The Dying Thief

We can all agree Jesus does things that are pretty amazing and things that we wish we were able to do but not really sure we ever could. As we have talked about the people Jesus encountered over the last eight weeks we see how Jesus has always been willing to put his own desires on hold in order to help people he comes across. He has gone against the Jewish laws by healing people on Sundays; he has touched the dreaded lepers; he has bravely approached the dangerous Geresene demoniac; he has helped out a hated Roman;
So think about your own life and who you are willing to help - who is it that you would be reluctant to help because of who they are or what they have done or because they frighten you or you are worried about what they may end up doing to you or even the dreaded ‘What would people think’ if you were seen associating with someone.
That is what all these stories of Jesus are about - being will to be around the very people no one else wants to be around. That is why the stories of these specific people are recorded in our Gospel stories - these are lifted up to us to help us realize that what Jesus is calling us to do is to help the very people we are concerned about helping….. Notice they run the spectrum of people who are the lowest in society to those who have great power and wealth. There are people who fall into every category who need God. And while we understand the poor, the widows, the orphans, the prisoners need our hep - there are also the middle class, the executive, the wealthy, the famous - who need God in their lives maybe more than those in the list we know we are suppose to help. These stories of Jesus helping the person who is right in front of him help us see that God puts people in our paths who need our help - even it is not the typical homeless or helpless or poor or downtrodden. God challenges us to open our eyes and really look at the people around us and see how we can bring God into their lives.
It is a difficult task - yet when Jesus says to follow him and carry his cross that is what he is asking us to do. Jesus looks at each of us and says: “Look at the people around you and see how you can bring my love and grace and healing to them.” Imagine what a difference we could make in our communities if we all commit to just extend God’s grace on the people in each of our paths……..
Grace is the focus of our service today. This day on church calendars is known as Reformation Sunday. We celebrate today the work of a man called Martin Luther who was bold enough to question the practices of the Catholic Church some 500 years ago. While Martin Luther posted 95 points of contention on the door of Whittenberg on October 31st, the main thrust of what he was pointing out was how the church had veered away from the concept of God’s grace. Luther himself had struggled with the idea of a God who showers us with Grace. In growing up in the church, Luther had come to see God as the God of the pointing finger - always pointing out all the things Luther did wrong and pointing out the ways Luther had fallen short and pointing out how Luther just wasn’t any good and pointing out how Luther was the sinner of all sinners. Luther saw himself as a worm - filled with the dirt of sin and hopelessness. Luther would spend hours and hours each day laying flat on the floor trying to get as low as he could in order to pray to a God he hoped would see his sorrow in himself and save him.
Interesting to us and integral to this story is the fact that up until this time in history, no one except the upper church elite had access to Bibles. Even the priests who led the worship services and served the local churches were not allowed to read Holy Scripture. They were provided with what bible passages they needed from the Pope in Rome and that is all they were allowed to see. But God in God’s way led Luther to a teaching job at Whittenberg University where he found a copy of The Bible and began to read it for himself. It was eye opening and through his study of scripture - especially the book of Romans - where he discovered how God was not a condemning God - but a God of grace. It changed Luther’s life and he realized this was the message the church should be preaching instead of the message of sin and punishment and hellfire and brimstone.
And because of Luther and those who heard his message and came after him, the church was forever changed. This period 500 years ago was known as The Reformation and it is why we can come here on Sunday mornings and worship in our Presbyterian way and hear a message of grace; a message of how much God loves you; a message of how you are so important to Jesus he is willing to stop where he is going and help you right where you are regardless of who you are or what you have done. The Reformation took a church that was mired in guilt and threats of eternal damnation and returned it to the true message of Jesus Christ - a message of love and acceptance.
I don’t know how many people over the years have come to me and talked to me about their growing up in a church atmosphere where they were constantly bombarded by sermons on how bad of a sinner they were and how if they didn’t become ‘perfect’ they were destined for hell. Now, don’t get me wrong - we are sinners and we do need to allow the Holy Spirit to help us grow out of these sins - but that is not the whole message. These same people have come to me and asked me about grace - they had been in church all their lives and never heard about grace. All they had ever heard was how bad they were; they really thought there were people in the church who had achieved this goal of being sinless and these supposedly sinnless people were the only ones who were going to be in heaven……. This bombardment of ‘you are bad’ was never the message of God - after all he sent his son to teach us that even though we were bad; we were sinners; God still loves us enough to allow his son to take on all that sin and ‘save’ us from the consequences of being sinners. Never does the Bible teach only the perfect go to heaven….. and that is what the Reformation and Martin Luther and the other reformers such as John Calvin brought back into the lives of the believers - Ephesians 2 says: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— That is the message God wants us to hear.
This morning we end our journey with Jesus. We have spent the last two months looking at people Jesus met as he traveled during his ministry and this morning we are with Jesus as he literally completes this journey as he is hanging on the cross. I don’t know about you, but if I had been treated like Jesus and had ended up hanging on a cross where he is still being scorned and berated and spit on - I wouldn’t be as gracious as he was. Remember his words on that cross - Father, forgiven them….. That to me is the most amazing thing Jesus did. While he is being tortured he asks God to forgive all those who had mistreated him. He didn’t say - God, forgive them when they realize what they have done and they are sorry about it and they changed their ways. Basically what Jesus says is ‘Regardless of who they are and what they have done to me; regardless of what they have done in the past or will do tonight or in the future; just a blanket ‘Forgive them.’ How amazing is that - and that is grace.
So this morning we meet the very last person Jesus encounters - a thief. Well, actually he meets two thieves and they represent the two ways you can look at Jesus. The one thief wants Jesus to do something for him - basically he wants Jesus to get him down off the cross; he wants Jesus to free him so he won’t die; and if Jesus can’t ‘perform’ like he wants him to, the one thief doesn’t want anything to do with Jesus.
It is the other thief, however, that we are talking about this morning. This thief acknowledges who Jesus is; this other thief says “I am a sinner. I deserve what I am getting.” He doesn’t ask Jesus to get him off the cross, he doesn’t ask Jesus to stop his suffering; he simply says “I am a sinner and Jesus is the the key to eternal life’ - and Jesus looks at him and says, “You’ve got it! You understand!” and Jesus reigns his grace down upon this thief and says, “you are going to be with me forever in paradise!” How exciting is that!
It is just a reminder for us to think about what do we want from Jesus - Do we act like the thief on the cross who just wanted Jesus to ‘fix things’ - are we always wanting Jesus to do things for us -


