This sermon was preached for Sunday, September 4, 2022 at St. Mark's. The texts for this sermon were: Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17, and Luke 14:25-33.
Shia LaBeouf first got famous as a 90s TV star, then as a big time Hollywood actor. But he recently made celebrity news for his conversion to Catholicism - and a very traditional Catholicism at that. In some ways, his story is a familiar one - after rising to the heights of fame and stardom, LaBeouf became entangled in alcoholism, domestic abuse allegations, and legal troubles. It was there at rock bottom, preparing for a role as a Catholic priest, that the former agnostic found God. In an interview with Bishop Robert Barron, LaBeouf credited the traditional mass said and chanted all in Latin with his conversion. “Latin Mass affects me deeply, deeply,” he explained. “It feels like they’re not selling me a car. And when I go to some Masses with the guitars and stuff…it’s like they’re trying to sell me on an idea.” But in the Latin Mass, LaBeouf says he feels like he’s being “let in on something special.”
At this point in the Gospel of Luke, the crowds around Jesus are enthralled. They’ve witnessed powerful miracles and signs. They’re hoping that this guy has the answer they’ve been seeking. They are ready to be sold on his new, exciting idea. It is Jesus’ compassion and thorough understanding of human nature, I think, that compel Jesus to burst their bubbles. He wants them to know that the cost of following him is high, maybe too high.
Jesus is not a car salesman. Jesus is the real deal. He is not trying to convince us of an idea, the one true answer or insight that will change everything in an instant. Jesus is inviting us on a journey of transformation, to be reshaped by God. He wants his followers to know that the road ahead is steep and painful. It may involve conflict with loved ones, hardship and poverty, and unimaginable sacrifice.
Jeremiah, our Hebrew Bible prophet, has a similarly stark message for his people. If they do not change their ways, God will pluck up and break them down, like the potter who destroys a vessel in order to reform it in accordance with his vision.
When we are looking to grow the church or simply get more people to join in what we've discovered about God and the Christian life, it can be tempting to emphasize the shiny bits or only speak of the nourishment and support our faith has given us. It's important for us to remember that Jesus draws people seeking more. Jesus resonates with those who can see that his miracles both then and now are not gimmicks and easy fixes. They are the hand of God reshaping the world to the divine vision of justice and freedom. We must have the courage to say honestly that being part of the Jesus movement may not grant you wealth, it in fact be a financial strain. It may not be all fun, rest, and relaxation. It may be hard work, loads of precious time and energy. And Christian fellowship won't all be kindness and cheer, it may be hard decision-making and conflict. Yet through all that reworking we are being bound up in one other and God's vision for the world.
The transformation God has in store has a high cost. Many in this room already know this to be true. LaBeouf’s story echoes so many faith stories I’ve encountered, including my own: the divine act of being broken down to some extent or another in order to be built back up. So often, too, the building up is not through a deliberate, intellectual choice to believe. Rather the building up occurs as the unfathomable experience of mystery, as an authentic encounter with the ineffable divine. It is being let in on something special, profound, authentic - unlike anything we’ve known. Like a language we can’t understand, that speaks to us all the same.
How is this good news, this emphasis on the high cost of discipleship? Where is the good news in Jeremiah’s stark warnings about God plucking up and breaking down? Our psalmist today points the way.
Psalm 139’s beautiful, intimate language reminds us that we are in God’s hands, the potter’s hands - and that we have always been. God has been reworking and reshaping us long before we knew it. There is no part of ourselves that is walled off from God, no dark shadowy corner of our soul that God’s light cannot penetrate. Every bit of us is deeply and truly known. “For you yourself created my innermost parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Now, I’m not a potter but I am a knitter. And if you’re a knitter, too, or if you have ever watched a knitter knit, you’ll know that one of the secret joys of knitting is how easy it is to pull out the stitches you’ve just made and rework them, reusing the same yarn. Even in the reshaping, every bit of our clay is reused in the new vessel. Our clay, our yarn, our inmost parts, are transformed in God’s hands, not discarded or thrown away. Our essence is precious to God, has always been. Hear how beloved the psalmist is to God, and how clearly he knows it - “You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand on me…I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”
There is pain and sacrifice in the reworking. Rock bottom, and its descent, are desperate, miserable and isolating experiences. But there is also good news. We can trust the potter. We can trust, too, in the belovedness of our essence, our clay, even as we are being radically remade.
Comments
Post a Comment