Re-member the Family of God

sermon by Torin Eikler
Micah 3:5-12 Joshua 4:1-11

Earlier this week I had an eye-opening experience around the dinner table. We have been working with Sebastian on the issue of throwing things. As it turns out, he has a very good arm, which we encouraged when he was learning about gross motor skills with stuffed animals and soft balls. That has become more of a concern, though, as he has moved on to matchbox cars, wooden trains, and silverware, he continues to revel in the beauty of a well-thrown object. Unfortunately, his aim has not kept up with his talent for launching hard objects with potentially deadly force, and we have not been able to find a way to help him understand the constant danger he now represents to others (especially the cat).

The struggle is not entirely unexpected since we began reflecting some time ago on the problem presented by moving from en-couragement to dis-couragement of various activities as he moves through developmental stages. What did come as a surprise to me on Tuesday morning was Carrie’s admonishment … directed not at Sebastian, but at me. I was up from the table getting several things that I forgot to put out and get the toast from the toaster, and (in my own defense) I was in bit of a distracted state. So, I tossed the small spoon a foot or two onto the table next to her where is landed smoothly and slid to a halt next to her plate. And as a part of me was congratulating myself on such a well-executed, time-saving exploit, another part of me heard her say, “no throwing spoons.” It took a moment for me to realize that she was talking to me, and then I responded petulantly, “It was a toss, not a throw.”

As a sat munching my oatmeal a few minutes later, I realized how often I have given Sebastian mixed – even hypocritical – messages. Many times, I know, I have snapped at him about throwing a car even as I picked that same toy up and tossed it – well threw it, I suppose – into the toy box. Often, I say, “no feet on books” as I slide the stomped-on item across the floor and out of the way with my toe in passing. I can only wonder how many times I have told him not to eat eggy batter before it is cooked while licking said batter off my fingers. Obviously minor things to me, but glaring inconsistencies, I can imagine, to a little one trying to figure out the rules of the road.

I suppose calling these things “hypocrisy” may be a little strong for given the much more glaring duplicity we see all around us. In a world where a man who shares ownership of five homes can claim that he is part of and speaks for the middle class or a man who has claimed a priority of bring soldiers home for good turns around to promise more soldiers going to Afghanistan, perfectly natural parenting inconsistencies seem to be small potatoes. But, a double standard is a double standard, and comparing our own internal contradictions to the larger, more blatant ones exhibited by others lets us falsely justify our actions. After all, just because someone somewhere robs a bank does not make it right for us to shoplift or even to swipe a couple of loose bills off the counter at a friend’s house. One way or the other, we all find ourselves needing to say “do as I say, not as I do” more often than we should.


Some how, no matter how much I think it should, that doesn’t worry me much. Maybe it should be, but I guess I’m just so used to it that I hardly even notice when people don’t practice what they preach. I suppose I might even believe that hypocrisy is part of human nature to one degree or another. But, to be honest, I do get frustrated and even angry when I see blatant, harmful duplicity. When I hear people say, “I don’t want to sound racist, and I’m not racist. But, I just don’t think a black person can (insert whatever you want here),” my blood rises and, as Carrie can attest, I often find myself ranting about the ignorance and blind stupidity of “those people.” And, I’m certain that some of my own inconstancies push other people’s hot buttons the same way.

The truth is … we are all hypocrites in bigger or smaller ways, and we really should be worried about that. The scriptures, from the First Testament all the way through Revelation, say in very strong language that we should be worried about it.


