Sameness / Deservedness / Need

I don’t know if families still do this today, but when I was growing up my parents assigned chores to my sisters and me.  We had to do things like clean the dishes, take out the trash, clean our rooms, and any other number of things I can’t remember.  As I recall, getting me to do my chores was itself a chore, so my parents added a little leverage called an “allowance.”  If we did our chores during the week we received money.  I recall my first allowance was 10 cents a week, which may not seem like much, but if I could get two pennies from my mother I had enough money to buy a comic book.  While having many benefits, the chore/allowance system created at least one problem – my sisters and I fought over whose chores were too hard or too easy and whose allowance was too big or too small based on our assigned tasks.  At its heart, it was battle was about fairness. 

Fairness is very important to us.  If you listen to talk radio or watch cable news programs, you will hear a lot of talk about fairness.  What is a fair hourly wage?  Is our tax system fair?  Does our legal system treat all people fairly?  The reason we argue about it is because, as with beauty, fairness is in the eye of the beholder.  Whereas justice is rooted in higher, universally accepted principles, fairness is something open to debate.

Arthur Dorbin, who teaches applied ethics at Hofstra University, says there are three different ways to approach fairness.  The first is sameness.  It is fair when everything is equal.  No one gets special treatment and no one has to bear an extra burden.  A second way to look at fairness is deservedness.  It is fair that you get what you earn and deserve.  If you do your chores you get your allowance.  If you don’t do your chores, you don’t get your allowance.  If you do extra chores, you get a bigger allowance.  The third notion of fairness is based on need.  It is fair for those who have more to give more than those who have little because we are linked by our common humanity and have a responsibility to care of one another.  It is not fair for one person to have abundance while another is in want.   

Because it can be grounded in sameness, deservedness, or need, fairness can be something of a moving target.  When I was a child and our family sat down at the dinner table, was it fair my father’s plate had more food on it than mine?  If fairness means sameness, no.  We should all have the exact same amount of food.  If fairness means deservedness, yes.  He worked to earn the money that bought the food, I didn’t.  If fairness means need, yes.  He was an adult, I was a child.  He needed more food than I did.

When the school board meets to make a budget, should it (A) spend the same amount of money on each child, (B) put more resources into gifted and advanced programs benefiting students who deserve it, or (C) allocate the most resources to the students with the greatest need?  What is fair?

A sales company with ten employees ends the year with a $100,000 profit.  What is a fair way to divide it?  Should each employee get $10,000 – sameness?  Or should each receive a bonus based on his or her percentage of the total sales – deservedness?  Or, let’s say one employ has incurred $50,000 in medical expenses because a family member has undergone cancer treatment.  Should he get half the profit while the other nine divide the rest – need?  

These different examples illustrate why there is so much debate about fairness in our society. 

This morning we listen to Jesus telling a story raising questions of fairness.  While the landowner is just when he pays the all-day workers the wage to which they agreed, they don’t think it is fair those who work less get paid the same.  Sameness doesn’t seem fair to them.  They deserve more than those who did not work as long. 

Here is a small detail to notice in the story.  The owner negotiates the terms of pay only with the initial workers.  The rate will be the “usual daily wage.”  This seems fair to both parties.  Each time the owner returns to the market place, he sees people “standing idle” and sends them to work with the promise he will pay them “whatever is right.”  I submit the owner’s sense of fairness is based on need.  Each worker needs a daily wage to survive.  And even more, each worker needs to move from idleness to productivity. 

Arthur C. Brooks writes this in his book The Conservative Heart:

There is a widening divide in this country… but it isn’t the gap in income per se.  It is the gap in dignity.  At root, to have dignity means to be worthy of respect… We sense our own dignity most clearly when we have tangible signs that our lives are creating value in the world.  This means ordinary work is a key driver of dignity for most people.  Whether the outside world sees a job as extraordinarily unique or completely mundane is mostly irrelevant.  “All labor that uplifts humanity” taught Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “has dignity and importance.”  Inversely, nothing is more destructive of people’s sense of dignity than idleness and the suspicion that one’s life is superfluous.

Work is not punishment.  It is one of the primary things we do to give us a sense of our value and worth.  Those standing idle in the marketplace don’t need a handout, they need an opportunity; for their self-esteem as well as to meet their material needs.

We understand that while Jesus tells a story about workers, he is not necessarily giving a lecture on labor practices.  He is describing how God’s abundant love, mercy, forgiveness and blessing is the same for everyone, but some people think this is not fair.  Some people believe they are better than others and thus deserve more from God.  Some people hold we are a Christian nation and have earned God’s favor, while others fear we are no longer a Christian nation and will no longer receive God’s blessing.  Through this parable Jesus is telling us God loves each person and God loves every nation.  So, as an example, every North Korean is as precious to God as every American.  This is kind of challenge today’s parable lays before us.

