When
I was a kid back in the early sixties, it was a huge treat to pile into the family
car and drive 85 miles down to
This
is how sophisticated I was not: I actually remember being scared of
riding on it, not really sure how to get on or off, worried about getting stuck
and possibly pulled under. But after a
while, those fears departed, replaced by the discovery of something really fun
to do. I’d ride it up to the second
floor…wait for the traffic to clear…start down and, well, you’ve all done it,
turn around and try to climb up against the flow…until a clerk’d
run me off.
In
some ways that’s a good analogy to how life can feel for us, with and without the fun. We
all know what it’s like to bend the rules, flirt with trouble, rebel against
authority, color outside the lines, march to the beat
of a different drummer, go up the down stairway. And that’s fine as long as things go well,
we’re enjoying the ride and nobody gets hurt.
But
at other times, we can find ourselves feeling trapped, like we’re stuck walking
against the flow, climbing two steps up for every three we slip back, constantly in everyone’s way, going the wrong
direction, frustrated with our inability even to see what’s coming down the
pike.
This is the reality about which
today’s first lesson speaks with such amazing insight. Since the
We’ve
been told that their transgression has left the rest of us foundering in a
pit. And it’s the job of Christ to pull
us up and out and restore us to the near perfection we used to enjoy.
I,
too, appreciate this story for its understanding of our rebellion against
God…but I think we have our sense of direction mixed up. The truth is, we haven’t fallen from
perfection to something less…in fact, it’s the opposite.
What,
exactly, was the serpent’s temptation? We
would be like God.
And
how does that play itself out in our lives? We want to be in control. We want life to work out our way. We want to pray not Thy
will be done but MY will be done! We want to fix the future and repair the
past. We want everyone to “love, serve,
thank and obey”…us.
Did
any of you see that Jim Carey movie Bruce Almighty? One day, Bruce is fed up with God over things
that aren’t going so well. So, God
decides to put him in charge for a while and see what it really means to “have
the power.” Who hasn’t fantasized about
doing the very same thing?
But our sin of wanting to be like God is a little more deadly than a dream. It means that to the core of our being, we feel driven to act like “God” over every aspect of life. We’ve not fallen down closer to hell; we have elbowed and clawed our way up into heaven, and dared to sit on God’s very throne. You’ve all heard that saying, Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s true for us as well.
What are some of the down sides of our desire
to be like God?
-selfish -egocentric -ungrateful -dissatisfied
-unforgiving -intolerant
Truly,
God’s throne is not where we belong.
We’re like a
kitten that has climbed a telephone pole all the way to the top…but now is
stuck at a terrifying height.
Sin means that we are trapped
in our desire to be like God.
We are absolutely unable to get down from heaven by ourselves and
we’re scared to death of everything up there: falling, failing, fainting… we’re
even frightened of the Firefighter sent to set us free.
So
what do we do? How do we get our heads
out of the clouds and our feet on the ground?
How can we be content in trusting God to be our guide in
life? How do we get free from forever
trudging up the down stairway? The truth
is, we don’t/can’t/wouldn’t even if we could.
That’s the nature of sin.
But
here’s what can happen. On our
daily grind, climbing the
Did
you hear that? Jesus, unlike us, did
not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, snatched, grabbed,
clutched, seized or clenched. Instead,
he emptied his god-ness and became human. All the control that we hunger, yearn and
strive for; lust, dream and even pray about having…Jesus willingly leaves
behind.
On the stairway, we think we have to go higher, to position ourselves the best, to be in control. We’re sure that we’ve finally been invited to the penthouse suite or the top floor office where our skills, talents, drive, insights will finally be appreciated. And on our way up, Jesus is going down to those who need God the most, need grace the most, need service, love and good news the most.
On
our daily climb up the stairway to heaven, we may notice that Someone is coming toward us. And every time we that meet, whether we
recognize it or not, Jesus opens his arms, pulls us in and says, Come to me,
you who are weary from climbing and striving and trying to be like God, and I
will give you rest.
Then wonder of wonders, as Jesus enfolds us in his embrace, and as we begin to let go of the cares, the worries, the arguments, the lies, the failures, the frustrations, the sicknesses, the pains, our sin, as we rest in Jesus’ loving arms, he carries us down from those dizzying heights and places our feet firmly on the ground.
There he opens our eyes to what it means to be an ordinary human being, beloved of God, forgiven by God, called by God, blessed by God, and put to work by God to bless all the rest of God’s beloved children with the good works and the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.