Today we hear the last of Jesus’ “vineyard parables.” The vineyard was a common Old Testament metaphor used to describe the people of Israel, so it is not surprising that Jesus drew on this imagery. If you recall, two weeks ago we heard the parable of the workers called to the vineyard at various hours of the day who all get paid the same amount, regardless of the time they spent laboring. Last Sunday we heard the parable of the father who directs each of his two sons to work in the family vineyard. One refuses, but later changes his mind. The other agrees, but then does nothing. And today we hear the parable of the tenants’ revolt against the absentee landowner.
All three parables share some common themes that are worth noting:
• First, each proclaims there is a God. It may seem like an obvious point, but it is foundational and should not be overlooked.
• Equally as obvious, but still important, is the shared notion that the Owner – God – owns the vineyard.
• The next common premise is that Owner holds a rightful claim on the people associated with the vineyard. We see allusions of this claim in the relationship of an employer who hires workers, a father who has sons, and a landowner who rents out his property.
• Another common theme is that something is always going wrong in the vineyard: workers complain, sons misbehave, tenants revolt. These are good stories in that they always have a dramatic tension – a point of conflict – which renders them true to our experience of life. Far from being a tranquil, pastoral setting, the vineyard of life is a challenging place where things often unfold in ways that are troubling; and in the vineyard stories that trouble is of our own making.
• And finally, just as fairy tales always seem to end with “and they lived happily ever after,” each of these stories shares a common ending. It is surprising, even startling - jarring to some, hopeful to others, and it always seems to turn the world upside down on itself.
So the vineyard parables share these common story elements, but each is also distinctive. Today’s parable is the only one where the landowner places others in charge while he leaves the region. As the story unfolds the tenants decide to assert their authority by rising up and rebelling against the claim the landowner has over them. In short, they want to act as if there is no landowner, as if they are the ones in charge.
This week marked the birthday of Martin Heidegger, the German-born philosopher who died in 1976. He has been described as a nearly unreadable author, a racist and a bigot who never fully disavowed his support of Nazism, and one of the most important thinkers of the 21st century. Now how is that for a résumé!
Heidegger wrote a great deal about nihilism; the philosophical belief that our modern life lacks a shared meaning and direction. Those who write about nihilism point to society’s desire not to be under any authority beyond the individual, to have nothing and no one able to make a claim on us, and no commitments required of us. It is precisely what the tenants in Jesus’ parable were after.
A professor named Hubert Dreyfus sums up our times by pointing out that “the things that once evoked commitment – gods, heroes…, the acts of great statesmen, the words of great thinkers – have lost their authority.” He is saying that, like the tenants who shed the rightful claim of the landowner, our society has dispensed with any such notion of an objective norm or value or moral good that exists beyond ourselves.
In our Old Testament reading we heard the story of the Ten Commandments. Given by God as objective realities beyond human existence and human approval – to be received as something as unalterable as, say, the law of gravity – we now take them (if we take them at all) as being a helpful resource; an ingredient we tenants may want to mix into the stew of meaning we cook up for ourselves – if we even feel like taking the time to think through what a personal sense of meaning might look like.
To Heidegger’s way of thinking, life in an ownerless vineyard has some serious consequences. We become isolated in our existence, alienated from one another, and suffocated in a life devoid of meaning. Dreyfus puts it this way:
“When there are no shared examples of greatness that focus public concerns and elicit social commitment, people become spectators of fads and public lives, just for the excitement. When there are no religious practices that call forth sacrifice, terror, and awe, people consume everything from drugs to meditation practices to give themselves some kind of peak experience. The peak experience takes the place of what was once a relation to something outside the self that defined the real and was therefore holy.”
To the degree that I understand Heidegger I am intrigued by his thinking regarding how technology fosters nihilism. In a nutshell, he says that we have reduced creation to efficiency and adaptability, with little or no thought to its intended, greater purpose. He says that we have see the environment as being “a gigantic gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry.” Most of us also see nature as something spiritual, particularly when, for example, we are moved by a beautiful sunset. But for us, both endeavors – industry and inspiration - share the common understanding that creation exists solely for our benefit and use.
Think of where we are today in relation to those basic premises of the vineyard parables.
• First, there is a God who exists independently of us. Today, haven’t we shifted this to say God exists for us; that it is God’s job to meet our needs?
• The second premise: God owns the vineyard. Today, we see creation as God’s gift to us that we can use any way we see fit. Its resources are ours. Its beauty is for us. The only analogy I can think comparable is what it would be like for a person to tour the White House and then decide to move in and take over the place as if was his. Isn’t that is what we have done to the vineyard?
• Next premise: God has a rightful claim on us. Today I think we have reversed this; believing we are the ones who have a claim on God. God is there to fix our problems, cure our ills, and bless our wars. Did anyone come this morning looking forward to hearing what God demands of you?
• Another common theme: something is always going wrong in the vineyard. Not only have we tenants risen up and rejected the Owner, but the end result is not at all what we wanted. Being free to do what has left us feeling lost, lonely, and confused. Nihilism – to use that fancy word –suffocates to the human spirit.
And then there is the parable’s ending, the startling surprise. Let me suggest that you are to be the surprise. Cardinal Celestin Suhard, who served as Archbishop of Paris in the 1940’s, famously said, “to be a witness [is to be] a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” And while the world wants to live like there is no God, just as the tenants wanted to live as if there was no owner, we are the opposite - people who, in the absence of the vineyard Owner live in such a way that makes sense only because there is a vineyard Owner. We live in such a way that our lives are a mystery in a nihilistic world. We adhere to a meaning and direction from beyond us. We accept Jesus as our Lord and seek to live out his word and example; forgiving when forgiveness is a challenge, giving generously even when we have very little to offer, extending hospitality to all – especially to those people on the margins of society, picking up our cross and daily dying to self.
In a world that has either dispensed itself of God – or perhaps just tamed God to suit its own purposes – our lives should not make sense at all. But our witness does make sense because there is a God who owns the vineyard and has a rightful claim on each one of us.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Celebrating a New Ministry & the Humility of the Religious
Some of you may recall meeting Earnest Graham at one of our Lenten dinners. He is a priest who at the time was serving at St. John’s Church in Chuckatuck and now is at St. Matthew’s in Chesterfield. Last Wednesday evening they had a wonderful Celebration of New Ministry that was not unlike the one we celebrated together several years ago (although, unlike here, the congregation did not present him with a squirrel trap!).
Worship services always speak to me in some way and this experience was no different. Several years ago, Earnest was identified by the Episcopal Church as a person suitable for priesthood. He was tested and trained in many different ways. Several hundred people weighed in on his fitness prior to ordination. This particular call came about through his own discernment, but also through that of a congregation’s search committee and Vestry, and with consent from the bishop and other diocesan officials. Given all of this, I was struck by the prayer which the liturgy directs a new priest to offer at this service:
“O Lord my God, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; yet you have called your servant to stand in your house, and to serve at your altar…” (BCP p. 562)
It says something, doesn’t it, that a priest’s new ministry with a congregation begins with the posture of humility. Of all that we might say about our knowledge, our skills, our abilities, and our personal characteristics, what we priests acknowledge to God in the presence of God’s people is our unworthiness. And clearly the priest’s prayer is intended to rub off on all the people of the parish.
You see, it is our plight, as people of deep religious conviction and devotion, to be like the son who said he would go into the field and yet did not go. Jesus offers no insight into why each son moved from “yes” or “no” to the opposite. Rather than get into why, he focuses on the who, on the identity of each son – which group is represented by the son who was unwilling at first and which group is represented by the son who said yes but did nothing. What group said no to God at first? Prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners? And what group said yes to God at first? The chief priests and the elders of the people.
It is a story Jesus tells to condemn those who rejected the ministry of John the Baptist. Jesus says he came in the “way of righteousness” but was rejected by the learned and the religious professionals. Jesus does not spell out what he means by “way of righteousness,” but, given John’s ministry, here is something of what it looks like:
John proclaimed that God is near.
He taught that God loves everyone.
He called on every person to repent and be baptized.
Now that doesn’t sound like a very radical message, does it, but for the religious leaders it presented a real challenge. First, they were the ones who best understood God and God’s ways, not John. Who was John to say that God is near? Second, they did not accept that God loved everyone. They believed that God loved them and hated sinners. And finally, they believed they had no need to repent since they were not sinners. Any suggestion otherwise was deeply offensive to them and an affront almost beyond our imagining.
