An Apocalyptic Beginning to Advent

“The sun will be darkened.  The moon will not give its light.  Stars will fall.  The powers in the heavens will be shaken.”  If I didn’t know better, I’d think Jesus is describing what it is like to go out shopping early in the morning on Black Friday.  And while the rest of the country is shifting gears from Thanksgiving Day meals to Christmas preparations, we silly Episcopalians think now is the time to observe Advent by pondering images of the world falling apart.  While many other churches are starting to look backward to the heart-warming events of Jesus’ birth, we are paying attention to frightening cosmic mutations and the role Jesus promises to play in the future.  What are we to make of all this?

First, let us say this: we simply cannot abdicate this passage (and those like it) to the “Left Behind” crowd who, as one Lutheran theologian puts it, “view the Bible as an encrypted map of the future, leaked by God to code-breakers, who derive from it a deity who’s itching to snuff out the multitudes.”  This thinking is so pervasive in much of our contemporary culture that combating it is almost as difficult observing Advent rather than flipping from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Next, notice how the passage begins: “Jesus said to his disciples, “In those days, after that suffering…”  If we want to understand the passage than we need to know what suffering he is describing.  The Gospel of Mark was written around 70 AD, almost 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  A lot happened and a lot changed during that period and Mark crafted Jesus’ words more to speak to events in 70 AD than to be a historical reproduction of speeches made four decades earlier. 

In 66 AD, Jews refused to pay taxes to Rome and, in response, the Roman military plundered the Jerusalem Temple and killed over 6,000 people.  This action led to open, full-scale revolt and Roman officials in the Holy Land fled for their lives.  Vespasian was appointed to lead the Roman army to retake the region.  He started in the northern part of Israel - in Galilee - and eventually, in 70 AD, laid siege to Jerusalem itself.  The city and the Temple where completely destroyed.  The Roman military effort concluded with the Jewish defeat at Masada in 74 AD.  All told, historians estimate that over a million people were killed in the conflict.

This unfolding calamity was the only thing on peoples’ minds when Mark’s gospel was written.  It is their suffering to which Jesus refers in today’s reading.  It is not a cryptic description about some future event that may or may not be imminent in our time.  It was THE event of their time.

With this in mind, we learn two things from Jesus’ words.  First, he is not going to return to intervene in a military conflict nor does he show up to rescue the faithful, few elect while leaving behind others to suffer.  Everyone – the good and the bad, the believers and the unbelievers, the trouble-makers and the innocent bystanders – is in the same, painful, messy boat.  Jesus does not say he will come in the midst of the worst suffering to save a special few.  He says he will come after it. 

And second, Jesus says he will come in “power and glory” to gather the elect from “the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”  There is no mention of being taken away or left behind.  The gathering seems to be more about creating a post-suffering community who will love and care for each other.  This new community is where Jesus will be found.

When I hear these words of Jesus, my mind immediately recognizes a truth that overcomes us from time to time.  I go through much of life working my ways on the world around me.  I shape my day and I shape my week.  Some of the time, everything goes exactly the way I plan for it go.  Much of the time, it unfolds with slight variations, which, truth be told, make life interesting.  In the midst of all of this – from time to time – comes an event when the sun goes dark, the moon loses its light, stars fall, and the heavens are shaken.  Suddenly and without warning I am made aware that I am in control of absolutely nothing.  It is the feeling I had once when driving on an icy highway and my car began to slide out of control.  It wobbled through the median strip and across the lanes of on-coming traffic; even though I was still holding the steering wheel and pumping the brakes.  In that moment I was reminded how in life, like that car, there are instances that come in an instance when I am no longer determining the direction things are going.

You know what this feels like.  It is what happens when your doctor calls you into her office after you’ve had a battery of tests and says, “We need to talk.”  It is what happens when the HR department announces there will be down-sizing.  It is what happens when you open the door of your Buffalo house and discover 70 inches of snow between you and everywhere you thought you were going to go.

And it happened again to me last Sunday afternoon.  At 4:04 PM, I decided to walk from my house down the street to the church office to pick up a single page document I wanted to work with at home.  So sure was I of my plan that I did not bother to grab my cell phone or to lock my door.  As I walked to the church I saw numerous fire trucks and police cars parked around the Suffolk Towers and TV news van was setting up its equipment.  I asked someone what was going on and learned there had been a fire and the Tower had been evacuated.  Thankfully, no one was hurt. 

Many of the residents were gathered across the street at Main Street Methodist Church.  A lot of these folks are regular clients at our food pantry and I was concerned about them.  I went to the church and talked to the people there who, understandably, were shaken up.  Chris Ward – their church organist many of us know – had opened the doors and welcomed in people.  After a while, I went to Farm Fresh to buy some food to feed displaced Tower residents and first responders.  I called John Rector who called Beau Holland, and the three of us, along with a dozen members of Main Street Church, fed at least 75 people.  The residents where then taken to two hotels out at the Holland Road bypass for the night.  Four-and-a-half hours after I set out on my quick errand to my office, I got back home.

