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This is February 6th’s sermon.
On this Super Bowl Sunday, I thought I would try combining football and the Bible. So stick with me because it might get a little fantastic.
Once upon a time and for a reason no one remembers, The United States was invaded and conquered by Canada. All government officials were sent into exile. But so was everyone who had anything at all to do with pro football – owners, players, managers, trainers, even the cheerleaders, I suppose. All of these people were exiled to Mexico. You can imagine how demoralizing it was for the fans who were left behind with no one to cheer for.
In any case, the exile lasted about sixty years. During that time, the exiled teams did their best to keep football alive and exactly as it had been played when they lived in the US. One generation passed down to the next everything they knew about the game and new players were trained to take the places of those who had to retire.
Back in the US, many Canadians had moved into the Lower 48 and they brought with them their own game of football. It’s close but there are some significant differences and I’ll leave it to you to discover those for yourselves. Over the years, Americans began to forget the differences between the two versions. They got to know their new neighbors, found them to be delightful and even married some of them. When the exiles were allowed to return, you can imagine how horrified they were to find that TRUE football had been replaced.
Well, that’s about as far as I can take the analogy but it is similar to what happened when Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon. Everyone in the government and all the leaders of the faith – including all priests and Temple servants – were exiled. But there were still a lot of people left behind and they eventually intermarried with people who moved into Judah and Jerusalem. And, when they forgot how their prayers went, they borrowed from the neighbors. Those in exile did their best to pass on to their children and children’s children all of the laws, tenets and beliefs of Judaism. That’s why they began writing down the books we call the Old Testament. It was critical that they keep themselves separate from their captors, that they continue all of the rituals they could without the Temple.
And when they went home, they were appalled to discover that the faith hadn’t done as well there. The answer, they believed, was to do everything they could to restore Judaism to the way they believed God expected it to be, the way it had always been done before. That meant returning to purity and rebuilding both the Temple and the wall around the city. They shut themselves away from the rest of the world.
But God had other ideas. Isaiah spoke for the Lord and told the people that God didn’t want the old ways of sacrifice and fasting, of sackcloth, ashes and blood thrown on the altar. God wanted them to care for the poor and needy, see that justice was equitable and the people were free from oppression. This, says the Lord, will cause your light to break forth. This, says the prophet, will reconcile you to the Lord who will answer your cry and satisfy your needs.
Sometimes, things have to change. None of us would be comfortable in the church of the first few hundred years or in any other era, for that matter. The things the Church has done over the centuries to remain pure have never worked, have, in fact, alienated the Church from her God. But the Church has always grown when we have put our efforts into being the light that God calls us to be, clothing the naked, feeding the poor, tending the sick and visiting those in prison. There is nothing wrong with our traditions as long as they don’t cause us to be dull and lifeless, afraid to move our of our safe, secure world or to let the rest of the world in.
We are to be the salt of the earth, the light to the world. Taking that command to heart means being open to all of the ways God calls us to act. Just as the world changes, we are called in new ways to be salty, to shine the light. We believe that the work, the story begun in the Bible does not end with the last amen of Revelation. In order for the Bible to be a living book for us, it has to continue to be lived. We are now the story of God, we are God’s people. When we are gone, how will our chapter be written? Will prophets and historians to come say that we used the traditions or will they say that we used the traditions to help us grow into better followers of the Christ, that we spent our time doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.
Football today is not played the same way it was in the late nineteenth century. There are some who say it is better, some who will always talk about the good old days and others who are already looking for ways to make the game better as well as safer. Why do we think innovation and change are good for football but bad for Christianity?
“Is this not the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”
Now that’s a tradition we can embrace. Suit up, people. We are needed to help win the game.
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