Category Archives: Sermons

Sermon – Luke 2.8-20, CD, YB, December 25, 2017

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Eight years ago, while serving as a curate in my first position out of seminary, I experienced Christmas Day worship for the first time.  Though I had often gone to Christmas Eve services before ordination, I suppose it never occurred to me to go to church on Christmas Day.  I was probably still in my pajamas or on the road to see family.  So imagine my surprise when the Rector told me there would be no music at the Christmas Day service.  I was shocked!  After all this time, patiently waiting through Advent music, on the actual day of Christmas, we were not going to hear any music?!?  I threw what some might consider a bit of a temper tantrum, and was told I should talk to the people who normally go to Christmas Day services.

Of course, my Rector knew what she was talking about.  As I talked to Christmas Day attendees, I discovered one universal truth:  they loved the spoken Christmas Day service.  First, they all went to a Christmas Eve service, so they got their carols fix the night before.  Second, they loved the quiet respite in an otherwise chaotic day.  A quiet service on Christmas Day was a godsend.  And third, they loved the Christmas Day service because it was a small, intimate service of what they called the “faithful;” much like what happens when you throw a party at your home and everyone but your close friends go home at the end of the night.  You kick off your shoes, find a warm beverage, and enter into quiet, meaningful conversation with your friends.  Music, in those parishioners’ minds, would have hindered the intimate, contemplative, peaceful vibe they loved.

In a lot of ways, having a quiet Christmas Day service is like taking a cue from Mary in our gospel lesson today.  After the chaos of travel and birthing a child in less than ideal accommodations, after shepherds have seen blinding lights and hear the triumphant chorus of the multitude of heavenly host, when everything quietens down, all that is left is a mother, father, and child, and some shepherds who seem like old friends.  I have always imagined the shepherds bursting through the doors, talking on top of each other to tell the story of the angels.  But I wonder if perhaps the scene was a little different.  Knowing full well the baby has arrived in less than ideal circumstances, and that babies are notorious for crying when disturbed, maybe the shepherds were whispering their intimate tale to the holy family.  Maybe they were those gathered at the end of the party, sharing in quiet, meaningful conversation.

I wonder if this might be true because we get one short line about Mary at the end of our text today, “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”  Exhausted, fatigued, weary Mary takes the enormity of what has happened:  to her, when Gabriel came to her; with Elizabeth, who further revealed the angel’s proclamation; with Joseph, as he shared his own angelic story; and now with the shepherds who tell of yet another angelic encounter.  Mary takes all the bits of information – all the encounters she is privy to – and ponders them.  She takes a personal moment to sit quietly in the enormity of it all to ponder.  In some ways, she is a mother like anyone else – one who has carried a child in her womb with all the normal doubts and concerns that come from every ache, pain, and discomfort.  But in other ways, she is nothing like other mothers.  She is an instrument – pregnant without her own doing, carrying a child who will be bigger than anything before, and mothering someone who will never fully belong to her, but to the greater world he will soon save.

The funny thing is, pondering is an activity that would hardly ever make an appearance on our Christmas to-do lists.  We have been scurrying about this past month:  decorating homes, sending cards, attending parties, planning liturgies, hosting guests or finding hostess gifts.  We have either been caught up in the joy of the season, reveling in the 24-7 Christmas radio stations, or maybe we have been lost in our grief of all that is not this Christmas season.  Regardless of whether you are off to a Christmas celebration with twenty or more people, or having a quiet day alone or with one other, there is likely to be little true quiet:  our minds are way too noisy for quiet today.

And yet, quiet pondering is exactly what Mary does today.  She takes all the noise and chaos – both outward and inward – and she pauses for pondering.  She hits the pause button on the movie called life, takes a deep breath, and drinks in the miracle of Christ’s birth.  She stops talking, turns off her internal conversation, and listens.  She makes room for God in that rustic, foreign room, with people who are not her own, letting her body and soul contemplate the enormity of the nativity:  God incarnate; Messiah arrived; Eternal life made possible.  The wonder of that moment is enough to silence Mary, giving her much to ponder.

That is our invitation today too.  I know today is the least likely day for a moment of wonder, pondering, and contemplation.  But you are here.  You took a moment away from whatever today will be to sit at the manger with Mary and ponder.  Drink in the miracle of Christ’s birth, the gift of God incarnate.  Stand before our God in holy quiet and reverence as we pray and eat a different meal.  Remember “how God became one of us, remember how Christ still joins us at the Table, remember how we are fed by him in order that we might live as his body in the world.”[i]  These kinds of sacred moments are so rare in life.  Receive the gift of pondering at the manger with Mary today, and take that quiet out into the world with you, giving your heart the gift of true celebration and joy.  Amen.

[i] Kimberly Bracken Long, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 121.

Sermon – Luke 2.1-14, CE, YB, December 24, 2017

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Sometimes arriving at the manger on Christmas Eve feels a bit like just barely sliding into home plate.  When little ones are around, you have scurried about, making sure their tights and bowties are on, while trying to squeeze in one last family picture while everyone still looks nice.  By now, you have probably served or been served a meal, purchased and wrapped gifts, prepped or cooked food for tomorrow, sent out cards, decorated the house, and run countless errands.  And none of that includes the four hundred things that will be done in the next twenty-four hours.  Arriving here and semi-put together is a minor victory, with the promise of a peaceful, beautiful hour of worship, before preparing for the chaos to resume tomorrow.

The unfortunate thing is that the story of tonight is not all that much less chaotic.  Though we sing songs like Silent Night or Away in a Manger, or though we exchange cards with pastoral, peaceful settings, nothing about that night is silent.  And I am pretty sure the little Lord Jesus makes lots of cries.  The chaos of the holy family is not unlike the chaos in which we sometimes find ourselves.  Remembering how scandalous Mary’s pregnancy and relationship with Joseph are, the chaos continues as Emperor Augustus sends out a decree that forces a very pregnant, uncomfortable Mary away from her hometown to the crowded city of Bethlehem.  Before they can secure housing, Mary goes into labor.  Not only is she dealing with the drama of delivering a child for the first time ever, she is delivering without so much as the comfort of a home.  And then, just as they are trying to figure out nursing, and soothing, and the fear and wonder of parenting, along come some rowdy, likely filthy, shepherds, who have also not had a silent night.  In fact, they have heard the terrifying chorus of the heavenly host and been told a most preposterous story – so much so, they gather up their livestock and come to see.

With all the chaos of our own lives, and with all the mayhem of that holy night, why do we do it?  Why do we come to church at all?  Maybe we come to church on this night specifically because on this night, more than perhaps any night ever, we find the wonderful revelation that God can take the messy chaos of life and make our mess holy.  You see, as much as we love tonight’s beautiful story, what happens this night is beyond the chaos of registrations, no vacancies, angelic revelations, and messy encounters with strangers.  In order to understand the enormity of what is happening tonight, we broaden our scope.  Tonight’s event – the nativity of our Lord –  is the culmination of a much larger story.  The story started when there was no earth or humankind, when God formed the earth from the formless void.  When we first sinned against God and were cast out of the garden, to when we kept sinning and God flooded the world, to our deliverance from the hands of pharaoh and our arrival in the promised land, to our sinful desires for a king that led to the eventual confiscation of our land.  We are a people who have been oppressed so many times and rescued so many times we can barely count.  And in that rollercoaster of a relationship with our God, as we failed time and again, God, who never gives up and never cedes love, does something unheard of:  takes on human flesh, comes to us in the form of a vulnerable child, with the plan of redeeming us forever and granting us eternal life.

Maybe we come to church tonight because tonight is about God’s unending, undying, unfailing, uncompromising love for us.  Despite centuries of chaos, disobedience, and failures, God shows up tonight in a mighty way.  Despite the chaos of the times and of this night, God shows up among the outcast.  Despite the chaos of our own times, in our seeming inability to tend to those most outcast, God comes once more to redeem us.  We come to church tonight because we long to grasp the enormity of God’s love for us, the extents to which God will go for us, and the hope which only God can give to us.

