October 6, 2019 - God Renews the Covenant - Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9

God Renews the Covenant

Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9

Pentecost + 17 – October 6, 2019

“Love the Lord Your God”

“What I do most days matters more than what I do once in a while” – author Gretchen Rubin

·     Talking about the importance and the power of habits

·     That we change our lives through the things we do every day

·     (and she has a whole book devoted to various strategies centered around creating the new habits we want to embrace or breaking the old habits we know aren’t serving us anymore)

·     And what we do most days is what will influence and change the direction of our lives and help us to become the people we want to be – or not

Ancient Israelites were in danger of forgetting this

·     Of forgetting their identity as God people, chosen to be a holy people and a priestly nation

·     Of falling away, falling into bad habits

·     Of breaking covenant

·     Background/context

o  People who are about to enter the promised land (finally! – after 40ish years)

o  Not the original generation led out of slavery from Egypt (not the grown-ups anyway – everyone over the age of 20 at that time was destined to not enter the land b/c they didn’t trust God to make a way/allow them victory over the people already in the land…)

o  And so this is a new generation, one that grew up or was born in the wilderness as they wandered

o  A people on the move, who has known the provision and protection and promise of God

o  And now they are about to go into the land – but not before Moses preaches to the whole assembly – men, women, and children

o  Reminding them of their relationship with the Lord

o  And reminding them, in his own way, that what they do most days/every day is more important than what they do once in a while

·     Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶ Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷ Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸ Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹ and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

o  Keep these words in your heart. Recite them to your children. Talk about them at home and away, before bed and 1^st thing in the morning; attach them to your hand and on your forehead; write them on the mirror, put a post it on the fridge where you’ll see it every day, make it your screensaver on your computer, set a reminder on your phone

·     Remember who you are, remember who God has called you to be; internalize these words so that they become a part of you, so that you live, every single day, these words that tell and teach what it means to be the people of God who have been led out of slavery into freedom…

We are sometimes in danger of forgetting this too – that what we do most days is more important than what we do once in a while

·     That God has made a covenant with us

o  “Not just with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today…”

o  That God has created us for relationship with the divine and with each other

o  And that God has a vision for what that relationship looks like when it is lived out among God’s people

§  We see the broad outlines in the 10 Commandments – what it looks like to live as a people who have been freed from captivity – what it means to embrace that freedom and extend it to other

·     Sometimes tempted to take that for granted, to get complacent

·     Neglecting it, not living it out, not practicing our faith each day

·     Preaching to the choir here – here you are on Sunday morning and many/most of you are here most Sundays

o  And engaged in faith practices regularly

·     But can we embrace this life of faith more deeply? Can we deepen our discipleship as people who have been claimed by God in the gift of baptism?

o  Because when we don’t practice our faith, boy, it’s easy to fall into other habits – to be lured away to all of the things the commandments tell us not to do!

o  Practicing our faith – through weekly worship, sure, but even more through daily prayer and reading the Bible, serving others, giving, seeking to build God’s kingdom – this is what helps us to internalize God’s words to us, to make keeping covenant a habit (and in a good, life-giving way – not just rote routine, but the habits that influence and change our lives, so that we become the people we wish to become, the people God has called and claimed us to be!)

God continually renews the covenant

·     Moses reminded the people gathered that this covenant, this relationship with the LORD was not just with their parents and grandparents, but that God wanted to relationship to live on in them

·     And thank God – literally – that God is a covenant keeper!

o  God has been making these promises to their ancestors for generation upon generation, stretching all the way back to Abraham

o  And though they have failed and faltered along the way (even while Moses was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the 10 commandments in the first place –  remember that bit about the golden calf?!?!!!), though they anger and disappoint God, forgetting who they are and their end of the deal – God never falls away

o  God continues to call them and claim them and send them back out into the world to live as people of the covenant, people whose lives are guided and shaped by the words God is writing on their hearts

God continually renews the covenant with us too

·     And God hasn’t given up on us yet

·      The covenant of faith is passed on to us in the moment of baptism

o  Which happens for many/most of us when we are infants or children too young to really know or understand or even remember what is happening; a covenant entered into on our behalf by loving adults who speak for us – and as we grow, we hopefully come to claim and live that faith as our own; my family's practice of remembering baptismal anniversary for each of us - candles, water, scripture, pictures, stories

o  But even when we don’t – the promise is still there, because God is the keeper of covenants

o  And in baptism, we are made God’s beloved children forever – sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever!

·     May we seek to live into this covenant every day, not just once in a while: loving God with all our hearts and with all our souls, and with all our might (with all our oomph!), keeping these words in our hearts, and then going into the world to share the love of Christ as we have been sent to do. Amen.

April 22, 2012 - Easter 3 - Jesus Calls Us to Witness

Jesus Calls Us To Witness

Luke 24:36-48

Easter 3 – April 22, 2012

My brother Rob has recently joined Facebook. It's been a wonderful gift for me, because we're both busy and we both work weird schedules and we don't always have a chance to talk on the phone or see each other very often. And after all these years of resisting, he finally gave in and signed up, and he has embraced it wholeheartedly. He shows up on my page a lot, making comments, sharing music; we get to be more a part of each other's lives, and I've really been enjoying that.

