Lifting the Shroud

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church
Sabbath, March 26, 2016


It was a very dark day. The best man the world had ever known was dead. Not just dead, killed. And not killed by just some random lunatic, executed. Put to death by the formal vote of the supreme court of the land, a judgment ratified by the chief executive.

How could a people go so wrong? It had happened before. It would happen again. But this time seemed like the worst.

For three and a half years Jesus had toured Palestine, enthralling crowds with his preaching, healing every kind of malady, even raising the dead. It was one of the most magic moments in human history.

But he rebuked the arrogance of the religious and moneyed elites. He echoed the words of the ancient prophets, insisting that those with privilege—the privileges of money, political power, religious and social status—those with privilege were charged by God to use their advantages for the benefit of others.

Maybe the privileged could have ignored his rebukes if he had been less popular. They could have dismissed Jesus as a harmless, crazy dreamer. But the crowds, the thousands of people who instantly gathered every time Jesus stopped moving, the masses who adored Jesus made him dangerous. At least in the minds of the rich and powerful. They were sure Jesus would use his power over the masses to stir a revolution to benefit his friends. After all, that's how the elite had been using their power for centuries. They could not imagine Jesus was any different from them.

So they had him killed. Accused him of thinking like they did. Framed him for ideas he did not have. Convicted him of making the kind of plots they would have made if they had possessed his power. And they killed him.

And it was dark.

For Jesus' friends--the people who had been enthralled by his preaching, the people had begun to imagine there was another path besides the will to power--the death of Jesus was the death of hope. If Jesus couldn't change things, change wasn't possible. If Jesus couldn't advance the cause of righteousness, maybe righteousness itself was a mere fantasy.

It was a very dark day.

Jesus was crucified. Executed.

Ordinarily, when a person was crucified, their bodies were not buried. If they were evil enough to deserve crucifixion, they were too evil for the dignity of burial. Their bodies were thrown onto a garbage heap outside of town.

But Jesus had friends and admirers even among the powerful people. A few devout, wealthy people had heard the glory in Jesus' preaching. They shared his vision of a world where the lowly were lifted, a world where wealth circulated widely and generously, and righteousness was normal.

One of these righteous, good people was a man named Joseph. He went to the governor and asked for the body of Jesus. The governor was used to saying yes to wealthy, well-connected people, so he said yes to Joseph, and Joseph buried Jesus in a new tomb Joseph had just completed constructing.

The tomb was a room carved into a limestone outcrop in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. Joseph, with the help of servants or some of Jesus' disciples—the Gospel doesn't tell us—wrapped Jesus body in a burial shroud along with a huge amount of spices and herbs traditionally used for burials there. Then just at sundown, they closed the tomb by rolling a huge stone over the entrance.

Then they went home for the worst Sabbath of their lives.

Hope died. They were left with numbness and pain. Blackness. Screaming silence.

Death collides with love. When we love someone, there is never enough time. No matter how long our time together, we are never ready to say, “That's enough.” Thousands of people loved Jesus. His execution blighted their souls. His death created an aching, withering emptiness.

But it was even worse than that. Because Jesus was also their hope. How do we live without hope?

Maybe they didn't eat supper Friday night. Or if they ate, maybe it was merely nibbling, playing with food because it was in front of them, but they had no appetite. Sabbath morning, they had a hard time getting out of bed. Why bother? What was there to get up for. What was there to live for? The world was not getting better. The best and brightest hope for humanity had just been killed, executed.

The sun rose. But it didn't make things brighter. Maybe they didn't eat much for breakfast. Maybe not much for lunch. It was hard to breathe. Hard to be awake and impossible to sleep. That was Sabbath. The bleakest Sabbath ever. The most miserable day in the universe.

Saturday night, the ladies talked. The women who had traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem with Jesus. The death had been so sudden, the reversal from the enthusiasm of the week so violent they had not been able to respond appropriately.

Joseph had buried Jesus was traditional spices—a ton of them. But the women had not had time to do anything. They had failed to do the necessary things for their own goodbye. So Saturday night they made their own plans to honor Jesus with the proper attentions a dead loved one deserved.

Sunday at first light they were headed to the tomb.

Arriving, something was wrong! Were they at the right place?

