Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: The holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Glory to you, Lord. Christ.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you.
But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me. For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.
And then Jesus told his disciples, if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it. And those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?
Or what will they give in return for their life?
For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.
Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
The Gospel of the Lord.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Praise to you, Lord.
Hallelujah.
Young children ages 3 to 10 are invited to now go to the music room with Katie for music and a story and prayers.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: They'll return at the peace.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: In the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Please be seated.
All right, hope you all got the email. It's another Bible week. Do you have your Bibles with you? I hope so. If not, it's okay to bring your Bible every Sunday no matter what. So feel free. Don't need an invitation. Or if you have it on your phone, it's always with you. So feel free to bring there and put it on your phone as well. But let's say you don't have your Bible with you and you still want to play along. Go ahead and bring out your I am statements in the Bible that are. That's in your leaflet. A little handy cheat sheet for you. Today we are going to be looking through the entirety of the Bible. Don't worry, I'm going to do it in the same amount of time as a normal sermon, I promise.
Fear not is a big theme of this sermon, so I don't want you to be afraid of that.
But we're gonna be looking at what's known as an inclusio in the Bible.
These are excellent ways of looking at the entirety of the Bible to find the themes that are woven from the very beginning to the very end. And the I am name of God is one of those inclusios. So as you can see from your list, the way that God uses I am is literally peppered all along the Bible from Genesis to revel.
And so today what you can do is you can either just use it as the list itself, you can take it home and look up all of these and read this full inclusio yourself. And for today, feel free to kind of check off the ones I mentioned as kind of a bingo. A bingo card for the Bible to see where it is that God's through line is being pulled.
Okay, so in this chart you'll see I am is everywhere, but it starts in Genesis.
Today I'm going to ask us to go ahead and turn in your Bible first to Genesis where we see God's first use of this with Abraham. You're going to Genesis 15, verse 1. Genesis 15, verse 1.
In Genesis, we hear the beginning of everything, the way that God is preparing to be with God's people for the rest of time and eternity.
Here God comes to Abraham, who's still Abram in a vision, and he says, fear not, Abram. I am your shield, your reward, which will be very great.
I am yours is the way that God starts off this covenant.
Now, we sometimes think about God in the Hebrew Testament as being distant, judgmental or angry, etc.
But in point of fact, we see here a God that is depicted in a very different way than how gods were depicted in that time frame.
God is almost shockingly loving here. He wants to make an everlasting covenant with humans instead of just squashing them out when they don't pay enough homage or enough deference is given to them, or they're just kind of having a bad day. Anybody see the Odyssey recently?
Yeah. God is not the sort who's going to kill you for taking one of his cows, for example. Not in our wonderful Bible here.
Instead, this I am God is starting this off with a relationship that is more like a marriage than anything else. Two parties giving themselves to each other for love forever.
And what's maybe even more shocking about this I am moment is that God is taking the larger part of the responsibility. In the covenant, we give ourselves over to God. And God in turn will give us, well, everything.
Life, love, protection, and again, most shockingly, God's presence forevermore.
But it's not just the covenant that the I am shows us.
The name of God as I am is almost always Married with the other very important inclusio in the Bible, the commandment to fear not, which is the number one commandment in the Bible.
When God says I am, he almost always says, and here is why. You do not need to be afraid. Because that I am rings out for eternity. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that's intentional. Do not fear. I am loves you. Do not fear. I am knows you. And from the very beginning of time in history, God wants that I am to ring in our hearts.
Okay, we're going to now fast forward to Exodus to the reading that you have today. So if you don't have your Bible, you can just look at your leaflet. But if you do, turn to Exodus, chapter three and four. We're not going to read the whole thing, but I want you to kind of have your eyes on it so you can see how this I am dialogue plays out between God and Moses.
That's Exodus, chapter three, verses one. And following here we see the story of Moses. Great call to be a prophet for God's people, to lead them into liberation.
