Sermon delivered on Sunday (Trinity 1B), June 10, 2012, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

Lectionary texts: 1 Samuel 8.4-20; Psalm 138.1-8; 2 Corinthians 4.13-5.5; Mark 3.20-35.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

In today’s OT lesson we see yet another enigmatic story from the history of God’s people, Israel. They come to the prophet Samuel and ask him to appoint a king for them just like the other nations have. Do you see the almost comical nature of this request? It brings to mind scenes from the old sitcom, Welcome Back Kotter, in which Kotter asks a question to the class and there’s old Horshack, raising his hand wildly and begging to be called on, and Kotter would rather have a root canal than do that. God certainly isn’t our pupil nor are we God’s teacher, but you get the point. In the biblical story of God and his people, God keeps reaching out to his people Israel and continues to be faithful to them, and they keep looking for anyone or anything else besides God to lead them, not unlike many of us do today.

Then there is the supreme irony in the Israelites’ request. Here is Israel, the people whom God called to be his agents of healing and redemption to God’s broken and sinful world, asking God’s spokesman, Samuel, to give them a king so that they could be like their neighbors. Excuse me? Isn’t Israel supposed to model for her neighbors what it means to be God’s chosen people and truly human? What’s going on here?

Then, of course, there is God’s enigmatic answer to Samuel. “They’ve rejected me as their rightful king but go ahead and give them a king anyway.” So which is it, God? Do you want Israel to have a king or don’t you? Samuel dutifully warns his people that they’d better be careful what they wish for because they just might get it! And of course Samuel was proved right. The history of Israel’s monarchy would be as great an enigma as Israel itself because Israel’s kings would range from the good to the bad to the ugly. On the ugly end of the spectrum, we see kings like Manasseh, who built an Asherah pole, the very symbol of Baal worship that God utterly despised, in God’s Temple and sacrificed his own children to the pagan god Molech. On the good end of the spectrum, we see kings like David and Solomon who, while being declared to be good kings, were deeply flawed themselves. David, for example, was an adulterer, a murderer, and a war-monger, who was almost murdered by his own children. But David was also the man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13.14; Acts 13.22) because he steadfastly refused to worship other gods despite all his flaws. Solomon was the epitome of God’s wisdom but at the end of his career allowed pagan worship to be reintroduced in Israel because he had a concubine of foreign wives who worshiped various pagan gods and led Solomon astray. All this indicates that God’s chosen people were as much a part of the problem as the solution when it came to being the people God called them to be and it goes a long way in helping us understand God’s often stormy relationship with his people. It is hard to be the people God calls us to be when we want to be like those to whom we are called to bring God’s healing love.

And we see this enigma and conflict continue into the NT when God himself becomes human to fulfill his ancient promise to return to his exiled people and live with them forever. The problem stemmed, of course, from the fact that when God came to his people as King in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, it was not what God’s people wanted or expected. We see this illustrated clearly in this morning’s gospel lesson when Jesus’ family came to take charge of him because they thought he was out of his mind. Then there were Jesus’ opponents who accused him of being an exorcist in the power of Satan’s name! None of them were looking at Jesus thinking that they were witnessing God become human, doing battle with the Evil One and all of his dark forces, and bringing healing to people and places where it was desperately needed. For you see, that’s just not how we expect our kings to behave. Oh, we might appreciate Jesus’ display of power in his exorcisms and understand Jesus’ claim to have tied up the strong man (Satan). After all, we expect our leaders to be powerful and kick butt. But it was those other things Jesus did, things like eating and drinking with outcasts and and lowlifes, things like demanding that we serve those who could not possibly hope to repay us, things like offering mercy and forgiveness to our enemies instead of working to destroy them, and things like demanding from us our first and ultimate loyalty, even if it means subordinating the needs and desires of our own family. I mean, what’s up with that? Didn’t God tell us to honor our mother and father and now we see Jesus apparently insulting his own family! It just doesn’t make sense. We don’t expect our leaders and kings to think and behave in these ways, especially if we think that leader is God.

No, we want our God to be mighty in deed and word. We want a God who will zap our enemies like he did for Israel at the Red Sea so that we can be kings of the hill. We want a God who is unambiguous and who will solve all our problems for us in a clear and decisive manner so there is no doubt he is God and he is on our side. We don’t want some wimpy God who takes on our human form and who will mix it up with us, operating on our own level, especially when it results in him getting crucified, even if in the cross we find peace and reconciliation with God as well as our own healing. To be fair to Jesus’ contemporaries and first followers, they would need some time and the perspective of the resurrection for their eyes to be opened to the reality of who he really was (and is). But the very fact that they would need something like the resurrection to change their perspective about Jesus reminds us that Jesus’ first followers were not looking for God to come to them and become their king once again in the manner God did.

Likewise for us. We too would prefer our God to be nice and tidy, a God who conforms to our expectations of him rather than us having to readjust our thinking about who God is and what God in Jesus really demands of us as his people and followers. After all, who among us really wants to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow Jesus? Who among us wants to be ridiculed as being out-dated, ignorant, intolerant, and close-minded because we follow the teachings of our Lord and his word contained in Scripture? Who among us really wants to forgive our enemies and serve those who cannot possibly hope to repay us for what we do for or give them? If we really wanted to do all that, there would be no need for God to call us out to be his people to bring his healing love to the world in the power of Jesus’ name and the working of the Spirit living in us. Instead, we’d still be in paradise! No, following Jesus is not particularly sexy. It will likely not make us rich or famous or powerful as the world defines it all and that’s why it is so hard to follow Jesus at times, even with the help of the Spirit.