The story has a lot in common with the parable of the Prodigal Son.  Both have someone being grumpy at the end of the working day.  You may recall I told you once the word prodigal has two meanings.  The first is “spending money or resources freely and recklessly.”  The prodigal son was wasteful and imprudent.  The second meaning is “having or giving something on a lavish scale.”  Thus, it is entirely appropriate to talk of the prodigal father whose love and forgiveness is well beyond generous. 

This is the same kind of person we meet in the landowner in today’s parable.  He is fair because he gives to each as each person needs, not as each person deserves.  We ask God to answer our prayers “not as we ask in our ignorance, nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but as you know and love us in your Son Jesus Christ.”  Our prayer is not, “Dear God, treat us all the same.”  And it is not, “Dear God, treat me as I deserve.”  Our prayer is, Oh God, see me for who I am and have mercy on me.  Please meet me where I am, love me, and stay with me.”  We want God’s fairness to be grounded in our need. 

So what does this say about how we advocate for fairness in our family, in our church, in our community, in our society, and in our world?

Forgiveness

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant by Jan van Hemessen

I have had many pastoral conversations in the thirty years I have been ordained.  The most common involves a person in crisis or who has a loved one in crisis, typically health related.  The second most common conversation involves some aspect of forgiveness.  Almost always the person coming to see me is struggling to forgive someone. 

Jesus tells us to forgive a person seventy times.  He knits forgiveness into the very fabric of the prayer he teaches us to say every day.  Hanging on the cross his dying words are “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  He even dares to make God’s forgiveness of our sins contingent on our ability to forgive others.

So we know we have to forgive, but there are times when it is hard, really hard.  In truth, it can be one of the most difficult practices of the Christian faith.  Over the course of my conversations with people, I have learned how wrong assumptions about forgiveness contribute to why we find it so difficult to do. 

Here is one wrong assumption I hear often: I am not very good at forgiving.  Most of us are much better at it than we realize because we do it all the time.  You are driving and the person in the car next to you does not see you and cuts you off.  When he realizes what he has done he waves his hand to say I am sorry.  All is forgiven and you get on with your day and with your life.  This kind of forgiveness happens all the time.

Here is another wrong assumption: if you forgive, everything will have to be like it was before.  Pope John Paul II visited his would-be assassin in prison to tell him he forgave him, but the assassin still remained incarcerated.  I read the story of a woman who shared something deeply personal with a trusted friend, asking it to be kept confidence, only to have that friend turn around and tell it to the members of their bible study group.  The woman eventually forgave her friend, but never again shared anything personal with her. 

Yes, you are to forgive a person seventy times, but after the second or third time you need to take steps to ensure the offender does not keep hurting you.  There are times when forgiveness involves moving forward by maintaining consistent boundaries about appropriate behavior.

Another wrong assumption: if you still feel hurt, pain, and/or anger then you have not really forgiven the person.  This week I watched a TED Talk by Sammy Rangel.  It is both inspiring and difficult to hear.   From the time he was three years old he endured his mother’s unimaginably brutal and degrading treatment until, at the age of 11, he ran away, lived on the streets, became a member of a gang, and fell into a life of drugs, crime, and violence.  He goes to prison at 17 and comes out, in his words, more animal than human.  His life begins to turn around the second time he is in jail as he participates in a counseling program and confronts his past.  Now in his forties, he has forgiven his mother, but as he tells his story, it is obvious the experiences he suffered still hurt. 

Extending forgiveness is just one step in what may be a long journey.  Some hurts never go away completely, nor should they.  But you want to work toward a point where they do not dominate your life.  At the end of his talk Rangel says this:

As you can see, getting to this point is still very difficult to talk about…  What I have learned is although the details of our lives may be different the underlying process of getting stuck or suffering in our parts of life is the same for all of us.  We do not have to be victims of our experiences or in the way that we tell our stories but interestingly enough, stories are the only way out and it is us who creates those stories.  We hold the power to change our stories and what they represent.  I invite all of you to consider if it would serve you well to create a new story and a new path and to please remember that the things that held you down will one day hold you up.

Today Rangel has a Master’s Degree in Social Work and is helping young men and women get out of gangs and hate groups.

Emmett Aldrich, a mediator who uses Christian principles to help people resolve conflicts, writes this:

Healing from a hurt may generally come with the passage of time, but you must allow yourself time to reach the level of forgiveness appropriate for the circumstances.  Deeply emotional circumstances or extremely sensitive hurts… will take time to move beyond the hurt before a person can even begin to consider forgiving those who caused the hurt. 

When you are deeply wounded it is difficult to generate forgiveness, but your wounds won’t heal unless you forgive.  In his book There is No Future without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu tells the story of two former soldiers visiting the Vietnam War Memorial.   One veteran asks the other, “Have you forgiven those who held you as a prisoner of war?”   The other answers, “I will never forgive them!”  The first veteran responds, “Then it seems they still have you in prison, don’t they?”  In his book What’s So Amazing about Grace, Philip Yancey writes, “Not to forgive imprisons me in the past and locks out all potential for change.  I thus yield control to another, my enemy, and doom myself to suffer the consequences of the wrong.”  When you forgive you let go of being a victim and begin to live your life again.

