But crosses aren’t always good. The Klan burned crosses. They also wore hoods. And you could always “cross your fingers,”but it meant you had something to hide. Maybe it gave us the phrase: “behind the back.” Symbolizing you didn’t mean what you said. And the world’s never been the same. Small towns tried to combat it with the Boy Scouts and Sunday School. So Mamma enrolled me in the Scouts, where we made a pledge with three fingers (straight-up): “On my honor I’ll do my best to obey God & country...” Obey God and treat other people right. Then on Sunday I’d go to church and hear: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” I mean decent folks did what could to counter the finger-crossing gimmick. I guess it’s kind of cool for a kid. But you’d think grown-ups would give it up.
Nah the grown-ups have fouled-up. They know a good thing when they see it! Instead of giving-it-up, we’ve found more creative ways to do it. Take everything that’s bad or wrong with the world, and somebody’s crossing their fingers behind their backs as a seductive way to gain power and make money. War, divorce, school and church shootings, poverty, political corruption, greedy financial bail-outs, advertising???” My favorite is “As seen on TV!” Yea right. Promises, promises, promises!!!
Ya’ll can see why the topic for the final Sunday of the Church Year is one of the most important matters facing American society, namely the power of promises. We’ve heard some whoppers this year! Our culture of lying is big on overpromising ... and even better at promise-breaking. So, what often passes as a promise, comes off as a deal, the old “crossed fingers behind the back,” making it hard to believe in our institutions.
There’s power in promises. Mostly because of the faithful ones who keep ‘em. But it’s the only thing holding our world together. And when the world works like it should, it means some promises have been kept. The promises we make are what keeps us going when we’d like to toss-in-the-towel. Because for some, whose word means something, they do unreasonable things; like sticking with lost causes, or holding onto a love grown cold; gambling on the future, or dropping an offering in the place at church. And that stands out in a society that’d rather bail out than stick it out. First the insurance companies, then the banks, now it’s the Detroit three. Providence Plave? Hey it’s church budget time: why don’t we declare bankruptcy at First Baptist and let the government bail us out? Ah, we’re just small cheese.
Without promises, nothing important would get done. There’s not much promises can’t do. But only if they’re kept. Not keeping our promises is what makes the world not work right. Only the human species need to make promises; and only humans break them. But anytime you make a commitment, it makes at least one thing predictable in an unpredictable future: saying you're going to be there, no matter what. Making a promise is the only way we can create an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty. Yeah, it stakes a claim on our personal freedom. But it also allows you to have the freedom of creating your own future, because it assumes the future is not pre-determined, by refusing to surrender our relationships to the whimsical drives of the subconscious that bind us from within.
Promises allow us to create our identity. Giving my word gives me an identity: as that woman's husband, and those children's father or #36, this church’s pastor. Our culture tries to sell us on the idea that we can only be ourselves when we claim our “rights.” But a free self knows you become a genuine self by making and keeping your commitments, by being a responsible somebody, who can be depended upon and trusted. Even when keeping them exacts a price.
When folks ask, "Who are you?" Some answer based on feelings. Others click off their accomplishments. But way too many others are saddled by what others might think about them. Other-directed. But persons who dare to make promises are inner-directed and learn who they are by the promises they've kept. "A Man For All Seasons" is a story about Sir Thomas More. It has a gripping scene with his daughter begging him to save his hide with the King. But to do so, he’d have to betray his word. More's integrity reveals the danger of making light of a promise: "Ah Meg, when a man takes an oath, he holds his own self in his hands, like water. And when he opens his hands, he need no longer hope to find himself again." That’s what I’m talking about. You’ve heard the cliches: “You are what you eat, what you read, how you talk, where you’re from.” I say we are our promises, because we lose ourselves if we don’t keep them. Promises have some mighty big shoes to fill, but if this world is to ever work right, it’ll be because some promises were kept.
Our biblical “Man for all seasons” was God-directed: an exiled Hebrew shepherd out in the desert, stopped in his tracks by a flaming bush that wouldn't stop burning. Thus, Moses snapped to attention at the voice of an invisible, transcendent Someone, calling him to an ethical task, to lead his people out of slavery down in Egypt. At first, Moses was skeptical, "What’s your name? The people are gonna want to know who you are. You got some kind of I.D.?" The name came from behind the flame, in a word composed of four Hebrew consonants "YHWH," which defies confident translation: "I am who I am." But Moses was more interested in the Stranger's power than his name. "OK, Mr. I-AM-WHO-I-AM, can I depend on you?" And all the Stranger said to Moses was, he’s a promise-making God, who’s word was good. The Bible calls it “covenant,” but it means the same. "I’m the One who will be there for you." God's identity.
And for those who believed the promise, it's mixed. Moses led them out of Egypt, kissed slavery goodbye, but once they arrived in the Promised Land, they acted like people with a death-wish. Only one thing kept them going, through all the wilderness highs and lows--THE PROMISE of the "One who will be there with them."
But the promise wasn’t time-bound. And sure enough, one day, when it looked like the Stranger had forgotten the promise, a prophet’s standing in the Jordan River talking about “Immanuel, God with us." Who, in the end backed up the promise with his blood, that flowed over God's good earth, and sealed again the ancient promise: "I’ll never leave you nor forsake you to the end of the age."
