A Sermon by The Rev. Samuel Hook

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The Rev. Samuel Hook

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School

In today’s readings from Exodus Romans and John, at first I didn’t know what to make of them like the old woman in a pond, where do you grab hold. Particularly, in Paul’s writing in Romans, which was pretty dense wasn’t it? But, we have the whole story of the Bible in these three readings. In Exodus we have the law set before the people of God by God and in Paul, points in Romans, because of sin, we are unable to follow those laws, and in John, the author points that God is doing something different in and through this person we know as Jesus, at least to me, that kind of sums up what the heart of the Biblical story is about.

Most of us like the idea of the 10 commandments , we talk about whether it should be in courts or on court house steps or whether it should be in the Supreme Court or whether it should be in schools or whatever we like that nice tidy ten little rules to follow. We even see Charlton Heston coming down from Mt. Sinai carrying these tablets with lightening, thunder and clouds and the people down below making a gold calf. Rabbi Joseph Guleskin, in his book Biblical Literacy, writes that only about 15% of us can actually write down all ten. And he tells to his Jewish readers, primarily the ones that are reading this book, that love your neighbor as yourself is not one of the ten. Here they are, short as I can make them.

I am the Lord you God, you shall worship no other God besides me

You shall not take or carry God’s name in vain

Remember the Sabbath day and make it Holy

Honor your father and mother

You shall not commit murder

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

You shall not bear false witness

You should not covet anything that is your neighbors.

Sounds pretty straight forward and simple, but Israel for that it was impossible for them to keep these laws, these ten tidy laws, and it’s impossible for us to keep as well.

I live up 74 and I go by the church everyday to the college and I got back up at night. And each time I come by the church, I think about God and what God’s done in my life and how I am a poor miserable sinner and yet I feel God’s love for me and what a wonderful place this is to celebrate God’s presence with so many of you - and I always think I’ll always try to do better - and that better part mostly comes in the evenings when I’m coming back from work. I really ought to try to do better. And I’m thinking these thoughts and a Lamborghini, or a Lotus or a Ferrari or some other fabulously spectacular car will pass me, going home to its tidy little garage in Big Horn - and number 10 is toast. I just broke number 10 a couple of times. Now, even with that full knowledge of having said that, if I were to walk outside right now and my dream car was sitting out there a 1950 Chevy 5-window, frame off restoration, pick up, Gerda would have to follow me out with a towel to wipe the drool off.

But Paul knew that this was our nature - when in Romans he writes in vs. 18, “I can will what is right but I cannot do it.” I can win not to like that Lamborghini, but I cannot do it. Will Rogers was once asked, “What’s wrong with the world anyway?” He drawled and said, “I don’t know, I guess its people.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes about trying to get rid of people, evil people, if there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and they were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them but the line dividing good and evil runs through the heart of every human being.

Paul attributes our inability to do what is right to sin, the sin that dwells in each of us, for a number of us, particularly for those of us who have always gone to gentle churches, we have avoided talking about sin even in the lower case, much less the upper case. There is such a thing as sin in the upper case and the lower case. Which is more than a sum total of human wrong doing, it is powerful and it has the power to inflict even those of us who have the best of intentions. D. M. Bailey writes in his book God was in Christ, we on the other hand, instead of talking about sin or dealing with it we would rather understand sin only as a psychopathic aspect of adolescent mentality. We atone for our sins by saying well, that’s spilt milk, and we can’t cry or spilt milk we will try to make the right reparations to those persons that we have wronged and we’ll forget about it and we’ll blithely go on our merry way. This is the kind of thinking that points exactly to the problem about sin, because sin is about self-centeredness and not God-centeredness. And in John, we see that God is doing something different now.

The story of Jesus in the temple is found in the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, now their versions happen at the end of Jesus’ ministry whereas John’s version happens at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but that is in agreement with John’s theology. It is unlikely that Jesus was able to pull this stunt twice in his ministry. In many years, for reason now, but for a different reason now, this was my favorite Jesus story. I could visualize Jesus cracking the whip, and kicking over tables and running out the livestock and running out the money changers and turning over their things, Yes Sir, he was no sweet, meek and mild, Jesus was often betrayed as some mealy mouthed preacher, here was a Jesus who was not turning the other cheek, here was Jesus who was not hanging around with a bunch of women and children - a Jesus who had had enough, here was a Jesus who was not going to put up with it any longer, here was a Jesus who was P.O’d, and you can either interpret that as put out or use the other translation, which would be my choice.

Why was Jesus disrupting the temple system during one of the high and holy days of the church of the synagogue or the temple, they were unable to take any sacrifices, they weren’t able to take any ties, in other words they weren’t able to get any money. Even then it runs on money. It would be like Jesus pulling this stunt on St. Margaret’s Day, here - and we would say, as the Jews said, who is he to derail our worship?

But Jesus explains his actions by explaining that God is doing something different, that through his death and resurrection, God is something new. God was Jesus is challenging the old way and offering something new - a God of grace and a God of forgiveness. Jesus challenged the religious system so embedded in its own rules and practices that was not open to fresh revelations from God, and yet he broke through.

Through his death and resurrection, we know that something new was happening. Even today, we’re guilty of some of those time-honored practices, even in this church. And are they keeping us from God’s fresh revelation? I think that if Jesus comes today to St. Margaret’s and I’m a casual observer of what goes on here, but during the church’s recent discussion on the qualities of rectors, I think Jesus would kick over a table or two, crack the whip, sling a few hymnals around and to remind us that the church is not about human personalities, but the church is about God! If this is a church of the rectors, then I have also broken another commandment. And it’s called Idolatry. This is a church of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen who has a new story to tell.

The reason I like this story today is not because Jesus kicked over tables, but because God was saying that the old ways were not working and because of his love for us, he came to earth and was willing to sacrifice his own son who will take on the SINS of the world, upper case, so that we might have a new life, a new relationship with our Father, through this Jesus who was crucified and risen , we now have the forgiveness of our sins, we now have Jesus who took on the sins of the whole world and we now have a God whose love for us does not give up, even when we betray it but keeps pressing on us the offer of forgiveness, and that is the good news.

The news that is happening I read each day, an old devotional book that was printed in the 20’s, called Streams in the Desert by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman’s, and she tells of a story who went to a camp meeting, and for those of you that don’t know what camp meetings are, they are outside, church services, that usually last from 5-7 days where people camp on the ground and they have singing and preaching. She told of a man who each night would give himself to God, but each time afterward, the devil would convince him that he was not consecrated. Again and again he would be beaten back by the adversary, one night this fellow showed up with an ax and a big old stake. After consecrating himself, he drove the stake into the ground where he had knelt. As he was leaving, the old devil tried again to make him feel that he was not consecrated and he went back to the stake and said, look here Mr. Devil, you see that stake? Well, that’s my witness that God has forever accepted me.

That is the good news.

Where is your stake?

Amen

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