|
|
"Remembering"
Deuteronomy 11:18-21, 26-28
A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley
May 26, 2002
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
This is the first Memorial Day since September 11th. There are many more people to honor who have been cut down in battle. Some of them went down in airplanes. Others went down in the deserts and jungles of the world. Others went down as the result of bombing raids. The point of Memorial Day is to remember them. But how do we best remember them?
We certainly remember the sacrifice they gave, and we do not take anything away from that. But part of our remembering needs to include creating in our world a climate where no one else will need to succumb to the violence or war. That takes a lifetime of work, and it is central to the Gospel.
The Bible is full of blessings and curses. Today’s scripture speaks of the blessings that happen when we follow God’s commandments. Conversely, if we do not follow the commandments, then we are subject to falling into the trap of disease, which can feel a lot like a curse.
The scripture says, "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: the blessing if you obey the commandments of God, which I command you this day, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known."
God Bless America and God Bless the USA are the new sound-byte slogans. They are the please of a people needing to believe that God has to be on our side.
You remember how Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on September 13th said one reason for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was the secularism of US society and how liberals and gays have taken too much of the center stage. Peter Laarman, the pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist church in Greenwich Village New York which has been ministering to people in the shadow of ground zero, says that there may well be some other good reasons God chooses not to bless America.
He writes, "It does not seem to occur to our suddenly devout nation that the universal prayer for blessing appearing on lawn signs, bumper stickers and shop windows might be theologically offensive, and offensive not just to thoughtful believers but to the One who is being addressed. Herewith, then, some reasons why God may not choose to grant America's petition…
1.Because, in times of stress, this prayer too often means "God Bless White America."
2.Because the world is not our oyster.
3.Because U.S.-sponsored terror has killed too many children in Iraq, Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Cuba, ________, _______, ________ (fill in the blanks).
4.Because God has been taking an immersion refresher course in Arabic.
5.Because God has had it up to here with the assumption that prayers for national exemption from pain and tragedy deserve an answer.
6.Because God is too busy processing Americans' prayers for their high school football teams.
7.Because God expects nations that enjoy extraordinary prosperity to be rather more generous with respect to international development needs than the U.S. has been.
8.Because Heaven recently laid off its switchboard operators and went to an automated answering system requiring callers to enter a 15-digit code for "God Bless America".
9.Because God takes it for granted that the bombs falling on Kabul are America's real prayers.
10. Because such a tasteless and lurid efflorescence of red, white, and blue (including flags wrapped around church steeples) gives God a massive headache."
Today’s scripture tells us to remember the things of God and the teachings of Moses. What was he talking about? The 10 commandments. We are supposed to remember the 10 commandments, but I bet not all of us can remember them. I had to look them up myself. We wouldn’t have this problem if we were in an Alabama court house, I guess.
(Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5)
Now here’s the rub. Most of us don’t know these commandments. But Deuteronomy says that we are to hold these in our hearts and in our souls. We are to bind them on our hands and between our eyes. When I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem ten years ago, I witnessed Jewish boys going through their coming of age ritual called the bar mitzvah. They had phylacteries on their hands which consisted of a piece of leather attached to their hands, wrapped around their arms and attached to a small box which was mounted between their eyes. In this box were the words of the Torah. Deuteronomy says, "You shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."
I’m just saying this because we all are guilty on some level of not knowing the foundations of our faith. When we don’t know it, it gets harder for us to follow.
We need to remember the commandments. This is one sure way to have blessings. Heck, if we followed half of them as a nation, we would be in a whole lot better shape than we are in now. Let’s see, which ones do we violate:
Do not steal? Do not steal land from our native American sisters and brothers? Do not steal human rights from people on the basis of their nationality, or their ability to hire the best lawyer or curry the most favor? Have all votes counted correctly so that the person receiving the most votes will actually be the elected official? Do not steal natural resources from our children and our grandchildren?
Do not kill? No bombings? No capital punishment? Gun control? Workplace safety? No terrorism, even when it is done in the name of democracy?
Do not covet? Does this include the oil from the ground of the middle east? How about the coffee and bananas from impoverished Latin American countries? How about our neighbor’s SUV or another church’s programs or membership roles?
Have no other gods? Does that means that our God can’t be money, or status, or peace, or victory, or even security? Does this mean that we need to spend as much time in devotion to our God than all of those other gods?
Do not bear false witness? Reading lips and pointing fingers ought to be enough? Telling the truth about rogue states or campaign contributions?
Behold, says God, I put before you blessings and curses. What you need to do is remember. Remember. Remember.
What I learned of Earl Shaw these past few months tells me that Earl was one who called us to remember. His life’s work was to make people know their place in the world—to know who makes decisions and how those decisions ought to affect you. Earl knew that real power comes from God, all else is cleverly masked illusion. He encouraged those around him to take the scales off of our eyes and make sure we see the truth. For when we do, we will be set free.
And so on Memorial Day we remember. It is a time of remembering those who have gone on before us. Perhaps we can remember all those who have gone on to their reward not only in the battles of violence and warfare, but also those who have fought in the battles with disease, and the battles against powers and principalities. They too are warriors which beg for remembrance.
So, let us remember those who have ascended before us, for we too look forward to that time when we can all be reunited in that heavenly realm of the beyond.
But you know, that’s the easy part. And a lot of Memorial Day sermons will end with this.
What we need to remember is not only the lives that were lost as we mourn our departed brothers and sisters.
We need to remember the ideals for which we live.
We need to remember the high privilege and high cost of a faithful life.
We are to bind up the words of torah in our hearts and in our minds.
We are to put them in our hands.
We are to make them frontlets between our eyes.
The writer of Deuteronomy said to do this because it showed how much the commands of God ought to be in the forefront of our minds. It ought to be the ethic we use for guiding our lives.
I would invite you to think about what tenets you use to guide your life. I want you to write them down and hold them in the forefront of your mind. Put them in your wallet or purse. Tape them to your mirror. But transfer them from a hidden place to the front place. The top place. And remember.
They might be the ten commandments.
They might be the beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5.
They might be the beatitudes known as the Gospel according to Shug Avery in Alice Walker’s The Temple of my Familiar.
They might be the vows of nonviolence taken by Soulforce pilgrims and others seeking a new way of looking at the world.
They may be the entire sermon on the mount.
The point is, we need to remember them. For if we remember those words which have the most truth to us, then we will remember who we are. When we can do that, we have received great blessings from God and we are blessings to others.
So write down those truths so that they can be self-evident in you.
Remember who you are and who you serve.
For when we do that, we bring blessings from God to ourselves and a people in need. And that, my friends is what a life of faith is all about.
May we remember and through that act, experience the blessings of God.
Amen.