Ah, reputation! What a fragile thing
it is. It weighs nothing, yet tons of news print are spent on
tearing it down or building it up. It costs nothing, yet people are
willing to give away millions to buy a good one.
Reputation is the hardened drinker, now
diabetic, who has schemed with the barkeep to only serve him glasses
of water, on the rocks, with two olives in it, just so the bar birds
don’t think he’s gone soft. Reputation is the teenager not
wanting to be seen with his mother buying underwear in the mall.
Reputation. What’s yours? Or does
it even bother you any more? I don’t worry much about mine--too
much scar tissue on my back. Too little life left to spend it
fretting over reputation. Anyway, I know what my God feels about me
and what he feels about you. That’s the only one we should be
worried about having a reputation with. In fact, our text for today
suggests it’s what we think about Jesus that really matters. What
is his reputation among us?
Never Ashamed of Jesus
-
Ashamed enough to leave my sins
behind me (1-11)
-
Proud enough to keep my Savior’s
words in front of me (12-20).
“At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam
became ill, and Jeroboam said to his wife, ‘Go, disguise yourself,
so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to
Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there—the one who told me I would be
king over this people. He will tell you what will happen to the
boy.’ Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his
age. But the Lord had told Ahijah, ‘Jeroboam’s wife is coming to
ask you about her son, for he is ill. When she arrives she will
pretend to be someone else.’ So when Ahijah heard the sound of her
footsteps at the door, he said, ‘Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why
this pretense? (1-6).’”
Why this pretense? Because Jeroboam
was afraid if news got out that he had gone to a prophet in the
south, a true prophet of the Lord God, everybody up north would think
that maybe Jeroboam had been misleading them in the worship of their
calf gods. Maybe a few wags would be making late night jokes on TV
about god to go or heaven on the hoof! Rather than admit he was
wrong, even when the very life of his son was at stake, Jeroboam was
going to stubbornly, willfully, deliberately, continue with his sin
of foisting a false god upon his people. Yet he knew only Ahijah
could reveal the future to him by the power of the one, true God, the
Lord God. So he sends his wife in disguise, so nobody will recognize
her and realize what a fraud he was, because he was not about to
change his ways.
Ashamed to be seen with God! That’s
what it boiled down to. Ashamed to be seen with God, because he was
not going to leave his sins behind him.
Are we that way? Yes, sometimes. We
pretend we don’t know who Jesus is when the conversation around the
water cooler turns to abortion rights or homosexuality. We pretend
we never heard the parable about the Good Samaritan when we see an
aged neighbor awkwardly stooping to pick up the trash the garbage
collectors scattered behind them—honestly, you just know they’ve
come because there’s litter in the streets—but you hustle into
the garage and slam the door, in a hurry to catch the newest re-run
of Friends before you call out for pizza. We pretend we don’t know
Jesus when we confess our sins in church with the firm intention of
not changing one single thing in our lives or our behavior tomorrow.
If that is our attitude, then listen to
the consequences. I’ll give you just the bullet points, the power
point summation, because we’re busy people.
-
Every male descendant of Jeroboam
will meet a violent death
-
The corpses of every male
descendant of Jeroboam will not be given a decent burial.
-
Israel will be destroyed as a
nation.
-
God will forsake the people of
Israel because they have forsaken him.
That’s pretty much it. Oh, and as
soon as Mrs. Jeroboam steps foot in the royal palace, Aibjah will
die.
Makes us think those golden calves
wouldn’t look so great to worship, would they? But does it make us
think those arguments we’re having, those family grudges we’re
nursing, the activities we are engaging in that we would be ashamed
to engage in with honest company, does it make us think those things
don’t look so hot, when we compare them to heaven swapped for
hell’s eternal torments?
Those who are never ashamed of Jesus do
feel shame. They feel shame over their sins. They feel such shame
over their sins that they want to leave those sins far behind them.
Drink not another drop. Waste not another day in vicious quarreling.
Never give the impression that we are non-Christians.
That’s what we mean by repentance. I
ask the shut-ins, every time I visit them, “Do you heartily repent
of the sins you have committed in desire, thought word and deed,
believe in Jesus Christ for forgiveness, and sincerely intend, with
the help of God the Holy Spirit, to amend your sinful life?” Those
who are never ashamed of Jesus answer “Yes, yes I said, yes.”
Never ashamed of Jesus. Proud enough
to keep my Savior’s words in front of me.
Here’s the thing that I just don’t
get about this text. The aged prophet Ahijah tells Jeroboam’s
wife, “When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. All
Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging
to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the
house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found
anything good (12-13).” And then, after Ahijah has prophesied doom
(temporal and eternal) for the unbelievers of the Northern Kingdom,
“Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As
soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died
(17).”
