Sermon: As For Me...

Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Congregational Church of Brookfield (UCC)

12th Sunday After Pentecost
August 23, 2009

"As For Me..."

Joshua 24:14-18 
Ephesians 6:10-20

Prayer:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our minds and hearts gathered here this day be acceptable in your sight, Oh Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.  

             The other day was one of those days…you know the days when you want a do-over – to back up the truck and make different decisions.  We started out late at our house and then took the route that would inevitably make us even later arriving at our first destination.  Cleaning the house I used a dirty sponge on a white wall.  Then I mowed the lawn in flip flops and got tangled up in a prickly vine – cutting my foot.  Went to Home Depot and ended up “one of those people” – you know the kind who just isn’t paying quite enough attention and ends up spilling an entire can of poly stain in the middle of the aisle.  Then headed into Dunkin’ Donuts for a cup of tea – and promptly burned my tongue … there’s a warning on the side of the cup – let alone the fact that it was burning my hand.  Then it was pouring – thunder and lightning when I got back on the road to pick Brayden up from my aunt’s house. 

             At this point you may be thinking – does she want us to pity her … there are plenty of people worse off, Jen, just in case you didn’t know.  And I know that is true.  In fact I wasn’t even wallowing in self-pity at the time.  Instead I was mad at myself – calling myself pretty much every name in the book, including dummy, loser, and a few others that shouldn’t be mentioned in this particular context.  And then do you know what happened?  (My guess is that you might be wondering what hair-brained thing I managed to do next, but this part wasn’t my doing at all.)  As I was driving toward my aunt’s house a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky in front of me. 

            Now, when people see rainbows I am certain that there are about as many responses to them as there are people.  Little kids tend to think about the colors – ROYGBIV.  Some people think about the science behind them – just the right conditions coming together at just the right time.  Some people don’t notice them at all or, if they do, don’t think twice about them.  “So what?”  As for me, I looked at that rainbow and thought – wow, God, how did you know that was just what I needed right now?  A reminder of your promise to walk beside me even when I am clearly not having the most intelligent of days.  As I thought about that response – especially in the context of this week’s scripture lessons – I was reminded that although faith is a gift from God (it says it all throughout the Bible) we who believe make a conscious decision to accept that gift and to live according to it.  And sometimes that means that we’re the strange ones in the car thanking God for reminding us of the covenant we are a part of while other folks are merely admiring the pretty colors or wondering what’s for dinner.   

            “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” Joshua said as he gathered people from all different backgrounds.  He was going out on a limb there.  The custom in those days when entering a new land was to fall in behind the original inhabitants and worship whatever gods they did.  And the people Joshua had with him were people who had no other reason to stay together than a similar belief.  They weren’t family or friends necessarily.  They came from different places and different tribes.  And yet here he was asking them if they would buck all normal customs and tradition, join together as one family in faith, and follow God.  “Do you want to join me?  Or would you prefer to worship some of the other gods that have been around the way?  Do whatever you will, but decide and do it today.  If you are with me, willing to serve Yahweh, then let it be so – with faithfulness.” 

            Now much of the book of Joshua recounts what happened with the Israelites in the time of Abraham and Moses, so the promise of a nation, liberation from slavery, provision in the wilderness, God’s nearness to the people, and the covenant promise at Mount Sinai were things that weren’t far off from the experience of the folks who were blessed to enter the promised land.  So the people who followed Joshua agreed.  Right?  “We will serve the Lord too…how could we not after seeing so many amazing signs?”  And so the covenant that was made at Sinai with Moses was reaffirmed with the new Israel as they entered their new land of Canaan.  They made a conscious decision to follow the Lord, against all societal norms.  God had fulfilled God’s end of the covenant – now it was their turn.  And Joshua challenged them to do so – no matter what it took.  

            Yes, the folks who entered Canaan behind Joshua were warriors – fighters – survivors.  I know absolutely nothing about being a warrior, a soldier.  I ascribe to the saying, “I’m a lover – not a fighter.”  The closest I’ve come to being a soldier is being related to them – having two grandpas who served in the military and a brother who was in the Navy.  I remember watching my brother John leave the house on the way to the car that had been sent for him on the day he left for basic training – and being so incredibly worried about him.  He had enlisted during “Desert Storm.”  I was a freshman in high school watching my brother head off into the unknown.  I worried about him like I had never worried about anything before.  Would he be safe?  Would he make it through okay?  Was this the right decision?  (After all he enlisted in the Navy because academics weren’t his favorite, and he needed an alternative to college.)  I knew that they had come up with all sorts of new uniform and equipment safety features, but did he have everything he needed?  Now that I think back on that very early morning there was part of me, (like I said I’m a little strange) who was praying that he would know that God was right beside him giving him a totally different form of protection – praying all the things I had learned in children’s sermons, church school, and youth group. 

