July 6, 2009 — 11:07 AM
Can I have Option A?
Texts: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Mark 6:1-13
What a study in contrasts we have in our Scripture passages this morning. We are given two very different outcomes for people who listen to God and follow God’s will for their lives.
First, we have David. He listened to God and followed God’s will for his life and in the process he won not only the support of his family and the members of his own tribe but also from all the tribes of Israel. These tribes had been fiercely loyal to Saul and Saul’s descendents up until this point, making it impossible for David to become the king even though many years had passed since Samuel had anointed him as the next king over Israel and Judah. Once David had consolidated the support from all of the tribal members, he was finally able to become king, claiming Jerusalem as his residence, and growing ever more powerful.
And then we have Jesus and the disciples. Jesus, God incarnate, returned to his hometown after having a great start to his ministry. He had healed many people and attracted great crowds who wanted to hear his teaching. But when Jesus tried to teach to his neighbors and friends in his hometown he was met with skepticism and questions about his authority. These people knew him as a carpenter. And that for them in no way qualified him to speak about the nature of God’s kingdom or to speak on God’s behalf. And the disciples, whom Jesus sent out to continue his work, were sent with only the clothes on their back and their staff. They were not to take anything else – no luxury items, not even the basics for survival on their own. They were to depend on people who were willing to take them in and give them a place to heal and teach.
David listened to God and was welcomed and given great power and material wealth. Jesus and his disciples listened to God and were met with hostility and a stripping down of their material wealth. If you were offered the option of following God’s will for your life and having it turn out either like (A) David or (B) Jesus and his disciples, wouldn’t you choose Option A – David? I certainly would!
Who volunteers to be met with skepticism, hostility, and questions about one’s authority to teach? And who volunteers to give up all they have to strike off and rely on the charity of others as they do God’s work? I’m sure some people do, but it is definitely not the norm. I think most of us would prefer to be financially secure as well as welcomed and respected by those around us.
There is a propensity in religious communities, whether it’s acknowledged or not, to believe that if all is right between God and a person, then that person will have good health, will prosper, and generally will have good things happen to him or her. This belief isn’t just made up out of our desire to be well-off, it is actually based in stories from the Bible. Can you think of any Bible passages or stories that reinforce the understanding that being a good Christian or having everything right with God will result in good things for a person’s life?
Maybe you think of Esther who took great risks and ended up becoming a beloved Queen. Or her uncle Mordecai who stood by the gates and after helping Esther know what action was needed in their situation entered the inner sanctum of power with the king. Or maybe you think of Abraham who listened to God, uprooted his whole family and was promised descendants as numerous as the stars.
In addition to our story of David for this morning, two examples came to my mind. The first comes from the beginning of the story of Job. Listen to how that story begins:
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. (Job 1:1-3)
Job was blameless and upright, fearing God and the size of his family and the number of animals he owned and servants he had working for him showed it. He prospered because he was a God-fearing man. When all of this gets taken away from him as a test of his faith, his friend Eliphaz asks, “Who, being innocent has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?” He obviously thinks that Job has done something to deserve punishment from God. And Jobs other friends show they hold the same opinion as they seek to counsel Job and offer him advice on how to make things right.
Job’s story was shocking to those who originally heard it and passed it along because it went against traditional knowledge. Everyone knew that if one were upright and feared God then good things would happen. But if a person sinned against God then judgment would come in the form of disaster. But this was not the case with Job. He was an upright man and still disaster befell him. In the end he was exonerated by God and was once again blessed by God with a large family and wealth. But for a while, this upright man had all of that stripped away.
A second story that sprang to my mind comes from the Gospel according to John. The story tells of Jesus healing a man who was born blind. It begins, “As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” The disciples’ question shows the conventional wisdom of the day. If someone had a physical disability or suffered in other ways, it showed that either that person or that person’s parents had sinned.
But Jesus upended traditional thinking here by saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Jesus pushed back on his disciples’ assumptions to argue that not all bad things that happen are signs that someone has sinned. Sometimes people experience difficulties or have disabilities so that God can work through the situation and God’s glory can be shown.
These stories both show us that people have long held the belief that health and wealth are signs of being right with God. But these stories also show that God has other ideas – that health and wealth are not necessarily indicators that all is right with God. Just because someone has a disability or looses wealth or property because of a disaster, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that person (or a relative) has sinned. And likewise, just because people have a lot of wealth or property or look like they have a good life it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are upright and God-fearing.
Personal health and wealth and one’s standing with God are not linked in that way.
And yet, the feeling persists for many people that they are. There is a large movement in our country to preach what some have called “The Prosperity Gospel.” This line of thinking pushes people to believe that if they are right with God then God will bless them with good health and lots of wealth. They should have a large home. They should own many fancy cars. All of this is seen as outward signs of God’s good pleasure with a person.
I find this type of thinking troublesome though because it leads us back to a situation like that in the Gospel of John. We blame the people who are not in perfect health or aren’t fabulously wealthy, telling them that it is all their fault that this is the case in their lives. It might be because of their own actions, but it very well might be because of something else, something outside of these people’s control.
Our Scripture passages for this morning don’t tell us that God was displeased with Jesus and the disciples and that’s why they met with such a rough time. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
The passages for this morning tell us that God was with both David and Jesus and the disciples. In David’s case, God’s presence helped him to have great authority and to become king. And that, in turn, brought with it a fortress to live in as well as many material possessions. But in the case of Jesus and the disciples, the only way that people would understand that it was God working through them and not something that they were doing on their own was to go out with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their staffs.
God was with them all – working in and through them to make God’s glory known. But God was working in different ways. God can work through powerful people as well as seemingly non-powerful people.
God wants to be with us as well – working in and through us in whatever situation we find ourselves. Maybe we will be blessed with good health and financial security because of it or maybe we won’t. If we are, we should always remember that it comes from God and share of it generously with those around us in need so that our actions may give glory to God – the giver of all good gifts.
If we are not blessed with good health or many material possessions, I would encourage us to resist the urge to jump to the conclusion that God is not pleased with us or is punishing us. We should take stock of our lives, make sure that we are right with God and then trust that God will provide exactly what we need from the people around us.
That’s a hard thing to do. It puts us in a vulnerable position. We don’t like to be dependent on others. We would much rather provide for ourselves. But God wants us to be open to these types of situations because this is a way that God reminds us that it’s not about us and how we will provide everything for ourselves, but rather it’s about God and how God will provide for us.
God calls us to open ourselves up to God’s presence working in and among us. God calls us to be wholly dependent on God. And when we do we will be blessed by God – maybe in large ways or maybe in small ways. But our lives will show God’s glory to those around us and that is the true blessing. Amen.
Prayer: God of steadfast love, you promise to be with us, working in and through our lives no matter what situation we might find ourselves in. Help us to be open to being used by you. Help our lives to bring glory to your name. We pray this in the name of your precious son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