This also is from Emmett Aldrich:

Forgiveness is perhaps one of the most emotional and psychological experiences we will ever encounter.  It involves feelings of anger, revenge, resentment, hurt, hostility, sadness, bitterness, retaliation or retribution.  At the same time, depending on whether we are seeking forgiveness, are asked to forgive someone else or forgive ourselves, it can also involve reconciliation, compromise, concessions, contrition, atonement, repentance or redemption. 

The reason God forgives us is to create the possibility we can grow and become a better person.  We extend forgiveness to others in the hope they will grow and become better people.  Not to forgive locks the other person in his or her mistake and none of us should be defined by our worst moments.  The core of who we are is set at baptism.  Each of us is a beloved child of God and we are related to one another as members of a household of faith.  When we are wronged this relationship is damaged, and when we forgive we do our part to help it be restored.  This is what God does for us and it is why God asks us to forgive each other. 

I really struggled writing this sermon.  This past week I had two more conversations with parishioners struggling with forgiveness, so I wanted the sermon to be a perfect and definitive statement on how and why to do it.  I have come to see that forgiveness is not a mechanical act nor is there a recipe for how to do it.  Each hurt is as unique as the person who experiences it and forgiveness is more an art than a science.  Please know if you are struggling to forgive you are always welcome to come and talk with me.

Future Thinking and Living Honorably

St. Paul writes: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is near.”

I suppose like many of you I spent this last week keeping a sharp eye on the weather forecast, wondering if our area was going to be in the path of Hurricane Irma.  As far as we know, we human beings are the only creatures with the capacity for what is called “future thinking.”  When I put my dog in the car she gets very excited because she knows we are going to drive somewhere to go for a walk, but this is not future thinking.  She is drawing on her memory of how this event typically has unfolded in the past.  I, on the other hand, will dress appropriately for the weather, take water for me and my dog, fill up the car with gas before leaving, and do any number of other things to insure the simple act of a walk in the park goes smoothly.  This is future thinking.

It involves anticipation, planning, and the ability to delay of gratification.  Lawrence Schiller, a highly acclaimed sports photographer, says the ability to anticipate is the most important aspect of his work.  He says it is not where the action is taking place, but where it’s going to take place that matters.  It is not where the subject is now, but where he or she is going to be that is the key to capturing an important moment.  This may be a new way for you to think about photography, but it is not a new way for you to think about life.  It comes very naturally to most of us and we do it all the time.

What you anticipate you plan for.  Had you anticipated it was going to rain later this morning you would have worn a raincoat and brought an umbrella.  This is planning.  Delaying gratification.  There is any number of things I would love to do this afternoon, laundry is not one of them.  But I know if I don’t get a load or two of wash done I will not have clean clothes to wear tomorrow. 

No matter how keenly we anticipate, no matter how much we plan, and no matter how prudent we are in delaying gratification, we do not control every aspect of the future.  There may be roadwork on the drive to the park and I will have to take a detour.  It is a nuisance, but something I can overcome.  I may get a flat tire; which is something that might ruin day.  Or, I may be involved is a serious accident, something which could change my life forever.

Our ability to ponder a future we cannot control, a future that may have terrible things is store, makes us anxious.  What if this happens?  What if that happens?  What if…?  What if…?  What if…?  There is an entire genre of literature in the bible rooted in the fear of what if.  We call it apocalyptic writing.  We find it in parts of the Old Testament and in the Book of Revelation and even in Jesus’ teaching about the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem.  These sacred texts fuel our anxiety about the future.

No matter what you think about St. Paul’s writings – many of us find him difficult to understand much of the time – here is something to like: Paul never draws on the apocalyptic genre, even when he is imprisoned for preaching the gospel and knows he is going to be executed.  In this morning’s readings we find him engaged in future thinking.  He anticipates salvation is near, and by salvation he means the return of Christ.  But unlike John’s vision in the Book of Revelation, Paul does not anticipate it to be surrounded by cataclysmic events.  Rather, he sees it as a transition from nighttime to daylight; an image filled with hope. 

Wake up, Paul writes, and get ready for a new day.  Anticipating this future, he encourages his readers to make changes in their lives – the planning part of future thinking.  “Lay aside the works of darkness,” he writes, “and put on the armor of light.”  “Let us live honorably.”

Honorable living is not something people talk about much anymore, but this week I came across a website called “REAL Man”, which describes itself as being “an online resource for young men, offering information, insights, and advice on how to be a Real Man.”  It states:

There are a lot of myths in our society about what it means to be a real man.  Contrary to popular belief, being a man is not about how strong and muscular you are; it’s not about what kind of car you drive; it’s not about how much money you have, or about how many women you can use.

Life is not about money, cars, fame, physical appearance, and women.  It’s about who you are as a person; it’s about the way you live your life; and it’s about how you treat other people.

