GETTING OUT OF THE FOG
Psalm 51: 1-15
LUKE 14: 12-23
MARCH 9, 2025 – FIRST SUNDAY of LENT
If you are like me … when the time SPRINGS forward and we lose an hour of sleep I wake up with a foggy brain. Of course I don’t go to bed an hour earlier on Saturday night to adjust for the upcoming loss of sleep to avoid the fog and since Sunday’s are Sunday’s … I am not going to join the masses who prioritize the dismissal of worshiping God just so I can hang out in bed for a little longer on these days because Sunday mornings represent the best opportunity to sing the songs of faith, join with other faith-driven people in worship, share prayers, and frankly to just connect with God in church.
I was at a two-day conference this weekend and I was sharing with a pastor friend about my experience sitting over here last Sunday. I told him about the beautiful stain glass image of Jesus at the back of this Sanctuary but somewhere between the Children’s Message and the choir’s singing I looked up to see Jesus knocking at the door … clearly knocking at the door and in those moments I saw Jesus in a different light … I saw Jesus in a different perspective perhaps for the first time since I arrived at St. Paul’s in 2016 … I wasn’t just looking at a smudged image but I was seeing Jesus … knocking at the door and wanting to join in with us. Jesus, not lost in any fog but clear and alive. But I was seeing Jesus with dark skin, which is probably historically accurate … and before the Lenten season began I was carefully looking at the face the artist created for this church.
When was the last time you carefully looked up at Jesus … examined the potential of Jesus rather than the limiting image of Christ that the world wants you to adhere to?
Here we are in the season of Lent. Jesus is continuing to knock at the door of every faith-filled person … actually Jesus is reaching out to every person who self-identifies as being a Christian like He does every day but it is in the season of Lent when the church calendar offers us the specific opportunity of reconnection and restoration or one might say escape … to literally get out of the fog of the world to see the Light of Jesus Christ.
Our psalmist today made the proclamation we need to be embracing during these 40 days if we want to make LENT PERSONAL … “HAVE MERCY ON ME GOD …. WASH ME COMPLETELY CLEAN of MY GUILT.” And, then the psalmist adds something that perhaps some or most amongst us never ever want to admit to … you see friends we live in a fog that is so thick that all too frequently we have decided that the problem is THEM … THEIR ISSUES … THEIR FAILURES … THEIR FAULTS …. Oh yes indeed THEIR FAULTS because it is never ever about us. Never about me … how many of us almost create an image of ourselves that is closer to Jesus than to the rest of the world while noticing how others have failed or have noticeable warts to complain about?
We even align ourselves with those like us and the rest we dismiss … you know the scummy people … the ones we can attach mocking names to … some in our society have joined the choir that rejects the simple concept of ensuring that every single person no matter who they are, what they look like or where they come should be treated equally.
Yet, the psalmist declares … “I know … I PERSONALLY KNOW and ADMIT TO … ADMIT TO YOU GOD … my wrongdoings; my SIN GOD is always in front of me … GOD I have SINNED AGAINST YOU; YOU ALONE.” And, then psalmist adds … “I have COMMITTED EVIL … EVIL in your sight.”
Now that might be going too far for most of us … If I conducted a quick survey of those watching this service online or those of you in the sanctuary … and I asked the question have you ever committed EVIL … I am sure we all would be quick to say no not me… never ever. But, is it evil or good to worship other gods … you know things or people we almost bow done to and priorities we hold that are more important than opening up our Bibles to discover what God’s expectations are through Jesus Christ? In our Gospel reading Jesus uses the parable to proclaim “Go quickly to the city’s streets and bring the poor, crippled, blind and lame to my house” so if you support taking away, pushing down, and reducing the care or opportunities to those individuals who represent the diversity amongst human society who are merely asking for equity and equality with us, and if you want to stop any discussion of inclusion even though Jesus says bring them in … are you out there in the world representing good or evil?
We do find it convenient don’t we to wrap ourselves up in a fog to shield us from God’s Word … to try to put into perspective that the teachings of Jesus that go against our world focused views can be easily dismissed as things we shouldn’t talk about because well frankly I believe it is because it is easy and self satisfying to search for the greatest fog that from our personal perspectives blocks out the Light of Christ from our paths so we don’t feel a need to shout out to the God of Creation HAVE MERCY ON ME … in fact the mere inclusion of today’s inclusionary Gospel lesson might have some audiences shouting the speaker down … we know that suggesting God’s mercy as Scripture calls for can result in threats to one’s personal safety in this nation we live in.