And while the world needs people to bear our religious tradition and elders to carry forward the wisdom and heritage of the past, if we take Jesus seriously we have to acknowledge there is something inherent in these roles that can insulate us from recognizing God’s dream for all people. While it is vital that we know the Holy Scriptures, the history of biblical interpretation is littered with examples of religious people holding on to incorrect understandings and misusing the word of God. And while it is important that we carry forward the tradition we have been given, we must always guard against protecting zealously against needed and necessary reforms. And while practicing the faith through such habits as regular worship, tithing, and acts of charity is the duty of all Christians, we must never allow these outward manifestations to be a substitute for inner devotion to God. All of this and more is embodied by the priest’s prayer at the beginning of a new ministry with a congregation: “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” We members of the congregation who listen in on the prayer may want to add under our breath, “me either.”
One of the dangers of our beautiful liturgy is that in can lead us to say things lightly that carry great weight. For example, at every baptism on behalf of God and the Church I ask the parents and godparents these questions:
Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?
Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?
How easy is it to parrot the words on the page in response, “I will, with God’s help”? And what about those questions we are all asked as we renew our own baptismal covenant?
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
These elegant words and high ideals ring in my ear as I hear the story of Jesus about the father who said to his son, “Go and work in the vineyard” and the son replied “I will,” but did not go. If these promises and vows represent the work we are to do in God’s vineyard then let me be the first to confess that my labor can be pretty shoddy at times.
I like what Jesus says to the religious leaders and elders as the parable ends. He does not condemn them and say they will never get into heaven. What he says is that tax collectors and prostitutes will be going in ahead of them. Now I don’t take this literally as if it suggests God is going to pick sinners for his kickball team before he picks religious types. I take it more metaphorically in that I hear it saying there are “sinners” out there who are closer to God than we are, even though we see ourselves as being devoted to God. There are people who do not look like church types whose heart and life somehow live into the baptismal vows in ways more faithful than you and I.
The priest’s prayer at the Celebration of New Ministry continues with these petitions:
Fill my memory with the record of your mighty works;
Enlighten my understanding with the light of your Holy Spirit;
May all the desires on my heart and will center on what you would have me do.
Only after this prayer is offered does the Bishop say to the congregation, “Greet your new Rector.” And all of it reminds us that we walk a slippery sloop when we try to do things for God because each of us is called to allow God to work out the plan of salvation through us. Will you leave here this morning and allow God’s Spirit to live and move in you in such a way?
Worship services always speak to me in some way and this experience was no different. Several years ago, Earnest was identified by the Episcopal Church as a person suitable for priesthood. He was tested and trained in many different ways. Several hundred people weighed in on his fitness prior to ordination. This particular call came about through his own discernment, but also through that of a congregation’s search committee and Vestry, and with consent from the bishop and other diocesan officials. Given all of this, I was struck by the prayer which the liturgy directs a new priest to offer at this service:
“O Lord my God, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; yet you have called your servant to stand in your house, and to serve at your altar…” (BCP p. 562)
It says something, doesn’t it, that a priest’s new ministry with a congregation begins with the posture of humility. Of all that we might say about our knowledge, our skills, our abilities, and our personal characteristics, what we priests acknowledge to God in the presence of God’s people is our unworthiness. And clearly the priest’s prayer is intended to rub off on all the people of the parish.
You see, it is our plight, as people of deep religious conviction and devotion, to be like the son who said he would go into the field and yet did not go. Jesus offers no insight into why each son moved from “yes” or “no” to the opposite. Rather than get into why, he focuses on the who, on the identity of each son – which group is represented by the son who was unwilling at first and which group is represented by the son who said yes but did nothing. What group said no to God at first? Prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners? And what group said yes to God at first? The chief priests and the elders of the people.
It is a story Jesus tells to condemn those who rejected the ministry of John the Baptist. Jesus says he came in the “way of righteousness” but was rejected by the learned and the religious professionals. Jesus does not spell out what he means by “way of righteousness,” but, given John’s ministry, here is something of what it looks like:
John proclaimed that God is near.
He taught that God loves everyone.
He called on every person to repent and be baptized.
Now that doesn’t sound like a very radical message, does it, but for the religious leaders it presented a real challenge. First, they were the ones who best understood God and God’s ways, not John. Who was John to say that God is near? Second, they did not accept that God loved everyone. They believed that God loved them and hated sinners. And finally, they believed they had no need to repent since they were not sinners. Any suggestion otherwise was deeply offensive to them and an affront almost beyond our imagining.
And while the world needs people to bear our religious tradition and elders to carry forward the wisdom and heritage of the past, if we take Jesus seriously we have to acknowledge there is something inherent in these roles that can insulate us from recognizing God’s dream for all people. While it is vital that we know the Holy Scriptures, the history of biblical interpretation is littered with examples of religious people holding on to incorrect understandings and misusing the word of God. And while it is important that we carry forward the tradition we have been given, we must always guard against protecting zealously against needed and necessary reforms. And while practicing the faith through such habits as regular worship, tithing, and acts of charity is the duty of all Christians, we must never allow these outward manifestations to be a substitute for inner devotion to God. All of this and more is embodied by the priest’s prayer at the beginning of a new ministry with a congregation: “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” We members of the congregation who listen in on the prayer may want to add under our breath, “me either.”
One of the dangers of our beautiful liturgy is that in can lead us to say things lightly that carry great weight. For example, at every baptism on behalf of God and the Church I ask the parents and godparents these questions:
Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?
Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?
How easy is it to parrot the words on the page in response, “I will, with God’s help”? And what about those questions we are all asked as we renew our own baptismal covenant?
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
These elegant words and high ideals ring in my ear as I hear the story of Jesus about the father who said to his son, “Go and work in the vineyard” and the son replied “I will,” but did not go. If these promises and vows represent the work we are to do in God’s vineyard then let me be the first to confess that my labor can be pretty shoddy at times.
I like what Jesus says to the religious leaders and elders as the parable ends. He does not condemn them and say they will never get into heaven. What he says is that tax collectors and prostitutes will be going in ahead of them. Now I don’t take this literally as if it suggests God is going to pick sinners for his kickball team before he picks religious types. I take it more metaphorically in that I hear it saying there are “sinners” out there who are closer to God than we are, even though we see ourselves as being devoted to God. There are people who do not look like church types whose heart and life somehow live into the baptismal vows in ways more faithful than you and I.
The priest’s prayer at the Celebration of New Ministry continues with these petitions:
Fill my memory with the record of your mighty works;
Enlighten my understanding with the light of your Holy Spirit;
May all the desires on my heart and will center on what you would have me do.
Only after this prayer is offered does the Bishop say to the congregation, “Greet your new Rector.” And all of it reminds us that we walk a slippery sloop when we try to do things for God because each of us is called to allow God to work out the plan of salvation through us. Will you leave here this morning and allow God’s Spirit to live and move in you in such a way?
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Blessings of an Industrious Life
Parables, by their very nature, are intended to pack a punch. Jesus used this story form to surprise, to startle, and (at times) to unnerve his audience. We, like those who first heard today’s parable, wonder about the business savvy of the landowner. We wonder what his workforce will look like tomorrow – who in his right mind will show up for work at 9:00 in the morning if he can start at 3:00 in the afternoon and get the same pay? And while this is an obvious question, it takes us away from the main point the story teller wants us to consider, which is, “Why do you seek to put limits of the owner’s generosity?” and, in the story, the landowner represents God.
The parable speaks directly to an issue first encountered in the early Church and then revisited by every congregation and faith community thereafter: In God’s eyes those newest in the faith count every bit as much as those who have been around forever. So, for example, my service in the ordained ministry for twenty-four years gains me no greater reward than that merited by our newest acolytes. The person singing from the hymnal for the first time gains every bit as much as one who has spent a lifetime of singing in the choir. Your hours and hours of hard work polishing the brass count no more than the person who picks up a piece of trash in the parking lot and puts it in the garbage can. You see, God is generous; giving the same to those who work the least and to those work a little and to those who work a lot because even those who work a lot are richly rewarded by God well beyond anything they could ask or imagine.
But still the question remains, why work long and hard for God if you can kick back, relax, and receive the same amount of grace as if you had worked your tail off?
The answer can be found in how Jesus sets up the parable, and after all, it is his story. Notice that the contrast he puts forward is not between work and rest or labor and leisure, but rather between employment and idleness. Being idle is no treat, as Webster’s Dictionary suggests with these definitions:
1. Having no value, use or significance; worthless, useless (as in idle talk.
2. Baseless, unfounded (as in idle rumors.
3. Unemployed, not busy, inactive, not in use (as in idle machines.
4. Not filled with activity (as in idle hours).
5. Not inclined to work, lazy.
6. To move slowly or aimlessly, to loaf (as in idle along.
7. To waste or squander (as in to idle away one’s youth.
And while we all need our down time, the word idle does not convey much of anything positive. It is a state to be avoided at all costs. And for Jesus, it was the plight of those who had not been hired.