But the news is even better than that.  I do not believe the beauty of tonight is in trying to find a holy moment, where God’s love speaks to us in an otherwise chaotic life.  In fact, you might not find that moment tonight because despite the fact that you were physically able to get here, your mind may still be somewhere else.  The good news is that is okay.  The deep, lasting peace of this night is not found in a single church service (though I must say, the service certainly helps).  The deep, lasting peace we are looking for comes from the reality that we do not find God’s love and peace in spite of the chaos of life.  Tonight teaches us that God hallows the chaos of life.

Based on our standards, God should have placed this precious child – the God incarnate – in the wealthiest, most well-guarded palace, where a person of great wealth could have given the baby everything the baby needed.  A person of power could have protected the child, brought honor to the child, raised the child up to assume the power of a Messiah.  If we had something so precious, we certainly would have worked to find the best of what we have to protect that preciousness.  And yet, God takes on flesh in an unmarried, inconsequential woman of little means.  God takes on flesh amidst the common people, being born in the lowliest of estates.  God takes on flesh and announces the news not to kings and rulers, but to shepherds – those disregarded by society as being of little import.  From the very beginning, the extraordinary thing God does is done in the midst of the ordinary – worse yet, among the marginalized and outcast.

God takes the mess of life:  our divisions, our stratifications by class, gender, and race, our subjugation of the poor, our inability to refrain from sin, our messes and chaos – and God makes our mess holy.  God sanctifies our chaos, reminding us that in the midst of chaos, God is present.   In the midst of chaos, God is doing a new thing through us.  In the midst of chaos, God is love and makes us agents of love.  I cannot promise that the chaos will not try to overtake you when you walk out the church door tonight.  But just like you will find small glimpses tonight of the overwhelming love God has for you, you can find God present in the chaos of life too.  God is continually breaking through, birthing in you Christ’s light and love, using you to make room in the world for the Christ child, using you to announce good news of great joy for all people.  If that doesn’t break though the chaos, I don’t know what will!  Amen.

Sermon – John 1.6-8, 19-28, A3, YB, December 17, 2017

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

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I have been thinking a lot this week about the faith witnesses in my life.  There have been dozens of them: some who were in my life for a short while, and some who still serve as a witness to me today; some who flipped my world upside down by a single observation; and some whose entire life journey has served as a witness.  One who stands out for me was a mentor I met as I came into adulthood.  She was not particularly flashy or dramatic, but her entire life became a living witness to me.  Her witness started in the context of talking about Jesus.  There were things she said that had never occurred to me, and yet made a great deal of sense.  She slowly awakened in me a passion for justice:  teaching me about our country’s impact on the world’s poor; asking hard questions, such as where my clothes were made and what my clothing said about my concern for the least of these; helping me see how incredibly privileged I was even when I did not feel privileged compared to others.  I watched her risk arrest through political protest.  I saw her offer up the spare room in her house time and again to those in transition and trying to find their way.  She even revealed to me at some point that instead of accepting an engagement ring from her husband, they had agreed a more appropriate sign of their commitment to one another would be exchanging rocking chairs – so that they could grow old together in them.

What was telling about my experience with her witness was I knew she would never have wanted me to say, “I want to be just like her.”  In fact, with all my revelatory interactions with her, I was not in awe of her; I was in awe of her attempt to live a life in line with the gospel – to live a life that reflected the light of Jesus.  Her words, our conversations, her decisions were ways of pointing me back to a living relationship with Christ.  Her witness to me was not unlike John’s witness in our gospel lesson today.  Now, if you were here last week, you may be wondering, “Didn’t we just hear this story about John the Baptist last week?”  The answer is yes; and no.  Last week we read Mark’s account of John the Baptist.  Typical of Mark, the text we heard was short, and jam-packed with action.  John the Baptist is preaching a baptism of repentance, people are flocking to him, he wears weird clothes, and he tells everyone someone more powerful is coming.  But that is pretty much all Mark gives us.

This week, we read the gospel of John’s account of John.  We know right away John’s gospel is different because he does not call John, “John the Baptist.”  In fact, some scholars say John’s version of John the Baptist would be called, “John the Witness,” or “John the Voice.”  John’s gospel tells us that John the Witness is just that:  a living witness to the light of Christ.  John’s gospel slows us down so we can talk about who this John the Witness really is.  Temple leaders come to John asking him all sorts of questions:  who he is, whether he is a prophet, under what authority he is baptizing people.  John’s gospel slows us down because the gospeller wants to be very clear who John the Witness is and who he is not.  In these thirteen verses, John the Witness uses ten negatives to distinguish himself from Jesus; ten “nots,” “neithers,” and “noes.”[i]  You see, the religious leaders come to John the Witness because he is showing himself to be a compelling leader.[ii]  But what the religious leaders have missed is John is not trying to attract people to himself; hence all the “not me” language.  John is simply preparing the way – pointing people toward someone even more compelling.

I do not know about you, but there is some small part of me that has always been a tad annoyed that the majority of Advent is spent talking about John.  Even though I am on board with not singing Christmas carols or hearing the birth narratives until Christmas Eve, I have often secretly wanted more of a preview in the weeks preceding Christmas than we get.  I have wondered why we cannot spend all four weeks on the more dramatic pregnancy stories:  Mary’s annunciation, Joseph’s interaction with the angel, the Elizabeth and Mary encounter, and the Magnificat.  Spending two weeks on the crazy cousin who eats locusts and wild honey feels tangential to what is coming, and hardly gets me in the mood for singing Away in a Manger.

But this year, something shifted for me.  John the Baptist, or the Witness, or the Voice, or whatever we are going to call him became more compelling for me this Advent.  If you remember, John had a miracle beginning too.  His mother had been long barren, and when the news came to his father that his wife would bear a son, his disbelief meant that he was struck with the inability to speak for nine months until the baby came.  Then, while John was still in the womb, he leapt inside Elizabeth’s womb when Elizabeth came near Jesus in Mary’s womb.  He clearly had the gift of discernment from before birth.  But what strikes me most is his clarity in identity and purpose.  Despite his miraculous and impressive beginnings, he always understands his giftedness is not about him.  His giftedness is in pointing people to God.  He is not lured in by fame or followers; he is not caught up in the hype; he is not even tempted to claim the authority of someone like Elijah.  He is single-minded in his purpose and vocation, and longs to help people find their way to God.  His delight is in helping people find their delight in Christ.

That is one of our invitations today:  to recall someone who has helped you find your delight in Jesus.  Maybe you will adopt someone new like John the witness today.  Maybe his story and his single-mindedness about purpose and vocation is an inspiration.  But maybe you are recalling someone else in your life who did that for you.  Maybe the person was a relative, a mentor, a friend, or a historical figure.  Recall how that person pointed you to Jesus time and again; how he or she awakened in you a longing for a similar single-mindedness about Jesus.  Remember his or her words or actions, giving thanks today for their inspiration and witness in your life.  Meditate with the baptizer, witness, or voice in your life as we journey in these last days of Advent.