On Monday morning, the Tower residents where told they could not stay at those hotels and had to leave.  Most didn’t have transportation, but somehow managed to get back downtown.  By noon it was clear they had had nothing to eat all day and had nowhere to go.  We opened our Parish Hall and put out the leftovers from the night before. 30 people made their own sandwiches, enjoyed some potato chips, and drank coffee, lemonade, and ice tea.  Just before our Food Pantry opened, the folks were taken to the Super 8 Motel next to McDonalds.  I worried they would not have any breakfast and invited them to come back to St. Paul’s in the morning.  Kitty Quillin and Bev Judkins set out to buying something we could serve for breakfast.

On Tuesday morning, about a dozen folks from our parish showed up to make breakfast, but at the appointed time of 9:00 no one showed up to eat.  Within half-an-hour, we learned that the Tower folks at the Super 8 were hungry, but had no transportation.  The weather had turned cold and rainy, so walking was out of the question.  We packed up 30 to-go boxes and delivered breakfast to the hotel.  I asked if they need lunch and they did.  Kitty and Roy Waller were still at the church when I returned.  They agreed to make sandwiches and Kitty went to the store to buy more bread and chips.  At 1:00, I delivered forty-some boxed lunches.  I can’t even begin to describe how appreciative these folks were.  “Pastor,” they said to me, “Can you say a blessing for this meal.”  “I sure can!”  Knowing we had a lot of breakfast fixings leftover, I told them I would be back in the morning with more food.

Kitty and Roy got together another 30 breakfast boxes on Wednesday morning and I delivered them to some very grateful folks.  Later that morning, WAVY News 10 said they wanted to come to the church and interview someone named “Cookie.”  Amy, our administrator, who answered the phone call, said, “Do you mean ‘Kitty’?”  Try as I might, I could not keep Roy around to be interviewed.  He was having none of that.  But Kitty did appear in a story on the Wednesday evening news and did a fantastic job communicating the kind of compassion we here at St. Paul’s are all about. 

The Tower residents are supposed to be able to return to their apartments tomorrow.

So we begin this first Sunday in Advent with some crazy, apocalyptic language that, at first glance, seems to have nothing to do with ‘the joy of this holiday season.’  But we followers of Jesus know that the world is a difficult, dark place where suffering is all around us.  It is in the Holy Land.  It is in Ferguson, MO.  And it is right here in our own town.  We take to heart that Jesus does not promise one day to whisk us away from all that troubles this world, but rather promises always to reenter it in power and great glory.  This reappearing is never about rewarding a chosen few for staying removed from the stains of the world.  It is always about forming a community who is in, or has come through, suffering so that we, who are immersed in the power and presence of the Lord, can love and care for each other… and every person – all people – who are loved by God.

A Distant Comet & a Growing Food Pantry

What were you working on in 1984, thirty years ago?  That is the year I headed off to seminary.  It seems both like just yesterday and five lifetimes ago.  That same year a group of European and American scientists began to plan an audacious expedition aimed at landing a space probe on a distant, speeding comet.  Engineered in a clean room, the probe – named Rosetta – was launched in the spring of 2004.  It took ten years for it to reach its destination; a journey that included several delicate, deep-space maneuvers and a three-year hibernation to conserve energy. 

On August 6th, after travelling over 3 billion miles, Rosetta went into orbit around 67P, a comet roughly the size of downtown Suffolk.  It is an amazing achievement.  Imagine standing on the beach at the Outer Banks and trying to launch a golf ball to land in a moving bathtub on a beach in California.  That is what has been accomplished.

But the mission did not end there.  Rosetta carried with it a lander named Philae, which is about the size of a washing machine.  On November 7th, Philae successfully landed on 67P where it is now conducting experiments and transmitting data and images back to earth.  It has already detected the presence of water and amino acids (the building blocks of life) and this discovery may help us to answer some important questions: What was the early solar system like?  How did earth come to be covered in water?  Where did the stuff of life come from?  Rosetta and Philae will be on a wild ride for the next twelve months as they journey with 67P on the comet’s trip around the sun.

The mission raises for me some big questions: Who are we?  Where did we come from?  And, perhaps most intriguing, what are we capable of achieving? 

I wonder who is working now at an initial phase of a project that in several decades will revolutionize what we know or how we live.  I read recently sections of a book called Physics of the Future, which looks at technology we now have or are in the process of developing and relates how it will change everything about computing, medicine, energy, and space travel in the next ten, twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred years.  Much of it seems like science fiction, except it is not fiction.  It is science possible. 