The grave was open. The stone was rolled back from the entrance.  They stooped and went inside. Empty!

While they were jabbering to each other, wondering what on earth could have happened, a couple of men suddenly appeared. Angels.

The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, "Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn't here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day."

Right! He had said this. He had said this very thing. Why didn't they think of it before?  He's not in the tomb. He must be resurrected! They raced off to tell the guys.

The men, the famous disciples whose names we know—Peter, James and John, Andrew and Matthew—the guys didn't believe the women. What do you mean the grave is empty? How could it possibly be that he is risen?

The women told them again what they had seen and what the men in shining clothes had said. The women reminded the men of the words Jesus himself had spoken. But it was too much. The guys couldn't believe it.

But neither could they deny it. Jesus had said something about dying and rising. It hadn't made sense. It still didn't make sense. But the words were there, floating at the edge of their memories. So Peter and John raced off the check it out. An hour and a half later they were back. They had seen no men in shining clothes. But they had seen the tomb. They had gone inside. It was empty. Jesus was gone.

The rest of the day passed in confusion. Jesus had died. They had seen it. Love had been crushed. Hope had been killed. The pictures were seared into their minds. And the tomb was empty. The women had seen men in shining clothes and heard them announce that Jesus was risen. They gradually remembered together words Jesus had spoken, words that had made no sense, and so had made no impression. He was going to be killed. He was going to rise. He had said those things, but they hadn't heard them because they couldn't make sense of them. Not then.

But now, the tomb was empty.

Well after sundown, there was pounding on the door. They looked at each other. Who? What now? Someone peaked through the crack, or called through the door, “Who is it?”

It was friends. They opened the door and two friends from a hamlet outside Jerusalem practically jumped through the door shouting.

“We have seen him. We have seen him.” The story tumbled out.

They had been walking home from Jerusalem that afternoon.

Some stranger joined them. He seemed friendly enough. They thought nothing of it. He asked about the latest news. He seemed utterly clueless, like some redneck from Galilee—excuse me Peter. From his questions it appeared he had heard nothing about Jesus, nothing about the triumphal ride last Sunday, nothing about Jesus chasing out the money changers and merchants, nothing about the crucifixion. Nothing.

“So we told him everything. Then he explained everything. He seemed like a brilliant scholar. He ran through dozens of prophecies, basically saying that the whole thing had been planned. It had all been prophesied.

“By the time we got to our place in Emmaeus it was getting dark, so naturally we invited him to join us for supper and stay the night.

“We put some bread and wine on the table and sat down to eat. He picked up the bread and said the blessing. And BOOM! It was him! How many times have we watched him bless the bread? How could we have missed it? It was him. It was his voice. It was his hands. It was him. He is alive!”

“So where is he? Everyone shouted at once.”

“We don't know. The instant we recognized him and started from our chairs, he disappeared. Poof! Just like that! But we saw him. We heard him. We felt him. He is alive!”

And for two thousand years this has been the song of the church. He is risen. He is alive.

Some of us have heard his voice, have felt his presence. Others like the disciples in that upper room that evening have only the testimony of our friends.

Still, we come together in worship and with one voice shout against the darkness of death, He is risen.

Some of us have had our children are stolen from us. Still we sing, “He is risen. Death will one day die.”

We have seen our hopes crushed. We have felt the insuperable weight of despair. Still we come together and declare, morning is coming. Righteousness, justice, God and love will triumph. And we, too, will be victors. Because . . . He is risen.

One Wednesday I had lunch with three college students. At one point, one of them asked me, “Do you think Christians make too much of heaven? Do you think Christians use talk about heaven as a substitute for actually doing something to make the world better?”

The question put a long pause in our conversation. What to say?

Finally, I said, “For people like you and me whose lives still include all kinds of opportunities to choose, to decide, to change things, to make things better, heaven can be a lazy-making idea. If we tell ourselves, God's going to fix things so I don't need to bother. Heaven can be a bad idea.

But if heaven is the ideal that shapes our choices and our drives, we cannot give it too much attention.

And some time, you will reach places in life where all of your strength and beauty and intelligence and luck and privilege stand helpless in the face if unalterable grief and injustice. And then you will need heaven.