But do not stop there.  John’s witness today is not just for you, meant to help you center your own life.[iii]  John’s witness today offers you a second invitation:   to be a baptizer, a witness, a voice for others.  For some of you, the invitation to be a witness may sound overwhelming.  How can we possibly inspire others in the powerful ways others have witnessed to us?  The main way we serve as witnesses is to listen.  David Gortner talks about evangelism not as being about preaching from a street corner, but as being about meeting people where they are – in the grocery store line, at the coffee shop, at a community event – and listening to their story.  The first step in witnessing is not about telling someone how to live their life, but listening to their life stories.  The next step is where witnessing happens.  After hearing someone’s life story – whether a friend, an acquaintance, or even a stranger – we prayerfully reflect back where we hear the Holy Spirit in their story.  We name where we hear and see God in their daily journey.  We point to Jesus in the conversation.[iv]

One of my favorite stories of Habitat for Humanity founder Miller Fuller was a story of a retiree who was busy volunteering on a roof.  He was the kind of person who liked to work alone, mostly so that he could monitor and maintain quality control.  But on this particular day, a kid kept bothering the volunteer.  He wanted to help, and the man kept suggesting he find someone else.  The kid kept appearing throughout the day, bringing tools, bringing snacks, or just hanging nearby to talk.  Despite his efforts to shoo away the boy, he kept finding him underfoot.  By the afternoon, the volunteer gave up and allowed the boy to help him – under strictest supervision, of course.  Much to his surprise, the boy was quite good.  By the end of the day, they were laughing and finishing most of the work.  As they were leaving, the volunteer apologized for his brusqueness and asked the boy his name.  “My name is Jesus,” said the boy.

Jesus is all around us, all the time.  But most of us struggle to see him or name him because we either do not have a witness nearby or we have not honed our witnessing skills.  John the witness invites us to reclaim our witness today; to listen for the movement of Jesus in others’ lives and to be the witness who points to Jesus.  We are not the light; we are not the Messiah; we are not the prophet.  But we do come to testify to the light – to point others toward the goodness, the holy, the Jesus in their life, and invite them to the light.  God has given you witnesses to shape your journey.   And God enables you to share the gift of witness with others.  Our job is to simply listen and point.  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 71.

[ii] David Lose, “Advent 3 B:  Sacred Leadership,” December 15, 2017, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2017/12/advent-3-b-sacred-leadership/ on December 15, 2017.

[iii] David L. Bartlett, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 68, 70.

[iv] David Gortner, Transforming Evangelism (New York:  Church Publishing, 2008).

Sermon – Isaiah 40.1-11, Mark 1.1-8, A2, YB, December 10, 2017

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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This Advent, I have been sensing in myself a need to prepare for the Christ Child a little differently.  The busyness of life has me longing for a season of quiet reflection, of anti-consumerism, of less…well…busyness.  In some ways, the church has made accommodations for that desire.  The music in Advent is a bit more muted and quietly beautiful.  The offerings of yoga or even the Blue Christmas service make room for quiet meditation and reflection.  Even my Advent devotion this year of taking daily photos based on a provided word has forced me to look around more intentionally at life.  When I heard Isaiah’s words this week, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” my spirit had been hoping Isaiah’s preparation meant slowing down and creating an inner openness to the Holy Spirit.

Although I am sure Jesus would be all too happy to have me slow down a bit, my Advent longings may be a bit too passive for what Isaiah and John the Baptist are trying to accomplish.[i]  Of course, you can see where I may have gone astray.  Isaiah is speaking to a people in exile:  far from their homeland, oppressed by a foreign power, being forced to assume a foreign culture, God finally speaks a word of comfort to God’s people.  “Comfort, O Comfort my people,” says the Lord to Isaiah.  They are soothing words to a downtrodden people.  They are words of affection to an affection-starved nation.  They are healing words to a broken group of followers.  But those words of comfort are not followed by a cozy bed of meditation and contemplation.  Instead, those comforting words are followed by a call to action, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  God is about to do a new thing, but in order to do that new thing, the people of God must prepare the way through repentance.  Now I know we usually reserve repentance talk for Lent, but in this season of preparing for a new thing – of preparing for the Christ Child – the prophet tells the people of God they need repentant hearts.

One of the courses of study for parish priests and counselors is called family systems.  The study of family systems looks at human behavior through the lens of behavior within families, looking at ways families handle conflict, how they engage one another, and how they solve problems.  Patterns we learn in our families are taken into other systems.  One of the main lessons we learn from family systems is that you cannot change the behavior of others; you can only change your own behavior.  But changing your own behavior is not as easy as the change sounds.  Any of us who saw our mother behave like her mother, only to one day see that same behavior in ourselves realizes how hard changing our patterns can be.

When we talk about repentance, that is the kind of deep change we are talking about.  Repentance is not wallowing in guilt, feeling badly about something we said or did (or keep saying or doing).  Repentance is acknowledging our sinfulness and working to change our behavior.  The word “repent,” actually means to turn around; to turn away from sinful behavior and walk another way.  So when John the Baptist recalls Isaiah’s words, saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” he’s not saying, unpack your creches, put up the greens, and buy some presents.  Prepare the way of the Lord means making sure your heart is ready for the coming of the Christ Child – a feat you cannot accomplish if your heart is heavy with sin and regret.[ii]

Now do not get me wrong – I have pulled down the boxes of Christmas decorations, hung a wreath, and have purchased some gifts.  Those are honored traditions that bring us great joy, and I believe God wants us to be a people of joy.  But I suspect that if your heart is heavy-laden with the sins of life, or if you are so busy with the busyness of life that you have disconnected from God, your joy this year at the arrival of the Holy Child will not be as deep as your joy could be.

I have met many a church member who loathes the season of Lent for the focus on repentance.  I am sure they would be cringing today by the ways I am squashing Advent too.  But here is the reason why we have to talk about repentance today.  The gospel lesson we read from Mark contains the very first eight verses of Mark.  Mark introduces his gospel with these words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  The reason John the Baptist is so excited, and is quoting Isaiah in our text today is that he knows what is coming is good news.  And so, when John quotes Isaiah with the words, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” he really means two things.  First, he means do the active work of preparing your heart for the Lord.  Not just the awesome, touchy-feely stuff of centering yourself or finding a quiet space, but the hard stuff of repentance.  And second, John means do the work of sharing the good news.  The work of Advent and the joy of Christmas is not just for us.  When your heart is bursting on Christmas Eve with joy because you did the tough work or repenting and returning to the Lord, don’t you want someone with which to share your joy?   One of the ways we prepare the way of the Lord is to share the good news of God in Christ with others.[iii]

Now I know what you are going to say, “Here she goes again, talking about inviting people to church.”  Or maybe you are thinking, “Yeah, but people who come on Christmas Eve usually only come once a year, so why bother?”  The good news about spreading the good news is that you are likely going to spread that good news in spite of yourself.  You see, when we do the work of repentance, of changing our hearts, minds, and hands to doing the work of God, a renewed spirit is kindled in us, and a deep joy burns in us.  The work of repentance creates in us a clean heart, and renews a right spirit within us.  And when we feel the love of God overwhelming us, we cannot help but let slip to our neighbor, “I know you have a church home, but I just want to share how awesome my experience at church has been lately.  If you ever want to come with me, I would be happy to bring you.”  Or when your friend is expressing his deep sadness and sense of loneliness, you find yourself saying, “I have been there.  But I have to tell you, every time I leave church, something about my encounter with God and community makes me feel less alone.”  Or when a stranger is ranting about how awful the church and Christians have been lately (which, we know some awful things are happening in the name of Christ lately), you find yourself saying, “I totally agree.  That is why I love my church so much – because they show me another way of witnessing to Christ.  I would love to show you sometime!”

I realize you may have been hoping for a word of comfort and permission to quietly prepare your heart for the Christ Child today.  Lord knows I have been longing for that this week too.  But turning my busyness into purposeful preparation:  for repentance and sharing the good news sounds much more fulfilling and life-giving.  The coming of the Christ Child, the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, is a life-altering event.  Today, the church prepares us for not arriving at the manger with check-lists done, gifts in hand, and arms full of stuff.  Instead, the church prepares us for arrive at the manger with open arms, free of the burdens that are weighing our spirits down, surrounded by others who have similarly prepared, and those who heard a good word from you, and wanted to drop their baggage at the manger too.  Come, prepare the way of the Lord.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Wilderness Preaching,” December 3, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5018 on December 6, 2017.