Here’s what some people don’t
get—God takes the helpless baby prince, Abijah’s life. If we
look at the text closely, we’ll see exactly why the baby had to
die. The Lord didn’t want the kid to grow up in such a cruddy,
unbelieving home. The Lord wanted this little tyke in heaven and,
no, heaven couldn’t wait. Ahijah says the Lord has found something
good in him, and the only thing that the Lord would find good in
sinful human beings is faith. Somehow, the Holy Spirit had worked
faith in this child and God was unwilling that this child’s faith
be abused, tortured and beaten down all the days of his life, so he
took him to heaven.
This is the only happy ending of the
story. I get that.
Here’s what I don’t get. The
mother knows her son will die when she enters the city. That’s
what Ahijah the prophet has told her. If your child were gravely ill
and a prophet of God, and mind you, she knows this is a prophet of
God, for her husband has great faith in this man as a person, her
husband owes his privileged position as king to this man, if a
prophet of God told you your son would die when you crossed the city
limits of hometown Henderson, Nevada, wouldn’t you decide to take a
vacation in Ely? Or book a room in North Las Vegas and send word to
your husband that he’ll have to visit you—you won’t ever be
coming home?
But what does this woman do? She
enters Tirzah, the new capital of the Northern Kingdom. She walks, I
mean this isn’t a trip that you can make half-asleep behind the
wheel of your car, listening to Nelville Carville or Salamander
Gingrich wile the hours away with idle propaganda on talk radio, she
had to deliberately, consciously walk, shortening the life of her son
with every step she took. Look at the Lord’s goodness. The boy
does not die when she enters the city gates. How far did she
walk—half a mile, 1000 paces? She catches sight of the palace.
Weren’t the words of the prophet ringing in her ears? The Lord
holds his hand back from the boy. She is in front of the door. Turn
back, turn back, there may yet be hope and forgiveness with the Lord!
She opens the door, doesn’t the smell of home tug at your mother’s
heart? Must that fresh baked bread smell soon mingle with funeral
floral arrangements? Will you deliberately take your son’s life?
She steps over the threshold. The boy dies.
How could she? It only makes sense if
she doesn’t believe in the Lord. That religious mumbo-jumbo. My
husband, my wife, she puts stock in it, God knows why, and I go along
with them just for appearance’s sake, to keep her off my back.
It’s good for the kids, but I’m a little old for all that. She
didn’t believe the prophet’s words, so they didn’t stop her.
It was one of those things. We’ve got other children.
What a number. A perfect match for her
husband. Like a roulette table, you know, with the zero, double zero
on it?
We forgiven sinners, ashamed of what
we’ve done, yes, ashamed enough to never do that again, we are so
proud of our Jesus, so proud of his strong love and forgiveness for
us that we are proud enough to keep his words ahead of us. Aus dem
Augen, aus dem Sinn, the Germans say. Out of sight, out of mind. So
keep those precious words of God in sight. That’s what God begged
his people to do. “Impress them on your children. Talk about them
when you sit at home and when you walk along the road. Tie them as
symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on
the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6.6-9).”
Pay attention to my Word. Remember my Word. Think about it. When
you face situations in life, OK, if you have to rely on something as
lame as “What Would Jesus Do?” I’ll settle for that, but it is
a whole lot better when you remember a Bible story where either Jesus
or one of my believers faced a similar situation. You tell your
boyfriend pushing for favors, “How could I do this great wickedness
and sin against my God?” You remind yourself of Judas helping
himself to the disciples’ money bag when you are tempted to cook
the books to cover the “loans” you could extend yourself from the
company’s funds. You think of how Jesus looked when Peter cursed
and swore to prove he didn’t know Jesus the next time you are
tempted to be an undercover Christian.
And we do, so often. That’s why we
come to church. Not because we’ve never heard it, because I tell
you, if I am preaching some new teaching you have never heard, one of
us is in a lot of trouble! We come to church to remind ourselves of
the saving truths of our God. We come to church to rearm, resupply,
and refresh our faith so we can take our stand against everything the
Devil is going to throw at us this week—and it may well be the
clogged kitchen sink!
That’s how we can step across the
threshold of our homes expecting to help our children with their
homework before our day’s work as parents is done. That’s how we
can step across the threshold into our kitchens willing to stick to
the same diabetic diet the doctor put our spouse on. That’s how we
step even across the threshold into that ICU room, to share one last
prayer, hold mother’s hand one last time before Jesus lovingly
grasps that hand in a heavenly welcome.
Never Ashamed of Jesus
-
Ashamed enough to leave my sins
behind me (1-11)
-
Proud enough to keep my Savior’s
words in front of me (12-20).
That’s why my reputation, oh, it’s
important. Important enough for God to protect my and your
reputation with the “Don’t lie or gossip about your neighbor”
commandment. But I never want anyone to be ashamed of Jesus.
Rev.
Don Pieper is a minister in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
He has devoted his life to sharing the Gospel of Christ to all of
Gods people. For more information about the Green Valley Evangelical
Lutheran Church visit us at
www.gvelc.com or call 702-454-8979 .
Ask
for Pastor Don or Pastor Matt.
