Jealous

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 1:26-38; Deuteronomy 6:13-15

December 21, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

Tis the season—only a few days left to get all of those Christmas wish lists fulfilled! I would imagine many of you are already done with your shopping, and there are probably few hold-outs here who haven’t yet started. Maybe a few weeks ago, you made your lists or sent your letters to Santa. I remember as a kid pouring over the catalogs and [doing just what was done in the video] circling those things that I wanted; my brother Doug would do the same. And we’d make sure those catalogs would get to some place where Mom and Dad would see them. Then we would wait and anticipate and hope and dream. What gifts might we get? Because, let’s be honest, as much as we love to give gifts this time of year, we really like getting them even more. That’s the way our culture, our world has trained us to be. We like giving, but we love getting. [In the video, everyone’s concerned about what they’re going to get, how their wishes are going to be fulfilled.] And that’s why, in our culture, Christmas has become an even bigger celebration than Easter. Did you realize that the early church didn’t celebrate Christmas? Paul makes no mention in any of his writings about the birth of Jesus, and the early church had no celebration for Jesus’ birthday until perhaps the early 300’s; the first written evidence of its celebration is from 354 AD. Even then, Christmas wasn’t widely celebrated until the 1300’s—a thousand years later. Easter, however, has always been the primary Christian holiday because it focuses on the resurrection of Jesus, our great hope. But retailers haven’t yet figured out how to market Easter, and so Christmas, with its gift giving and its spending and its feasting has become bigger than Easter, even for Christians. Because we like to get even more than we like to give (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 11).

It begins very early in life. Have you ever watched two kids in a room full of toys? Let’s say one child has a particular toy they are playing with and which toy does the other child want? The one the first child has, right? And “rules” are established, a “pecking order” of sorts, when the second child goes up and takes the toy away from the first child. The second child may not even want to play with it; he just knows someone else has something he doesn’t have, and he wants it. So he takes it because deep down we believe it’s better to get than to give. Now, those habits continue into adulthood, as much as we would like not to admit that. We may not walk up to someone who has something we want and take it from them; hopefully we’ve learned better manners than that! But we do have those moments when we see something our neighbor has or another family member has or someone we don’t even like has and suddenly we want it. That new car your neighbor pulled into the driveway? The one with all the bells and whistles? Yeah, we convince ourselves we need it. The bigger or at least newer house, the faster computer, the new iPhone, the latest styles. We want it, we need it, we have to have it. I mean, that’s really what Black Friday and the sales after Christmas are all about. Deep down we really do believe that to get is better than to give, so we end up jealous of that other person and the things they have. We’re not proud of it, but there it is. We’re jealous. And our Christmas wish list gets bigger—and more expensive.

Now, we know what jealousy is like and, more than that, we know what sorts of grief and animosity jealousy produces (cf. Kalland, “Deuteronomy,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 67). We know how it breaks down relationships, how it hurts individuals, how it drains our wallets! And then we come to a passage like we read in Deuteronomy this morning, a passage that tells us that God is “a jealous God” (6:15). I mean, we refer to jealousy as a monster—a green-eyed monster, to boot! Why in the world would the Bible describe God in such a way? And in what way does Jesus demonstrate jealousy? That is, after all, what we’re exploring during this Advent season: the way Jesus is God “under wraps,” the ways Jesus demonstrates the character of his heavenly father in his life and ministry. The first week, we talked about how God is expectant, and that the greatest gift, the one he couldn’t wait to give, was Jesus, the baby king. Then, the second week, we talked about how God is dangerous, and the ways Jesus calls us to places and ministries we hadn’t planned to go. Now, we come to another characteristic that may be even more disconcerting. God is jealous.

The Bible, though, tells us over and over again that God is, in fact, jealous. That word is used to describe God as early as the book of Exodus. The reason we are not to “have any other gods” is because our God, the God who rescued the Hebrews from slavery, is a “jealous” God (Exodus 20:5). In the passage we read this morning from Deuteronomy, Moses, the one whom God used to rescue the Hebrews, is about to die and he wants to remind the people all that God has taught them. In many ways, Deuteronomy is Moses’ farewell address; the name of book means “second law.” This is Moses’ last attempt to shape them into the people of God. The chapter before the passage we read this morning is a restatement of the Ten Commandments, and in the verses before what we read is the famous prayer, the Shema, that Israelites still pray today: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). And in that context Moses reminds the people that God is jealous.

