Bitumen, Bricks, and Guns

Genesis 11:1-9 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. 

Genesis is written down, not by Moses, but by temple leaders and others during the time of the Babylonian exile. In their grief and their fear, they commit to writing down the stories of their oral tradition, so that they may have a book of God's history and God's historical commitments (covenants) to them. Such a book was both a consolation and an encouragement when they were far from their own homeland and the site of their temple and, what was in their minds, correct worship.

In this series of stories about God's work in history, each story reveals things about God's nature and character, meaning the way God is from human perspective, and each story also attempts to answer some questions about why things are they way they are. What are questions that could be answered through the Tower of Babel story? 

- Why are there so many languages around the earth? 

- Why do some people (nations) build ziggurats (stepped pyramids) and others do not? 

- What would happen if we tried to reach God through our own power? 

Ziggurats, stepped pyramids across Mesopotamia, were usually built to honor gods or to serve as temples of different kinds. Certainly the people who were taken from Jerusalem to Babylon in the exile would have seen such buildings, tall against the horizon, as well as other imposing architecture in Babylonian cities. Even prior to the exile, those who traveled and then returned to Jerusalem or traders coming to the city would have shared stories of the architecture in surrounding areas. People may have wondered or worried about their own buildings, but also knew that they had built in accordance with their tradition, which was influenced by God's communication to Moses and the very different nature of their religion, which worshipped one God alone. 

In the story, the people are building such a tower. They are building it either intend to reach heaven and control God or make a name for themselves by causing other people to seem them as being as powerful as gods. Their tower will speak to their unrivaled power and all will fear them and, consequently, do their will. God keeps this plan from happening by scattering the people and confounding their language. 

In such circumstances, the Tower of Babel story would have been a comforting one. Remember what happened when people thought they could build powerful towers and reach God? What did they think would happen? Did they think they would be able to control God? Don't they know the Lord's power? And look what happened! It didn't go so well for them, now, did it? 

The story, full of human pride and self-confidence, shows how the Lord does and will confound plans that attempt to control the Divine. Making a name for one's self either means taking the credit personally, which the people in the story intended to do, or giving credit to one's Maker, which the hearers of the story would have known was the right action. 

The Tower of Babel story makes a second important point. This point is discerned not from the words of the story, but from its location in Genesis. The Tower story is in Genesis 11. Genesis 6-10 deal with the story of Noah and the flood. Then we have Babel. Chapter 11 concludes with the lineage of Noah's son, Shem, which goes right up to Abraham. Chapter 12 of Genesis begins the story of Abram, a man whom God counted as righteous, even when Abram/Abraham made egregious mistakes. 

The location of the Babel story illustrates how some people never learn to honor God, since they would have been in the generations to have reflected on the flood, but didn't. Thus, the Lord thwarts their work and scatters them. Then God blesses Abram as well as those who bless Abram. The Babel story is situated as a reminder to Jewish (and then to Christian) listeners and readers that God keeps God's promises and that God extends blessing generously, even to those who are kind to God's people. Furthermore, God gave Abram the name Abraham, meaning "father of many". It was not a name that Abram could make for himself or give himself. 

What does this have to do with us today?

I would be remiss and very negligent in my duties as a pastor if I did not acknowledge that in the past 24 hours, 30 people died in mass shootings in the United States- in the incidents in El Paso, Texas and in Dayton, Ohio. More than 70 other people were injured physically. This does not count the mental and emotional pain causes to people who were witnesses to the shootings, the pain of the families of the victims (dead and survivors), and the stress and danger to police and first responders, as well as the strain on their families who worry always about this kind of situation. 

If I talk about guns or gun control, some people will say it is too soon, that the Second Amendment is what it is, or that guns don't have anything to do with this. If I don't talk about guns or gun control, some people will say that I am too afraid to be honest and that I softpedaled my role as a preacher and a prophet. So I am in a tight spot, but I am ultimately answerable to God and I want to share with you what the Spirit has laid on my heart in the last 24 hours. 

The bricks and bitumen that built the Tower of Babel were not to blame. They were useful tools and they could be used however people saw fit. Certainly they could be used as weapons, but their main intention was as tools. Once the people corporately decided to build a tower to make a name for themselves, to reach to the heavens and control God, they have changed the bricks from tools into weapons. The bricks and the bitumen become false idols that give the people imagined power that is not theirs to claim. 

Similarly, in our own time, our guns- as tools or toys- have exactly the role that we give them. If they are used or collected as things that feed our families, are enjoyable to shoot, or maybe used defensively in a rare, if not ever, situation, then they have an appropriate location and are no more than the bricks and bitumen were meant to be at Babel.

