Fairhaven Sermon 7-14-2-24

Today's sermon was written before the tragic events in Butler, PA yesterday, and we continue to pray for the recovery of those injured and for the families who lost loved ones. These events have moved me to make a few changes to what I originally wanted to say this morning, but I think the main point is still very relevant, and that is that as Christians, we are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Our citizenship here on earth is important but secondary, but because we are Christians, it's important for us to exercise our earthly citizenship in a way that brings honor to God. So with that as a prelude, let's dig into these scriptures.

This month of July has been and is a month of patriotic holidays, and we started off with the 4th of July a few weeks ago, and then a few days ago I heard from an old classmate in South Sudan that his country just celebrated their Independence Day, which was July 9th. South Sudan has now been its own country for 13 years. Can you imagine being so young? And then today our French cousins are celebrating Bastille Day. Our scripture readings from the lectionary for the past few weeks, including today's, have had something to say about what it means to be patriotic, to be a good citizen of one's country.

And specifically, I see two common threads throughout these readings. The first is that there's a focus on the kingdom of God, which is closer today than it was yesterday. And secondly, is what I call civics. Now civics is an old-fashioned word, subject that used to be taught in high schools a long time ago.

By the time I got to high school in the mid-70s, civics was long gone. But some of you might remember it. Civics might best be defined as the study of the rights and duties of a citizen. Personally, I think it was a mistake to stop teaching this in the high schools, because I think our young people need to know what their rights are and need to know what their responsibilities are as citizens of this country.

But for today, we look at citizenship from a different angle. Today we think about what civics means to us as citizens of the kingdom of God. What are our rights as God's children? And what are our responsibilities as citizens of God's kingdom? God's kingdom is where our eternal citizenship lies. That's where our eternal life is.

And yet, being citizens of God's kingdom should also make us better citizens of our earthly country. And so today's readings help us to understand some of what this means. So I'd like to start with the Old Testament. And for the past few weeks, in fact, for the past month or so, we've been reading about the life of David, different episodes in the life of David.

We started out a few weeks ago seeing David as a teenager being anointed by the prophet Samuel to be the next king of Israel. We saw David become famous for killing Goliath. We saw David becoming a personal servant to King Saul and the best friend to Saul's son Jonathan. But then King Saul turned out to be unstable, and he began to mistrust the people around him, especially David.

And David had to leave Saul's court in order to stay alive. David gathered together a band of friends who became sort of mercenaries, making their living, protecting the farmlands and the borderlands of Israel. And then after King Saul and Jonathan, after they were killed in battle with the Philistines, David was found in the city of Hebron where he was made king. And that's where his throne was for the first few years of his kingdom.

But then after consulting with the leaders of Israel, particularly the military leaders, it was decided to move the capital to Jerusalem. And this made sense for a whole lot of reasons. I mean, Jerusalem is on the top of a very high mountain, so it's easy to defend. It's also known for its olive trees and other crops.

Jerusalem is also where God's tabernacle was set up. So Jerusalem becomes known as the holy city. There's just one thing missing, and that's the Ark of the Covenant. And that's what we heard about today.

The Ark of the Covenant had been captured in battle a while, a few years back. And then it was retrieved, but was never brought all the way back to Jerusalem. So in our reading today, David and his men go to the house of Abinadab where the Ark had been placed, and they bring it up to Jerusalem with great celebration, with music and dancing. And the reign of David and the reign of God are both now well-established in Jerusalem.

Now, even though there was no separation of church and state in ancient Israel, it was clear at this point that they were not one and the same thing. David lives in a palace, and the Ark of the Covenant lives in the tabernacle. Now why David lives in a big fancy palace while the Ark of the God is still in a tent, that's going to be a subject of another interesting conversation, probably another week or two, I would imagine. That one's going to roll around.

We're not there yet. In the meantime, 2 Samuel 5:10 says that David became greater and greater for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him. And as David became greater, life got better and better for the citizens of Israel. So David's kingship is often mentioned in other books of the Bible as being foreshadowing or a prophecy of the kingdom of the Messiah, Jesus.

Jesus is called the Son of David for many reasons. First off, Jesus was descended from David. Secondly, like David, Jesus was anointed king long before he was actually crowned. In fact, Jesus' coronation hasn't actually happened yet.

And we are living in the time between his anointing and his crowning. And like David, Jesus earns a name for himself early on in life. Like David, who sets up a temporary home in Hebron, Jesus sets up a temporary home in the church. Both kingdoms still need to move to their final location, David to Jerusalem and the church into God's eternal kingdom.