But I have to laugh a little bit, because in the brief month or so Rob's been on Facebook, he has become a witness, an evangelist of sorts – for his new favorite TV show, Touch, with Keifer Sutherland, if you were wondering. He loves this show. Something about it really speaks to him, and so every week after the latest episode, he posts something about it, asking people if they've seen it yet, reminding them that they should really tune in if they haven't, that they are missing something unique and worthwhile. And he's so persistent and so into it that despite my vow I would never watch Touch because of a way over-saturated ad campaign for a month before it premiered, I finally broke down and watched the pilot. And I liked it. And I'll probably add it to the list of shows I save to watch regularly. All because my brother was “touched” by the premise of the show and kept on talking about it.

This morning's gospel lesson ends with the rather fearsome line, “You are witnesses of these things.” We don't know how the disciples reacted to Jesus' words, if their faces lit up at this great commission, or if they tried to hide their anxiety and dismay at the thought of what Jesus was telling them they were to do. We know that when Jesus shows up that first Easter night – yup, the lectionary has us stuck in a little loop and keeps bringing us right back to Easter Sunday – we know that when he shows up, appearing among them with no warning, just like in John's gospel last week, they are startled. Terrified. They think he's a ghost. And even after Jesus shows them his hands and side and asks them if they have anything to eat (resurrection is hungry work, it seems), even in their joy, they still wonder. They are still disbelieving. Part of that was a result of the joy, the “is this too good to be true?” effect. But we don't know what they thought about this call to be witnesses to what they have seen and heard, that Jesus iss the Messiah who suffered and died and rose again, that they are to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name.

No, we don't know what they thought about their new job description as disciples, but we know how we respond to these words when we realize that they are spoken to us as well. We, who so often run into pockets of disbelief within ourselves, who wonder how all this can be true, who sometimes doubt our own faith and our abilities to tell this incredible story – we are nervous. We are scared. We are reluctant. We're LUTHERANS after all! We do many things well, but sharing the stories of our faith has not tended to be one of them. We have lots of reasons to explain why we don't witness – we don't know enough, we don't know what to say, we don't want to harass other people or shove our religion down their throat. Plenty of good reasons, but that doesn't let us off the hook. Jesus still calls us witnesses to these things – the things we have seen God doing for us and for the whole world through Jesus Christ. Not just the Easter event; Easter changes everything of course, but God's saving, redeeming work in the world didn't start there and it sure didn't end there! Jesus is alive and is still active in the world – healing, comforting, forgiving, saving – and we are witnesses of these things. We have a responsibility and a commission to tell people about how we see God working in the world, even now, starting in our own homes, in our own neighborhoods. Even the disciples started in Jerusalem – they didn't go out to “all nations” until later on.

We make “witnessing” into such a big deal that our tongues get tied. Our hearts quiver inside us at the very thought. But as I was reminded in an article by David Lose, preaching professor at Luther Seminary, this week, we all witness all the time. Just like my brother, talking about his favorite new show. We all do it. We talk about our favorite shows or the great new movie we just saw. We tell others about the amazing restaurant that they just have to try or that place with the out-of-this world bagel or cup of coffee. We talk about the triumphs of our sports teams, we share the good news of upcoming weddings or births or anniversaries. This past week, you couldn't get me to shut up about the vacation that starts after worship today – and I'm not even going anywhere exotic, just to our time share in Florida.

The point is, we are witnesses all the time to the things that touch us or impress us. We share these stories without any nervousness, without any sense of self-consciousness or anxiety. When something meaningful happens to us, we want others to have a chance to share in our joy, to experience it for themselves.

That's all Jesus really wants us to do when he calls us to be witnesses... to share the stories of how we have sensed God at work in the world – at home or work or school, through the government or the church or some other organization that reaches out to help people in need, through a friend or a stranger. Witnessing about these things doesn't have to be hard or complicated or scary. We don't have to be gifted public speakers or have years of theological education or have read the Bible cover to cover 17 times. Jesus calls us, each of us, just as we are, just as he called the first disciples and sent them out into the world to carry this good news. He promises the Holy Spirit, power from on high to clothe us, to give us words to say and the wisdom to know when to say them. But this is what Easter people do. People who have experienced the power of the living Christ in our lives have stories to tell, stories to share with others who are hurting, searching, seeking; people who are longing for the chance to start over and don't know if it's possible, people who need to know that in Jesus there is forgiveness of sins and love never-ending and the peace that passes all understanding. These stories are ours to tell – big, little, and all the ones in between. My challenge for you this week is to actually tell one person, to practice – to notice how God is at work in the world, and then to talk with someone about it, maybe your family over dinner, or a friend on the phone, or someone from church you run into at a meeting or at the grocery store. But try it out. Be a witness. God will bless you as you do.

Amen.