When it comes right down to it, being a REAL Man [is about]…

Respect all people,

Especially women.

Always do the right thing.

Live a life that matters.

It offers the counsel of famed basketball coach John Wooden who said, “Make your life a masterpiece” by being willing to “sign your name to everything you do.”  It quotes a Dakota saying, “You will be known forever by the tracks you leave.”  

There is a strong link between future thinking and living honorably.  If you want to be well thought of down the road, what are the things you need to do today? 

Ladies, in case you are wondering, there is a magazine called “Real Women.”  Here is how it describes itself:

There are dozens of consumer magazines on the shelves of every newsstand and bookstore filled with supermodels and Hollywood beauties trying to capture women readers.  That’s not what Real Woman is about.  Instead, Real Woman… is written, by, for, and about actual women, covering issues that matter most to them.  Women who are juggling family, work, health, and finances.  Women who, in many cases, are the CEOs of their households and make the health, travel, nutrition, and purchasing decisions for themselves and their families.  With advice from the foremost experts in health, nutrition, and fitness, the magazine will provide tools for women to improve their lives and share inspirational stories of local women overcoming major challenges to achieve their goals.

The future is always on our minds, and for this reason St. Paul tells us to wake up today; to make the changes now that will help us in the future we anticipate and desire.  He stresses that self-gratification is neither a means nor a goal.  Rather, he points to living honorably as the only way to move forward into tomorrow and the day after that.  The way forward into the future, he writes, involves loving your neighbor as yourself.  He counsels us to ponder the tracks we are making because they will be what people know and think of us down the road. 

And one day, at the last, we anticipate God will look at the tracks we have made.  On that day, we hope God will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  If this is what you want to hear, then you need to live honorably today.

The Jeremiah Principle

God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet when he is a just a boy.  God tells him, “Before you were even born, I knew you.”  In other words, “I have been preparing you for this calling for a long, long time.”  Once old enough to assume the role, Jeremiah journeys throughout Israel preaching and teaching.  He speaks out against idolatry, exposes greedy priests, and challenges false prophets.  Not everyone likes to hear unfiltered truth.  The priests in one town conspire to kill Jeremiah and God must intervene to save him.  On another occasion a temple official in Jerusalem has Jeremiah beaten and put in stocks at one of the city’s gates.  Those who pass in and out mock the prophet.  He literally becomes a “laughing stock.” 

In today’s first reading we encounter Jeremiah at a time when he has had enough.  He wants God to bring down retribution on his persecutors.  He wallows in struggles of his calling.  He describes the inner turmoil and conflict it has spawned.  And he lashes out at God who has been like a “deceitful brook”, like “waters that fail.”  God has let him down. 

One commentator says Jeremiah’s pain can be characterized as an “unsettled ache”, as “a war within.”  Jeremiah takes on a calling he thinks will bring him great joy, and initially it does.  At first, when he finds God’s words he “eats” them and they “delight” his heart.  But then reality sets in.  Jeremiah learns firsthand life is not always easy and resistance (or worse) is not uncommon.  In today’s reading we find him at a point where he is just done with all of it.

Years ago I knew a parishioner who managed a family-owned care facility for the elderly.  Once a month I conducted a worship service for the residents and often stopped by her office afterwards for a chat.  She loved her job and the staff and the residents.  And she loved the family she worked for because they shared her values of compassion, concern, and treating people with dignity.  At some point the family sold the facility to a corporation and that is when everything changed for the parishioner.  She came under more and more pressure to make the bottom line look better by minimizing expenses in order to maximize profits.  She was forced to reduce the staff and to make other cuts which diminished the quality of care given to the residents.  With each monthly visit I sensed her unhappiness growing.  She had not lost her love for the residents or the staff.  In fact, her love for them gave birth to a deepening, darkening inner ache that grew with every decision she was forced to make by a heartless corporate entity.  Eventually, she had to quit.       

Whatever your vocation, I hope you understand it to be a calling and I hope it brings you joy and great delight.  I suspect there are aspects about what you do that take a toll on you.  As an example, teaching is a wonderful profession.  There is something thrilling about creating a learning environment to facilitate discovery and growth.  But the job is not this simple and straightforward.  I have never known a teacher who did not struggle with an unsettled inner ache birthed by the incredible time demands of the job, difficult parents, meddlesome administrators, budget cuts, poor pay, and/or unmotivated students. 

No vocation is immune to burnout.  We are eager at the beginning, but at some point learn we must endure.  What initially is a delight can become a thing we dread.  At first we are fired up, but eventually get fed up.  This morning we learn we can name this “the Jeremiah Principle.”  As with Jeremiah, it may be the result of naïve expectations encountering the real world.  Or, as was the case of the parishioner managing the care facility, it may come about because conditions change in unforeseen and disagreeable ways.  No matter what the cause, the result is the same.  It creates an inner, unsettled ache.

