According to God's Protocol

“IN CHRIST: ACCORDING TO GOD'S PROTOCOL”

A Sermon delivered at St. John's Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Virginia
On July 17/18, 2010 - The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (PENT8C-20j)

Dear members and welcome guests of St. John's Lutheran Church:

The term "protocol" is defined in Webster as, "the customs and regulations dealing with diplomatic formality, precedence, and etiquette." Whether we are aware of it or not, protocol affects a great portion of our lives. Think for a minute of some of the etiquette protocol we have established just for eating. "Keep your elbows off the table!" "Keep your mouth closed when you chew!" "Use your tongue and not your boarding house reach." Regarding precedence, if you've traveled by airplane lately, you are familiar with the protocol for boarding, starting with first class passengers, premium members, those who need extra time boarding and then all the rest who bought cheaper tickets beginning in the rear of the airplane, right? In the diplomatic field, you might remember the hue and cry that when up when Michelle Obama put her arm around the queen of England. That was a "no-no" according to British protocol.

Today's appointed Scripture lessons deal rather subtly with the protocol of precedence. In our First Lesson Abraham finds himself entertaining unexpected visitors which we assume were divine. In protocol typical of Eastern culture at the time, he assumes a servant role as he stands and watches while they sit and eat. In today's Gospel we see the protocol of the teacher/student relationship as Jesus sits on a chair as the teacher and Mary, the student, sits humbly on the floor at his feet. However the premium example of the protocol of precedence is found in our Second Lesson from the letter to the Christians in Colossae to which I now direct your attention as our series titled "In Christ," continues.

As refresher (because you may have already heard this), the letter writer indicates he is Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who is now under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial before the Emperor. The addressee's are a combination of Jewish and Gentile Christians living in the area of Colossae in central Asia Minor which is now Turkey who were experiencing some hardship, perhaps even persecution for their faith. To encourage and strengthen them he provides a revised world view and gives them a new sense of identity that has been established according to God's protocol.

It goes like this. God has established that Christ is far and away supreme in God's order of precedence. Listen again to his description: He is the image of invisible God; he is the firstborn of all creation; he is before all things; he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. No question about it. In this new order of creation, Christ is the supreme commander-in-chief.

How did this happen? Was he elected by majority vote? Did his army's sweep him into power after a bitter struggle? Was he simply the fair-haired heir to the throne by virtue of his noble birth? No! It wasn't like that at all. He started at the very bottom in the morass of our world – we “who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,” as Paul describes us.

You say, "Hey, wait a minute! That doesn't describe me. I am a very descent, hardworking person, and I very much resent being classified down at the bottom of the heap. In my estimation, I am the solar center of my universe and Christ is just a remote, itty bitty planet out there revolving around me if and when I need him." I think you can see that when we espouse that world view and think of ourselves that way, we are, indeed, estranged and hostile in mind and living lives that are less than perfect, less than fulfilling, less than meaningful.

Paul tells us to “get real!” According to God's protocol we were nothing more than pieces of space junk floating pell-mell away from the gravitational pull of our loving, creator God. So Christ left the solar center of divine existence, beamed himself aboard our mal-functioning craft and, with the tool kit of his cross pulled us out of the black hole of nothingness. With the high octane energy of his shed blood he reversed our course and thrust us back on track to our new, final destination. He gave real hope and change that works for us which no one else can give. Using Paul's words from our text, "And he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him (God)."

If you will pardon the personal reference, in the early '70's I found myself in a hospital bed on Staten Island recovering from major surgery. My roommate happened to come from the Basque area of northern Spain and had several broken ribs which he sustained during a storm on an oil tanker when some pipes came loose. This was still during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco who died four years after this event. As well as we could communicate, he told me something I will never forget. He said, "As much as I hate Franco with every fiber of my being, never-the-Iess, my three teen-age daughters are able to walk safely down any alley in Spain at 3 AM and I will not worry because I know they are safe."

My dear fellow saints of St. John's! You are not in Spain living under the protocol of an oppressive dictator. You are in Christ under the protocol of a God who loves you, who has redeemed you, who has called you his very own child. By lifting Christ up to his exalted position, all those who are in Christ have been raised as well to a position just lower than the angels. Considering where we were or could be, it just doesn't get any better than that.

But be aware that being in Christ is conditional and incurs a responsibility. The proviso is, as Paul puts it, "Provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard." For that we need the support of our fellow believers who, in the context of Word and Sacrament, keep us grounded and connected to the body of which Christ is the head. It is our R.S.V.P. to his gracious invitation. Our responsibility is to proclaim him in whom we believe, "teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ." May we who are in Christ join Paul's hope: "For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me."

In my varied past as a military chaplain, I came to Ft. Campbell, KY., as a newly promoted colonel. At official functions I soon learned that protocol determined the seating arrangement. Naturally, the colonels sat behind the generals. But the seating for the colonels was sequential by date of rank. I quickly learned that I sat between the same two colonels. The comfort of that was that, according to their protocol, I always knew where I stood, where I sat, and I always knew there was a place reserved for me. May you who are in Christ be comforted by the fact that, according to God's protocol you know where you stand and that there is a place reserved just for you. Amen.