Year B
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Promises Kept
I grew up in a time when, for the most part, when a person gave you their word you could count on them to keep their promise to you. I was told by my parents that a person’s word is their bond and I was encouraged to live my life with integrity. Yet, in our post-modern society today we seldom believe that a promise is made to be kept. Now mind you, this does not apply to everyone but the norm seems to be that promises are broken without remorse or regret. We see it in marriages, contracts, and agreements on a regular basis. All of us have experienced times when those close to us, those we trust the most, have broken promises, promises made with surety and commitment. And each one of us, have broken promises made to our loved ones and to others even when we have the best of intentions.
It could be argued that we, as a people, have abandoned the notion of commitment. No longer must we do what we say we will do. This abandonment of commitment spreads into relationships and it even influences the life of the church, where a hand full of people commit to leadership roles or things that mean they will have to follow through. Yet, the need to keep our promises is one of the things that literally make’s life possible. The glue of culture, in fact, is the ability to trust that people will do what they say they will do. For people of faith, we exist as a people because of a promise made and kept to us.
God makes a covenant with us and this covenant, or contract, followed up so marvelously by the new covenant in Christ, makes us who we are. It is promises made and kept that give us our very identity. Yet, even when we do abandon our commitment to people or God, God’s boundless love is demonstrated by God’s faithfulness to God’s promises. God keeps God’s promises. The lessons today all help us to see God’s capacity to forgive our sins, and faithfulness in keeping promises. The text from the 2 book of Samuel today presents a covenant God made with David, king of Israel, conveyed to David through God’s mouthpiece, the prophet Nathan.
Over the past few weeks, as we have followed David’s rise to power, we have seen him succeed in putting down the Philistine threat, taking Jerusalem as the political capital, and bringing the ark, the portable throne of God, to the city to make it the religious capital of the nation. However, the ark was housed in a tent and that begins to worry David. His desire to build a house for God runs up against God’s “not yet.” David would not be the one to build a house for God; rather that task would become the responsibility of his heir Solomon. David himself will be invested with the more important task of initiating and establishing the kingdom of Israel.
In that light, God makes a covenant with David that God’s establishment of the kingdom of Israel will be everlasting-forever, that Israel will be punished if it breaks the covenant, that God will forgive Israel’s sins, and that Israel will always be drawn back to God through God’s mercy and grace. Psalm 89 that we read together this morning reinforces those themes and characteristics of God, but it also moves beyond them. The psalmist strengthens God’s commitment to keeping God’s promises to David and makes it clear that God never changes God’s mind. Both the 2 Samuel text and the psalm affirm that the relationship between God and God’s people is everlasting and binding even when God’s people break ties with God. They show that God’s everlasting love always forgives, simply because God is eternal and God is God.
It is in this spirit that the meaning of God’s covenant promises to David lies behind the message of the text today from Ephesians. This passage speaks of what God has accomplished in the world through Christ and God’s call to all those who are in a new covenant relationship with Christ, to participate in good works of reconciliation. In Ephesians, God is also merciful and steadfast in love, but now extends that love and mercy to non-Israelites. God’s promise to Abraham included all nations and this came about by means of the cross.
The problem Paul is addressing here is that the Gentile believers in the church at Ephesus have become so proud of their claim to be Christian that they now look down on those through whom the gift has come to them, namely, the Jews. So Paul is reminding them that Christ is the dividing point between who they once were and who they are now. This new group in Christ is to live under the banner of one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Christ enables us, because of what he has done, to be different in how we relate to others.
Rather than building walls that separate us and keep us safe, these images from Ephesians urge us to let ourselves be built into a temple where God can dwell. Christ is the cornerstone. In him, we see God’s promise of faithfulness, steadfastness, and forgiveness. In him, we are no longer aliens, but one. One community built as a house for God in this world! The gospel text today presents the practical side of this new covenant with God and defines what it is the church does as a result of being God’s dwelling place. The two short passages are patched together with the obvious intent to stress Christ’s compassion for the needy and how that compassion is expressed in concrete action.
Jesus challenges the barriers we have erected. There is no such thing in the ministry of Jesus. To preach the good news of the Kingdom is also to heal the sick and feed the hungry. The issue is not debated by Jesus. One simply does it. But commitment to the purposes of God often keeps one from that time of rest and renewal as we see in today’s text. The twelve disciples have just returned from their mission that Jesus sent them out on and are reporting all that they had done. Jesus immediately suggests that they go on retreat for a time, since they are tired and swamped by the people.
The plan fails, however, and the crowd actually beats Jesus and the disciples to the place they had hoped to get some rest. However, instead of Jesus seeing the crowd as an interruption, Jesus sees the crowd as needy and lost, indeed, as sheep without a shepherd, and he had compassion for them. He is profoundly hurt by the needy crowd. He crosses the barriers to touch the untouchable, to love the unlovely, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry. Jesus teaches us the selflessness of service and sacrifice in addressing the needs that he encountered. Regardless of preset agendas or fatigue, he was willing to give of himself so that others may experience a better life. He recognized the kinship of all people-regardless of race or status and this love toward all-enemies and neighbors-is the meaning of the good news.
The fact of this good news is evident in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus reveals the heart of God, he shows us that God is faithful and steadfast, that God is found where deep compassion for the needy and hurting is felt and acted on. God’s dwelling place is not tucked away neatly in some shrine set apart from the world but with humans who are desperate for healing, physical or spiritual. God’s home is in the community of faith and this presence is what leads us out into the world to minister to the needy.
The promises of God assure us that God dwells in the world through and with people, who serve God faithfully. It is promises made and kept that give us our very identity. Yet, even if all others fail to adhere to their end of the bargain, God’s promises provide us an unfailing hope in and an assurance of the promise of God. These texts today set forth the fundamental belief of the nature of God. In Jesus, we see how much God loves us by keeping promises and we are who we are because of promises made and kept. Those who are now part of God’s household must reflect God’s promises and love in all our actions.