Pentecost 2 - B 2012

For us or Against Us

Introduction

Have you ever heard the expression, “you cannot serve two masters”? It is a fairly practical bit of Biblical wisdom that boils down to another expression we all know, “you are either for us, or against us!”

I would like to be able to report that the world is not that black and white. There are always moments where we agree and disagree with each other and to say that we are truly for something, or truly against it is quite hard.

But at some point, you have to make a decision; you have to decide what it is that is most important to you.

Is making money more important than helping people? There are lots who would say yes, they usually run corporations. Is learning more important than working? Some people think so and get degree after degree.

I was listening to a sermon from a cowboy church in Saskatchewan on the radio, and the church has a brand, the “Diamond J” which is Jesus. The preacher asked the question, are you riding for the diamond J or are you riding for the circle S… for Jesus, or for ourselves….

Because this is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to faith, are you focussing on the good or the bad?

We want a King!

We want a king; everyone else has a king, buy us a king.

Anyone who has ever been around a toddler has had this discussion. It might be a lollipop or a bicycle. And it is no good saying, if all your friends were going to jump off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff. Cause there is always one of them who is stubborn enough to go jump off the cliff. I broke three fingers that way.

For those of you who parented the way they taught it in the 50’s… God’s answer is the equivalent of catching your child smoking and making him smoke a cigar…

You want a king? Fine, here is a king… now we will see what happens.

Ah… human nature.

At the core of this passage is a truth we often don’t want to accept. We do not usually know the best thing to do. Most of us stumble around, trust our intuition, and focus on the wrong things.

The historical point of this story from Samuel is that the people want to be a country. They want to be like other countries. They want to be recognized as “Israelites” and be proud about it. So they need a king, a leader, someone to look up to…

The moral point is a little trickier. The people want to do it themselves. They no longer want to be as connected to the divine way of doing things. They would rather be more like the people of the world.

I wager we all struggle with this choice. Do we do what we love or what brings in more money? Do we ignore the person getting teased so we don’t become the target or do we stand up for them? Do we buy cheap stuff cause we want it, or do we pay a fair price to help those who are making it?

Do we do it our way or God’s way?

Do Not Lose Heart!

I mean, it is not like God did not warn them… you want a king, your kids might end up joining the army and fighting in wars… you will end up paying taxes… you will create a middle class and your kids will move away in search of work to get rich…

We make this choice over and over throughout history. I mean, look at the disciples, at the earliest followers of Jesus, who got kicked out of the synagogue because they chose to follow Jesus’ interpretation of God’s world… it was all a choice.

Now, the thing is, as we go through life and make choices we also make mistakes.  There are going to be times when we succumb to peer pressure, or when we are going to choose the easy way out instead of the sometimes difficult “right” thing.

It would not have been much of bible if the story ended when the Israelites said, “Oh yeah, now we get it. 

Well then, we will do it the right way from now on.” And actually did. But human nature is not like that; we do the right thing for a while and then drift back into bad habits…

The disciples knew all about this. The followers of Jesus did the right thing, did the wrong thing, followed, fell away, repented and then denied. They could not even stay the course for the three years they were with Jesus. So they were realists.

And here is what those followers of Jesus write for the new members of the church:

“We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us into his presence… So we do not lose heart.”

There are days when that is the best we can hope for… the courage not to lose heart. We will have another chance, we will get another opportunity, and God is at work in us each and every day and we get better and better at this thing called life.

The House Divided

Ever been in a situation where someone has accused you of being “just like them”? It is an awkward thing…. It is like being called a hypocrite…. It happens to all of us at one point or another that we do something that others do not understand and they accuse us of being in bed with the enemy.

Ever find yourself complaining about some group of people, maybe who are gossiping, and then in that one moment of weakness you tell a story about someone and get caught gossiping yourself? What about always being careful to tell the truth and then that little white lie trips you up.

This is essentially what happened to Jesus, he has been going around healing and preaching, and actually building this really good reputation around Galilee… then one morning he goes to church. He talks to a possessed man. He yells at a possessed man. The demons leave…. And… well… who is this that talks to demons? Is it… a demon?

We don’t deal much with demon possession… but I could put it in other ways we might understand. Jesus goes into an alley way and while talking to, and helping, a drug addict, he heats the heroin on the spoon, or ties the band around his new found friends arm… and people ask, how do you know how to do that, are you a drug addict?

Or Jesus goes to an apartment where a lonely old alcoholic is spending their final days before drinking themselves to death and has a few drinks with them….

The crowd would frown on that sort of behaviour, no?

“Wait a second,” says Jesus, “you can’t change someone’s true nature! Things are not always black and white! Would you rather that person die alone? Is it more compassionate to ignore them or to keep them company?”

Jesus constantly told us that we live in the real world. He constantly brings us back to that choice we made generations ago to have a king, to be a people, to live within society, to turn our back on God.

His solutions were real life solutions. And in the midst of it all he was clear. You cannot serve two masters.

So the question is, “Are you doing the will of God.”

Conclusion

For the weeks since Easter this has been our focus – the way we live our lives…. trying to choose the ways of God instead of the ways of the world.

It is not like it is easy – but the truth is what we have at the centre of our lives will win out. Whether we have love or bitterness in our hearts makes a difference on the day to day to way we act out there in the big bad world.

To ride for the Diamond J might not always be easy, and there are those that will try very hard to get us to compromise. But in the end, those that do the will of God are Jesus brothers and sisters, and that is what we hope to be…