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“Irresistible Grace”
Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9;
Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
Third Sunday in Lent - Daylight
Saving Time Begins
March 11, 2007
Prayer: As we gather this
day to ask such important questions of you, O God, why You allow things to
happen as they do, where bad things do happen, and where badness does not
receive its ‘come-up-pance’, we ask that your Spirit surround us in listening
not for all the answers, but that we find your grace, instead of answers, in
living transformed lives and living well before you. AMEN.
We are in the innermost season of
Lent, like ‘hump day’ in the work-week (Wednesday), this third Sunday, where we
are being honest with ourselves and God about our sinfulness; our turning from
ourselves toward a loving and grace-filled God in our repentance. In pondering
these texts where Isaiah calls Israel to repentance, and Jesus says, “unless you
repent, you will perish as/just as they did (v.
3,5)”, we find where there seems to be more dis-belief than belief in our
coming closer to God. We want to ‘figure out’ why or how things happen the way
they do. But instead of worrying about others in their punishment or repentance,
God is asking us, each one of us, to reflect upon our own need for repentance;
we are asked not to be judgmental of others but upon ourselves.
Our texts are asking us this day
to put behind us the judgment of others, “seek the Lord, while the Lord may be
found (v. 6)”, and place before us the
meek and mildness of our sin. In doing this, we place ourselves in the Word of
God, the scriptures, likened to, says Isaiah, that of the good waters quenching
our thirst for the everlasting covenant with God’s irresistible grace and love
for us. We place ourselves in God’s judgment of us, growing in the fruits of
being transformed with abundant lives in Christ.
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to
the water...incline your ear and come to me,” sounds pretty powerful and
positive to me; does it to you? Actually, it sounds irresistible, as the prophet
was probably trying to draw his listeners in what he offered; to, “Listen
carefully,”...to, “buy and eat.” In pondering this text in second Isaiah, I
found that the prophets and speakers of this time, right before the fall of
Babylon, were encouraging the people to listen and make the best decisions.
Today, it could be like us as children listening to our parents, and making wise
decisions; perhaps as athletes listen to their coach to make the right plays.
Then, in Biblical times, it was similar to a banquet, the festivals and market
places where people are selling their wares at the best prices, and buyers can’t
resist their temptations to purchase. Today, it’s probably at the malls or
‘big-box stores’ where prices for items are watched by buyers and sellers quite
closely, and some purchases are irresistible. The point is that in repentance,
then and now, we take ourselves into new ways of life; turns, changes in our
behavior for making wise decisions.
I can’t remember my first time experiencing an
open market, but it was probably back in the early-mid seventies while traveling
in Cairo, Egypt with a friend, and I remember we were told NOT to purchase
anything at the markets unless “it was washed”; that American image of
‘cleanliness’ wins out, so we thought! Well, my friend and I did pretty well,
listening to the bribes to purchase fruits, hand-made items; but then, in thirst
what did we find but, not bottled water, but ‘fresh’ water in jugs. Upon seeing
this, we whispered to each other NOT to partake. But when it was 95 degrees in
the shade of the desert, nothing in our midst but jugs, OR, get this, liter
bottles of Egyptian beer that were sold, as Wisconsinites we picked the latter!
Even bottled, we were ill a few days later, but we likened it to our desire for
wanting what could nourish us, not the after affects. Today, the possibilities
at the baseball games, at the Kohl center, or in the shopping malls are
seemingly endless, and our thirst is quenched in numerous ways. Could it be the
price that helps us make the wiser decision? Or is there a saying, ‘Saving money
NEVER goes out of style!?’
In our text we are asked to pause
and refresh our minds and hearts with the water that refreshes and brings new
life, the bread of life that satisfies; I find Lenten time is not so much
discouraging but satisfying for us to come from darkness and repentance to a
joyous journey that is life giving through/with/toward Christ. God’s Word comes
to us much as the rains and the snows come down from the heavens that are higher
than the earth to water the earth, make it sprout
(Isa. v. 10), giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater; God as the
Master Gardener’s will to be done.
Jesus reminds us, in our gospel
text, to live without fear of what is to come, and to bear our fruit in all that
God provides for us. But this parable of the gardener is troubling, to say the
least, because we find our thoughts leaning towards God’s bad deeds provided to
us and our wanting to know, why me? It’s our nature as humans, isn’t it? Looking
more closely, though, we find that this is not the case. Remember long ago when
people believed that if it did not rain for a long time period, that they were
being punished by a god ( little g here!) who was angry; even today
people believe that tornadoes, maybe the Tsunami, tragedies that blow down
houses and destroy lives are a punishment for wrong. Yes, Jesus does tell
of two instances nowhere else mentioned in scripture about Pontius Pilate and
the tower of Siloam, but these are examples, metaphors of repentance where God
is in judgment of all things, all nations, all generations.
I’ve told some of you that I have
three loves; gardening, golf, and God; but that they are not necessarily in that
order! I’ve had my share of bad experiences, like deaths in my gardening of
beautiful flowers and beds that just don’t make it, sometimes of my own doing,
sometimes not. But in pondering this text of the gardener, I have to be very
honest, this idea of bad things happening to us DOES NOT MEAN that God thinks we
are bad. No, bad things do happen to ordinary people like you and me. God
weeps with us, and bad things just happen; we know it is part of our sinful
world, whether in storm damage or floods, tragic accidents and lives that are
lost, or September 11th in our nation not long ago. It’s very hard,
extremely hard for those of us in sorrow, to hear that ‘sometimes we have to die
in order to live.’ Where is the truth in all of this?
In reality, judgment really plays
big here; it’s hard for us to understand why just a few years later, in biblical
days, the Romans did destroy Jerusalem, why the temples were torn away, and
peoples lives were wasted. Mostly, we know Pontius Pilate, that powerful Roman
Empire ruler, judged Christ wrong. Again, who has the last word, but Christ
Jesus. Jesus wants us to think on our own judgment, not to cling to Pilate’s
judgment, or those in Jerusalem, or even the Pharisees warning Jesus going to
Jerusalem. Jesus asks us if we want to go ‘the way that He goes’, “Unless you
repent, you will all perish, JUST AS THEY DID (v.
5)”
These are harsh words to us,
indeed, and Jesus never does say to us what we need to do to repent, but tells
the parable of the fig tree, that word resembling Israel, or even us. Israel, as
the followers of God realize, must change and return to their covenant with God.
God, as the Great Gardener created our lives and breathes life into us daily as
the Holy Spirit moves and changes us to be in covenant with God and to be who we
are. It’s all about God’s free grace and it is about God’s irresistible grace as
the Gardener who brings us faith, hope, and love to be fruits of God’s tender
growth, nurture, and constant care.
The good news for us is that maybe
the ‘terms of repentance’ are different for all of us, maybe not, but God asks
us to be honest with ourselves, listen and confess our sins and wholeheartedly
follow our lives abundantly in Christ. Jesus reminds us that God’s
steadfast love and irresistible grace and mercy are always abundant, and we need
only recognize God’s judgment of us in our continual growth to accomplish what
God has in store for us. God sends God’s shepherd, Jesus Christ, to us, to bring
us into God’s midst, through our planted seed of faith by God the Gardener. Let
us grow abundantly and allow the Holy Spirit to continue to produce lots of
fruit among all of us.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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