Transcript
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Incline your ear O Lord and answer me for I am poor and needy. Preserve my life for I am devoted to you. Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. Be gracious to me O Lord for to you do I cry all day long. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you O Lord I lift up my soul. Let us lift up our souls to the living God as we worship together.
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Let us pray. Let the good news come now O Lord not only in word but in power In the Holy Spirit and with full assurance through Jesus Christ our Lord amen Listen now to the reading of God's word from first Samuel chapter 7 reading from the third verse Then Samuel said to all the house of Israel if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart Then put away the foreign gods and the Astartes from among you Direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only and he will deliver you out of the
hand of the Philistines So Israel put away the Ba'als and the Astartes and they serve the Lord only. Then Samuel said gather all Israel at Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord They fasted that day and said we have sinned against the Lord and Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah When the Philistines heard that the people of
Israel had gathered at Mizpah The lords of the Philistines went up against Israel and when the people of Israel heard of it they were afraid of the Philistines The people of Israel said to Samuel do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us and pray that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines So Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord Samuel
cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered him As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering the Philistines drew near to attack Israel But the Lord thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion and they were routed before Israel And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them down as far as beyond Bethcar Then Samuel took a stone and set
it up between Mizpah and Jeshenah and named it Ebenezer. For he said thus far the Lord has helped us. And from the New Testament Paul's first letter to the Corinthians chapter 4 reading from the first verse Think of us in this way as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you
or by any human court I did not even judge myself I am not aware of anything against myself but I am not thereby acquitted It is the Lord who judges me Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time Before the Lord comes who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness And will disclose the purposes of the heart Then each one will receive commendation From God This is the word of the Lord Thanks be
to God During his boyhood Russell Baker the newspaper columnist lost his father to an early death After this he wrote I never cried again with any real conviction Nor expected much of anyone's God except indifference There are many people in this world who experience God's absence as indifference This has not been however the experience of the people of God The people of God engaged with God in covenant relationship called to obedience and mission and ministry Have
always experienced God's presence as judgment and grace I had a friend in graduate school, a Methodist Who loved to point out why Charles Wesley when he preached would preach an hour And the first half hour he would preach the law of God And the second half hour he would preach the gospel of Christ And my friend loved to emphasize that in 18th century England everybody knew about the grace of God But no one knew why it
was important And Wesley preached the law as judgment in order that the people of God might understand the meaning of the grace of God The Old Testament lesson this morning is one of those experiences in the life of Israel in which judgment and grace are both evident Israel again has been wandering off to the foreign gods, to the Baals and the Astartes The fertility cults with their great attraction Samuel the judge of God has called Israel
back to its covenant faithfulness Thou shalt have no other gods before me, thou shalt not make any graven image and worship it Israel has repented nationally, returns to Mizpah there to do penance There to offer sacrifices of penitence The Philistines learn that Israel has gathered together in one place Sees upon this as an opportunity to destroy Israel, descend upon them Israel cries out to God through Samuel and God acts in Israel's behalf and routes the Philistines
It is for Israel not a moment of God's indifference But a moment of God's evident grace Samuel takes a stone and raises it at Mizpah in that place And calls it Ebenezer, literally a stone of help And says it stands for this fact This far God has brought us help This far The Apostle Paul knew about God's judgment and grace That God was whatever God was, not indifferent Can you imagine the experience of judgment in Paul's
life when on that Damascus road He met the living Christ, whose church he had been persecuting I mean if you want to be wrong, let's really be wrong If you want to make a mistake, let's make a classic mistake And there Paul is undressed theologically before the living Christ Paul knew about judgment But Paul knew about grace There were the moments of grace and not just the moments of grace But the underlying reality of grace That
is more profound More eternal Than the judgment of God And Paul has the audacity to say to the Corinthians It is a small thing that you should judge me Congregations are always judging their preachers, let me tell you Every Sunday at 11 o'clock It's finals time once again Every time you do something or don't do something You're under the judgment of the people of God Paul says it's a small thing to me That you should
judge me, I don't even judge myself The Lord will judge me in due season When the time comes When the secrets of the hearts are made manifest And in that moment I will trust the grace of God It seems to me that this is the time in our academic year When it is an opportunity to raise an Ebenezer It is the time to say the Lord has brought us thus far It is a time to recognize
who the Philistines are in our lives Maybe the curriculum Maybe the irregular Greek verbs Maybe the paradigm shifts in theology, whatever And to say the Lord has brought us safely thus far It's also a time not to believe too greatly in your grades A time to say to faculty and TAs it is a small thing That you judge me In the eternal perspective, it is a small thing. You may have gotten a C+, does that
mean you're a C+ person? You may have gotten an A-, does that make you an A- person? Hardly, hardly. The grades are an indication of your progress An indication of what it seems to us you have learned thus far But you are not your grades And you must never let the grades define who you are We used to say in my day it was the B students who made the best ministers That's because we
were B students Laughter B students are people who could be A students if they didn't like other people so much. We would study for two hours and then wonder what was happening in the gym. We had not only IQ but EQ. Your grades do not determine what kind of ministers you will be I love that story of the little boy in the south who was asked who won the civil war He said too
early to tell Laughter What kind of ministers would you be? Too early to tell But I want you to know that there is a rhythm in our relationship with God It's called judgment and grace There are the moments of judgment. God holds us accountable But also God sustains us by mercy and by love And the most profound of the two is the grace It is time to raise our Ebenezer As a sign that God has brought
us safely thus far What more can we ask? Let us stand and sing in a rousing way our concluding hymn About the very blessing through which this situation Is heard in every city of wisdom so that grace Is reached from heaven and from earth So by faith and through love As the mountain is high, and the clouds are gazing low In our midst the high Ebenezer With the light of the heaven above The light of the
light through which this situation Is in view of our journey He's the son of the Ebenezer Born from the womb of God In a place where he was created In a world where vision is blind But in vision of the Ebenezer Maybe I must believe In vision of the Ebenezer Born from the womb of God In a place where he was created In a world where vision is blind But in vision of the Ebenezer And now
go forth in peace and joy and expectation and confidence in God who has brought you thus far. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit Be with you all. Amen.
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