Balancing One’s Call with Humility

Ex. 20:1-17; I Cor. 1:18-31; Jn. 2:13-22

3/23/03, Crestwood United Church of Christ

Pastor: Marcia Sietstra

Last week I left off with Part I of this sermon talking about the risks of using Old Testament beliefs as models for our beliefs today. While there is much wisdom imbedded in the ancient Hebrew texts that we call the Old Testament, we also see the progression of thinking and changes in those beliefs over time. That’s to be expected because, of course, the Old Testament is a record of the experiences of these ancient people to whom God was revealed. Their knowledge and understanding grew and changed over time, as God revealed what they were able to understand in their cultural situation. Christians generally believe that revelation peaked when Jesus gave the world his tremendous insights, insights which refined, and in many cases challenged beliefs found in the Old Testament, which was written much earlier. All of this has important implications for how we view the Old Testament idea of ‘chosenness’.

And that’s because Jesus challenged that ancient idea that one race, one group of people called the Israelites, was ‘chosen,’ i.e. exclusively singled out to receive God’s favor. Even earlier, the prophets had raised issues with the idea, when they said God was angry with them because they had taken other peoples’ houses and land. But it was really Jesus who turned upside down the laws of exclusion that had been developed by the people of Israel, by then known as the Jews. Jesus was himself Jewish, but he broke the laws that kept him separate from non-Jews. He ate with non-Jews, he talked in public with the neighbors they despised the Samaritans, and he hung out with people considered unclean and impure.

Indeed, one reason the Jewish authorities wanted Jesus dead was because he flaunted their rules that kept them separate and more than that, he ran around saying that God’s kingdom is open to everyone! Surely the Jewish leaders said things like, My God, has Jesus no idea that those Gentiles are not like us. Why they’re positively’ evil!

I think Jesus would feel right at home in the world today. Religious groups are still claiming particular ‘chosenness.’ The nation of Israel claims it has a divine right to the land of Palestine, even though the Arab Palestinians were already living there in 1948 when Britain and the US set up the state of Israel. Many Israelis would tell you that they were chosen by God 4000 years ago to have that land, that it was promised to Abraham. The Palestinians would tell you a slightly different version of the Old Testament story namely that they were the ones ‘chosen’ to have that land, as they also trace their people back to Abraham through a different son.

It is still widely believed among Christians that the Bible teaches Israel’s ‘chosenness.’ Christians often quote a verse in the Bible that says that God will ‘bless those who bless the Jews and curse those who curse the Jews.’ Dr. Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary says, ‘There’s a strong tendency toward uncritical support of Israel and that verse gets thrown at us whenever we are critical of some policy. My response to that is that anyone who wants to bless Israel needs to be sure that Israel does justice—the Old Testament prophets loved Israel, but also said God was angry with them.’ Last summer Dr. Mouw was one of forty evangelical Christian leaders who wrote to our president recommending an evenhanded approach toward Israel and the Palestinians, and rejecting the way some Americans have distorted biblical passages as their rationale for uncritical support for Israel.

This same idea that one group is ‘chosen’ and enjoys God’s particular favor is also alive and well in current Moslem/Christian relations. This week loudspeakers blared from mosques in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, calling on the people to fight the American and British ‘infidels,’ a word meaning ‘unbelievers.’ The implication is that the Moslims are the chosen ones who have God on their side. It’s a scary thing, isn’t it, knowing that there are people around the world who are convinced that God is on their side? It fosters the idea that God is against everyone else who doesn’t share their beliefs.

There are American Christians who regard Moslems the same way. Yesterday a letter to the editor in the Argus Leader claimed that God is on our president’s side, because he prays every day, as if people of other faiths don’t pray. There are some preachers who have called Islam ‘an evil religion.’ Entire nations are being called ‘the axis of evil.’ How does that fall on the ears of Moslems around the world, even moderate, peace-loving Moslems? They must be afraid too. I don’t believe Americans want a holy war between two different cultures, but I can see where Moslems have gotten that impression, from the language that calls entire nations evil, and makes references to God being on our side. [By the way, if you look up infidel in the dictionary it says, ‘Among Christians, infidel means a non-Christian; among Moslems, infidel means a non-Moslem.’ In other words Christians have historically called non-Christians infidels, or unbelievers, implying that anyone outside Christianity cannot possibly believe in God.]

What does the Bible say that can help us here? First, what does the Bible say about good and evil? The Gospel teaches that the line separating good and evil runs not between nations, but inside every human heart. Paul, the writer of our New Testament Corinthians text today, at one point groans, ‘The good that I would do, I do not, and the evil I would not do, I do!’ Once when a follower ran up to Jesus and knelt down crying, ‘Good Teacher what must I do to be saved?’ Jesus said, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.’ (Mark 10:18)

The Bible also warns us about assuming that God is on our side. In our text today, Paul warns us not to be arrogant and assume we have God’s wisdom. He says, ‘Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ‘For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’ Paul criticizes here the Jews and the Gentiles, saying neither group sufficiently understands the way of the cross, the way of a crucified Messiah whose self-sacrificial love proved to be stronger than any other way known to humanity. Paul says that the mighty and rich and powerful and learned leaders are confounded by this, by Christ’s strength which appears to be weakness.

In verse 26-29 Paul says, ‘Consider your call, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world’to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast.’ The Interpreter’s Bible sees this as a warning against pride, and it echoes Jesus’ words at the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’ i.e. blessed are the humble-minded, for God’s Spirit finds room in their hearts (IB, Vol. 10, p. 33).

Earlier in this century the great theologian of W.W.II, Reihold Neibuhr, warned that God would judge the pride of nations, quoting Ps. 2:4, that God ‘who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.’ (Quoted in Newsweek, Mar. 10, 2003).

The terrible danger of invoking God for a military or political purpose is the presumption that God is on our side. Can humans be so certain of a political or military agenda that we dare claim it to be God’s will.

So let us take great care with our language in the days ahead. And let us take great care to practice humility. We know the world is infinitely complex, that whole societies cannot be called evil and that no one political group can claim to know the mind of God so completely as to believe they are God’s instrument in the world. Christian Century magazine recently called on Christians to be careful not to imply such a thing. We Christians appropriately feel a call to be a light on the hill, as America has often seen itself. But our sense of responsibility, even of being called, must be balanced by great humility, and the acknowledgment that we can make mistakes because we are sinful human beings with mixed motives and impure hearts.

Perhaps we can take a lesson from how Abraham Lincoln communicated his convictions. Abraham Lincoln regularly used the language of Scripture, which was common in his day, but he invoked the will of God not for one side or the other in war, but to call everyone to humility, repentance and reconciliation.

In conclusion I would offer these points for your consideration today: 1) The Bible challenges the notion that God favors one group of people to the exclusion of others; 2) to label an entire culture, religious group or nation as evil is inappropriate because every person is a mixture of good and evil; 3) being called by God requires balancing our sense of responsibility with great humility; 4) we can help the present situation by avoiding language that is divisive or implies that God is against anyone who disagrees with our political or military policies.

Religion can foster peace, but it can also fuel war. Surely God’s ideal will is that there be peace, and to that end let us pray for an end to suffering on all sides, the safe return of soldiers on all sides, and the building up of justice in all nations so that they might all have peace. Amen.