Second Sunday in Lent: God who has a claim on everything, gave everything

Unedited Transcript Below:

00:00
In the name of god, the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Oh man. Imagine you are having some serious car trouble. Right. And your car was breaking down. You thought your car was going to break? And i, you were telling me about this, and i felt really great compassion for you.

00:19
And i said, i want to help you. Um, You can have Andy's car.

00:30
Um his car is your car. Now you're right. And that and that was how i was responding with my compassion for you. Um, Will be the problem with that you would say well that's not really your car to give me. Um, you can't give me. Andy's car because it doesn't belong to you, right?

00:49
And i think one of the most difficult messages of the gospel is in all actuality everything we have is like that. Um, one of the things i've shared with you that i say to my kids a lot, Is nothing is yours. Nothing belongs to you kids. So when they're fighting over their toys and when they're fighting, i say hey nothing's yours, it's all gods, like it, nothing belongs to you.

01:17
Right. And the scriptures teach us that all things come from god and all things belong to God. Now i recognize there's such a thing as private. Ownership in the sense of our worldly relationships is one another. The fact that he's even though i don't have the right to give away deacon Andy's car, He certainly has the right to give away his own car, right?

01:40
And so that we recognize there is that but the point still remains. Ultimately andy, or i don't have claim to anything apart from god's will. Apart from god, giving us and can all gifts and sustaining our lives. And this ownership claim that god has It's not only over our possessions but over us.

02:07
Kind of the message of the readings today, right? And this would be a precarious situation to find ourselves in Except. That god loves us perfectly. The one who has the claim over all things. Perfectly loves us. As we heard in our pistol, what can separate us from the love of god, right?

02:29
And the god who has ownership claim over all things, including our very lives which would put us in a precarious situation. Loves us perfectly. So the guy who has a claim on everything actually gave everything away. In order that we who have a claim on nothing, Might give everything away as well.

02:55
That's just kind of, that's the story. We'll be walking through today and it's important to write. We read some passages that are, i mean, Difficult to hear. Right. Difficult for us to hear as the people of god. But i think as we unpack, just what i just said that the god who has a claim on everything, gave everything away So that his people who have a claim on nothing might give everything away.

03:20
Um, i i think as we as we press into that, we can recognize first and foremost, that god has a claim on all things. God has a claim on everything that exists. So as we go, we read this passage In genesis, and i Uh, i was talking, i have, i have a group of people from fellow priests that we walk through the lectionary to gather and one of the things i was exhorting them to is, like, don't read the passage about Abraham being called to sacrifice his kid and just not saying anything about it.

03:51
So like one of the beautiful things about our Um, our tradition is that we believe there's power in reading the word of god out loud. Sometimes, you'll hear the word of god, right out loud. And a lot of times you won't hear anything else said about it in the service.

04:06
We believe there's just a power to hearing the word of god in the. So the homily might not unpack. Every scripture usually doesn't unpack every scripture, we read, but this is one of those ones that is hard enough for us to read that, it takes him to that, we should reflect on.

04:22
Hey, what's going on here when god's calling abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac? And as we do that, We recognize. The narrator doesn't leave us in suspense about what's going to happen to Isaac. I don't know if you noticed that. There is suspense in the passage, but right at the very first words in order to test Abraham, god said this.

04:44
So we know that the point of tension worse for supposed to be feeling as we read this passage is, is Abraham going to be obedient? Not is Isaac going to survive this I know we read this maybe a little bit out of context. But, There's been a whole host of promises around, isaac, okay?

05:09
Isaac has been promised at, like, The whole story up to this point has been about isaac and about the thing like his offspring that are going to come forth from him. Like the whole story has been about abraham waiting on Isaac and all these promises that are going to be fulfilled in Isaac.

05:28
So We it It's impossible that Isaac's gonna die and not survive here. Um, even for the reader, we already know it, we already know. No way isaac doesn't get out of this alive. Right. And we even get a couple hints. To the extent of Abraham's faith in the abraham, doesn't believe that Isaac's not going to get out alive as he goes through this.

05:52
In verse 5. We have him saying to the young men stay here with the donkey and i and the boy will go over there and worship and we'll come back again to you. So we have, we have abraham saying that we are going to go worship, we are going to come back, right?