And even if you don't personally reach that impasse, most people in the world live there every day. They are not sitting around in cafes wrestling with the questions, “What career should I pursue? What city shall I live in? How will I spend my money? What fund should I invest my retirement funds in?

For most people, the promise of justice and even life itself lives only in the reality of heaven. So let's be careful—we who live in privilege and comfort, we who have health and money and youth—let's be careful not to make light of the truth that makes life worth living for millions who know nothing of our privilege. If not for ourselves, then at least for our brothers and sisters who live in difficult places let's keep alive the glorious, shining faith: He is risen. He is alive. He will save us.

The Fate of Swords

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists for Sabbath, March 12, 2016.

If you are driving home from Portland, the scenery is pretty unremarkable. Green trees. A few road cuts. Lots of clear cuts. You go through Olympia, then head down the hill into the Nisqually Valley and there to your right for a minute is a nice view of Mt. Rainier. Then it's back to trees. Then the commercial sprawl north of Lewis-McCord. You pass the turn off for Highway 16, pass the exit for downtown Tacoma, then as you come into Fife, there in front of you is one of the most spectacular views of Mt. Rainier.

Everything is cleared out of the way. No trees block your view. No buildings. No close-in hills. The horizon is filled with the low undulating line of the South Cascades, then rising above them, almost floating in the sky is the immense, gleaming bulk of Mt. Rainier.

I'm surprised there are not more wrecks in that stretch of freeway. People staring at the mountain, taking pictures.

You get a view almost as good when you head south on I-5 just past the West Seattle bridge. And then there's view from the Bainbridge Ferry. Wow!

Mt. Rainier is the great focal point of our city, our region. Our eyes naturally seek it out. At least on clear days!

I think of Mt. Rainier when I read the words of our scripture reading.

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it.
Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the LORD.In the last days, the mountain of the LORD's house will be the highest of all--the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.

I love the word “flow” in this passage. The nations will flow to the mountain of the Lord's house. Which creates an interesting visual contradiction. The mountain is raised and the nations flow to it. Ordinarily, I think of things flowing down to a low point. But in this passage things flow upward.

Water flows down hill. Avalanches flow down slopes. Landslides flow down. What flows up?

Dreams. Dreams flow uphill. We dream of higher, better, purer, richer, brighter. We dream toward the light. We dream toward the top of the mountain. Our vision reaches up.

And God is the greatest dreamer of all.

Through the prophets in the Bible, God gives voice over and over to his dreams that Jerusalem—the city of God, the capital of the people of God, the site of the glorious temple—would give voice and substance to God's dreams of a holy city. Through the words of the prophets, God dreamed of a society that lived out the highest ideals of truth and compassion, loyalty and honesty, generosity and integrity. God dreamed of Jerusalem as a showcase of the kingdom of heaven.

The deepest laments and sternest rebukes of the prophets were aimed not at the heathen or pagans or infidels—or whatever other word you could use to describe outsiders. The prophets lamented the failures of the citizens, the native-born residents of Zion.

But the prophets lived in hope. God would ultimately accomplish his dreams. Righteousness would triumph. Evil would disappear.

In the last days, the mountain of the LORD's house will be the highest of all--the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.
People from many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of Jacob's God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths." 

This was God's dream for Jerusalem. Jerusalem failed. I don't know very many people who imagine they could go to Jerusalem to learn God's ways. Jerusalem is a city sitting on the razor edge of hatred and violence every day. Religious and political tensions threaten to explode in every situation.

Still the vision beckons. Still God calls us higher.

What does that look like? If we are going to live out God's dream, it's vital for us to have a clear vision of that dream.

The more clearly we see God's ideals, the more intensely we focus our attention on those ideals, the more they will shape our lives. That's one of the principal values of participating in worship. In our worship services we give intense, joyous attention to the beauty of goodness. We celebrate the goodness of God. In our music, our readings, our sermons, our fellowship, we affirm our belief that light is greater than darkness, that the fundamental reality of the universe is benevolent intention. God means to do us good. And we aim to do one another good.

What happens when people finally internalize the wisdom of God?

For the LORD's teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem.
The LORD will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes.
They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.

God's final, triumphant vision is not vengeance. It is not annihilation. It is not conflagration. God's final vision is the transformation of warriors into farmers, of killers into healers, of bombers into builders, of thugs into therapists.