In our adult Sunday School class we have begun to look at specific developmental challenges we face in each decade of our life. We are using a book by Donald Capps who applies Erik Erikson’s theories to his approach. Erikson held that from roughly the age of seven to twelve (our school age years) we encounter a conflict he called Industry vs. Inferiority. It is a time when we begin to learn what we are good at and what we are not. This is the age when we become dissatisfied or disgruntled if we lack a sense of being useful, if we sense that we cannot make things and make them well. We want to be good at something – be it math or English or science or athletics or art or card tricks or whatever – and as we master something we gain recognition for what we produce. This affirmation becomes a vital component to help us move forward in our teenage years where develop a sense of identity, of who I am and what I can become. Without some sense of industry, we tend to abandon hope and assimilate a belief that we are doomed to a life of mediocrity at best.
While the conflict of Industry vs. Inferiority is always with us – as are the other seven conflicts Erikson identified – this one seems to reemerge in our forties – a time when our career path becomes solidified, our options closed, and our future set. Have we found the things we are good at doing? Are we doing them? Or are we stuck in a dead end job? In today’s world, with its stagnating economy, this seems to be the age when many people are let go and cannot find their way back into the workforce for meaningful employment. For folks out of work and for those stuck doing something they do want to be doing, life after forty can be a time of idleness, with all of its negative consequences, and it leads to a pervasive sense of inferiority.
Why would the labors in the parable go to work at the crack of dawn the next day when they can receive the same pay for a fraction of the effort? Because industry offers its own rewards and forced idleness is debilitating. There are many reasons why we work. What we are paid is just one of them and it doesn’t even factor in when we volunteer our time. What we crave in life are tasks which demand our best efforts that lead (as the prayer book puts it) to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.
God’s gift to each of us is grace beyond all merit. God gives it evenly to all. But those of us fortunate enough to go to work in the vineyard in the early morning find we are stretched in life-giving ways all the days of our life. We are blessed with a sense that we are good at something; knowing that what we do matters in the big picture of God’s Kingdom. Hopefully others recognize our contributions and affirm our efforts, but at the very least we can be self-affirming by taking pride in a job done well. You can see why this matters and why those idling in the marketplace suffer in ways those working in the vineyard do not.
In reflecting on today’s sermon I found myself thinking a lot about my brother-in-law in Ohio. After twenty-some years of service to the same company he found himself “downsized” three years ago. He has been aggressive in looking for new work, but Ohio’s economy is not exactly fertile ground for someone of age and experience. He has had several short-term consulting jobs, but none materialized into something more permanent. During this time he has found a new kind of ‘work’ – one that does not pay a thing, but certainly qualifies as industry. He has developed his interest and skill in photography and from time-to-time he posts his work on the internet. My brother-in-law has quite a remarkable camera eye and he tells me he is especially interested in textures and contrasts found in the everyday world.
What I learn from my brother-in-law is that unemployment and idleness are not the same thing. Unemployment is something over which we have little control. Most often idleness is a state of our choosing. There is always something to do in God’s world. There is work to be done, joy to be found, passion to be developed. And be it early in the morning, midday, or late in the afternoon, God invites you to the vineyard to get to work and to experience the blessings of an industrious life.
The parable speaks directly to an issue first encountered in the early Church and then revisited by every congregation and faith community thereafter: In God’s eyes those newest in the faith count every bit as much as those who have been around forever. So, for example, my service in the ordained ministry for twenty-four years gains me no greater reward than that merited by our newest acolytes. The person singing from the hymnal for the first time gains every bit as much as one who has spent a lifetime of singing in the choir. Your hours and hours of hard work polishing the brass count no more than the person who picks up a piece of trash in the parking lot and puts it in the garbage can. You see, God is generous; giving the same to those who work the least and to those work a little and to those who work a lot because even those who work a lot are richly rewarded by God well beyond anything they could ask or imagine.
But still the question remains, why work long and hard for God if you can kick back, relax, and receive the same amount of grace as if you had worked your tail off?
The answer can be found in how Jesus sets up the parable, and after all, it is his story. Notice that the contrast he puts forward is not between work and rest or labor and leisure, but rather between employment and idleness. Being idle is no treat, as Webster’s Dictionary suggests with these definitions:
1. Having no value, use or significance; worthless, useless (as in idle talk.
2. Baseless, unfounded (as in idle rumors.
3. Unemployed, not busy, inactive, not in use (as in idle machines.
4. Not filled with activity (as in idle hours).
5. Not inclined to work, lazy.
6. To move slowly or aimlessly, to loaf (as in idle along.
7. To waste or squander (as in to idle away one’s youth.
And while we all need our down time, the word idle does not convey much of anything positive. It is a state to be avoided at all costs. And for Jesus, it was the plight of those who had not been hired.
In our adult Sunday School class we have begun to look at specific developmental challenges we face in each decade of our life. We are using a book by Donald Capps who applies Erik Erikson’s theories to his approach. Erikson held that from roughly the age of seven to twelve (our school age years) we encounter a conflict he called Industry vs. Inferiority. It is a time when we begin to learn what we are good at and what we are not. This is the age when we become dissatisfied or disgruntled if we lack a sense of being useful, if we sense that we cannot make things and make them well. We want to be good at something – be it math or English or science or athletics or art or card tricks or whatever – and as we master something we gain recognition for what we produce. This affirmation becomes a vital component to help us move forward in our teenage years where develop a sense of identity, of who I am and what I can become. Without some sense of industry, we tend to abandon hope and assimilate a belief that we are doomed to a life of mediocrity at best.
While the conflict of Industry vs. Inferiority is always with us – as are the other seven conflicts Erikson identified – this one seems to reemerge in our forties – a time when our career path becomes solidified, our options closed, and our future set. Have we found the things we are good at doing? Are we doing them? Or are we stuck in a dead end job? In today’s world, with its stagnating economy, this seems to be the age when many people are let go and cannot find their way back into the workforce for meaningful employment. For folks out of work and for those stuck doing something they do want to be doing, life after forty can be a time of idleness, with all of its negative consequences, and it leads to a pervasive sense of inferiority.
Why would the labors in the parable go to work at the crack of dawn the next day when they can receive the same pay for a fraction of the effort? Because industry offers its own rewards and forced idleness is debilitating. There are many reasons why we work. What we are paid is just one of them and it doesn’t even factor in when we volunteer our time. What we crave in life are tasks which demand our best efforts that lead (as the prayer book puts it) to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.
God’s gift to each of us is grace beyond all merit. God gives it evenly to all. But those of us fortunate enough to go to work in the vineyard in the early morning find we are stretched in life-giving ways all the days of our life. We are blessed with a sense that we are good at something; knowing that what we do matters in the big picture of God’s Kingdom. Hopefully others recognize our contributions and affirm our efforts, but at the very least we can be self-affirming by taking pride in a job done well. You can see why this matters and why those idling in the marketplace suffer in ways those working in the vineyard do not.
In reflecting on today’s sermon I found myself thinking a lot about my brother-in-law in Ohio. After twenty-some years of service to the same company he found himself “downsized” three years ago. He has been aggressive in looking for new work, but Ohio’s economy is not exactly fertile ground for someone of age and experience. He has had several short-term consulting jobs, but none materialized into something more permanent. During this time he has found a new kind of ‘work’ – one that does not pay a thing, but certainly qualifies as industry. He has developed his interest and skill in photography and from time-to-time he posts his work on the internet. My brother-in-law has quite a remarkable camera eye and he tells me he is especially interested in textures and contrasts found in the everyday world.
What I learn from my brother-in-law is that unemployment and idleness are not the same thing. Unemployment is something over which we have little control. Most often idleness is a state of our choosing. There is always something to do in God’s world. There is work to be done, joy to be found, passion to be developed. And be it early in the morning, midday, or late in the afternoon, God invites you to the vineyard to get to work and to experience the blessings of an industrious life.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Nineteen Troubling Ribbons
We who strive to follow Jesus as our Lord and Guide are inheritors of a blessed tradition that at times is like the beauty of the pedals of a rose while at other times is more like its thorns. “Jesus, how many times should I forgive?” His answer is a thing of beauty when we are the ones who need to be forgiven, but it is very prickly when we are the ones who must forgive. How prickly? The Rev. Dr. James Cooper, Rector of Trinity Church, Wall Street, published his notes for today’s sermon a month ago in order to make New Yorkers aware of the readings they would be hearing this morning.
I am not going to preach a sermon that proclaims you must forgive. I am not going to tell you how to forgive. All I am going to do is lift up what Jesus teaches and tell you I struggle with it too – especially today. It is a struggle of the head and a struggle of the heart and a struggle of the spirit.
And it creates a very practical struggle right now for us at St. Paul’s. Here are nineteen black ribbons. Like the 3,000 ribbons that hang above us, each represents a life lost ten years ago today. As the color might suggest, these ribbons stand for the nineteen hijackers. We could add to their number: one for Zaccarius Moussaoui, the so-called twentieth hijacker who was arrest prior to 9/11 and is now incarcerated; one for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the plot; one for Osama Bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaeda network; and so on. But these nineteen will do for now.