“Jesus fix this or stop that or change these circumstances’ - which by the way he can do - but that isn’t the message of Jesus. Or are we like the second thief on the cross who humbled himself before Jesus and allowed Jesus to just pour out his grace and usher him into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Amen.

The Garasene Demoniac

I'm always amazed at how many people really enjoy the scary movies - especially the really gory ones.  They come at this time of year when we are in the season of Halloween, these movies are everywhere - at the theaters and on TV. Are there any of you who like to watch those scary Halloween shows? Not me and I never understood why people wanted to watch them. My wife use to like them but as she got older she doesn’t watch them anymore either!
But both of us still enjoy Halloween. We had a ‘haunted farm’ scavenger hunt with our grandkids this year and one of my wife’s biggest disappointments is that it isn’t cold enough in October in North Carolina to wear her Halloween sweaters! Halloween has become big business.  We have our front yard decorated with Halloween decorations and we are looking forward to Trunk or Treat next week. Halloween is fun. But we don’t often associate the things of Halloween to something we would talk about in a sermon during worship. However, I bet you probably didn't realize how many stories in the Bible fit right into the all the things we associate with Halloween.  
There is Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones where all these old bones jump up and put themselves together into skeletons; there is Saul who goes and visits the witches to encourage them to cast a spell and help him; the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost walking on the water and think about all the scary beasts which are described in the book of Revelation. Even Zombies show up in the story of the moments after Jesus died as we are told people rose up out of the graves and walked around. One of my favorites is the dismembered hand that wrote on the wall of the palace in Babylon to warn the king. There are more, but these stories just remind us that you can find just about anything in the scriptures! 
And that brings us to the person Jesus meets this morning as we continue on in our look at the people Jesus met as he travels throughout his ministry. But before we talk about this person, let’s talk about something else that we struggle with in the church - and that is the ideas of demons and Satan. It is hard for us to wrap our minds around the stories in the Bible that talk about the work of Satan and demons. We understand about mental illness and no one in our modern culture blames mental issues with demon possession. But Satan and demons are something very real from the beginning of creation in Genesis through the book of Revelation. Jesus certainly believed in Satan and demons - and the fact that the Catholic church still performs exorcism and even our Presbyterian liturgy includes a rite of exorcism tells us that even for us there is something to this concept of demons and the existence of of some type of evil power we associate with the person of Satan. I can’t explain it and I have no easy answers about how this works in our lives - but I do believe Satan is real and demons are real and Satan very much wants to disrupt our relationship with God.
Perhaps it is because of Hollywood we think of Satan in the wrong way. Satan is not the author of the ills of our society - we as humans do that ourselves. We shouldn’t associate Satan with the dark and seamy things - drug addiction, pornography and such…… Satan is much more devious than that. Remember Satan was the most beautiful of angels and so what Satan tries to do in our lives is separate us from the love of God; to put fear and doubt into our lives; to steal our joy in the Lord. Satan wants to make us miserable and he does that by presenting us with ‘nice’ and ‘pretty’ and ‘desirable’ things that pull us away from God.
That is why we read that passage from Isaiah this morning to remind us we are all God’s creation. God has chosen us and God has ‘saved’ us and God has made us his - and the one thing Satan cannot do is take that away from you. You belong to God and that is a done deal…. But Satan can make you doubt that; Satan can make you doubt yourself; Satan can try and steal your purpose away from what God has intended or your life; Satan can so shower you with guilt over things you have

