The Target

 

Matthew 25:14-30

Proper 28 / Year A

What is your goal in life?  What is the target at which you aim and what exactly is the bullseye you are trying to hit?  If you had to prioritize everything important to you, what would be at the top of the list; the one thing from which all others get their orders?  If you can’t answer these questions, by the end of my sermon you will have a suggestion to ponder.

But first, let me offer why it is helpful to have an aim:

·    Without an aim you risk wasting your life away. 

·    If you drift through life you may find yourself with many regrets.

·    An aim will help you make good decisions and give guidance for life’s biggest questions.

·    Knowing your ultimate goal helps you to be the best possible version of you; to maximize who you can be.

I spent some time this week reading student essays speaking to this question.  I noticed each student has a vision for what he or she wants to do in life – become a doctor or a teacher or research scientist.  And each student articulates why he or she wants to become something specific – to help people or to make the world a better place or to follow in the footsteps of an admired person, for example.  But no student wrote about how he or she wants to navigate life in and beyond a career.  For these young people the job itself is the ultimate aim. 

As we grow older we begin to sense we are more than what we do – much more, in fact.  We learn who we are and what we do needs to be grounded in something significant in order to give it meaning.  The actor and comedian Jim Carrey once said in an interview, “I hope everybody might get rich and famous and have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know for themselves this is not the answer.”

This morning we hear Jesus tell his parable about the Talents – money a master entrusts to his servants while he is away.  Each gets a differing amount – ten, five, and one – according to his abilities.  Two put the money to use and make a handsome return for the master.  One buries his resource and, upon the return, hands it back.  The master who empowered the servant is not pleased with his lack of effort. 

Two obvious questions arise from this story.  First, what are your talents?  And second, what are you doing with them?  But the parable also raises a question about your ultimate aim.  Two servants strive to take advantage of an opportunity in order to please their master.  One seeks not to disappoint his master by losing what has been entrusted to him.  The first two hear these words, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” while the third receives harsh condemnation.

What might your goal in life be?  What might be the bullseye?  Your number one priority?  Allow me to suggest it should be this: Live your life in such a way that at the last, when you come to your “heavenly reward”, the words you will hear will be “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

To hear these words you don’t have to be the most talented person in the room.  You don’t have to be the most ambitious or the most successful.  You merely have to be good and faithful. 

I came across this prayer in one of my old devotional books I use for Monday night’s Evening Prayer:

If any word of mine has caused on tear

    from other eyes to flow;

If I have caused one shadow to appear

    on any face I know;

If but one thoughtless word of mine has stung

    some lovely heart today;

Or if the word I’ve left unsaid has wrung

    a single sigh, I pray

Thou tender Heart of Love, forgive the sin.

    Help me to keep in mind

That if at last I would Thy “Well done” win,

    in word as well as deed I must be kind.

This prayer reminds me the goal of being good and faithful is not the same as being perfect. 

The New Testament word for sin is hamartia and it means “missing the mark” as when an archer’s arrow does not hit the target.  Now there are two ways an archer can miss.  One is by being off aim.  The arrow goes left or right or over the top.  You are trying to hit the mark, but every now and then you miss.  Such is the human condition.  The other way to miss is by not pulling back the bowstring far enough to get the arrow to the target.  It is not a question of aim, but of effort and intention, both of which are lacking. 

I guarantee you the two good and faithful servants missed the target more than once in their lives, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.  The sin of the one talent servant is the sin of not trying.  He is condemned because his life lacks effort and intention. 

What is your goal in life and with how much diligence are you working at it? 

Renewed Beginnings

 

Matthew 25:1-13

Proper 27 / Year A

A shout goes out, “The bridegroom is coming.  At last the long wait is over.  It is time for the party to begin.  Trim your lamps and come on inside.”  What a beautiful image for us to ponder as we celebrate on this first Sunday of in-person worship in thirty-seven weeks!  It has been an exhausting process, but I am so proud of how each and every one of us has made it through to this point in time.  Yes, we are back together, but we are nowhere near being out of the woods.  It feels like we are at that moment in the story when the bridesmaids awaken and begin to check on their supplies of lamp oil.  Do I have enough left in me to make it to end of this strange time?

