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A young college student was interviewed after getting into trouble with the law at a party. 

What is Our Destiny? - Part of Something Ageless- Genesis 17: 1-8; Ephesians 1: 15-23 - November 30, 2008 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett 1. Bassett

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A young college student was interviewed after getting into trouble with the law at a party. Was he concerned, he was asked, about having this arrest on his record? What does it matter? he answered. You gotta have a good time while you can. After all. we're all just specks of dust, here for a little while, and then gone forever. Poof.

That is a strong idea these days. It is not a new one: Shakespeare once referred to life as a 'tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' We're here today representing a different way to think about our lives; and the beginning of the Advent season is an excellent time to recall what that means. It is possible - and there is good solid reason -- to believe that life is full of purpose, that we are more than specks of dust that go Poof, and that God is doing something very special in this world.

Here are some of the components of God's great project. The first is creation. We believe that God created this universe not as some afterthought or accident, but as a good and purposeful act. Therefore, goodness and meaning are woven into the very fabric of the world. The first two chapters of the Bible describe this in beautiful poetry and story. and how the creation of humans was the crowning act of creation. One writer describes it as God making humans in God's own image, and another writer describes God breathing God's own Spirit into human beings. We are not here randomly. We are carefully made.

The second great facet of God's project is 'relation.' Having created you and me and the world, God did not just punch out and journey on. God desired a continuing relationship with human beings. We call that the 'covenant,' and it is what is described

in our Old Testament lesson today: God promising Abraham a great legacy of blessings and nations and fruitful generations. Abraham surely could not see the full extent of what God had in mind, but the image of a faithful God providing home for a wandering nomad like Abraham must have been a powerful one. Again, we are not here randomly, and we

are not here alone.  God journeys with us in a covenant relationship of love and grace.

A third great component of God's project is liberation. Centuries after God made a covenant with Abraham, the descendents of Abraham were enslaved under a cruel system of slavery. And God heard their cry, raised up a reluctant leader in Moses, and used Moses to lead the children of the covenant miraculously out of Egypt and into freedom.  And what we see throughout the biblical story, and I believe, throughout history, is that God is extremely dedicated to setting people free.  Jesus announced that as one of the main reasons he came to earth.  And the Bible shows us that God's liberation applies on at least two levels - there is liberation from the power of sin in our own individual spiritual lives.  But there is also liberation of people who are enslaved or oppressed in this world.  The testimony of the Bible is that liberation and freedom for injustice are part of who God is, and what God is doing in this world even as we sit here this very morning. 

But why, then, are so many still oppressed?  Why do the voices of women and Native Americans and African Americans and so many other peoples still cry out for justice?  That's where the season of Advent comes in, presenting another vital part of God's plan - and that is expectation. This component was carefully nurtured during some of the worse times experienced by the biblical people. And the nurturers were a very special group of people that we call the prophets. The prophets arose at various times to carry this critical message: things look dark. People are enslaved, and the world cries for justice. People are asking, "Where is God?" But let's not forget the purposeful act of God's creation. Let's not forget the relationship of a loving covenant. Let's not forget the God who liberates the oppressed. That's why we need this Advent season. It is our reminder that we hold on to expectation, even when justice is not yet fulfilled.

So, enter another purposeful move by God: incarnation. That's God's answer to an expectant world. It's almost like the state of the world demanded for God to dig deeper; that even with all the great legacy of creation, relation, liberation, and expectation - more was required. 'Incarnation' means 'taking flesh,' and, of course, this is the heart of our faith. God sent His Son into the world, and, as He did, cleared up some misperceptions. You see, there was a tendency to expect that, since the power of this world revolves so much around military and political might, that this must be the way God would choose to overcome the darkness in the world - that a great king or general would come and spill blood to impose justice. But the incarnation of Jesus into this world paints a different picture. This was a baby born in poverty; this was a leader who refused to be made king; this was a teacher of turning the other cheek and putting down the sword; and this was a king who spilled only his own blood. There are, of course, still very dark times in this world when people long for a solution of military power; that's why we have some of the warrior images in the Book of Revelations. But the incarnation of Christ reminds us of a different way - a way of peace and love. That's the default position for Christian-people. We can debate if and when violence is a necessary response to the evils of this world, but after seeing how Jesus arrived, how he taught, behaved, and died, we can never doubt that peace is God's preferred way - and the path God wants us to walk.