Can you see that vision? Will you spend time contemplating that vision, nourishing that vision? If you do, you are sure to find it reorienting your life.

A mile or two from my house is a new house. It's set in the middle of twenty or thirty acres that used to be pasture. The house is impressive because of its size and style. Then there is its orientation. The house faces southeast. Which is a little weird. Southeast does not align with any feature of the immediate landscape.

In our neighborhood, the ground is quite flat. The streets run east and west. The avenues run north and south. Houses are lined up neatly along these roads. Houses on the south side of avenues face north. Houses on the west side of face east. So why is this house sitting at this weird angle?

On a clear day, the answer is obvious. The houses are oriented so the biggest windows frame Mt. Rainier. People situate their houses so they can admire the mountain without stepping outside. That's the power of the glorious vision of the mountain.

That's the kind of power Isaiah's prophecy can have in our lives, if we give it sustained attention.

Will you deliberately restrict your consumption of hate and disdain-inspiring media? Will you turn from that kind of soul-withering media and give regular, daily attention to the vision of God, the vision of the triumph of peace and justice, with special attention to peace and justice for those who have less than you?

I don't know about you, but on a sunny, clear day when the air is clear and Mt. Rainier is gleaming, I find it beckoning. I dream of hiking its lower slopes. I find myself tempted to aim for the summit. That's the power of a clear vision.

The more clearly we see the mountain of the Lord's house, the glorious wisdom and goodness of God, the more powerfully it will attract us. The more effectively it will shape our own souls, molding us into partners with God.

My People

(A column I wrote for our church newsletter.)

No. I will not. Don't bother asking. I will not do it. I know what the rule book says. I know about tradition. I know all the Bible texts. I know those who are urging me to do it speak from longstanding, venerable conviction. I understand all that. But I will not do it. I will not shut the door on my kids. I will not say to any of them, “not my people.”

Over the decades my parish has included adults who never left diapers, never mastered language, and were never baptized. Still, they are my children. If they go to hell, I'll go with them. If heaven has no place for them, I have no interest in heaven. How could any place be paradise if my children were excluded because they could not master the required tasks, could not obtain the required credentials?

My parish has included people who were abused beneath religious art hanging on the wall and in the kitchens of people employed by the church. The lingering effects of that abuse created barriers to the kind of faith we rightly celebrate. These victims of abuse are not “model Christians.” But surely you do not imagine that I would add the final word of abuse: “not my people.” “Not welcome here.”

I have also known in the wide circle of the holy family called, church, abusers. Men and women who grievously mistreated children, sexually and otherwise. Some have rightly gone to prison. They break my heart, these misshapen sons and daughters of God who damaged youngsters. I sometimes wish I did not know them, had not seen their faces knowing their deeds. You might imagine that I could justify disowning these abusers because I know and love their victims, but I refuse. They are all mine.

My circle includes physicians who have lost their licenses and maybe their minds and certainly the religion of their childhood. And would you have me disown them now? Now, when they most need a home they cannot lose? Now, when they need to be carried after decades of carrying? They may not be safe for patients, so their licenses had to go. I get that. But really, do you think I would add that last damning word: You are not one of us? Don't ask me to say it. I won't.

My congregation includes biblical scholars, theologians, and scientists who are compelled by their study to dissent from some point or another of the Adventist creed. Their childhoods, educations, grandparents and cousins, and core religious identities are all Adventist. When I was younger these were first my teachers, then my sisters and brothers. Now, increasingly, they are my children. Do you think that I, with my own deep roots in this community, could add my voice to the shrill denunciations? Can you imagine that I would join the chorus of ostracism? You know I won't. I can't.

If you've tracked with me this far, come a little farther. What about my children who wrestle with questions of gender identity and sexual orientation? I will speak of men because I know their stories better. When one of my sons is born gay, would you have me pronounce the word of excommunication or disfellowshipment: Not my people?

Have you listened to his story? Have you heard of his relentless, desperate search for a cure? Have you felt the pain of fasting and visits to psychiatrists and Christian “change specialists?” Have you felt their desperate hope after being anointed, surely this time, finally, God will say yes to their lifelong prayer and make them like other men? Have you sat with them in that moment of suspense, at the apex of the arc of hope, afraid to wonder if it's up or down from here? Cured? Then the crushing, withering realization. God said no. Maybe hearing all the details of these stories, after you have cried with them, you will still be able to summon the religious zeal to pronounce the verdict of excommunication. I cannot. I won't.