They are challenging enough because we must ask what should we do with them? Should we hang them above our sanctuary with all the other ribbons – ribbons that represent innocent victims and courageous responders? Should we burn them, bury them, or spit on them? Should we make excuses for them, dismissing each terrorist’s personal responsibility for his actions?
I suppose our individual answers would be indicative of where we are on the path to forgiveness. If we could make a collective response it would be telling of where we are as a congregation. I guess we could do that by a hand vote or some other measure. I have no idea how we could do it as a society and I am glad for that because forgiveness is both a commandment and a gift – a grace that comes from God to each person in God’s good time.
I suspect many of you like me recently watched and read several retrospectives of the events of ten years ago. I came away from those experiences with the deep realization that every person’s sense of loss and pain and grief from the events of 9/11 is unique. The spouse on the cell phone to her partner on Flight 93 as it crashed, the young bride whose husband served in Iraq during the first birthdays of both their daughters, parents whose son died on the Cole, me whose life was changed as our world became a very different place in a matter of minutes… our experiences are so varied and what it takes to come to forgiveness is so very different.
This week a clergy friend of mine posted a quote by Nelson Mandela, he himself a victim of terror and terrorism. It said simply, “Resentment is like drinking a poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” I think there is great wisdom in his thinking. It encapsulates much of why Jesus directed us to forgive. Not only does hatred acted upon perpetuate hate, but as Mandela suggests it prevents us from moving forward into the possibility of a better future.
When the Worship Committee meet several weeks ago to discuss today’s service, I spoke of my desire to have the liturgy move from remembrance of the past to dreaming about the future: how can we as we recall the events of the last ten years dream of the world we would like to live in ten years from now? Jesus tells us that we get to that dream only as we take a step toward forgiveness. Mandela offers that we get there only as we stop drinking the poison that is resentment.
I don’t want to stand before you and pretend to be a great social theorist or analyst. Many of you can speak more intelligently and insightfully about the last ten years than I. All I can say is that I sense we have done some things well and other things not. We have pursued justice and vengeance. We have made sacrifices and we have engaged in indulgences. We have turned to God for solace and for guidance and we have used God’s glorious Name to exult our own fallen qualities. In short, we have been human; exhibiting both our highest and our lowest tendencies.
The age-old message of the faith is that, through the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, God meets us and loves us where we are… where we are the best at what it means to be human and where we are the worst… and God invites us to follow Jesus to a better place. The way to that place, which we call “the way of the Cross,” is never easy, but always life-giving.
Those terrorists who carried out the events of 9/11 accomplished things they could never have imagined or dreamed - world conflict, economic turmoil, and a destabilizing sense of fear and uncertainty. But they also set in motion things which they never, ever would have intended – courageous self-sacrifice, a world-wide response against terror in all its forms, and (I think this is most important) a thirst in the Western Christian world to understand and appreciate the virtues and values of Islam. In communities around our country today there will be interfaith services that bring together Christians, Jews, and Muslims who will celebrate our dedication to the one true God and lift a vision for a peaceful future. That definitely was not a part of the 9/11 plan.
Last Lent we spent Wednesday evenings encountering the words and witness of five different saints from the Christian tradition. This past week I went back to those services to hear again what their voices might say to us today. Aelred of Rievaulx, a 12th Century Cistercian monk, said this:
Charity joins the lowest to the highest,
binds in harmonious peace
contraries to contraries,
cold to hot, wet to dry,
smooth to rough, hard to soft,
so that among all creatures
there can be nothing adverse,
nothing contradictory,
nothing unbecoming,
nothing disturbing,
nothing to disfigure the beauty of the universe.
He captured exactly why Jesus taught us to forgive. It is so we can move into a new future that more closely resembles God’s dream for the world.
And today we are left with these nineteen ribbons. What should we do with them? And what do we want the world to look like a decade from now? How should we work, pray, and give to make that dream a reality? If our faith tells us one thing it is this: God will bless any and every effort – be it offered by an individual or by an army – that aims to make God’s dream come true.
I am not going to preach a sermon that proclaims you must forgive. I am not going to tell you how to forgive. All I am going to do is lift up what Jesus teaches and tell you I struggle with it too – especially today. It is a struggle of the head and a struggle of the heart and a struggle of the spirit.
And it creates a very practical struggle right now for us at St. Paul’s. Here are nineteen black ribbons. Like the 3,000 ribbons that hang above us, each represents a life lost ten years ago today. As the color might suggest, these ribbons stand for the nineteen hijackers. We could add to their number: one for Zaccarius Moussaoui, the so-called twentieth hijacker who was arrest prior to 9/11 and is now incarcerated; one for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the plot; one for Osama Bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaeda network; and so on. But these nineteen will do for now.
They are challenging enough because we must ask what should we do with them? Should we hang them above our sanctuary with all the other ribbons – ribbons that represent innocent victims and courageous responders? Should we burn them, bury them, or spit on them? Should we make excuses for them, dismissing each terrorist’s personal responsibility for his actions?
I suppose our individual answers would be indicative of where we are on the path to forgiveness. If we could make a collective response it would be telling of where we are as a congregation. I guess we could do that by a hand vote or some other measure. I have no idea how we could do it as a society and I am glad for that because forgiveness is both a commandment and a gift – a grace that comes from God to each person in God’s good time.
I suspect many of you like me recently watched and read several retrospectives of the events of ten years ago. I came away from those experiences with the deep realization that every person’s sense of loss and pain and grief from the events of 9/11 is unique. The spouse on the cell phone to her partner on Flight 93 as it crashed, the young bride whose husband served in Iraq during the first birthdays of both their daughters, parents whose son died on the Cole, me whose life was changed as our world became a very different place in a matter of minutes… our experiences are so varied and what it takes to come to forgiveness is so very different.
This week a clergy friend of mine posted a quote by Nelson Mandela, he himself a victim of terror and terrorism. It said simply, “Resentment is like drinking a poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” I think there is great wisdom in his thinking. It encapsulates much of why Jesus directed us to forgive. Not only does hatred acted upon perpetuate hate, but as Mandela suggests it prevents us from moving forward into the possibility of a better future.
When the Worship Committee meet several weeks ago to discuss today’s service, I spoke of my desire to have the liturgy move from remembrance of the past to dreaming about the future: how can we as we recall the events of the last ten years dream of the world we would like to live in ten years from now? Jesus tells us that we get to that dream only as we take a step toward forgiveness. Mandela offers that we get there only as we stop drinking the poison that is resentment.
I don’t want to stand before you and pretend to be a great social theorist or analyst. Many of you can speak more intelligently and insightfully about the last ten years than I. All I can say is that I sense we have done some things well and other things not. We have pursued justice and vengeance. We have made sacrifices and we have engaged in indulgences. We have turned to God for solace and for guidance and we have used God’s glorious Name to exult our own fallen qualities. In short, we have been human; exhibiting both our highest and our lowest tendencies.
The age-old message of the faith is that, through the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, God meets us and loves us where we are… where we are the best at what it means to be human and where we are the worst… and God invites us to follow Jesus to a better place. The way to that place, which we call “the way of the Cross,” is never easy, but always life-giving.
Those terrorists who carried out the events of 9/11 accomplished things they could never have imagined or dreamed - world conflict, economic turmoil, and a destabilizing sense of fear and uncertainty. But they also set in motion things which they never, ever would have intended – courageous self-sacrifice, a world-wide response against terror in all its forms, and (I think this is most important) a thirst in the Western Christian world to understand and appreciate the virtues and values of Islam. In communities around our country today there will be interfaith services that bring together Christians, Jews, and Muslims who will celebrate our dedication to the one true God and lift a vision for a peaceful future. That definitely was not a part of the 9/11 plan.
Last Lent we spent Wednesday evenings encountering the words and witness of five different saints from the Christian tradition. This past week I went back to those services to hear again what their voices might say to us today. Aelred of Rievaulx, a 12th Century Cistercian monk, said this:
Charity joins the lowest to the highest,
binds in harmonious peace
contraries to contraries,
cold to hot, wet to dry,
smooth to rough, hard to soft,
so that among all creatures
there can be nothing adverse,
nothing contradictory,
nothing unbecoming,
nothing disturbing,
nothing to disfigure the beauty of the universe.
He captured exactly why Jesus taught us to forgive. It is so we can move into a new future that more closely resembles God’s dream for the world.