Like most of Jesus’ parables, the one we hear today has some odd elements to it.  Why can’t the maidens with oil share with those who are out?  Why can’t two people share a lamp by walking side by side?  Where would you go in 1^st century Palestine to purchase oil at midnight?  Why must the doors to the celebration be shut?  And perhaps most puzzling is the teaching Jesus associates with the story.  In what appears to be a cautionary tale about preparedness, Jesus warns, “Keep awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  Keep awake?  Wait, all ten bridesmaids fell asleep.  If the point of the story is to remain watchful, even vigilant, why should any of the maidens gain entrance to the wedding banquet?  After all, all ten dozed off.  As I like to say, it is Jesus’ story and he gets to tell it any way he wants.

Here is some good news.  First, unlike the parable, you don’t have to have all the oil you need on you right now to make it through this pandemic.  Over the last eight months I have experienced days I refer to as “low tide.”  These were the times I felt overwhelmed by the immenseness of what we are facing; days when I acutely felt the loss of so many things; days when there was no oil left in my lamp.  But those days didn’t last long.  The tide came back in; the oil was replenished.  Yes, we have a long way to go, but once again we are on the journey together.  We can support each other and we can be together to receive God’s grace through word and sacrament.

More good news:  The Bridegroom is here… in this place… at this moment.  In-person worship is not going to be like what we experienced before all of this.  You must wear a mask.  You can’t sing.  You can’t pass the Peace.  Heck, you can’t even sit in your favorite pew.  Still, the Bridegroom is here, but you will have to be open and watchful to detect the presence of the Holy One. 

During the Sundays of what we are calling the Season of Covid-tide, I have sensed God present in new and powerful ways.  I sense it in the joy shared between the reader, the Altar Guild person, and the Vestry member as they connect for the first time in months.  I feel it in the colorful light streaming through our beautiful stained glass windows.  And I feel it very powerfully as I sit and listen to the organ.  No, we can’t sing, but I suspect we will find the Bridegroom speaking to us through the organ’s voice. 

I have learned something through the process of celebrating spiritual communion.  Yes, the words of the liturgy and the acts I perform are the same, but there is something absolutely essential about the process of administration.  Without the ability to give the elements to you, it felt a little bit like I was going through the motions.  I can’t wait to look each of you in the eye and say, “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.”

In today’s first reading we hear Joshua say to the people, “Choose this day whom you will serve.”  His directive comes at a turning point in Israel’s history.  They have entered the Promised Land, banished their enemies, settled into their homes, and planted on their properties.  It is the dawn of a new day and an appropriate time to chart one’s course into the future.

While the election results are not yet certified, it appears the Republican Party can retain control of the Senate and has strengthen its minority position in the House, while a Democrat will occupy the White House.  If these results stand, it suggests to me we are going to have to come together, find places of unity, and work together on projects that will bring us together rather than drive us apart.  As one person said, in America there are no red states or blue states, only The United States.  If this truly is the dawn of a new day, each one of us will have to choose how we will engage it. 

Joshua gathers the people at Shechem, at the same spot he had gathered them years early in a ceremony where they agreed to the terms of the Covenant God offered to them.  Now they gather again to reaffirm their fidelity to this agreement with the Most High.  In fact, scholars believe the people of Israel gathered at Shechem every year hereafter for a covenant renewal ceremony.  We citizens of the United States have similar traditions and practices aimed at helping us remember who we are and what we value as a people.  On July 4 we celebrate our founding.  On the fourth Thursday in November we give thanks for our blessings.  And on the first Tuesday in November we participate in free, fair, and open elections.

Every four years we participate in a general election and vote for a president.  In so doing, we renew our commitment to the American dream and pledge to uphold every person’s right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.  When Joshua calls on the people to make a choice, it is for each person a very personal response with tremendous public implications.  Each of us is in the same position today.  Each of us must choose how we are going to participate in our democracy and how we will respond to one another - particularly those people whose vision for our country is remarkably different from yours. 

A friend posted a rather poignant message yesterday: “You do not belong to a donkey nor do you belong to an elephant.  You belong to the Lamb!”  My hope and prayer is this is how we can be in relationship with one another here at St. Paul’s.  We are the Lamb’s.  We await the Bridegroom.  And we come together once again to worship and pray with one another in this beautiful and sacred space.  Trim your lamps.  The doors are open.