The official policy of our denomination requires us to welcome homosexuals on the condition they pledge celibacy or come among us only as visitors. The requirement of eternal celibacy is a prescription almost as cruel as the now discredited prescriptions for “change.” There are individuals for whom this is possible. There are individuals, heterosexual and homosexual, for whom this is God's calling. But the denominational policy was voted by groups of old men who have been married for decades. They were voting to impose on others a burden they would have never contemplated for even a minute carrying themselves. For most of us a prescription of lifelong celibacy is as realistic as running barefoot up Mt. Rainier in shorts and a T-shirt. We won't deny that it's possible, just that the possibility excludes us and all our friends and children.

So I will not say it. I will not exclude from the welcome table of Jesus, my children who are gay. I will not impose on them a burden that I would never even consider carrying myself. I am personally committed to warmly welcoming my gay children, requiring of them the same kind of sexual continence we expect of one another—faithfulness.

I invite the members of this congregation to come stand with me in welcoming those whose sexual and gender identities are irregular.

We celebrate the human ideal pictured in the Genesis creation stories: a man and a woman forever together in a happy union that produces children. In a perfect world this is how people would live. We also join God in compassionate accommodation to the realities of this world. Already in Genesis, not every union of man and woman is happy. Not every union is monogamous. And so it is in our world. Not every couple has children. Not every adult marries. We do not ostracize the people who experience these departures from the ideal. We bend to less-than-ideal practical solutions for the human problems. Some relationships become so toxic divorce is better than marriage. In ancient times, this kind of practicality was expressed in laws regarding polygamy and levirite marriage as a way to make sure no woman was left without support and protection.

In our world, we even make allowances for single people—a category of human existence that appears nowhere in the Bible story. Everyone in the Bible was part of a household. Some of the households are crazily dysfunctional. Jacob and his four women and twelve sons and one daughter come to mind. But no one was single, not in the modern sense. No one had an apartment by himself or herself. In Seattle forty percent of households are comprised of a single person living alone. And we welcome these single folk in the life of our church.

Still, according to the denomination's rule book, if a man is not suited for marriage in the traditional sense, we must say to that man, “pledge eternal celibacy or hear our word of excommunication: Not our people.”

I cannot do it. I will not do it.

We are an Adventist congregation. Congregations do not make doctrine, the international denominational body does that. But we do made decisions about membership. We can offer membership to our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters who are called by God to be part of the Adventist Church without demanding they meet some theoretical standard of model humanity. 

We can learn and grow together. 

I ask you to stand with me and say to all of the children of God, “My people. My brothers and sisters. My children. All of them.”

A Haunting Diagnosis

A Haunting Diagnosis

Isaiah 1.10-20
Matt 23.1-10

Nationalism and religious conceit grow naturally in our hearts. One of the central themes of the Bible prophets was a vigorous challenge to both. We would do well to hear their challenge in our super-charged partisan world.

A couple of weeks ago, Karin was at work. Her protege, a high school student, was out back taking care of barn chores. It was time for me to head to the church so I called the dogs and went to find Raena to tell her I was leaving and to make sure the dogs knew they weren't being left home alone.

She made over the dogs while I headed to my car. I closed the gate behind me, headed down the street, and turned onto the main road. A couple hundred yards down the road I noticed the cars coming toward me braking sharply. I glanced in the mirror and saw cars swerving and slowing and what looked like a dog racing up the street toward me. It took a second before it dawned on me.

REXIE!!!!

My dog was chasing me to Seattle.

I pulled over, holding my breath, hoping she wouldn't get hit. I got out and opened the back door about the time she caught up with me. She hopped in the car. I drove her back home and shut her in the house, shaking my head. Crazy dog! Trying to get herself killed.

But, of course, it's precisely this craziness that enabled her to worm herself into my heart and become my dog in spite of my best efforts to resist getting attached. Everywhere I go, she wants to go. If I'm sitting in the kitchen, she's at my feet. If I go upstairs to take a shower, she's lying outside the door when I come out. If I go to my workshop in the garage, she supervises. When we are hiking in the mountains, I leave her off leash and never worry about where she is. She is never far away.