And today we are left with these nineteen ribbons. What should we do with them? And what do we want the world to look like a decade from now? How should we work, pray, and give to make that dream a reality? If our faith tells us one thing it is this: God will bless any and every effort – be it offered by an individual or by an army – that aims to make God’s dream come true.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
God's Evacuation Plan
Their nerves must have been frayed. Surely everyone in Egypt was on edge. Think what all had endured. First, the water of the Nile turned foul. Then, frogs, gnats, and flies proliferated well beyond what could be considered a nuisance. It constituted a public health crisis that infected livestock and created boils on human flesh. Next, the weather turned bad… thunder and hail wreaked havoc. Surely crops were damaged and whatever was left standing was soon devoured by a devastating swarm of locus that covered the land. As if all of this was not bad enough, the country was thrust into three whole days of near darkness.
The plagues against Egypt. We have the advantage of looking back on them with historical and (more important) theological perspective. We view them through the lens of Moses’ confrontation with the Pharaoh. We see them as acts of divine judgment on an oppressive regime and people. We understand their severity as testaments to the hardness of the human heart. But try if you can to put yourself in the sandals of an average Egyptian or typical Hebrew. Most likely you would have no knowledge of the greater goings on. There was no ‘God channel’ you could tune in to get the official word from Moses or even the spin from Pharaoh’s cronies. The only things you would know are misery, suffering, and fear. What in the world is going on and what is going to happen next?
It shouldn’t be too hard for us to imagine the plagues from this perspective, after all, within the last thirty days we have endured a swamp fire (with its thick, choking smoke), an earthquake, and a hurricane. We know what its like to be stuck in our home, to be cut off from the world, to have our normal course of food disrupted, and to lose the ability to engage in our livelihood. It is miserable – isn’t it! – and it wears on us – doesn’t it! Toss in the terrible economy, the sour nature of political discourse in our country, and the approaching tenth anniversary of 9/11 and you a get sense of why life feels so difficult. It feels not unlike what the Hebrews and the Egyptians felt so many years ago.
For them the worst was still to come. The tenth and final plague was to be the most devastating of all: the death of the firstborn male in each family – the one in whom was invested all the hope for the family’s security and future.
The Passover instructions tell us much that is helpful in our day as we face our challenges. They are, if you will, God’s evacuation plan for the Hebrew people. Let’s consider some of the details and ponder what they might say to us here and now.
• First, God directs the Hebrews to mark time by the lunar cycle, as opposed to the Egyptian’s use of the sun. God declares that both time and the Hebrew people belong to God. Every vesture of enslavement and oppression is to be thrown off. God’s people are to regard themselves first, foremost, and always as God’s beloved. This tells us that our identity is not grounded in our social status nor is our value measured by our 401k. Our identity and value stand on the firm foundation of God’s love for us.
• Next God directs the Hebrew people to gather as households and neighborhoods. After all the people had been through and given what they were about to endure, God’s wisdom directed the people not to face it alone. We need each other at all times. We especially need each other in times of great stress and calamity. If you hunkered down last weekend with family and if you ventured out after Irene to commiserate with neighbors then you understand why God grouped people together in the face of this final calamity. We survive together or we suffer alone.
• Marking the lintel of the house with blood serves as a symbolic preparation for the storm to come. The avenging angel will see it and pass over that house leaving the firstborn unharmed. The preparations we made before Irene were more concrete – buying water and batteries, putting away patio furniture, and tying down what might blow away. But there was something equally symbolic to this as well. It gave us the feeling we had done all that was within our power and our control to be ready for what might happen and there was something comforting in that.
• The lamb is roasted quickly and unprepared. There is no time to marinate it or add garnishes beyond the bitter herbs. Bread is baked in a hasty fashion. The people were told, “Make as much as you can as fast as you can. Do not bother to leaven the dough because there simply isn’t time to sit around idly while it rises.” God told to people to prioritize and to prepare. Do now what matters most. There is not a minute to waste. We went through a similar process of discernment: what should we cook, what should we gather, what do we need to face an extended period of disruption?
• God’s next to last directive is for the people to eat “with loins girded, sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, you shall eat hurriedly.” God’s people are to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. They are to pack light so that they can travel fast. It is a sobering and sensible reminder that our most important possessions in life are our life and our family and the bare essentials we need to provide for both. The day before Irene hit Rt. 460 westbound became a huge bottleneck in Windsor. Fortunately I was travelling east and did not have to suffer through it. Some of the west-bound cars bore the obvious signs of disappointed vacationers fleeing the coast: car top carriers, bicycle racks, beach chairs tied to the roof, that kind of thing. Most cars, however, looked to be residents of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and other low-lying areas who were heeding the advice to evacuate. With the exception of one or two cars pulling a trailer loaded with stuff, these folks simply packed a bag and got out; measuring life more important than material things.
All these practical reminders are seeds which give rise to a spiritual benefit. Plagues and hurricanes and hardships have a way of refocusing us on what really matters. They force a clarity upon life; bringing into focus what often gets blurry when times are good. Is it any wonder then that God’s last directive to the Hebrew people is the call to remembrance. “You shall celebrate this day as a festival to the Lord; throughout all generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”
Much of what the Hebrews (and all God’s people) are to remember is that God delivered those oppressed from the land of Egypt. But what we might want to remember this day is how God directed them to prepare for the worst in the best possible way: remember that you belong to God; gather with family and friends; prepare as best you can; think through what you will need; be prepared to move at a moment’s notice. These are lessons not just for plagues, not just for hurricanes, and not just for disasters, but for all of life. It is a good way to live because it is God’s way to live. It is how the God who gives us life guards us to see us through.
Remembering together in the presence of God has a way of putting the past in the past and helping us to reengage life again. It puts us on a path forward with sure footing, knowing that a sense of ‘normal’ will once again return even as we acknowledge our dependency on God alone… God who has been with us, is with us even now, and will be with us in the trying times of the future.
The plagues against Egypt. We have the advantage of looking back on them with historical and (more important) theological perspective. We view them through the lens of Moses’ confrontation with the Pharaoh. We see them as acts of divine judgment on an oppressive regime and people. We understand their severity as testaments to the hardness of the human heart. But try if you can to put yourself in the sandals of an average Egyptian or typical Hebrew. Most likely you would have no knowledge of the greater goings on. There was no ‘God channel’ you could tune in to get the official word from Moses or even the spin from Pharaoh’s cronies. The only things you would know are misery, suffering, and fear. What in the world is going on and what is going to happen next?
It shouldn’t be too hard for us to imagine the plagues from this perspective, after all, within the last thirty days we have endured a swamp fire (with its thick, choking smoke), an earthquake, and a hurricane. We know what its like to be stuck in our home, to be cut off from the world, to have our normal course of food disrupted, and to lose the ability to engage in our livelihood. It is miserable – isn’t it! – and it wears on us – doesn’t it! Toss in the terrible economy, the sour nature of political discourse in our country, and the approaching tenth anniversary of 9/11 and you a get sense of why life feels so difficult. It feels not unlike what the Hebrews and the Egyptians felt so many years ago.
For them the worst was still to come. The tenth and final plague was to be the most devastating of all: the death of the firstborn male in each family – the one in whom was invested all the hope for the family’s security and future.
The Passover instructions tell us much that is helpful in our day as we face our challenges. They are, if you will, God’s evacuation plan for the Hebrew people. Let’s consider some of the details and ponder what they might say to us here and now.
• First, God directs the Hebrews to mark time by the lunar cycle, as opposed to the Egyptian’s use of the sun. God declares that both time and the Hebrew people belong to God. Every vesture of enslavement and oppression is to be thrown off. God’s people are to regard themselves first, foremost, and always as God’s beloved. This tells us that our identity is not grounded in our social status nor is our value measured by our 401k. Our identity and value stand on the firm foundation of God’s love for us.
• Next God directs the Hebrew people to gather as households and neighborhoods. After all the people had been through and given what they were about to endure, God’s wisdom directed the people not to face it alone. We need each other at all times. We especially need each other in times of great stress and calamity. If you hunkered down last weekend with family and if you ventured out after Irene to commiserate with neighbors then you understand why God grouped people together in the face of this final calamity. We survive together or we suffer alone.
• Marking the lintel of the house with blood serves as a symbolic preparation for the storm to come. The avenging angel will see it and pass over that house leaving the firstborn unharmed. The preparations we made before Irene were more concrete – buying water and batteries, putting away patio furniture, and tying down what might blow away. But there was something equally symbolic to this as well. It gave us the feeling we had done all that was within our power and our control to be ready for what might happen and there was something comforting in that.
• The lamb is roasted quickly and unprepared. There is no time to marinate it or add garnishes beyond the bitter herbs. Bread is baked in a hasty fashion. The people were told, “Make as much as you can as fast as you can. Do not bother to leaven the dough because there simply isn’t time to sit around idly while it rises.” God told to people to prioritize and to prepare. Do now what matters most. There is not a minute to waste. We went through a similar process of discernment: what should we cook, what should we gather, what do we need to face an extended period of disruption?
