he who has eyes...

Sermon given at the Near West Vineyard Church on May 3, 2009.
In-line audio of the sermon.

Though the critical reviews are making it seem as if it’s not going to be a good move for the franchise, the newest X-Men movie came out on Friday. Has anyone seen it yet? Did you like it? I have a mild curiosity. I’ve always been more of an indie/underground sort of fan of all things, so when it came to my comic book fandom, I was never the biggest fan of Wolverine since everyone else was. I always thought the lesser series like X-Force were FAR superior to the more well-known ones like X-Men or Spiderman. I could imagine there are some people out there right now saying,

“Well, that’s debatable. Without the far-reaching implications of Professor Charles Xavier’s school for gifted students, none of these mutants would even have a chance to harness their powers for the good of this world!”

If that’s you saying that right now, you should know one thing. You’re a nerd. Sorry, but it’s true.

But, when I was in my comic book collecting phase… ahem… many years ago, I was always the most interested in getting the comics with first appearances of different characters. I rarely collected the greater storylines like the Infinity Gauntlet series or the X-cutioner’s Song series (nerds rejoice as this continues to ascend over everyone else’s heads!), I always tended to buy the older comics featuring the storylines of where characters came from.

And, I think this is a natural tendency. I think that we as people, not just me, are often very interested in the back-story. Look at almost any based-on-a-true-story movie. They’re all movies not because of the great climactic event in the plot-line, but because of the story that leads up to that event.

Think of the recent inspirational YouTube sensation Susan Boyle. Have you seen her? She’s the 47-year old, homely British lady appearing on Britain’s Got Talent a few weeks back. She comes on stage, looking for the world like a laughable failure. She’s frumpy, has never been in a relationship, unemployed, lives with her cats. And she wants to be a famous singer!? Come on! The whole audience is laughing at her. Then she belts out her first note of Les Miserables’ “I Dreamed A Dream” and everyone is shocked. Applause immediately erupts. While I was watching all this stoically, not crying at all, I was thinking that this wouldn’t be the slightest bit interesting if she was some hot, pop-star-ready starlet. No one would care. But with the back-story, it becomes incredibly moving.

You see, where people come from matters. And just like we today are obsessed with origin stories, so too were the people in the Old Testament. There was an underlying idea that where people came from defined who they were. Without their back-story, there wasn’t a proper gauge to figure out what kind of people these were. We see an example of a particularly twisted origin story with particularly twisted results in today’s passage.

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today. [Genesis 19:30-38]

When Rick first told me what passage I would be preaching out of today, he apologized. Upon re-reading it, I thought, “Oh great. Now I get to talk about the sin of sexual immorality and incest.” Not a great sermon topic or particularly fun message. But, I was immediately struck by the following idea. “The Moabites and the Ammonites came out of this particular story? I know them!” They were often mentioned as two of the larger enemies of early Israel, causing the people of God to stumble into sin and to worship other gods. I knew of the Moabites, but knew nothing about where they came from or why they were particularly looked down upon. You see, unlike the Israelites at the time, I didn’t have the proper origin story in mind to frame who these people were. I didn’t realize why the Israelites desired to be so isolated from these people.

But, the Israelites sure knew their origin story. They couldn’t ignore it at all. They didn’t even need to know this particular story. The name Moab actually means in Hebrew “from daddy.” In a modern translation you can think of the name Moabite as more Incestite. I’ll bet you’d know something about a group of people named the Incestites without having to know much more about them, wouldn’t you?

These two people groups, the Moabites and the Ammonites, came from a very awful and bizarre origin story. And they never really recovered from it, nor did their descendents. They were separated from God’s chosen people, worshipped other gods, and continually tempted Israel into this way of living as well. They cursed Israel, a strange story involving a talking donkey, and they tempted Israel into sexual impurity with them. Sounds about like what you would expect from the Incestites.

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the LORD and no longer served him, he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and the house of Ephraim; and Israel was in great distress. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.” [Judges 10:6-10]

And because of all of this, they were separated from God.

No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live. [Deuteronomy 23:3-6]

Whether you realize it or not, there is a predisposition that people have to consider where they are from as being the thing that defines who they are. It isn’t just true for the Israelites and other people of their time thousands of years ago. It’s true today. It’s true of me, and it’s true of you – I’ll bet. You might find yourself saying something along these lines every once in a while.