 

The Triumphant

 

All Saints' Day

I have officiated the Burial Office seventy-nine times in the thirteen years and one month I have served as the Rector of St. Paul’s Church.  To be honest, I don’t remember some of the people for whom I offered these sacred prayers.  Others I think of often.  One was a young husband and father, another a young mother and wife.  One was a brother.  One was a son whose father I buried a year later.  One was a curmudgeon, another was a four-foot/eleven-inch cyclone of energy in the parish who constituently reminded me I would miss her when she was gone… and she was right! 

Those who were active in parish life each made a unique and irreplaceable contribution to our work and mission.  Some sang in the choir or served on the Vestry.  A few were faithful to our food pantry ministry.  One used a backhoe to install the vaults of our columbarium and a barbeque grill to roast the lamb and chicken for our Agape Meals.  Some were second or third or even fourth generation members of the parish, faithfully following in the footsteps of their ancestors’ witness of service to our church and to our community.

About a third of the burials involved a loved one of a person who most likely is watching today’s live stream.  They flood your memories often and especially on this All Saints’ Day.  You can see their faces, hear their voices, and perhaps even remember the feel of their touch.  You have a memory giving rise to a smile on your face or maybe even makes you laugh out loud.  You have a memory bringing tears to your eyes.  Perhaps you have a memory of something left unfinished or something you wish could be undone. 

Seventy-nine feels like a big number, but it pales in comparison to the burials held here before I began to serve as your rector.  And it pales in comparison to your loved ones who were buried from a different parish or in accordance to a different tradition.  “All those we love but see no longer” is an incalculable number.

This year I miss our All Saints’ tradition of writing names on streamers of paper and suspending them above the Chancel.  As the streamers move and dance in the air it is as if the presence of all those we love but see no longer is revealed.  They are with us and we sense they are much, much closer to us than we imagine.

Our Eucharistic liturgy invites us to “join our voices with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven.”  It is a powerful reminder more is happening in worship than can be experienced through the senses - who we see and what we hear.  Christian tradition speaks of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant.  The Church Militant is comprised of those of us who are currently engaged in the struggle to make the Kingdom of God the kingdom of this world.  The Church Triumphant consists of those people who fought the good fight and God has exalted to heavenly glory.  As we gather at the Lord’s Table the entire Church – Militant and Triumphant – is always present. 

Every time we say or sing the Sanctus something amazing is happening.  We join our voices with the voices of the Church Triumphant in a single chorus of praise proclaiming God’s holiness and glory.  Our voices are joined the voices of Billy, George, Peter, Esta, John, Eva, Doc Thomas, Art (although he might be carping about why more people are not in attendance), Stephanie, Vivian, Francis, Walter, Betty Anne, Shirley, Marie, Henrietta, Vince, Jack, Johnny, Curtis, Sue, Connie, Tom, Esther, Matthew, Carol, George, Wynter, and so many, many others. 

It seems to me All Saints’ Day, like Easter, is a day of respite from our sense of grief and loss.  On Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and so many other days of personal and public remembrance, we experience an acute sense of who we have lost.  Yes, time heals (to a certain degree), but scars marking loss remain and prove naggingly resilient and painful to the touch.  But Easter and especially All Saints’ are different.  Today is a day when we live into the hope of our faith, when we allow the doctrine and teachings of the Church (based on the unbreakable promises of our Savior) to sink in… and sink in deep.  Today is a day when each of us acknowledges the loss of seventy-nine dear souls (or whatever the number is for you), yet embraces or grasps or clings to or rests and relaxes in the knowledge the Triumphant exist in a bliss beyond our imagining, are nearer to us than we can ever know, and one day (guided by our Good Shepherd) we will be led to a place of reunion with all those we love but see no longer.

A Complex Word & a Simple Commandment

 

Matthew 22:34-46

Proper 25 / Year A

Confucius observed life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.  Tax forms and outlet mall parking lots are just two examples.  It just seems we humans are wired to make life more challenging.  Social theorists have identified something they call a “complexity bias”, which is our tendency to focus on the 10% of a problem or situation that is difficult, while ignoring the 90% that is doable.  On their blog site. Marc and Angel Chernoff, authors and life coaches, identify twenty things many of us do to make our lives way more complicated than they need to be:

·    We try to do too much

·    We try to control too much

·    We lose our patience and our poise

·    We respond with negativity

·    We seek constant validation from others

·    We spend too much time with toxic people

·    We let the haters get to us

·    We feed into the drama

·    We worry constantly about our problems

·    We hold on to tight, to everything

·    We hesitate every step of the way

·    We focus on every time and place other than right here, right now

·    We try to cut corners

·    We avoid the tough and necessary conversations

·    We lose track of our priorities

·    We procrastinate

·    We have far more baggage than we need

·    We let old mistakes live on in our hearts and minds

·    We give up on ourselves too soon

·    We compare ourselves to others who seem better off

If more than a few of these seem to describe you, chances are good you are making your life more complicated than it needs to be.