[ii] Martin B. Copenhaver, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 47.

[iii] Richard F. Ward, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 31.

Sermon – Matthew 25.31-46, P29, YA, November 26, 2017

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

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This past weekend we celebrated one of the most significant American holidays.  Thanksgiving has evolved over time, but generally involves people gathering with family, friends, or neighbors over a meal to give thanks for the blessings of life.  The concept sounds rather innocuous, but the meal can be fraught with challenges.  A few days before Thanksgiving this year, I caught the results of a poll.  The poll said almost 70% of people were hoping to avoid talking about politics with their family this Thanksgiving holiday.  According to the survey, the percentage of people wanting to avoid talking about politics is one of the highest in years.  Even though the numbers are unprecedented, the results are probably not a surprise to anyone here.  Politics is one of those topics polite conversations are supposed to avoid anyway.  But given the especially high tensions of our political climate lately, I can totally understand why almost three-fourths of us would want to avoid talking about our country’s deep divisions and political differences.  No need to ruin a day of attempted unity with a conversation about the very thing that divides us most deeply.

So, on the Sunday following the day when everyone wants to avoid talking politics, what are we going to do?  Talk politics.  Now before you get too anxious, do not worry.  We are not invited to talk American politics.  Today, our readings invite us to talk about biblical politics.  Today, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday – the last Sunday in the liturgical year before we start Advent next week.  The feast of Christ the King is not actually that old of a feast.  Pope Pius XI established the feast day in 1925 in response to growing secularism and a deemphasis on the primacy of Christ.  At the time, Europe was seeing a rise in non-Christian dictators, many of whom were seeking to influence authority over the Church.  Pope Pius wanted to remind the Church who was the head of the church, and the primacy of Christ for the Church’s identity.  Establishing Christ the King Sunday was not only a bold move by Pope Pius, the feast day was also needed if the Church were going to remain loyal to its identity.

The historical setting of the creation of the holiday is not all that unique from the biblical struggle with kingship.  If you remember, God is not at all on board when the people ask for a king.  You see, the people of God have already been on a long journey.  Abraham had settled them in a faraway land, which God had promised would be their land.  But famine struck, and the people were forced to flee to Egypt for sustenance, submitting themselves to a pharaoh – a new king of sorts.  For a while, that arrangement was not so bad.  But a new pharaoh meant a harsh life of enslavement.  So, God once again led the people out of the rule of a king, into the wilderness and eventually the promised land.  And what do the people ask for upon their arrival?  A king!  You see, they have been watching the other nations who have kings, and they want their own.  God wants them to see how God is their king.  But eventually God submits, giving them their hearts’ desire.  As predicted, an earthly king does not go well.  Sure, there are moments of enjoyment and blessing.  There are even some kings who do well – king David and Solomon.  But even the good kings come with human flaws.  As time goes on, the bad kings outnumber the good ones, and eventually the kingdom of God is ripped apart, and the peoples are scattered.

That is where we pick up things today in Ezekiel.  Recognizing the earthly kings have not worked so well, God promises to take the throne back, to become the people’s king once again.  God becoming king means the people will be gathered once again in their promised land.  They will have their wounds bound, their stomachs filled, and their thirst quenched.  They will return to an abundant land, with the rule of a comforting shepherd.  The promise to the wearied people of God is assuring and soothing; a balm to a scattered, disheartened people.  Their failures are ever before them:  their insistence on an earthly king have gotten them where they are today.  But admitting failure hardly seems onerous with the promise of redemption by God.

By the time we get to our gospel reading today, the people are yet again under an oppressive rule.  Rome has put her heavy hand on the people of God, and their hoped-for Messiah has not arrived.  The expectation of the Messiah was for a mighty, God-ordained leader who would vindicate the people, and establish a time of prosperity, power, and peace.  There are rumors that Jesus might be that Messiah, but much of what he has to say does not jive with what they are expecting.  Take today’s lesson, for example.  Jesus tells them the reign of God will entail feeding the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending the sick, and visiting the imprisoned.  Those are all certainly good things to do, but they are not exactly what the people are thinking of when they imagine a Messiah.  Though those tasks are noble, they do not indicate a people who have triumphed over oppressive rule.

I suspect we know a little about that sense of disappointment and disorientation.  Now I know I said I was not going to talk about politics, but stay with me for a bit.  You see, no matter who our leader is, we will never be truly happy with an elected, human leader.  Human leaders, like those leaders in the times of Ezekiel are flawed.  Think of your favorite president in American history – the president that really represented the goodness of American ideals.  Think of all the great things he did, the advancements he made, the ways in which he made us a better country.  Now, in balance with all that goodness, think of all the flaws he had.  Every president had them.  For every advancement he made, there was an advancement he neglected.  For every inspiring quote he had, there were things he said that would make us shudder.  For every injustice he corrected, there were injustices he ignored.

That is the funny thing about being both an American and a Christian.  Though we have probably structured the government with the most potential for justice and balanced leadership, we still fall short of the goal – because we are human.  And because nothing we make or conceive or structure will be perfect, we lean into our Christian identity for guidance, comfort, and strength.  You see, the only king who will ever bring about a perfect kingdom is Christ.  And yet, even “perfection” is redefined by Christ.  The kingdom of God is not reproduced through democracy, socialism, monarchy, oligarchy, or totalitarianism.  The perfect system in Christ involves each us feeding the poor, giving water to those who thirst, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending the sick, and visiting the imprisoned.

I can imagine what you are thinking, because I am thinking the same thing.  Those jobs all sound nice, but how do we ensure justice, safety, and structure?  How do we govern?  The good news is, just as we talked about last week, we all have a vocation.  If feeding, sating, welcoming, clothing, tending, and visiting are the parameters of perfection, we are each to use our gifts to achieve that perfection.  So maybe your vocation is to physically feed the poor and sate the thirsty.  Maybe your vocation is to advocate for those in prison.  Maybe your vocation is to govern with the intention of creating laws that will tend the sick and clothe the naked.  How we approach perfection will vary widely, but that we strive toward perfection is what Christ asks today.  Christ is not actually all that worried about who our king is or what kind of government we choose.  Christ is concerned that our lives reflect his true kingship over us.  Christ wants us to live lives that, upon observation by others, make obvious who is our king.

Our invitation this week is to take stock of our daily living, making sure we have aligned our lives with the kingdom of God.  If you have gotten off track, there is time and support for correcting course.[i]  If you have mastered feeding the hungry, but are not so great at welcoming the stranger, this community is here to help you expand your kingdom work.  And if you are not sure you can get on board with this kingdom work at all, you may need to do what we all avoided this Thanksgiving – get to a table and start talking politics.  Jesus promises to be with us, joining us in the conversation, blessing our ponderings.  With Christ the King on our side, the work does not feel like work, the conversation does not feel like a curse, and the results produce much more for which to be thankful.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 212.

Sermon – Matthew 25.14-30, P28, YA, November 19, 2017

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

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Our parable from Matthew’s gospel today seems to present two very different versions of God.  When the story opens, the landowner is painted in a positive light.  Within the first line of this parable, we already find a landowner who places a great deal of trust in his servants.  Not only does he trust his servants with his property, he is also thoughtful about what each servant can handle.  Based on their abilities, he give gives one servant five talents, one servant two talents, and the other servant one talent.[i]  Now before we go too much farther, we need to remember that the entrusting of even one talent is a big deal.  You see, a talent is worth about 15 years of what a servant would normally make in wages.[ii]  To the first servant, the landowner is entrusting about 75 years’ worth of wages!  This landowner is not only generous with his property, he communicates a great deal of confidence in these three servants.

The story continues to be remarkable.  Nowhere in the parable does the landowner say, “Okay here are your talents.  Here is how I suggest you manage my wealth.”  No, the landowner leaves, communicating not just generosity, confidence, and trust, but also giving the gift of freedom to each servant.  Implicit is the expectation that they handle the wealth well, but also implicit is the idea that they have some autonomy in their management.