This is the peg on which the present rests and the future hangs. What's going to become of the world? A garbage heap or something that finally works right? “Will you now restore the kingdom?” his disciples wanted to know on Ascension mountain, just as he was taken up into a cloud. Funny how a “cloud” always seems to block our view. The same question was put to the big fisherman, who replied: "According to the promise, we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth where everything will work right" (2 Pet. 3:13). There it is again-- confirmation, from the one whose name is "I will be there with you."
That applies to communities too. Our homes, our churches, our cities, our neighborhoods are made or broken by the integrity of its peoples. What holds a marriage together? When couples make a lifetime commitment they take on two new identities. Each of them says what God said to Moses: "I’m the one who’ll be there with you." This kind of promise is countercultural today. Back in the ‘70's hip couples wanted to get married, but only if they could dumb-down their vows from "as long as we shall live" to "as long as we shall love." I wouldn't do it, because that's a half-baked promise. And what's wrong with the world today is, too many have made that kind of promise, tied to their feelings rather than their will. So 50% of today's marriages don’t survive, because somebody didn’t keep their word.
We confuse a vow with a contract. "I’ll be there for you, as long as you provide me with the satisfaction that I have coming." The difference is, we keep promises, even when we don't get what’s coming to us. Father Abraham pursued the promise, “looking for a city whose builder and maker was God.” And he never received the promise, but he never stopped pursuing it. If you want to know what faith is, Take a long look at Hebrews 11, “the hall of fame of faith.” It’s an amazing list of saints who"stick with what they're stuck with,"instead of abandoning ship at the first sign of difficulty. You know, there’s something to be said for stubbornness?
How can you know what you're getting into when you get married? People change over the years. Nobody knows that like my wife, because she’s slept with at least 3 different men since we got married, and all of ‘em are me! But in one sense we can stay the same person we were the day we got married: if we’re somebody who keeps our promises. That’s when we’re most like God. My wife and I were married 47 years ago and we didn’t have much. Just each other. And we still don’t have much. But we still have each other. Beloveds that's what being married is. I don’t care how much the wedding dress costs. It’s just for show. The price of a slice of cake, the opulence of a DJ and of course the ol’ liquor bar; nobody has any business getting married until you’ve got the integrity to stand behind your word.
What is a family but a community of promises made and kept? Too many of our families today are contractural rather than promisorial, so nobody teaches responsibility and hold one another accountable. But parents who have the guts to make their kids stand on their own two feet have the same name as God: "I am the one who will be there with you." But not do it for you! Families are held together by promises. When promises are broken, families are torn apart. The world will work right when our homes work better. Everything we do together, hangs on a thin thread of our promises. If we don't keep our promises, communities turn into combat zones, drug culture, where “smooth places are made rough,” and integrity is a joke. Without trust, no law, no legal contracts, no military can make our communities worth living in. But there is one thing that can do it.
Today is “pledge Sunday,” the one day a year we set aside in worship of God, to make a promise: to God, to support something good in the world, started by the Son of God. A long time ago, I quit asking people to give. Giving anything is not mandatory, but it is fulfilling. You can’t make anybody do it. It’s another one of those things you have to want, or it won’t happen. So I no longer ask people to give. I prefer to remind us of the many blessings of God in our lives, and trust you to pray about sharing some of it with our church. It deserves your support. I know how hard you try.
And I was just kiddin’ about filing for bankruptcy. But I want to thank you for your support of our church in the past. Gosh you people are good givers! I know you love this place. And I hope together we’ll prove it by our generosity. May this worship help us realize that life begins and ends with those who dare to make a pledge and are serious enough to keep their promises. Bringing kids into the world, holding down a job, keeping the government afloat, maintaining a vital church, those kind of things. After Easter, the last thing Jesus did was to make one heckuva promise: "Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (MT 28:20). And ya’ll can take that to the bank!
Pastoral Prayer: 11/23/08
God of mystery, and burning bushes, we gather in worship in the presence of the great I AM, whose life depends upon no one, but whose loves gives life to everyone. Whose grace, patience, mercy and challenge reminds us that we stand on holy ground, to take off our shoes as we make our weekly attempt to ponder Thy eternal beginning and endless ending; the infinite sky above us, and the bottomless sea beneath us; Thy everlasting arms around us.
We contemplate the great I AM, realizing that who you are means we can’t remain the way we are, demanding always, that we become something more, something better. In this worship, purge our vision, pry open our ears, enliven our souls that common people might become uncommon prophets, carriers of Spirit-fire that never burns out, and thus light up our world.
This week is holiday time once again, joyful for some, difficult for others. We pray for all for whom times are tough. Especially we remember those still trying to say goodbye to someone they loved who’s no longer with us. Those in hospitals, care facilities and hospices, whose time is a matter of days. And we ourselves, bearing the marks of a culture of deception, who’ve done so little with so much. In this hour, sharpen our awareness of Thy reverence, inspire in us the joy of giving, and strengthen us by the trustworthiness of Thy everlasting promises. For Thou art the great I AM, in whom we become who we are. Amen.