However, if our conversation around our guns (and I say our because we have guns at my house) becomes about the power they give us, the fear we have about someone taking them away, or the way they could be used to make a name for ourselves, the guns have become idols. We are giving them inappropriate power and use in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Idols are objects, people, or ideas that take up time, talent, and treasure that is rightly devoted to God. 

In parts of our country, and around the world, but specifically in the United States, our conversation around guns has become idolatrous. The answer is not necessarily to get rid of the guns, but to have much sharper and brighter lines about how we talk about guns. How often are guns used to solve a problem in popular entertainment? How often do we casually say or hear, "I could shoot him" or "I could shoot myself"? How often do we talk about a leader or a candidate, falsely, with regard to what he or she might do with our guns or the tools for our guns? How often do we grow silent during a conversation about gun ownership because we have mixed feelings, but we know stronger voices will shout us down? What are the corners of our culture where the forces that oppose God foment conversation about how guns will permit a person or persons to make a name for themselves? 

If we live in a culture (if!) with these symptoms, then guns- like brick and bitumen- have become weapons that we use to make a name for ourselves, rather than tools and toys. If we are genuinely intent on keeping the first commandment, You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me, if we genuinely intend to fear, love, and trust God above all else- then we cannot permit guns to become or to remain idols. 

And we as followers of Jesus must be willing to embrace the joy of our salvation, we must be willing to walk the way of the cross, we must be willing embrace the Spirit that is greater than our fear and have real. honest conversations about guns in our homes, in our community, and in our world. If we do not, then the word for us- the word of our freedom in Christ to care for our neighbor- has been sown on rocky ground. 

The story of the Tower of Babel reminds us how quickly we can go wrong, how quickly we make idols of tools and then weaponize them that we may have control and make a name for ourselves. 

We have a name. We are children of the living God, the God who kept and keeps promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Mary, Martha, and John of Patmos (the writer of Revelation who warned about lukewarm faith). We are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. The power we need for living comes through our baptism, God's gift of faith, and Christ's renewal of our inner selves in holy communion. We cannot and must not embrace items or stories about anything else as sources of power- not our family names, not our heritage, not our denomination or political party, not any item we own, including our guns. 

If we want to show the world, if we want God to show the world through us, the truth of God's power and might- then we must stand up for Jesus and be willing to have the hard conversations that will tear the towers and idols of our culture. It is only this way, rooted in good soil, that our light will shine and others will see it and give glory to our Holy Parent in heaven. 

Jesus Ethics (Sermon)

Matthew 5:21-37

The Sermon on the Mount continued-

- We are now into the ethical dimension of what it means to be salt of the earth and a light to the world

- What does the meekness that inherits the earth look like? What shape does hungering and thirsting for righteousness take in one’s own life?

- When Matthew is writing, after the fall of the temple, after Paul’s letters, after there is now a full generation of believers after Christ… what are the ethics of discipleship?

- In particular, Matthew wants to be sure that his readers (then and now) understand that following Christ has a rootedness in the law of Moses.

- The context of that root is not supersession (as in Jesus fulfills and, thereby, transforms the law), but cuts it open so that the heart of the law and God’s desire for its use is exposed.

Framework

What would Jesus do? Matthew will go on to illustrate that, but he’s foreshadowing the kind of behavior that Jesus embody, which will seem transgressive and problematic to those who want the law to be followed strictly without regard to the need for wholeness in community.

Matthew’s interpretation of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, is to give an ethical framework that neither allows for unrestricted freedom in action (antinomianism) or idolizing of the law (legalism).

We want the law to be strict because it is easier to follow rules than to be loving.

It is easier to live for one’s self than for the community.

It is easier to perceive one’s own righteousness when contrasted with others than to pause to tenderly consider the pain we have compelled them to hide.

There is no “I” in common good- all actions are aimed toward the community, not the self (even self-care).

- Violent thoughts beget violent actions.

- Unforgiveness toward others leads toward doubting God’s forgiveness towards one’s self

- The use of others as means to sexual satisfaction (visually, physically, or commercially) leads to a breakdown of the value of sex as a gift from God and the body as a vessel of grace and sacramental action

            - Adultery – mostly married women/unmarried men… violation of property

            - Porneia- illicit sex?

- The common good requires honesty- about the difficulties of marriage, about mental health, about sexual ethics, about abuse of all kinds. Those who are embodying the Jesus ethics must lead the way in these conversations.

The small is as important as the big and the big is as important as the small.

