Unbroken

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 2/19/17

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^NRS  Exodus 6:6 Say therefore to the Israelites, 'I am the LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'"

I want to share with you the ten signs that you are in for a long sermon.

10.       There’s a case of bottled water beside the pulpit in a cooler.

9.         The pews have camper hookups

8.         You overhear the pastor telling the sound man to have few dozen extra tapes to record today’s sermon.

7.         The preacher has brought a snack to the pulpit.

6.         The preacher will break for intermission

5.         The bulletins have pizza delivery menus

4.         When the preacher asks the Lay Leader to bring in his notes and the Lay Leader rolls in a file cabinet.

3.         The choir loft is furnished with La-Z-Boys

2.         Instead of taking off his watch and laying it on the pulpit, he turns up a four foot hour glass.

1.         And the number one reason you are in for a long sermon, the minister tells you he will have you out in time for the Super Bowl and the last one just ended.

We are now a few short weeks from the season of Lent. It is a season when we reflect and celebrate our relationship with God. Grace, the principle understanding of what God has given us is the foundation of our faith. Without the grace of God, love in action, that comes from God whether we accept it or not, we would not be here in this place to worship and praise. But what is Grace without covenant? Covenant means that there is an agreement between two parties, one side giving something in consideration from the other side. We call them contracts or agreements today and they typically involve the legal community. In my younger days they usually involved a handshake and a promise and that was all that was needed. Funny, those agreements from my younger days were probably closer to what God had in mind.

Most biblical scholars would say that there are seven covenants in the Bible. The first four were covenants between God and the people of Israel. And the next three were between God and the people of the world. The Abrahamic covenant promised that the descendants of Abraham would be great nations and they would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Since technically the Islamic, Jewish and Christian worlds claim Abraham as father, that covenant has in fact been kept. Part two was that the world would be blessed by the descendants of Abraham and since Jesus is that blessing and descendant, it also has been kept. The land grant covenant is still in flux. God gave the land to the descendants of Israel as long as they were obedient but said that they would eventually receive all of it again. They currently occupy a portion but time will tell and my bet is on God. The Mosaic covenant, the Ten Commandments promises that if we obey the commandments then God will bless us. God has kept God’s part; we have failed to be an obedient church. And finally the Davidic covenant proclaimed Jesus and that has and is continuing to be fulfilled.

The final three were between God and us, the people of the world. The Adamic Covenant gives us free will to choose and also the consequences of choice. But ultimately the covenant leads us as humanity back to the Garden. The Noahic Covenant promises that the earth will not be destroyed by water. The rainbow is the sign of that covenant for us.

Finally we have been promised the ultimate promise, the New Covenant that is created between God and the people of the world. This covenant promises us that if we believe in the power of God’s love as demonstrated through the life, death and resurrection of the Son, Jesus Christ, that we will not perish but have eternal life. That covenant has been the subject of my last two sermons on what it means to experience God’s love, to share that love with others and to be disciples for the world.

So today we have this passage from God in the time of the Egyptian experience. God is making a promise to the people of Israel and I would suggest that God is working at keeping that promise to you and me today.

The truth of the covenants of God is that God has never broken a covenant. Not once in all the history of the world has God reneged on a promise that God has made. The people of Israel and I would suggest that God is keeping those promises even now to us.

God says that I will deliver you to freedom. Nothing is more sacred than freedom. Throughout the history of humankind, peace and freedom have been fleeting. One group finds a way to hold another group in oppression and slavery. But God says that we will be free. Jesus Christ went to the cross to assure that we have that freedom and God’s promise has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of God’s Son.

I will deliver you from slavery and give you liberty. Again, we acknowledge that there are many forms of slavery in the world. Today there is human trafficking that takes young lives and submits them to the slavery of the sex trade. In some parts of the world we have actual slavery still a fact of life. In this country we see slavery exhibited in undocumented jobs that force people to work below poverty levels. We have financial slavery where people are oppressed by interest rates and financial commitments that force them to live lives making choices between necessity and payment. We have welfare systems that keep people from being able to live productive lives. God says to us all that God will free us and give us liberty. Today the church should stand for the oppressed man, woman and child in the world around us. God’s love does give us liberty from oppression knowing that this is not the end all of life. There is something bigger and better.

God said that I will redeem you. The reason we are here today is because God kept that promise. Not just for the people of Israel but for the whole world. Jesus came into this world fully human and fully divine. But the fully human part gave all that He had to give in atonement for our sins.

I will take you as my people. God told the people of Israel that they would become the people of God. Here we are as much as three thousand years later and nothing has changed. The people of Israel are the chosen people of God. That has not changed in the thousands of years since the freeing of the Israelites from Egypt. Paul reminds us of this in Romans 11.

God says that I will be your God. In our world today there are many Gods. We call them idols. We worship them whether we acknowledge that or not. There are many worshippers of money, of worshippers of material things and of self. And yet, God has created an unbroken covenant with us to be our God

I have had the pleasure of talking to lots of folks in my time together with folks. One of the topics of conversation always seem to center around what in next in life, what is my purpose in life, and what are the right answers to life’s most difficult questions. I often say that the answers are right in front of us if we would simply open the book and read it. God has continually created covenant after covenant in hopes that we would get it. God has never broken a promise in all the history of humanity. Some of the covenants are conditional and it is we, the human side of this agreement that have fallen short of the glory of God. But God has never even bent the rules on an agreement, promise or covenant that God has made with us.

Several years ago, a preacher from out-of-state accepted a call to a church in Houston, Texas. Some weeks after he arrived, he had an occasion to ride the bus from his home to the downtown area. When he sat down, he discovered that the driver had accidentally given him a quarter too much change. As he considered what to do, he thought to himself, 'You'd better give the quarter back. It would be wrong to keep it.' Then he thought, 'Oh, forget it, it's only a quarter. Who would worry about this little amount? Anyway, the bus company gets too much fare; they will never miss it. Accept it as a 'gift from God' and keep quiet.'

When his stop came, he paused momentarily at the door, and then he handed the quarter to the driver and said, 'Here, you gave me too much change.'

The driver, with a smile, replied, 'Aren't you the new preacher in town?'

'Yes' he replied.

'Well, I have been thinking a lot lately about going somewhere to worship. I just wanted to see what you would do if I gave you too much change. I'll see you at church on Sunday.'

When the preacher stepped off of the bus, he literally grabbed the nearest light pole, held on, and said, 'Oh God, I almost sold your Son for a quarter.'

Please turn to page 52 in your hymnals with me. Covenant – a relationship between two where one gives something in consideration for the services of another. Covenant of God – a relationship where God offers something whether we reciprocate or not.

Today we will share in covenant together as we share in the words of the United Methodist Church vows under the title Thanksgiving. Let us rejoice in the faithfulness of our covenant God.
We give thanks for all that God has already given us.

As members of the body of Christ and in this congregation of The United Methodist Church,

We will faithfully participate in the ministries of the church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Are we willing to covenant or will we sell our soul for a quarter?