Going all the way back to God’s command to Adam to till the earth and tend to creation, there has always been a strong connection between the work of our hands and the condition of our heart.  Work is many things, one of which is spiritual.  If you like what you do, who you do it with, and who you do it for, chances are good you are a peace with yourself.  If you don’t like what you do, who you do it with, and/or who you do it for, then most likely you know exactly what the phrase unsettled ache feels like.

Tomorrow is Labor Day.  Far more than seeing it as a day off from work, the church invites us to ponder the work we do and why we do it.  Listen to the opening part of the collect for Labor Day:

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good…

The prayer asserts we are interconnected.  Because we cannot live apart from the contributions of others, we are called to think of our labor as being an offering for the welfare of all people.  For some this will be a radical shift.  It will move you from thinking about what you are getting out of the work you are doing to focusing on what your work is doing to benefit others.

I can tell you one person who needs to shift his mindset in this way – Jeremiah.  God responds to his lament and says,

If you utter what is precious,

and not what is worthless,

you shall serve as my mouth.

Jeremiah’s work is to speak in such a way that God is speaking through him.  What an incredible job!  And what a blessing it can be to those who hear him speak.  God’s words through him may guide, they may encourage, they may heal, they may correct, they may reprove.  They are God’s words and they are words people need to hear, even if they don’t want to listen.  Speaking is Jeremiah’s contribution to the common good.  It is the purpose of his labor.

But Jeremiah has forgotten this and made himself the focus of his work.  “I did what God called me to do and look what happened to me.”  Jeremiah has yet to realize he cannot control how other people will receive his labor and he cannot control what they will do with it.  All he can control is what he says.  He can control if his words are precious or worthless.  If he does this God makes three promises to him:

I will make you to this people

a fortified wall of bronze;

  they will fight against you

but they shall not prevail over you,

for I am with you

to save you and deliver you.

First, God promises to make Jeremiah strong.  Second, God promises Jeremiah will meet strong resistance.  And finally, God promises to be with Jeremiah to save and deliver him.  Jeremiah must learn to concentrate on his contribution to the common good and stop focusing on what it costs him to do this.

God’s words sink in very deep.  Jeremiah picks himself up, dusts himself off, and gets back to the job of being a prophet.  His career will span the rule of five different kings.  By the time he is old he will witness the complete destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army.  He will be remembered as the weeping prophet.  But he has been faithful to his job, speaking the words people need to hear, even if they reject them and persecute him for speaking them.

The parishioner who quit her job never came to church very often and for some time I lost track of her.  One day I went to visit a person who recently entered a care facility I had not visited before and who did I meet managing it?  The parishioner.  She looked as if the weight of the world had been removed from her shoulders.  This facility was family-owned and managed on values she could support.  Unlike Jeremiah, she did not need a change of perspective.  All she needed to contribute to the common good was a change in scenery. 

This morning we hear Jesus say,

“If you want to be my follower you must deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me.  If you want to save your life you will lose it, and if you lose your life for me you will find it.”

This is the great paradox of the Christian living and it runs counter to everything we think we know about life.  Learning how to apply this principle to every aspect of our life is a lifelong work in progress.  Through Jeremiah we are encouraged to consider how it applies to the work we do.  Are you deep in the throes of the Jeremiah Principle, tied up in knots on account of the work you do?  Perhaps, like Jeremiah, you need to reexamine your expectations and refocus your motivation.  Perhaps, like the woman managing the care facility, you need to acknowledge you can no longer be at the place you are working and need a fresh start.  No matter what your circumstances on Labor Day, I hope you will ponder Jesus’ promise, “If you lose your life you will find it.”

Location. Location. Location.

The three most important words in real estate are “location, location, location.”  Location matters, even in the bible.  This is certainly true with today’s gospel reading.  The text tells us Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi.  Now, this may not mean much to you and me, but it meant a lot to his companions and to the early readers of Matthew’s gospel.  Just as we associate car making with Detroit and Mardi Gras with New Orleans, Caesarea Philippi was associated with several particular things.

The city is located about twenty miles north of the Sea of Galilee and sits at the base of Mt. Hermon.  The Book of Enoch says this is the site where fallen angels took humans as wives creating a race known as the nephilim, who are described as being giants.  There is a cave on the side of the mountain in Caesarea thought to be bottomless.  Its opening is called the Gates of Hades and myth holds the nephilim are consigned to its depths.

For centuries the city and mountain are an important location for the worshippers of Baal.  In Hellenistic times, it is renamed Paneas and new temple structures are added for the worship of the Greek god Pan.  You may be interested to know Pan had the hindquarters, legs, hooves, and horns of a goat, but the torso and head of a human.  He enjoyed his afternoon naps and if interrupted let out a terrifying scream which created a “panic” in those who heard it.  By Jesus’ day, the city is expanded to include a large royal palace, and Philip, the region’s ruler, renames it after Caesar and himself. 