The Hebrew word for “jealous” means “warmth” or “heat.” It originally referred to the way someone becomes intensely red in the face when they get passionate about something. It’s the way we tend to react when someone argues with us about an issue or a topic that is close to our heart (Nixon, Under Wraps, pg. 51). When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, they chose to equate this word with “zeal” or “passion.” So while there is a dark side to jealousy, as we all know too well, that’s not the sort of description the Bible is giving of God. Instead, when the Bible talks about God being “jealous,” it’s describing God being a lover, God loving his people with intense passion and zeal. Like a husband or a wife would become jealous of something that gets in the way of their relationship—whether that’s a person or a job or even a hobby—God is jealous for each one of us. He doesn’t want anything to stand in the way of our having a close, passionate relationship with him.

For the Hebrews headed into the Promised Land, that was an important matter. There would be many choices calling for their worship once they settled there, and, to be quite honest, when you read the Old Testament, you see that they never quite got it. There were good years and better years and bad years and really bad years. Those false gods and little idols kept grabbing onto their hearts, so much so that eventually God did have to do what he promised. Moses says he will “destroy [them] from the face of the land” (6:15), and that’s exactly what happens. They are overrun by enemy nations and taken away to a foreign land. When some of them return, they begin to understand what their relationship with God should be like, that God loved them so much and wanted to be with them. However, some tried to live that out by making lots of rules to keep everyone in line, while others simply tried to live a life that pleased God. They tried to respond to God’s love with love of their own. One of the latter was a young maiden living in a small town called Nazareth. Her name was Miriam, although we know her as Mary.

Much of what we think we know about Mary has been invented or added over the centuries, because Luke, honestly, doesn’t tell us that much about her. He says she is engaged, which in that day was much more binding than our idea of engagement. The engagement itself was most likely arranged by the parents, who would host a whole ceremony where the man and woman dedicated themselves to each other and a bride price was paid. Then it was the groom’s job to go and prepare a place for the two of them to live together. Engagement lasted sometimes as much as a year, during which preparations for the wedding would be made, although the man and woman were considered married in every way except for physical relations (cf. Vanderlaan, Echoes of His Presence, pg. 15; Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 22). In fact, Luke makes a point of saying Mary is a virgin. We can infer some other things about her. For one, we can assume she was poor, because later in the story, when they give an offering at the Temple in Jerusalem (2:24), it’s the offering that is designated for poor families (Leviticus 12:8). In that culture, Mary was probably uneducated, and our best guess is that she might have been somewhere around thirteen years old (Hamilton 21). We do know, according to the angel Gabriel, that Mary was someone who had “found favor with God” (1:30). She was blessed, and as a “reward,” she would give birth to the Son of God.

Now, while we look at it as a high privilege, and Mary has certainly been remembered as a great hero of the faith, in her culture, this was not a privilege. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, it was a dangerous job. When it was discovered that she was pregnant before the formal wedding, she could be put to death. Joseph, her husband-to-be, would know the baby is not his, and he could order her death. No one would blame Mary if she walked away, and it’s important to note that God does not insist on her obedience. He invites her to participate in what he is about to do in the world, and he even puts up with her questions and her doubts. But do you know why Mary said, “Yes”? Do you know why she agreed to go along with this crazy plan of God’s, not knowing the outcome, not knowing what would happen to her? Because she was already living a God-ward life. She was already living a life in which she responded to God in love. She was already serving a God she knew was jealous toward her and she responded by putting him first in her life. She was, as she said, first and foremost “the Lord’s servant” (1:38).

Christmas is a call to refocus, to follow Mary’s example and to put God first in our lives once again, to become again “the Lord’s servant.” And we want to do that, at least on some level, or we wouldn’t gather here. We come here because we have, at some point, encountered the God who is jealous for us, who is passionate about us. But as the days roll by, there are so many things that get in the way or even threaten to replace our relationship with God, to cool the passion we might have once felt. Maybe the one thing that challenges us most is our work. Whatever work we do, it takes up a lot of our time—the majority of our time. Our occupation can demand a high amount of energy and loyalty. And there’s the constant message—sometimes subtle and sometimes spoken—that you’re supposed to give your all to the job. And so we do. When I’ve talked with people around this topic, sometimes I hear, “Well, you’ve got it easy. You’re a pastor. You work for God.” And I always remember Professor Boyd, my worship professor at Asbury, Professor Boyd, once telling us that when we become a pastor we cut our chances of going to heaven in half. And we all laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. He went on to remind us how important it is to stay connected with God, and how easy it is to become disconnected because you’re working with and dealing with holy things all the time. It’s easy to quit reading the Bible for anything other than sermon ideas. And early on in my ministry, I realized the truth of his words. I was busy doing good things, talking to people about Jesus without spending much time with him at all. The challenge for any job is this: where does Jesus fit? The question is really this: how do we balance our work—our necessary, important work—with our commitment to God?

