This morning’s lectionary is full of conflict and confusion, but Paul and Jesus are both compelling us to see that we’re the ones creating it.
Turning from our destructive view of God
Lent 3C | Exodus 3:1-15, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9
When we get together for our Bible Study each Wednesday, we gather around a table and hand out the inserts we use on Sunday mornings with the lessons. We start by praying the collect. Then we read the First Reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament. And then the Second Reading from the Greek Scriptures, which we call the New Testament. Then we read the gospel.
And when we got to our second reading this week from Paul’s first letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth, I had a pretty visceral response. I said somewhat rhetorically, Is there any way we could not read this one on Sunday?
It’s the million little things that mess with our faith; the assumptions about each other and about God, that make readings like this one hard for many of us to hear and believe.
And as we bring our time to a close each week, I ask: What would you preach? What is the Word revealed to you this week?
While those gathered think I’m mining them for material, I don’t think they fully understand that I mean it. That there’s a Word here looking to be released in them. That Jesus is to be proclaimed by all of us and we’re all totally capable of doing it. Thoughtfully and graciously.
This time, though…
This time, I had that moment myself, of not knowing what to preach. I was sitting right there with them going Oh man, look at this collection of readings. And I felt very uncommitted to anything.
But as I drove home, thinking through each of the readings, I remembered my standing rule. It isn’t an always rule, but its a pretty close to always rule:
If you don’t want to read it on Sunday morning, then that’s what you’ve gotta preach on Sunday morning.
So there it is. That’s what we’re doing.
Getting Lost
Let’s start with the obvious. There’s all sorts of junk in here we could spend our time getting excited about. Most of it is found in the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, often called the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses.
There’s a lot of fun stuff in here, like the water coming from the rock or the part about the snakes. This is all fun, but we don’t need to dig through it like it’s buried treasure. Or as if this were some sort of secret conspiracy like in National Treasure and we have to go all Nick Cage to decode the treasure map on the back of the constitution.
Paul doesn’t name them so we can obsess over them, like they will reveal a secret so much as connect Jesus to the tradition. That’s his point.
Since the people he’s talking to in Corinth have way less history with this stuff than he does, Paul’s just running his mouth off and listing all the things and the people are just smiling and nodding and going Yes, all the things! because how are they supposed to know any better?
But Paul is actually trying to communicate something deeper than that. He’s trying to say that in all of this stuff, all these grand moments with the divine, and in all these times when God was with the people, that’s the Christ at work in the world. Like he’s saying This is a deeper story! Don’t get lost in the other stuff!
So let’s dig into that.
I Will Be There
The main story of Torah, of the Pentateuch, is the Exodus. And its central figure is Moses. A boy, saved from genocide and raised in the kingdom as Pharaoh’s own son. A Hebrew boy with an Egyptian name.
And as Moses grows up, he feels lost and alone. He isn’t Egyptian, but he isn’t really Hebrew either. He’s an outcast desperate to be included among the other outcasts.
So when he has this encounter with God in the burning bush, it’s a whole lot of ummm…are you talking to me? Moses argues with God, asks for proof because there’s no way they would believe Aaron, let alone Moses Come on!
And God says tell them “I Am Who I Am.” Which is a beautiful, reassuring puzzle of a phrase which sounds both profound and meaningless to postmodern ears. But I’ll tell you, it’s way better than that.
Everett Fox points out that English really struggles to capture the scope of this phrase. He translates it as “I-will-be-there-howsoever-I-will-be-there.”
God isn’t just naming God’s existence or even permanence, but God’s presence and reassurance to be with them in all the junk ahead.
I will be there. I will be there. And I will be there howsoever I will be there.
Then? I’ll be there. When? Then. Where? There. How? However I choose to show up.
You don’t have control over me. But I promise to free you and be with you and never truly leave you.
Adding Christ to the story
When Paul pulls Christ into this story, it isn’t to change the story at all. Because God said that God would be there howsoever God would be there. And God threw all of us for a loop with Jesus.
So all of those reasons why I didn’t want to read this excerpt from Paul’s letter to the people in Corinth are because we so get stuck in the mental gymnastics of metaphysics and theology. We get trapped in our heads!
The question isn’t whether or not God makes up tests, because we all get the same assignments from the teacher. Towers don’t fall on bad people and God doesn’t push them over. Jesus couldn’t say that any clearer.
But we test God all the time.
We take on the Adversary’s role in the Wilderness. Prove you’re there, God. Change my life. Give me what he has. Make it so I have what she has. Steal this cancer from her body and make him walk again. All of this is on you, God!
We put God to the test the way the people put Jesus to the test. And the same way so many good Christians put Paul to the test. Every last word that must be God’s!
That line we tell each other about God not giving you more than you can handle is comforting, but it isn’t theologically true. Nor does Paul actually say that. And it isn’t what he is after.
God isn’t giving you pain. That’s not how it works. That’s not who God is.
And this is why we have the story.
They tested God, not the other way around.
Freedom
God is about freedom, not slavery. Hope, not nihilism. Love, not hate.
This is the part of the equation that still makes us go, but… No buts.
It is metaphysics and dualistic philosophy that demands a balance and a neutral arbiter. It demands a God in control of every action and who must be held accountable for the evil in the world.
But that isn’t God. And it doesn’t come from God. It comes from humans with ideas about a just world of eternal equal balance. We’re doing that! We made that up!
And we test God at every encounter; throwing scripture in God’s face and saying what do you have to say for yourself! This isn’t from God. It’s from us.
That testing of God has always been from us.
From Moses at the bush to the Psalmist demanding God crush his enemies to the later epistles cutting apart the community and saying God wanted it that way.
And then all of this junk that came after.
The Jesus Wars against the heretics and between each other to the crusades to imperialism and manifest destiny. To slavery, Jim Crow, anti-semitism. And the constant stream of laws which encourage bias and demean people for being LGBTQ, disabled, poor, unemployed or underemployed, or children.
Every time we make people prove how deserving of salvation they are? This isn’t God. And it isn’t for God. It’s us playing God. Testing God.
This is how we perish, getting what we all get: the status quo death of an oppressed people oppressing each other. Damning us all by damning each other with exclusion.
We plant fig trees, then when they don’t produce, we tear them down. Throw them away. Call them useless, evil, broken. Cast them out because they aren’t the right kind.
And yet Jesus is there, like a gardener.
Nurturing, healing, hoping, reassuring, begging us to give them another chance.
God will be there howsoever God will be there.
That’s the promise. And the proof.
A promise to be there with us. In God’s way. To free the enslaved and heal the afflicted. Not as a divine backstop in case we’ve screwed up, but as our partner and inspiration. As we turn around and become closer to Jesus.
Freeing as God frees, loving as God loves, being present as God is present.
Being there. Here. Free. And striving until all are free.
Free of hate and free to love.
Making peace and becoming the children of God.
Preparing for the harvest Jesus is planting.