We are doing things the builders of the Tower of Babel could never have dreamed.  And yet their story from the book of Genesis is still relevant to us today.  Theirs is a cautionary tale reminding readers down through the ages of the dangers of human overreaching; of striving so hard for achievement that something essential is lost in the process.

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the church year.  On this day we proclaim, as St. Paul wrote, that Christ sits at the right hand of God in glory, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, in this age and in the age to come.   From this preeminent position Christ speaks to us with authority. 

In today’s Gospel reading we hear him lift up other questions for us to hold as we strive to learn who we are and test what we are capable of doing.  Christ demands that we also consider who we are with and ponder what is required of us to be in relationship with others.  These are the essential questions lost at Babel and the result was a fragmenting not only of language, but of human relationships in general.

“I was hungry and you gave me food.  I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.  I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  I was naked and you gave me clothing.  I was sick and you took care of me.  I was in prison and you visited me.”

Who are we with?  Notice in Jesus’ parable there are two groups of people.  One group has no recollection of ignoring Christ because they never saw the need around them.  Or perhaps they did see the need, but never considered that Christ could care about anyone they did not care about.  The other group never understood that their acts of compassion were in fact offered to Christ himself.  Who are we with?  As we test ourselves to push our capabilities, what does it mean to be in relationship with others?  What does it mean that every person – every single human being on this planet – matters?

The Food Pantry is one way we here at St. Paul’s acknowledge those who are with us in our community.  As you may know, it has experienced tremendous growth over the past six weeks.  During the summer months we averaged between 75-85 clients each Monday night.  This fall we have been over 100 every time we have been open.  On October 20^th, we set an all-time record with 117 clients on a single night only to see that mark eclipsed one week later when 151 people came through our doors.

Each client shops for up to five food items.  If you do the math, 100 people coming through the pantry on a given night means we are handing out 500 items of food.  This translates to as much as 2,500 items each month.  Because we have partnered with the Hampton Roads Food Bank we are able to get much of what we distribute at a greatly reduced cost.  Still, the dollars add up.  If each item costs roughly a dollar for us to purchase, you can see that we need to raise $2,500 a month to keep the ministry going.

Because this amount far exceeds congregational giving to the ministry we are beginning to look at creative ways to raise additional funding.  For the last few years we have been blessed to receive a grant from the Ruritans for $2,000.  This summer we applied for a grant from the Diocese of Southern Virginia’s Seeds of Hope fund and have been awarded $2,400.  For the Christmas Dinner Basket Distribution we have created a fundraising site with CrowdRise and have already received on-line donations from folks outside the parish.  All of this helps, but does not get us to where we need to be.

You can help.  Does your employer make charitable contributions?  If so, can you put in a request for our food pantry?  Does your employer make matching gifts, and if so, would the Food Pantry be eligible?  Your personal contribution to the food pantry could be doubled.  Are you a part of a civic group or organization that makes charitable donations?  If so, please consider making an appeal for our food pantry.  We are developing a “Facts Sheet” about St. Paul’s Food Pantry to help you make a compelling case to get support.  Do you have any other ideas that might help us do the work God is calling us to do?  If so, please feel free to contact me or anyone else associated with the pantry.

It is thrilling to be alive at a time when the human race is capable of landing a probe on a speeding comet in an effort to unlock mysteries hidden for over 5 billion years.  It is equally thrilling to be a part of any effort that connects one human being to another, that recognizes how need and blessing can be shared experiences, and to sense that the God who created the cosmos can somehow be present and known through these kinds of relationships.  Think about what we will proclaim in a just a few moments: that the body and blood of the King of Creation is contained in a little piece of bread and a sip of wine.  It is no less miraculous and equally as true that our King meets us and greets us through every human we encounter.  So, as we amass data from a space probe on a speeding comet telling us about what our solar system was like billions of years ago, here is something else incredible to ponder: present in each every person you encounter today is the King and Creator of the cosmos.  When you respect that person, you respect the King.

 

Prepared for What?

Years ago an elderly woman invited me to visit her two-story garage, which was larger by square footage than any house I have lived in.  The woman’s husband had passed away and she was trying to deal with all the stuff he had accumulated over the years.  He had an old parachute, she told me, that I might want to use for games in the church’s children’s ministry (and no, we did not have kids jumping from the steeple).  When I entered the garage I encountered the vast remnants of a man who suffered from what is called compulsive hoarding behavior.  It is characterized “by the excessive acquisition of and inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant distress or impairment.”  As just one example, the man had collected enough fishing gear to open a tackle shop.  If he saw a lure he liked he bought the entire display.  I was so overwhelmed by the magnitude and diversity of items he had accumulated that to this day, my memory of that experience is vague and jumbled.  Suffice it to say there was a lot of stuff.