            When my brother entered the Navy the only thought I had in terms of armor was that which he would wear in battle should he be called to serve in a foreign land.  And because the concept of that was so foreign to me and provoked such fear in my mind, when I would hear hymns like “Onward Christian Soldier” or listen to the words from our scripture passage in Ephesians, all I could think was “I hope that’s not me…or him…or anyone else close to me.”  As selfish as that sounds it is true.  Since becoming a pastor though there have been many times when I, or another pastor I know, has recommended this passage to someone who is experiencing a time of difficulty in their lives.  “Put on the full armor of God.”  Because we may try our hardest to do all we can to protect ourselves from the physical realities of this world – create improved armor for our soldiers, wear our seatbelts, put our kids in child restraint seats, learn self-defense techniques – you name it because the list goes on and on.  But there are certain things that physical fail safes cannot protect us from.  Bulletproof vests can’t protect us from insults or hate.  Seatbelts can’t protect us from sin.  A karate chop can’t protect us from all of the evil we face in our world.  Yet as we make our own conscious decision to live each day as people of faith, our hope rests in God and the armor God provides us and asks us to live into – truth – reliability – an ability to stand up under testing, righteousness – doing what is right in God’s eyes, faith – the belief that God is there for us and will come through, salvation – reconciliation – forgiveness – a chance at a new life, and the Word – God’s own guidepost for our lives. 

            When I was in college we had an alternative break service opportunity called the Chile Service Project.  We lived in a publacion that began as a tent city outside of Santiago, and we worked with children’s programming and programming with Oxfam and the Families of the Detained and Disappeared – the families of those who had been taken, tortured, and killed during the Pinochet Regime.  One year in Chile we actually joined a protest to speak out against the leniency being shown to Augusto Pinochet.  We didn’t think twice about the fact that we were American college students and could have ended up in jail in a foreign country.  It was one of those moments when, along with a  bit of youthful idealism, the truth trumped anything else that could be said or done.  And when our faces showed up on CNN that night all we did was call home to our parents to warn them and let them know that we were okay – but not apologetic for being a part of that protest.  We stood up for what we believed in, and stood in faithfulness beside our friends who had lost loved ones – because they looked different, or thought differently, or worked for equality and justice -- to those whose motivation was pure evil.  When I think back on that experience now, there is a part of me that thinks it was just one of those crazy things that you do when you are in college and on your own.  But there is another part of me that thinks that we were wearing the full armor of God that day – standing up in faithfulness for what was right and just – and protected by it.  I wish I could say that I have been that faithful to that degree in every situation I have come up against, but striving to grow in faith and working to do God’s will – hopefully not only will faith take the day but there will be less and less opportunities to stand our ground – as more and more people are provided for and forces of justice win.

            You see, my friends, putting on the full armor of God doesn’t mean that we have to be weighed down by anything.  What it does mean is that we need to help ourselves and others find freedom.  That freedom for us comes through the Word of God – through our faith.  We are stewards of an extraordinary message that we are not only asked to speak to others but to live out – standing our ground when we are those strange folks in the crowd who thank God for the little things and the big things alike.  What is it that you are willing to stand your ground for?  What is it in your life or your community or the world that you need the full armor in order to be prepared for the fight?  Something I read this week got me thinking a bit more about that.  It said, “God provides armor appropriate to the battles that face us…With it we are ready to stand firm in our struggle.  We show our faithfulness by accepting Jesus in spite of the world’s hostility toward him, and toward [us] those who follow him.”[1]  Our acceptance of God and of the armor can be as radical as protesting or as “behind the scenes” as bringing in a donation for the food bank or a family in need.  Each act of generosity, graciousness, and justice affords us the opportunity to join God’s side in the war against the forces that tear down and destroy.  

            If we were standing beside Joshua today, and he asked us the same question now, in 2009 as he asked the folks surrounding him as they entered Canaan – what would the answer be?  As for me…I will do my best to serve the Lord – with the understanding that those “not so intelligent” days come around (perhaps more often than I would like them to), but that it is in those times that the reminders God gives as to God’s faithfulness in our relationship give me the strength to push on through.  I make this conscious decision to believe and am reminded that God’s strength, grace, and protection accompany me – accompany us – each day and each step of the way.  With this we are blessed beyond our imagining.  And for this we can be thankful.  Amen.