|
Text: Hosea 5:15-6:6 (Matt 9:9-13; Rom 4:18-25) 3rd Sunday after
Pentecost Getting to Know You In the name
of him who has called us to follow him, dear friends in Christ: There are
several television game shows that seem to have been around just about forever
– or at least since the sixties (which from my perspective is pretty close to
forever). I’m thinking of shows like Jeopardy,
The Price is Right, and The Hollywood Squares. Sure, they’ve all been through several hosts
(though I think Bob Barker is still around), and they’ve gone through a few
revisions and facelifts; but they are essentially the same games people have
been watching for over thirty years. One of them
I imagine most of you are familiar with is The Newlywed Game. It’s a show on which the contestants are
couples that have been married for less than two years (at least I think that’s
the maximum limit). Each couple
competes as a team against two or three other couples. The underlying question that drives the game
is: Now that you’ve been together as
husband and wife for about a year, how well do you really know your
spouse? So what they’ll do is divide
the couples up at first, and set all the fellows aside in the “secret sound-proof
room” while they ask their brides a number of questions. The brides are supposed to answer the way
they think their husbands will answer the same questions. Then they switch it around and ask the
grooms how they think their wives will answer a different set of
questions. Then they put the couples
back together and ask the questions again to see if the spouses predicted
accurately what their mates would say.
They get awarded points if the predictions are correct. Of course,
what makes the show entertaining is the kind of questions they ask.
They’re imaginative, unpredictable, provocative, and very personal (these days
even a bit risqué – nothing like they had back on the show thirty years ago),
and all of that can lead to some pretty funny (and embarrassing) responses. The most amusing part is when the couples
are back together and they ask the questions for the second time. It’s hilarious when the person who hadn’t
heard a question before answers, “Oh, that’s easy, it’s this.” And then they show that person what the
spouse had said they’d say and it’s 100 percent off in a different
direction. They turn to face their
partner in shock and say, “How could you say that about me? After all this time we’ve been together, I
can’t believe you didn’t know that!” But what’s
kind of nice about the game is that because the questions are so unpredictable,
it’s the couple made up of the two who really know each other best that usually
wins. It has nothing to do with their
intelligence, how attractive they are, their education levels, or their income;
but rather it’s how much they have learned about each other, how attentive they
have been to discovering their spouse’s personality, likes and dislikes, quirky
behaviors, and so on that makes the difference. The couple that is the closest, that has spent a lot of time
together sharing and caring for each other, is the husband and wife team that
is best able to predict how their partners will respond in any situation, and
therefore, the most likely to win – and on that score, I think we can say that they’re
winners twice over, because their marriage is more likely to be what God
intended their relationship to be. And really,
we might evaluate the closeness of any human relationship using the same
criteria. Be it a parent – child
relationship, one between siblings or some other family member, or a just a
good friendship, you know that you are close to someone when you can accurately
predict what they will say or do when faced with a given set of
circumstances. That ability can only be
gained by lots of careful observation and mutual communication in all kinds of
different situations. That’s how you
really get to know someone’s character.
And the kinds of situations that reveal most about a person are those that involve a lot of stress. That’s why you find some of the closest relationships are formed when people are involved in a shared hardships or difficulties. Being under stress tends to strip away the masks and artificial personalities we construct for ourselves. It lays us bare, as it were, to reveal the real person. And so we find that couples who have had to endure tough times together are more likely to be close than those who have always had it fairly easy. For example, they’ve found that military families have much lower divorce rates than the national average. They attribute the difference to lots of moves, hard duty assignments, and fairly low income – all of which put military couples under stress, and that tends to draw them together. The same is true of close friends: we tend to bond more tightly with those with whom we have shared difficult times. It’s no secret that combat veterans, men who have been baptized by fire together, are often very close. You get down to the real person fast when you’re hungry, tired, scared of being blown to bits, and know that people are counting on you to do your job because their lives depend on it. Friendships formed under such conditions are tight because, “If I know who you are and how you handle things in life’s worst circumstances, I know what you’re really made of, and I’ll have a pretty good idea what you will say or do in any situation that may arise.” It’s that kind of personal knowledge and familiarity that develops the trust on which lasting relationships are built. So, in
light of all that has been said thus far, I’m going to ask you to do some
careful introspection to answer this question:
How well do you know the Lord?
You know that he knows you perfectly:
all your likes and dislikes, your weaknesses and strengths, your quirky
behaviors, and your sins; but how well do you really know him? Could you say that you are close to
him? More pointedly, do you suppose
your relationship with the Lord is what he wants it to be? How well do you really know him? I ask because there are a number
of common misconceptions about who he is.
