Bill Paul’s Sermon – 7/26/09
At What Cost?
2 Samuel 24:18-25
Galatians 6:17
If I’ve learned anything about preaching, it is to keep the sermon clear and simple. When I was a pastor one of my favorite parishioners said to me: “Bill, your sermons are so simple even I can understand them.” I’m not sure it was a compliment because he was also the one who said: “Bill as long as you’re my pastor, I can count on 25 minutes of sound sleep on Sunday morning.” Since then I’ve usually made a point to inform the congregation something of the direction and thrust of the sermon. The outline for today’s sermon follows a classic pattern: First, what does the scripture say? Second, what does the scripture mean? And third, what might it mean for us?
1. First, what does the scripture say? A bit of background: with one exception, the heroes of the Bible were all imperfect persons. Like all of us, they, too, sinned and fell short of the glory of God. This was certainly true for David, the shepherd king, the one about whom it was said “he was a man after God’s own heart.” It wasn’t just his adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband Uriah. There were many instances in his life when David was insensitive, even ruthless. What set him apart was this: always, when he became aware of his sin, he confessed it and repented.
When we meet up with David in today’s lesson that’s what was happening. David was repenting. Against the will of the Lord he had ordered a census the moral consequence of which was a deadly pestilence, a kind of super swine-flu epidemic. Warned by the prophet Gad, David was instructed to build an altar to God on the threshing floor of a man named Arunah.
Imagine with me what went through Arunah’s mind when he looked out his window and saw King David, with his entourage, coming toward his house. I’ll tell you what he felt. He was terrified and filled with fear. In those days when the king came calling and knocked on your door, it was seldom a time for celebration. Too late to run for his life, Arunah did the only thing he could do. He prostrated himself before King David with his face on the ground, hoping for the best.
When Arunah discovered that King David hadn’t come in anger and vengeance, but only wanted his threshing floor, Arunah heaved a sigh of relief and responded with extravagant generosity. “You haven’t come in anger? All you want is my threshing floor? Then I will give it to you. I’ll even throw in my oxen and their yokes for the burnt offerings.” Let me pause here. Isn’t it remarkable what rash promises we humans are willing to make when we feel a sense of relief?...when we dodge one of life’s bullets; when the biopsy comes back clean or when some other threat to life and limb is removed. “Lord if you get me through this trial, I’ll never miss church again. If you give me back my health and save my life, I promise I will tithe my income. If you save me from this jam I’m in, I’ll never cheat on my wife again.” Arunah was so relieved, he offered his threshing floor as a gift.
David didn’t want the land as a gift. “No,” he said. “I will buy it for what it is worth.” Then this: “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” Think about that: “I will not offer burnt offerings (that is,worship) to the Lord my God that costs me nothing.” Now that was David at his very best. What does your worship cost you?
Fast forward one-thousand years to another imperfect hero of the faith, the Apostle Paul. The scripture today finds him under attack. His critics were challenging his leadership and questioning the genuineness of his faith. So for the climax of his defense he writes this: “From now on let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.” And he did, literally. His faith in Jesus Christ had cost him that much. For his faith he had been flogged countless times; five times he had received the forty lashes less one; on one occasion he had been stoned; three times he had been beaten with rods; three times shipwrecked all for his faith. On his missionary journeys he had faced danger at every turn: danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from Jews and Gentiles, danger in cities, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters. For Jesus Paul had spent many sleepless nights. For Jesus he had suffered hunger and thirst. For Jesus he had often been without food, cold and naked. Examine St. Paul’s life and you will be awestruck by the cost of his discipleship. What does your faith cost you?
2. Second, what does the scripture mean? I think it means this: There is always a cost for authentic faith. The cost to us is not our down payment to buy God’s love and grace. David already knew God’s love. St. Paul already knew God’s love. The cost of their discipleship was their response for having already received God’s favor. It was in gratitude for the grace they had received, that they offered “their bodies as living sacrifices.”
I thought of costly discipleship when I made a pilgrimage to the American Military Cemetery overlooking Normandy’s Omaha Beach, that blood soaked soil where so many young men offered up their lives (“the last full measure of devotion”) or were willing to–where many others sustained wounds they carried to their graves or continue to carry to this day So it has always been in the army of Christ! More Christians were martyred for the faith in the 20th century than in all the other centuries combined. (North Korean woman executed for handing out Bibles) “I will not offer worship that costs me nothing.”
I think of the cost paid at the beginning of the modern Presbyterian missionary movement. In 1832 two Pittsburgh seminarians, John Lowrie and William Reed, volunteered and were appointed by the Synod of Pittsburgh to go to India. After graduating, Lowrie and Reed, along with their wives, spent five months at sea sailing to Calcutta. From there they headed into the interior of the sub-continent. Mrs. Lowrie, however, died before they arrived at their destination. Within a year, William Reed became so ill he and Mrs. Reed set sail for home. Reed died at sea. John Lowrie stayed on and established a mission outpost in Ludhiana. There he labored alone, no wife by his side, no friends around, no supporting church fellowship to encourage him. Two years passed before there was even one convert. Can you imagine how challenging that must have been? There is a cost to discipleship. The scriptures never soft-peddle it.
I think about Jesus’ own ministry. At its beginning the people flocked to him in droves, hanging on his every word because he fed the hungry, healed the sick, and spoke words of comfort, hope and liberation. When he later faced opposition and threats from political and religious powers, when it became evident that there was going to be a cost to following him, most of his followers forsook him and fled. “I will not offer worship that costs me nothing.” What is the evidence your faith is genuine and costly?
3. So, first, what does the scripture say? Second, what does it mean? Now, third, what might the scripture mean for you and me? Let it be said, the sacrifices asked of us, generally, are less dramatic than storming a battlefield beach or charging up stairwells in burning buildings. More often the sacrifices asked of us are offered in our homes and neighborhoods, in our marriages and families, in the places where we work and play, and asked of us when offering plates are passed among us during Sunday morning worship.
Today, I am honored to stand before this jewel of a congregation of people who, even in spite of the economic downturn, and with few exceptions, have been lavishly blessed both materially and spiritually. When measured against most people on earth, we are all among the wealthiest of the wealthy. I say this not to lay a guilt trip on you, but to remind you that following Jesus always involves self-denial, always a cross. Can you imagine anything more at odds with contemporary values than self-denial and a cross? How tempting it is to opt for cheap grace, to think that a minimal commitment is a fitting response to so great a love. How tempting to seek our security and life’s meaning in what we can stash away in our barns, banks, and investment houses.
Let me remind you, we Christians are called to be in the love business. There is always a cost to loving whether it is human or divine, whether we are on the giving or receiving end. The gospel calls us to a costly commitment…not with a tip, but a tithe, not with pious words alone, but sacrificial deeds, not with burnt offerings, but with a broken and contrite heart, not with self-aggrandizement, but with self denial, and not to a throne of honor, but to a cross of surrender.
The hymn writer put it this way: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands our lives, our souls, our all.” When that is our response, we begin to experience the transforming power and deep joy of the grace of God. “I will not offer worship that costs me nothing.” May that also be your response and mine, too.