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Sermon – John 9.1-41, L4, YA, March 19, 2023

29 Monday May 2023

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We are in the midst of award season.  Just last weekend, the Oscars grabbed our attention with surprising wins and disappointing losses.  This week College Basketball’s March Madness has us riveted again, with expected wins, surprising upsets, and underdogs to encourage.  Despite the vested interest I may have in some of these “award” events, I find myself most drawn to the human responses.  At the Oscars, and most award shows these days, they split the TV screen with the five nominees in order to help us capture the suspense and joy of the moment.  Later, in replays and online chatter, our attention gets redirected to those who do not receive awards:  were they gracious in their loss, do they visibly show their disappointment, or do they struggle to conceal their emotions?  The Big Tournament is not much different.  Every game could either be the last of the season or the last of a career for some students.  Like clockwork, players whose teams do not advance show a variety of emotions:  from the gracious loser who can genuinely say “good game,” to the victor, the player who looks angry about the loss – perhaps most angry at themselves, or the player who just breaks down in tears at a season or career suddenly gone. 

The worst part about the award season though is our reaction to those human responses.  We say things like, “She should have been happy to just be nominated,” or “Someone should have taught them about being a good sportsman?”  Our shift from understanding to a finger-pointing-should happens almost instantaneously.  Sadly, when we are given the vivid stories we have been given these last three weeks in John’s Gospel, we do the same thing in Scripture.  I can imagine the thoughts that were bouncing around in our heads during that long gospel lesson:  How could the disciples, of all people, assume someone sinned just because he is blind?  How dare those parents just abandon their son – they should have been leading the healing celebrations! And those hard-headed Pharisees?  They should relent with what Jesus is trying to show them.  Before we realize, we have turned into that Pharisee from Luke’s gospel who prays loudly, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector!”[i]

The challenge when we moralize this story about the blind man is that we tend to place ourselves dishonestly in the story.  Either, we relate most to the blind man, perhaps even recalling when God has brought about some transformation in our lives or when we have followed Jesus even when we were judged or outcast; or we read the story as an outsider looking in – as if this is a story unrelated to our own journey with Jesus.  In other words, this becomes a story about those people.  But John’s Gospel will not let us do either of those things today.  You see, John’s whole gospel is about belief.  Just two weeks ago we talked about belief when we read John 3.16 – whosoever believes in him.  But, according to scholar Karoline Lewis, “…believing in the Gospel of John is synonymous with relationship with Jesus.  To state that he believes in Jesus means that the formerly blind man is in relationship with Jesus.”  Lewis goes on to say, “When we say, ‘Lord, I believe,’ we are not only making a confession of faith but making a claim of the true presence of relationship with Jesus…To acknowledge belief as a relational category may very well transform much of how we think church and faith need to be.”[ii]

The Pharisees, the folks whom we are most like in this story, cannot be moved into this belief as relationship with Jesus.  They are confident in their own truth:  they follow the God of Moses, they know that no one but God heals on the sabbath, they know blindness is caused by sin (even the disciples agree with this one).  They resist God doing a new thing:  they demand to know Jesus’ origin, they grill the formerly blind man not once, but twice, and they even do a background check with this man’s parents.  They are proud:  when the formerly blind man asks if they might be asking so many questions because they want to follow Jesus too, and when Jesus suggests they are the blind ones, the people of faith scoff and hold their ground. 

Now, I know putting ourselves in the place of the Pharisees may feel a little too-Lent-y today.  We know we need to be repenting of our confidence in self alone, our hardhearted resistance, and our pride and vainglory.  But surely, we are not that bad, right?  Instead of assuring us that we are not, I want to assure us of something else.  The blind man’s journey to belief is just that.  At the beginning of our story today, he cannot see Jesus at all.  But he can hear Jesus and he does respond by going down and washing away the mud.  When he is first questioned by his neighbors, he honestly says he doesn’t know where this Jesus guy is.  When questioned by the religious authority about Jesus’ identity, he only slowly makes his way to belief by claiming Jesus must be a prophet.  When pushed even further, he reviews the truth of his experience, slowly realizing that maybe, just maybe, he is disciple of this stranger.  Finally, in his conversation with Jesus after being kicked out of the synagogue, he says, “I believe.”  Or in other words, “I have and want a relationship with you.”  The formerly blind man’s relationship is not immediate,[iii] he does not come to relationship confidently, and he struggles to understand.  But he does struggle.

