Erin Seigmiller
It’s quite the collection of texts this morning! I struggled with this for EVER, and I’m still not sure if my theme really works. But we’ll just use our imaginations and a shoehorn to get them all to fit! Ultimately, my theme, “Seriously, God’s in charge” is quite nicely laid out in our psalm.
In my favorite translation of the bible, The Message, the 5th psalm 1 - 8 runs like this:
Listen, God! Please, pay attention!
Can you make sense of these ramblings,
my groans and cries?
King-God, I need your help.
Every morning you’ll hear me at it again.
Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life
on your altar and watch for fire to descend.
You don’t socialize with Wicked,
or invite Evil over as your houseguest.
Hot-Air-Boaster collapses in front of you;
you shake your head over Mischief-Maker
God destroys Lie-Speaker;
Blood-Thirsty and Truth-Bender disgust you.
And here I am, your invited guest --
it’s incredible!
I enter your house; here I am;
prostrate in your inner sanctum,
Waiting for directions
to get me safely through enemy lines.
You can’t see it, but Wicked, Hot-Air-Boaster, Mischief-Maker and Truth-Bender are all capitalized. They are like named characters in the drama that is our lives.
But God once again shows us who is in charge, who has real, and ultimate authority. The psalm also lets us know where we are, and gives us some good advice. We are invited guests, unlike Wicked. An invited guest who is received into the “inner sanctum” and we’ve been promised a foolproof (thank
goodness!) plan to navigate the “enemy lines” of our lives. The second stanza holds the advice (which is echoed in many other passages), leave the pieces of your life on God’s altar, and keep watch.
So, God is in charge. And has the ultimate authority. And is in command of all things. Right. Clearly this is the case in our first old testament lesson about Ahab, Jezebel and Naboth. Ahab wants what he can not have. What I didn’t understand at first about this was this - at the time, in Jewish tradition a
person couldn’t just sell their land, it was held by them in trust almost, for their family’s sake. For future generations. So, selling it, or trading it was out of the question. Naboth wasn’t just being fussy, he was on the right side of the law on this one. Ahab, couldn’t have it, until Jezebel fixes it all up for
him. God is not impressed, sends Elijah to chat with him. and set him straight on the consequences of his actions. Bam - where the dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, they’ll be doing the same with yours. Ouch! What the lesson doesn’t tell
us is that Ahab goes on to be penitent, and God is merciful to Ahab. Jezebel, not so much. Anyway, once again, God is clearly in charge in this passage.
In the second lesson Paul does go on a bit (as he is wont!) but the gist of this passage - I think, anyway - is that God set this whole thing up, and we need to have faith that God knows the business of being God. So, having said that, and
knowing that Jesus has paid up front for our tickets, there isn’t anything we can do to drive this relationship. Once again, God has the key. We just need to trust Jesus to get the job done, because clearly we are unable to get it together, Law or no law, our efforts are not the key “because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” At the time, Paul and the early christians in Galatia and elsewhere, were dealing
with the influx of non jews into the christian fold, and they were just trying to work things out. The last line in the passage, “for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” reassures us that we shouldn’t feel bad that we can’t save ourselves, the jews had The Law, and if they weren't saved by that, then nothing but Jesus will!
*
there is more interesting stuff here, but no time to work it in - so lets talk about this sometime over coffee!
Speaking of Jesus ... Our gospel from Luke is a vivid story that uses a situation with Simon the Pharisee, where Jesus is preaching to him through the genuine gratitude shown by the woman in our story. She has been forgiven much, and is
moved to such depths of gratitude that she washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. She anoints his feet with healing, and I’m assuming wonderful smelling ointment. It’s messy. As living often is. And Simon, sits
back and judges her to be sinful, and he wonders why Jesus lets her even come close to Him, let alone touch him, and contaminate him. Jesus feels that Simon clearly doesn’t get it. Simon needs a story of his own. He learns. How often have we played the role of Simon, judging others? The unnamed woman isn’t there to seek something from Jesus, she was there to give Him something, her Gratitude. She was in touch with it, and she willingly, overwhelmingly, shared it with Jesus.
Again, echoing our second reading, that rule-following, or subscribing to a certain theology will not be saving us, but Jesus will. We are saved by Grace alone. Once again, God’s in charge. Now, the first three verses of the next chapter have been tacked on to this challenging story, and I had a hard time figuring out why it was there. I listened to the podcast on the workingpreacher that suggested that a whole sermon could be made of these three verses. One that
explored that women were everywhere in Jesus’ story - from Mary, his mother, to Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna to the “many others”, Jesus was followed by, supported, cared for and financed by women. It wasn’t as one of the podcast commentators said, Jesus just going around doing his thing with these 12 guys. There was a movement, and Jesus had more than just a few young men convinced!
One of the commentators suggested that if we were going to be familiar with the names of the apostles, we should be familiar with the names of the women that figured large in Jesus’ life and ministry! I quite agree.
If there has to be conclusion to this sermon it is to remind us all once again of our psalm this morning. Lay it all out for God, trust that you’ve been given the right invitation into the best house ever, and have faith that God has a plan
for you through the “enemy lines” of your life!
amen.