To be sure, religion is not immune to complexity bias.  There are 613 different commands in the Law of Moses.  That is a lot.  The number of corollaries emerging from them over the years becomes astronomical and oppressive by Jesus’ day.  A website by Christian Assemblies International states there are 1,050 commandments in the New Testament (most are statements in the imperative) and breaks them down into 69 categories with headings like…

·    7 things to abstain from

·    7 things to avoid

·    3 things to ask for

·    2 things to awake to

·    74 “be’s”

·    30 “be not’s”

·    14 “beware’s”

·    3 things to cast away

·    6 things to honor

I could go on (and on and on and on), but you get the idea.  Just as with life, there is a pull to make religion more complicated than it needs to be.  It is so refreshing and freeing to hear Jesus distill all of it down to two basic commandments: Love God and Love your neighbor.  As one theologian observed, everything else in the bible after this is merely commentary. 

“Love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  What does this look like in practice?  Well, it certainly is not love as in a teenage crush.  It manifests itself through adoration, worship, honoring, and obeying.   “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  What does this look like in practice?  In part, it has something to do with valuing every person as much as you value yourself.  How do I want to be treated?  This is how I am to treat other people.  Want to I need from others?  This is what I am to offer.  How do I want my dignity to be affirmed?  This is how I am to respond to every person I know and every person I meet and every person who is influenced by my actions.

Wendall Berry, the poet and farmer, rephrased the Golden Rule in this way: “Treat the people downstream the way you want the people upstream to treat you.”  That is a wonderful image for want it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

I read an interesting article this week by Joan Cook on the subject of post-traumatic growth.  Cook is an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and in the article she describes the realities making hyper-stress the normative experience in our society today: the pandemic, the coarse and corrosive political climate, natural disasters associated with climate change, and on and on.  Cook details the adverse affects these things can have both on individuals as well as our society as a whole, but notes “trauma can also positively transform people and leave them with a renewed, reinvigorated perspective on and purpose in life.”

Writing about a 1990 study of middle-aged adults going through bereavement, Cook says positive changes emanating from post-traumatic growth can include “improved relationships, more empathetic feelings and compassionate behaviors, additional coping strengths or mastery muscles, living more in line with one’s values and an increased connection to spirituality or God, as well as a deeper, sweeter appreciation of life.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we emerged from these strange times better for the experience.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we found a way to value simplicity rather than complexity; basic decency and goodness rather than vitriol; kindness and gentleness rather than violence; generosity and helpfulness rather than self-preservation and self-promotion; godliness and humility rather than arrogance.  I don’t know if it will happen or not, but one thing I do know is this: it can start with me and it can start with you.  It can start by each of us refocusing on what is the most important commandment of all: Love God and love your neighbor.

 

Seeing the Holiness of God

 

Exodus 33:12-23

Proper 24 / Year A

I had just graduated from high school and a classmate was throwing a party at his home to celebrate.  Now, the thing you have to know is this friend had an older sister who was a senior when we were lowly sophomores and she was drop-dead gorgeous – the kind of angelic being we put on a pedestal and revered from afar, but could never approach.  Well, at the party I was standing with Ward Ballard at the dining room table, filling our plates with food.  The older sister appeared out of nowhere with one of her equally spectacular girlfriends, looking to get some get some food from the other side of the table.  Try to imagine it as a movie scene filmed in slow motion with sweeping music behind it.  Then, the unthinkable happened.  The sister looked up from her gathering, looked across the table, looked us right in the eyes, smiled her beautiful smile, and said, “Hello.”  It was as if a goddess from above had noticed us and validated our existence in the universe.  “Hello”, my friend Ward and I said in response, but we were so dumbstruck (or awestruck) neither of us could think of a single thing more to say.  So then and there, in the presence of these two heavenly beings, Ward turned to me and said, “So Keith, a-ba-a-ba-a-ba-ba-ba!”  I have never laughed so hard in all my life.