We can even talk in broader strokes when we think about our time. We live in an overcommitted age. No matter what your age, there are endless activities, priorities, things we think we have to do or we have to enroll our children or grandchildren in. I’ve heard my parents and many “retired” folks here say that they don’t when they had time to work. There’s just so much to be done! The culture is not going to give us room for growing a relationship with God and if we believe we have to “do it all,” we’ll find ourselves becoming distant from this jealous God simply because we have no time left to spend with him. We can also become so passionate about what other people think of us so much so that we really quit caring what God thinks of us. Our energy and our time and even our money is spent trying to get others to think well of us, to make sure they have a good opinion of us. We demonstrate this in a lot of ways: choosing clothes based on what others will say, buying what we think others will approve of, or waiting on social media for people to “like” our posts. There is the story in the Gospels of a man we call the “rich young ruler,” a man who comes to Jesus and asks what he needs to do to “inherit eternal life.” In other words, what can I do so that I can live forever? He’s kept all the rules, and still finds himself empty. And Jesus points to the one thing that is standing in his way: his stuff, all the things he thinks will gain him acceptance and importance in this world. Get rid of those things, Jesus says, and you’ll be close to God. And the young man, Mark says, went away sad because the opinions and stuff of this world were much more important to him than even eternal life (cf. Mark 10:17-22).

Even our beliefs—including our beliefs about God—can get in the way. If we think we have God all figured out and we can’t allow room for God to work in the way he sees fit, then our beliefs and our theology have become more important to us than the God we claim to love. Bart Campolo, the son of Christian evangelist Tony Campolo, announced earlier this year that he no longer believed in the Christian faith. Through the last few years, he had encountered situations he could not easily explain, and he came to the point where, by his own admission, it no longer mattered to him what the Bible said. If verses or passages didn’t line up with what he already thought or believed, then he was going to jettison the Bible and not his own personal beliefs. “My Christianity had died the death of a thousand nicks and cuts,” he told Jonathan Merritt of Religious News Service. When he came to the point where he no longer believed in eternal life, he knew he was no longer a Christian. His beliefs had become more important than the God who is jealous for him. Today, Bart Campolo serves as the humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. And God is still jealous for him, even if he has allowed his theology or beliefs or whatever he might call it to take priority. All of us face that challenge, to let our beliefs be shaped by God and not the other way around.

None of these things so far are bad in and of themselves. Work, time, theology—all of those things shape who we are. Of course, some folks do become passionate about clearly bad things. Judas, in the Bible, was passionate that Jesus become the kind of king he wanted, and when Jesus didn’t do what he thought Jesus ought to do, Judas sold him out in the most famous betrayal in history. Those who carried out the Crusades with the goal of purifying the Holy Land in the middle ages were passionate about their love for the land where Jesus walked, but they became more passionate about killing people—Muslims in particular—than they were about the Jesus who loves each person. And, in our own time, we have the sad example of some Christians who want to persecute others, or who blame others for the problems in our country. They live and act as if they alone have a word from God. They carry out their passion by picketing and harassing and hating. And do you know what? God is jealous for them, too, even as they are passionate about all the wrong things. He still loves them, even as they spew out hate toward others. Because he’s that kind of God. He’s jealous, and longs for us all to have him first in our lives.

And so there are so many things—good and bad—that can pull us off track, that can consume our energy and our enthusiasm. And then Christmas comes along because we need to return each year to the manger to remember that God is jealous for us. Canadian songwriter Carolyn Arends put it well in these lyrics:

God makes the world and the world makes a choice

And the choice isn't good and we fall

We make our own way and the way that we go

Goes to nowhere but death for us all

He could've just started over
Left us alone in the dark
But our God is not like that, he wants his family back
He's had a plan from the start

And this is the story of stories

This is the mystery of old

This is the glory of glories

All that exists comes down to this

Newborn baby boy! (“The Story of Stories,” 2014).

He is jealous for us. He is passionate about us, so much so that he took human form and came down to rescue us.

How, then, do we respond to this jealous God? Well, if we’re going to get to know someone, if we’re going to fall in love again with someone, we have to spend time with them. A lot of couples report that, after the birth of children, their relationship suffers. So much time and energy is spent taking care of and raising the children that there’s little time left for each other. Divorces often happen during this time as the “feeling” of love goes away. But wise couples take time for each other away from the children. Call it a “date night” or whatever—relationships need time to grow and be nurtured and re-energized. It’s no less true for our relationship with God. We need time spent in God’s presence, and so I want to suggest four disciplines that, if we’re not already practicing them, are good to start during this Christmas week, when life sort of slows down. This time can give us a “running start” for the new year.