So we're not home yet. And I think it's worth asking the question, why the delay? What's taking so long? Why would God ask David to wait so long before becoming king? And why would God ask Jesus to wait so very long to be crowned king of kings and Lord of lords? And I think the reason might be the same in both cases, in order to save lives. Every person's life is precious in God's eyes, because we are all made in God's image. I mean, looking at Israel's history, if David had been crowned king by Samuel at the age of 15, while Saul was still king, it probably would have started a civil war in Israel, a war which would have cost thousands of lives.

And if Jesus had been crowned king immediately after his resurrection, thousands and thousands of people would never have heard the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. They would never have heard, as we would never have heard, the gospel message. We would never have had the chance to become his followers. It takes time for people to share with their neighbors and people in other countries that Jesus is the son of God and has been raised from the dead, and that in him we are free from sin and death.

Matthew 24, 14 says, The gospel of the kingdom of God will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. We haven't reached all the nations yet, and that effort is ongoing. And by the way, some of you may have heard of an organization called the Wycliffe Bible Translators. That's just one of the organizations I keep an eye on.

They have offices in both the UK and the US. Their mission is to translate the Bible into all known human languages, and they estimate at this point that about 97% of all the people on the planet now have at least part of the Bible in their own language. So we're getting there, but we're not there yet. And Jesus is waiting until the full number of believers is in before receiving his crown.

So in both cases, both with David and with Jesus, the coronation is delayed so that the maximum number of lives can be saved. Meanwhile, the people of God look forward to the arrival of the city of God. And as Jesus said, In my Father's house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.

A place in God's mansion is one of the things that we are promised as citizens of the kingdom of God. The kingdom is coming. As citizens of the kingdom, another one of our rights and responsibilities is to throw out lifelines to the people who still need to know Jesus. And we as a church are in the process of doing that.

So that's sort of where our lesson from David takes us today. In the gospel lesson from last week, Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth and taught in the synagogue, and the people of his hometown were not happy about it. You may remember that passage from last week. And they said about Jesus, they said, Where does he get all this? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't he one of us? Isn't this the son of Mary? And they took offense at him.

Now calling Jesus the son of Mary might have been meant as an insult. After 2,000 years, we cannot be 100% certain of what the language, the specific use of the language. But back in those days, children were usually called by their father's name, as in son of Joseph. So it's possible that calling Jesus the son of Mary was a reminder that Jesus' parentage was in question.

Because the people that grew up with Jesus, they knew him well enough to know that Mary had been pregnant before she and Joseph were married. So they were dragging skeletons out of the closet maybe? We don't know for sure. But the bottom line is, it would have been much more accurate to call Jesus the son of God anyway, right? But they haven't figured that out yet. The interpretation, though, seems to fit Jesus' reply.

He said, Prophets are not without honor, except in their own hometown. And the people's lack of faith in him made it impossible for Jesus to do miracles there, except for a few healings. The people of Nazareth, his hometown, were not without faith in a sense. They were members of the synagogue.

They were devoutly Jewish. They believed in God. They just weren't convinced yet by Jesus. They weren't believing in the right direction, or better yet, they were not believing in the right person.

But what we see in this passage is that God wants to partner with human beings in revealing the kingdom of God to the world. God wants to partner with us, with you and me, in making God's salvation known. Our faith, our trust in Jesus makes a difference for every single one of us. God delights to reveal himself to humanity through us.

So since Nazareth won't receive Jesus, Jesus sends out the disciples with the power to preach and to heal and to cast out demons, and their message is, The kingdom is coming. The kingdom of God is here. As citizens of the kingdom, one of their responsibilities and one of ours is to share the good news, which brings us to our reading today from the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians. Now this is a really odd passage.

I hope you all were able to hear that. It's just, What is Paul talking about here? He says there's this person who is caught up into the third heaven and witnessed all these amazing things that defy description. What's he going on about? What Paul is saying is this. There was a person who was caught up in the Holy Spirit into paradise, who caught a glimpse of God's kingdom that's coming, who witnessed the things that were absolutely beyond human imagination.

What Paul doesn't say is that he's talking about himself. Paul was the person who saw these things. Now why does he not say this? Because Paul didn't want to show off. In fact, if anything, Paul wanted the Corinthians to know about his weaknesses so that God's strength and God's power could shine through his weaknesses.