The worst dog we ever had was a Sheltie. Everyone loved her. Except for me. What was not to love? She was sweet and pretty. She was the prettiest Sheltie I've ever seen. And I'm admitting that even though I did not like her!

When she died and the kids required me to perform a funeral, all of my tears were crocodile tears. I was not sorry to be rid of that dog!

Why? Why would I not like a sweet, cute, adorable, beautiful, friendly dog?

Because she would run off. She would get out of the yard and go searching for kids to play with and never come back. It appeared to me she loved everyone equally. She loved the new house just as much as our house. The greatest strain on our marriage in those years was this dog. Especially, if she got out because I forgot to close the gate.

There are many attributes of a good dog, but for me the number one, indispensable trait of a good dog is this: the dog comes home!

So Rexie is a good dog. She comes home. That is, she does her best to stay with me, even if that means chasing me all the way to Seattle!

In our Old Testament reading this morning, the prophet uses a similar animal analogy as the foundation of his argument.

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth.
For the LORD has spoken,

I have nourished and reared children, and they have rebelled against me.
How can this be? The prophet wonders.
An ox knows his owner. A donkey comes home to his master's feed box,
but my people Israel—they are oblivious. They are astonishingly unaware.

You feed a cow and after awhile it recognizes you. If my daughters cows are hungry, all I have to do is drive up to the gate and they all start heading toward me. I look like food to them. My wife feeds her horses grain every evening. So now, if they are out in the pasture, toward the end of the day, all she has to do is open the gate. They will run from the pasture to their own stalls. They know she will give them a treat.

Through the prophet, God laments: I gave birth to you. I fed you. Why have you forgotten me? Why do you ignore me? Don't you know what's good for you? Can't you be at least as loyal as a cow or horse . . . or, if the prophet were writing in our day . . . can't you be as loyal as a good dog?

Please?

Things were going badly for the nation at the time the prophet was speaking. The Jewish people were being battered by attacks by Assyria and other nations. The prophet insisted these misfortunes came as a result of the wicked of the nation.

Do you really want more beatings?
Why do you keep on rebelling?
The whole head is hurt,
and the whole heart is sick.
You are battered from head to foot—
covered with bruises, welts, and infected wounds—
without any soothing ointments or bandages.
Your country lies in ruins,
and your towns are burned.
Foreigners plunder your fields before your eyes
and destroy everything they see.
Beautiful Jerusalem stands abandoned
like a watchman’s shelter in a vineyard,
like a lean-to in a cucumber field after the harvest,
like a helpless city under siege.
Unless the LORD of hosts
Had left to us a very small remnant,
We would have become like Sodom,
We would have been made like Gomorrah.

If we reduce this poetry to simple prose, it would go something like this. You are the children of God. As children of God you can expect to enjoy the bounty of God. But you are misbehaving. You are acting like the children of a different family. You are cutting yourself off from the family treasure. Your very life is a gift of God. And even the meager blessings that keep you barely alive are gifts from God. Can't you see this? God wants to give you full access to the wealth of the family but that access only comes to those who embrace the character, the culture, the lifestyle of the heavenly Father.

The prophets confront us over and over with this call:  Remember who you are. The apple is not supposed to fall far from the tree.  We demonstrate our family connection by living out the family values. And those values flow from the character, the essential identity of the divine Father and Mother.

When we act like jerks, we are distancing ourselves from our identity in God. God is not a jerk.

One of my kids insisted I watch a segment of the Daily Show a couple of weeks ago. Trevor Noah was interviewing former NSA and CIA Director, Michael Hayden. They were talking about lethal drone strikes. Hayden explained that Americans are always very careful to minimize civilian casualties. They go to great lengths to spare non-combatants.

This is the American way. We congratulate ourselves that we are not like other people. We are morally superior. We are virtuous.

But then Hayden went on to describe an incident. There was a really bad guy. He was sleeping outside. They could send a drone to kill him, but he was not sleeping alone. His grandson was with him. They decided to shoot anyway. They killed the bad guy . . . and the grandson.