This morning’s parable about the wise and foolish maidens, with its emphasis on preparedness, is not encouraging us to be like that man.

Have you ever watched the television show Doomsday Preppers?  I have not, but apparently it focuses on survivalists who are preparing for various circumstances that will cause the end of civilization; economic collapse, military or terrorist attack, and pandemic plague being the most common.  According to a description of the show, new preppers are featured on each episode and a panel of experts grades their efforts and makes recommendations for improvement.

This morning’s parable about the wise and foolish maidens, with its emphasis on preparedness, is not encouraging us to become a doomsday prepper.

When I first moved to Virginia, being a northerner, I had to adjust to the southern way of engaging winter weather.  In Richmond, if snow was in the forecast, everyone hurried to Ukrops to buy bread and milk.  We do that here in Suffolk too, only we don’t have Ukrops.  Similarly, if a hurricane is moving up the coast and threatening the Hampton Roads area, you can expect a run on bottled water and other non-perishable staples at our local grocery stores.

As prudent and practical as this may be, this morning’s parable about the wise and foolish maidens, with its emphasis on preparedness, is not encouraging us to stock up before a storm.

Three remarkable women have been in the news this week: Leah Still, the four-year-old daughter of an NFL player who is battling a rare form of cancer; Laureen Hutton, a freshman at Mount St. Joseph College who fulfilled her dream of playing in a basketball game before a different rare form of cancer takes her strength and eventually her life; and Brittany Maynard, a 29 year-old newlywed who, dying from cancer, moved to Oregon to take advantage of its death with dignity law.  Last Saturday, on All Saints’ Day, she consumed a prescribed lethal dose of medication that ended her life, but also launched an important national conversation.

Even though it is essential that we share end-of-life wishes with our loved ones, this morning’s parable about the wise and foolish maidens, with its emphasis on preparedness, is not about dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s on medical directives and legal documents. 

Why is the parable not about these things?  Because each of the scenarios I mention describes being ready for something that (for lack of a better word) is negative, whereas the parable encourages us to be prepared for something that is joyous.  And I don’t think it is talking about getting everything lined up you need for a Thanksgiving dinner or getting all your shopping done early for Christmas.  I think Jesus is talking about something much deeper and more spiritual than that.

Those first followers of Jesus expected him to return at any moment.  It could be tonight, or tomorrow night, or some time next week.  No one knew exactly when it would happen, but initially everyone believed it would be soon – real soon! 

But as time passed, weeks and months at first, but then years and even decades, those followers had to rethink their position.  Perhaps Jesus was not going to return for a long, long time.  And some even began to wonder if they had gotten wrong the whole notion of a ‘return.’  If so, then it was time to roll up their sleeves and get about the business of life.  Many followed this new path, but not all.  The hold-outs began to emphasize the need for vigilance and the possibility of missing out.  Look at the last line of today’s parable (where the meaning of most parables is conveyed), “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  It is a warning from one group to the other: stay with our program or you may get locked out.

And, two millennia later, their debate has very little relevance in our lives.  Yes, there are those who are caught up in the whole “Left Behind” mentality, but most of that thinking has only been around for a hundred years or so.  It is hardly a classic articulation of Christian theology down through the ages and it is something that, if we took the time to think it through, would reject as silly and preposterous. 

When I read today’s parable it suggests to me that the kingdom of heaven is always breaking into our lives, presenting us with moments of deep joy and cause for celebration.  One of life’s great challenges is to be in a position to recognize God’s kingdom in our midst and to appreciate it for what it is.  How do you cultivate a spiritual openness to joy and develop a capacity to be aware of the grace and goodness that is all around us?  Without these spiritual skills we are like the maidens who have no oil.  The kingdom of heaven comes close to us, but we are not in a position to receive it.  It is like we are colorblind.  Yes, we see the world, but are unaware of the vast and vivid hues that fill it with glorious and delicate beauty. 

How do we store up oil; that thing which makes us ready to participate in the kingdom of heaven when it draws near?  You know as well as I do the importance of solitude and prayer.  You know how the workday interruption may carry with it the most grace-filled moment of the day.  You know that religion and spirituality are more than coming to church on those Sunday mornings when you are in town.  It is an attitude and a perspective you carry with you at all times.  You know the power of gathering regularly with fellow seekers.  I can sit in the quiet of this space in the evening, light some candles, open a hymnal, and sing carols, but it will not come close to doing for me what will happen when we all come together on Christmas Eve. 