done so that you no longer feel adequate to be in God’s presence or to do God’s work; but even more insidious, Satan can create great apathy in your life so that God no longer matters and the things of God slide away from being important. It is imperative I believe, as Christians, to acknowledge that even if we don’t understand the concept of Satan and demons, we need to recognize they exist.
The Gospel of Mark often highlights the supernatural struggle between Jesus and Satan. The demon’s goal was to control humans and lead them away from the things of God and into the sin of apathy and separation from the will of God - the Bible’s picture of sin. Jesus’ goal was to give people freedom from apathy; freedom from having sin control their lives; freedom to live out the joyful lives God intended for them; freedom to be able to focus on the things of God.
Jesus and the disciples are on a boat on the Sea of Galilee. They had just left the city of Capernaum and had experienced a storm on the sea which landed then the shores in the region of Geresene. Geresene was a Gentile area and had shores where a boat could land but also had some very steep banks into the sea as well. Jesus and his disciples got out of the boat and there in front of them was a cemetery and inhabiting the cemetery was a man who we are told was possessed by demons. Now first we need to not picture a cemetery like the one we have here at Bethany. Those didn’t exist in Jesus’ day - cemeteries were mainly caves where shelves were carved out inside the soft limestone and bodies were ‘laid to rest’ on these shelves. So as Jesus and disciples got out the the boat what they saw was a wall of cave openings which were filled with the bodies of those who had died. And out of one of those caves emerges a man who was clearly ‘out of his mind’. This was a pretty common place for ‘demon possessed’ individuals to be since they needed to be away from the general public. We read that he was often chained out here to keep him under control but he was so strong he broke those chains.
As soon as he saw Jesus, he ran and fell at the feet of Jesus where the demons cried out to Jesus. This is not unusual. One of the great points made throughout the Gospels is that Satan and his army of demons clearly understand who Jesus is. They have a strong knowledge that Jesus truly is the Son of God which is always put in contrast to those people Jesus is trying to reach through his ministry - here Satan knows Jesus is the Messiah but people who are suppose to believe in Jesus as their Savior do not. It also helps to point out to us there is a huge difference between knowing who Jesus is and ‘believing’ in Jesus and what we are suppose to do which is to make Jesus an integral part of our lives. It is not the knowledge of who Jesus is that is important - it is allowing the transforming work of Jesus to change us into the person Jesus knows we can be.
And here is a great example of someone we would never believe could be transformed by Jesus - and who is….
Back to the story - the demon possessed man is kneeling in front of Jesus and the demons are talking to Jesus begging for Jesus not to ‘hurt’ them. It is a kind of strange idea that demons are worried about Jesus’ torturing them - it conjures up that picture of demons in hell suffering for all eternity. They don’t want that - so even demons are begging for grace from Jesus. Jesus asked them their name and they reply Legion.
A legion consisted of 6,000 men in the Roman army. The point of this was to let us know how massive the demon possession of this man - or in our modern way of looking at it - the severity of this man’s mental illness. It is another if the examples of showing us the power of Jesus even over something so extreme as a man who was written off because he was so completely disturbed - Jesus is even capable of healing someone so damaged as this man. Jesus knew that the only way to completely heal this man was to demonstrate to him his ‘demons’ - his mental illness - was completely gone. So he casts the demons into the pigs which the man witnessed running away and drowning into the ocean. As if Jesus is saying to the man - “See - you are really cured. You are really well. Watch as all your problems are whisked into the sea”. Jesus is proving to this man who has had to live with this awful illness for some many years that he was really able to return to live as a ‘normal’ human being.
Of course not everyone is happy about this event. The people taking care of the pigs ran back into town and reported what had happened. The owners of the pigs, who were not Jews as they could not eat pork, and other people from the town rushed out to see what was going on. It was evident the ‘crazy guy in the caves’ had been healed and was now in his right mind….. But instead of being happy for this guy, it scared them. Our scripture story never says they were mad about the pigs - which is where a lot of people get distracted here - the people weren’t mad about the pigs, they were afraid because of what Jesus had done. They weren’t happy for this guy - and since they didn’t understand what had happened they told Jesus to leave. It is like so many of these healing and miracle stories in the ministry of Jesus - people are frightened and worried about what doesn’t make sense to them instead of just reveling in the wonder of what Jesus can do in our lives.
The now cured man wants to become a disciple of Jesus and follow Jesus on his ministry - but Jesus says “No. You can do more for my ministry by staying here and testifying to what I have done for you.” And that is what the once demon possessed man does.
In the letter to the Galatians Paul is explaining to the people of Galatia what his ministry is all about. We probably picture the Apostle Paul as some great orator and sermonizer like Billy Graham - but Paul says all he ever does as he travels from place to place, is tell his story and talk about what Jesus has done for him. And think about how that simple message of Paul transformed the world and spread the Gospel of Jesus.
So here is the message today for you. We need to spend some time in self reflection and figure out what Jesus has done in our lives. I know Jesus has done great work in your life. He’s always working on us but we have to be able to realize it and name it and then be willing to tell that story to others.
Nothing fancy - no great feat of Bible quoting or theology or even understanding - just acknowledge Jesus as your Lord and let other people know what Jesus has done for you.

Amen.