That memory came back to me as I pondered this morning’s reading from the Book of Exodus.  Moses seeks assurance the Lord will journey with him and his people.  “My presence will go with you,” the Lord responds.  But Moses needs more.  He wants to see the Lord face-to-face.  He wants to encounter God’s full glory.  Now this is not a passing fancy or a mere curiosity.  For Moses, it is a passionate desire.  Most of us, I suspect, want to perceive how God is at work in the world.  We want to know what God would have us do.  We have certain needs and concerns we turn over to God.  But I have meet very few people in life we want to “see” God eye-to-eye, face-to-face.  Perhaps it is because we imagine God does not have a physical ‘body’ that can be seen.  Perhaps it is because we sense we are unworthy of such an audience and honor.  Or maybe perhaps it does not occur to us this should be or could be a spiritual goal.

But it is a spiritual goal for the author of the 99^th Psalm, which we read just moments ago.  One of six psalms known as “Enthronement Psalms”, it proclaims the Lord is King.  It is a carefully constructed piece of poetry composed for four stanzas, each with three lines.  It mentions “the Lord” seven times and uses a pronoun to refer to the Lord seven additional times (seven being the Hebrew number for perfection and completion).  And three times, in three different ways the psalmist calls on us to proclaim the greatness of the Lord for the Lord is holy.

Holiness, something wholly other.  The poet grounds the Lord’s holiness in three things.  First, the Lord is King, reigning over all creation.  Next, unlike earthly kings who may rule out of self-interest, show favoritism, and impose tyranny, the Lord’s holy Kingship is marked by justice and righteousness.  Finally, the psalmist reflects on how our holy King elects to be in relationship with the human family in order to ensure justice and righteousness in human affairs.  We are to seek the Lord who sits enthroned.  We are to bow down before the Lord’s footstool.  We are to worship the Lord upon his holy hill (Jerusalem). 

The 99th Psalm calls us to reorient our spirituality from being me-centered to being God-centered; from being me-focused to being God-focused; from looking at ourselves to looking at God.  

Which brings us back to Moses.  He wants to do more than perceive God, he actually wants to see God.  Once God understands this the Lord tells him it simply is not possible.  “You cannot look on my glory and live.”  So God tells Moses to stand in a cleft in a rock and says God’s hand will cover Moses as God walks by.  And once the Lord is past, God’s hand will be lifted and Moses will be allowed to see God’s back as the Lord walks away.  While still awe-inspiring, this experience will not be so overwhelming as to be deadly. 

I was thinking about Michelangelo’s famous painting The Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel.  It is the work depicting God as an old man reaching out his hand to a reclining Adam who is reaching out his hand to God and their fingers almost touch.  In the painting Michelangelo has Adam looking squarely into the eyes of God.  It suggests as originally created we were made to be in complete communion with God, but once sin is introduced into the world, artists like Michelangelo portray Adam as walking away from God, head bowed in shame, with an arm shielding his face in attempt to prevent God from seeing him and to negate any possibility he might look at God. 

I’ve told you before of an experience I had several years ago when I was a chaplain for a senior high youth conference.  I led devotional times and helped campers prepare for evening worship, which they led.  After a session where I introduced the young people to C.S. Lewis’s book The Great Divorce (in which fictional characters go to heaven but opt to leave because other things are more important to them than meeting God), I worked with a dozen campers to plan the evening service.  We decided each person would spend to time pondering what they believe heaven will be like and what about it they are most looking forward to about it.  The plan was to have them share their thoughts with the entire camp during the evening service.  They did a great job, but one thing struck me.  They talked about things like playing their favorite sports and never getting tired, but not one of the young people mentioned anything about meeting God or worshipping God or adoring God.  Heaven, for them, was a me-centered place.  Perhaps we can chalk it up to youth, still, I suspect many of us want heaven to be what we want with little consideration of what it will be like to be in the presence of a holy God who makes us go “a-ba-a-ba-a-ba-ba-ba!”

