Inherit The World
Sermon
Love Is Your Disguise
Second Lesson Sermons For Lent/Easter
"The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith," so writes Paul in Romans. Abraham was a man of righteous faith but, as you know, Abraham wasn't always Abraham, the father of many nations; he was Abram who became Abraham. He got a new name, and this isn't unique only to him.
Samuel Clemens, apprentice steamboat pilot and printer, became "Mark Twain," which is a riverman's term for water two fathoms deep, or to say it another way, water barely safe for navigation.
In 1882, a baby girl caught a high fever and nearly died. She survived but lost both sight and sound. Blinded at nineteen months, she grew to become Helen Keller, the world famous author and speaker.
A young Ehrich Weiss found release from Budapest. As an adult he found release from everything else -- Harry Houdini.
John Newton sailed slave ships, delivering human commodity to the new world. Later he wrote the lyrics for the hymn "Amazing Grace."
The foster son of a Thembu chief, raised in the tribal culture of South Africa and imprisoned for more than 25 years, became the nation's Nobel Prize winning president, Nelson Mandela.
Mohandas was the husband in an arranged marriage when he was age thirteen. Sent to London to study law, he later became interested in the rights of the Indian people. He became Gandhi.
Saul, the persecutor of Christians, became Paul, the evangelist to the world.
Simon, son of John, fisher of fish, became Cephas or Peter, fisher of men, follower of Jesus, the Rock upon which Christ built his Church.
And Abram, called at age 75 to strike out for the land of promise, became Abraham, father of many nations, because he was faithful to God.
So as Paul writes, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Abraham believed in what God had revealed and received the world as an inheritance. But was the world any more an inheritance to Abraham than it is to us? And if it is for us as it was for Abraham to inherit the world, how can this, and how will this, be done? Paul again writes, "The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith."
And if this is true, is it not also true that the law to which we are subject, the law which restrains, is the law of our low expectations of what God can do in our world; the law of the low expectations of what the power of God can use in our midst; the law of the low expectations of what God can do in us and through us for the reclamation of all of God's children and for the reclamation of the world for this time and for all time?
After Jesus has been arrested, he stands before Pilate, the world's judgment standing poised to bring its wrath upon him. Pilate asks Jesus in chapter 18 of John, "So you are a king?" and Jesus answers, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice."
Pilate asks him, "What is truth?" And Pilate's question echoes throughout the ages. It is a question for us today.
What is truth? What is the law of truth to which we give our allegiance? Which Truth of the many truths will be the ultimate Truth for us?
For Abram it was the Truth of God as revealed to him, the Truth which called him. It was very far into his life journey to set out for the land of promise and to become the father of many nations because he heard God's voice and was faithful to what he heard.
But that is what Abram did, without regard to age, without regard to hardship, without regard to comfort, without regard to conventional wisdom.
In the year 1925 at Dayton, Tennessee, there was a battle over "truth" being waged in a courthouse during two sweltering weeks of July. Famous attorneys were doing battle over "what is truth?"
A 24-year-old science teacher/football coach had been teaching evolution, and the fundamentalist South was exercised. How did the world come into being? How was it created? What role did God play? Is the Bible true? were questions flying about. A southern law against teaching evolution was being challenged in the courts, and a circus/county fair atmosphere enveloped this small Tennessee mining town as the world's attention focused on the town and the question, "What is truth?" Modestly fictionalized in a 1960 film, conservative prosecuting attorney Matthew Harrison Brady, after being asked by defense attorney Henry Drummond, "How old do you think this rock is?" proclaims "I am more interested in the Rock of Ages than I am in the age of rocks!" And for us gathered here today and for the people of God in general, we are equally concerned with "What is truth?"
If we are to inherit the world then how will we inherit it, and what will be the nature of our inheritance? How will we hear God's voice and understand God's revelation? How will we set out for lands promising and inviting, and how will we be in partnership with God in our living and in our stewardship of the God-giveness of all that is, so that others will find the world to come promising, inviting, and hospitable?
Abram set out because he had heard God's voice and understood what he heard to be Truth. He set out for a place which God revealed to be good, and because he followed and because he listened, he became Abraham, the father of many nations; he became the fruitful one. He was blessed and was a blessing to many nations who looked to him as "patriarch, father, source" but not The Source.
So how shall we go forth and what will be our Truth? Is the Bible true? Even today there is much discussion about how the universe was created. Through our scripture, much is revealed about God's will and about persons who struggled and lived faithfully, who became great examples and teachers of how God would have us live. In our Bible we receive great teaching, lessons, and insights, and we also learn much about how the people of faith 3000 years ago understood their world.
But for us, in this time, the question is not whether or not we will be more interested in the Rock of Ages than in the age of rocks; it is a question of whether we will be faithful to the Rock of Ages and interested in the age of rocks. Where will we find our Truth? We will find our Truth in the scriptures and in all of the multifaceted ways that God reveals Truth to us, about our world, about ourselves, and about God's desire for us in our living. We do not reject temporal knowledge in favor of eternal knowledge. Rather temporal knowledge is a part of eternal knowledge as fragmented, as incomplete, as imperfect as is the state of our current understanding. It continues to be a part of what God is revealing to us. We use temporal knowledge within the frame of eternal Truth.