The first discipline is worship—and you’ve already got a head start on that one by being here this morning. Worship is a weekly reminder of God’s great love for us, and our opportunity to respond in love, to allow God to shape our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our goals. In worship, we are sharpened by each other and our spirits are lifted to see a bigger picture in the world. As Luke tells the story, Mary and others in the Christmas story often respond in worship, in giving thanks to God for all he has given them. Worship shapes their perspective. One of the things we ask here, for those who are a part of this church family, is that you’re present in worship every week unless you’re sick or out of town. This week, of course, we have multiple opportunities for worship, including tonight at the Longest Night Service.  And then Tuesday and Wednesday, we’ll have our candlelight services. Come and worship the newborn king at any one of those services, and if your family is here in town, bring them along. Worship is so important to our soul, as it connects us with the God who is jealous for us, who wants to spend time with us.

A second discipline is reading the Scripture. We try to make that easy for you. Every week in the bulletin there are suggested readings. I take the time to try to pick out Scripture passages that connect in some way with the message and lead us into next week as well. None of the passages listed will take you very long to read, but if we want to know the author, we have to read the book. It’s okay to read devotionals about Scripture, as long as that’s not the only connection we have with the book, with the Bible. We need to hear God’s heart, God’s love for us, his people, by reading the Scripture on our own. And read it with your kids or your grandkids. When our kids were little, that was one of the highlights of my day, reading each evening with them in their devotions. Kids get it more than you realize, and it begins what you hope will be a lifelong habit.

We follow that with prayer. A lot of folks get freaked out when you mention prayer because it seems so scary, but the reality is prayer is simply talking with God, just like you would talk to your spouse or to a friend. You can’t have a relationship with someone you never talk to. Now, as I wrote in this month’s newsletter, which you’ll get this coming week, I struggle with prayer. Even after all these years as a pastor, it’s a struggle. But a book I was reading recently has challenged and inspired me to use a simple prayer to connect with God more frequently. There’s an ancient prayer called, simply, “The Jesus Prayer” that goes like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There’s no magic in that prayer, but it’s a way of connecting with God. So when I’m a stoplight, or when I’m waiting for something, or when I’m tired and resting, I want my heart and mind to turn to that prayer as way, for me, to connect with God. I’m going to try that in the coming year, and in the article, I’m inviting you to come with me as we deepen our prayer lives. Maybe that’s not the prayer that will connect with you. That’s fine. But what will help you? What will call you to prayer, to reaching out and talking with the God who is jealous for you?

And one more discipline for this week: generosity. Giving of our time, talents and resources for the sake of the God who gave us everything when Jesus was born in the manger. Generosity doesn’t mean giving lavish gifts. Generosity means we give out of what we have to honor the God who gave us his all. And so, for some of us, generosity might mean we don’t walk by the red kettles without putting something in. It might mean we take some of our personal time this season to serve someone else. I have a friend who goes every year on Christmas day to a different city and works in a soup kitchen. Their whole family goes, giving up their “family day” for the sake of others. It might mean signing up to help at a church or a mission work project, or making the decision that 2015 is the year when you’ll finally go and serve at Red Bird Mission. And, I pray, for all of us, it means we’ll give generously during the Christmas Candlelight services. As in past years, we’ll be giving away whatever comes in the plate during those services; if you’re still finishing your pledged giving for this year, you can bring that next Sunday or drop it off in the office this week. This Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s offering will be divided between two mission opportunities. One is Africa University, our United Methodist university in Zimbabwe that is providing hope and light on that continent that has struggled so much this year. Africa University trains leaders who are then going back to their communities and making a huge difference in agriculture, clean water, education and in churches. Take a look at this brief video.

VIDEO: Christmas Eve for Africa

The other half, then, of our generosity will go to the “Feed My Lambs” ministry here in Portage Township, where we’re seeking to make sure every child in our school system has food on the weekends. For many, their only meal is at school, and so through “Feed My Lambs,” they get a box of food and snacks to take home every weekend so that they can eat. It makes a difference in their education and it shows them that people care. The God who is jealous for us calls us to generosity that shows others he is jealous for them, too.

As we enter this Christmas week, can you believe and grasp the idea that God is jealous for you? He loves you with a passion you can’t even imagine. This Christmas, will you put him first? Will you be passionate for him as well? As we will pray next week during our Covenant Service, “Christ will be all in all, or he will be nothing” (BOW pg. 292). Will you allow him to be your all in all this Christmas? Let’s pray.