St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
January 27, 2017
Year A: The Fourth
Sunday after the Epiphany
Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
God’s Ways are Not Our Ways; God Sees Things Differently
In
her powerful sermon at our recent Martin Luther King service, the Rev. Sandye
Wilson said a number of memorable things, but there’s one particular image that
I keep returning to.
Talking
about the famous Bible story of David and Goliath, when the young David was
seemingly outmatched and about to be crushed by the giant Goliath, Sandye said,
“Everybody’s eyes were on Goliath, but God was watching David.”
“Everybody’s
eyes were on Goliath but, God was watching David.”
Truth,
right?
Sandye’s
insight on this familiar story is a reminder of something important – something
important that we really should have learned by now but it seems we need to be
reminded of, over and over:
God’s
ways are not our ways.
God
sees things differently.
One
of the great themes of Scripture is that, over and over, God seems to delight
in seeing things in people that others can’t - or choose not - to see.
In
fact, God seems to take pleasure in choosing the unlikeliest people for the
most important jobs.
Speaking
of David, God chose him, the youngest son, to be king of Israel. David was such
an unlikely choice that his own father, Jesse, didn’t even consider him as a
possibility, instead leaving him out in the field tending the sheep.
God’s
ways are not our ways. God sees things differently.
For
that matter, God chose the people of Israel, never very powerful politically or
militarily, nearly always being threatened or overrun by some more powerful
country, God chose Israel as God’s people, beginning a revelation and a spiritual
revolution that would spread throughout the world.
God’s
ways are not our ways. God sees things differently.
And,
God chose to come among us not as a mighty warrior, not as a king bent on building
a great empire, but in and through Jesus of Nazareth, a small-town teacher and
healer, born to a couple of nobodies, who managed to attract just a few not
very impressive followers and died the shameful death of a criminal on a cross.
You
know, in the ancient world, they had no trouble believing in a god-man. It was
the idea that this seemingly unimportant person, this failure, could be divine
that they thought was ridiculous.
God’s
ways are not our ways. God sees things differently.
Maybe
St. Paul understood this truth better than anybody because his story, his
experience, was so incredibly unlikely. Paul had been transformed from being a big-time
persecutor of the followers of Jesus into an bold and tireless apostle who gave
away his life, traveling far and wide to the gentiles, the non-Jews, telling
everybody he met the Good News of Christ.
And
so Paul can write with confidence about God’s ways to the divided and
troublesome church in Corinth, “…God chose what is foolish in the world to
shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God
chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to
nothing things that are…”
God’s
ways are not our ways. God sees things differently.
Jesus
expresses God’s different way of seeing things in his vision of the kingdom, what
we call the Beatitudes, his downside-up vision of a world where you know who’s
truly blessed?
It’s
the poor in spirit, and the mourners, and the meek, and those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness.
It’s
the merciful, and the pure in heart, and the peacemakers, and the persecuted.
In
Jesus’ downside-up vision of the kingdom, somehow, amazingly, it’s the “losers”
of the world who will be – who already are - truly blessed.
God’s
ways are not our ways. God sees things differently.
Jesus’
vision must have seemed outlandish to the first people who heard it. After all,
they lived in a blood-soaked, angry, and frightened land, ruled by the brutal
Romans who cared only about power and wealth, led by an indifferent emperor in
a faraway city.
And,
I suppose, Jesus’ downside-up vision of the kingdom sounds pretty outlandish to
a lot of people today. After all, we live in a land that seems to have
become so angry, so mean, so divided, and so very frightened.
I
suppose Jesus’ downside-up vision of the kingdom sounds pretty outlandish to a
lot of people today as we celebrate force and fame, as we plan to build walls instead
of bridges, as we mock and reject the “losers” of the world.
But,
God’s ways are not our ways. God sees things differently.
And,
you and I, we’re called to see things God’s way.
In
the beautiful words of the Prophet Micah, we’re called - actually we’re required - to “do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with God.”
So,
now more than ever, with God’s help, let’s try to see things God’s way.
Let’s
stop worshiping fame and power. Let’s stop being tossed to and fro by the
latest news out of Washington. Let’s stop giving in to anger. Let’s stop being
so frightened.
Instead,
let’s do justice – let’s do justice for the tenants throughout our city who are
cruelly being driven out of their apartments by greedy landlords so that they
can illegally jack up the rent.
Let’s
do justice for our children who go to schools where often there isn’t enough
paper for the copier or for the toilet.
Let’s
do justice for our neighbors who live on blocks where it’s not safe to go out
at night, who are forced to live behind bars in their own homes.
With
God’s help, let’s try to see things God’s way.
So,
let’s love kindness – let’s love kindness by not judging people who look
different or think or pray differently than we do.
Let’s
love kindness by respecting everyone’s dignity, no matter where they come from
or who they love or even, yes, who they voted for.
Let’s
love kindness by being kind to ourselves, by taking care of our souls, by at
least sometimes turning off the ugliness and deceit that spews nonstop out of
our TVs and computers and phones.
With
God’s help, let’s try to see things God’s way.
Let’s
walk humbly with our God, remembering that only God is God and that we are only
dust, here for a short time, a short time when we are meant to love, serve, and
forgive.
I’m
sure that God is keeping an eye on the Goliaths of our world, but I also have
no doubt that God is watching us intently, - little, seemingly insignificant,
us.
God’s
eyes are on us because God knows that, just like David, we’re more powerful
than we think.
God
is giving us the strength to make Jesus’ downside-up vision a reality, the
strength to make our ways God’s ways, the strength to see things the way God
sees them.
The
rest is up to us.
Amen.
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