During the Jewish War from 66-70 AD, the Roman general Vespasian favors Caesarea Philippi as a recreation spot.  When he is named Emperor he leaves his son Titus to oversee the siege of Jerusalem and returns to the Caesarea where he reclines in comfort in the palace.  After the fall of Jerusalem, the ancient historian Josephus reports Titus and his troops return to Caesarea with Jewish captives and Vespasian has some of them thrown to wild animals.

When Matthew’s original readers learn Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi, they associate all of this background with what they are reading in the text.  Jesus is in a place of steeped in Jewish mythology, pagan worship, and Roman imperialism.  And it is exactly in the center of this city with its ancient temples and lavish palace Jesus asks his followers who other people think he is.  And then he asks them directly, “Who do you say that I am?”

The context matters.  It illuminates the question and shapes the answer.  Had Jesus been walking through a large field of grain when he asked it, Peter’s response might have been “You are the bread of life.”  Had they been sitting around a fire on a star-filled night, Peter might have answered, “You are the light of the world.”  But here, in Caesarea Philippi, a center of political power and cultic worship, Peter answers Jesus is superior to both.  You are the Messiah – the one sent from God to lead our people.  You are the son of the living God – the one to whom all worship belongs. 

Location, location, location.  I believe Jesus comes to us in every context where we find ourselves and asks, “Who do you say I am?”  The context will always shape our response.  Let’s say you give your spouse one final kiss before he deploys.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are my strong tower who will keep me safe and those I love safe.  Or let’s say you are singing your favorite church hymn with all you have to offer.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are the one who fills my heart with rejoicing.  Or let’s say you are sitting by a hospital bed keeping vigil as a loved one nears death.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are my shepherd and I shall not want. 

Location, location, location.  Let’s say we are walking with Jesus in downtown Charlottesville this morning.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are the Lord who commands us to love God and one another.  You are the one who gave his life to expose the forces of hatred, violence, and bigotry.  You are the one who calls us to establish justice and righteousness and equality within our borders. 

Let’s say this morning we are living in the coastal region of Texas, trying to make sense of the devastation and struggling with the challenge of putting our life and our community back together.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are the one who lifts me up on eagles’ wings and promises I will run and not be weary.  I will walk and not be faint.

But we are here at St. Paul’s Church in downtown Suffolk and Jesus asks us, “Who do you say I am?”  Our answer is shaped by our context.  If we were answering on the morning of our Pilgrimage Sunday, worshipping at each of the five locations over the course of our 375 years as a parish, we might have confessed “You are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  You have been our help in ages past and our hope for years to come.”

Over the months since then our parish context has continued to evolve, as it always does, and requires our thoughtful discernment to understand who Jesus is for us right now and how we are called to respond.  Over the summer we have welcomed several new families into our faith community.  We are now in a position to add a new Sunday morning class for upper elementary school children to compliment our nursery, pre-school and early elementary class, and youth class.  We are in a position to form a youth group for 5^th graders on up.  We will begin to have a monthly meeting starting in September and building from there.  We are also looking to provide a youth confirmation class beginning this fall.

Who do we at St. Paul’s say Jesus is?  Given who we are and where we are, we can answer in many different ways.  Given how we have changed this summer, a new response is being added and emphasized.  Jesus is our Rabbi who teaches us about life and the faith and helps to form us into good and godly people.

And what about you and your personal location?  Given where you are in your own life right now, who do you say Jesus is?

Jesus the Bigot

There are not many times in the bible when you will find Jesus being the villain in a story.  In fact, today’s gospel reading may be the only time it happens.  In it, Jesus displays the full bigotry of his people when he dismisses a Canaanite woman’s plea for help.  The Canaanites were descendants of Noah’s grandson, Canaan, who was cursed because of his father’s sin.  The bible portrays Canaanites as being a wicked and idolatrous people who occupy a territory along the Mediterranean from current day Lebanon to Egypt.  God promises this land to Abraham and several of the early books of the bible describes the Israelites’ conflicts with the Canaanite people.

By Jesus’ day, Canaanites lived in small towns and communities in and among the people of Israel.  Even though they are native to the land, they are treated like third class citizens.  Israelites consider them to be no better than dogs, a dehumanizing status dripping with contempt. 

One particular Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and begs him to pray for her daughter who is possessed by a demon.  Jesus has been exercising demons since the beginning of his public ministry and he understands “binding Satan” to be an important part of his work, but it is a work he has only done for his people.  The woman begs and pleads, but what does Jesus do?  Nothing.  He does not even respond to her.  He ignores her.  Eventually, some of Jesus’ followers become so annoyed by her they urge Jesus to get rid of her.  Jesus answers them, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  He cannot be bothered with her because she is not one of his people. 

Hatred and bigotry are not new, but they certainly are on our minds as we gather to worship this morning.  My heart broke last weekend watching what transpired in Charlottesville while I was on vacation in Montana.  I can tell you what happened in our Commonwealth deeply affected the people I met in that state. 