In Micah’s day, according to the words of that prophet, the leadership of Israel – from the king all the way down to “small time” priests and local prophets – was laced with hypocrisy. The civil authorities whose charge was to care for everyone in the community abused the people in order to amass their own personal wealth. The priests charged the people for their services even though they were already ensured of rich living by traditional laws in place since Levi and his sons first began the priestly line. (Just to clarify, that would be like Carrie and I charging admission to Sunday services while still collecting our salary and benefits.) On top of all this, the prophets who were supposed to act as a check on the religious hierarchy by interpreting the word of God according to divine inspiration – in the face of tradition and custom is necessary, these prophets were acting like fortune tellers, selling oracles for money. But, unlike fortune tellers, they were claiming the authority of God to praise those who paid them and condemn those who refused to do so. And, the word of God that came through Micah was very clear on the subject announcing that the entire country would be handed over to neighboring empires for absolute destruction as a result – a very unhappy judgment hidden within elegant, flowery language.


Several hundred years later, another prophet – Jesus of Nazareth – offered a similar denouncement of the religious establishment stated in much more obvious language:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. [For you cross sea and land to make a single convert and when they are going in, you stop them.] … Woe to you [take the tithe of] mint, dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced…!”

And, lest we think ourselves not to be implicated since we (well most of us) are not in the religious establishment, Jesus addresses other words to all who seek the way of God:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, … he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, … and the king will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and you did not visit me. … Truly, I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of [these who are members of my family,] you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment….”

The message is clear, and it’s clearly directed at all of us as well as all of them. We need to practice what we preach! That’s true in all the little ways that we find ourselves compromised in day to day living. And, it is especially true when it comes to nurturing the family of God. If we seek, as we claim, to follow the way of Christ, then we need to follow the way of Christ. We need to welcome the stranger into our midst. We need to reach out to those in need the basic necessities of life – from food and drink to companionship and care to hope and love.

The family of God has always been made up of all sorts of people with all sorts of needs and all sorts of perspective on the world and on faith. After all, God chose all of humanity to be a special creation from the very beginning – God’s chosen creation … God’s family. Yet, we seem to have been looking for ways to mark ourselves as special and different from others around us throughout our entire history. We constantly divide ourselves into smaller and smaller groups until we have reached the point where we are fairly sure that our similarities out-weigh our differences. Then, we fortify our positions with habits, social conventions, and arguments reassuring us that we are in the right group. And, we don’t even realize how much we have fractured humanity – broken apart the family of God.


Yet, the story of God’s relationship with humanity has a plot line taking us in the opposite direction – from brokenness to unity. Even when God’s promise to Abram gave our spiritual ancestors their identity as a chosen people, the purpose behind the covenant was to bless “all the families of the earth” through Abraham’s descendants. When Moses brought the people out of Egypt, they were not alone. No longer just the Israelites, they became the Hebrew people as they were joined by many others who had been oppressed by the Egyptians. And, when they began to divide themselves into tribes and compete for wealth and land as they wandered in the wilderness, Joshua sought to bring them back together. He called for one person from each of tribe to carry a stone from the river Jordan to their camp at Gilgal. To remind all of them that they were one people in faith though they came from different ancestors – to re-member the family of God that they sought to divide, he had them place the stones together as a monument to the unity of the people God’s power protected.


And, Jesus, through his teaching and ministry, reminded the people of Israel that they were chosen not just to be a special, set-apart people. They were called to be a blessing to all peoples the world over. They were called to take the promise of God to the ends of the earth. And so, too, are we.
If we are to be the people of Christ, as we claim, then we are called to carry the good news of God’s way to all people, not just those who make up our own little groups. And, that means more than preaching the salvation offered in Christ. It means remembering that we are part of the family of God that is all of humanity. It means welcoming strangers into our community just as we welcomed the presence of our loved ones into worship this morning. It means reaching out to offer hope and help and companionship in the midst of hunger and thirst and loneliness and pain. It means meeting people where they are, however strange and different they may seem, and inviting them to enter the realm of God. It means re-membering the Family of God. And if we are to be the people of Christ, serving as the body of Christ in this world, then we must practice what we preach – what Christ preached, showing loving compassion and offering the promise of new life every day in the way we live as well as the words we speak. Let us be the people of Christ … for the Christ’s sake and for the sake of all.