For the most part, we know what to do to add oil to our lives.  Our challenge is doing it; doing it consistently, passionately, and authentically.  Look around you; not just to notice the people who are here this morning, but also to think about all the people in your life: family, friends, and co-workers.  Do you ever get the feeling that they are getting something deeper and more joyous out of life that you are not?  If so, it may just be a sign that you need to attend to the lack of ‘oil’ in your life. 

In the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, the kingdom of heaven arrived as a single, one-time event.  Either you made it in or you did not.  The good news is that God’s kingdom draws near to us all the time.  We may miss a moment here or there – heck, we may miss most of them – yet still the kingdom keeps coming near.  It is never too late to get the oil you need to be a part of it and even if the doors get closed to today’s celebration, another one will take place in no time at all.  And guess what, you’ll have all the oil you need for that one.

Just the Essentials!

Israelites in Jesus’ day took the law very seriously, and by law I mean the Torah, God’s law.  In a commentary on the Torah known as the Mishna, Rabban Gamaliel II, who led the Sanhedrin after the fall of the Temple in 70 AD, is quoted as saying:

“The more flesh, the more worms;
the more wealth, the more worry;
the more women, the more witchcraft;
the more maids, the more lust;
the more servants, the more larceny.
But the more Torah, the more life;
the more sessions, the more wisdom;
the more counsel, the more understanding;
the more righteousness, the more peace.”

We read the great 19^th Psalm on the first Sunday in October:

The law of the Lord is perfect
and revives the soul; *
   the testimony of the Lord is sure
   and gives wisdom to the innocent.

The statutes of the Lord are just
and rejoice the heart; *
   the commandment of the Lord is clear
   and gives light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean
and endures for ever; *
   the judgments of the Lord are true
   and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,
more than much fine gold, *
   sweeter far than honey,
   than honey in the comb.

By them also is your servant enlightened, *
   and in keeping them there is great reward.

Some in the Christian tradition revere studying the bible with affection similar to the Jews’ passion for Torah, but we Episcopalians don’t have anything in our practice that comes close to their devotion.  If you have ever known a baseball fanatic who has memorized all the statistics and records of every player living, retired, and dead and heard that person get into a discussion - neigh argument – with other people of similar knowledge then you have an image of the centrality of Torah in the life of the Jews.  It was everything, life itself.  And just like baseball stats, the Torah has a lot of minutia.  For every homerun record, Torah is riddled with the equivalent of what left-handed, red-headed pitchers are likely to throw in a day game on a Tuesday when the count is 3-2 in the first inning.

Throughout his public ministry, people came to Jesus and asked him to comment on different aspects of the Torah.  On two separate occasions Jesus was asked to identify the single most important commandment in all Torah.  A young seeker poses the question in the 12^th chapter of Mark’s gospel.  Jesus answers him by saying,

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The seeker, hoping for more elaboration, then asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus responds by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan; one of the greatest teachings in the history of civilization.

Today’s assigned reading from Matthew recounts the other time Jesus is asked this question.  This time, it is not a seeker who queries him, but rather a person hoping to trap him in some form or fashion so that charges might be pressed.  Jesus’ answer is the same, but rather than follow it up with a parable, he asks a Torah question of his own.  It is obscure and technical and impossible to answer and as a result the verbal challenges come to an end.

Out of this tense encounter we have confirmed for us the core of the Christian faith: Love God and love your neighbor.  The problem for us no longer is finding the right answer.  The problem is living it.  Frederick Buechner sums it up pretty effectively:

The difficulty is increased when you realize that by loving God and your neighbors, Jesus doesn’t mean loving as primarily a feeling.  Instead, he seems to mean that whether or not any feeling is involved, loving God means honoring and obeying and staying in constant touch with God, and loving your neighbors means acting in their best interests no matter what, even if personally you can’t stand them.

Love is not primarily a feeling.  It is a disposition of the will that results in actions either directed upward toward God or outward toward others.  Think about Paul’s great treatise on love written to the Christian church in Corinth:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Note two things about this passage.  First, it never once hints that love is a feeling.  And second, remember that this was not written to a couple getting married in a romantic setting, rather it was written to a church caught up in the throes of personality conflicts.  To believers who are at each other’s throats, Paul says you must be patient, kind, not rude or boastful or irritable, nor are you to insist on getting your way.  You must endure and believe and hope and bear all things.  This is to be the way love is manifested in your conflicted community.

In reflecting on today’s reading, the theologian Marcus Borg says that being a Christian is about loving God and loving what God loves.  And what does God love, he asks?  Well, the best-known verse in the bible, John 3:16, says, “God so loved the world that he sent his only son.”  God loves the whole world and wants it to be a better place.  The problem, Borg says, is that our human inclination is to love ourselves first and foremost.  Therefore, he says, we need to be transformed from who we are naturally into who God calls us to be.