The Centurion

What does it mean to be ‘humble’? Much of scripture centers on teaching the people of God to be ‘humble’. So we know that humility is a characteristic we all should strive to, but do we really understand what it means? What attitude should we have if we are exhibit the characteristic of humility?
First of all let us understand what humility is not. It is not thinking less of ourselves. Humble doesn’t mean that we look at ourselves as ‘less than’ someone else. It does not mean to take a back seat and or to keep quiet on important issues. It doesn’t mean to be shy or backward.
Sometimes we fall into what I call the Martin Luther trap. Martin Luther was a priest during the 1500’s who began the reformation - the transformation of the church which had become corrupt and far from what God had intended for the church to be. Martin Luther looked at himself as being such a sinner that he wasn’t good for anything. He would spend hours and hours laying on the floor in prayer trying to get as low as he could so he would not be anywhere close to approaching God. Even after he realized God’s grace, he still contended we should all look at ourselves as lowly worms, crawling around in the filthy dirt all the time and not really good for anything. While Luther contended that was humility, it is not what Jesus is talking about when he asks us to be humble.
Think about what God says about you in the very beginning of Genesis when he created you. God says you were created in his very own image - you were created in the image of God. So unless we want to think of God as a worm, which I don’t think we do, we need to have a much higher view of ourselves than that of a worm full of dirt. We are in the very image of God which means we need to view ourselves as God’s wonderful creation. Think of the words of Psalm 139 where we are reminded that ‘we are fearfully and wonderfully made” which emphasizes to us what God thinks of us - as his beautiful creation. Certainly not a picture of being worm like!
However, there is a fine line between seeing ourselves as ‘important’ and ‘wonderful’ in the eyes of God and realizing we are sinners and are not better than worms. Both are true. And it is coming to understand our strength in God and our weakness in our sin that helps us to mature in our understanding of what it means to be humble.
A good example of someone in the Old Testament who struggled with the idea of humility - and who ultimately learned what humility meant - was the man Samson. Samson was dedicated from birth to be a leader for God. Samson was very handsome; he was a valiant warrior; he was the strongest man known at the time. And he had a pretty high opinion of himself - to the point that this became his downfall. He fell for a woman named Delilah who realized Samson’s achilles heel was his ego - his opinion of himself - and used that to entice Samson into a relationship where he eventually admits his strength is due to the long hair God has given him and Delilah orchestrates the cutting of his hair and Samson falls as low as he can fall. He is blinded and put to work pushing a grinding wheel around and around all day long, every day, which gives him plenty of time to realize what true humility is….. And once he realized that humility was understanding the place of God in his life - it was God who had given him his strength and it was God who was in charge and Samson was not. Once Samson comprehended his strength was not in himself but a gift from God, God allowed Samson to demonstrate humility. Samson was taken to the temple of the Philistine god Dagon, tied between two pillars so people could see him and make fun of the once ‘great man’ Samson - Samson prayed to God and acknowledged whatever power he had came from God - God granted Samson strength one last time as Samson was able to push down the two supporting pillars of the temple and the temple, along with the giant stone image of the god Dagon, came tumbling down. Samson’s last act was to humbly acknowledge the almighty God and God’s power.


Sometimes we equate humility with being weak. Obviously not the case with Samson who was far from weak. We hear Jesus’ words in the beatitudes “Blessed are the meek…..” and our thoughts go to the type of person who used to be called ‘milk toast’. Anyone remember that term? People, especially men, were called ‘milk toast’ when they were that type of person who let everyone else walk all over them - with no confidence or self respect; who thought of themselves as so completely useless they would never stick up for themselves. But when Jesus said “Blessed are the meek” that is far from what Jesus had in mind. The word ‘meek’ is just another word for the ‘humble’. The beatitude could just as easily said “Blessed are the humble”…… Again, another call for us to adopt the attitude of humility - not to think less of ourselves but to be strong in our acknowledgement of the strength of Almighty God - just like Samson who finally realized that his strength lie not in himself, but in the power of God. Humility is realizing that in the eyes of God there is no difference between you and people you think of as ‘great’ - have you ever considered that in the eyes of God you are just as important as someone like Billy Graham? It’s true - humility is realizing your importance to God and then turning around and giving God the credit for you being who God created you to be.