06:09
Um, that's what that's what he believed. We have Isaac saying to his father abraham, you know, my father and him saying here, i am my son. And and ultimately asking, hey, where's the lamb? And abraham saying, god will provide a lamb. For. For a burnt offering. So unless we just think, hey abram's lying in order to like get isaac to be compliant Um, If we, we can read into this.

06:38
A little bit of recognizing, you know, abraham recognizes that something's going to happen that there were promises around isaac that he doesn't understand this command, he doesn't understand all this works out how this all works out, but he recognizes that it all belongs to god. That is very son belongs to god.

06:58
And that there were all these promises around god, and he can entrust his son's life. To god. Hard message for parents, right? Think. Hey no. I I i have to protect my child. I have to take care of my kids. I am right. When we're doing that. We're acting like god who is our father, right?

07:23
And so that's a that's a beautiful thing. We have to recognize that all of us. Really lay our kids at the feet of god. Um, we lay our children at the feet of god, who's actually the only one able to protect them and the only one able to care for them.

07:41
We're actually powerless in that situation. We feel like we're not and we do our best and that's fine. But god is the one that has the ability to care for them. The ability to provide for them, the ability to protect them. And god had provided Isaac and abraham. Knew it.

08:02
And he had no claim on isaac's life outside of god's will. Abraham knew it, he had no claim on Isaac's life outside of god's will. So god made the promise god, brought the eye, got brought the boy, brought isaac by a miracle, and god was the only one with a claim on isaac's life.

08:25
One of the lies that most destroys our lives is that we have a claim on anything or anyone outside of God's will. This is one of the the lies that will destroy us. It's why it's worth fighting the battle with your kids. The gut you don't own anything nothing's yours.

08:46
Right. Because one of the greatest lies that destroys our lives is the lie that we have a claim on anything or anyone apart from the will of god. God is the one who gives god is the one who breathes life into us. God is the one who gives all and we have no claim on anything.

09:04
Apart. From god. And this is a hard message to hear. But what might be even more difficult. Is that this is abraham is viewed as the prototype of faith. In both the old and new testaments he's he's viewed as the example of what it looks like to have faith.

09:24
What it looks like to have faith is to be like abraham. So in hebrews 11, It says by faith abraham when he was tested offered up. Isaac. And he would receive. The promises was in the act of offering up. His only son. Of whom it was said through isaac, your offspring shall be reigned, and he can, or shall be named, and he considered that god was able to raise him from the dead.

09:56
From which figuratively speaking. He did receive him back. So we we we're seeing some Inside into the mind of abraham, maybe. But he, he saw that god was able to raise the dead. The book of james says, was not abraham. Our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar.

10:20
You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works. Yeah. That's another sermon but uh, but uh, the relationships between between faith and works and how that plays out and particularly in jeans and paul, that'd be another sermon. But the point he was here is the his faith, the trueneness of his faith was displayed by offering up, Isaac.

10:45
And so if we want to know what faith looks like the scriptures, tell us, look at abraham and it looks like the one who knew he had a claim on nothing and he was ready to offer up his son because he trusted god with Isaac's life. He trusted god to be to love Isaac more perfectly than he could and he trusts so he was willing to offer his son up to god.

11:07
He knew god he knew that he was trustworthy and he knew that god was the only one with any claim on his children's lives.

11:19
So god has a claim on everything, everything belongs to god, every relationship belongs to god, everything we own comes from god, and one of our lives is believing that we have a claim on anything apart from god, but this one who had a claim on everything. Gave up everything.

11:36
See, part of the horrifying nature of this. Test, that was given. Is that actually the call to human sacrifice? Wasn't that unlike something the gods of the surrounding nations would have commanded? So, the gods of the surrounding nations were happy, but by the way, demons are always, so demons are about two things and they'll always been and they always will be, they're about.

12:01
They're about sexual or morality and human sacrifice, right? So, sexual immorality and human sacrifice. This is what the demons game is false. Religions game is this is what addictions are about. This is what? Oh, it's all hue. Sexual morality human sacrifice. These are like the two things that they're always about and so human sacrifice demons, want blood and these false gods.

12:24
They asked for people to give human sacrifice all the time. And so, this was something that Um, that would have been considered kind of normal that god's asking for human sacrifice. Right. And so, Part of what's happening in this test is god, is saying, i am not like those gods.

12:43
I am not like those gods. That demand blood. I am not like them. And this displace him to be not like the other god's jeremiah in 195 says, They've built i'm talking about the people of israel. They've built high places to bail to burn their children in the fire as offering to bail something i did not command or mention nor did it enter into my mind.

