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As Close As... Surrender A sermon
preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Capitol Hill United Methodist
Church March 4, 2007, Second Sunday of Lent. Text: Luke 13:31-35 --------------- If
the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent O my people, what have I done unto thee. Where
shall the word be found, where will the word O my
people, what have I done unto thee. ++++++++++ The question has haunted me for years: Why would people-why would we-be unwilling to be gathered under the wings of God? What is it that keeps us from running for our lives into the arms of God's care? Why do we stop our ears from hearing and heeding the Word of God's Wisdom and love? What is it that so lures us to continue walking in darkness, unable to see what is so clearly offered? Perhaps we can begin to understand this as we look closely at the Gospel passage in context: Jerusalem is at the heart of it all. Jerusalem is the city in which God's people wished to be gathered. And while in some ways the exile of Israel was over, with God's people returning from Babylon to Jerusalem-a kind of in-gathering-they still yearned for the fulfillment of prophetic hope: Isaiah spoke of the Lord returning to Zion as king (Isaiah 52:7-10) and this has not happened. The people longed for "the redemption of Jerusalem and the consolation of Israel. When would Jerusalem welcome her long-awaited king (Zech. 9:9)? When would the king visit the temple (Malachi 3:1-4) and cause God's spirit to be poured out (Joel 2:28-32)? When would they see at last the working out of God's plan for and through the 'holy city'?" And Jesus
comes to "his own" and they did not receive him (John 1:11).
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem as the one who could fulfill the hopes
of the people, and he is rejected. We might rather easily understand that
those in power were threatened by Jesus' challenge of the system of domination
that ruled the nation, a system in which they had their power. But why
would the "average Joe and Jane" reject Jesus? Jerusalem and
its temple were, for Israel, the center and source of their identity.
The prophetic vision for the holy city and its temple was the people's
hope. Perhaps without even knowing that it had happened, the people had
claimed Jerusalem and its temple as a possession, a powerful religious
symbol that had become an idol-taking the place of the living God as the
center and hope of their religious life. Jesus spoke of a "new temple"
and pointed to himself. He celebrated a "new Passover" and pointed
to his own death as the means of a new Exodus, a new freedom into which
the people could finally be truly gathered and restored from exile. But
the people could not-would not-receive him. They couldn't hear the good
news; they couldn't see the new thing that God was doing in Jesus. They
were caught up in the way things had always been, in the old understanding,
the old expectation. They held on to what they imagined was supposed to
happen, they waited for something to be the way they thought it should
be. Perhaps they feared losing their identity if they let these things
go. But they were holding on to something that needed to be let go if
they were to be free. It seems to me that we might ask ourselves what old messages or expectations get in the way of our receiving the Word of life in Christ. What are we holding onto that needs to be let go in order to be able to see what Jesus offers us? When you allow yourselves to be still long enough to really reflect on your life, what do you see there that keeps you at a distance from the shadow of Christ's wings? Perhaps what you see is an image of yourself as one who is simply unlovable, unworthy, unredeemable…perhaps the tempter whispers in your ear that the whole God thing is just a desperate wish-fulfillment…perhaps you see someone who believes that you're supposed to have some direct communication in a vision or something before you can trust anything-a kind of "I have to see it to believe it" orientation. Maybe the fog between you and Jesus is your own sense of guilt and helplessness-that old message that you have to clean up your act before Jesus will take you under the wings of grace. Or maybe the expectation is that you have to understand, intellectually, before you are willing to see, hear, receive the Word of God's love and care. Or-how about this one?-you're holding out for God to end all suffering on the planet before you will ever seriously consider entrusting yourself to anyone but yourself. These thoughts and expectations and noisy whispers of the tempter cloud our vision-they need to be let go if we are to move closer to Christ. These things need to be surrendered. Ah, yes. There's the word of the day. And so often that word is conceived as a negative thing: to surrender is to give up; to resign oneself to something like despair or defeat. But there is a positive side of surrender-in which surrender brings not bondage and weakness but freedom and power. But can we really embrace this positive sense of surrender? As I look at my own life, I'm aware of how difficult it is to actually let go…to release what I think is in my control, to let go of my plans, my perceptions, my habitual thoughts and actions. But more than anything, I relate to the Israelites' fear of losing their identity. If they surrendered their understanding of what God was supposed to do and how God would do it, then what did that do to their sense of self? Had everything been a lie? Had all their devotion at the temple been a waste of time? And who would they be now that they had let go of all that they had known before? Isn't this the question so many of us ask when we are at the point of surrendering to Christ? I mean, if I let go of the way I've always lived my life in order to follow Christ, to be embraced by Christ, will I really still be myself? Will I be happy? Will I be free? If I surrender to Christ, will I find myself alone? Will I even know what to do? Does surrendering to Christ mean that I have to give up my power, my agency, my gifts? And, then of course there is the big fear underneath them all: the fear of death. If I truly surrender to Christ, will I lose my life-either literally or figuratively? How can surrender bring power and freedom in the midst of all this confusion and fear? Well, it doesn't take much to recognize that fear is paralyzing and enslaving. As long as we're afraid of something, we are bound by it. When we surrender destructive messages, when we surrender distorted expectations, when we surrender our fears large and small-then we are freed to move, to live. It is this kind of surrender that I see in Jesus' response to the Pharisees who come to "warn" him of Herod's murderous intentions. Jesus was faced with violence and death. He did not surrender in the sense of "giving in" to the enemy's fear tactics. Jesus did not back down or turn away from his sacred calling to "cast out demons and perform cures." But Jesus did surrender. Jesus surrendered any pride or idolatry of the self that would have tricked him into believing that he could move the hearts and minds of Herod and other enemies by playing on their terms and not God's. Perhaps most importantly Jesus surrendered his fear. He knew he was walking into hostile territory and refused to abandon the call of God, the work of God's love and justice that he was sent to be about. Jesus surrendered his own safety for the good of the whole, for the sake of others. Jesus' surrender of his fear, his surrender of his life to God's love and power gave him the freedom to continue moving, to continue serving, healing, loving, living. If Jesus had given in to fear and pride, he would have been held hostage, unable to move or do anything with power. And yet his absolute surrender to God's will brought freedom and the power to walk through suffering and even death in ways that brought about healing and new life for the whole world. We have the same choice before us. Will we surrender anything that comes between us and our Savior? Will we surrender anything that keeps us from living the life God calls us to live with freedom and power? (Because that is precisely what we are promised: freedom and peace and power!) Or will we give in to fear and pride, allow ourselves to be blinded by worn-out and distorted images of what is possible, be enslaved by the tempter's insidious messages that would darken our minds to the love and mercy of God? We all surrender to something. To what or to whom do you surrender? And what difference does it make? // In the entrance of the RCA building in New York's Rockefeller Center is a gigantic statue of Atlas, a beautifully proportioned man who, with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders. There he is, the most powerfully built man in the world, and he can barely stand up under this burden. This is one way to live, trying to carry the world on your shoulders. But just across the street on the other side of Fifth Avenue is Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and there behind the high altar is a little shrine of the boy Jesus, perhaps eight or nine years old, and with no effort he is holding the world in one hand. We have a choice. We can try to carry the world on our shoulders-all the insecurities, wounds, injustices, doubts, needs, hardened expectations, cynicism, fears, and the terror of death-all on our shoulders; or we can surrender all of it to God in Christ. You may feel like freedom, power, peace are out of reach-impossible to really attain. Look in the mirror today and see: freedom and peace and power are closer than they appear. They are as close as surrender.
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Sermons from other years:
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Capitol Hill United Methodist
Church is a Reconciling Congregation. |
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