For Episcopalians, the sign of our desire for transformation is baptism.  In it, we turn from Satan, the evils of this world, and a focus on self alone in order to embrace Jesus as our savior, our Lord, and our guide.  Through it we pray to be open to God’s grace and truth, filled with the holy and life-giving Spirit, and taught to love others through the Spirit’s power.  Our old selves symbolically drown in the baptismal waters and we rise reborn in the image of Christ.  It is not a one-time experience that fixes us once and for all, but rather a sign of our on-going desire to be transformed into a person who loves God and who loves others.

It is a rigorous process, but we are sustained in it by regular participation in Eucharist.  The weekly pattern of praise and thanksgiving, of confession, pardon, and renewal, and of participating in the life of Christ through receiving his body and blood feeds and fuels our heart, soul, and mind in this transformation process. 

It has been said of the Anglican way that we are about majoring in the majors and minoring in the minors.  By this we mean that we will focus on what is absolutely essential to the practice of the faith while being quite open and tolerant regarding the manifestation (or lack there of) of the non-essentials.  This morning we hear again what is most central to the Christian faith: love God and love your neighbor.  Major in this and the rest will take of itself.

Whose Image is Inscribed on You?

Earlier this week I was reading a lecture by the English bishop and scholar N.T. Wright.  In it, he argues that the Enlightenment shaped our modern worldview in two primary ways.  First, he said, it separated church and state which led to a mindset of a removed God who is concerned about heavenly things while we deal with earthly matters.  And second, it divided people into one of two camps: those for revolution verses those who seek to preserve the present order; the roots of liberalism and conservatism.  So here we are, several centuries removed from the Enlightenment and religion has become largely a private matter because God is relegated to “up there” and banned from the public square.  The liberal/conservative polarization means that every idea must be pushed in one direction or the other and then fought over rather than be evaluated on its own merits.

These assumptions of the way things are and work were not the worldview held by our biblical ancestors.  In the first reading we see Moses in dialogue with the Living God pleading for the Holy One to be present with the people and to rest in their midst.  The gospel reading gives us insight into the politics of Jesus’ day.  There were no liberals or conservatives, just a dominant foreign ruling power - the Romans.  Among the Jews, there were capitulators (like the Herodians) and there were faithful purists.  The purists were divided between nationalists, zealots, separatists, and others. 

When Jesus says “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,” we today interpret this through our post-Enlightenment worldview.  We hear it as a directive for each person to determine what he or she will give to God and we evaluate what the state does with its take based on our liberal or conservative ideology. 

Jesus’ listeners would have heard something very different.  His words cut right to the heart of the political and theological debate of the time.  Caesar demanded that every person under Rome’s control worship him as a deity.  For a faithful Jews who serve only the true and living God, this is not possible.  And Caesar’s profile inscribed on a coin is for them a graven image and a tangible, concrete symbol of this issue.  Faithful Jews avoided the currency at all costs.  It is a small but striking detail that the Herodian capitulators had to produce a coin for Jesus.  He, like all other faithful Jews, would not be carrying one and certainly not in the Temple. 

For Jesus, this teaching was not what it is for us.  It was not a message about stewardship and paying taxes.  First and foremost, it was a clever way to extricate himself from a trap that, if not handled well, could have resulted in charges of insurrection.  Beyond this, Jesus’ true intention is up for debate.  Was he calling on people to do what they had to do in order to get along?  Was he calling for people to resist, knowing that all things belong to God?  Was he doing something else altogether? 

If you like to read the bible, Peter Enns has written a helpful book titled The Bible Tells Me So: why defending scripture has made us unable to read it.  In it he sets out what he calls the 10 Commandments for reading the bible.  Let me share of few of them with you:

1. The Bible doesn’t answer all — or even most — of our questions.  Many of our questions, even some of the more pressing questions we face daily, aren’t answered in the Bible.  The Christian Bible isn’t an answer book but a story of how Jesus answers for us the biggest question of all: what God is like.

5. The Bible is open to multiple interpretations, not just one meaning.  The Bible is ancient and obscure, and its stories are “gapped” and flexible, which allows — even demands — readers to interpret the Bible legitimately in various ways.  This is exactly what has been happening among Jews and Christians for over 2,000 years.

6. The Bible invites debate.  In fact, it can’t avoid it, given how open it is to multiple interpretations.  Winning Bible feuds with others, getting to the right answer, isn’t the end goal.  The back-and-forth with the Bible, and with God, is where deeper faith is found.

8. The Bible was written by Jews (and at least one Gentile in the New Testament) in ancient times.  This may sound too obvious to say, but it’s not.  The biblical writers were ancient writers expressing their faith in God using the vocabulary and concepts of their ancient cultures.  When we transpose our language and concepts onto biblical writers, even if we are trying to understand the Bible, we will actually distort it.