Many years later, the landowner returns, and we find his generous, trusting, encouraging nature continues.  When the first servant tells the landowner of his adventures with the talents, how he is able to double his holdings, the landowner is effusive with praise.  Because he has done such a fantastic job, the landowner says he will reward him with entrusting him to do more.  And then, as if to further prove what a generous landowner he is, the landowner opens his arms widely and says, “enter into the joy of your master.”  What a tremendous gift to this servant who has worked hard, taken on tremendous risk, and hustled for years and years for the sake of his landowner.  We can almost hear the vigorous pats on the back, and imagine the tears welling up in the servant’s eyes as he is affirmed, encouraged, and loved.

But then our story changes.  The third servant seems to evoke a very different version of the landowner.  Clearly the landowner knew the third servant was not as gifted as the others when he only gave the third servant one talent.  Faced with the sudden burden of wealth like he has never seen before, the third servant panics.  He does not want to mess things up or disappoint the landowner.  Unlike the other servants, this servant is full of self-doubt and fear.  And so, he does the best he can.  He goes and he buries the money.  Sure, he does not come back with more like the other servants, but at least he does not come back with less than with what he was entrusted.  To this nervous, timid, perhaps slightly less bright servant, the landowner is suddenly a very different landowner.  The landowner calls the servant wicked and lazy.  The landowner yells at the servant for mischaracterizing the landowner and for being so overcome with fear.  And then, as if the yelling and name-calling is not enough, the landowner strips him of the wealth, gives the talent to the first servant, and then casts the third servant out of his grace and abundance, leaving him in the outer darkness.

So, why is this landowner so kind, generous, and trusting in one breath, and impatient, mean, and cruel in the next?  We have been getting a lot of these kinds of stories from Matthew lately.  First, we got the wedding host who seemed to be generously welcoming all to the party, only to cast someone out who wore the wrong clothing.  Then we got the feuding bridesmaids who refuse to care for one another, and the bridegroom who has no patience for a lack of preparedness.  And then we get today’s parable.  If we simply had just this one instance of God’s harshness or unjust judgment, we could say the parable is an anomaly, a strange outlier.  But given the repeated telling of scary-ending stories, we are cued into the idea that something else is going on in Matthew’s gospel.  Indeed, all of these unsettling parables are what we call eschatological parables – stories about the end times.[iii]  At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is approaching the end of his life.  Instead of continuing to heal, preach, and lovingly teach his disciples, he starts getting real.   I am reminded of one of the first reality television shows that ever aired, MTV’s The Real World.  MTV would pair seven very different individuals and make them live together for a few months.  The tagline of the show was, “This is what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.”

Understanding that Jesus is facing his immanent death is critical to understanding what is going on with Jesus in these parables.  Any of us who has journeyed with someone who is dying knows that at some point, they stop being polite and start getting real.  This is their last chance to tell others the essentials:  the life lessons learned, the love they want to share, and the stern encouragement they want to give.  Although this landowner seems harsh or even irrationally mean, what he is doing is communicating ultimate significance.

Let’s go back to this third servant.  We know what the third servant does is not all that bad.  He does not squander the entrusted wealth, or act rashly.  He is conservatively prudent and, perhaps based on his skill level, wise to restrain himself.  But ultimately, the landowner is not upset about what the servant does.  The landowner is upset about the servant’s motivation:  fear.[iv]

In a couple of months, our family will be going on a trip that involves a visit to an amusement park.  We have been talking about the park as a family, and most of the members of our family are thrilled.  We have been watching videos about the rides, and the children are getting amped up to try some of the rollercoasters.  I, on the other hand, have no interest in the rides.  I am scared to death of rollercoasters.  I do not like the way they make me feel, I do not like how tense they make me, and I do not like the lack of control I feel when on them.  I gladly prefer to be the “holder of bags” at amusement parks.  But my family has been riding me this time.  They want to experience the adventure with me.  They want to discover which ones are too scary and which ones are just plain fun together.  And yet just talking about that idea has my knees knocking with fear.

That’s the funny thing about fear.  Fear distorts every good thing about our nature.  Fear cuts off creativity.  When we are overcome with fear, we cannot be imaginative and playful, coming to new solutions and ways of being.  Fear also messes with our sense of trust.  When we are overcome with fear, we forget the goodness of others, our previous examples of how things have gone well, or even the bold support of our God.  Fear messes with our confidence.  When we are overcome with fear, all the good, powerful, and holy parts of us gets riddled with self-doubt and inaction.  And finally, fear messes with our willingness to take risks.  When we are overcome with fear, we cannot do the things that will lead to great payoff.

Fear in the abstract is a normal reaction in life.  But we have to remember what Jesus is talking about in this parable to understand why the landowner is so harsh about fear.  You see, talents are not just metaphors for the thing things we are good at or even for the money we have in life.  Talents are metaphors for the vocations we each have.[v]  You see, each person in this room has a calling.  Some of us are called to particular jobs or courses of study.  Some of us are called to particular roles within families or groups.  Some of us are called to use our gifts in particular ways.  We all have a call, a vocation in life.  And our vocation is affirmed by the skills or materials we are given to live out that call.  The problem with the third servant is that he is given what he needs in abundance.  The landowner affirms him, trusts him, and gives him space and time to live out his vocation.  But the third servant allows himself to be so overcome with fear that he does not live out his vocation.  He shuts down creativity, trust, confidence, and risk-taking all because he is afraid.  And that is the ultimate sin for God.

What this parable invites us to do today is not to see this landowner – this stand-in for God – as a mean, cruel, reactive God that punishes.  Quite the opposite, the parable today invites us to remember that our God is trusting, discerning about our gifts, confident in our abilities, and joyful in our obedience.  God gives each person in this room a vocation, a purpose, in this world, gives us the gifts and encouragement we need to fulfill that vocation, and, ultimately, expects us to go out into the world and boldly take the risk of doing what God has already enabled us to do.  No one likes being thrust out of the nest, having to use our wings to sustain us.  But our parable reminds us we can do what we need to do.  We have beautiful wings and our flying will help others, will bring blessing to the world, and will bring us great joy.  Getting scared when God stops being polite and starts getting real is normal.  But letting fear overpower our beauty is not what God desires for us – because God knows you can do it.  God knows your willingness to live out your vocation means great things for the world.  You can do it!  So buckle up and get ready for the ride!  Amen.

[i] Mark Douglas, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 310.

[ii] Lindsay P. Armstrong, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 309, 311.

[iii] Douglas, 308

[iv] Douglas, 312.

[v] Idea presented by Matthew Skinner in the podcast, “SB570 – Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 33)” November 11, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=948 on November 17, 2017.

Sermon – Matthew 5.1-12, AS, YA, November 5, 2017

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

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Today we honor All Saints Sunday, one of the major feasts of the Episcopal Church.  We recall this day all the faithful departed who lives were marked by heroic sanctity and whose deeds have been recalled and emulated from one generation to the next.  The celebration of these saints began as early as the late 200s, as churches began to honor those who gave up their lives for their faith, as well as those who lives were particularly exemplary.  Later, in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, sainthood became reserved for a select few who meet a certain set of requirements, which could include the performance of miracles or a particularly virtuous life.

On such a day of reverence for those whose virtuous lives remind us of God, our gospel lesson from Matthew is an intriguing choice.  Today’s gospel lesson is the beginning of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, that ministry-defining sermon by Jesus that tells us what we can expect from the Messiah.  He begins his long sermon with what we call The Beatitudes:  the famous listing of those whom we define as blessed.  The last two beatitudes make a lot of sense for today’s celebration:  Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Certainly martyrs fall into the category of sainthood.  But what about the other beatitudes?  What about those who mourn, who are poor in spirit, are meek?  Those characteristics seem much more passive than martyrdom, or even the actions I associate with most saints.

