Sermon Sept 9, 2007

Proverbs 24:30-34

Proverbs 24:30 I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; ³¹ thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. ³² I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: ³³ A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- ³⁴ and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

Intro—Read Text; Discuss text; Summarize text.

Put simply: When you neglect your work=bad things happen.

Put another way: “Proverbs 18:9 One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys.” There is no real “neutral” ground. If things are not being attended to—they will immediately –immediately!--start to deteriorate. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest….It doesn’t take much.

{See pictures attached} Does this look familiar to anyone? When we left CT this looked very different. How ‘bout now? Recognize it? We came back two years later and it had changed completely. See it now? When we left CT this was a pristine, well groomed baseball complex---you can see the dugout and the score board in that last shot. Now, I don’t know what happened—I guess it went out of business, but why I don’t know….But within two short years this once manicured collection of ballparks was completely overtaken by weeds and bushes and trees.

It does not take long for things to deteriorate if they are not attended to.

It’s common sense, really. And there are numerous applications in every area of our lives. Jobs and businesses, our own literal gardens and homes, our school work, even our marriages and our parenting. If you “slack” off in these areas---if you do not consistently communicate and “work” on your marriage—it will erode; the weeds and thorns of boredom, resentment and strife will crop up and fester and disaster will be the result. Parents that are not actively parenting and engaging their kids—that are zoned out and tuned out can expect trouble.

But I want to look at this with a different application. I was reading this passage one day earlier this summer and this is what appeared before my mind’s eye—unbidden; whether it was God or my own imagination, I’m not sure-- but as I read this, my mind saw our world. Our world as a vast garden, but a garden choked with thorns and weeds with its defenses in ruins. And is this not really the true condition of this world? Our world is in a state of decay and corruption. There is physical, environmental, emotional, financial, relational, and spiritual corrosion and deterioration across the globe.

I read through the passage again and I realized that the world is simply made up of nations and societies; nations and societies that are themselves just smaller pictures of corruption and deterioration. Protective Fences and Walls—the moral foundations and societal expectations—what we put up with and accept as “normal” as “ok” have been eroded—they have crumbled; and weeds and thorns are everywhere in every segment of society. No one is immune. In each culture; in each economic bracket there is violence, and discord; cheating, abuse, illness, stress, and strife.

Now we can blame the plight of the world and all the woes of society on different governments –we can blame communist governments and fascist dictators, we can blame our own government—lots of people love to do that—for all that is wrong with the world. But that’s pretty silly. What are governments? What are the nations and societies that allow them to govern? They are simply groups of people. Vast groups of individual persons.

I read the passage again, and I saw an individual life. The heart of a person as a garden—but again---overrun with thorns and choked with weeds. And the person tending her own heart? —asleep on the job. Blissfully unaware of the decay and overgrowth and pollution within.

You see when you strip it all away—the world is made up of nations—which are made up of societies, which are made up of individual persons. Individual persons asleep on the job while weeds and thorns grow up everywhere.

This is sin. This is what sin does. Individual hearts overrun and overgrown with things that are destructive; Individual hearts which are microcosms of the societies and nations of which they help create; decaying societies and nations which make up a whole world filled with hurt and pain.

And we want to blame someone---someone else for the state of our societies--for the state of our world. We want to blame those people who are in control and seem to have the power; You go to Kenya and you see the hurt and the suffering and you realize that so much could be cared for, so much could be alleviated if they just had a decent system of roads---if help could actually get to those who needed it in a speedy manner. Our Doctor friend on the ground in Kenya listed a good road system as the number one thing he would change about his country. Think of that! More than anything—he just wants a decent roadway. And it’s easy to blame the government of Kenya for their years of selfish corruption and neglect. So easy to blame someone else for the problems in this world.

Or we may want to go even bigger with our blame and blame God himself. So many people look at the problems and pain in this world and they blame God. What kind of a God would allow all this? I don’t want anything to do with such a God. And on and on the hearts rage.

In the Book—“The Case for Faith” there’s a great line from a cartoon in which one turtle says to another turtle (why “turtles” I have no idea): “Sometimes I’d like to ask [God] why he allows poverty, famine, and injustice when he could do something about it.” The other turtle says, “I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.” Whoa.

We’d like to blame something—anything—“out there” for the problems of the world. But the truth of the matter is that the world is a mess in part because of me; Think about this: Scripture teaches us that our actions---or our Inactions-- have a direct impact on the world around us—for good or for ill—our choices, our words, what we do and what we fail to do have a direct affect on this world. The clear teaching of scripture is that pain, suffering, thorns and thistles (see Genesis 3, Romans 8:20-21 for example) are in this world because of sin—not sin in general---but because of MY sin. Because of YOUR sin. Each one of us bears a share of the guilt. And this guilt is a heavy burden—a crushing weight—an impossible load to bear. And it’s not as though you can work off the guilt. You cannot make up for it.

So thank God for Jesus, yes?

Thank GOD for Jesus.

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily

bears our burdens. Ps. 68:19

The Bible tells us that God is grieved over the condition of the world, and that God’s heart, so filled with love and compassion for the creatures that he has made could NOT sit idly by while we continually reap our own destruction. He could not do it. He was compelled by love to intervene.

And so Jesus came. Jesus came and carried the full weight of our sin to the cross. And He paid the awful price for our sins in our place. The weight of our sins and guilt—the full anger of God against those sins was poured out on and absorbed by Jesus. And it crushed Him. He died on that cross in our place—so that we would not be crushed by our sins. But death could not keep him. He came back to life in that garden tomb and he went to His disciples and He breathed into them a new life. Forgiveness and hope. And He sent them out to join him in His work.

This is Christ’s work: Bringing life. Bringing Renewal. Bringing Hope. One person, one heart at a time as each one comes to know His love and follow Him all their days. And He invites us to join Him in this work. He calls us to repent of self-absorption and neglect of the needs around us. He calls us to stop being annoyed and paralyzed with petty squabbles and differences of opinion. He calls us to stop blaming those who aren’t here, or those who don’t give, or those who don’t volunteer; To stop waiting for someone else to take the lead; for someone else to do the work; for someone else to come up with the plan: He calls us today to wake up from our slumber and to join Him in His High and Holy work. To join Him as He brings life, renewal and hope to this troubled world one person at a time. To join him as he plants gardens in the wasteland. Making an oasis in desert places.

During the next few weeks I invite you to come back and look with me at what God’s plan for this world looks like. At what God’s purpose for His Church, His people is. And what it might look like in action right here in and through Our Savior Lutheran Church. Let’s Pray.