against one another all too easily we are in some sense devaluing Christ’s sacrifice on the cross! And to that extent we’re tearing down the very support beams that hold this community together.

Now try to imagine a community in which we resolved all dissensions – all differences – all grievances – all offenses - by coming together before the Cross of Christ, laying down our differences and prostrating our hearts and our bodies before Him and humbly seeking His grace to resolve our differences.

Try to envision a community in which each of us are so full of the wonder of our resurrected Lord’s love that we seek before anything else to find His peace and His unity with one another with a great and terrible courage that is always willing to die for the other before all too readily asserting our rights over against him or her.

Can you imagine yourself in such a community living in the glow of Christ’s love on the Cross?

Now this is not to call us to capitulate on all issues in the name of peace and unity for there are rare times when we need to take a stand but let us do this after exhausting ever possible effort to find peace with our brothers and sisters and then let us proceed with heavy heavy hearts not with triumphalistic hearts that declare we are right and they are wrong for when two brothers or sisters go into battle with one another something of the Cross of Christ seems to be devalued!

This is what St. Paul is calling forth from the Corinthian Christians. They, like us, are probably having trouble in hearing him for, like us, they may find themselves too engrossed in the rightness of their cause or their offense.

Such is the dilemma facing all human beings in community but we Christians above all other voluntary communities have the most perfect Model for the challenge to find and maintain a unified and peaceful community – it’s Christ on the Cross – calling us all to lay down ourselves for the other in sacrificial love!

Please look with me at Christ on the Cross!

That is what our sins deserve! Yes, even the little microscopic ones – all sins deserve that!

But He did this for you and me so that we could find unity with His Father and with one another!

This is the most perfect answer to unity and peace – may we ever stare upon it and learn – amen and amen!