BELONGING: GOD’S CALLED OUT PEOPLE
Isaiah 42: 5-9; Matthew 16: 13-20
“Two
roads diverged into the wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that
has made all the difference,” wrote beloved American poet Robert Frost. Life is
not always about taking the easy road or the lazy way, but sometimes making tougher
but richer choices. It was Yankee
catcher Yogi Berra who confused the issue when he cryptically was quoted as
saying, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it!” Baby Boomers and those older will remember
the yearly broadcast of “The Wizard of Oz” on television, on again this week.
Did anyone here see it in a theatre? As
Dorothy joyfully is told by the munchkins to “follow the yellow brick road,”
she had no portable navigation device that many have today; there was a fork in
the road where she could go left or right, and magically the only one who gave
her directions was a scarecrow who believed he didn’t have a brain. But today’s
lessons are about choices on the road of life; if you choose one road and then
regret it, usually you can backtrack and take the other one, but not without
the cost of time, money, or irritation.
Poor decisions about faith, friends, and family can make life droning,
dreadful, or disastrous. Life lived with purpose often includes some tough and
irreversible choices. Many think there is always a chance to start over, and
they are shaken by the things that do not get a do over in life. An object dropped over the rail of a cruise
ship is almost always lost for good; a girl’s first pregnancy, whether welcome
or not, does not get a do over; a foolish or inattentive driving mistake that
takes a life does not to be lived over. But when it comes to your choices for
faith, there is good news: there are do-overs for those today who chose other
gods and who now want to follow Jesus! We
don’t get a do-over after we die, but we have one this very day.
Is your life in shambles, or are you searching for a purpose driven life? Are
you a member of a church but haven’t let belonging to a church change you into
a true follower of Jesus? Today you can go back to the fork in the road and
choose the path of Christ. Some of the most important pledges we make have to
do with declarations that change our lives: citizenship vows; marriage vows,
ordination vows, promises backed by a handshake. Those words are supposed to
mean something. What about the words most of you said when you became a
Christian? Words like, “Jesus is my Lord and Savior,” or the prayer, “Jesus, I
need you; enter my heart and rule my unruly life”? The Lord Jesus had three
short years to convince followers, not to follow a yellow brick road, but to
choose a road on which no one had yet traveled. He showed them what it meant to
live out the laws of God interpreted by love, and to live gracious lives. Poor
Christian examples have too much law and no grace, or so much grace that there
is no adherence to commandments. When Jesus said “I came that you may have life
and have it abundantly,” he wasn’t throwing out the commandments; he was
following them using an additional interpretation: love God; and love your
neighbor. Jesus called follower to think of the needs of the one, when most put
greater weight on the needs of the many. The agony of that decision was
described by Jesus in the parable of the lost sheep; on film it occurred, for
example, in “Saving Private Ryan.” Jesus
also called people to regard women as people instead of property, and to value
children as living examples of the kingdom. Yet after people signed on to follow
him, he did a few things that startle them: for one thing he talked to
prostitutes, something, as we know, that has gotten others in to hot water; for
another, he overturned merchant’s tables at the Temple on the biggest selling
day of the year; and for another he said a worker who clocked in for one hour
should get the same pay as the one who worked for eight. He told a man that to get in to Heaven he
needed to sell all he had and add himself to the welfare roles. These counter-cultural comments made some who
took the road of discipleship turn back to the fork in the road and choose the
well traveled road instead. But turning back is not without its costs. First,
God said “Thou Shalt Have no Other God’s Before Me.” We have to leave our
favorite gods on the road we left in order to honor the God we will seek to
serve on the Christian road. One cannot have the gods of another religion, or
even become the ringleader of your own life, and still hope to honor God’s Ten
Commandments. This is one of those times you cannot have both/and; it must be a
choice. No one truly worships God who lives a godless life. The fork in the
road is deliberate; one way will lead to those gods made by mortals; the other
worships the Creator of angels in Heaven and mortals on Earth. The second cost
for turning back and changing courses is this: you cannot follow Christ and; true Christians follow Christ only. He came down to earth as
the Son born in
Jeffrey A. Sumner