It Doesn't End Here

If this business of Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the snake and the snake in effect blaming God were only one little isolated incident, we could write it off as a bizarre quirk and be done with it, but we cannot.

If only the problem of sin could be reduced to a little sideline that we deal with once in a long while and could ignore the rest of the time, but we cannot, because sin is pervasive and grows like those wretched shrubby Giant Knotweed plants along the streams with the beautiful white flowers in the late summer.

The problem is that the plants set millions of seeds, and it seems that every one of them sprouts and those plants also spread by underground rhizomes, and they are almost impossible to kill, even with the most powerful herbicides.

They are smothering everything along the creeks and rivers throughout the state, in case you haven't noticed.

That is akin to the power of sin in our lives.

This is the power that separates us from God and from each other, the power that smothers everything good and useful and true.

In the parish I served 30 years ago there was a dear lady about the size of Ruth Burkholder, who was a giant in other ways.

She lived with an inoperable aneurysm, knowing that if it ruptured she would be dead in an instant.

That knowledge didn't make her cranky or fatalistic, but rather, faith-filled and no-nonsense.

[Many years later, she died of things unrelated to the aneurysm!]

Among the many wise observations she gave me over the years was that when one is busy pointing a finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at oneself.

The very gesture we use to accuse others are also accusations against us.

Now let's take this image and apply it from God's side.

God points to us with his proper accusations

His is the call for justice where we work injustice.

His is the voice of truth where we cover things with a smothering blanket of false pretense

There are also fingers in the hand of God which point back to him, however, fingers which say...

“You have given these humans freedom

--which they can mis-use, to be sure,

--the freedom to say NO to you, God.

Also, your promise to them is to not overwhelm them with your rightful anger, but to transform them with your mercy and love.

Don't forget that, God!”

Those other fingers are pointing back to God, to remind God of his prior promises that he made to us, that somehow he will still find a way to get us straightened out despite our very great failings ,

that he will somehow use our very failures themselves as the occasions for unforeseen bits of grace, in ways and methods that we cannot comprehend.

Do we really want to pray for God to treat us justly?

That would be a terrible thing, and we would be destroyed.

Actually, what we need is God's mercy, and a fresh start.

We need to hear that God's finger of accusation is overshadowed by the other fingers that indicate a blessing, through which God says:

I give you all you need.

In spite of what you have been and what you have done, now I clean you and welcome you back.

That very change,

the stern finger of judgment that gives way to the open gesture of welcome is the best sort of news for us.

It is also the pattern for our new lives.

Following God's example, the possibilities are now in front of us to act in those ways in all of our relationships:

--to replace finger-pointing with active-listening.

It is hard work for all of us.

The church is to be a signpost in the world of that new way of living

-- a sign of creation restored,

--a sign of shalom, wholeness.

--a sign of the way things will be when God's kingdom is complete.

This will always sound crazy to a suspicious world.

It doesn't end here.

It doesn't end in the garden or here.

It doesn't end with just one time of failure and one instance of repentance and renewal and re-direction.

By the grace of God, it is available to us again and again!

It is getting back on the bicycle only to fall off the other side.

Another chance, another chance....

“...dust redeemed by the cross of Christ.”

It doesn't end here; it is just getting underway.

God could have given up on the whole enterprise,

but instead he loves us into being,

sternly admonishes us,

patiently forgives us,

and generously sustains us day by day.

In the hand of God there is the finger of accusation rightly pointing straight at us, ready to point out the long list of brokenness in our lives:

-- things said or not said,

--things done or not done,

--relationships broken or not even made,

-- all of the times and ways that we have run away from God and each other

--that is sin in all of its infinite variety.

The Good News of this day is that it doesn't end with that dismal recitation.

There are also the other fingers on the hand of God pointing back to God himself, reminding him of his prior promises of grace.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.