A while back I saw one of those talking head shows – some kind of panel
discussion. The guests included Jerry
Falwell, whom you may remember as the leader of the now defunct Moral Majority
– he was representing the religious point of view, and there was also George
Carlin. I really don’t know what his
claim to fame is (I think he’s a comedian), but he is an avowed atheist. The topic had to do with religion in our
society. Anyway, Carlin was critiquing
religion in general and Christianity specifically, and he said something to
this effect: “I can’t believe in a God
who sits high above us and dictates his ten unbending decrees, ‘Thou shalt not
do this, and thou shalt not do that, because if you do, I’ll crush you and send
you to hell to fry forever – and, oh, by the way, did I tell you how much I
love you?’” The comment drew a lot of
laughs and applause from the audience, and I think it’s fair to say that that’s
pretty much how the Lord is seen by much of the unbelieving population around
us. But sometimes Christians too fall
into the same mode of thinking. We see
God the as an all-powerful tyrant who wants to enslave our wills and make us
his mindless, joyless, zombies who grovel at his feet and pretend to be happy
about it because we know if we don’t we’ll get swept away by his fury. We view the Lord as demanding and
cruel. And he seems inconsistent, even
capricious, in his way of dealing with people.
You never know what to expect next.
He inflicts fires, floods, famines, storms, droughts, and diseases on
some, apparently without any reason; and others get riches, health, and
blessings. Who knows why? His ways are a mystery. We can only bend to his will and serve him,
and hope he doesn’t make things too hard for us. That’s one
way we see him. Another view we
sometimes hold is to see the Lord as sort of the great Santa Claus in the
sky. He’s up there watching over us to
see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice so that he can reward us accordingly. In this view, the Lord is someone to go to
get things from when it’s necessary.
Most of the time we can handle everything well enough by ourselves; but
sometimes, when supernatural help is required, then we can make our appeals –
and if we’ve been good enough, we just might get what we ask for. And then
there’s the view that sees the Lord as the indulgent grandparent. This is the God who knows our weaknesses and
propensity to sin, and just laughs it off.
[Patronizingly] “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that. But of course, I still love you and forgive
you, so I’ll just look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen, you naughty
little child.” This view is much more
common than you might think. It’s held
by a lot of people who think that since God forgives our sins for Christ’s
sake, he no longer cares about his laws and the way we conduct ourselves. It’s a view that obscures the absolute
justice of God. And what’s fascinating about these three ways of thinking about the Lord: God the cruel tyrant, God the divine Santa Claus, and God the indulgent grandparent, is the way people flip-flop among the three views depending upon what’s going on in their lives. He’s Santa Claus when things are going well enough for me, the tyrant when things are going badly in my life, and the indulgent grandparent when I know I’m doing something wrong. But, of course, God doesn’t change who he is. He’s always the same – and he’s really none of the things I’ve described. And if you find your perception of the Lord bouncing around between these views from time to time, then I have to say that you really don’t know him as well as you should. You see, there’s a common connection in these three views, and that is that in all of them the Lord is fairly distant and uninvolved with our lives. The tyrant is unapproachable and too high to be reached or reasoned with, the Santa Claus god is somebody way up there on the North Pole that you only have to think about once a year or when you want something, and the indulgent grandparent is one who doesn’t care enough about you to bother spending the time or effort required to shape you into someone worthwhile and productive. Though we sometimes choose to perceive him so, the Lord is none of these things, and he certainly doesn’t want to be any of these things to you. He wants you to get to know who he
really is. In today’s Old Testament
lesson, the prophet Hosea exhorts us to move into a closer relationship with
him: “Let us strive to know the
Lord”, he says. Unfortunately, the translation
I read really doesn’t capture the thought very well. It reads, “let’s acknowledge him”, and that the Lord desires
“acknowledgement” above burnt offerings.