I think what has always challenged me about honoring the saints or even reading The Beatitudes is that they feel unattainable.  If Jesus is associating being blessed with grief, meekness, poverty, purity, peacemaking, and mercy, I am not sure I can attain those things.  In my mission travels, I have visited with a couple of L’Arche communities.  Founded by Jean Vanier, L’Arche communities are communities for people with developmental disabilities.  Some of those disabilities are quite severe, and others are so mild that the individuals are highly functional.  Rooted in The Beatitudes, L’Arche communities flip the notion of most group homes.  Those with developmental disabilities are called “core members.”  They are the center of the community, the most elevated and honored members of the community.  The people who are there to help them are called “assistants,” and they live among the core members.  Though society labels abled-bodied people as more valuable, in L’Arche communities, the able-bodied members are seen as mere helpers for the more revered members.

The use of The Beatitudes in shaping L’Arche communities only heightened my sense of inadequacy when reading those beautiful words.  Reading those words have often made me feel like an outsider – that unless I suffer grief, pain, persecution, I will never come close to God.  Unless I give up my life in the ways that many assistants do at L’Arche, or unless I give up my life as the martyrs do, my life will only be one of mediocrity.  I will never be able to achieve the checklist of virtues that The Beatitudes provide.

Luckily, I found some relief from the scholars this week. Stanley Hauerwas says about Jesus’ words today, “The sermon, therefore is not a list of requirements, but rather a description of the life of a people gathered by and around Jesus.  To be saved is to be so gathered.  That is why the Beatitudes are the interpretive key to the whole sermon – precisely because they are not recommendations.  No one is asked to go out and try to be poor in spirit or to mourn or to be meek.  Rather, Jesus is indicating that given the reality of the kingdom we should not be surprised to find among those who follow him those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek.”[i]  N.T. Wright concurs.  He says, “These ‘blessings,’ the ‘wonderful news’ that [Jesus is] announcing, are not saying ‘try hard to live like this.’  They are saying that people who already are like that are in good shape.”[ii]

Taking the pressure off a sense that I need to work harder to be like the saints or that I need to seek out ways to be mournful or meek, I found the text opened up something else this week.  Another scholar suggests we look at the beatitudes in this way, “Perhaps [Jesus is] challenging who we imagine being blessed in the first place.  Who is worthy of God’s attention.  Who deserves our attention, respect, and honor.  And by doing that, he’s also challenging our very understanding of blessedness itself and, by extension, challenging our culture’s view of, well, pretty much everything.  Blessing.  Power.  Success.  The good life.  Righteousness.  What is noble and admirable.  What is worth striving for and sacrificing for.  You name it.  Jesus seems to invite us to call into question our culturally-born and very much this-worldly view of all the categories with which we structure our life, navigate our decisions, and judge those around us.”[iii]

At our worship service on Wednesday night of this week, we shared who the saints are in our lives – the everyday people who taught us something about God.  There were all sorts of people named – mothers, fathers, grandparents.  One that struck me the most was the description of one such mother.  “She simply did her duty every day:  being a wife, being a mom, structuring the home.”  Though I have come to use saints in my prayer life as vehicles for deeper prayer and connection with God, more often, the people whose lives motivate me are just like that mom:  everyday people whose everyday lives point to the sacred – who reveal God to me in the basic ways they live their lives.

In the Episcopal Church, the day after All Saints’ Day is called All Souls’ Day.  This day was established in the tenth century as an extension of All Saints’ Day.  All Souls’ Day is the day the Church remembers the vast body of the faithful who, though no less members of the company of the redeemed, are unknown in the wider fellowship of the Church.  All Souls’ Day is a day for particular remembrance of family members and friends who, though no icon has ever been painted, showed us the beautiful life of holiness and righteousness.

The honoring of these lesser known saints seems to go much more richly with The Beatitudes to me.  If we know those who are meek, grieving, and poor in spirit are just as righteous as those who thirst and hunger for righteousness, we get to the heart of Jesus’ sermon today.  I imagine you all have a story.  Our family has been following a family whose ten-year old daughter had an awful case of cancer.  She has been fighting and fighting, and just last week Hospice was finally called in for support.  At dinner on Tuesday night, our eldest, just two years younger than our friend, said, unprompted, “I feel bad for kids with cancer who cannot trick-or-treat.”  The next morning, we found out that our little friend had passed that very night.  Lord knows, my child is not often a saint.  But that confluence of grief, suffering, and loss, brought us a little closer to blessedness.

Today, we will tie ribbons on our altar for all the saints and souls who have gone before us.  Maybe you will be tying your ribbon for a canonized saint, whose religious fervor has motivated you in your spiritual journey.  Maybe you will be tying your ribbon for a family saint, whose small, everyday witness taught you about the vastness of God’s love and grace.  Maybe you will be tying your ribbon for the random person you encountered who said something so profound you knew God was speaking right through them to you.  The saints we honor today are exemplary and ordinary.  The saints we honor today are people marked by action and advocacy, and people marked by everyday suffering.  The saints we honor today are people completely unlike us and just like us.  God has certainly inspired us by a host of other witnesses.  But God is also using each of you to inspire others in their journey.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 61.

[ii] N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 36.

[iii] David Lose, “All Saints A:  Preaching a Beatitudes Inversion,” November 1, 2017, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2017/11/all-saints-a-preaching-a-beatitudes-inversion/ on November 3, 2017.

Sermon – Deuteronomy 34.1-12, P25, YA, October 29, 2017, 8 AM

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

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This morning our community is celebrating our past, present, and future.  We celebrate the community of Hickory Neck, who one hundred years ago, came together to consecrate this historic church, which had been dormant of worship since the Revolutionary War, used varyingly as a school and hospital.  We celebrate a community who committed itself this year to paying off our debt which covered the cost of our New Chapel, as well as renovations to existing buildings.  And we celebrate our commitments to financially support Hickory Neck in the year ahead through our pledges of offerings.  In each celebration, we see glimpses of who Hickory has been, is, and is becoming.

We are not unlike our ancestors, the Israelites, as we find them on the brink of the Promised Land.  Today’s lesson from Deuteronomy tells the story of the last days of Moses and the beginning of Joshua’s leadership.  In their mourning over Moses’ death, the community remembers the profound ways in which God, through Moses, changed their lives.  They were exiles by famine from their land, enslaved by the Egyptians, and indebted to Pharaoh.  But Moses became their advocate, leading them out of slavery, across the Sea of Reeds, and through the long years of the wilderness.  Moses took all their complaints and whining, and advocated for food, water, and safety.  Moses took their metaphorical wandering, and delivered a new law from the Lord.  Moses organized their community and empowered the next generation to lead.  Moses’ death reminds the people of Israel all they have been through.  Their mourning is where they find themselves in the present:  no longer wandering, but not yet into their next phase of life.

And yet, Moses’ death also points them to their future.  Moses has already blessed Joshua as their next leader, and Joshua will take them into the Promised Land.  Moses is even given the gift of seeing the beauty of that land, as far as the eye can see.  Though Moses knows he is not to cross over, God shows him all that is to come.  The vision is vast, abundant, and blessed.  We suspect Moses can die in peace having seen the land of milk and honey, even if he himself will not experience the land.  And Moses has already seen Joshua receive the spirit of wisdom.  There is nothing left to do but join God in the heavenly kingdom.

On days of introspection about the past, present, and future, we can easily gloss over all the hard stuff.  Though today the people of Israel honor their esteemed leader, and they have the Promised Land ahead of them, we do not often get a sympathetic retelling of the Israelite story.  For the last several weeks, we have heard stories of the Israelites complaining about water and food, but we forget how debilitating hunger and thirst can be.  We read the story of the construction of the golden calf recently, but we rarely wonder about what waiting blindly at the foot of the mountain for Moses to return felt like or the doubt his absence created.  We also recently heard the story of the Passover, but we rarely imagine how terrifying that night must have been and what being saved meant.

