Always Faithful--At Least God Is!    

Rev. Dr. Michael Stotts

Gen. 28:10-18a

Mt. 13:24-30

              The United States Marines have it as their motto--you've heard it: Semper Fidelis--which means what?  "Always Faithful"-- or even "forever faithful."    Certainly that's an admirable  guide for life -- not just as a Marine, but for all of us.  For think what the world would be like if all of us were . . "always faithful!"

              Unfortunately, however faithfulness has seemed in recent years, to be less and less an important value for many in our society in recent years.    From high divorce rates, to the declining number of persons even seeking to be married where life-long promises of faithfulness are made -- in our most basic family values--even there  people seem to be afraid to commit to faithfulness.   In the job market, it's rare these days to find either employees or employers who remain faithful in their relationship with each other for a lifetime---company loyalty, that is loyalty of employees to stay with one company, or the loyalty of employers to their employees.  Both seem increasingly something on which we can't depend.  Promised pensions now seem to be something that will not automatically be faithfully forthcoming.   And with the bad economic news of recent weeks, except for a couple of slightly more hopeful days this week when the price of oil dropped and the stock market went up -- well I'm sure many of us were becoming more and more afraid that this just wasn't a world that was faithful--one on which we could depend.  We could sight countless other examples of unfaithfulness on the part of human beings these days.  

              We might even then begin to wonder, as a people of faith--where's God while all this is going on?   For clearly we need help.  Well fortunately, our scripture readings tell us that while others may seem to be increasingly unfaithful, in what we have done with the world,  at least God is faithful!

              In the story of Jacob-- his dream -- Jacob's ladder--  we heard God's promise to Jacob,  that that place where he was staying would become God's house, and that no matter how scattered Jacob's people became,  God would always be with them, wherever they were, and indeed, that God would always be working to bring them back to that place--to bring them home again--home again to God.

              As God's people today,  how comforting it is to hear those words for us, too: no matter how scattered our lives get, God will bring us home.   God will  always be faithful--even if most others in our world seem at times not to be.   Those are comforting words to hear this morning, are they not--in the midst of what too often seems our unfaithful world?

              But then I know--we're often skeptical--especially in troubled times like these--when we're at war in the world, and the world and it's economy seems at war with us.    Yet isn't it true that in each of our lives, though we've always had to face hard times, that yet each time --God has taken what seemed to be the real struggles of our lives and have brought new life out of them. Times of peace following war, as we've learned from our experiences, how futile  war is.  Times of prosperity, after difficult economic times, having learned from those tough times how many resources God has given us to survive and yes, even prosper, through the difficult times.   And even in the worst times of our lives--when we've lost loved ones, or experienced a family tragedy -- God brings families together,  and we realize how valuable the love of our families is, and behold, God has a way of bringing new life to our families even after that loss, with new opportunities, for hope, for love, for life!   So God is faithful-- we can count on it!    Our New Testament reading told us the same thing.   In Jesus parable of the good seeds and the weeds, the message was clear again that God would always be faithful to God's people--to those who in turn have been faithful to God.

              In a way, God in God's faithfulness, is a bit like one of my little league coaches was when I was a boy.  That coach understood, for young kids, how important it was for all of us to get a chance to play.  So he made a promise to us at the beginning of the year that everyone of us, in every game would get a chance to play, at least part of the game.    And indeed he was faithful to that promise, and we loved him for it.  Especially those of us who for one reason or another may not have been the star of the team shall we say?--who had borderline talents?  Yet everyone played.  The only trouble was that as a result, as a team we weren't really very good.  In fact we lost every game for the first half of the season that summer.

              And as a result, even though we got to play, and the coach was faithful about it, yet all of us started to get a little down, to say the least as we lost game after game.  So finally, at mid-season, our coach had a team meeting to talk it over with us, and let us all decide together, and together we made the decision that for the rest of the season, he would play the better players in an effort to win, though, the coach promised, he would still make an effort to use all of us in different ways.

               So for example, yours truly, who was-- at a young age, all arms and legs, and not the greatest fielder-- I no longer started or played much even in right field, where few balls are hit.  Instead I was used as a pinch hitter, because I was much better at hitting than fielding, and the manager also had me coach third base.  And he did the same with other kids, using us where our skills fit best, so we'd still be a part of the team, but using the best players for the main line-up.  As a result, we won all the rest of games, and very nearly finished first in our league.  I'll never forget my excitement, being the one who sent in the winning run, with the runner just beating out the throw home, in our last game, giving us that perfect, last half of the season record.   Our manager, you see, was faithful, faithful, for that first half of the season, sticking to his promise to play us all, and then, after getting all of us to decide together, was faithful in teaching us how to be a winning team--with  the emphasis on team. In both halves of the season, you see, he was faithful, and so taught us several  valuable life lessons in that one season.

              So it is with our loving, always faithful God.   Like my coach that year God will always be there for us, supporting us and seeking to do what is right--remaining faithful even through the difficult times.  And at times when we think God, again like my coach, may seem to going back on some promise to us, it will be because God is indeed being faithful--that is in doing what's best for us in the long run--best for all of us--and what's best for us a people--as a team.

