Sermon on October 9, 2011

“Dare You Refuse the Gift?” (Exodus 32:1-14; Matthew 21:33-46)
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Rev. John B. Erthein

I would like you to imagine an attempt to reach someone you love. You have often had a difficult relationship. The one you love acts frequently distantly to you, and spurns your gestures of affection. But you love this person so much that you will do anything to show your love. You are, perhaps, a brilliant artist, and you paint or sculpt the greatest masterpiece the world has ever seen. If you tried to put a monetary value on this masterpiece, the amount would be incalculable … infinitely greater than all of the works of Michaelangelo, and Rembrandt, and van Gogh combined. You will have labored and put everything into this gift for your beloved. Finally, the day arrives when you present your gift to your beloved. And the beloved one looks at it ... and spits on it, and throws it in the dirt, and tramples it underfoot, defacing it. And then your beloved one turns his back on you, and goes and buys something that he thinks will satisfy him … maybe it's a bottle of cheap booze, or a pack of cigarettes, or maybe a porno magazine.

Can you imagine the pain of that rejection, of having your priceless best ground into the dirt, rejected by the one you love, who instead prefers to have trash? Well, God the Father has offered his people his best, both in the time of the Exodus and the time of Christ, and in fact today … and many of his people spurn his best so that they can possess something lower, and meaner, and uglier, something that reflects the lowness and meanness and ugliness of their souls.

We see that illustrated in the lesson from Exodus 32:1-14. It is helpful to remember what has so far occurred in the Exodus. The Israelites, God's chosen people, had lived in Egypt for hundreds of years. For a time they were a privileged people, but the rise of a xenophobic dynasty made their situation oppressive. They were treated with indignity, as slaves. God knew of their misery … he heard their cries. And he raised up Moses to lead them out of Egypt. God rained plagues upon the Egyptians so they would let his people go. Acting through Moses, God parted the sea and delivered his people from slavery. God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness. And God gave them his law … the sublime, perfect law, truly God's greatest gift to that time.

But it seems from the Exodus accounts that the people were frequently ungrateful. They often grumbled. They lacked trust in their great God and liberator and law giver. God did not stoke his wrath against his ungrateful people but showed them mercy. And how did the people respond to God? In this instance, we witness the people turning away from him, to worship an idol made by their own hands, the golden calf. Even Aaron, the greatest leader next to Moses, went along with this descent into idolatry.

What good did a golden calf do anyone? Did a golden calf bring the people out of Egypt? Did a golden calf feed them? Did a golden calf give them the law? No, the golden calf just stays where it is placed. And it was this thing of metal that the Israelites chose to worship. What perversity. And with what sorrow may we contemplate the futility of this people's actions.
God seems to be finally ready to strike at them, to wipe out these ungrateful, idolatrous, stiff-necked people. “Leave me alone,” he says to Moses. And God even promises to start over with Moses as the new Abraham, a replacement head of a great nation. But … Moses begs God to have mercy on them. Moses is confident enough of his relationship with God to approach him in this way. And he makes three arguments in his plea for mercy. He asks God to consider what it would mean for him to have exercised his power over the Egyptians for the sake of the Israelites, only to nullify his power by destroying his people in the wilderness. Moses builds on that by pointing out that the Egyptians would be delighted to see the Israelites destroyed, and by their own God. And finally, Moses points to God's covenantal promises to the patriarchs … to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I have promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.” God would not violate his own promise to his own people, however much they provoked him. However, God did teach the Israelites a fearful lesson, recounted in verses 34 and 35 of this chapter. He sent them a plague … a lesser punishment than destruction, but certainly not an acquittal.

You may recall that I preached on this subject some months ago. God will not foresake those whom he has chosen, but he still can chastise them. That happened to the Israelites, and it can happen to us. And this brings me to our second reading, from Matthew's Gospel. Jesus has been telling some very pointed parables to his listeners, primarily the chief priests and Pharisees. Jesus has come into Jerusalem with a lot of commotion (on the occasion we remember as Palm Sunday). He has disrupted the temple activities and challenged the authorities. And in the parable of the tenants, he implicitly compared the religious leaders to the evil tenants who threw out the owner's messengers and eventually killed the owner's son! Jesus, of course, would be the owner's son … God's greatest gift to his people.

Now, this is not a perfect analogy … God did not “create” Jesus. Jesus has existed eternally with the Father. But consider this: Jesus is the very Son of God, who was for a time clothed in flesh like ours, vulnerable like us, someone who never used his great power for himself, but only for others. The Father sent him to bring the greatest message ever heard to the people … that sins could be forgiven and salvation and eternal life received. What an incredible gift. But look at how many people spurned the gift. Consider those religious leaders (not all of them, to be sure. There were those like Nicodemus who did come to accept the Savior) who thought they would gain for themselves by killing the messenger of everlasting life, the son of the vineyard “owner.”

Again, how perverse … how tragic. Their behavior reminds me of something I read in the book “That Hideous Strength,” by C.S. Lewis, one of the “Space” trilogy. The protagonist, Mark Studdock, is on the edge of deciding to follow good or evil. He is put to a test … and he is informed it will be at the cost of his life if he fails test. A giant crucifix is placed on the floor in front of him. The body of Christ is represented in its awful agony on the cross … the body is nailed there … helpless. It is made of wood. It cannot move. It cannot speak. It can do nothing but be there. And Mark Studdock has only to lift up his foot and smash it into the helpless figure of Christ. But even though Studdock is not a committed Christian, something in that helpless figure causes him to stay his foot. How can he do it? How can he bring himself to violate that helpless figure in that way?

And the novel continues until its end, after a climatic battle between good and evil.

How many people stamp their foot on the crucifix? How many people reject the gift that is in front of them? How many people, in their pride, in their perversity, perhaps in their rage against God, do what so many people have done over the ages? How many build their golden calves and dance around them in a frenzy? How many of them kill the messenger of eternal life, the very Son of the Vineyard owner? How many of them take the precious gift of God and spit on it, and tear at it, and stamp it into the dirt? How many people turn away from the gift of hope, of peace, of life itself and settle for the filth and trash of life, thinking themselves rich when they are so desperately poor?

What are your idols? What makes you turn away from the infinitely precious gift of God? Is it pride? Is it materialism? Is it shame? Is it indifference? Is it arrogance? Is it sensuality? How often, friends, will you spurn God's outstretched hand? How much longer will you delay receiving the gift of God, which is both his perfect law and perfect grace, revealed to Moses and personified in Jesus Christ?

We learn from the Scriptures that our God is a patient God. He gives many chances to those whom he has called. But the Scriptures, particularly in Revelation, also point to an end of history, to the very end of existence as we know. We cannot know when that time will come for the world. We cannot know when this life will burn away like a morning mist before the rising sun. But the day is coming. And it is coming for each one of us. Your personal day of judgment is nearly upon you. For you will not live forever. There will come a time when your life here is completed, and you will face God.

So are you ready to face God? Do you recognize the gift of infinite value that he gives you in Jesus Christ? Will you accept the gift while there is still time? Dare you reject the gift?

Let us pray.

“Father, you present us with the gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ. Help us this day to accept it, the most precious gift in the world. Turn us away from our sinfulness, our arrogance and our stubborn pride. We are broken people. Accept us in our brokenness, in our humility, in our repentance. And help us, before it is too late. Amen.”