And that has everything to do with the next building block of God's plan - salvation. 'Salvation' is a word that we quite often get wrong; I believe, because we relate it only to being saved from something. There is certainly a strong element of that in salvation ­being saved from sin, saved from death, saved from hell. But there is another whole element in the word 'salvation' that is also part of the origin of the word - and that is the idea of wholeness. The word for 'salvation' in the Bible is very close to the idea of being made whole - being made complete. And that could mean all sorts of things - it could mean physical, mental, and emotional balance. It could mean serenity of spirit, and integrity in relationships. It could mean a sense of power to live, and destiny and purpose in this world.  It surely means being in tune with God, and the sense of wellbeing that comes from that relationship.

God doesn't want us to miss that. And, if we see ourselves the way that young person I quoted at the beginning of this sermon does - as random and meaningless specks of dust in a vast universe - then we will miss out on so much of God's plan, and so much of the potential for beautiful and whole living that is yours as a child of God. I've been preaching these last few weeks about our destiny, and some of the wonderful phrases

used by the writer of the letter to the Ephesians, especially in the first chapter of that book of the Bible. What those phrases tell us - phrases like 'blessed in heavenly places', 'chosen from before the foundation of the earth,' and 'inheritors of God's great gifts' - is that we connect with that great plan. Our destiny is part of an ageless unfolding of creation, relation, liberation, expectation, incarnation, and salvation.

And the last verses of Ephesians 1 bring us to one more key phrase in this scenario. The verses read like this: "And (God) has put all things under (Christ's) feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." In the center of God's plan as it unfolds right now is the church, and the church is nothing less than the body of Christ, and the fullness of Christ in this world" In keeping with the word scheme I've established here, let's call this 'representation;' we the church are called to represent, or re-present, Christ to the world. This is how we connect to God's great project; this is how we find our destiny, and how life becomes something more than just a Poof of dust.

This is a stunning thought, because, as I have just recently been reminded, the church has done some terrible things in this world to represent Jesus. The history of the church is replete with shameful actions and failings. But that's not the whole story. Because there is also incredible goodness that shows up in the life of the church. There are times when the church speaks with the very voice of Jesus to a hurting world; when the church reaches out to a sick world with the very healing touch of Jesus. And those are amazing moments, when the whole plan of God makes infinite sense of life. Yes, each of us has a destiny in our own individual way. But nothing to compare with what we have together, when we join our offerings, join our pledges, join our gifts and talents - and become Jesus working to bring hope and life to the world.

In the lifetime-so-far that I have spent in the church, here is the place that these things are most apparent to me. This is why I believe so strongly in the destiny of this church in our community, our conference, and beyond. We are blessed with a powerful flow of the Holy Spirit. We will see it in a few minutes when the kids come back in for Holy Communion. We will sense it in the fellowship and the prayers, in the mission life and caring ministry. This is the Body of Christ, and it is a beautiful thing.

And so, with all this, to that college student I respond that it does matter what we do, how we live our lives. Because we are people with a purpose, and a destiny, and an age-­old connection. And that changes the choices. One choice might be represented by this past Friday morning at 5:00 A.M., when the stores opened their doors, and people stampeded in. Even a person being trampled to death in one store couldn't stop the bloodthirsty consumer stampede. That's how you live your life if nothing matters.

But we have another choice, and that is the path of destiny. God invites us today to connect ourselves with something that is as old as the stars themselves - a plan that is unfolding to bring hope and strength to the world. What else could we possibly want to do with the lives we've been given?