Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
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Original Manuscript:
There was once an emperor of a far off land. He lived in the greatest of palaces, ate the best cooked meals, and wore only the finest clothes.
Now two dishonest swindlers entered the kingdom, and they decided to see if they could trick even the emperor himself. So they went to his palace, and told him they could make him clothes so fine that only the greatest and worthiest of people could even see it.
Of course, these swindlers made no such clothes. They took the emperor's money, and whenever he asked to see the clothes, they would make a show of waving their hands at nothing.
The emperor did not want to seem unworthy, so he "ooo"ed and "ah"ed at the clothes that were invisible to him.
His servants could not see the clothes either. They did not want to disappoint their master, so they claimed they could see them too, and how marvelous, they said, the clothes really were.
The emperor decided to put on a parade where he showed his clothes to the people of his kingdom. Everyone, like the servants, claimed they were the most beautiful clothes they had ever seen until the emperor passed in front of a little girl.
This girl was too young to have any pride or try to pander to the emperor's feelings. She simply said "he's not wearing anything!" The spell was immediately broken. The people all murmured that she was right, and the emperor finished the parade with what dignity he had left.
Most of us don't want to be that little girl, the bearer of bad news. We want to make people happy, not upset.
That is the very problem the prophets of old had to deal with. Often times, like Amos, they had to deliver bad news about what is going to happen to the kingdom. Some, like John the Baptist, had to tell the king himself that what he was doing wrong.
That is why prophets are so often mistreated. The priest Amaziah didn't want Amos going around saying that the king was going to die and that the Israelites were going into exile, even though it was true. King Herod didn't want to hear that it was unlawful for him to be married to his wife because she had been married to his brother, even though there were plenty of Scribes and students of Torah who could have told him the same thing.
Yet, if the rulers had only listened to the bad news, they might have avoided it. If the Israelites had listened to Amos and the prophets before him, they might not have gone into exile. If Herod had swallowed his pride and admitted to his mistakes, he might have avoided the fate of his father and been a good king.
If the emperor had only let go of his pride, he would have been spared the embarrassment, and spending a lot of money on what amounted to air.
None of us are perfect. None of us have to be. God isn't trying to get us to live to an impossible standard. He's trying to tell us when we go the wrong way and lead us back to the right one.
God doesn't want us to be comfortable as we are. God wants to help us grow in His ways so we can learn to love Him and each other as ourselves. God wants us to be like John Newton, the writer of "Amazing Grace", and continue to use His Grace to become more loving and forgiving. God wants us to walk in the ways, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians last week, where we realize that God's power, true power, is made perfect in weakness- the weakness of compassion of one who would die on a cross to save the world from sin and death.
The story of the Gospel, in the world's eyes, is often one of weakness. It means not crushing your enemies, but sometimes letting them go. The Gospel is seen as an embarrassment to the world. It seems wrong to forgive when instead we could punish injustice.
The Gospel doesn't let us sit easy. No matter what side of the aisle we may sit, the words of Scripture always have something to say to us, and that word is often that we need to change.
Many of the words of Scripture may be offensive to us. Ephesians may be offensive for saying that we are God's children only through adoption through Christ Jesus, not through our mere creation. Jesus' words in the Gospel according to John may offend us when he says, "no one comes to the Father except through me." Maybe something in the Creeds offends us, but that is why we say it together, as we talked about in the Faith Fact last week.
God doesn't call us to try to placate others. He calls us to tell the truth. The truth of the Gospel is a wonderful truth. It means that we can actually be children of God through His choosing to adopt us. It means that we actually do have a way to reach God the Father. It means that we don't have to be perfect because Jesus already took care of that for us. But it also means that we aren't perfect. It means our way is not always the right one. It means sometimes we have to change.
Don't look at the Bible as a tool to show you are right. Use it as a tool to change you. Don't be afraid to speak the truth of God in the world, no matter how unpopular or how much it goes against the teaching of society. Who knows, maybe you will change someone. Maybe you will make the emperor realize that he has no clothes. Maybe change will happen because the words you will speak will not be your own, but they will be God speaking through you.