Eighteenth Sunday after
Pentecost
October 16, 2011
There’s a scandal in the Church. In our country the political races are
heating up and candidates are trying to get the upper hand on their opponents. Sometimes
when a candidate becomes aware that an opponent is embroiled in a scandal, they
may use that to try to bring their opponent down. In the Church, we’ve heard
all too often of scandals rocking individual congregations, whether through larceny
or adultery or bigotry or any number of ways to scandalize the Church. But
there is one scandal in the Church that is different and God is the source of
it. This scandal rocks the Church, that is, the holy Christian and apostolic
Church, and it offends the world at large.
It is the scandal of particularity. It is not some deep dark secret
that God has been trying to hide. It doesn’t uncover some character flaw in God
or moral failing on His part. It is not some devious and sadistic action on His
part that brings Him joy in bringing upon people needless pain and harm. What
it is is simply the way He does things. What He does and how He does it is
scandalous. It is offensive.
The reason is it is? Because it is specific. So specific, in fact, that
it is exclusionary. Not meaning that His love is exclusionary. His love is
anything but. His love is inclusive. His salvation is for everyone. God loves
everyone. He has offered salvation to every person. Jesus died for everyone.
So, no, it’s not His love. It’s the way He brings about His love.
And here is the scandal of particularity. God’s love is in His Son
Jesus Christ. It is in Him alone. That’s the scandal. That’s the particular nature
of it. If you casually read the Scriptures you may not see it. If you read them
carefully and take them to heart you will see more and more the scandalous
nature of God and how He relates to us. You will see that no matter how you
would like to view yourself God sees you in your sin. No matter what you think that
you think of God, God knows that as you stand He is your enemy. No matter how
you would like to shy away from your sin and the consequences that go along
with it, God doesn’t shy away from it, He meets it straight on.
The world likes to talk about love and tolerance and all the religious
roads ending up in the same place and you believing what is right for you and
I’ll believe what is right for me and not believing in anything at all and an
array of ways to explain basically the same thing: can’t we all just get along?
In comes God with His scandal of particularity. It’s in Jesus. Take away all
the religious platitudes, all the appeals for tolerance, all the pleas for
being loving of our fellow man and there’s one thing you must face: the man
Jesus Christ.
People do deal with Jesus all the time. But notice how they do it.
Everyone comes at Jesus with an agenda. Everyone. Some would like you to
believe that they are willing to give Jesus a shot, but they really have no
more use for Him than a staple you find lying on the floor. This includes a lot
of people who say a lot of good and even true things about Him. It’s what the people
in the Gospel reading did. “Teacher, we know that You are true and teach the
way of God truthfully, and You do not care about anyone’s opinion, for You are
not swayed by appearances.” If you didn’t know who was saying this to Him or of
Him you wouldn’t be able to tell that they are really scandalized by Him and
want only to get Him out of the way so that they can continue on in life
without having to deal with Him.
But He’s there. In the flesh. A man. A person that must be dealt with.
Why? Because He said that your eternal destiny must go through Him. No one
else. Nothing else. Nothing. Only Jesus. The scandal of particularity. It is so
particular that if you say all the great things about God you can think of and
even believe them but do not look solely to Christ for eternal hope than you do
not believe in the true God and you do not have eternal salvation.
It honestly is very easy to miss this when you’re reading the Scriptures.
But it’s there. God doesn’t just say He loves us. He says He loves us in
Christ. It is in the suffering and death and resurrection of Christ that He
loves us. Not in anything else. Nothing. The scandal of particularity. You must
look to that one man and His death on the cross to see who the true God is and
that that is how He loves you. If it’s not in this way then you have no God,
you have no hope, you have no salvation.
Why does Paul talk the way he talks when he writes to the
Thessalonians? Because of Christ. When he writes to the Christians in
Thessalonica He writes to them in
God the Father. Scandal of Particularity. It’s funny, though. That doesn’t
sound particularly scandalous. It may not even sound particularly particular.
But it is. It so very is. Paul isn’t just writing to his brother and sister
Christians in God. It’s in God the Father. What that means is that God
is not just some ethereal spiritual ‘thing’, but distinct. Not just God; God the
Father. What that means is that He is the Father of someone. And it’s not just
any someone. It’s a particular, distinct, person. As Paul says it, it’s the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Now what does this mean? It means that it’s only in Jesus, the one who
is Lord, the one who is Christ, that we know who God is. Because God is very
particular. He’s not just God. He’s God, the Father. God the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. There is only one. Only one God. Only one Lord. The only God is the
one who is the Father of the Lord. The only Lord is the one who is Jesus.
That’s the scandal. That’s the particularity of it.
Jesus is a man. Jesus, however, is the man who is the Lord. He’s the
man who is the Christ. The Messiah. The Anointed One. The one who was anointed
by God to be the Savior. That’s how God loves us. In His Son. The one He
appointed. The one He chose and sent to be the Savior. It was this one who
stood before those people who said all those nice things about Him that were
very good and very true, and as Jesus pointed out, utterly hypocritical. Hypocritical
because they wanted God without Him. They wanted religion apart from the one in
whom only true religion and salvation is known. The one who is the man Jesus.
The Lord. The Christ. That’s the scandal. That’s the utterly particular nature
of it.
