Sunday Sermon
Davis
Friday, September 12, 2008
Autumn will be upon us in about a week. Cool nights, football games, school activities, and summer’s luscious growth turning into an abundant harvest are among those signs autumn is almost here. Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also the season that leads toward winter’s death. It is a season of change. The current presidential candidates seem to want to underscore that thought as each claims to be the candidate who will bring change to our nation if he is victorious in this fall’s election.
Not everyone has an optimistic view of change. Henry Lyte, who wrote the text for “Abide with Me,” associated change with decay in the well known lines, “Change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me.” Lyte may have been speaking for a great many Christians who are not comfortable with things being different. The Church has often been faulted for its role as a reactionary force in the world. We even joke about the reluctance of some Christians (usually our own denomination) to change even a light bulb.
Christians certainly don’t need to be pessimistic about change. Movement toward new and better things is an important theme and an optimistic theme among the biblical writers. In fact, the Bible stresses the necessity of a change in order for a righteous God and sinful human beings to be able to come together at all.
Old Testament prophets were God’s instruments of change as they called on the people of Israel to change the direction of their personal and national life and turn back to God. If and when this change of direction took place, God would bless the people with a new and deeper relationship such as is promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34.
New Testament writers viewed the changes that needed and still need to be made in a little different way. Human beings have not been very effective in changing the relationship between God and humankind. The New Testament demonstrates that improvement in the relationship between God and humankind is more dependent on God than on human beings. St. Paul tells us that the change from being an enemy of God to being a friend of God is accomplished by God’s acting through Jesus Christ to bring God and human beings together. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:18
On our part, since God has come to us and has reconciled us to himself, it is for us to trust in what God has done and to respond by seeking to do God’s will, working for justice and peace in our community and the world and in sharing the good news of what God has done for everyone.
• “Sunday Sermon” is a forum for Emporia area ministers to share their sermons, thoughts and observations. This week’s sermon is from the Rev. John Davis, pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Emporia.