When Moses turns aside and sees the burning bush, he takes off his shoes and comes near to this holy ground to God, who says to Moses, I am.
I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What our ears should hear is the covenant is continuously being woven through this conversation with God, that same covenant we just spoke about.
In other words, God is saying, I am the one who wants to be in relationship with you and I've not forgotten about my people even in this moment.
He's not going back on this thing that he has established with us. It's incredible.
But what does Moses do? And I think this is important for those of us who are trying to learn to fear not.
Moses spends the rest of these verses telling God why he cannot believe that God is going to be with him and why he should not be the prophet of God.
Moses says, I am not good enough. I am not somebody who speaks well. I am not somebody who's brave enough.
I am not enough.
See what happens when we take the I am title and change it with fear? It suddenly loses all of its meaning.
These are statements about Moses past who he thinks he is. It's not about the covenant that's everlasting, but God uses I am to point to the future.
God essentially says to Moses, I don't care how far from perfect you are, this covenant is for you.
I am with you.
And again he says, fear not.
So what we see in these two opening stories from the very beginning of the Bible is a God that is actively with us through all of time and doesn't want us to simply stay limited in who we think we are in relationship with God. When you're free of fear, what can't we do with this venture with God?
All right, hold on to your hats because we're going to go all the way to the New Testament. Now go ahead and flip to Matthew 14, verse 27.
Matthew 14, 14, 27.
Once we get to the New Testament, we see Jesus using the I am statements to show us that even in the midst of crisis, trials, or storms, Jesus speaks his name, I am to bring immediate peace and to show that he is also grafted as God in this covenant.
The I am that Jesus shows up with is authoritative, it's divine, and it's with us from the time that from the beginning of time on.
So in this verse, verse 27, you might remember it from a couple weeks ago. This is the passage where Jesus is walking on the water while the disciples are in the boat. And they are very afraid.
They are not living in to fear, not at the moment.
And what does he say?
Immediately, Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.
Now, I in my Bible, I recommend you do this as well in yours. Go ahead and circle it is I. Make a little line to your margin and write the words I am.
Because the actual translation here as it is I, is an unfortunate translation.
Grammatically, it sounds fine, but it's not actually what the word in Greek means.
It's actually translated literally as I am. You guessed it, I am.
So it says, Jesus spoke to them, take heart.
I am do not be afraid.
See, Jesus is pulling on the very same sort of message here I am with you through the entirety of all the things you could be afraid of. But I am establishing my presence with you.
He's not saying that everything's going to be fine in life, but rather that through it, God will be with you every step of the way.
And even then, it's not the end of the story.
Because the message isn't just for the past or the present storms of this life.
It's repeated over and over again in a way that helps us to look forward to following that path of Jesus the Great. I am all the way into eternal life with this covenant.
So we see this best, I think, in the Gospel of John. Ready to flip again? We're going to have you go to John now. I'm just going to pause you don't need to go to John just yet. We'll come back to it. But I'm going to tell you in John some of the things, and you can check them off on your list. But there's too many to flip to.
The I Am language in John is everywhere. There are seven great I Am statements that Jesus uses as metaphor. There are seven more that Jesus puts in place when he is doing something very important for the life of the covenant.
And those seven are going to be repeated and used again in Revelation. So that's a little. A little foreshadowing that seven is a number of completeness and wholeness.
So John doesn't want you to miss the fact that God in Jesus is only doing the fullness and completeness of the covenant.
And these I Am statements are kind of beloved to us. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the gate for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the vine, you are the branches.
Jesus is into this covenantal thing, isn't he?
And so can we be when we hold onto it as our message for every single day of our life.
And this gets really personal. It's not just enough to think about this in our daily life. The Church, in its wisdom, has taken these I Am statements and shown them to be as important, even for eternal life, into the future.
So instead of your Bibles mixing it up, go ahead and turn to your Book of Common Prayer. Everybody has one Book of Common Prayer, 495.
I think when Episcopalians say they're people of the Book, they might mean the Book of Common Prayer, page 495.
