NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

July 17, 2004

Gen. 28:10-19; Romans 8:12-25

The Eager Wait

            The readings for today were written by and for people at very different times in history.  The first of those readings is a proclamation that God is fully present in all manner of human life and activity.  Most of us know the words and music to  “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”   I don’t know about you but for me, from Girl Scout Camp to Jazz Sunday, I have been singing that song all of my life.  It’s a great old hymn that speaks of our lifelong struggle to become worthy of a welcome to heaven when we reach that final rung.  Did you notice that I did not include that familiar hymn in our selections.  There are two reasons why.  The first is that no one suggested it.  The second reason is a perfect example of how we all remember familiar scripture passages in different ways.  The old spiritual captures our imagination even as it draws us into a message of hope.  We struggle through life, slowly making our way through the pain and woes of human existence until we reach the highest rung where we are welcomed into our eternal home.  Slaves on a plantation with nothing to look forward to but misery and heartache sang their emotions in that song.  But there is another message contained in that story of Jacob falling asleep and having a vision of God.   In the Genesis account, that ladder, busy with angels moving up and down left no room nor presented any invitation for humans to climb.  The site where Jacob chose to camp was already a sacred place, a doorway to heaven.  Perhaps by coincidence, Jacob fell asleep on that holy spot and had a vision.  In his vision he realized that God stood beside him.  That, my friends, is as powerful a message as that of the hymn.  For Jacob and for everyone of us today, this vision says, “Don’t worry about what is happening now or will happen as life ebbs away; instead, walk confidently through life for God stands with you.”     

The second reading is also very powerful for an entirely different reason.  Julius Caesar, “the greatest Roman of them all” according to Marc Antony, was declared divine by the Roman Senate in the aftermath of his assassination.   This was not an empty gesture.  His life and accomplishments were such, that Caesar was declared worthy to enter the company of divine beings traditionally worshipped by the people of Rome and their satellite states.  Octavius, his adopted son fought for and won the seat of power.  During his reign, which, incidentally coincided with the birth of Christ, he brought to Rome power, prestige and the Pax Romana; Rome’s version of peace.   He was named Caesar Augustus and called Son of God, Savior, Lord.  At his death, he was also declared divine.  Something of a cult was born as the Julian line of emperors inherited divinity in life and after death.

A balding, Jewish, short-tempered but charismatic tent maker from a backwater town in the Roman empire challenged that spurious divinity with a spiritual revolution that ultimately transformed both Rome and the world.  He applied all that divine language to the only one who could legitimately claim divinity, Jesus Christ.  In doing so, he named the tension that has always existed between the things of this world that humans seek to deify and the law and light of God that supersedes all those things of this world. 

 In the passage for today, we read that Paul invited his readers to crash the exclusive party claimed by the Julian dynasty.   No footnotes were needed in his letter; no explanation was required.  His readers understood that if by adoption, Augustus could become divine; than all who followed Jesus Christ, were adopted daughters and sons of God.  Paul says, “All who are guided by the Spirit of God are children of God…enabling us to cry out, Abba, Father (Daddy)…and if we are children, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ..” (Romans 8:14ff)  Paul invites us to dream with him of the time when the whole creation will recognize kinship with God.  Eagerly awaiting the birthday of the new creation, we live with God our loving parent right beside us and Jesus our elder brother, guiding us. 

  Our spiritual grounding begins with Jacob and the knowledge that we are not alone and grows into adoption as God’s beloved children.  In one way or another, every hymn we sing reflects these eternal truths.  We sing of God’s love for us.  We sing of Jesus who was one of us.  We sing of the Spirit who guides us.  We sing about the times of pain and confusion in our lives and the faith we have that God is there with strength and courage.  We sing our thanksgiving to God for all that we have and are.  We pray in song that we draw closer to God and that we find the inspiration and courage to live as God has called us to live.  We pray in song that the world will be transformed into God’s world and that we will be transformed into God’s people.  We sing of birth and passion and resurrection.  We can’t help but be touched by the music that often echoes our emotions and the words that echo our prayers. 

We don’t all like all the hymns we sing on any Sunday morning.  Yet in each hymn there is something for each of us.  It may be a word or it may be the melody.  I often find myself using words from the hymns in my own prayers or humming the tune of a favorite as I experience a time of joy or sadness.  When I internalize a hymn, I carry it always in my heart.  We who go to the nursing homes have seen this time and again.  Folks who have lost so much of their memory can still recall the words to beloved hymns.  When I look around me during those services, I see the grace of God welling up from depths beyond the ability of the mind but not too deep for the soul.  Through the hymns we sing, we express our eager yearning along with all creation for the birth of God’s transformed creation. 

I began with the spiritual, Jacob’s Ladder.  Sung by our ancestors whose place in American society was not freely chosen but forced and maintained by chains, that hymn breathed out hope with every note.  I close with a new spiritual, a hymn that is as hard to sing as the life that so many of our fellow citizens still live.  As hard as those notes are, the message says with Jacob, “God is here.”  It says with Paul, “A new creation is at hand, and it is ours by family inheritance.”  Let us stand and Lift Every Voice and Sing.