Yes, there are some amongst us who don’t even want to consider mercy for those named in today’s message from Luke even though it is Jesus speaking … Jesus commanding … God expects us to step out of the world’s fog and to celebrate the diversity of God’s creation of humanity all of whom have been made in God’s Holy Image. LOVE ALL of YOUR NEIGHBORS … as Jesus loved … EQUALLY, INCLUSIVELY regardless of their DIVERSITY! That is why this church never hesitates to welcome whoever walks through those doors … since I arrived here I have watched you welcome folks from Africa, the Ukraine, some whose accent is Latino … I have seen you embrace individuals from every continent in the world and we have had folks worshiping with us online from every continent but Antarctica and I almost convinced a classmate working there to tune in.
Can you remember for a moment that dreadful experience of driving a car or being a passenger in a car as it enters into the thickest of fogs. You can’t see much beyond your vehicles front bumper. You have this inherent fear that another vehicle or something else will cross your path and end up enmeshed with you. You can’t turn on your high beams because YOUR high beams will only reflect your light back at you. BLINDING YOU in your FOGGY moment. We have to drive through the fog, look under the fog … get to the other side … where the light of the day will reveal to us all of our surroundings and if you are like me … when you get there you feel peace, joy and relief.
In her book, ‘How to be Brave,’ Bishop Mariann Budde writes, [1]“The Christian season of Lent calls us into self-reflection and amendment of life patterned on the intense trial and temptation that Jesus experienced. In one moment, Jesus is basking in the affirmation of God; in the next He is contending with His human frailties in a mighty struggle against the force of evil.” Friends, that is our daily struggle … it’s one side or the other … align with God or be one with the world … Jesus faced evil … Jesus faced Satan … we do too.
The anti-God forces are trying to lure us into the FOG … FORCING the OBLITERATION of GOD … that is the goal of evil … that is the goal of Satan … that is the world of choices that we are in because frankly there are only two sides to this coin. And, truthfully … each and every one of us daily has voices attuned and dedicated to the FOG … FORCING either directly or indirectly the OBLITERATION of GOD … if you focus in on the words and the actions not from your global perspective but holding tightly to Scripture you will awaken to that reality but it is in this LENTEN SEASON when you need to determine if you will push through the FOG because I will tell you … the light of GOD is always on the other side … the LOVE OF GOD and GOD’s MERCY will never go away no matter how intense the FOG machines of the world pump out their evil clouds attempting to make even God’s MERCY … GOD’s INCLUSIVE LOVE things to be ashamed of.
So, together we need to move forward by first recognizing the FOG that is either surrounding us right now or admit that it wouldn’t take too much for us to get lost in THEIR FOG .. swallowed up by their attempt to FORCE THE OBLITERATION of GOD. If we don’t see the fog and instead keep moving towards it we will be swallowed up in it and many will never get out.
And, then … this being Lent. We laughed yesterday about chocolate denial as the Lenten route many take but we … the people of God need to understand that we will be tempted just like Jesus during these 40 days but that we need a daily protective shield … a GOD PROVEN SYSTEM to direct us from the FOG. We need to adhere to something that Reinhold Niebuhr said as he tried to stop the world’s complacency with Hitler … “We must be saved by hope. Nothing that we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore we are saved by love.”
God’s love friends never can be wiped away … it’s always there … for every single human no matter how many people try to diminish humans whether it was the Nazi’s attacks on Jews … or today’s verbal attacks on a wide variety of humans including those who merely want to show they care about others’ well being. God stands against all hate and personal attacks … God calls on us to DO JUSTICE and LOVE ALL with MERCY … God declares GOD’s love for ALL through Jesus … and GOD ALWAYS is there with that love.
As we begin this season of Lent … together we must admit that we need God … we desperately need to act and live as if we are followers of Jesus Christ by reading His Words making Jesus’ teachings our life’s motto and our life’s call. We need the Holy Spirit … we need to be willing to join together for Christ and pull away from the world.
CREATE IN ME A CLEAN HEART GOD! Put a new faithful spirit DEEP INSIDE ME. RETURN THE JOY of YOUR SALVATION TO ME.
The Psalmist then provides the essential tool that can help you and me from escaping the FOG that the world is attempting to envelop us in … we need to stand against it … we need to deny their FORCING THE OBLITERATION of GOD by having the WILLING SPIRITS that allow GOD TO SUSTAIN US even through the temptations the world will tease us with … our friends may embrace the FOG by claiming the FOG’s powers are with God but when you read Scripture … when you hear Jesus; when you are faithful to His teaching … Jesus said, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Free from THE FOG … free from the world … giving you a peace that goes beyond human understanding. AMEN