              Which reminds us then that God made us to work together as people--to yes be faithful to one another, and to act not as individual lone rangers--but as people who love our neighbor, as ourselves--who work together.      In that season with our little league coach, I'll admit there were times when I was disappointed that I just wasn't at a place where I was good enough to be a coordinated baseball player--I was a long gangly youth.  But God  had given me some other skills, a sharp mind and good judgment skills, so as a third base coach I did well, and our manager, appreciating the value of all of us, no matter how good or bad we were as individual players, found ways for us each to excel.  So he  was being faithful to us--finding a way to bring good times out of bad--being faithful to us even as that promise to play in every game was broken.

              So it is for you and me, don't you see--even in hard times--when the world seems to be unfaithful.  God also finds a way to be faithful to us--to bring us home again, as he promised Jacob, to bring new life, even out of the hardest of times, with each of us being stronger as a result.  After all, it's during those hard times, is it not, that  God teaches  us--shows us-- some hidden strengths and the ability to persevere that we didn't even know we had.

              When I was in school, I find it interesting, looking back now, to see that some of the teachers who taught me the most, were those who not only cared about me, but also demanded a great deal of me--who pushed me to do the work they felt I could do.   Like Mr. Brady--my civics teacher in high school who taught me to be interested in the workings of government, because he made us work hard at learning not only the mechanics of our government, but to look at the why questions behind the way the government worked.  Because he pushed us hard, expecting much of us,  we learned, and remembered.

              So it is with our faith my friends.  When we understand God demands much of us, and yield to those demands and seek to discipline ourselves in the living of our faith, we find we're much happier, for in the process, we've  gained some new strengths we didn't know we had for facing the next crisis that comes along.   God has shown us, through the hardship, the God-given strength s we all have, that maybe we didn't even realize we had.  The discipline, having to work at and practice using those inner strengths--like all exercise and hard work--makes us stronger,  not weaker.  So yes, God is faithful to us, even through the hard times, bringing us always to new life--and all the stronger for it.

              But then even if God is faithful to us, Jesus parable seems to indicate to us that if we are not faithful to God---the fires of hell await.   Is God's love unfaithful to us then--when we stray, as people too often do today, from being faithful, as we said in the beginning this morning/  What about this fiery furnace business.   Well clearly Jesus here is talking in metaphors--he's given us a parable about weeds, and what else do you do about weeds that have not only failed to faithfully produce, but have hurt the plants around them?  What else do you do with them at harvest time, but dispose of them or burn them up?   Knowing God as an all-loving, and forgiving God, however, I have trouble believing that God actually condemns some people to a literal fiery furnace.  On the other hand I do think it's clear,  God wants us to be faithful-- to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.  And isn't it true:  when we fail--any of us-- to be faithful-to others and God--isn't it true that then we only hurt ourselves?

               We said earlier that we were made, you and I by God to work best when we work together--to be a loving people for one another, so if we fail in that love we do only hurt ourselves.   In a similar way, if we are disloyal, rather than faithful to God, do we not then cut ourselves  off from God--the one who made us in the first place?   If we're not faithful, we've said in effect, the heck with you God--I'll do my own thing, not yours.  Well that's fine, as long as we realize that when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, and when we  hurt God, we only cut ourselves off from God.  When we do that, even our always faithful God, who is always is still  trying to bring us home again, like that promise to Jacob, even our always faithful God can't reach us--for in our  unfaithfulness  we have been the ones to make a living hell . .  for ourselves.   We've spoiled our loving community that would always take us in, and separated ourselves from God, who's always trying to bring us to new life.

              When I was in college, as a part-time job, I filled and serviced vending machines. Now there's an eye-opening experience--as it was for me-- of how people often  hurt themselves, by their own behavior.    Vending machines, of course are notorious for swallowing your money and not giving you what you wanted?  But in that job, I learned that nine times out of ten, the reason the machines would break down is because people did not read the directions carefully, and so operated the machine improperly.  They'd try to open the food door, for example before they'd put in the money, and so the machine would jam. Or they wouldn't put in enough money and then, would try to force something out of the machine.  Or they wouldn't look carefully at the buttons they were pushing and would select the wrong item.  Or they would simply be impatient, not even waiting until the money had dropped all the way down into the machine before trying to tell it what was wanted.

              This of course would make people angry, because no one wants to admit  something was their fault compared to a dumb machine. One man, on the night shift at one of the plants where I had machines, even took a sledge ham-mer one night to a machine, because he didn't get what he wanted.  That was the most extreme example, but as I say, nine times out of ten, when the mach-ines didn't work  it was the fault of some customer who didn't follow directions.

              And so it is in our relationship with God. Things do get to be a hell for us you see, when we don't follow directions --when we fail to trust that God will provide and be there for us, always bringing us home--and instead try always to just do what we want, to get what we want, no matter what.  If we're not faithful we create our own hell, but when are faithful, behold, we find a loving God, always willing to forgive, to bring us home again, to provide a harvest for us, instead of fires of our own making.

              So yes,  sometimes the world seems unfaithful, but fear not.  God's working on it--trying to find ways to make us even stronger in difficult times, and bring us to ever new life.    All we have to do is keep our faith, and keep on being faithful--follow directions--loving  God and those around us.   If we will, there will be just that much less hell on earth, and in the end God will always bring us  home--yes, even after death itself --eternally.         So ask not whether the world is going to hell, ask instead what can I do to stay faithful-- regardless.   And then trust in God--for we can count on it-- God is . . always faithful.   Amen.