Readings:
Sermon:
“Are you a close family?”
This question was posed to myself and my brother as he was visiting my church one weekend.
Rather embarrassingly, it turned out we had entirely different expectations about the meaning ‘close’.
Closeness is, of course, an entirely subjective concept.
Rather than an enthusiastic ‘yes!’ or a dismissive ‘no’, the wisdom of hindsight tells me that the better answer might have been, ‘close enough for us’.
“Close enough?”
Our readings today each speak of closeness in our relationship with God.
The Psalm is quite stark. It’s answer is along the lines of “you’re either with us or against us”, in the way that the psalms often bring life into sharp relief. God saves the righteous, but the way of the wicked is fraught with doom!
The story from the Old Testament, with Joshua demanding to know whether or not the people of Israel will follow the Lord, has that binary feel to it as well; except that there’s clearly some ambiguity.
Joshua asks the people, “Choose today whom you will serve”; and he demands that they put away their idols and serve the Lord.
Their reply is a bit strange. They say “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord”
Which is fair enough, I suppose, but there’s indignation in their voice.
They’re saying, “As if we would turn to idols and forsake the Lord! We’d never do anything so awful! Who do you think we are!”
Yet moments ago Joshua was having to tell them to put away their idols.
I’m quite sure that he wouldn’t have done that, if there were no idols to put away.
They had their idols. They were not so close to the Lord as they would like to think. They were embarrassed to have their pretence exposed.
We like to think of ourselves as totally devoted to the ways of the Lord. We hear passages like that in Ephesians, and imagine ourselves fully armoured up and ready for the fight, eager to take ground for the Kingdom of God. But are we really? Do we put on the armour of God, or just keep it within reach? How close to the Lord are we really?
Jesus describes ‘close’ as, you ‘abide in me, and I in’ you. I’m sure you’ve heard lots of sermons reflecting on the meaning of ‘abide in me’. Whatever it means, it must mean the closest possible relationship with him.
Jesus illustrates his point with an allusion that we can understand now in eucharistic terms.
We literally have communion with him, as we take him into ourselves.
Some of the disciples had real difficulty with this teaching, some even abandoning the way altogether.
He asks, ‘does this offend you?’, but then asks, “what it you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”
There are different ways of understanding this, but I wonder if he’s asking, if you’re offended by the idea of God being close to you, how will you feel if you see God becoming more distant?
Which is the scarier - getting closer to God, or getting further away?
God is unimaginably awesome, and in the ancient sense of the word awesome, that makes closeness to God a scary place to be.
You might feel like you want to hold onto the security blanket of a few old idols, sticking with your past ways, or to keep the armour of your discipleship close by, but without actually putting it on.
But actually there is an all or nothingness about our relationship with God. We can’t hold back as if following Christ is somehow lacking something, or that our idols will make up for something which God cannot give us.
As Peter said, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life”.
There is nothing to be gained by holding back on your discipleship, and everything to be gained by embracing it.
The armour of God will not protect you, if you’re not wearing it.
Choose today whom you will serve.
Questions:
- How can you tell whether you’re wearing the armour of God, or just admiring it on its display stand?
- What does it feel like to have Christ abiding in you? (Is it arrogant to even consider that you might be able to answer that question?)
- Given the awesome nature of God, how might you encourage a faith-seeking friend to accept Christ (without scaring them off)? Or alternatively, share with one another how you yourself made your decision for Christ.