Paul wanted people to hear his preaching about the cross of Christ and the sacrifice that Jesus made and its power to save and the fact that the kingdom is coming. That's the only message that Paul is interested in. For us as citizens of the kingdom, our weaknesses give God opportunities to show the world around us God's strength and God's love. The other reason Paul doesn't name himself as the person who had this vision is because at this time in the history of the church, there were false teachers around.

We've probably heard about these. In the time of the New Testament, there were some people that got a little bit flaky with the message and started going off in different directions. But in this case, Paul is objecting to some false teachers who called themselves super apostles. And Paul mentions them back in 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

He says that these super apostles claimed that they had done all kinds of spiritual things and had seen miracles and visions and they bragged on themselves. They maintained flawless images in public. They said they were better than any other teacher or minister and they played one up with people of other religions and nations and ethnic backgrounds. But behind the scenes and out of the public eye, these super apostles took advantage of God's people, lied to them, cheated them, and sometimes abused them.

And Paul reminds the Corinthians and us that it is impossible to say Jesus is Lord and mean it and then turn around and try to control or manipulate or abuse other people because people are created in God's own image. And Jesus gave his life to save each one of us and we belong to God, not to anyone else. Paul says God's power is made perfect in our weakness. Paul turns the boasting of these super apostles upside down.

Paul, with his thorn in the flesh, whatever that was, we don't know, it was given by God for this purpose. It leaves room in Paul's life for Jesus to shine through Paul's weaknesses. Paul rests his authority not on his own knowledge or experience, but on the power of the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Now this point is sorely tempting for me to start naming the names of modern day super apostles, but I will just say this, it is essential to be aware of what's going on in Christian circles and movements and churches beyond the boundaries of the United Methodist Church.

Every denomination is focused of necessity on its own plans and issues, but all of us need to be aware of each other and we need to have contacts and friends outside our own denomination with whom we can compare notes and share experiences. As Paul said, The hand can't say to the foot, 'I have no need of you.' We all need each other. So if some of the super Christians out there who are in the news today or on TV or online puzzle you or trouble you, if you're not sure where they're coming from or what they believe in or how they justify what they say from the Bible, a Christian friend in another denomination is a good friend to compare notes with.

Find out where these super Christians come from. Find out what their denomination is. Find out what church they belong to and find out what they teach and who taught them and compare what they say against the scriptures. Do these teachers believe what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount? Do they believe what Jesus taught about the last judgment when God will say, You gave me something to eat.

You gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was in prison and you visited me. Do they understand what Paul says in this passage when he says that having a thorn in the flesh is better than being proud and self-justifying? Paul gave up his platform in order to serve God.

Think about this. The Apostle Paul, originally named Saul, he had been the one up-and-coming Pharisee before he met Jesus. He was a student of Gamaliel, the greatest religious scholar of his time. He was a total purist where it came to the scriptures, so much so that he persecuted the early church, tracking down believers in Jesus from city to city to arrest them, drag them back to Jerusalem to face charges of heresy.

But after Paul met Jesus, Paul said, I count everything as filthy rags next to the glory of knowing Jesus. Paul is happy to be seen as weak for the sake of the kingdom of God. And in this weakness, God's power is made known. Jesus overcomes any darkness, weakness, sickness, trouble in our lives, not necessarily by removing it right away, but Jesus overcomes it to reveal God's grace and God's mercy and God's compassion and God's love.

Real Christians do not live problem-free lives. Real Christians don't always come out on top. And real Christians don't grab for power. They share what they have with people who don't have as much.

Real Christians talk about how God has had compassion on them and has seen them through the tough times. Christian maturity comes as we recognize our weaknesses and our limitations and learn to rely on the power of Jesus living in us. And this is important because the people who don't rely on God, the people who build themselves up instead, those are the ones who end up abusing people spiritually and otherwise. Look for people who aren't perfect, people who, like Paul, turn the spotlight off of themselves and shine it on Jesus.

People who are spiritually trustworthy have one source of power and authority, and that's God. Citizens of the kingdom of God have the Holy Spirit living in them. They build others up. They grow people together instead of splintering them or excluding them or creating hierarchies of acceptability.

Bottom line, a person who is spiritually trustworthy, a person who is a citizen of God's kingdom knows that the kingdom of God is coming. And Jesus sits on that throne and welcomes the opportunity. This person welcomes the opportunity to lay everything at the foot of Jesus. And so we, as citizens of the kingdom, doing our civic duty, we pray, Lord, have mercy.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, Lord Jesus. Amen.