“If my parents had been wealthier, I could’ve gone to that school and been in a better job right now.”

“If my parents loved each other and showed me that, I would know how to love my spouse.”

“If I hadn’t dated that person, my life would be radically better and I’d be more emotionally well-adjusted.”

You can fill in your own statement here.

We all have these thoughts from time to time, don’t we? It’s very easy to default into thinking that where we are from defines who we are. Our origin stories are like little prisons.

But, even to the Israelites thousands of years ago, it seems as if God is trying as hard as He can to make this point clear to His people: “The thing that matters to Me is who you are in relation to Me right now and who you will become. Where you are from, who your parents are, what place you are in birth order – these things don’t matter to Me. I will use who I will use and who will be used by Me.”

Take this one minor example. To the culture of the time, the first-born son was the one who received the blessing of the father. This son became all that his father was and was most loved. If you look at the Egyptian culture, for instance, Pharoah’s first-born son was the heir to the throne. Just as Pharoah was seen as a god to his people, his first-born son was also seen as a god. This is why the tenth and final plague God casts on the Egyptians was the death of all the first-born sons in Egypt. It was God’s final stance against the greatest of the Egyptian gods – Pharoah’s son, the next in line to be king.

Now, lets looks at the heroes of the Old Testament. Does God follow these rules by placing the first-born son in his proper place in the story line? Isaac – second-born after Ishmael.  Joseph – eleventh of twelve. Jacob (who would become Israel) – second-born of twins (brother Esau), although he certainly tried to get out first and grabbed at Esau’s heel.

So, to the idea that people had at the time that the first-born son was the most honored child and would be blessed the most – God says, “No. I choose not to do it that way.” He’s saying even then that it’s not where you come from, but who you are in relation to Him.

But, people never get it. Over and over again, you see the curse of the origin story destroying people’s lives. They are stuck in the place that tells them, “This is where you are from. This is who you are.” This is what happens to the Moabites and the Ammonites, and this is what happens to countless others in the Bible. They believe the lie, they decide not to seek God, and they die.

But, God never really seems to give up though. And, eventually we see Jesus come on to the scene.

And initially, Jesus faces the same sort of assumptions. People know who he is. They know where he’s from. When people say “Jesus of Nazareth” in the New Testament, it’s not like they’re saying “Drew of Chicago.” They are throwing the “of Nazareth” on there to remind everyone who Jesus is and where he is from. Nazareth was a small hick-like town. You can imagine that at some point, Jesus turned water into moonshine. It wasn’t considered prominent. Jesus of Nazareth might be considered more of an insult.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip. [John 1:45-46]

In another account, Jesus is in his hometown, prophesying and telling people about himself, and people start to judge him because they “know” him.

Coming to his hometown, Jesus began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”

And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. [Matthew 13:53-58]

And it’s a shame that they reject him. Not just because rejecting the very Son of God is a pretty bad move, but because what Jesus came preaching and offering was something of immense importance to people who obviously were still stuck in the same old origin-story rut.

At the time, Israel was a very divided culture. There were the chosen religious elite, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and then there was everyone else. If you were not good enough to be in these elite groups (which very often had to do with who you were and where you came from), then you were a lesser citizen of the Kingdom of God. You see this over and over in the gospels. The Pharisees judge people, isolate and marginalize them, and claim some sort of superiority to them. And what does Jesus do over and over again? He goes to the marginalized, he dines with them, he parties with them, he heals them, he forgives their sins. And the religious establishment is furious!

I really wish we could’ve lived back in those days so we know what living in a culture like that was like. I mean, there’s no reference point we have today to people holding religious superiority and piety and holier-than-thou sorts of thoughts over other people. We don’t have that anywhere, do we? I think there are a lot of words Jesus would have with the Church today if he were back on earth. In a lot of ways, the Christian Church of today resembles the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. And, I’m sorry if you’ve felt marginalized by the Church. Jesus is as upset about it as you are. But, that’s a topic for another sermon.

You see, Jesus came with the message that God wasn’t just out to be close to his religious elect, but the entire nation of Israel, including the marginalized. God wasn’t out to just save his chosen people either, the people of Israel. Jesus came to bless the whole earth.