And this is what Paul is addressing in today’s epistle lesson because even after Jesus’ mighty resurrection and ascension there was confusion among some in the early church about what Christian discipleship looks like. In his letter, Paul has been defending his own apostolic ministry to the Corinthians because it did not look like what they wanted or expected (imagine that). In the verses leading up to today’s pericope (selected passage), Paul has been telling us about the terrible hardships he has faced for Jesus’ sake. Listen to him now [read 2 Corinthians 4.7-12]. Why would anybody willingly submit to beatings, ridicules, and persecution to follow Jesus? It didn’t make any sense to the church at Corinth and it doesn’t make any sense to many of us today. But Paul tells us why he does what he does and why we as followers of Jesus should not hesitate to obey Jesus’ demands to put to death all of our selfish and fallen desires and become like him, even if it means that we must suffer persecution for his sake.

We follow Jesus because in him, and him alone, we have the hope and promise of God’s new creation. Our mortal body with all its brokenness and weaknesses is not the end game and so for those who are in Christ, it really doesn’t matter what happens to our body because we have died with him, will be raised with him, and share in his glory (cf. Romans 6.3-7). And when we are raised with him, our present earthly tent (our mortal bodies) will be replaced with a new Spirit-animated body that God is keeping for us in heaven. Using Paul’s analogy, it will be like moving from a cardboard box in a shantytown to a breathtakingly beautiful mansion with the choicest view of all.

Paul also uses a clothing analogy to help describe the indescribable when talking about our future resurrection body. We will go from rags to riches when death claims our mortal body and God fits us with a brand new body in the new creation. Paul seems to be telling us that we were made for something better than we currently have and suggests that we are aware of this, in part, in our desire to wear nice new clothes. When we dress up to the nines and tens in new duds it makes us feel special and here Paul suggests to us that when we get our new resurrection body, whatever it may be and look like, it will be mind-blowingly wonderful and we will finally be living in a spectacular body that will allow us to be truly human without our fallenness and foibles.

This is the hope and promise of new creation and this is what makes it worth our time and effort to be Jesus’ disciples with its demands that we die to ourselves and suffer for his Name. Jesus will use our suffering and self-denial as signs of God’s promised new creation that his resurrection inaugurated and which all followers of Jesus are called to be a part. If we have real hope that our future is secure and more wonderful than we can even begin to imagine—and the NT writers always define hope as a sure and certain expectation rather than wishful thinking—we can put up with almost anything in the present, including putting to death all that is in us that keeps us hostile to Christ and bearing the hatred and opposition of all who are opposed to him. After all, as it was in ancient times, Jesus is not the King his current enemies want or expect. The more things change, the more they remain the same, and that is why we must pray for the Spirit to open their blind eyes.

So what can we take away from all this? Two things come to mind immediately. First and foremost, we need to keep in mind constantly that we are a people who have a real hope and future, a hope and future made possible by the grace of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The best way to keep this in mind is to read Scripture regularly, together and individually, so that we learn better how God became King and how God is dealing with sin and evil in his world so that we can be part of the action—in a good way, of course. That requires we learn the entire story of Scripture, not just snippets of it. If we fail to do what is necessary to make God’s rescue plan of his sinful and fallen creation our own, we can expect to be robbed of it by being distracted by all that goes on in our lives.

And as Jesus reminds us in today’s gospel lesson, he expects us to be his disciples as part of his new community, the church, so that together we can help and support each other in the power of the Spirit so that he can use us to bring his healing love to those around us. Coincidentally, this corresponds with our mission statement because what we do always stems from what we believe. We cannot ever expect to make a difference for God if we do not let him change us first and that will require us to be diligent in reading Scripture and prayer together as part of Christ’s body here at St. Augustine’s. How are you doing in that regard?

Second, Jesus’ exorcisms and his ongoing battle with demonic forces remind us that evil is real and we had better take it seriously. While Christians believe that God has defeated evil decisively on the cross of Jesus, that battle still continues and we had best be in constant prayer for Jesus’ help and protection while we live in this world because there are still forces out there who hate us and want to destroy us. I am not suggesting that we look for the devil under every rock. I am suggesting that we recognize there is evil in this world and look to the One who is stronger than evil to help and protect us. Not only should we be in constant prayer about this, we also need to remember that whenever we act to satisfy our own fallen desires and agendas rather than behave as the people Jesus calls us to be, we give evil yet another toehold in God’s good creation and anyone who professes to love the Lord should find that grievous and move to do something about it, with the Spirit’s help, of course.

As we have seen, none of this is easy and some of what we are called to do is not particularly fun. But we are willing to engage in the hard work of being disciples of Jesus precisely because we believe his promises to us. In no other is there the promise of new creation and becoming truly human in the way God intends for us. We have seen our crucified Messiah and his empty tomb. We have experienced the power and presence of his Spirit in and among us and so we embrace our future and hope. And that, of course, means we really do have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.