| Just a Little Act of Obedience |
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| Written by Bill Weisenbach | |
| Saturday, 15 March 2008 | |
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Just a Little Act of Obedience Text: Matt 26, especially v. 14-21 As I said, the story of Jesus is a drama of great betrayal, magnificent defeat, blood, money and death. It is high drama. But that is not where we live, is it? We don't live in Jerusalem, or Washington. We live in Westchester. Our names will not be remembered when history is written. We remember Judas’ name because he betrayed Jesus in a particularly dramatic way. And Peter’s with accusing servants and swearing denials. Our betrayals, on the other hand, are more ordinary, petty rather than dramatic. Judas sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; we betray Jesus merely by keeping our mouths shut when we ought to speak. Shakespeare, in "As You Like It," said that each of us, in each of our times, “plays many parts.” True. But most of our parts are bit parts, small roles. We remember the names of those who were martyred for their faith. Name churches for them. But our witness provokes no cross, no memorial sanctuary. We won't be burned for our belief. The truth is, we will probably be ignored. T.S. Eliott says, “Our lives, measured out in teaspoons, end not with a bang but a whimper.” No. Our faithfulness to Jesus will not entail being nailed to a cross. More than likely, our obedience consists of going to some "certain man," in a street whose name is forgotten, to have a meal with a dozen or so very ordinary people. Today's text says, that's OK. Jesus can use our small obedience, our little acts of faithfulness for large purposes. Much like the story on the bulletin. [In December of 1944, the German army launched an unexpected attack. In what was to become known as the Battle of the Bulge, a deep, salient wedge was driven in Allied lines. Writing in World War II about the reaction of the American troops to this attack, James Jones said: “No one of these little road junction stands could have had a profound effect on the German drive. But hundreds of them, impromptu little battles at nameless bridges and unknown crossroads, had the effect of slowing enormously the German impetus…These little die-hard “one-man-stands,” alone in the snow and fog without communications, would prove enormously effective out of all proportion to their size” (p.205).] In similar ways, our faithfulness to God in the little acts of everyday life can make a large contribution to the purposes of God. Our lives seems so ordinary against the backdrop of the great, dark, terrible and wonderful saving drama of Christ’s passion – just like the “one-man-stands” seemed against the backdrop of World War II. The stewardship of the ordinary can become extraordinary in the cosmic purposes of God. Of course large matters are being worked out here. Jesus will confront Pilate and the powers that be. Troops will be called out to quell the crowd. And when he breathes his last, the whole earth will heave, the veil of the temple will be torn in two, and darkness will cover the cosmos until three o'clock. But not before a couple of disciples go to a certain man, at some long-forgotten street, and rent a room, and have a meal. And in the story, these minor matters matter, for each act, in its own little, unspectacular way, is a participant in the great drama of redemption. The little meal among friends and betrayers in a rented room becomes a foretaste of a great messianic banquet beyond. The disciples' obedience in going and doing as they are told by Jesus -- renting the room, preparing the table – are all necessary steps on the way to Jesus’ much more radical obedience as he goes to the cross. A kitchen table where wine is poured and bread is broken becomes the altar of God where blood is poured and a body is broken. This day, Jesus has his story, his story of bloody confrontation with powers and principalities on earth and in heaven. Yet we also have our stories, more ordinary than his, of confrontation with people who live next door or across the kitchen table. And maybe his story, his dramatic, obedient, bloody story redeems our stories, gives significance to our little acts of obedience. Anonymous disciples, performing simple acts of ordinary obedience, are often God’s way of working out cosmic purposes. The story suggests that large matters are being worked out here in the little things we do around somebody whose name we can't recall, at a city with no name, around the kitchen table. One Saturday in the Men’s Group I was a part of in Cold Spring, we were discussing the issue of race in America, it was a group that joined together, initially, because of the racial abuse we saw on a daily basis in our otherwise bucolic village. The town was 99.9% white and 60% of a; the traffic tickets were given to people of color. We were again agonizing over the difficulty of even making a dent in the problem, the way none of us knew exactly what we ought to do about it. One person in the circle, a "certain man" said that just talking about it has helped him enormously, heightened his awareness of racism’s pervasiveness, gave him the courage, sometimes, to call others to account when they use racial slurs or jokes and eventually, gave us all the courage to show up in traffic court one Thursday night and, in a nice way, share our obsurvation. Not much in the scheme of things, just a little act of resistance, but something. Just a little act of obedience. Someone once said that “life is a handful of short stories, pretending to be a novel.” Maybe the gospel, the great drama of how God is with us in the world, is a series of short sketches, situation comedies, dances, thirty minute vignettes, which one day will add up to the great drama. You may not be the martyr type. Getting out of bed and coming out for this morning's service may have been inconvenient, may earn you a scornful remark by one of your neighbors, but that's not martyrdom. It's just doing what you're supposed to do, going to church out of habit, a little act of obedience. Over the next few days Jesus will move on to the height of the drama as he moves obediently, heroically toward his cross, his death. We, on the other hand, will go to lunch, stew over our minor matters, make our small changes. We will follow, if at all, like the disciples did, at a safe distance. Yet be assured, in our little lives, un-remembered, unrecorded acts of obedience, move the purposes of God. In us, little us, God is effecting the redemption of the world and our daily acts of obedience and faithfulness, by God's grace, can make all the difference. |
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