And what was the great equalizer that Jesus came to offer, that brought everyone together under one identity? His offer was one of forgiveness of the past, a death to the old self so that your origin story no longer mattered. His offer was one of new life in him, where your identity is found in Jesus Christ, not in who you are or where you come from. This was his great equalizer. Jesus offers us a birthright with God, not from our families. He offers us a place to start from and to be defined from that is of perfect origin.

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. [John 1:11-13]

And because of this new identity that followers of Christ have, the old ways of defining people, the old ways of marginalizing people, and the old ways of creating social boundaries are broken down. We later see Paul talk about the unimportance of the divisions we’ve set up in our culture.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. [Galatians 3:26-29]

This was a fantastically bold proclamation to be making in the day. Slave and free are both on equal footing? Man and woman? Jew and Greek? Really? The Jews were God’s chosen people. The Greeks have no place there. This statement was, and is still today, mind-blowing and extraordinarily revolutionary.

But more than just uniting us in some common family where we all share our origin, Christ offers us something else. More than that, he requires more of us given our new relationship and place in God’s family. And, this is where the difficulty arises. Christ offers us a new life and a new identity, this is true. But what it costs us in return is our own lives. We have to lay down everything that defines us, that we strive for of our own desire, and that we sinfully partake in just in order to embrace all that Christ offers.

In one sense, Christ redefines our job descriptions.

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [2 Corinthians 5:14-21]

From now on, those who have accepted the new life Christ offers, the new origin story – those people are now defined as Christ’s ambassadors, charged with the mission of reconciliation that Christ was on. What we once were is gone. The new has come. It’s not an easy message, and it might not be a popular one, but when we embrace Christ, we embrace his message and all that comes with it. And this might bust us out of our comfort zones, out of the natural-feeling way of life, into something else entirely.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it…

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. [Romans 8:12,15-17]

Did you catch that? Right at the end there? As part of God’s family, we become co-heirs with Christ, which is pretty cool. But of course this comes with a pretty big qualifier. We share in Christ’s glory if we share in his sufferings.

It’s not entirely clear what it would mean individually to each of us to share in Christ’s sufferings. I mean, it could mean something like leaving a relationship because of what path it is leading you down. It might mean leaving behind an old addiction because it is drawing your focus away from God. And, in a lot of ways, things of this nature might sound totally freeing. I mean, who doesn’t want to be free of addiction!? Sign me up!

But, it might also mean drastically altering your life. You should be careful. The freedom that Christ offers you from the struggles of your life when you embrace the new life he offers is fantastic. However, you never know. You may be wandering the jungles of Indonesia bringing medicine to the sick or digging wells in Africa to provide clean drinking water before all is said and done. You may end up literally sharing in Christ’s sufferings and sacrificing your actual life for living within this obligation.

The life Christ offers is infinitely more reckless and daring than you could ever imagine.

But, when it gets down to it, it’s a question of whether it is worth it. Your step of faith begins with just getting to know Jesus. And when you begin to know Jesus more, you begin to see the love that defines who he is. And when this love is given freedom to transform you, it will do so in a way that only love can. You will find yourself and your desires changed in such a way that everything else begins to become less and less important as Christ becomes more and more important. And in actual nuts-and-bolts physiological terms, this is how the new life that Christ offers begins to replace the old that is gone. What is important is that we are defined by love.

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death…

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. [1 John 3:14,16-20]

A God who is greater is a God worth laying everything down before. The God of love is a God who calls us into greater things than ourselves because we are commissioned to be the ambassadors of reconciliation that God sent Christ as the primary example of. This is the new life that Christ calls you into. A life not only free of the oppression of sin, a life not only redefined with a proper origin story, but a life of infinite importance as you serve a God who is greater.

Finally, don’t think that to embrace this gift of new life means you have to wait until you have it all figured out. Trust me, you will never have it all figured out. You’re never going to have your theology completely nailed down so you understand all there is to understand about God. All you need is a step of faith where you can say very honestly to God that you embrace the gift that he’s given you. Everything else will fall into place with time. I think of the story of the blind man healed by Jesus. He’s immediately grilled by the Pharisees about who this Jesus guy was. And did the blind man know all there was to know?

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight.

“He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”

Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?” So they were divided.

Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”

The man replied, “He is a prophet…”

“Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”

He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” [John 9:13-17,24-25]

This man didn’t have his theology of the sinless nature of Christ down. He had no idea that this even mattered. What did matter was that his old identity as the blind guy was gone. He was made new, and for this he rejoiced and believed.

Now, back to the Moabites just to conclude and bring everything full circle. God is not above redeeming anyone if they are faithful to Him – even someone from Moab. One of the greatest and most faithful characters in the Old Testament (and one of only a few women mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew) was Ruth, a woman from Moab. Here was a woman that despite her inclination to worship other gods and to be separated from God because of where she was from chose to be used by God and accept the life He offered her. When Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi gave her the option to return to her land and be freed from her obligation to care for her, Ruth declined and decided to be loyal unlike her sister Orpah.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” [Ruth 1:15-17]

God blessed her immensely to the point of using her line to bring new life in the form of Jesus to all of mankind.

Now, there are probably two types of people here today – maybe more, but let me paint with a wide brush here. Either you’re a person who hears this idea that Christ offers new life, and you’ve never embraced this truth into your own life and let it transform you. If this is you, I urge you to consider what life with Christ and the freedom and life that he offers you would be like. What would it be like to be free from addictions, bondage to your past, lack of forgiveness of others, joylessness, and being malcontent? I’m not saying that at this very moment, Christ will set you free from all of those things. I’m saying that when you become a follower of Jesus, you become someone on a path of understanding who Christ is such that all of these other things pale in comparison to knowing him more. And, in so doing, you become more like him, and therefore more like his resurrected, eternal, full-of-life self. When Christ offers you new life, he offers not just eternal salvation someday, but a life worth living now, today because the life Christ lived and that you can now choose to emulate is a perfect life lived by the very Author of Life – probably the most credible person you would ever want to go to for advice on how to live. Choosing to accept this new life right now by embracing who Christ is and choosing to live your life for him from this point on will be the greatest, most important, and I believe best decision you can ever make.

And the other type of person here, probably most of us, is a person who has already embraced Christ as savior and who knows what it means to be a follower of Christ. Yet, I challenge you. Did what I just say and offer to those who don’t know Christ sound like a great idea to you today that you rather sheepishly don’t seem to believe to the point of following? Maybe it’s just a refreshing reminder that when you say you’re a Christian, you don’t mean that you just go to church or read the Bible. It means that your life is a life lived striving towards living as Christ lived, where all the things that maybe matter a bit much to you – money, materialism, advancement in your job – all of these things are worth nothing when compared to knowing Jesus and living your life for him. It’s not just willing yourself to believe something like that, like knowing that loving money too much is bad, but really loving and trusting Christ so much that the love of money becomes a non-issue – a complete non-issue.

The pressures and pains of money and materialism, the pressures and pains of a distant and abusive family, the pressures and pains of a difficult marriage or loneliness because maybe you’re single, the pressures and pains of where you have come from and how it ties you down – all of these things mean nothing when compared to knowing Christ as the resurrected Son of God who is here, alive, today offering you life and freedom like you never imagined it. The truth of the Resurrection of Jesus that we just celebrated on Easter is not just a truth that we live by because it makes us feel better. The resurrection of Christ and the offer of new life is true because it is true. And if it is true, it means everything.

I don’t know about you, but I’m good at excuses. “Well… maybe I’ll work from home today because I can’t get anything done in the office… and maybe I’ll get a bit of work done once I play a quick game on Xbox… and maybe I’ll get a bit more done once lunch is over.” Or maybe, “Once I get through this hard spot in life… I’m just really busy with work and family and friends and church. Maybe when I’m through this season, I’ll be able to commit more fully to the promises of Jesus. Jesus still loves me anyway, right?” It’s not a question of if Jesus loves you. If he’s alive, that means he can bring new life to you again. And it means that everything of your life should be focused on the fact that he is alive. Everything else bows down to the Risen King. Every excuse is leveled in front of him for he has proven himself worthy to be worshiped.

To both of those groups: this is the life Christ offers – a life where we can strive to love him more and more every day and be more and more like him every day. Again I say, if what Christ says is true, then it is worth everything. I urge you, don’t leave here today without responding to this truth.

(Many thanks to Jay Pathak, whose Easter message this year may or may not have been stolen in part to fill in the end of my sermon.)