It makes it sound like all he wants is for us to say, “Yep, you’re God
all right”, and somehow that’s better than bringing the sacrifices he
desires. That’s not it at all. Hosea says let’s strive to know
him. He’s inviting us to draw closer
into a deeper, meaningful, personal knowledge of the Lord. And today’s readings give us two
different images of how the Lord would like us to think of our relationship
with him. The first is that of
marriage: it’s the major theme of
prophesy of Hosea. He’s the prophet
who, when he was called by God, was told to go down to the seediest part of the
city and find a prostitute to marry. He
was to buy her from her owners – the people to whom she’d sold herself, and he
was to make her respectable again. He
was told to take her into his home, and shower her with his love and tender
care. God told him to do it to be a
picture of how he deals with us: how he
comes into the darkest corners of sin and vice to find us and rescue us from a
wasted life of sin and disgrace. He was
showing how he wants to be to us: like
a loving husband who takes away our disgrace, and who’s involved with us every
moment, and who provides for our needs and protects us. And if you’re familiar with the story, you
know that Hosea’s wife was prolifically unfaithful to him even after she was married. Like a dog returning to its vomit, she kept
running off and selling herself back into slavery and prostitution. And every time she did, the Lord would tell
Hosea to go buy her back again, return her to his home, and continue to love
her. From this we are to learn to see
the Lord not just as someone who forgives us freely when we sin, but also, like
a betrayed husband, as someone who is wounded to the heart when we are not
loyal to him, and who suffers deeply when we despise his great love and
faithfulness. It’s in this light that we are to
understand the passage where it says, “Come let’s return to the Lord. He has torn to pieces but he will heal us,
he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.” It’s not like he’s an overbearing tyrant with a flyswatter, just
waiting to smack you when you step out of line, but rather that because of our
sin and wandering away from him, he’s been forced reluctantly to apply measures
of discipline. With all his heart he
wishes that he didn’t have to do it – but at the same time, he loves us enough
to do whatever it takes to get us to come back where it’s safe. He knows what’s best for our ultimate good
and happiness much better than we do.
And he knows that if we knew him better, we’d recognize that – so he
continues to do what’s necessary to draw us closer. We see it again in today’s Gospel lesson where we get a different portrait of the kind of relationship the Lord would like to have with us. This time the image is that of table fellowship. That’s a little harder for us to understand because of the way we eat today. When you sit down at the table, everyone has his own clearly delineated space – with plenty of room for elbows, and each has his own plate, silverware, and glass to drink from. That’s not the way it was at the time of Christ. Back then the family dining table would more likely be smaller than one of your end tables at home, and only about eight inches high off the ground. People would lie on their left sides around it, with their heads toward the table and their feet away from it. There’d be no silverware or individual plates or cups; just a big family-sized dish or two of whatever it was you were eating. And the way you’d eat was to take pieces of flat pita bread and take what you wanted out of the common bowl just a bite or two at a time. So everyone has got their hands in it constantly. And everyone at the table would have shared the same cup to drink from. So hopefully you can see how eating together back in those days was considered an expression of intimacy and familiarity. You were face to face, up close and personal. So you didn’t eat with just anyone. If you shared a meal with someone who was not a member of your immediate family, you were making a profound statement about how close you held him or her to be to you. That’s why we see the Pharisees getting upset with Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners: he was expressing that sort of close kinship with them. But he wasn’t doing it to approve of their sinful behavior, but rather to deliver them from it and heal them. He was calling them to follow him out of their dark lives of sin and be close to him—to really know God through him. And that’s what he wants for you
as well. He wants you to really get to
know him, and for you to know his heavenly Father through him. The way we do this is by spending time with
him – just like you would to get to know anyone else. But the way he comes to us is in his Word. It’s there that he reveals his true
character and tells us who he is.
Without his Word, his whole Word, we’re left like George Carlin
and all the others who have in their heads only a faulty caricature of God
based on mistaken perceptions, or like a lot of people who have an incomplete
knowledge of the Lord based on a few scattered passages of Scripture. The Lord wants us to know him as he really
is by learning the whole Word – that’s where we’ll find and engage the full
likeness of who he is. There we’ll see
more of him as he reveals himself as the loving, forgiving husband, and as the
close, familiar dinner companion, and in hundreds of other images that are
there which we have yet to discover. And there’s a reason he wants to
draw you closer to know him better.
It’s because he wants you to trust him. If you really know him, you know what he will do and say in all
of life’s circumstances. You will learn
to know for certain how much he really loves you and to what great lengths he
will go to prove it. You’ll know because
you will see in all things how he already shared with you life’s hardest and
most difficult circumstances in order to rescue you from darkness and to draw
you to himself. He did it when he
became our brother in humanity to sacrifice himself for our sin. There’s where he revealed his true
self: the Holy God who gives himself over
to death to save us because of his incomprehensible love for us. Focusing on that, you will learn to know
that he is faithful to all his promises, and you’ll learn to see that in all
that happens to you, as surely as the sun rises, he is working for your
ultimate good. So, heeding the prophet’s advice,
let’s strive to know him. Let’s open
our hearts and minds to his gentle voice.
Let’s join with disciples and sinners at his feet often and regularly to
hear and study his revelation of himself.
Let’s invite him to our tables and share his Word among us, and so make
every effort and take every opportunity to truly know the Lord. Then our relationship with him will be what
it should be – and we will be blessed by it.
May he grant us the grace and will to do it. Amen.
|