Our native American friends have a saying: We do not inherit the world from our grandparents, but rather we borrow the world from our grandchildren.1
God's promise to Abram who became Abraham was that he and his descendants would inherit the world. And likewise to us and to our descendants, it is God's promise that we will inherit the world. We have inherited the world, and we will pass the world to our descendants as an inheritance. Which is to say, it is not given to us to be used up as a disposable commodity but rather given to us as a trust, and therefore we are given a name: steward, trustee, guardian, caregiver. And so we must ask, how will the world and all that abides therein be passed along to those who come after? How can we pass along what is best, what is right, what is wise, what is beautiful, what is true? Listen to the voices of those who have gone before us, and be guided by their learning as much as by our own. Listen to the ones who will come after us and be guided by their needs as much as by our own. Listen to the voice of God, to the voice of eternal Truth, as revealed in the scriptures and elsewhere, and let God's desire, God's hope, God's love always be the divine frame by which the picture of our living is shaped.
Jesus tells the story:
The kingdom of heaven will be like when a man going on a journey calls together his servants and entrusts to them his property. To one he gives five talents, to another two and to another one, to each according to his ability.
Immediately the one with five talents trades them and makes five talents more; likewise the servant with two talents makes two talents more, but the servant who has received one talent digs a hole in the ground and hides his master's money.
After a long time the master of those servants returns to settle accounts with them.
He who received the five talents comes forward, bringing five talents more, saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more."
And the master says to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master."
Also the one who had two talents comes forward, saying, "Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more."
The master says to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master."
Now he who had received the one talent comes forward, saying, "Master, I know you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."
But his master answered him, "You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away ..." (Matthew 25:14-30, author paraphrase)
And so it will be that one day God will desire to know what is the condition of that which has been inherited, when we will come to the Master to return what has been borrowed. There is a great temptation to think: what we have is ours to dispose of as we will. But in our hearts we know better, and one day the Master, the owner, will return to take stock of our stewardship. Let us listen to the voices of those who have gone before us and be guided by their learning as much as by our own. Let us listen to the ones who will come after us and be guided by their needs as much as by our own. Let us listen to the voice of God, to the voice of eternal Truth, as revealed in the scriptures and elsewhere, and let us let God's desire, God's hope, God's love always be the divine frame by which the picture of our living is shaped. If we can do these things seeking to partner with God in fulfilling God's will and purposes in the living of these days, then we too will be given a new name. We, with Abraham, will be called "Faithful." Inherit the world and in so doing, be faithful.
____________
1. Herb Miller, Speech, Church of the Master, Westerville, Ohio, November 5, 1996
Samuel Clemens, apprentice steamboat pilot and printer, became "Mark Twain," which is a riverman's term for water two fathoms deep, or to say it another way, water barely safe for navigation.
In 1882, a baby girl caught a high fever and nearly died. She survived but lost both sight and sound. Blinded at nineteen months, she grew to become Helen Keller, the world famous author and speaker.
A young Ehrich Weiss found release from Budapest. As an adult he found release from everything else -- Harry Houdini.
John Newton sailed slave ships, delivering human commodity to the new world. Later he wrote the lyrics for the hymn "Amazing Grace."
The foster son of a Thembu chief, raised in the tribal culture of South Africa and imprisoned for more than 25 years, became the nation's Nobel Prize winning president, Nelson Mandela.
Mohandas was the husband in an arranged marriage when he was age thirteen. Sent to London to study law, he later became interested in the rights of the Indian people. He became Gandhi.
Saul, the persecutor of Christians, became Paul, the evangelist to the world.
Simon, son of John, fisher of fish, became Cephas or Peter, fisher of men, follower of Jesus, the Rock upon which Christ built his Church.
And Abram, called at age 75 to strike out for the land of promise, became Abraham, father of many nations, because he was faithful to God.
So as Paul writes, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Abraham believed in what God had revealed and received the world as an inheritance. But was the world any more an inheritance to Abraham than it is to us? And if it is for us as it was for Abraham to inherit the world, how can this, and how will this, be done? Paul again writes, "The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith."
And if this is true, is it not also true that the law to which we are subject, the law which restrains, is the law of our low expectations of what God can do in our world; the law of the low expectations of what the power of God can use in our midst; the law of the low expectations of what God can do in us and through us for the reclamation of all of God's children and for the reclamation of the world for this time and for all time?
After Jesus has been arrested, he stands before Pilate, the world's judgment standing poised to bring its wrath upon him. Pilate asks Jesus in chapter 18 of John, "So you are a king?" and Jesus answers, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice."
Pilate asks him, "What is truth?" And Pilate's question echoes throughout the ages. It is a question for us today.
What is truth? What is the law of truth to which we give our allegiance? Which Truth of the many truths will be the ultimate Truth for us?
For Abram it was the Truth of God as revealed to him, the Truth which called him. It was very far into his life journey to set out for the land of promise and to become the father of many nations because he heard God's voice and was faithful to what he heard.