Keeping all of this in mind, let me say that debates about civic duty as well as reflection on the nature of Christian stewardship are both important endeavors for every baptized person.  These are our issues and concerns and, to use Enns’ language, we have transposed them onto Jesus’ words “Render unto Caesar…”, thus making it speak to something very different than it did in its original context. 

I wonder if we Christians would be better served by adopting the worldview of our biblical ancestors.  By doing so, we would hold to God’s intimate presence in all aspects of our life and we would set ourselves apart from capitulation to the dominate Caesar of our day – the modern secular culture that lifts up pleasure, possessions, and personal freedom as the keys to happiness.  We live in opposition to this as we live faithfully into our baptismal promises.  The tension between modern culture and our baptismal covenant is every bit as deep and as layered as the tension between Rome and Jerusalem was in Jesus’ day.  Can we live with a foot firmly entrenched in both kingdoms or do we need to make a decisive choice for one over the other?  Now there is a question that invites debate and is open to multiple interpretations.  How might render unto Caesar and render unto God contribute to our conversation around this question?

I keep a folder for every specific Sunday in the three-year lectionary cycle.  In each folder I keep printed copies of my old sermons, commentaries and snippets on those passages, and an occasional note or two.  Earlier in the week I looked through today’s folder and found a note I had written to myself 3, 6, 9, or 12 years ago, I don’t remember.  I have a vague memory of a thought that came to me sometime during a service when I preached on this text.  I thought it might be worthy of further exploration in a future sermon and I didn’t want to forget it.  The note says only this, “Whose image is inscribed on you?”

Whose image is inscribed on you?  What values and beliefs does your life reflect?  What witness is made by the way you live your life?  Are you a product of the culture or a person baptized into the Christian faith and life?  Whose image is inscribed on you? 

 

The other day I saw a picture of a man who got a tattoo so that his bald head looked like a New England Patriot’s football helmet.  That speaks loud and clear about something that is central and dear to him, doesn’t it.  You and I bear a tattoo on our foreheads where the oil of chrism at baptism marked us as Christ’s own forever.  It is, of course, an invisible inscription that we make visible through our lives and actions.  Is that the image you want people to see inscribed on you?

Invitation & Expectation

The king said to the man without the wedding garment, “How did you get in here”?

One of the most popular movie genres going is the heist where super-smart, super-patient, super-criminals pull off a super-complicated robbery.  The Italian Job, Ocean’s 11, and The Thomas Crown Affair are fascinating films because of the intricate, elaborate detail involved in the plot.  And in end, standing in an empty vault, some poor police detective is left to ask, “How did they get in here?”  On an August weekend in 2005, a real-life team of robbers managed to steal over $81 billion dollars from a bank vault in Brazil, but it didn’t take authorities long to figure out how they got in.  The bandits left behind a tunnel the length of a football field.  They had spent months digging under buildings and city streets in order to launch a stealthy, subterranean assault on the bank.  One of my all time favorite lines from the movie Police Squad, a spoof on heist films, is when Leslie Nielson encounters a suspicious man who appears to have broken into a building.  “Who are you and how did you get in here,” Nielson’s character demands to know.  The person answers, “I am a locksmith, and I am a locksmith.” 

“How did you get in here?”  In Jesus’ parable, it isn’t that the person without the proper wedding garment breaks in to a place he is not supposed to be.  He was, after all, invited at the last minute.  His offense is wrapped around how he presents himself.  He is inappropriately dressed for the occasion (and let me assure you from personal experience that is not a good feeling!). 

Jesus’ parable revolves around a king, a wedding, and the invited guests.  In the Hebrew culture of that day marriages were often arranged between families.  A bride and groom were given in marriage, but before they live together the husband goes off to prepare a home.  It may be in the same village or it may be far away.  It may take a few weeks to complete the task or it may take many months.  When all is made ready the groom returns for his bride and a celebration begins.  Typically these feasts last for days and days and they are “don’t miss” occasions in the life of a community.  No one knows exactly when the groom will return for his bride, but when he arrives, all work stops and everyone makes ready for the celebration.

Given this background, some of the elements of the parable begin to make sense while others leave us scratching our head.  It makes sense that the king has to send out messengers to alert the invited guests.  It does not make sense that the guests casually refuse, preferring rather to go about the drudgery of daily business.  This would be puzzling no matter who hosted the feast, but standing up the king is an unthinkable offense.  When given a second chance, the invitees seize the messengers and mistreat some while killing others.  The king is enraged.  Now, instead of messengers, he sends troops.  The judgment is swift, severe, and (given the times) predictable. 