I have wondered what stories linger behind our own history.  I have asked our historians about the Hickory Neck community one hundred years ago.  I have wondered who the members were, what their feelings were about the old church that was no longer theirs, or what inspired them to regather.  But we have no record of their story:  their passion that lead to us worshiping here today.  We can only imagine the negotiating they did, the partnerships they forged, the strain they underwent in those early years.  And though many of you were here when we built our New Chapel, I was not.  I imagine there were lingering doubts and concerns about whether a capital campaign, and taking on a mortgage was a good idea.  I am sure there were anxieties about church growth and identity.  And I already know some of that same labor is true today.  We wonder where the Holy Spirit is guiding us, what ministries will define us, and what people will join our community and change us for the better.  The future is always ambiguous and daunting.

That is why I appreciate our parallel story of the Israelites, Moses, and Joshua today.  As one scholar writes, what our ancient story and our modern story reminds us of is “Building the realm of God is a process, and we each have our part to play, even if we will not be around to see all our hopes come to fruition.  Even if we will not be present for the final outcome, it is important that we build the realm of God in the here and now, trusting God to work through each of us to bring about God’s vision for the world.  Furthermore, God assures us in [today’s Old Testament reading] that there will be people to continue leading us to the promised land and building God’s kingdom after we are gone.  The emergence of Joshua as the new leader of the Israelite people shows us that the work to be done is bigger than any one individual, and God will continue to provide prophetic presence through different people and voices.”[i]

In both the stories of our biblical and historical ancestors, we are reminded that we are a part of a greater narrative – each phase of the journey filled with challenges, hard times, and anxious moments.  But each phase is also filled with successes, celebratory times, and joyful, life-giving moments.  That is why we have been talking about journeys this month.  As we have reflected on our personal journeys to generosity during stewardship season, we have heard countless stories of how our journey has evolved, changed, and deepened.  We have also heard of the fellow pilgrims along the way who taught us about generosity and shaped our journey along the way.  What we have been doing this month, and what our Old Testament lesson and our current celebrations remind us of is “there is value in the journey.  The value lies in the growth, the relationships, and the spiritual development we experience along the way, not to mention the incremental progress we make toward creating the just and peaceable world that God desires for all of creation.”[ii]

Our invitation this week, is to continue to invest in the journey.  Each of you have shared with me the innumerable ways that Hickory Neck has influenced your journey.  I cannot tell you the countless times that this building alone has played a powerful part of your experience here.  I cannot tell you the multiple times I have heard about the passion and excitement that enlivened your faith life as we built a new worship space after hundreds of years on this land.  I cannot tell you the hundreds of times I have heard dreams and vision whispered in my ear as you have envisioned what the next steps of our journey together at Hickory Neck will be.  There will be hard moments and joyful moments, times of struggle and times of celebration.  Today we are reminded of the God who journeys in each phase with us, and empowers us as partners on the journey to change the kingdom of God here on earth.  God will empower us to stay on the journey together.  I cannot wait to see where the journey leads!  Amen.

[i] Leslie A. Klingensmith, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplement to Yr. A, Proper 25 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 4.

[ii] Klingensmith, 6.

Sermon – Matthew 21.33-46, P22, YA, October 8, 2017

11 Wednesday Oct 2017

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One of the things I love about coming to church week in and week out is the practice setting time aside to discern how Holy Scripture is speaking to our everyday life.  Whether I have had a stressful week or a week of celebration, whether I am struggling in life or am experiencing a time of joy, or whether I am pained by the world around me or encouraged by the world around me, the Holy Scripture that we hear on Sunday always finds a way of speaking to me – of comforting, encouraging, challenging, and journeying with me.

But I confess to you I have been struggling to hear a good word from God through Holy Scripture this week.  You see, six days ago, we awoke to the news of the deadliest mass shooting in our modern history.  I cannot seem to shake the awful images and sounds of that night – the rapid sound of gunfire, the screams of terror in the crowd, the panic created in a crowd who had no idea how to escape the unseen shooter, and the sheer volume of deaths, injuries, and psychological trauma.  A week later, having no real leads on motive, all I am left with is the reality of violence in our society that seems inescapable – of one more city to add to the growing list of instances of mass violence:  Columbine, Blacksburg, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Orlando.

With the weight of the sinfulness of our violence upon one another, what I really wanted from Holy Scripture was a balm or a promise from God that love would win.  Instead, our gospel lesson today feels more like a mirror of our modern violence.  Jesus tells the leaders of the faithful a parable about a landowner who plants a vineyard and entrusts the tending of the vineyard to tenants.  When the time comes for the tenants to proudly show the landowner the fruits of their labor, instead the tenants do something awful.  They beat, kill, and stone the servants sent by the landowner.  And their action is not a one-time occurrence.  The landowner sends even more of his servants to the tenants, and they beat, kill, and stone them too.  The landowner even sends his own son; but filled with greed, entitlement, and violence, they kill the landowner’s son too.  Instead of redemption at the end of the parable, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

Because this is a parable, we know that Jesus is trying to tell the people of Israel something about themselves.  Stanley Hauerwas interprets the parable in this way, “The parable of the wicked tenants can serve as an outline of Matthew’s understanding of the life of Israel.  God [calls] Israel to be his vineyard fenced by the law, grounded in the land, and protected by worship of God in the temple.  God [sends] his prophets to call the people to faithfulness, but the people beat, [stone], and [kill] them.  Finally God [sends] his very Son, but even he [is] rejected…Jesus [leaves] no ambiguity about how this parable is to be understood.  The chief priests and the Pharisees [realize] that they are the ‘rejected.’  Yet they are not in any fashion to repent.”[i]

The starkness of Jesus’ parable has left me wondering whether we have become like the tenants in this story.  Not knowing the motive of the shooter in Las Vegas, we can somewhat distance ourselves from him – perhaps blaming mental illness or labeling him as an outlier in an otherwise healthy society.  But what concerns me more is that this is not an isolated event.  This is not the first time I have had to talk about a mass shooting from the pulpit.  We have not just beaten, killed, and stoned a couple of servants.  We keep committing awful violence, and what is worse is I fear we are becoming desensitized, accepting violence as the status quo – a consequence we are willing to live with in order to have the things we want in life.

In the spiral of darkness between our news feed and Holy Scripture, I had to take a deep breath, praying for some glimmer of hope.  So I started with where we started in worship today – with our collect.  We prayed, “Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior…”  The collect today reminded me that no matter how dark things seem, there is always light to be found.

With the encouragement of the collect, I was able to go back to the parable.  I realized that perhaps the tenants, or perhaps even ourselves, are not going to be the origin of our hope.  Instead, our hope in darkness rests on God.  The landowner in the parable is marked by goodness.  The landowner plants the vineyard, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower.  Then the landowner allows tenants to use the land, having given them the tools they need, trusting them to care for the land.  Heard another way, we hear all the good news of our creative God.  God creates this beautiful land which we are given the privilege to tend – our own breathtaking vineyard.  And because tending vineyards is hard work, God gives us the “fence” of the law – a set of guidelines to order our common life.  God gives us the tools for work, protection, and worship, knowing we will need those things too.  God even sends us prophets, knowing we will likely go astray.  Eventually, God sends us God’s Son.  This parable is the story of God’s covenantal relationship with us – a relationship marked by love, forgiveness, and grace.  And just like the whole of our Christian story, there will be moments of faithfulness, and moments of repentance.  There will be moments of honor and moments of shame.  In spite of the winding nature of our journey, God is ever present, pouring out love, abundance, mercy, and grace.  Even on our darkest days, when we crucify God’s Son, God does not answer violence with violence.  As one scholar conveys, “… rather than return violence for violence, in the cross of Jesus God absorbs our violence and responds with life, with resurrection, with Jesus triumphant over death and offering, not retribution, but peace.”[ii]

In the midst of stewardship season, I have been wondering all week how in the world I could talk about stewardship today.  But I think stewardship might be the perfect response to the seeming hopelessness of the world and this parable.  A Journey to Generosity is just that:  a journey.  Each one of us has been gifted a vineyard to tend, is surrounded by the gift of God’s word to root us in love, is given the tools needed to tend the vineyard, and is promised that even when we are pretty terrible farmers, Jesus will redeem our darkest days.  God has given us all we need, walks with us in the darkness, and makes a way for us toward light.

