TRADING IN SINS FOR SALVATION

Matthew 11:25-30

Presbyterian worship can often by identified by both the trained and casual eye. Other denominations include a sermon or a message as we do; others include hymns or praise songs as well; and still others include intercessory prayers as we do. But a service in the Reformed tradition almost always starts with a call to worship, moves to a hymn of praise, and then puts on the brakes with a prayer of confession. Why does this order matter to Presbyterians? Others just have a prayer of invocation, or of praise, or of thanksgiving. People have said “Why throw the wet blanket of sin over the glad and joyful hymn of praise?” The response is that it parallels the Biblical witness of creation; it is what human beings did to the beauty of God’s creation. First, before human beings, there was God. God created them to offer back to God their love and thanks and adoration in response to God’s gift of life, and a home, and all that is here. But like many children, we, and they, acted ungratefully; some offered no thank you note of prayer; and there was little demonstration of a good learning curve when sin and its consequences were pointed out. Likewise in worship we are called to praise God, then we sing a hymn of praise, or in the case of today, a gathering hymn to ask for the Lord’s blessing. It implies that God is good, God is holy, and to God we offer our devotion. It reminds us of the proper order of approaching God, especially as we then acknowledge our sinfulness before God: it is because, as in the beginning, as in the history of Biblical characters and beyond to this day, we sin and stray from the way God created us to go. We eat forbidden fruit, we make forbidden gestures, we tell forbidden lies, and we take forbidden actions. And so we confess it. We confess it on behalf of the world and we confess it because we do it too. There are times that denial keeps us from seeing our own sins, but a confession of sin makes us face our sinfulness. Our prayer of confession is not just about our personal sins, although it includes that; it also takes the continuous and inexcusable actions of the world and lays them at the judgment seat of God. For most people in ancient times, coming before a deity was nerve-wracking at best and terrifying at worst. It would be like hoping that a medieval king was in a good mood when you were brought before him with a crime. Would you be beheaded mercifully, or would you be drawn and quartered publicly as a witness to your crimes? In days of yore it could be terrifying to come before one’s own father with the guilt of a crime you committed. Such emotional or physical consequences could be great. So how do we bring our sins before God? Should it not be with at least as much fear as that famous scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion approach the wizard to ask for his help? Dorothy and the Scarecrow quiver, the Tim Woodman shakes, and the Lion flees and jumps over a wall to get away. The wizard asks for an extremely dangerous and deadly deed in order for him to consider granting their requests: to bring him the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. They realize she will not give it up unless she’s dead. What a cost to grant a request.

But back to our order of service: we now come to what theologians say is the most important and amazing part of the service: the declaration that if we repent of, (that is, turn away from) our sinful ways, God will welcome and forgive us because the price of our sins was paid by the lamb of God. That symbolism comes from our religious ancestors, Jews, who only got to have full forgiveness once a year on the Day of Atonement called Yom Kippur. Can you imagine; holding your sins for months; living with the burden of them for months; and having the consequences of sin start to work their poison everywhere? Jews in the time of the Temple brought two goats to the temple: one for the sins of the nations that was sacrificed, and one that a priest took and put his hands on, symbolically transferring the sins of the people onto the goat and sending it off into the woods. This was known as the “scapegoat.” Later, in their most important meal called “Passover,” Jews in thankfulness to God they took their most costly animal, an unblemished lamb, and sacrificed it as a way to remember God’s salvation and to give thanks. In our day, because of Jesus, who we call the Lamb of God because of the symbolism just mentioned, we are forgiven because of his sacrifice, and like the scapegoat, the sins of the world have been transferred onto his head and taken away from us as far as the east is from the west, and the north is from the south. But it is still up to us to show and give thanks!

A minister friend of mine once told me that one thing about his services that disturbed him was the distracting activity that went on among his congregation while he proclaimed their forgiveness. “It so disturbs me” he said, “that while I am telling them the best news a human being can hear, they are perusing the announcements, looking toward the next hymn, or checking out what other people are wearing. All the while I am telling them the earth-shattering news that, by God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice, that they are forgiven.” I suggested that he step out of the pulpit and move closer to them to take the actions out the realm of “same old, same old” to people who might hear it and receive it in a new way. It is extraordinary that Jesus give us the chance to declare and celebrate that weekly! Forgiveness; paid for by someone else; the consequence of our sins are still ours; but the price is paid.

Jesus was giving many sermons and making invitations in Matthew chapter 11. His most famous words are often shared at the beginning of Holy Communion as they were shared in today’s solo: “Come; I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.” By grace we get to come to God through Christ. And today we get to partake of a meal prepared for us. Like the declaration of forgiveness, preparing your soul to receive communion takes quiet reflection rather than distracted activity. Each week, perhaps you can anticipate the pinnacle event of worship, not the sermon, but the assurance of your forgiveness. Each month, perhaps you can, as our forebears have done and was required of them, do a rugged self-examination of one’s sins, name them, repent of them, and do what is necessary to mend those relationships. As recently as 50 years ago, Presbyterians would send out reminders a week before Holy Communion that it was time to prepare one’s heart for the meal with the Lord. People would bring a small chip that they would turn in as they received communion, assuring their ministers that they had prepared their souls sufficiently. Sometimes we take forgiveness lightly, grace lightly, and communion lightly. Perhaps today we can give them all the weight, and the profound thanksgiving, that they all deserve.

Jeffrey A. Sumner July 3, 2011