It’s quite the collection of texts this morning! I struggled with this for EVER, and I’m still not sure if my theme really works. But we’ll just use our imaginations and a shoehorn to get them all to fit! Ultimately, my theme, “Seriously, God’s in charge” is quite nicely laid out in our psalm.
In my favorite translation of the bible, The Message, the 5th psalm 1 - 8 runs like this:
Listen, God! Please, pay attention!
Can you make sense of these ramblings,
my groans and cries?
King-God, I need your help.
Every morning you’ll hear me at it again.
Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life
on your altar and watch for fire to descend.
You don’t socialize with Wicked,
or invite Evil over as your houseguest.
Hot-Air-Boaster collapses in front of you;
you shake your head over Mischief-Maker
God destroys Lie-Speaker;
Blood-Thirsty and Truth-Bender disgust you.
And here I am, your invited guest --
it’s incredible!
I enter your house; here I am;
prostrate in your inner sanctum,
Waiting for directions
to get me safely through enemy lines.
You can’t see it, but Wicked, Hot-Air-Boaster, Mischief-Maker and Truth-Bender are all capitalized. They are like named characters in the drama that is our lives.
But God once again shows us who is in charge, who has real, and ultimate authority. The psalm also lets us know where we are, and gives us some good advice. We are invited guests, unlike Wicked. An invited guest who is received into the “inner sanctum” and we’ve been promised a foolproof (thank
goodness!) plan to navigate the “enemy lines” of our lives. The second stanza holds the advice (which is echoed in many other passages), leave the pieces of your life on God’s altar, and keep watch.
So, God is in charge. And has the ultimate authority. And is in command of all things. Right. Clearly this is the case in our first old testament lesson about Ahab, Jezebel and Naboth. Ahab wants what he can not have. What I didn’t understand at first about this was this - at the time, in Jewish tradition a
person couldn’t just sell their land, it was held by them in trust almost, for their family’s sake. For future generations. So, selling it, or trading it was out of the question. Naboth wasn’t just being fussy, he was on the right side of the law on this one. Ahab, couldn’t have it, until Jezebel fixes it all up for
him. God is not impressed, sends Elijah to chat with him. and set him straight on the consequences of his actions. Bam - where the dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, they’ll be doing the same with yours. Ouch! What the lesson doesn’t tell
us is that Ahab goes on to be penitent, and God is merciful to Ahab. Jezebel, not so much. Anyway, once again, God is clearly in charge in this passage.
In the second lesson Paul does go on a bit (as he is wont!) but the gist of this passage - I think, anyway - is that God set this whole thing up, and we need to have faith that God knows the business of being God. So, having said that, and
knowing that Jesus has paid up front for our tickets, there isn’t anything we can do to drive this relationship. Once again, God has the key. We just need to trust Jesus to get the job done, because clearly we are unable to get it together, Law or no law, our efforts are not the key “because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” At the time, Paul and the early christians in Galatia and elsewhere, were dealing
with the influx of non jews into the christian fold, and they were just trying to work things out. The last line in the passage, “for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” reassures us that we shouldn’t feel bad that we can’t save ourselves, the jews had The Law, and if they weren't saved by that, then nothing but Jesus will!
*
there is more interesting stuff here, but no time to work it in - so lets talk about this sometime over coffee!
Speaking of Jesus ... Our gospel from Luke is a vivid story that uses a situation with Simon the Pharisee, where Jesus is preaching to him through the genuine gratitude shown by the woman in our story. She has been forgiven much, and is
moved to such depths of gratitude that she washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. She anoints his feet with healing, and I’m assuming wonderful smelling ointment. It’s messy. As living often is. And Simon, sits
back and judges her to be sinful, and he wonders why Jesus lets her even come close to Him, let alone touch him, and contaminate him. Jesus feels that Simon clearly doesn’t get it. Simon needs a story of his own. He learns. How often have we played the role of Simon, judging others? The unnamed woman isn’t there to seek something from Jesus, she was there to give Him something, her Gratitude. She was in touch with it, and she willingly, overwhelmingly, shared it with Jesus.
Again, echoing our second reading, that rule-following, or subscribing to a certain theology will not be saving us, but Jesus will. We are saved by Grace alone. Once again, God’s in charge. Now, the first three verses of the next chapter have been tacked on to this challenging story, and I had a hard time figuring out why it was there. I listened to the podcast on the workingpreacher that suggested that a whole sermon could be made of these three verses. One that
explored that women were everywhere in Jesus’ story - from Mary, his mother, to Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna to the “many others”, Jesus was followed by, supported, cared for and financed by women. It wasn’t as one of the podcast commentators said, Jesus just going around doing his thing with these 12 guys. There was a movement, and Jesus had more than just a few young men convinced!
One of the commentators suggested that if we were going to be familiar with the names of the apostles, we should be familiar with the names of the women that figured large in Jesus’ life and ministry! I quite agree.
If there has to be conclusion to this sermon it is to remind us all once again of our psalm this morning. Lay it all out for God, trust that you’ve been given the right invitation into the best house ever, and have faith that God has a plan
for you through the “enemy lines” of your life!
amen.
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