Humility does not mean you have to stand in the corner in the crowded room and try to fade into the wallpaper because you don’t want anyone to think you think of yourself as important…..
Humility is realizing you are strong and important and that strength and importance comes not from you, but from God…..
We continue to get to know the people Jesus meets as he is walking through Palestine and encounters many different kinds of people. On his journey today, Jesus runs into a Centurion. There is some important information we need to know about this Centurion. First of all, he is a Roman, whom the Jews hated because the Romans were oppressors who ran the Jewish territory; who had pushed the average Jew in a life of poverty…. So we understand why the Jews hated the Romans. This Centurion is a man of great power. He was the military leader for 100 men who would dominate an area of the Jewish land. The Centurion for the most part had complete power of the lives of the Jews living in that area - and most of the Centurions were not nice people. However, there was something different about this Centurion Jesus meets. First of all it would be really rare for a Centurion to come to find Jesus himself. Most men of power would have sent an ‘underling’ to find Jesus. Second, this Centurion was concerned about one of his servants. Again, extremely unusual because most of the people of power in Jesus’ day thought of servants as expendable. One gets sick and dies, you thrown them over the hill and just go and enslave someone else. Third - just the idea of a man of that great stature asking for help from a lowly Jew was unheard of.
Yet this is exactly what happens. The Centurion is willing to give up his power; to let others see his willingness to humble himself enough to go himself and find Jesus and ask for help…… And Jesus, who is always willing to help regardless of who it is says, “Do you want me to come and heal your servant?” The Centurion then shows even greater humility be equating Jesus’ power to the power he has. The Centurion says I have so much power I just tell people what to do and they do it without question - and I know you have that same type of power. In fact I so respect your power that you don’t even need to come to my home or touch the servant - just say the words and it will be done.”
Jesus is amazed at this Centurion. How is it this Gentile, this Roman, this man of complete control over those in his army, is willing to humble himself enough and willing to release control to Jesus; that he has complete confidence that all Jesus need do is ‘say the words’ and it will happen.
That is humility. Not losing our confidence in ourselves, not thinking we have to be weak, not thinking we are worms - but realizing our strength and importance and our confidence in our role as the people of God - that all of this comes from the God who created us.
The prophet Micah tells us exactly what our lives should be and what God expects of us: And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
It boils down to treating people with respect no matter who they are or what they have done, to forgive others as God has forgiven us - and to realize that everything we are, everything we have can be attributed to God. Humility is being willing to put aside our own needs to help with the needs of others - not because they deserve it but because it is what God has called us to do. Humility is realizing we have everything we need because God will always take care of us; humility is having the strength to be generous because again, God will provide everything we need. Humility is standing strong in our faith because God is always there. Humility is understanding God is in charge and we are not.
Humility is looking at yourself as this wonderful special creation of God. A creation God has made exactly as you are.. with your gifts and your talents and your faults… and being OK with that because God is there to guide you and strengthen you and hold you and challenge you and that there is nothing that God asks you to do that is impossible if you are just willing to have the faith to put your whole life in the hands of God.

