I’m going to give you all a quick test of Bible knowledge this morning. Confirmation kids, you’re off the hook, because we’re going to cover this next session. Who were the people who were enslaved in Egypt when Moses was sent by God to set them free?
And the Israelites were descended from which Father of nations?
So when the Jews – a reminder, that when we refer to the Jews in John’s gospel, we are usually referring to a very specific category of Jewish religious leader, not Jewish people as a whole – tell Jesus that they are “descendants of Abraham, and have never been slaves to anybody,” we know that what they’re saying is technically not accurate. After all, not only were descendants of Abraham enslaved in Egypt once upon a time, they were also occupied by Assyria, later had their most powerful members of society and most of Jerusalem exiled into Babylonian Captivity, somewhat restored but still a vassal state of Persia, then ruled by Alexander the Great’s Greek empire, then controlled by two separate factions of Alexander’s generals after his empire split, and even in this moment where Jesus is addressing these religious leaders, they are an occupied people. All of the region is controlled – and to some degree oppressed – by Rome. It doesn’t make sense for these people to respond to Jesus’ challenge and promise by saying they have never been slaves to anyone. Something doesn’t fit.
And maybe it’s just these religious leaders using some sort of rhetorical trick to try to get Jesus off his game. Maybe they’re trying to say something so patently false that Jesus will lose track of his argument and be forced to correct them. Or maybe they truly believe what they’re saying because they look at slavery differently? Because if there’s one thing that these Jewish people can be proud of, it’s the fact that despite all oppression they have faced, they still have their identity.
When they were a captive people politically, their spirit remained unified. Never has their identity been subverted by another. They never became Egyptian. They never became Babylonian. At their core, they were always descendants of Abraham – descendants of a promise.
And for them, they thought that was enough. They thought that if they had the right title – maybe the right genetic structure, then they were in the clear. Even when things were tough, God’s favor would ultimately win out. And all things considered, that’s not a bad philosophy, right? It’s good to know that God is god over all, and God is in control. But they were missing something. They were missing something, and Jesus knew it, but they couldn’t see it. They couldn’t see that for generations, they had been in the same cycle of sin that led to their oppression from both spiritual and political foes. They didn’t realize that their lack of concern for their neighbor – their focus on purity no matter the human cost – left them enslaved to their own need for comfort and power. And because they were slaves to these things, a true and free relationship with God wasn’t possible, for themselves, or for those who were impacted by how they lorded their power over them.
If you haven’t been paying attention to the extra pomp and circumstance around here, this Sunday is Reformation Sunday. It’s the Sunday when we commemorate the events that started in motion the reformation movement in the church that led to the formation of the Protestant church, for us, most notably the Lutheran church founded on the principles of faith put forth by Martin Luther. Luther was responding to what he saw as abuses in the church where the powerful used their power to take advantage of those with less. Using their religious authority, they controlled the message of how people received salvation, acting as gate keepers, saying who could be in or out. Their pride and ambition bound people to their sin, and the grace that we know we have received through Jesus Christ – the freedom of which he speaks – was not proclaimed to those who needed to hear good news.
They only heard judgment. They heard condemnation, which those in positions of power then used to fund raise on the backs of the poor. Martin Luther and soon other reformers would begin to point to the fact that all these works and donations don’t bring about salvation. It is God alone who brings salvation through Jesus Christ.
So it might seem a little ironic that today is the official first Sunday of our stewardship focus, where a part of what we do is ask for money, right? But the difference is intent. The difference is in your heart, what the Holy Spirit within you is calling you to do in response to God’s faithfulness in your own life. When the Reformation began – and please note, this is a little bit of an oversimplification for time’s sake, fundraising was done in part as an external threat – you give so that your giving helps you gain access to salvation. Now we know that salvation is not tied to the work that we do. That work is in response to what God has already done for us. So for us, our commitment to give back to God is a response to what we know is already true – we are set free from sin. Nothing separates us from God’s faithfulness. And our giving is a faithful response to what God has already done, so that we are able to live more fully into our faith through the community that we support.
Our first reading today from the prophet Jeremiah tells us of a time that is yet to come where the new covenant of God will be given to God’s people. It is a covenant where the very law will be placed into the hearts of the faithful. God speaks through Jeremiah, “No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” Our stewardship focus for this week is deepening our wells of faith.
We know that as we live more fully into our relationship with God, the good news of God’s grace is revealed to us in greater and greater depth. There are a number of ways that we do this. But as the wells of our faith are made deeper, when we are able to receive more of God’s goodness through our own engagement with the programs here at Esperanza, we find we come a little closer to the intent of God that is promised – that no longer will we have to speak to one another to “know the Lord.” For as beloved children of God, claimed not by the work that we do but through the goodness of mercy found in Jesus Christ, we know we are set free. And when we are set free, we know that amazing things can and do happen. We can live more authentically as God’s beloved.
And if we are living as God’s beloved, that means we are challenged to see others as God’s beloved as well, even if our first instinct – bound in our sinful nature – tells us that those people can’t possibly be as beloved as we are. If we are living as God’s beloved, that means the walls that divide us – the claim for superiority so many of us deep down wish we could possibly justify – must be torn down. In God’s kingdom that is to come, that is also found here in this place in this moment of the new covenant, our own personal qualifications do not matter. When God calls and claims us, our very being is proclamation of God’s unearned grace. And when we receive that grace – really receive it deep in our very hearts – we know that as we have been made free, by continuing in Christ’s word, we do God’s work of unbinding the brokenness of this world, loosed by the word of God found in Jesus Christ, who makes all free to be children of God, made worthy not by station, not by works, but solely by Christ alone, who is still doing the work of salvation through the people of God today.