But that is what Abram did, without regard to age, without regard to hardship, without regard to comfort, without regard to conventional wisdom.
In the year 1925 at Dayton, Tennessee, there was a battle over "truth" being waged in a courthouse during two sweltering weeks of July. Famous attorneys were doing battle over "what is truth?"
A 24-year-old science teacher/football coach had been teaching evolution, and the fundamentalist South was exercised. How did the world come into being? How was it created? What role did God play? Is the Bible true? were questions flying about. A southern law against teaching evolution was being challenged in the courts, and a circus/county fair atmosphere enveloped this small Tennessee mining town as the world's attention focused on the town and the question, "What is truth?" Modestly fictionalized in a 1960 film, conservative prosecuting attorney Matthew Harrison Brady, after being asked by defense attorney Henry Drummond, "How old do you think this rock is?" proclaims "I am more interested in the Rock of Ages than I am in the age of rocks!" And for us gathered here today and for the people of God in general, we are equally concerned with "What is truth?"
If we are to inherit the world then how will we inherit it, and what will be the nature of our inheritance? How will we hear God's voice and understand God's revelation? How will we set out for lands promising and inviting, and how will we be in partnership with God in our living and in our stewardship of the God-giveness of all that is, so that others will find the world to come promising, inviting, and hospitable?
Abram set out because he had heard God's voice and understood what he heard to be Truth. He set out for a place which God revealed to be good, and because he followed and because he listened, he became Abraham, the father of many nations; he became the fruitful one. He was blessed and was a blessing to many nations who looked to him as "patriarch, father, source" but not The Source.
So how shall we go forth and what will be our Truth? Is the Bible true? Even today there is much discussion about how the universe was created. Through our scripture, much is revealed about God's will and about persons who struggled and lived faithfully, who became great examples and teachers of how God would have us live. In our Bible we receive great teaching, lessons, and insights, and we also learn much about how the people of faith 3000 years ago understood their world.
But for us, in this time, the question is not whether or not we will be more interested in the Rock of Ages than in the age of rocks; it is a question of whether we will be faithful to the Rock of Ages and interested in the age of rocks. Where will we find our Truth? We will find our Truth in the scriptures and in all of the multifaceted ways that God reveals Truth to us, about our world, about ourselves, and about God's desire for us in our living. We do not reject temporal knowledge in favor of eternal knowledge. Rather temporal knowledge is a part of eternal knowledge as fragmented, as incomplete, as imperfect as is the state of our current understanding. It continues to be a part of what God is revealing to us. We use temporal knowledge within the frame of eternal Truth.
Our native American friends have a saying: We do not inherit the world from our grandparents, but rather we borrow the world from our grandchildren.1
God's promise to Abram who became Abraham was that he and his descendants would inherit the world. And likewise to us and to our descendants, it is God's promise that we will inherit the world. We have inherited the world, and we will pass the world to our descendants as an inheritance. Which is to say, it is not given to us to be used up as a disposable commodity but rather given to us as a trust, and therefore we are given a name: steward, trustee, guardian, caregiver. And so we must ask, how will the world and all that abides therein be passed along to those who come after? How can we pass along what is best, what is right, what is wise, what is beautiful, what is true? Listen to the voices of those who have gone before us, and be guided by their learning as much as by our own. Listen to the ones who will come after us and be guided by their needs as much as by our own. Listen to the voice of God, to the voice of eternal Truth, as revealed in the scriptures and elsewhere, and let God's desire, God's hope, God's love always be the divine frame by which the picture of our living is shaped.
Jesus tells the story:
The kingdom of heaven will be like when a man going on a journey calls together his servants and entrusts to them his property. To one he gives five talents, to another two and to another one, to each according to his ability.
Immediately the one with five talents trades them and makes five talents more; likewise the servant with two talents makes two talents more, but the servant who has received one talent digs a hole in the ground and hides his master's money.
After a long time the master of those servants returns to settle accounts with them.
He who received the five talents comes forward, bringing five talents more, saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more."
And the master says to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master."
Also the one who had two talents comes forward, saying, "Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more."
The master says to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master."
Now he who had received the one talent comes forward, saying, "Master, I know you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."
But his master answered him, "You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away ..." (Matthew 25:14-30, author paraphrase)
And so it will be that one day God will desire to know what is the condition of that which has been inherited, when we will come to the Master to return what has been borrowed. There is a great temptation to think: what we have is ours to dispose of as we will. But in our hearts we know better, and one day the Master, the owner, will return to take stock of our stewardship. Let us listen to the voices of those who have gone before us and be guided by their learning as much as by our own. Let us listen to the ones who will come after us and be guided by their needs as much as by our own. Let us listen to the voice of God, to the voice of eternal Truth, as revealed in the scriptures and elsewhere, and let us let God's desire, God's hope, God's love always be the divine frame by which the picture of our living is shaped. If we can do these things seeking to partner with God in fulfilling God's will and purposes in the living of these days, then we too will be given a new name. We, with Abraham, will be called "Faithful." Inherit the world and in so doing, be faithful.
____________
1. Herb Miller, Speech, Church of the Master, Westerville, Ohio, November 5, 1996