The invitation for us today is two-fold.  The first is to go back to the beginning – whether we go back to the collect we heard today, go back to the covenantal stories of our walk with God, or go back to our own vineyard to look around at the abundance in which we find ourselves.  Sometimes in order to appreciate where we are in our Journey to Generosity, we have to look back at the faithfulness of God that is often only evident in the rearview mirror.  After we have immersed ourselves in the abundance of love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness offered by our God, then we take the next step on our journey.  What that next step is will be different for each person in this room.  But if we can envision each person in this room as agents of God’s light and love, imagine the collective power we have to drive out darkness, and transform the world into goodness.  We do not do this work alone.  We are encouraged today by fellow companions on the Journey to Generosity.  I cannot wait to hear the stories from your adventures in generosity.  God is doing great things through you.  And that is reason enough for hope.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 186-187.  Verbs in quotation changed to present tense for preaching purposes.

[ii] David Lose, “Pentecost 18A: Words and Deeds,” October 6, 2017, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2017/10/pentecost-18-a-words-and-deeds/ on October 6, 2017.

Sermon – Exodus 16.2-15, Matthew 20.1-16, P20, YA, September 24, 2017

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

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This week in Discovery Class, we did a review of Holy Scripture.  We talked about how many years writing the Bible took, the content in each section, the types of literature we find in scripture, and what scripture reveals about us as God’s people.  Our homework was to study today’s gospel lesson, being sure to read the text immediately before and after the text we hear today as a way of helping us interpret the passage.  That tip was especially telling in today’s Old and New Testament lessons

In our lesson from Exodus last Sunday, we heard the story of the parting of the Sea of Reeds.  We heard of that dramatic moment where God allows the Israelites to pass through on dry land, but destroys the Egyptians as the waters return.  The last line in last week’s lesson from Exodus is, “Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians.  So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.”  Today, the first sentence from our Exodus reading is, “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’”  Israel’s groaning and complaining today are much more grievous when we read the great heights of their praise and faithfulness last week.

Likewise, in our gospel lesson today, we hear the familiar story of the generous landowner, who gives the same wage to those who work an hour and those who work all day in the broiling sun.  We can read this passage, and criticize the envious, hardworking laborers for their lack of gratitude.  But the power of the story is heightened when we realize immediately before Jesus’ parable, Peter interrupts Jesus’ teaching and basically says, “But what about us?  We left everything behind and we have been following you.  What’s in it for us?”  And right after Jesus’ parable, the mother of James and John approaches Jesus and basically says, “Listen, if it’s not too much trouble, can my boys sit at your right and left hand in the kingdom?”  So, when Jesus says to Peter, “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first,” and when the landowner says to the workers, “the last will be first, and the first will be last,” what do you think Jesus is trying to address?[i]

I do not know about you, but both of these texts have left me pretty uncomfortable this week.  Watching the Israelites go from faithful, obedient, loyal followers, to whiny, unappreciative, complaining messes hits a little too close to home.  Admittedly, part of me cringes at this text because we have been hammering home the importance of gratitude with our own children.  No sooner is the ice cream cone finished before the complaint comes that we never do anything nice for them.  But as much as we fuss at them, we know the same is true for us.  We are great at praise and thanksgiving to God – when things are going well.  When seas are parting, and enemies are defeated, our God is awesome.  But when we cannot seem to make ends meet, when our loved one is sick again, or when our relationships are falling apart, gratitude is the last thing on our lips.  We find ourselves in what one scholar calls the “spiritual wilderness of ingratitude.”[ii]  We cringe at these readings because we are no more masters at gratitude than our children are.

What both of these lessons do, ever so brutally, is lure us in with stories about abundant, underserved generosity, and put under a microscope our deeply buried discomfort with abundant, underserved generosity.  Part of the reason we are uncomfortable is because God’s generosity often bumps up against our notions of fairness.[iii]  I do not know if we understand the concept of fairness innately or if we are taught fairness by our community, but somewhere along the line, we learn the concept of fairness and apply the concept with exacting scrutiny.  I remember when I was a child and wanted a treat, my dad would make my brother and me share the treat.  One child was allowed to split the treat in half, but the other child got to pick which half he or she wanted.  You can imagine how precise my cuts became when looking at that cookie.

But our notions of fairness evolve over time.  One could take that same cookie and give a slightly larger half to the older child since they are bigger.  Or one could take that same cookie and give the slightly larger half to the child who was better-behaved.  Or one could give the larger half to the one who was physically weaker and needed more nourishment.  There are all sorts of ways to determine fairness.  But God’s measure, in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures seems to be that everyone receives God’s generosity despite worth or effort – or even the showing of gratitude.

Take our lesson from Exodus.  The people have clearly approached mutiny.  Their love for God is buried in their physical hunger and their self-centered greed.  But instead of punishing the Israelites, God lavishes them with all they need.  God gives them bread every day and meat every night.  In fact, God even gives them a double portion on the eve of the Sabbath so that they can observe the Sabbath without having to work for their food.  The feast is not a rich feast of wines and marrow, but their feast is gloriously generous and enough.

The same is true in Jesus’ parable.  Yes, the landowner has a weird way of putting the day-long workers in the awkward position of watching his generosity, but ultimately, the landowner gives everyone enough.  He gives the wage he promised to the day-long workers – a wage that will fill them and their families for days.[iv]  But he also gives the same wage to the hour-long workers.  Sure, they did not deserve the wage, but the same wage that feeds the other workers feeds them too.  The landowner is gloriously generous and gives enough.[v]

I have been wondering all week where these texts leave us:  maybe a bit guilty, perhaps a bit convicted, and definitely “last” in the pecking order Jesus describes.  But what I realized this week is both in Exodus and in Jesus’ parable, perhaps being last is not all that bad.  You see, Jesus does not say, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be ejected.”  No, Jesus says, “the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  So even on our worst Israelite days, when we are moaning and complaining about the very God who miraculously saved us, or even on our worst vineyard days, when we are complaining about an unfair, albeit generous, owner, we are still not ejected.  We are not taken out of God’s generosity; we are not stripped of our blessing.  We may be last, but we still have enough.  Our abundantly generous God takes care of us when we deserve God’s care and when we do not.  Our abundantly generous God gives us enough when we think God’s generosity is fair and when we do not.  Our abundantly generous God loves us whether we embrace God’s generosity or we do not.

I cannot promise we will ever get in line with God’s generosity.  I am not sure we will ever be cured of our sense of fairness or even our ill-conceived notions that we could earn God’s generosity.  But what I can tell you is that we are not alone.  Our people thousands of years ago did not master God’s generosity.  The disciples two thousand years ago did not master Christ’s generosity.  And I suspect we will not either.  But every week, we try.  Every week we continue on our journey toward generosity – seeing God’s generosity in ourselves and others – being inspired to try again.  I am not sure we will ever be first in line.  But the good news is we get to stay in line – which means there is always room to try again.  Our generous God will make sure we have enough until then.  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 100-102.

[ii] Deborah A. Block, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Year A  (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 2.

[iii] Taylor, 103.

[iv] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York:  Harper Collins, 2014), 224.

[v] Block, 4.