Lord's Day 34

"My Prayer" (a Lenten sermon for Lord's Day 34, the Ten Commandments)

Thus says the Lord:

Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals

    and make mere flesh their strength,

    whose hearts turn away from the Lord.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

    whose trust is the Lord (Jeremiah 17:5, 7).

…If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“Dark midnight was my cry; dark midnight was my cry; dark midnight was my cry…” (LUYH #423)

 Brothers and sisters in Christ:

The prophet Jeremiah has given us a stark contrast between blessing and curse… True happiness when we rely solely upon God… A curse when we rely on mortals, when we lean for support on humankind, when our hearts are far from God.

This sounds just WRONG, doesn’t it? How else are we to get through life without relying on each other? When dark midnight is our cry, don’t we long for encouragement from each other? Don’t we give thanks for get well cards and prayers and guidance from others? Aren’t we supposed bear one another’s burdens?  We need friends, don’t we?

Of course we do. Friends point us in the right direction. Friends care about us and care for us when we’re in need, comfort and console us when dark midnight is our cry. And when we’re pigheadedly heading the wrong direction, friends confront us in love. Friends are gifts from God.

And, yet, Jeremiah says “a curse on anyone who trusts in mortals and leans for support on humankind.” What does he mean?  

It is tempting, even NATURAL to put our confidence in the THINGS God has given us instead of in God. To trust the GIFTS rather than the Giver. And it’s even tempting to look towards friends and our Christian sisters and brothers INSTEAD OF GOD… 

And, here’s the bug-a-boo with that….

Sometimes people fail us—indeed, ALWAYS… eventually… we all fall short…

So trusting in mortals instead of God is a recipe for disappointment…. 

And so I think what Jeremiah is saying is that if we’re looking to our friends, to our church family, even to our leaders (deacons, elders, and pastors)…  If we are looking all of them and/or humankind in general to SAVE US, to RESCUE US, to heal us, to revive and renew us… This will bring sadness and frustration… It will bring us the very opposite of blessing.

Because you aren’t God, you can never take the place of God in someone’s life, right? And since my friend, my brother, my mom or dad aren’t God, they can never be my All in All and I can never expect them to be, right?

And here is a very important corollary— If friends or leaders or even all of humankind cannot be my All in All… then certainly I can’t be MY OWN “all in all” either, right? 

Anne Lamott says,

Most good, honest prayers remind me that I am not in charge, that I cannot fix anything, and that I open myself to being helped by something, some force, some friends, some something. These prayers say, "Dear Some Something, I don't know what I'm doing. I can't see where I'm going. I'm getting more lost, more afraid, more clenched. Help."

These prayers acknowledge that I am clue­less; but something else isn't. While I am not going to go limp, I am asking for the willingness to step into truth. It's like the old riddle: What's the difference between you and God? God never thinks he's you.”

In the very first commandment God said, “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery: Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

And so the logic behind “NO OTHER GODS” is the logic of FREEDOM.The God who set us free from the chains in the first place sets us free indeed with ten "rules for grateful living" and the first rule is to renounce all other gods but God because all those other gods eventually put us back in those chains again. We are set free so we might LIVE free!

We are set FREE from thinking we need to trust in or ultimately depend on any mere mortals including ourselves! And we are set free when we let God be God in our lives.

And then—oh my—what a wonderful paradox it is when our hearts are close to God and we put our confidence not in each other but solely in God:  THE PARADOX IS THAT THEN, JUST THEN AND ONLY THEN… MIRACLES OF MIRACLES:  we find our relationships transformed, redeemed, made new again. Admitting my own brokenness, I can let my sisters and brothers be broken and wounded people JUST LIKE I AM!

Henri Nouwen says “Friends cannot replace God (but) God gives us the friends we need (as a gift) WHEN we need them IF we fully trust in God’s love.”

“Blessed is anyone who trusts in the Lord, and rests his confidence in God”—solely, completely, totally, unwaveringly in GOD and in God alone.

Together putting our faith in God and depending TOTALLY on God’s grace and mercy, we find oneness with each other in Christ in spite of our woundedness.   And by God’s grace—ALL THINGS BECOMING NEW—we can follow Jesus in the way of the cross. Mutual self-sacrifice. Offering ourselves to each other as the VERY PRESENCE OF CHRIST yet without an expectation that we can imitate him perfectly.

And so we forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us. And we affirm each other because we each bear the image of God inside us—we are of GREAT VALUE and IMMENSE WORTH to God.  He made us and we belong to him.

And so together we can help each other walk in the way of the cross, confront each other when we trust in anyone or anything other than God. Plead with each other to LOVE God and LOVE OTHERS.  Inspire each other to die to our old selves and rise anew daily to OUR true selves, our new selves in Christ…. Loving Life… Loving and Respecting Each Other… Sharing instead of Hoarding… Speaking the Truth instead of Hiding… Loving instead of Reacting in Fear… Putting Envy and Jealousies aside because our hearts are humble and overflowing with gratitude.

This is the NEW CREATION—our best and truest selves alive within us through the Spirit.

This is my prayer.

“In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, give me Jesus. Give me Jesus; give me Jesus! You can have all this world; give me Jesus.”