I look for much good to come out of what happened.  At every baptism we renew our covenant with God to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to respect the dignity of every human being.  Seeing the opposite of this vow on display makes concrete for me who I am and who I choose to be.  I reject the hatred and bigotry we saw last weekend and embrace more firmly and with deeper conviction the vows I made at baptism.  In one way or another, I sense the overwhelming majority of our citizens doing the same thing.  Our common commitment to equality and decency has grown by leaps and bounds by witnessing its opposite.

Earlier this summer a family was invited to come to our church.  It was Memorial Day weekend, so we had a cookout and pony rides.  St. Paul’s was for them St. Paul’s – a place where they were welcomed and made to feel at home and the mother told me they would be coming back – and they have.  For the purposes of understanding this story, you need to know the family is Pilipino.  The mother saw where another church in town was advertizing a Vacation Bible School open to everyone in the community.  When she went to sign up her children, the person at the registration desk asked her bluntly, “Are you really her for the bible school, or do you just want free babysitting for all your kids?”  Another mother said, “Keep those Mexican kids away from my children.” 

I tell you this story not to shame that church, not too prove hatred and bigotry are alive and well right here in Suffolk, and certainly not to embarrass the family.  I tell you this story because when I heard it I said to myself, this will not happen here at St. Paul’s.  My own spirit became more generous and more determined to welcome every single person who comes to this place.  We are not privileged members of an exclusive country club admitting only those people who are “like” us.  We are children of God, deeply loved and profoundly forgiven.  And through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we are uniquely empowered to share God’s love and forgiveness with every person, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, or sexual orientation.

And speaking of God’s love, let’s get back to Jesus, who on this day is not doing a very good job of manifesting it.  He ignores the Canaanite mother’s pleas for help and refuses even to acknowledge her presence by speaking to her.  But she will not be dismissed so easily.  She kneels before Jesus and cries, “Lord, help me.”  Finally he addresses her, but in the meanest way possible: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Wow!  So in Jesus’ mind, Israelites are sheep and children and Canaanites are dogs.  What he says is as offensive as using the “N” word is to us today and, sadly, it shows us just how deeply entrenched Jesus is in the mindset of his day.  Now, some preachers will not see it this way.  They will say Jesus is only testing her because they cannot accept he had such an abhorrent personality trait.  After all, Jesus is supposed to be perfect.  But this is not a test.  As embarrassing as it is to say, this is just Jesus being ugly.

But thank God the Canaanite woman is not finished.  She responds, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”  Jesus is stunned. Instantly he sees past her ethnicity and recognizes in her something uniting them as human beings.  He sees her faith.  He understands the Canaanite woman’s motherly concern for her daughter is no different from an Israelite woman’s motherly concern.  Jesus heals the girl in that very moment and never again will differentiate between those from the nation of Israel and those outside of it. 

Jesus changes in a profound way, and so can we.  He forsakes his cultural heritage of bigotry and hatred for something grand and beautiful – the kingdom of God where love, peace, and righteousness reign.  Each of our readings this morning highlights God’s desire to welcome and embrace all people and all nations.  First Israel, and now we as Christians have been called not for special, exclusive blessings and rarified status above all others, but to be witness bearers of God’s love for all people. 

While we respect the dignity of every human being, we denounce every ideology and any movement seeking to make one group or class superior to another.  We will speak out against any and every effort to diminish the potential of human flourishing for all people and act if necessary to insure equal rights and equal opportunity for all.  

For me, it begins right here, right now, in this place.  St. Paul’s will continue to be an expression of what we know and hold true about God’s love for every person.

A Tabernacle of Guppies in a Fishbowl

Akron, OH is blessed with a wonderful array of metropolitan parks and as a boy I loved the opportunity to visit them and hike their rugged trails.  My favorite park, far and away, is called Hampton Hills, which encompasses land above the Cuyahoga River valley and the hillside terrain, which falls down to the river’s level.  The five-mile hiking trail forms one big loop.  The first section follows a meandering stream, which it crisscrosses several times using wooden log bridges that would make Indiana Jones squeamish.  From here, the path makes its way up a steep ravine and across a lush meadow before following a circuitous route back to the parking lot. 

On summer afternoons my mother drove me, a friend, and our Irish Setter to Hampton Hills and we never came back half as clean and dry as when we went – especially the dog!  I was fascinated by the park, and still am.  Tree trunks fallen across ravines waited like a tightrope to be walked.  Steep banks of dirt carved out by flash floods begged to be scaled.  A variety of critters scurrying about longed not to be spotted.

But it was the stream I loved the most.  It was alive.  It’s gentle current carried a small twig from here to there and as I watched I imagined myself small and piloting it as my vessel.  Water spiders darted about.  Guppies swam to and fro.  There was a turtle or tadpole or frog every few steps.   And all of it worked to make Hampton Hills a magical place for me when I was growing up.

