The In-Between
Pastor Mathew Magera – 3/16/16 – Sermon 153
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Many of you may know I like to eat. You may also know
that I am an introvert. What you may not know is that when my introverted-ness
and my eating mix together, you never know what is going to happen. When I eat,
I start to wonder about various things. For instance, when I pour a box of
cheerios in a bowl, I always wonder, out of the many, many cheerios that are
about to meet their demise, which one of them will put up the most fight? Which
one of them is going to be the one that never seems to get onto the spoon and
that runs around the bowl and ends up being the last one to be eaten? Yeah,
this is what goes on in my brain. When I eat a bag of popcorn, I wonder which
kernel will have ninja-like reflexes and be able to avoid my hand until the
very end, or which small pieces I will not even touch when it gets down to the
end. I wonder what it's like to be peanut butter stuck between two pieces of
bread. It's dark and unless someone pulls apart the bread the peanut butter is
pretty much stuck there gripping onto both slices of bread at the same time.
Such is the life of my brain but it was that last thought
that helped me to understand this Psalm a bit better. As we read this short
Psalm, we get confused by what is being said. It starts off by telling us that God
has done great things for his people. "When the Lord restored the fortunes
of Zion we were like those who dreamed." Yet, in verse 4, it seems as if
they were back where they started. "Restore our fortunes, Lord." It's
like they couldn't decide whether the Lord had helped them or not. Is this a
good thing or not? They appeared stuck in the middle, like peanut butter in a
sandwich, and not sure what was going on. When I think about it, as we go
through life, we also are like peanut butter in a sandwich. We are stuck in
between. Well, in between what?
A few weeks ago I talked about a Psalm in which the
Israelites were coming back from exile in Babylon and they were expecting
everything to be just as it used to be. However, when they got there they
realized that life wasn't going to be the same. In fact, life for the
Israelites presented certain challenges to them when they returned. You see,
when the Israelites came back from exile, they were also stuck in between. They
had been freed from captivity, but they didn't quite feel the extent that this
freedom provided for them. They had spent 70 years away from everything that
had defined and enriched their lives as God's people. They had lost everything
and they were hopeless with no way to get out of their situation.
But, God didn't leave them there. The Lord brought
them back to their land and they couldn't believe it. God had actually
intervened with a nation so powerful it almost completely destroyed all of
God's people. God had caused the Persians to rise to power and defeat the Babylonians.
Once that had been done, the Persians let God's people go. No wonder they were
excited to come home. "The Lord has done great things for us" the
Psalm says, "and we are filled with joy." So, how could such a joyful
event come with the search for God's redeeming power once again? They were
still stuck. While free, life wasn't like it once was. While joyful that they
had been brought back into their land, they felt sorrow and hopeless when they
realized the work it would take to transform the land in which they lived,
almost as if they were captive in their own land. "Restore our fortunes, O
Lord" they cried.
Just as they are stuck in between freedom and
captivity, we too struggled with being stuck in between. How many of us, as we
sit in church, feel in between.
·
Perhaps you're
grateful they your surgery went well or your injury healed well enough that you
could come home but you still have pain and uncertainty, perhaps even some
rehab ahead of you before you can be fully restored.
·
Perhaps you're delighted
that the stock market has recovered from its 2008 lows but the recent ups and
downs has you worried if it might happen again.
·
Perhaps it feels
good to be in church again after being away for so long but you still struggled
with unanswered prayer.
·
Perhaps you
survived a deep marital rift and things look to be getting better yet things
might still be shaky and you don't know what the coming months will bring.
·
Perhaps you are
in a good career right now but the economy threatens downsizing and you don't
know if you'll be employed in the next six months.
·
Perhaps you're
thankful for a long and happy life but you are discovering the truth of the
saying, "growing old is not for sissies" and you wonder if the last
years of your life will end with a bang or a whimper.
·
Perhaps you are
glad that you can come to church here in Trufant and are excited about the
ministry God does through us in the community yet wonder, as you look at an
aging congregation, if it can survive another 25 years.
You might find yourself in one or more of these in
between states and you might have even thought of more of them. They can seem
infinite.
The reality of being stuck in between like peanut
butter is that we are stuck, suspended between heaven and hell. Living in a
post resurrection time we know that Jesus ushered in the Kingdom of God through
his death and resurrection, through his ministry and miracles, through his
hands, heart and healings, but we know also that this Kingdom of God is not
fully realized yet and won't be until he comes again. We are experiencing the
same tension as the Israelites did as they came back from exile. We are free
yet at the same time we feel captive to a painful and challenging world. This
tension between what is already and what is yet to come is a challenge for us
in our homes, our work and in our faith. Jesus came to save the world from sin,
death, and the devil and the existence of the church today is proof that he did
but we are still waiting for its complete healing and salvation. So, just like
the Israelites, we cling to one piece of bread and say "The Lord has done
great things for us" and we also cling to the other piece of bread and say
"Restore our fortunes, O Lord" just like peanut butter in a sandwich.
So, how do we live stuck in between? The last two
verses of the Psalm say this, "Those who sow with tears will reap with
songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with
songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them." We are walking on a journey,
not only to the cross, but to the empty tomb and to the second coming. There
will be tears along the way, signs of being in between. The writer of this
Psalm says that those tears are like seeds. Each tear representing a seed that
will produce a good crop. The more we struggle on this journey, the more tears
that we shed, the more sheaves of wheat we will reap with joy, producing a
great harvest.
As we journey along the way, there are three places I
want you to look so that you might have strength for the journey ahead. I want
you to look back and give thanks for the many, many ways the Lord has delivered
you. Big moments and little ones. Look back on those events in your childhood
where you saw God's strong hand saving you and give thanks for His care. I want
you to look forward and give thanks for the promised harvest the Lord will give
you. It's a trustworthy reaping of a crop that is sown by the tears we shed
along the way. We can trust in it because the Lord said it would be. Look
forward to that joy that is yet to come but will be the ultimate joy. I,
lastly, but certainly not least, want you to look at Jesus. Jesus knows exactly
what it is like to be suspended, to be stuck in between. He wept over the death
of Lazarus, he walked among sinners, shared with the poor, sat with the sick.
Jesus lived in between and knows what we are going through. Look to Jesus and
ask him to send grace like rain to fall over you and onto those seeds of tears
so that they might begin to grow into the most abundant harvest God has
prepared for his people. Give thanks for the way Jesus is changing those seeds
of sorrow into sheaves of joy.
We live just like peanut butter. We are stuck in
between the already and the yet to come and it can seem dark. But, let us not
forget where we can look, what we can see and that which we can give thanks to
God for the Lord has done great things for us and promises to us that those who
sow with ears will reap with songs of joy. To God be the glory, now and always.
Amen.