Trevor pressed Hayden. “So when Middle Easterners kill innocent people, it's terrorism. When we kill innocent people, it is collateral damage?” The audience—probably most young people—reacted, clearly agreeing with the thrust of Noah's question.

One characteristic of young people is their ruthless critique of adult inconsistency and hypocrisy. We have become comfortable with the accommodations we have made with “reality.” Sometimes you just go with the lesser of two evils. Sometimes you just have to go with the system. That's just the way things are. Then a teenager looks at what we are doing and says, “Whoa! How come?”

We need to hear those challenges.

I posted a brief description of today's sermon on Facebook. One of my friends responded by insisting that America is the most righteousness, the most generous nation ever. We are good. We are the best. If I were not preaching from the book of Isaiah, I would probably have agreed with her. I am constantly meeting good, generous people. I'm not a doomsayer. I work to avoid scolding and condemning.

But today, we are looking at the words of the prophet Isaiah. And the prophet issues a stern challenge:

Isaiah calls his own nation, the nation of Judah with its capital, Jerusalem, Sodom and Gomorrah. This would be like calling the United States North Korea or ISIS. In the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah epitomize evil. They are the evil cities. They are the capitals of iniquity. They were so bad God blasted them into oblivion. Jerusalem imagines itself as the capital of righteousness. The Jewish nation was God's nation.

Here in chapter one, Isaiah points the finger at the ruling elite of of the Jewish people and calls them Sodomites. This is pretty racy language. This is inflammatory. It is the word of the prophet.

It is my job as a preacher to bring those ancient words into our world. Americans imagine ourselves as a special nation. We are the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.  Surely, this means we are God's favorites. Referring to Isaiah, I challenge our moral self-confidence. We, too, are susceptible to being Sodom and Gomorrah.

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the LORD. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. Your New Moons and annual convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. NLT: I want no more of your pious meetings.
When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look.
Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen,

Do you hear what the prophet is saying? He says to the Jewish people—the people of God, the people who are the central figures all through the Bible, the people whose religion could be traced back to the direct word of God from Mt. Sinai—the prophet says to these people: Your religion is worthless. In fact, your religion annoys God, offends God. God wishes you would just quit!

Wow! That's pretty strong.

What was it that so annoyed God?

Many conservative Christians immediately imagine the prophet is making a sexual reference. After all, he mentions Sodom. And we all know about the sin of Sodom. But if that is where our minds go, we will completely misunderstand the prophet.

Isaiah is crystal clear. When he calls Israel, Sodom, he is talking about Israel's disregard of justice and mercy.

Your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.

Therefore:

Wash yourselves. Cleanse yourselves.
Remove your evil deeds from My sight.
Stop doing evil.
Learn to do good;

What is that good? What needs to change?

Seek justice,
Defend the oppressed.
Go to court for the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.

This is the key to coming again into the richness of the family of God. This is the kind of behavior that shows we know our way to the Father's house. This kind of activism demonstrates that we really are children of God. This is the authentic expression of the values of the kingdom of heaven.

Next comes the beautiful passage about forgiveness.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.

God orders us to be merciful. To be generous rather than merely correct, to be gracious rather than exacting. We are ordered to act in these ways because this is the authentic expression of the family values of heaven. God says to Israel, You have screwed up. You have failed to be generous to the poor. You have failed to provide adequate legal defense for the defenseless. You have been willing to incarcerate people who cannot defend themselves. You have been damnably severe and “correct.” But I will forgive you. I have no interest in vengeance against you. Please rejoin the family. Please come back and participate in the overflowing generosity of your heavenly parents. And if you do, the bleak record of your past will be washed clean.

But, the prophet warns, if you refuse. If you reject the family values and continue to neglect and blame the poor. If you continue to allow people to receive only the justice money can buy, then be forewarned, you will be devoured. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.

In the current political season poor people, brown people, people with the wrong religion have been co-opted as tools of demagoguery. Candidates and movements have made crude, blunt denunciations of the vulnerable tools for attracting votes.

God calls us higher. God calls us to something richer and truer.

Let's be like Rexie chasing me to Seattle. Let's be like cows returning to their master's stable. Let's be children who remember and embody the highest values of their parents. Let's leave the ways of Sodom—the place where the strong thrive and the weak were fair game—and embrace the character of God—the defender of the fatherless and widows, the friend of all in need.