Amen.

The Condemned Woman

No one likes to be the one who has to deliver bad news. I know I don’t and i imagine if I asked one of you to volunteer to tell someone news you know they didn’t want to hear, I’d have a hard time finding someone willing to do that. I watch a Baking competition show each week and at the end of the show someone wins and someone has to leave the show. The two announcers each week switch off who tells who the winner is and who tells the loser they have to leave - because as they say, no one wants to be the one who has to tell the person who loses they have to go home! No one wants to deliver the bad news.
But this is precisely what our Old Testament story was about this morning. You are probably familiar with the story of King David and his affair with Bathsheba. David compounded this indiscretion when Bathsheba turns up pregnant with the killing of Bathsheba’s husband. Now while the multiple sins of David were bad enough, what God was most concerned about was the fact that David was unwilling to admit he had done anything wrong. So God talks to David’s friend and advisor, Nathan, and informs Nathan he has to point out to David what he has done wrong. Now, I don’t know for sure, but I have to think that this created quite a few sleepless nights for Nathan. He was going to have to go to the all powerful King of the people of God and tell him he had sinned and God was very upset with him. Nathan decides to confront David by telling him a story.
Nathan goes to David and tells David: There were 2 men. One man was very rich. He had an abundance of land and cattle and sheep. He had everything anyone could every want and plenty of it. The other man was a poor family man who had very little. He had a little baby ewe lamb that he cherished. The lamb was with him and his family all the time. The lamb lived in their house, ate his meals with them, slept with them - when the man was sitting in the home the little lamb was always sitting on his lap. The lamb slept with them. Sort of reminds me of my dog and I!
Anyway, this lamb was the only animal this poor man possessed and it was important to him and his family. One day the rich man had company and needed to fix a meal for his guest. Instead of slaughtering and preparing a lamb from his own fields, he took the cherished lamb from the poor man and prepared it as a meal for his guest.
When King David heard this, he was furious. How dare that man take the man’s beloved lamb! The rich man much be punished! The poor man needs restitution for what he has lost. This is terrible! It is then that bravely Nathan says to David, “That man is you.”
Silence. How would you feel when confronted with what you had done wrong? You knew it was wrong when you did it; you thought you got away with it; but Nathan reminds David that he might have gotten away with adultery and murder, but God knew….. And it broke God’s heart.
Nathan then continues - This is what God told me to tell you. God says - “David, I would have given you anything you want. In fact I have you the finest home in all of Israel, I gave you riches. I gave you wives and concubines. I put you on the throne to rule over my people and all you had to do was ask for whatever else you wanted.”
I don’t know if there is anything that would make you feel worse than disappointing God - we feel bad enough when we disappoint someone close to us - our parents, our friends, our spouse…. but how bad would you feel if God looked at you and said ‘You have deeply hurt me”. I don’t know about you but I would pretty much want to crawl under a rock and never come out.
What did David do? David declares, “I have sinned. I am a sinner.” And David asks for forgiveness. Sometime when you want to fall on your knees before God because of sin in your lives, read Psalm 51. In Psalm 51 David pours out his heart to God and asks for God’s forgiveness and God forgives him. David represents for us someone who is truly sorry for what he has done. He pleads for God to change him and to help him sin no more. There is no lips service here. David is not just saying what