When Moses asks to see God’s glory he is in what is know as “The Tent of Meeting,” which Moses erected outside of the Hebrew camp.  It is where he would go to speak to the Lord while his people tarried in the Sinai wilderness.  In response to his request, the Lord instructs Moses to carve out two stone tablets.  You will recall Moses smashed the originals when he came down from the mountain and found his brother leading his people in the worship of a golden calf.  So Moses does his chiseling and carries the stones back up the mountain (not an enviable assignment!).  And there on the mountain the Lord passes before Moses and Moses bows down and worships.  The Lord promises to be “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”   It becomes God’s covenant promise to all people through Moses. 

Does seeking God’s glory make a difference?  You bet it does.  It leads to the Lord defining God’s relationship with the human family, a promise which cannot be broken.  And it changes Moses.  His face becomes radiant and as a result his brother and his people become fearful in his presence.  They now have the “a-ba-a-ba-a-ba-ba-bas” when they are around him.  But this is not Moses’ desired outcome, so he begins to veil his face in their presence.  Maybe in another sermon I will explore what it means to withhold some of your personal experience of the Holy One, but (as they say in business meetings with newsprint) “Let put that idea in the ‘parking lot.’” 

Here is what I take away from today’s readings:

· God is awesome and worthy of your interest and pursuit.

· This pursuit will change you in ways you cannot imagine.

· Your pursuit of God’s glory in your life will have a profound impact on those around you: your spouse and family, your friends, your church, your community, your nation, your world, and even all of creation. 

· If there is nothing in all creation more worthy than the holy Lord, then there is nothing more worthy of our interest and our pursuit.

Clothed in Christ

 

Matthew 22:1-14

Proper 23 / Year A

The ending of the 2013 Superman movie Man of Steel created controversy among diehard fans as well as the production team.  Superman, the ultimate good-guy, defeats Zod, his nemesis, by snapping his neck before the villain can kill thousands upon thousands of people.  Most movies are previewed by a test audience and those who saw this ending did not feel good about it.  Superman simply does not kill.  Christopher Nolan, who produced the movie, argued for an ending where Zod is banished, rather than killed.  But Zack Snyder, the director, was steadfast on the neck-snap and eventually even got DC Comics (who own the rights to Superman) to buy in.  Well, to say the least, not all fans or all professionals got the ending they wanted and this happens with more movies than you might imagine.

By their very nature, parables are meant to shock, to startle, and/or to surprise.  I like to say they are Jesus’ stories and he gets to tell them any way he wants to tell them.  Well, sort of.  When Luke records the parable we just heard read from Matthew he omits the last part of the story where the individual not wearing a wedding robe is bound and cast out of the banquet.  Sometimes the fans get their say, but today we will consider the original and darker version.

The king in Jesus’ story is a fascinating character.  He is incredibly generous (throwing a lavish wedding feast for his son, inviting guests, reminding them twice it is time to come, and inviting new guests when the original invitees refuse to attend) and he is volatile (responding to insult and violence with lethal force and banishing to torment a last-minute attendee who is not wearing the appropriate garment).  Given the king represents God, Jesus presents the Heavenly Father as deserving both our love and our respect.

The original guests are a curious lot.  Who wouldn’t accept an invitation from the king?  Who wouldn’t want to attend a feast?  Who wouldn’t want to celebrate?  Some of my favorite times in ministry and family life have been around the weddings of people with whom I am close.  And yet this group of folks, honored by the king by virtue of an invitation, elect to return to the drudgery of daily life instead.  And as if this is not bad enough, they attack the king’s messengers and put them to death.  In Jesus’ story this group represents the people of the original covenant who were called to be God’s light to world, but failed over and over again to live up to this high purpose.

The new invitees represent you and me.  Our group consists of people who are good and people who are bad.  God’s new invitation does not discriminate.  It is open to everyone.  We have been invited to a feast Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven.  You don’t merit this invitation, you don’t earn it, you simply respond to it. 

But what about the gentleman without a robe?  He responds, but this alone is not good enough.  Why?  Given the last-second nature of the invitation, it seems unfair to expect him to have the right clothing on.  And yet, everyone else at the banquet manages to have on a wedding robe.  In fact, it is possible the king even provides the robes for the guests, making the one single act of defiance even more egregious. 

But what exactly does the robe represent?  Given the allegorical nature of the parable, understanding the meaning of the robe is critical to understanding the meaning of Jesus’ story.

Throughout scripture the image of clothing is used to describe one’s virtues and values.   Job said, “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban” (29:13).  Paul wrote this to the Church in Galatia: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ” (3:27-28).  Being clothed in Christ creates a new identity for each of us and a new community for all of us.