Our invitation today is not to go home feeling guilty about our hardhearted, self-centered, pride and resistance.  Our invitation is to see and hear how God can transform our resistance to the new things Jesus is doing.  The journey will not be easy – we will have people question us – in fact, we may question ourselves.  We will not know the answers, we may be afraid, and we may be cutoff from what we thought was our place of belonging.  But what the formerly blind man reminds us today is that belief, relationship with Jesus, is a journey.  Amazing things will happen – my goodness, how amazing that a man blind from birth can find new life.  But new life really comes as we walk as disciples of Christ, following Jesus when those around us, and even we ourselves, resist.  Our invitation though is to keep listening, knowing that slowly, our blindness will be lifted too.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Luke 18.11.

[ii] Karoline M. Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 132.

[iii] Karoline M. Lewis, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 119

Sermon – 1 Samuel 17.1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49, P7, YB, June 24, 2018

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

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This summer, our Faith and Film series is all about superheroes.  I was never a huge fan of superheroes growing up.  I liked Superman and Batman nominally, sported a pair of Wonder Woman Underoos as a kid, but in general wasn’t really into superheroes and certainly not into comic books.  But a few years ago, I stumbled into the film, The Avengers, and found myself curious about the back stories of all these superheroes.  That began a deep dive into multiple films, many of which you can see this summer.  The first one, Captain America, is a classic story of the little guy overcoming.  Steve Rogers, a literal little guy with a bad case of asthma, wants to enlist in the US Army during World War II so badly, but his health and height disqualify him.  Impressed by his tenacity, Steve gets recruited into an experimental program to be medically turned into a Super Soldier.  There begins his journey of the little man taking on the big man of Nazi Germany.

Most of us enjoy a good story of the little man overcoming.  That’s why the story of David and Goliath is so epic in our memory.  This little kid, totally untrained, completely unarmed (with the exception of some rocks and a sling), and certainly the underdog to the 9 feet 6 inches[i] of Goliath, David is the prototypical little man.  And yet, with the entire Philistine army staring them down, with a giant taunting them for forty days, and with the ominous threat of defeat, no one else is willing to step forward.  The giant, covered in over 126 pounds of armor, and holding huge weapons like the spear whose iron head weighs fifteen pounds[ii], utilizes his own brand of psychological warfare.[iii]  In the end, that dry river bed between the two armies is not just a valley of separation, but a “chasm of fear.”[iv]  And yet, somehow, the teenage shepherd boy steps forward to fight – the little man, the underdog, makes his move.

But unlike a typical underdog, David does not need science, or a lucky break, or some trick.  What David needs has nothing to do with him.  Instead, what he needs is God.  No one in the Israeli camp has mentioned God at this point in the story.  Saul has tried to overcome the chasm of fear with the promise of riches and even his own daughter’s hand in marriage.  And yet, the entire army of Israel can only see how mismatched they would be against the ultimate warrior.  But David sees things differently.  Having fought lions and bears to save his sheep, David knows he can fight Goliath too.  But not because he is a mighty warrior – but because Yahweh delivered David then too.  Even Saul, God’s formerly appointed king, has forgotten God.  But not David.  David is first to speak Yahweh’s name in almost forty verses of text.[v]  When David faces Goliath, he invokes God’s name, recalling with the name the entire memory of Yahweh’s deliverances of Israel in the past.  David knows that he does not need the conventions of human warfare, but only the God of Israel.[vi]

This week, I have been thinking what a ridiculous sermon that is:  all we need is God.  If all we needed was God, we wouldn’t be in such a political mess, totally unable to compromise, hear each other, and work for the common good.  If all we needed was God, that cancer diagnosis, that lost job, that lost pregnancy, or that lost relationship would not have felt so devastating.  If all we needed was God, we would have figured out a way to both secure our borders and humanely treat those fleeing injustice and seeking asylum.  In saying all we need is God, we sound like a bunch of hippies singing the great Beatles song, “All You Need is Love.”  As modern pragmatists, we know better – we know letting go and letting God is what you say – but not what you do.

