God's Weather Forecast

January 17, 2010

God’s Weather Forecast.

Matthew 5.43-6.5

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This text I choose for my first sermon because I had an overwhelming fear that I must be perfect. I looked up this text and first saw the line, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. At first this did not help. How could I be perfect like God? Was not Jesus the only human that could be called perfect? What does Jesus mean here? Well if someone sticks simply on one piece of scripture without looking at the full context one can come up with strange ideas. First of all we know that Jesus was the only perfect human in the sense we generally think of as perfect. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, without sin fulfills our definition of perfect.

We so often think we have to be perfect, be it our family baggage, and/or society, and that gets in our way. It affects everything we do and if we worry about being perfect we try too hard or avoid doing it all together so we cannot fail. I know for myself I worry less about a sermon being “perfect” I am more likely to preach a Spirit filled good sermon (I can rip all them apart myself but that is my own issue to work on).

But as I wrote above God cannot be telling us to be “perfect” as we understand it in the vernacular, so back to the Bible. Jesus says “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And earlier in the passage where is our heavenly Father mentioned? Most of the passage are commands to us, but God is present in this part, “he [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” So it has something to do with God’s weather. God sends rain on everyone, good and bad. For me it is Grace. Prevenient grace is the grace that precedes our decision to accept God’s call and salvation. Or better yet our ability to understand and hear that Jesus has saved us, as we are not active participants in salvation but active participants because of our salvation. This grace that is offered to us does require our free-will to accept, and thus I described it as opening up to collect such rain that follows this knowledge of salvation. It is as if you had a rain barrel to collect and thus share this Grace. Of course once it is accepted it is not Prevenient Grace but rather sanctifying Grace, or simply Grace. Anyways I heard that some in the congregation were ordering rain barrels on their mobile devices, I heard as a joke later (I hope a joke).

So we know it has to do with God giving grace upon the good and the bad. This grace before grace, but how can we be perfect like God, well if God is consistently offering this to all perhaps we most also be consistent like God. To be perfect in context of this scripture is to treat everyone as you would treat another, (like ourselves I would say but many of us our harder on ourselves then others). If we are consistent with those in the pews and with everyone we meet we will be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. This is not easy but it is important for someone may choose to start collecting in their barrel today or better yet may share some of the Grace they had collected. We tell our story by living it.