• God’s next to last directive is for the people to eat “with loins girded, sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, you shall eat hurriedly.” God’s people are to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. They are to pack light so that they can travel fast. It is a sobering and sensible reminder that our most important possessions in life are our life and our family and the bare essentials we need to provide for both. The day before Irene hit Rt. 460 westbound became a huge bottleneck in Windsor. Fortunately I was travelling east and did not have to suffer through it. Some of the west-bound cars bore the obvious signs of disappointed vacationers fleeing the coast: car top carriers, bicycle racks, beach chairs tied to the roof, that kind of thing. Most cars, however, looked to be residents of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and other low-lying areas who were heeding the advice to evacuate. With the exception of one or two cars pulling a trailer loaded with stuff, these folks simply packed a bag and got out; measuring life more important than material things.
All these practical reminders are seeds which give rise to a spiritual benefit. Plagues and hurricanes and hardships have a way of refocusing us on what really matters. They force a clarity upon life; bringing into focus what often gets blurry when times are good. Is it any wonder then that God’s last directive to the Hebrew people is the call to remembrance. “You shall celebrate this day as a festival to the Lord; throughout all generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”
Much of what the Hebrews (and all God’s people) are to remember is that God delivered those oppressed from the land of Egypt. But what we might want to remember this day is how God directed them to prepare for the worst in the best possible way: remember that you belong to God; gather with family and friends; prepare as best you can; think through what you will need; be prepared to move at a moment’s notice. These are lessons not just for plagues, not just for hurricanes, and not just for disasters, but for all of life. It is a good way to live because it is God’s way to live. It is how the God who gives us life guards us to see us through.
Remembering together in the presence of God has a way of putting the past in the past and helping us to reengage life again. It puts us on a path forward with sure footing, knowing that a sense of ‘normal’ will once again return even as we acknowledge our dependency on God alone… God who has been with us, is with us even now, and will be with us in the trying times of the future.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Baptismal Vows vs. the World's 'Salvation'
I have said before that I graduated from college with a double major in religion and economics. The school I attended was conservative in both fields and that perspective stays with me even now. The bible has a great deal to say about economics. It strongly supports the idea of private property, for example, by forbidding the movement of boundary markers. It establishes a social safety net through such directives as leaving a portion of a field unharvested and not picking up grain that falls to the ground - both are to be left for those in need. The culture’s emphasis on hospitality provided for those travelling and those in transition. The bible forbids the incursion of debt and decries coveting what another has but you do not. It clearly commands that promises must be kept, especially those made by the powerful to those who are poor and vulnerable.
The bible is deeply suspicious of centralized government. The prophet Samuel objected to Israel’s desire for a king, insisting that each individual would be better off accountable only to God. Jesus’ political teachings (things like render unto Caesar…) come at a time when his part of the world was occupied by a foreign government – the Romans. Against their oppressive presence, Jesus put forward the notion of the Kingdom of God.
This suspicion of a central government goes back in history to this morning’s reading from the Old Testament. The Hebrew people, who hade been invited to live in Egypt during a time of severe famine, find their fortunes turned when a new regime looks less than kindly upon them. As a people they are forced into servitude and become targets of genocide.
This whole scenario came about because generations earlier a Hebrew named Joseph became well-positioned in the Egyptian government after predicting the coming famine. The Pharaoh empowered Joseph to appropriate huge amounts of food during good years and to store it as a means of getting through the lean times. It was a centralized approach to the problem that had intended and unintended consequences. On the positive side, it accumulated food reserves that lasted through the famine. On the negative side, it created great wealth and power for the government, impoverishing those who had to pay for the food they had grown years before. And for the Hebrew people, invited to Egypt by one of their own, it eventually led to misery.
Those of us in the conservative camp wonder how a decentralized approach might have played out. What if Pharaoh had warned the people of the coming famine and encouraged every person and family and tribe to store up food on their own? Surely some would have ignored this; others may or may not have been able to help them through. Each person would have been accountable for his or her own actions. No one would have ended up beholden to the Pharaoh.
This outlook, and the lessons derived from it, continues to drive the economic and political perspective of conservative Christians in America. It fosters a deep distrust of government and a yearning for personal freedom. Mix into this a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation and you can see why so many in this camp paint such a negative picture of the direction our country is headed politically and economically.
I don’t believe apocalyptic writing is best understood as a figurative prescription of events yet to unfold, so I do not believe that a doomsday is inevitable. I do believe that the bible contains God’s revelation of God’s love for creation; a revelation that describes the best way for us to live in accordance with how the world has been formed. To live otherwise is to invite our downfall.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus asks his followers what many say is the most important question each of us can ever consider… “Who do you say that I am?” In a slightly different way it is a question I will ask in a few moments of Hunter’s parents and godparents. And in that every baptism provides each one of us with the opportunity to renew our own baptismal covenant, it is a question I will ask of each of you:
Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
The answer to each is a direct, firm, “I do.” Far more than just doctrinal concerns that reverberate only in the church, and much more than boxes to check off on an insurance policy to get you into heaven, these questions cut right to heart of how we live and move and have our being in today’s world.
Do you turn to Jesus Christ accept him as your Savior? ‘Turn’, turn from what? Well the previous questions give us a clue. In them we renounce Satan, the world, and the self. We turn from these to Christ. Now, most of us find turning from Satan not to be much of a problem because we never engaged in direct allegiance to this being. Turning from our own evil desires is a different matter altogether. For the most part we know what these are and will struggle with them all of our life – gaining the upper hand at some instances, while falling short at others.
In our day and age I believe the most challenging renunciation is turning for the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy us. It is like asking a fish not to swim in water. We are so immersed in our world that it is nearly impossible to step away from it in order to gain perspective on it. Every Sunday we hear Jesus proclaim a another reality he calls God’s kingdom, but I for one always wrestle with the temptation to water down what he says so that it more closely resembles our ‘watery’ world.
The driving forces behind our current economic and political lives can be characterized by ancient words like greed, covetousness, envy, and idolatry. We want more, we want what others have, we want it all, and we want it right now. We want a feeling a safety and security and when something happens to disrupt this we want new laws, new regulations, and new programs that will make it never happen again.
In such a climate, our savior becomes our possessions, our ability to purchase what we want when we want it, and a strong, centralized government to ensure that it all works out without so much as a hiccup. Through baptism we turn away from this and accept Christ as our Savior, not just to get us into a next life, but to find fullness of life here and now.
Do you put your trust in Christ’s grace and love? This question asks us to proclaim that we need most to make it in this life can not be found at the mall, it is not achieved by building up fortunes in the stock market, and it can not be earned through a ‘healthier lifestyle.’ We are a people who believe that what we need first, foremost, and always is grace (and awareness of the riches God so freely shares with us) and love (a sense of God’s unconditional presence and unflinching desire to see us thrive).
Do you promise to follow and obey Christ as your Lord? We are a people whose prayer to God is always, “O Lord, what should I do?”, “O God, how should I live?” More and more, it is a question being asked less and less.
I watched a documentary a few weeks ago called Inside Job. It chronicled the 2008 collapse of the financial world. Here is one slice of how that disaster came to be. The financial firm Goldman/Sacks bought up thousands upon thousands of shaky mortgages (mortgages put out by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and up until 48 hours before it all fell apart, given the highest investment rating by Standard & Poors). They bundled these properties into what was called ‘derivatives’ and sold them on the open market. Private investors like you and me bought them through our managed our 401k’s. Local pension funds for firefighters and teachers also invested heavily, believing them to be worthy and reliable. Long after Goldman/Sacks knew the derivates were nothing but junk they continued to promote them while at the same time insuring against their collapse by taking out policies with firms like AIG.
Well, as you know, the whole house of cards came tumbling down, plunging us into a world-wide recession, leaving 10% of the population unemployed, and stripping each one of us thousands upon thousands of dollars in equity and savings. The government stepped in and bailed out the industry, but the people who ran these markets played the system well and walked away with billions of dollars in earnings and bonuses. I do not envy their wealth because I do not want to be accountable for their sins.
Do you promise to follow and obey Christ as your Lord? How should I live? What should I do? I should live in a way which, to the best of my ability, provides for me and for my family. I should live for myself in a way that promotes the well-being of all and does not deplete from it. I should live not for myself as the world defines ‘self,’ but for him who died and rose for me.
These are dark times in which we live. I don’t know if they are darker than other times, but it is certainly a time of despair. It is a time when the light of Christ burning in each one of us committed to living out our baptismal covenant is a sign of hope to this sinful and broken world. It is a time for those of us who have died with Christ in the waters of baptism to rise up in newness of life; a life God intends as a blessing for the world. We have a different Savior than the world offers. We strive not for the things of this world, but for a deeper awareness of God’s grace and love. We follow Christ as Lord who guides us into a life marked by integrity, generosity, and a concern for the welfare of the world.