So how do we turn ourselves from being skeptics, cynics, and dispassionates to seeing all we need is God?  Well, first we have to define a few things.  What is happening in David’s story should not be a surprise.  If you remember a few weeks ago, when the people broke their longstanding covenant with God, asking for a king like the other nations, God gave them Saul.  And Saul was just that – like the other nations, fighting battles with weapons of other nations.  So when David offers to fight, Saul does what a conventional leader would do – arm David with the conventions of war.  He tries to weigh down David with his armor, hoping against hope that there might be a modicum of protection against the Philistine.  Saul is a ruler like the other nations have.  The contrast between Saul and David then becomes a contrast between trusting conventional means and the means of God.[vii]  Saul has become ruled by fear instead of faith.

The way we pull ourselves out of being skeptical, cynical, or dispassionate is not by rallying behind the idea that we are the little man – the underdog David or Captain America, just waiting to be empowered by God.  The way we put to bed our skepticism, cynical thoughts, or dispassionate feelings about all the things in life overwhelming us is to recall the faithfulness of God.  When David says, “All you need is love,” he does not mean all you need is people giving hugs to one another.  What he means is, all you need is to remember the faithfulness of God – especially when we are not faithful at all!  In his speeches to Saul and Goliath, David is recalling the salvation narrative – the stories of God’s faithfulness for generations.  His trust is actually pretty bold too, considering the current king Saul’s appointment represents the breaking of covenant between God and the people.  But David trusts even a broken covenant can be overcome.  David claims his identity as a child of God and knows his identity is all he needs to fight the worst this world has to offer.

This past week, as politics and religion got dragged together in front of camera crews, I slowly began to realize that we are in a David moment.  We can keep doing what we have been doing – keeping our faith out of politics, putting politics in a box that we especially do not open on Sundays, or we can start realizing that we can never put our faith in a box.  The bond that we have as Episcopalians and especially within the hugely politically diverse community that is Hickory Neck is extremely fragile.  Our fragility is why I rarely talk about politics among the community.  I value our ability to come to the Eucharistic Table in spite of our difference over just about anything else.  But that high value on the common table can come at a cost – the cost is never talking about what being a people of God means – what being a disciple of Christ and being an American means.  In order to protect that common table, I have put on 126 pounds of brass armor, and taken up a spear whose head weighs fifteen pounds.  Instead, today David invites us to shed the ill-fitting armor, and just walk in the clothes God gave us (and maybe a few stones).

I am not saying once we shed man-made armor we will suddenly know what immigration policies are the best.  But what I am saying is until we take on God’s armor, until we recall all those times when God has delivered us, when God has turned chasms of fear into paths of faithfulness, until we remember that we have a distinct identity as children of God and disciples of Christ, we will not be able to take on the Goliath issues of our day.  Stripping down to David-like clothing, we are able sit down comfortably, to see each other more honestly, to be in relationship more authentically, to gather at this table – not just trying to avoid banging our heavy armor into each other, barely able to make eye contact because of our heavy helmets, but actually brushing the skin of elbows with one another, looking deeply into the eyes of the chalice bearer serving you Christ’s blood, and offering the hand of Christian friendship as we rise from the altar rail together.  We can do all those things because God is faithful.  We can do all those things because God has delivered us before.  We can do all those things because we are Christ’s disciples – and that is what we do through God.  We may be underdogs, and we may be vulnerable in a world that is happy to deploy psychological warfare, but we are united and empowered by the love of God.  Our invitation is to step trustingly, boldly, confidently into that love.  Amen.

[i] William P. Brown, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays for Year B, Batch 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 4.

[ii] Richard F. Ward, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays for Year B, Batch 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 4.

[iii] Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation:  A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preach, First and Second Samuel (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 131.

[iv] Ward, 2.

[v] Brueggemann, 130.

[vi] Brueggemann, 132.

[vii] Brueggemann, 131.

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.