The Second Sunday
after Easter, April 15, 2007, Year C
Jesus is Alpha
and Omega
The Rev. Robert B. Wood, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alpharetta,
Georgia
Growing up in Athens, Georgic, I learned that Greeks and football were
the kings of the town. (Don’t tell all the professors like my father
and step-mother that.) I knew about football early through the YMCA—as
young boys put on pads to see who could run, catch or block. It never
really took with me as a player, but I like to follow the Dawgs, the
Falcons, and the game.
With Greeks, it took me a little longer to understand. All I knew was
there were a bunch of large houses on Milledge Ave with all these
funny letters on them. Letters that looked like the math symbols that
I was learning about in school. Geometry symbols like Triangles.
Algebra symbols like Pi and Sigma. There’s one that looked like an
upside-down horseshoe. Then I found that some of these were in the
Bible too. Alpha and Omega.
Of course, now it all makes sense. These are all part of the Greek
alphabet. The widely used alphabet and language of Jesus’ time. Paul’s
letters—the whole New Testament was written in Greek, so of course
these letters would be in the Bible.
These thoughts of Greek and football came to mind this week for two
reasons. First, we hear the angel of the Lord name Jesus as the Alpha
and Omega. Of course, every one in Jesus’ time would automatically
know what the angel meant, but it took me a little while to
understand. Now I know that Alpha is the first letter in the Greek
alphabet Omega the last. Like our A and Z. Jesus, the Alpha and Omega.
The beginning and the end.
But not just book ends to hold other letters that find themselves
in-between but the source of the letters and the end of all the
letters. That which creates, shapes, and contains them. Jesus is Alpha
and Omega. Jesus is all in all. Or as Jesus proclaims, “who is / and
was / and is to come.” This is no longer Greek to me.
The football part of the week is about a player suspended for
misconduct: Pacman Jones. Though he has nothing to do with GA
football, his story made me think about how football itself is one of
the kings of our culture and the way that king effects our culture.
Pacman Jones plays for the Tennessee Titans. He has great athletic
talents, and a few years ago he was drafted and signed big contract.
Big-contract money is one sign of how football is a king of our
culture, and a downside to all his money is that it has attracted
people like flies at a picnic who want in on that action.
Some of those people you could call “the wrong crowd.” And with them,
Pacman found himself involved in or “near” crimes—not once or twice,
but more than ten. Even his own family is worried because Pacman won’t
listen to their advice to clean up his act. Warnings from his team
have gone unheeded too. Now the NFL has acted—and suspended him for a
year, and he’ll lose about $180,000 per game.
The underlying issue, as I see it, is that Pacman has put himself
first. He seems to think that all his money gives him freedom and
immunity. He’s his own #1. He’s given his team and the NFL a bad name,
and they’ve responded. In a sense, they have disowned him…in part to
take a stand…and in part to guide him back from self-destructive
behavior. To give him back a center. But I wonder, will he come around
in the year? Will the loss of playing and the loss of money change his
heart, renew his perspective? Or do pride and greed have too firm a
hold on him?
More to the point for us: what is it that helps any of us get back on
track after we’ve taken the wrong path? After pride and greed have led
us astray? Pacman’s story is not unique. He’s human. The money and the
visibility put his problems in front of us, but if we’re honest, we
can see that we too have a playing field—the world. We too make
choices, good and bad. We too have a crowd we run with—good or bad.
And we have made mistakes, our own self-centered choices, and we can
hear the forces in our lives trying to get us back on track trying to
give us back a center.
God’s voice is one of those voices, and today through the words of the
angel, God reminds us that the center for Christians is having Jesus
as our Alpha and Omega. Not making ourselves the Alpha, but having
Jesus first. And having Jesus last—our Omega—and not aiming at
anything else. And living not just with Jesus as bookends to our
life…where the middle doesn’t matter, but being all in all: beginning,
middle, and end. All decisions we make in our lives are based on that
truth and spiritual center—especially decisions about money and all
the influences we have telling us how to spend, save, invest, or share
it.
I don’t have to tell you about the materialism and conspicuous
consumption in our culture—the influences of TV commercials, banners
and raised car hoods along most major roads, mailboxes full of
catalogs, SPAM in your inboxes.
Do these influences have your best interests in mind? Who do they want
to be your Alpha and Omega? Making financial decisions is difficult
for sure. A pastor even joked, skeptically, about the difficulty of
marriages—knowing that the couple he was counseling had a 50-50 chance
of staying together (given current trends). He joked that the wedding
vows for people should change because of the stress that financial
decisions put on a couple. His rewording of the vows: “until debt do
us part.”
But truthfully, it’s the “parting” that’s the problem—the wedge that
money can put between people, moving them apart, and between people
and their God. Jesus also knew that financial decisions were difficult
and important. He taught about money more than he taught most anything
else…in part because he knew it was money that could wedge people away
from God…or more truly, that the love of money could become people’s
Alpha and Omega, heir reason for living and the main motivator in
their lives.
And as much as Jesus taught about money, he never talked about the
Temple’s need for the gift; he taught about the need of people to
give. Giving and sharing is one of the signs that money does not have
control over you. Doesn’t own you. That’s right—when Jesus praised the
woman who gave her last coins to the Temple—he was not happy for the
Temple’s sake…he was not happy for God’s sake…he was happy for her
sake…because her offering was a sign that she put her whole trust in
God’s sovereignty.
The need of a Christian to give. Just like a Christian’s spiritual
life is shaped by the need to pray to our Alpha and Omega— to give
thanks to God for creation and eternal life—so does a Christian’s need
to give. Just like a Christian’s life is shaped by offerings of going
to church, of asking for forgiveness, of receiving the sacraments, of
loving our neighbors as ourselves, so is our life as Christians shaped
by our need to give.
Giving is an Alpha and Omega moment. Giving is a confession that we
don’t put ourselves first, and that we don’t let money wedge us off
our spiritual center. Giving is important no matter how much we make.
One of the wealthiest men in American History—J.D. Rockefeller said,
if I hadn’t learned to tithe on my first salary of $1.50 a week, I
would not have been able to tithe my first million.
By the way, the other important fact I learned growing up in Athens,
GA, is likely the one you learned growing up too: Money—not football
or Greeks—is king in our culture… but Jesus is king in our lives.
Everything we do—beginning, middle, and end needs to proclaim him as
Alpha and Omega.
Everything that we do needs to show how we Lift High the Cross. That’s
why we chose that title for our campaign because with the cross as the
highest thing in our lives, we set Jesus and his example of
self-giving as our standard. Jesus is Alpha and Omega. That’s the
important Greek to me, and I pray it’s no longer Greek to you.
© The Rev. Robert B. Wood. All Rights
reserved.
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