The bible is deeply suspicious of centralized government. The prophet Samuel objected to Israel’s desire for a king, insisting that each individual would be better off accountable only to God. Jesus’ political teachings (things like render unto Caesar…) come at a time when his part of the world was occupied by a foreign government – the Romans. Against their oppressive presence, Jesus put forward the notion of the Kingdom of God.
This suspicion of a central government goes back in history to this morning’s reading from the Old Testament. The Hebrew people, who hade been invited to live in Egypt during a time of severe famine, find their fortunes turned when a new regime looks less than kindly upon them. As a people they are forced into servitude and become targets of genocide.
This whole scenario came about because generations earlier a Hebrew named Joseph became well-positioned in the Egyptian government after predicting the coming famine. The Pharaoh empowered Joseph to appropriate huge amounts of food during good years and to store it as a means of getting through the lean times. It was a centralized approach to the problem that had intended and unintended consequences. On the positive side, it accumulated food reserves that lasted through the famine. On the negative side, it created great wealth and power for the government, impoverishing those who had to pay for the food they had grown years before. And for the Hebrew people, invited to Egypt by one of their own, it eventually led to misery.
Those of us in the conservative camp wonder how a decentralized approach might have played out. What if Pharaoh had warned the people of the coming famine and encouraged every person and family and tribe to store up food on their own? Surely some would have ignored this; others may or may not have been able to help them through. Each person would have been accountable for his or her own actions. No one would have ended up beholden to the Pharaoh.
This outlook, and the lessons derived from it, continues to drive the economic and political perspective of conservative Christians in America. It fosters a deep distrust of government and a yearning for personal freedom. Mix into this a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation and you can see why so many in this camp paint such a negative picture of the direction our country is headed politically and economically.
I don’t believe apocalyptic writing is best understood as a figurative prescription of events yet to unfold, so I do not believe that a doomsday is inevitable. I do believe that the bible contains God’s revelation of God’s love for creation; a revelation that describes the best way for us to live in accordance with how the world has been formed. To live otherwise is to invite our downfall.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus asks his followers what many say is the most important question each of us can ever consider… “Who do you say that I am?” In a slightly different way it is a question I will ask in a few moments of Hunter’s parents and godparents. And in that every baptism provides each one of us with the opportunity to renew our own baptismal covenant, it is a question I will ask of each of you:
Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
The answer to each is a direct, firm, “I do.” Far more than just doctrinal concerns that reverberate only in the church, and much more than boxes to check off on an insurance policy to get you into heaven, these questions cut right to heart of how we live and move and have our being in today’s world.
Do you turn to Jesus Christ accept him as your Savior? ‘Turn’, turn from what? Well the previous questions give us a clue. In them we renounce Satan, the world, and the self. We turn from these to Christ. Now, most of us find turning from Satan not to be much of a problem because we never engaged in direct allegiance to this being. Turning from our own evil desires is a different matter altogether. For the most part we know what these are and will struggle with them all of our life – gaining the upper hand at some instances, while falling short at others.
In our day and age I believe the most challenging renunciation is turning for the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy us. It is like asking a fish not to swim in water. We are so immersed in our world that it is nearly impossible to step away from it in order to gain perspective on it. Every Sunday we hear Jesus proclaim a another reality he calls God’s kingdom, but I for one always wrestle with the temptation to water down what he says so that it more closely resembles our ‘watery’ world.
The driving forces behind our current economic and political lives can be characterized by ancient words like greed, covetousness, envy, and idolatry. We want more, we want what others have, we want it all, and we want it right now. We want a feeling a safety and security and when something happens to disrupt this we want new laws, new regulations, and new programs that will make it never happen again.
In such a climate, our savior becomes our possessions, our ability to purchase what we want when we want it, and a strong, centralized government to ensure that it all works out without so much as a hiccup. Through baptism we turn away from this and accept Christ as our Savior, not just to get us into a next life, but to find fullness of life here and now.
Do you put your trust in Christ’s grace and love? This question asks us to proclaim that we need most to make it in this life can not be found at the mall, it is not achieved by building up fortunes in the stock market, and it can not be earned through a ‘healthier lifestyle.’ We are a people who believe that what we need first, foremost, and always is grace (and awareness of the riches God so freely shares with us) and love (a sense of God’s unconditional presence and unflinching desire to see us thrive).
Do you promise to follow and obey Christ as your Lord? We are a people whose prayer to God is always, “O Lord, what should I do?”, “O God, how should I live?” More and more, it is a question being asked less and less.
I watched a documentary a few weeks ago called Inside Job. It chronicled the 2008 collapse of the financial world. Here is one slice of how that disaster came to be. The financial firm Goldman/Sacks bought up thousands upon thousands of shaky mortgages (mortgages put out by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and up until 48 hours before it all fell apart, given the highest investment rating by Standard & Poors). They bundled these properties into what was called ‘derivatives’ and sold them on the open market. Private investors like you and me bought them through our managed our 401k’s. Local pension funds for firefighters and teachers also invested heavily, believing them to be worthy and reliable. Long after Goldman/Sacks knew the derivates were nothing but junk they continued to promote them while at the same time insuring against their collapse by taking out policies with firms like AIG.
Well, as you know, the whole house of cards came tumbling down, plunging us into a world-wide recession, leaving 10% of the population unemployed, and stripping each one of us thousands upon thousands of dollars in equity and savings. The government stepped in and bailed out the industry, but the people who ran these markets played the system well and walked away with billions of dollars in earnings and bonuses. I do not envy their wealth because I do not want to be accountable for their sins.
Do you promise to follow and obey Christ as your Lord? How should I live? What should I do? I should live in a way which, to the best of my ability, provides for me and for my family. I should live for myself in a way that promotes the well-being of all and does not deplete from it. I should live not for myself as the world defines ‘self,’ but for him who died and rose for me.
These are dark times in which we live. I don’t know if they are darker than other times, but it is certainly a time of despair. It is a time when the light of Christ burning in each one of us committed to living out our baptismal covenant is a sign of hope to this sinful and broken world. It is a time for those of us who have died with Christ in the waters of baptism to rise up in newness of life; a life God intends as a blessing for the world. We have a different Savior than the world offers. We strive not for the things of this world, but for a deeper awareness of God’s grace and love. We follow Christ as Lord who guides us into a life marked by integrity, generosity, and a concern for the welfare of the world.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Jesus Lacking Generosity & Trust
In his book Civility, The Yale law professor Stephen Carter describes his childhood memory of what it was like to be a black family moving into an all-white Washington DC neighborhood in 1966. While only eleven, he had heard stories about things white people did to black people – stories based partly in truth, but largely on the imaginative retelling so typical of children that age. Carter remembers sitting on the front porch of his family’s large, new home feeling lonely, isolated, and afraid.
Suddenly a neighbor appeared next door – a woman with a booming voice they would come to know as Sara Kestenbaum – and as she got out of her car she shouted a very loud and enthusiastic “Welcome!” to Stephen and his siblings. Sara quickly disappeared into her house, only to reemerge moments later with a tray of snacks for the children to eat. Her simple act created for Stephen a sense of belonging where it had not existed before. Years later he would reflect that her action required both generosity and trust. He writes:
“Sara Kestenbaum was generous to us, giving of herself with no benefit to herself, and she demonstrated not merely a welcome that nobody else offered, but a faith in us, a trust that we were people to whom one could and should be generous.”
Her generosity, Carter observed, involved a cost – the price of the snacks, the time spent preparing them, foregoing other opportunities, perhaps inviting the scorn of others in the neighborhood – and, he writes, her trust involved a risk – she took a chance that the children she reached out to would receive, value, and respect her generosity.
More and more we live in a society where we do not know each other, and not knowing each other seem to think it does not matter how we treat one another. Today’s gospel reading goes right to the heart of this. It is a unique story in the New Testament in that its hero is a gentile woman and its villain is Jesus. She has so much going against her. She is a woman. She is a despised Canaanite. She is in need and uncontained in her pleadings for help.
Jesus is tired from weeks of exhausting preaching, teaching, healing, and confrontations. He simply wants to be left alone and so is dismissive and insulting. “I was sent to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he tells her. Then he adds, “It is not right to take the children’s food and feed it to the dogs.” It was a cold, cutting thing to say, wasn’t it. If Sara Kestenbaum displayed generosity and trust, then, here at least, Jesus displays the exact opposite. He is not willing to do anything for this woman nor does he see her as a person worthy his time.
Some biblical commentators, uncomfortable with the way this story portrays our Lord and Savior, suggest that Jesus was just testing her – a little challenge to see what she was made of. Some play off the notion that Jesus is all-knowing and thus knows where the conversation will end. This, they suggest, renders the insult meaningless. To be honest, I don’t see it. All I see here is a very human Jesus doing exactly what we humans do from time to time. He is selfish, rude, and uncivil… at least at first.