Messengers are now sent throughout the region to invite any and everyone to the feast.  The wedding hall is filled with guests.  The party appears to be a smashing success but just when everyone has settled in and is having a good time, the king notices a person who is not wearing a wedding garment.  Scholars vary on this detail.  Did the king supply his guests with a wedding garment or did they bring one of their own?  In the end it matters not because everyone else managed to appear with the right thing on except this one individual.  What is equally clear from the story (and perhaps lost to us as listeners from a very different era) is that the absence of the robe is an egresses offense and a horrible insult.  The king has the person bound and thrown out of the party. 

The parable suggests that with the invitation there are certain expectations.  “How did you get in here?” is a way of saying, “Why did you accept my invitation if you were not willing to meet my expectations?”

Remember how Jesus begins this parable: “The kingdom of God may be compared to this story I am about to tell.”  It is a simile and not at all a kind one to Jesus’ audience at the time.  He told it to a group of religious leaders and politicians on a Wednesday afternoon in Jerusalem.  They perceive correctly that in Jesus’ parable God is the king and they are the initial invitees who refuse the invitation, at first rudely but later violently.   They are so enraged by Jesus’ condemnation that within forty-eight hours they will have him hanging from a cross.

You and I are a part of this parable as well.  We are among the second wave of guests, each called in a unique and distinct way.  Look around the church this morning.  How did you get in here?  Some of you were born into this parish; either the second, third, or even fourth generation of members.  A few of you married into St. Paul’s.  Some of you are Episcopalians who moved here from another city.  Some of you have been attending for only a couple of years or months, or even weeks.  Each Sunday over the last month and a half we have had people attend a service here for the first time.  I believe that no matter who you are and no matter what your story is, you are here because God invited you – YOU – to this place, to us, to St. Paul’s.  No one is here by accident.  Carried inside each person who walks in the door is a story.  Embedded in that story is the reason God drew you here – HERE – today.  And that is the reason why every person, from the first time visitor to the oldest living member of the parish to a new born baby to a lost and hurting soul, is welcomed here with open arms.  We want you here because God wants you here.  We are like the kingdom of God when we welcome you into the marriage feast that is our common life together. 

That is the invitation that God issues to each one of us.  But what are the expectations that accompany it?  What does the wedding garment represent? 

Among Evangelicals it has become popular to associate the garment with St. Paul’s theology of righteousness.  Christians ‘put on’ the robe of Christ’s perfection in order to be justified in God’s eyes.  If we don’t put on Christ, but rather insist on relying on our own goodness to be saved, we will be rejected.  The only way to be saved is to put on Christ’s righteousness.  I tend to play down this kind of theology because it makes the whole pursuit of religion sound like some heavenly transaction that has little to do with us and our response.  It makes “believing in Jesus” feel like little more than purchasing car insurance: I’m covered so I am good if something happens.

Jesus’ expectations of his followers were more basic and concrete than Paul’s esoteric ideas.  First, like John the Baptist, he called on people to repent.  It was not so much a demand in order to get into the kingdom but a path you walk that leads away from the destructive nature of sin and toward the life and health of faithful obedience.  Next, Jesus called on people to believe in him; that he was sent from God and that his words and witness reflect the life God offers to all.  Finally, Jesus says that his followers are to pattern their lives after his by loving God and their neighbor.  If you accept the invitation than the expectation is you will repent, believe, and follow. 

So again, how did you get in here?  What ‘invitation’ brought you to this place?  And, are you meeting the expectations that come with accepting it? 

If we were to ask the people in today’s first reading “How did you get here?” they would answer, “Well, Yahweh brought us out of Egypt and delivered us through the waters of the Red Sea, and led us out to here into the wilderness.”  If you were to ask them how they are doing at living up to what is expected of them, they would look at the golden calf, look down at the ground, kick their feet in the sand, and have not much to say. 

In Jesus’ parable, the judgment on the first guests as well as the judgment on the person without the wedding garment is excruciating and final.  Every parable has its limits.  It tells us something of what God’s kingdom is like, but not everything.  No one parable can do that.  The truth is this: in this life there is no final judgment.  When we do wrong, with that judgment there is always the offer of mercy and grace.  There is always an opportunity to repent and return to the Lord. 

I have said before that my favorite image of the Christian life is the way or the path.  It suggests that we are moving from where we were and making progress getting to where we want to be.  Some days we make more progress than others.  Some days the path is easy to navigate while other days it is difficult and rugged.  Some days we make no progress at all and there is the occasional day when we lose our way altogether.  But always and every day we never walk alone.  The One sent from God gives us the very Spirit of God as a companion on the way.  And the One sent from God invites us into communities of faith so that we can walk with others who are on the way as well.  Each of us accepts the invitation and seeks, as best we can, to repent, to believe, and to follow.