June 6, 1999
Our Lord's judgment in calling servants, leaders, apostles, and
heroes of the faith has always been a bit of a puzzlement to me.
He calls Abram, a middle-aged childless man, living with his middle-aged
childless wife in a little town in the Tigris-Euphrates River
Valley to leave everything behind and go to an unnamed place,
and there to become the parents of a great nation, or two. Abram,
who did such interesting things as to claim that Sarai was really
his sister so that she could sleep with a rival chieftain, so
that the rival chieftain would not kill Abram and steal his wife
away. God gave a dream to the rival chieftain, by the way, telling
him that "This is a No-No."
Then there was Moses, who as a young man committed murder and was on the lam. When God told him to go back to Egypt and bring his people back, Moses used a speech impediment as an excuse for not doing it, an excuse that God steadfastly refused to listen to. Moses — who was told to speak to the rock, so that water would flow out and the people would realize that indeed God was with them — took the staff and beat the rock as hard as he could. Moses—who coming down from the mountain with the two tablets of the ten commandments got very wroth with the people for worshipping a golden bull — threw the tablets at them (which gave rise to the phrase "throwing the book" and the guilty).
Then there was Gideon, one of the Judges of Israel and a great general, who was called by God while he was threshing wheat in a winepress. To thresh wheat in ancient times, you threw the wheat and the chaff up into the air, where the lighter chaff would be blown away by the wind, and the heavier grain fall to the ground. In the wine press there is no wind. God chose him to be the general!
King David committed adultery with Bathsheba while her husband was off serving in the King's army. He then had Uriah the Hittite left out on the battlefield where he would be killed so that David could marry the widow and claim that the child was conceived after the soldier's death. He would not have ordered his death, however, if Uriah had agreed to sleep with Bathsheba while he was on R&R. But he refused to do that because he didn't want to be weakened while he was in the service of the King.
These are God's heroes! The heroes of the Faith! They are in fact leaders whom God's people followed wherever God led them.
Moving over to the New Testament, two are worth mentioning today. Paul, a rigid, extremely proud Pharisee and persecutor of the Christian Way, who was chosen by Our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Apostle to the Gentiles — that's you and me. He had some definite and strong opinions (which some of you might still have difficulty with), but nevertheless, because of Paul the Christian Gospel is here in Palm Desert, the Coachella Valley or wherever we live.
And then, in the Gospel, there's Matthew, the tax collector who was not just an IRS agent, but a collaborator with the enemy. He collaborated with the Romans in order to oppress his own Jewish people. And he was a particularly greedy one, too. Jesus stops at his tax table today, and says "Follow me. Be one of the twelve. And let's go have dinner in your house."
Makes me wonder about you. God has called you, hasn't he? Makes me wonder about the people who are called to be leaders in the Church today; to be leaders in society today. And how it is that God's will is going to be done by people with similar foibles as these heroes of the Scripture. The Scriptural record is perfectly clear, that is, that God doesn't expect perfection. He doesn't seem to expect sinlessness. He doesn't seem to expect "no mistakes." (In my part-time job, I'm in the Air Force, and for several years we've had a "one-mistake Air Force." Here recently it has gone to a "no mistake Air Force.") And yet, God doesn't seem to expect that out of the Church — and aren't you grateful?
Instead of perfection, our Lord insists on fidelity. He calls sinners to fidelity, not to perfection. The point of all this is that the work we do and the results we get are God's work and God's results. We are to give glory to him; we are to strive to do his work. And whatever else happens, to seek his results. Our response as the people of God is to live a life of integrity, grace, and faithfulness.
The integrity to admit our faults; the grace to forgive the faults in others. Our purpose, our call as Christian people is to serve our God with faithfulness, the kind of faithfulness that seeks to serve Christ, and to seek in others how Christ is being served in them. Fidelity to the mission of Christ in the world is not rigid adherence to any code of law; and dear, sweet, old Paul, that rigid Pharisee, that one who as a young man stood head and shoulders above his elders in adherence to the code of Torah makes that point very clear, that none of that is what God is looking for. Hosea made it clear before him, that what God is looking for is steadfast love, and not sacrifice. Fidelity to the mission of Christ in the world is also not condemnation of those people who fail in their purpose to serve God, but to seek to restore and to return and to give second, and third, and fourth, and hundredth opportunities to get back right and to serve God again.
Christian faithfulness is illuminated by the vows we take in Baptism. The vows to seek and serve Christ in all persons — not to seek and serve their mistakes. If that were to happen, then Abram would never have been the Father. If that were to happen, then Moses certainly would not have led anybody across the Sea of Reeds; Gideon wouldn't have led an army. But to seek and serve Christ in all persons is to ask the question "how is Christ working in this man or this woman's life." The Christian vow to strive for justice and peace in the world is how we are faithful to God. Christian faithfulness calls us to respect the dignity of all of God's people, whether we like them or not.
The Bible is very clear. God still used Abraham to be a father of the nation, in spite of all his shortcomings. God still used Moses to lead the people out of slavery and to the Jordan River to find freedom, in spite of his crime and his excuse-making. He still used Gideon, in spite of his fear and his bargaining. God still used David in spite of his wrongdoing. He still used Paul in spite of his fiery persecution of the early Christian way. He still used Matthew in spite of his greed and his collaboration, and people still followed them, in spite of it all.
I guess the good news out of all these lessons for today, is that God will still use you and me in spite of whatever mischief we have been up to. For Christ came to call sinners to his service; and we number ourselves among those sinners at whose table he dines, and through whose words and actions he is known in the world.
So let us resolve again today to join with one another to offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, to make good our vows to the most high God, and to show forth his glory in all the world.
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
06 June1999