God works this way. Scandalously. Particularly. He’s not floating
around up there. He’s specific. Revealing Himself in His Son. His Son, the one
who is the Lord; the one who is the Christ. God works in what seems strange
ways to us. But they’re really not strange at all. They are scandalous. We
would cry false doctrine if someone else were appointed Messiah, the Anointed
One. The Christ. But that’s exactly what God does. It’s right there for all to
see in the Old Testament reading. Cyrus. The pagan. The king who worshiped
false gods. The king who rejected the true God, the Triune God. This is the one
God chose to be His Anointed. His Chosen One to bring His people out of bondage
in Babylon. You think the people of Israel were scandalized? Sure, they were
glad to be going back home. Happy finally for the chance to worship back in
their own land. But Cyrus? Why should it have to come about through a pagan
king giving them release from their captivity and safe harbor back to their
homeland?
Why? The Scandal of Particularity. This is the way God works. Not
strangely. Not mysteriously. Scandalously. With specificity. Not in all of that.
Or in everything. Or in any old way you’d like. This way. In the way He
chooses. The way He appoints. If the Israelites were going to have any notion
that they could have anything to do with the accomplishing of their release,
the breaking of their bondage, of their salvation, that was all shattered in
the pagan that would make it come about. If you want salvation, people of
Jacob, sons and daughters of Israel, look to the true God, the only one who can
bring it about. But be aware, you may not like it. Be warned, you may be offended.
Take note that you may question His ways. Consider that you may end up as those
in the Gospel reading who said all right things about God but ended up walking
away from Him. Did He just say we are to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s?
What kind of a God would teach that? He can’t be the true God. The scandal of particularity.
Jesus comes in the flesh. And He says to render to God what is God’s.
What is God’s is His own Son. He Himself is the one who renders Him unto
Himself. That’s the scandal. That’s where salvation is found. In the Son. In
the one who was rendered to God on the cross. If we then are to render to God
what is His we come quickly to the realization that we can’t do it. How can we?
He places His judgment on us that we are sinful. Utterly corrupt and unable to
render anything to Him of good. What we must do, rather, is simply look to
Christ. He’s the one who does the rendering. Anything we do for God, everything
we give to Him, is solely by and because of and for the sake of Christ. Jesus,
the one who is the Lord and the one who is the Savior.
The scandal of particularity may seem like a great concept for talking
about the big things. Salvation. Your eternal destiny. Etc. Etc. But what about
now? What about this life? What does the scandal of particularity mean for this
life? For what we do? It means that you are who you are because of the God who
is the only God. In the Old Testament reading He can’t say it any clearer: I am
the Lord and there is no other. What He also can’t say any clearer is that we
are who we are because of Him. “I have named you. I am the one who calls you by
your name.” The reason this is so? His Son. Jesus. The one who is the Lord; the
one who is the Christ. This why Paul said that he “gave thanks to God always
for all of you, constantly mentioning you in my prayers.” Was it because they
were so wonderful of people? Well, in a sense, yes. The reason is because of, guess
what?, that’s right, Jesus. The scandal of particularity. They were wonderful
people because of Jesus. Paul said he remembered them in his prayers, “remembering
before our God and Father your work
of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
These aren’t just fine platitudes one Christian is saying to others.
They are realities. The Thessalonian Christians were the people of God because
of God the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is who we are. It’s not
because of you. It’s because of Christ. The one who went to the cross and
walked out of the tomb. This is it. This is not just the main thing, it’s the thing. If people have a hard time
coming to terms with it, it’s not a surprise. There is a reason it is the
scandal of particularity.
This isn’t to say that’s it’s a dark, awful, message. It’s the most glorious
message there is. It’s the reason Paul has to give thanks. Just as God said to
His people, as we heard in the Old Testament reading, Paul says of the Thessalonians,
and of us, that God has chosen us. Who we are, as with those Paul was writing
to, comes about by the Gospel. Paul describes it as the “Gospel which came to
you not only in Word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full
conviction.” To our ears the Gospel may not seem powerful but when the Holy
Spirit is involved there is power beyond what our eyes can see. God the Father
is the one who sends His Son. He is the one who also sends His Holy Spirit. So
if it seems scandalous that you need to hear the words spoken that you are
forgiven then it at least shouldn’t surprise you. It is, after all, the scandal
of particularity.
The more you dig into the Scriptures and see how God works, the more
you see that it never quite seems to be the way we would think it should be.
Why would the Thessalonians have needed to receive, as Paul says, “the Word in
much affliction”? Because of the scandal of particularity. The Gospel strips
away all our notions of who we are and what we must do so that we can clearly
see Christ and who He is and what He has done. But the affliction is never
without what comes with it, as Paul says, “with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so
that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” It
is through the experience of affliction that we can better see that others are
in need and that is how we are able to help and serve them. It is how, in the
same way as with the Thessalonians, the Word of the Lord sounds forth from us
to the community and even everywhere.
The scandal of particularity ultimately comes down to this: there is
one God. That is, there is one true God. That we place our trust in so many
things of our own making or desires shows how steeped in sin we are. Paul
rejoices in how the Thessalonians turned to God from idols. We must also see
ourselves here. Anything in our lives we look to for help and hope and
fulfillment apart from God is in the end an idol. As they turned from idols to serve the living and true God, so do we. We
see that the living and true God is not some nebulous god but the one who has
given us His Son. This is specific. It’s particular. If it’s a scandal to us,
we can rejoice with Paul that it is so to our sinful nature and in being
renewed by God’s mercy and grace we, as Paul says, “wait for His Son from
heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to
come.” Amen.
SDG
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