he thinks God wants to hear. David is truly sorry and truly repentant and God showers him with his grace.
But here is the important part. God forgives David and God assures David that he loves David and that David is still his chosen leader for his people. But, God says, there are going to be consequences for your actions - your family is going to suffer for what you have done. And as you read the stories of the rest of David’s life, you see his family in turmoil.
This is what is important for us to hear. Just because we know we are forgiven; just because we know we are showered with the gracious gift of grace - does not mean there are not consequences for the wrong actions in our lives. We may have patched things up with God, but that doesn’t mean that the people we have damaged are not going to still be in pain; the hurt we have caused will still be there. God may forgive us but not necessarily the people around us.
(There is a transition here so be sure to pause for a couple seconds.)
Jesus is at the temple teaching. The religious leaders have been trying to find something Jesus says to be able to accuse him and arrest him. Put yourself in Jesus’ day and remember that the life of a Jew was very strict and highly regulated - even your speech. There was no 1st Amendment; no freedom of speech - you had to tow the party line or you were arrested or sometimes killed. So the religious leaders keep trying to trick Jesus into saying something that would provide two agendas - one, so they could arrest him and two - so the people following Jesus would see that Jesus was not the Messiah and did not have all the answers and that he was a big fake.
Today’s attempt to trap Jesus came in the form of a woman who had committed adultery. Adultery was one of the big 10 sins - the punishment was being publicly stoned to death. No questions asked; no defense; no second chances - if you were caught in adultery you were killed.
So here is a woman, caught in adultery. We don’t know any of the back story. We don’t know how they caught her or when they caught her or what any of the circumstances were, but there is no doubt because of the words of Jesus that she had committed adultery. So the Pharisees drag her to Jesus to see what he is going to say about this situation.
Here is Jesus’ conundrum. Mosaic law says that anyone caught in adultery had to be stoned, so if Jesus said the woman should not be stoned, the religious leaders would accuse Jesus of violating the Jewish law. If Jesus urged them to go ahead and execute her, they could report Jesus to the Romans who did not permit the Jews to carry out their own executions. So Jesus does neither, he simply says: “OK. The one of you who is sinless can cast the first stone.” This is reminiscent of Jesus’ words when he says In Matthew: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Jesus statement clearly reminds us of our role as followers of Christ to be compassionate and forgiving. None of us are are sinless; as Paul says in Romans: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” It is Jesus reminding us - we are to forgive as when have been forgiven. And I don’t know about you, but I think that is really hard. But that is where God wants us……..
The story now turns back to Jesus and the woman because the religious leaders left realizing they were not going to win this argument. Jesus looks at the woman and forgives her. Even with the acknowledgement of her sin - Jesus makes sure she knows she is forgiven.
But - the very last thing Jesus says to her - “Leave you life of sin”. Just because you were forgiven this time, doesn’t mean you can continue in what you were doing.
And those are very important words for us - we are all showered with the forgiving grace of God; we all acknowledge we are sinful - Yet, it doesn’t give us the right to do something and then say, “Oh

well. God will forgive me.” From the story of David and the story of this woman - we are always in that tension between knowing we are going to make wrong decisions; knowing we are going to sin; knowing we are going to disappoint God - and also knowing that there is nothing we can do that will separate us from the love of God. What is important is crying out to God just like David in Psalm 51 - Create in me a clean heart of God. Change me. Renew me. Help me go do as Jesus said “Go and sin no more.”

Amen.