Now, I don't mean this to be a bit of a bummer, but I brought you to the funeral service. As you can see here, I mean it to be the opposite.
Here you'll find a list of scripture choices for funerals, almost like a takeout menu of ones you could try out.
Many of these are the I Am statements, which is no coincidence. Even the ones that aren't listed as I am are. Actually, many of them are still I am.
Now, I've never taken a formal poll, but clergy, friends, this question is for you. Would you say that in your ministry, one of the number one choices that people use for their funeral is John 14, right? Yes. Okay. This is the I am the way, the truth, and the life. In my Father's house, there are many mansions, right? Like, I think 90% of my funerals have taken this. Yeah, yeah. So there's a reason for this, I believe, because it speaks to our hearts when we are in perhaps the biggest moment of fear, grief, when we've lost somebody or when we're facing death in the face.
This is John 14, verse one. So if you're back in your Bibles, we're in John 14, verse one. And following it says this.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Fear not, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would not tell you that I go and prepare a place for you, and you may go and come to the place where I am going.
Now, that's all well and good. We hear the covenantal language right in there. The fear not.
But Jesus then comes back and uses I am language when his disciples talk about how scared they are.
Thomas at that moment says Jesus, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way to him? Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life.
Through that pain, through that fear that the disciples are feeling, Jesus speaks the I am saying where I am going, you will be.
I don't know how it gets more beautiful than that. That this line of love, this covenant that was baked into the very beginning, means that even at our grave, we can still make our song. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Because the great I am calls us into life with him forever.
Now, if that weren't good enough, I mean, that's pretty good. But if that weren't good enough, there are even more I am statements within the funeral service that are pointing us towards the very end of the book itself.
So go ahead and take your Bibles and go all the way to the book of Revelation.
Revelation 21, verses 2 through 7. 21, 2, 7.
Notice again, we've taken you from the very beginning of the book to the very end of the story, all the way through.
Here is where the inclusio takes its grand cosmic scale Again, in Revelation, there are seven I am statements. Completeness all over again.
And what's important to note is who the book of Revelation was written for.
Now, some of us may think that we don't like this book because it's scary. It's got all those images of fire and brimstones and monsters, et cetera, right?
But it's first and foremost a pastoral word given to a people living in a time frame where they were looking around and were terrified.
Not just personal, everyday Fears, but cosmic fears. They were anxious, they were worried, and with good reason.
All this Roman and Nero occupation was taking a toll.
And to them, the I am was given anew.
What we see in this scene are countless multitudes from every nation standing before the throne and before the Lamb of God, in particular, martyrs. People who have known for fear, but have walked the path of the great I am that covenantal way.
And they are standing around the throne, seeing the I am in its eternal reality. God says, here, listen, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning, the end.
And what it says in the rest of the book is that you will hunger no more, you will thirst no more, the sun will no longer strike you by day, nor any scorching heat, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
Think of that.
The great I am, the cosmic I am, wants to be with you in such completeness for all eternity, without any fear, and will wipe your own tears from your eyes.
That's the sort of thing that will stick with you for this life and the next.
It's the beginning of the story. It's the end.
At the start, I am with you, fear not. In the middle, I am with you. Fear not. At the end, I am with you. I am always with you. Throughout eternity, I am with you, fear not.
The biblical narrative is anchored by this persistent I am relationship of who God says God is and who God says you are in relationship to that everlasting covenant.
It's not merely for back then in Genesis, but for today and forever.
I am is with us.
Friends this week really sit with that. Really take the painting of this Bible, this inclusio, and let it move you to awe and wonder.
Instead of being bound up, as Moses was saying, not me, I am not worthy for whatever reason you want to put in there.
Instead, let the I am tell you that you are beloved.
Instead of letting our fears hold us back, let the I am say you are called.
Every person who's ever lived and followed the path knows that I am is the way, the truth, and the life I am, and so are you, says God.
Amen.