Early Christians practiced baptism by immersion.  As candidates entered the water they stripped off their clothes, symbolizing nothing of their old life remained.  As they rose out of the water they were given a new white robe to wear, symbolizing their new life in Christ, their new identity.  Over the course of the rest of their lives, these baptized followers grew more and more into the image of Christ.   

In Genesis 1, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.”  Image and likeness.  Allyn Smith Jr., and Orthodox priest, writes, “Image is our permanent potential for communion with God, likeness is the actual communion...  We are already in the image of God, yet this will not be fully realized until we grow into God’s likeness.”

What does the robe in Jesus’ story represent?  All of this.  It represents Christ and our desire be like Christ.  It represents our willingness to be who God created us to be and the effort we make to make it happen. 

At baptism we state our desire to turn away from Wickedness, from the corrupting influences of the world, and from living for self alone.  We commit ourselves to the teaching of Scripture, the fellowship of believers, the sacramental life of the Church, and the life of prayer.  We promise to resist evil, and should we sin, we promise to repent and return to the Lord.  We promise to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ through what we say and through what we do.  We promise to love our neighbors as ourselves and to seek Christ in all people.  We promise to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.  This is how we grow into God’s likeness.  This is the robe we put on when we accept the invitation to be at the table of God’s feast.

And given this perspective, Jesus’ parable comes a little more into focus.  The person without the robe accepts the invitation, but never enters into the new life it offers.  He refuses what everyone else at the feast embraces.  He is the living embodiment of the old adage sitting in a Church does not make you a Christian just as sitting in a garage does not make you a car. 

This is the third Sunday in a row we have heard a parable about rebellion and judgment.  Two weeks ago it was a parable of the two sons whose father asked them to work in the vineyard.  One refused at first, but then went to work.  The other accepted, but then reneged.  Last week we heard the parable of the tenants who lease a vineyard and then refuse to give the produce to the owner at the time of the harvest.  These are dark stories to be sure.  This is not the shepherd going out to rescue the lone lost sheep or the physician who comes to heal the sick.  These are the stories John the Baptist must have anticipated when he proclaimed one is coming who will lay the axe to the root of every tree not bearing good fruit. 

The bishop called for a meeting of the deans last Monday and her practice is for us to begin our time by reading scripture and having conversation about it.  The passage she put before us was today’s reading.  One of my colleagues made an interesting observation.  The king, he said, commands the man without the robe to be bound hand and foot, then throw into the outer darkness, which is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  And as unpleasant as this sounds, my colleague noted it is not a place of death.  The man will have an opportunity to reflect on what has happened, to repent, and to amend his ways.  It occurred to me a place of judgment is not necessarily a place without hope. 

And this is so important because as Jesus’ parables speak to us today we realize how they speak about us.  We can see ourselves in each of the characters and in all of the elements.  There is that within us to be praised and also that which needs to be condemned.  We are at times faithful and at times foolish.  If Jesus told a parable with you or with me as a central character, sometimes we would be the hero, while at other times we would play the villain.  But once we are clothed in Christ we begin a journey toward Christ’s likeness.  It is not like a driving trip where you get frequent millage markers telling you how far you are from your destination.  Our progress toward the likeness we desire is uneven - sometimes coming in leaps and bounds while at others demonstrating amazing resistance to change. 

But here we are.  This is what we are.  And guess what, we are invited to join the Kingdom of Heaven and clothed for the celebration.  The party has begun and it will never end.

The Spirituality of a New Locker Room

 

Some years ago a small town high school with a long tradition of winning football started to slump and struggled through several seasons with losing records.  To turn things around the school hired a new football coach: Dick Butkus, the hall-of-fame linebacker from the Chicago Bears who is arguably one of the toughest players ever to put on shoulder pads.  Coach Butkus had his work cut out for him.  At every practice he told the players the game is 90% mental and he told them they had to stop thinking like losers.  They had to think like winners and practice like winners and act like winners if, in fact, they wanted to be winners. 

To help facilitate this change, the school boosters raised a ton of money to build the team a brand new, state of the art, locker room facility.  During summer two-a-day practices, Coach Butkus took the team in to the new facility to show it to them.  The boys were in awe, to say the least.  “Take a good look around,” Butkus said to them, “because I won’t let you back in here again until you earn it.”  The boys’ jaws dropped, their eyes about fell out of their sockets, and a stunned silence fell over the team. 