13:08
Didn't even enter my mind. To ask for blood from your children. For you to offer, human sacrifice.

13:20
Maybe unsurprisingly the father's. All, look at this story and they see isaac as a type of christ. They see isaac as a picture of jesus. The father giving his son. And with that in mind, i think it's why this story gets wildly misunderstood when we don't see Isaac. And more importantly, the jesus that he's pointing toward As willing participants in the story, okay?

13:43
Really important when you read this story that we see isaac as a willing participant, we don't get a ton of time markers at this point, in the story of genesis, So, it's hard to like, Nail down how old isaac was. Um, because we just don't get a lot of time markers right here, so you can be anywhere between five and thirty seven, you know, Um, But the text seems to take away anything close to the front end of that.

14:10
Um, because it's saying they went away together, both of them together, they were in this together and so you and and you have Isaac willingly laying down on the altar Might remind us of jesus. Who said in john, 10, 18. No one takes my life from me, but i lay it down of my own accord.

14:37
Jesus gave his own life. We're going to be singing the song how deep the father's love for us in our offertory. And it's a beautiful song and it communicates, substitutionary atonement really well but there's a line. I wish i could rewrite in it and there's a lot of lines.

14:54
And a lot of songs that i wish i could rewrite, so you don't have to Um, You know, rip it your hymnal apart. But, uh, But one, one of them is the father turns his face away, right? Um, But we think that's biblical because jesus. Quoted psalm 22 on the cross, but let me.

15:14
It's at like a nameable trinitarian history. Heresy. To like, pith of will, of the father against the son, okay? Like the father and the son weren't in a fist fight, Okay, the father and the son, at the atonement of jesus, we're not in a fist fight with each other, where the father was like, super angry and he needed someone to be beat up.

15:34
And so he beat up his son really bad, like take out his anger so that he doesn't have to be up you and i, wow, that's great news. What a good gospel that is, no, that's not good news. Like, like if i invited, Augie up here to beat him up for a while because i'm really mad at how you guys are behaving.

15:49
And, uh, And i am like i'm just gonna beat him up till i feel better. That's not good news, right? Right. So and that's not the story. The story is jesus willingly offering himself as a sacrifice because he loves us. Right? That's the story, it's god. Himself offering himself to the father so that We might be made one with him and so that we might be united with him.

16:22
The gospel isn't a story of like divine. Child abuse. The gospel. Is a story of god giving himself for us. Because he loves us. It's the god who has a claim on everything, giving everything. Because of his love for us. And he gave everything so that we who might have, who have a claim on nothing can give everything ourselves, finally getting to our gospel reading.

16:48
And don't worry, i'm almost done. But uh, But jesus uses those, the the same words get behind me when he talks to peter. The very same word. Apiso, right? But the very same word get behind me. He says right? He says to others when he says get behind me in line.

17:12
Anyone who would like to follow after me, must come after me. Must get behind me. And pick up their cross and follow after me. Very same word. It's a peter was perceiving with. And part of the reason peter, Was arguing with jesus i think, is that he was perceiving?

17:32
What is true of all those? That would be disciples. Namely that our morning prayer reading this morning. A servant is not greater Tennis teacher. All right. And the best we could hope for is to be like our teacher and that if jesus is going to this type of death, maybe God's going to call all of us to follow him and he says, you're exactly right.

17:53
Get behind me in line Peter. This is the way. This is the way is to give up everything.

18:05
And we don't have a claim on anything, right? We were made by god. We live this. We live a lot and breathe with. Only the breath that got gives us. Everything we do is empowered by god. And we use the very life. He gives us to rebell against him to sin against him.

18:20
And he has shown us that the way to life is by giving up laying down our lives, which we have no claim for on anyway, in order to follow after him that, the only way toward life is to lay down the life that we don't have a claim on.

18:36
In order to receive it back from him redeemed. God's made a way so that we you have no claim apart from him can lay down our lives. In order to receive that life back redeemed. And we know that we can trust him. When we lay down our lives. Because he's the one who gave everything for us.

18:58
Nothing can separate us from the love of god.

19:04
So today we realized that the god who has a claim on everything gave everything, So that those who have a claim on, nothing might give everything. And may god give us grace to hand over our lives to him. The one who loves us enough to give himself for us.

19:22
So that we might receive. Our lives back forever. Amen.