Good  morning!  Grace to you and peace as we gather as children of God.  I’m happy to be here among you again to share the good news we have in Christ.  Thank you for that privilege.  I was especially appreciative of Pastor Paul Tainter’s messages that lifted up just how much we are loved by our Lord.   Those words from the song he taught us have kept running through my mind recently and have lifted me up.  Remember them?  “What the Son sets free, is free indeed.  I’m a child of God, yes I am!  YOU are a child of God, yes you are!.” 

Our Psalm for today reflects our human desire to know our true living relationship with God.   “Show me your marvelous lovingkindness, O Savior…Keep me as the apple of your eye and hide me under the shadow of your wings.”  What an intimate and beautiful image of the presence and comfort of a loving Father/Mother God who wants us to remember each and every day…”I am a child of God…YOU are a child of God…yes we are.”

This morning, and in the weeks to come, our texts will turn to the END TIMES and  ultimately the celebration of Jesus’ eternal reign as our one and ONLY King.  In a resurrection promise that proclaims the presence of God is ETERNAL,  we, like Job, can bravely say we KNOW THAT OUR REDEEMER LIVES, and someday, in our flesh, we shall see and know Him in fullness and joy.

But our texts are not easy ones… Paul reminds us not to be deceived, and to expect struggle, rebellion, even false gods.  He reminds us to endure and trust what we can not yet fully understand.  And in Luke’s gospel, we get a glimpse of the entrapments of this world that worship human conscripts of who God is and what the outcome of our journey on earth is really about.  Let’s look at this strange story before us today:

Jesus is in Jerusalem near the end of his earthly ministry.  Opposition has been mounting against him and some elite, upperclass priests surround him with the intent to entrap him with their superior knowledge and law based authority.  We often hear of the Pharisees, but the Sadducees were even more strident in their legalism and disdain of Jesus.  They considered only the first five books of the Bible…called the Torah, as authoritative scripture.  Meaning, they did not accept the words of the prophets or the psalms.  For them there was only Moses, Abraham, Isaac, the twelve tribes and the laws that governed every aspect of their religious life.  They did not believe in a God of grace.  They didn’t have hope in a resurrection as Jesus proclaimed, and demonstrated in the raising of Lazarus.  God was LAW…Jesus was…well, in their minds….STUPID, discountable, laughable.  And so, they asked a really stupid, and demeaning question.  According to laws that go back to Moses,  There is a hypothetical woman ( who in their view is a piece of property) who is handed down from one male heir to another.  To WHOM does she belong in the resurrection Jesus?

And Jesus…gracious Jesus, who could have ignored their rudeness, and brushed them aside, chose to answer.  Honoring their understanding of Moses, Abraham and Isaac, Jesus tells them that Moses himself experienced the resurrection promise in the burning bush.  He was shown that God is the God of Life and the God of the LIVING…Death does not hold power over those who are children of God.  Our worthiness comes in being children, humbly dependent and openly free like angels.   In saying this, Jesus gently confronts their pride as religious zealots who define themselves by constructs of law.  Their LAW is a god of their own making..NOT the God of Israel.

So what does this say to us today?  I recently listened to a marvelous sermon by a young pastor from Augsburg College.   In her role at the college, she works to encourage life enriching communities in some of the toughest areas of Minneapolis.  It was obvious that she sees the struggle within the current generations to believe that God IS truly present now…and in the future.  She posed the question that she sees lived out all around her:  HOW DO WE TRUST THIS PROMISE OF A GOD OF LIFE, WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE?  What do we turn to when thoughts and prayer and worn traditions of faith don’t seem to bring answers or meaningful change.   “Is it us?”  Are we the problem? She asks.  “Is it God?”   “WHO IS GOD really? 

She then bravely named  three current assumptions of who God is in our cultural milieu today. And they were sobering and telling. I’d like to share those with you this morning.

The first she called the “OUTER SPACE GOD.”  This is the assumption that God is all powerful…but distant…disinterested…perhaps disgusted with human dysfunction.  Barely in touch with our world, so we are really on our own.  Without a God who intervenes, we had better take control while we have a chance and try to get our world back on track.  We need a leader…a radical plan…a king who will lead us and make things great again.  This assumption leads us where?  To worship US…or a dream of US…. and that US, is ultimately an IDOL.

The second assumption is the “VENDING MACHINE GOD.”  Here is the God who we hope will listen if we just pray hard enough, work hard enough, reach for his favor.  But our vending machine God often puts up a sign that says, opps, “out of order.”  This assumption of God relies on our emotional ups and downs, and can’t be counted on. Like everything in life, there is only so much to go around and when the vending machine is empty… This assumption of god often leads us to places of despair and disillusionment,   Perhaps faith in God is an illusion after all.

The third is…The MIRROR GOD.  This is a god who looks like ME…who get’s ME…WORKS for ME.  A god who always takes MY side and helps me avoid anything I find uncomfortable.  This god lets me take what I want, even if it hurts others and puts a rubber stamp on my way of life so that I am right…I am the best, and I have god’s approval to destroy any enemy that denies me the life I deserve.  I am so right in this assumption, that I have a mandate to make MY understanding of God the only truth allowed, and denies all other “faiths” as false and dangerous.  This assumption of god is the most dangerous of all, for it lusts to BE god at all costs.

So what do these God assumptions bring to a world on fire?  A world where children are shot in schools…even in churches?  Where destruction of life feels more certain than the gift of life.   Meanwhile, Chronic loneliness accompanied by unrelenting stress is a huge reality for many today.  It’s as if we have a desperate thirst for LIFE…REAL LIFE.    Young adults, ages 18-25 are so lonely, she said.  52 Million Americans feel a sense of disconnect from meaningful community. Every act of violence is fueled with an inner rage that shouts…”WHO IS GOD?  WHERE IS GOD?  DOES GOD CARE?” 

“Thoughts and prayers,”  are NO match for the world we are living in.  Each of these assumptions of  god are VERY SMALL and Very EMPTY.   

As she continued her brave witness to the angst of godlessness, I wondered how she would refocus on a message of hope, for indeed, the weight of her words were heavy. 

“Community,” she said, is a rich way to help us understand and reconnect to the fullness of God.  And she went on to suggest that it would be within a community focused on relationships, service, and purpose empowered by love that our woefully inadequate assumptions of god would lead us back to life WITH God again. And it’s true, Community supports us to endure,  to keep the faith and to believe that in Christ, God’s eternal, loving presence IS a MATCH for this world and its troubles.  But one thing I thought she forgot to mention…and that was Jesus.  The Savior who not only helps us understand WHO God really is…but who COMES into our angst bringing the true Living God…our resurrection God…our Father/Mother God who, in amazing  LOVE…beyond anything THIS WORLD could perfect, makes us children of God NOW and FOREVER.  

And so, despite the world on fire….we can see a world held safely in the Holy, Eternal and Present hands of God our Father, our Savior and His Holy Spirit..who will keep his children as the “apple of His eye, and under the shadow of His Wing.  Amen.