Earn it?  Was he kidding?  No, Butkus was serious.  This is how he explained his thinking: “When something like this is just given to you, it doesn’t mean as much as when you have to work for it.”  And so for days the boys did nothing but talk about stepping it up… at practice, in the classroom, at home, and on the field.  They were determined to get that locker room.  And they succeeded.  After the last practice before the first game of the season, Coach Butkus allowed them move in to their new facility.  For some of the young men on that team it was the first time in life they earned anything.  Before then everything had been handed to them.  All that they had had come to them through little or no effort on their part. 

That football team tells us a lot about what has changed in our society.  As recently as a generation or two ago the American dream consisted of finding a way to do something better, cheaper, or more efficiently.  The typical American worker understood honest labor and prudent saving could improve one’s lot in life.  The common thread connecting everyone’s work ethic was a belief personal productivity would get one ahead in life.  And getting ahead looked like educating yourself and your children, contributing something useful to society, and having a good name in the local community.  Today the American dream looks more like, well, winning the lottery, which is little more than a hope someone will hand you a better life.  An entitlement mentality permeates much of our common life.  We all expect more and more to be done for us and we expect someone else to bear the cost.

This shift in mindset plays itself out in every facet of our society, including congregational life.  Two generations ago people attended church to discern what God required of them.  Today, churches strive to offer programs catering to the wants and desires of its members and the wider community.  The public call to be transformed into the image of Christ is hushed, if heard at all… drummed out by the need to promote what the church can do for you rather than focusing on who God calls you to be and what God has created you to do.

Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel reading suggests this is really nothing new.  It is the human condition to want to get something for nothing, to underachieve and yet still overreach, to covet and to take rather than to give and to work.

The parable builds on absolute bedrock theological truth.  This world is God’s world.  God imagined it.  God called it into existence.  And God sustains it.  But God entrusts a part of the sustaining work to us.  Like the laborers in the vineyard each of us is given work to do; and think of work in the broadest terms… doing a job, raising a family, and contributing to the common good.  For this we have been created and with this we are charged.  This is God’s plan for the world and doing what we are called to do gives us a sense of purpose and place and dignity.  In a real sense this work, as the old saying holds, is its own reward.

Or it can be.  But Jesus’ parable highlights the darker side of our human condition.  Rather than finding our meaning and joy in doing the work we have been given to do, we decide that we would rather hold the place of God.  We want to call the shots and possess all we covet.  And we want to get it in the easiest and most selfish way possible… bypassing the call to serve one another through our prayers and labor in favor of having more and bigger and better and new.  And why do we want all of this stuff?  Because it is a substitute for what God’s call gives to us: a sense of purpose and place and dignity.  We all need reinforcement and affirmation of our worth.  The question is where will we turn to find it?  Will we accept the call God extends to us or will we turn to the ways of the world and the offerings of our consumer-driven culture?

St. Paul, in his letter to the Church in Philippi, writes this: “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”  He says we have a choice to make.  Either we can live our lives to obtain earthly things or we can strive to live like citizens of heaven… people who are in the world, but not of the world.  One goal leads to the highest imaginable purpose in life.  It brings order and coherence to all that we do because we align how we live and move and have our being with the way that God has created life to be.  The other way perverts and distorts life as God intends it by making earthly acquisitions and achievements to be the ultimate goal, and by obtaining them through any means necessary.

Jesus’ parable tells us how we live and how we work and how we contribute to the common good are spiritual issues.  These activities can be rooted in faith and practiced as a part of our devotion, or they can be rooted in selfishness and be carried out completely indifferent to God’s call. 

Does the decision we make make a difference?  Go back to that high school football team.  Had the coach simply let the boys have the new locker room it would have been just one more thing given to them.  Perhaps early on they would have appreciated its new shine, but eventually the shine would have worn off.  Then they would have sat back passively waiting for somebody else to give them something new.  But because they earned the facility through their hard work and practice the locker room had more value to them.  It is a value springing from their own efforts.  And for the rest of their lives they will value that facility because their goal was not to have a new locker room, but to be worthy of it. 

Does the decision we make either to live for ourselves or to live for God make a difference?  You bet it does!  It makes a difference to God and it makes a difference in how we experience life, what we get out of life, and what it all means to us.