- The truest ethic is a consistent ethic. A consistent ethic does not always mean consistent action. Some children need more structure than others. Sometimes a train of thought must be followed through multiple stops before a conclusion rooted in community good and God’s love can be determined.

- There will always be extreme examples- decisions made in poverty, war, grief, and in the midst of violence or threats of violence that will need to be treated tenderly and with grace and assurance of forgiveness.

- What is done at home must match what is done in public. What is done in the parking lot must match what is done at the communion rail. The Jesus ethic is a consistent ethic…

“God is love” (1 John 4:8) is orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

-The compass of the Jesus ethic is located within the incarnation… the actual body of Jesus… the physical human nature of Christ… It is the extreme nature of God’s love made flesh and dwelling among us in commonplace elemental reality that makes the Jesus ethic applicable all day, every day.

- orthodoxy- right belief

- orthopraxy- right faith

- These two cannot function apart from one another and are the original chicken and egg…

- This is the grounding of discipleship- our following in the Way of Christ- and therefore the true north of a Jesus ethic.

As I read this week about ethics and the Sermon on the Mount and marriage and divorce and oath taking in the first century, I thought of all the ethical dilemmas that are proposed in these sorts of situations. I thought of how likely we are to take this text, remove it from its context, and shame others or ourselves with it.

We must wrestle with making our every thought align with the truth of Jesus—the executed, resurrected Christ who sustains all life and who reconciles all things. ~Drew Hart (The Trouble I’ve Seen)

The truth is that most of us want short, pithy clarity that doesn’t require moral pondering, deep prayer, or hard conversations. All that does, though, is make a new law. It takes time and practice to shape a life according to following Christ. Time is the thing that we are consistently presented as not having enough of, running out of, killing.

For most of us, a life lived in the imitation of Christ, in embracing a Jesus ethic- for most of us, that life is not going to take a quietist, plain sort of shape. The choice is not – be cloistered or be a flagrant sinner. The choice is actually much tougher, it is either to put ourselves, our knowledge, our desires and will above God’s or to embrace what God has done for us and to respond with a Jesus ethic.

There is no “I” in common good- all actions are aimed toward the community, not the self (even self-care)

The small is as important as the big and the big is as important as the small

“God is love” (1 John 4:8) is orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

At work, at the drive thru, in competition, at the doctor’s, when voting, on social media, when playing sports, on-line shopping, in speaking to your family, in speaking to strangers, in writing letters to the editor, in protest, in support, in worship, and at rest…

The grace we have received compels us to be open to the way a Jesus ethic shapes our lives. One decision leads to another to another to another as we are saltier and lighter and more woke and more open and then we find ourselves blessed and among the ones who are receiving mercy, inheriting the earth, and being filled.

Blessed and Cursed (Sermon)

Sound for a sermon on Matthew 5:1-12 on 1/29/17

Reflections on the Beatitudes

If I could ask Jesus a question or two about Matthew 5, my first question would be this: What do you mean “blessed are”? Does it mean that mourning is a blessed state that is to be pursued? Does it mean that we find a sense of blessing or a tangible blessing when mourning happens in our lives, but we don’t need to seek it out? Is mourning a basic reality of a faithful life and so we will receive the blessings that inherent in that life, through mourning and these other realities?

This passage seems confusing to most of us. It seems like a good one to hear on All Saints’ Day or at a funeral, when we can attribute the blessings to those faithful who have died and now rest in light. They have inherited and surely now they are blessed. As for the rest of us, we just muddle about as best we can.

How, then, do we sort out the bits about salt and light? Or that part about the law?

When Matthew, the author of this gospel, wrote, he was organizing the teachings and works of Jesus for a Christian community of Jews and Gentiles, people gathered in hope for the kingdom of God at hand. Matthew knows that the spread of the gospel, the very reality of God’s relationship with creation, depends in large part on this early community understanding what is at stake for them in following Christ.

They cannot take for granted that it will be easy or that they will not suffer. The struggle itself is not what brings blessing. There is an inherent state of blessedness, of inner joy and peace, that comes from knowing that the kingdom is at hand and that God has chosen to use you as part of how it comes about. Participating in God’s work- seasoning a community with faithful, loving action that points to the Light that does not fail gives shape to discipleship.

This cannot be achieved through personal, private inward religious or spiritual thought. It is a truth born out in sweat, tears, blood, water, and wine. For the early Christians, it was only when they gave themselves fully and knew that God fully using all that they had… it was then that they perceived the truth of this great sermon that there is blessing enough in being a child of God and knowing that alone is constant and unfailing.

It is the same for Christians today.