But the Canaanite woman will not be deterred. Motivated by a desperate desire to get help for her daughter, she is resilient and resourceful. She shrugs off the insult and uses it to her advantage. “Even dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” Hers is a costly response in that it foregoes the anger appropriate in the face of such disrespect and it goes right to the heart of generosity; “Jesus, even a little bit of your time and attention will do me great good.” It is a trusting response, risking that Jesus can be a better person than he has shown up to this point.
Instantly Jesus’ perception is transformed. He wakes up to a new reality that all human beings – which the Gospel proclaims were made by and through him – all human beings (even if they be ‘foreign dogs’) are worthy of God’s love. It is a first glimpse into a debate the early Church would have to hash out some years later – that the Gospel is intended for Jews and Gentiles alike. Until this moment in his ministry, it appears that even Jesus did not grasp this. But through this encounter, the Canaanite woman’s faith in him expands his faith in all people.
The exchange from her on is brief. Jesus expresses great admiration for her faith and grants her desire. The text says that her daughter, who may or may not even have been present, is healed at that moment. They did not know each other before this encounter and there is no indication that Jesus and the Canaanite woman ever met again, but still the story tells us that how we treat one another, even (and especially) the stranger, does in fact matter.
In today’s Old Testament reading we hear the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers who years before had sold him into slavery. Now a powerful figure in the Egyptian government, the brothers need food that Joseph has placed in reserve against a severe famine. Joseph’s act of generosity is very costly. He foregoes revenge he could have (and some might argue should have) enacted on his brothers. His trust in them is risky. They might be the same jealous rascals they had been so many years ago, but even more likely it could jeopardize his position in Egypt. But Joseph’s actions, like those of Sara Kestenbaum, create a sense of belonging where it had not existed before. It transforms brokenness into blessing.
This morning we welcome two persons – one a child, the other an infant – into the Christian faith and life through baptism. Next week another infant will be baptized. In the liturgy I will ask if you will do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ. In effect, God is asking if you are willing to place your trust in these children; believing that they – along will all God’s creatures – are worthy of God’s love. And God will be asking if you will be generous with them; giving of your time, your talent, your treasure, and your heart. In some respects what God asks of you will cost you very little, in other respects it will cost you everything, for it will require you no longer to live merely for yourself, but also for the sake of others in the Name of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.
Last Friday several of us gathered at Jack and Barbara West’s home for our monthly Holy Smoke & Ale. Eric Freel brought his daughter Polly, who is one of the youngsters we always see running up here to attend Children’s Chapel. Several times during the evening I saw Ginger Owen, who is one of the people who teaches Children’s Chapel, take Polly out in the back yard to see the water or inspect a bird feeder or look at that the flowers. Ginger was both generous and trusting, as was Polly who now sees her as someone worthy of her generosity and trust. How much did it cost them? Not a lot, in terms of how the world measures cost, but everything in terms of how Jesus measures it. How much did each risk? Again, not a lot and everything.
Again I say that more and more we live in a society where we do not know each other, and not knowing each other seem to think it does not matter how we treat one another. Sara Kestenbaum, Joseph, Polly and Ginger, and the Canaanite woman remind us that God’s kingdom looks very different from the ways of this world. Even our Lord needed to be touched by the generosity and trust of others so that he could be transformed into the image God.
Suddenly a neighbor appeared next door – a woman with a booming voice they would come to know as Sara Kestenbaum – and as she got out of her car she shouted a very loud and enthusiastic “Welcome!” to Stephen and his siblings. Sara quickly disappeared into her house, only to reemerge moments later with a tray of snacks for the children to eat. Her simple act created for Stephen a sense of belonging where it had not existed before. Years later he would reflect that her action required both generosity and trust. He writes:
“Sara Kestenbaum was generous to us, giving of herself with no benefit to herself, and she demonstrated not merely a welcome that nobody else offered, but a faith in us, a trust that we were people to whom one could and should be generous.”
Her generosity, Carter observed, involved a cost – the price of the snacks, the time spent preparing them, foregoing other opportunities, perhaps inviting the scorn of others in the neighborhood – and, he writes, her trust involved a risk – she took a chance that the children she reached out to would receive, value, and respect her generosity.
More and more we live in a society where we do not know each other, and not knowing each other seem to think it does not matter how we treat one another. Today’s gospel reading goes right to the heart of this. It is a unique story in the New Testament in that its hero is a gentile woman and its villain is Jesus. She has so much going against her. She is a woman. She is a despised Canaanite. She is in need and uncontained in her pleadings for help.
Jesus is tired from weeks of exhausting preaching, teaching, healing, and confrontations. He simply wants to be left alone and so is dismissive and insulting. “I was sent to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he tells her. Then he adds, “It is not right to take the children’s food and feed it to the dogs.” It was a cold, cutting thing to say, wasn’t it. If Sara Kestenbaum displayed generosity and trust, then, here at least, Jesus displays the exact opposite. He is not willing to do anything for this woman nor does he see her as a person worthy his time.
Some biblical commentators, uncomfortable with the way this story portrays our Lord and Savior, suggest that Jesus was just testing her – a little challenge to see what she was made of. Some play off the notion that Jesus is all-knowing and thus knows where the conversation will end. This, they suggest, renders the insult meaningless. To be honest, I don’t see it. All I see here is a very human Jesus doing exactly what we humans do from time to time. He is selfish, rude, and uncivil… at least at first.
But the Canaanite woman will not be deterred. Motivated by a desperate desire to get help for her daughter, she is resilient and resourceful. She shrugs off the insult and uses it to her advantage. “Even dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” Hers is a costly response in that it foregoes the anger appropriate in the face of such disrespect and it goes right to the heart of generosity; “Jesus, even a little bit of your time and attention will do me great good.” It is a trusting response, risking that Jesus can be a better person than he has shown up to this point.
Instantly Jesus’ perception is transformed. He wakes up to a new reality that all human beings – which the Gospel proclaims were made by and through him – all human beings (even if they be ‘foreign dogs’) are worthy of God’s love. It is a first glimpse into a debate the early Church would have to hash out some years later – that the Gospel is intended for Jews and Gentiles alike. Until this moment in his ministry, it appears that even Jesus did not grasp this. But through this encounter, the Canaanite woman’s faith in him expands his faith in all people.
The exchange from her on is brief. Jesus expresses great admiration for her faith and grants her desire. The text says that her daughter, who may or may not even have been present, is healed at that moment. They did not know each other before this encounter and there is no indication that Jesus and the Canaanite woman ever met again, but still the story tells us that how we treat one another, even (and especially) the stranger, does in fact matter.
In today’s Old Testament reading we hear the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers who years before had sold him into slavery. Now a powerful figure in the Egyptian government, the brothers need food that Joseph has placed in reserve against a severe famine. Joseph’s act of generosity is very costly. He foregoes revenge he could have (and some might argue should have) enacted on his brothers. His trust in them is risky. They might be the same jealous rascals they had been so many years ago, but even more likely it could jeopardize his position in Egypt. But Joseph’s actions, like those of Sara Kestenbaum, create a sense of belonging where it had not existed before. It transforms brokenness into blessing.
This morning we welcome two persons – one a child, the other an infant – into the Christian faith and life through baptism. Next week another infant will be baptized. In the liturgy I will ask if you will do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ. In effect, God is asking if you are willing to place your trust in these children; believing that they – along will all God’s creatures – are worthy of God’s love. And God will be asking if you will be generous with them; giving of your time, your talent, your treasure, and your heart. In some respects what God asks of you will cost you very little, in other respects it will cost you everything, for it will require you no longer to live merely for yourself, but also for the sake of others in the Name of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.
Last Friday several of us gathered at Jack and Barbara West’s home for our monthly Holy Smoke & Ale. Eric Freel brought his daughter Polly, who is one of the youngsters we always see running up here to attend Children’s Chapel. Several times during the evening I saw Ginger Owen, who is one of the people who teaches Children’s Chapel, take Polly out in the back yard to see the water or inspect a bird feeder or look at that the flowers. Ginger was both generous and trusting, as was Polly who now sees her as someone worthy of her generosity and trust. How much did it cost them? Not a lot, in terms of how the world measures cost, but everything in terms of how Jesus measures it. How much did each risk? Again, not a lot and everything.
Again I say that more and more we live in a society where we do not know each other, and not knowing each other seem to think it does not matter how we treat one another. Sara Kestenbaum, Joseph, Polly and Ginger, and the Canaanite woman remind us that God’s kingdom looks very different from the ways of this world. Even our Lord needed to be touched by the generosity and trust of others so that he could be transformed into the image God.
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