One day I had a thought, the kind of thought only an eight-year-old boy can imagine: Why not bring a part of Hampton Hills home with me.  I begged my mother to let me capture some guppies and, after much badgering, she gave in.  Little Keith, armed with an empty coffee can and all the skill of a deep-sea fisherman, splashed and thrashed up and down the stream and managed to catch (as I recall it) four guppies! 

I remember the ride home holding on my lap a precious tin can filled with all the wonder of Hampton Hills.  When we got home I emptied its contents into a goldfish bowl and watched my tiny friends swim back and forth in their new home.  I remember realizing just how dirty stream water is.  I reasoned, as only a child with no knowledge of environmental impact studies can reason, the fish would be much happier swimming in some nice clean water from our kitchen faucet.  To this day I don’t know which got to the guppies first; either the fluoride treated water or the boring environment of the glass bowl, but my fish survived only a day or two.  Even if they had lived, I realized my guppies swimming in grungy water paled to the thrill of going to the stream itself. 

There may be nothing more human than attempting to capture something wonderful and mysterious, but it the process only creating something describable, manageable, and certain.

I think about my experience of Hampton Hills whenever I read the story of the Transfiguration.  Jesus takes three of his disciples up a mountain to pray.  At some point, he is transfigured before their eyes and the disciples observe him in his undimmed, heavenly glory.  Suddenly two figures from long, long ago stand with Jesus: Moses (the giver of the law) and Elijah (the founder of the prophetic movement).  One of Webster’s definitions of ‘mystery’ is “something incomprehensible and awe-inspiring.”  The Transfiguration is true mystery in this sense.  It is completely different from anything else in experience.  It is wonderful and glorious.  It is beyond words. 

In his classic 1917 book The Idea of the Holy, Rudolph Otto analyzes various accounts of people’s deep experience of God in order to discern some common threads.  He discovers no matter who the person and no matter what the experience, every encounter with God is marked by “tremendous and fascinating mystery.”  It is an experience of a Reality that is “wholly other”, beyond human fabrication, conceptual control, and measurability.  The experience evokes in the person utter astonishment and fear; not fear as in terror, but rather fear as compelling reverence.  Otto calls it Holy Awe.  People who experience this Reality sense how finite they are in the presence of God’s majesty.  It is not unusual for a person simultaneously to be repelled from God while at the same time being drawn close, entranced and captivated by the mystery.  This, according to Otto, is how people react to an encounter with God.

Robert Frost said all religions start with a lump in the throat – a burning bush or a descending dove, an encounter with mystery.  Frederick Buechner writes “through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turning of their lives, most people have caught glimmers at least of what the saints are blinded by.”  I have not had a blinding experience of God’s glory, as the saints and subjects of Otto’s research have, but I have had moments where I have caught a glimmer of it.  I imagine the same is true for most of us here this morning.   Buechner says, “we are all more mystics than we choose to let on, even to ourselves.” 

At the Transfiguration, Peter is the first to speak in the presence of mystery.  “It is good for us to be here,” he says.  “If you wish, we can make three booths to capture this momentous occasion.”  Now a booth is a kind of tabernacle or shrine and Peter suggests the wonder, the glory, and the mystery of what he perceives can be contained so it can be preserved. 

Well, nothing can contain the glory of God, but this will not stop us from trying.  How many people in organized religion hold their particular angle on the Mystery is more important than the Mystery itself?  In reality, every system of ethics, every institution, every dogma, every ritual, every scripture, and every program of social action can become little more than a fishbowl of guppies if a person tries to say it is the Mystery and treats it as such.

I knew my fishbowl was not the stream and I would never attempt to convince anyone it was.  For me, its value rested in the way it pointed back to its source.  A person who has never been to Hampton Hills could never look at my fishbowl and sense the wonder of its origin.  You have to experience the stream for yourself in order to appreciate the dim glimmer of glory in the bowl.  You cannot force tabernacles on a person and expect miracles.  Each of us has to experience God’s mystery for ourselves.

To those of us who would try to erect a tabernacle to the Mystery, the cloud comes to overshadow us, as it did Peter.  God’s voice is heard, “This is my son.  Listen to him.”  And as they leave the mountain Jesus says to Peter, “Don’t tell anyone about what you have seen until after I have been raised from the dead.”  In other words, don’t try to speak of the mystery of God.  You can’t.  Live with it for a while.  Hasty words will not capture it anymore than erecting a booth.

Peter never did get to build his tabernacle.  Just as well.  After all of his ups and downs something more wonderful happens.  He himself becomes a tabernacle to God.  It comes as a result of living with Christ and following Christ.  Meister Eckhart, a medieval German mystic, describes it this way:

The bodily food we take in is changed into us, but the spiritual food we receive changes us into itself; therefore divine love is not taken into us… but divine love takes us into itself, and we are made one with it.

My prayer for each of us is that as God takes us into God’s mystery we will not attempt to make the Mystery one with us, but rather we will allow ourselves to become one with it.  I pray that your life will become a tabernacle of God’s love always pointing others back to its source.