Sermon 2022.11.06 All Saints Sunday

Grace Lutheran Church Upland, California

Pastor Wesley Menke

This past week at Bible Study we finished reading the book of Leviticus. That really is an interesting book. It’s like a handbook for priests who functioned like public health experts, as well as keepers of religious rituals, and civil law. So there is very little story in the book of Leviticus. It is dry reading to be sure, but near the end of the book there is a story. It says that one day there was a man whose mother was Israelite, and father was Egyptian. This fellow got in a fight with another man who was Israelite. At some point during the altercation the man with mixed heritage blasphemed God. That means he used offensive language either about God or about the man he was fighting using God’s name to do so; or maybe both. The case was brought before Moses; and before God. The command was given to take the man outside of the camp; for all the witnesses to lay their hands on his head; and then to stone him to death. Can you believe that?

Its texts like this from the Bible which cause us to wonder why there aren’t more atheists. How could we in this situation say that God is love? Where is the grace of God? Furthermore it seems like this man is being scapegoated, partly on the account of his marginal ethnic status; and that’s ironic because the ritual of the scapegoat is articulated earlier in the same book of Leviticus. The ritual of the scapegoat was supposed to be humanitarian insofar as it spared punishing humans, but accumulating all of their sin on a goat which would be turned out into the wilderness at least having a chance. But that doesn’t spare the man who was stoned for blaspheming God. No scapegoat saves him. He is the scapegoat.

It occurred to me then, and remains true now, that this man was a lot like Jesus. Jesus was not regarded as a “normal” person. His parentage, while sacred to us, would have been very suspect during his lifetime. His mother was Israelite and his father was unknown or unaccepted by many of his contemporaries. When he was bold in his ministry to call himself the Son of God; he was accused of blaspheming by both Romans against Caesar and by certain religious leaders claiming he blasphemed the God of the Israelites. He was publicly executed and functioned like a scapegoat. In fact he is the ultimate scapegoat: he is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus didn’t do anything wrong; and yet was killed for it. Again how can we say that God is love? How could a loving father demand the death of his son who did nothing wrong? Seems cruel and abusive; not loving. There is of course an answer. The answer is that Jesus was God as clearly as any human could be like God. So if we regard Jesus as God; and Jesus died on the cross; then our whole notion of God is more fragile and vulnerable than we would perhaps like to admit to ourselves.

Consider the resurrection of Jesus. After the resurrection he still left. Some people have briefly seen him. But he still left and everyone had to figure out how to get by without him. That is the “duelo” or grief we feel when we miss someone. There is just one consolation; the Holy Spirit. This is like a personality made up of a contagious set of behaviors.

You know that both good and bad behaviors are contagious? Abuse is a contagious behavior. When we think about people who have died we might remember both good and bad behaviors. We might act like our spiritual ancestors. Their Spirit lives on in our actions. So does Jesus’ Spirit: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a practical sign of the resurrection. And you know what? The Spirit is freely given to you constantly if you wish to have it. There is also a physicality with resurrection. We carry physical genes. We are the re