Tag Archives: Sermon

Sermon – Isaiah 40.1-11, A2, YB, December 7, 2014

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

This sermon was delivered on the occasion of our Annual Meeting. 

This time of year, I do a lot of preparing.  Though the setup takes a lot of work, I particularly love preparing our house for Christmas.  Unpacking and hanging all the ornaments is a tradition I shared with my family, and that I now can share with my girls.  I love telling my oldest daughter the stories behind certain ornaments and helping her decide where they should go.  I also put out our international crèche collection.  They remind me of travels I have made or friends from far away places.  Each inspires something different in me, reflecting the culture and artistry of different countries.  And of course, my daughter loves helping me hide away the baby Jesuses until Christmas day.  We even take down some artwork on our wall to make room for the cards which friends from far and wide send to us.  There is something homey and comforting about the whole process of preparing for Christmas, and I love the way that the preparation makes me feel grounded and joyful.

In our Old Testament lesson today, the text says, “prepare the way of the LORD.”  In this season of Advent, we are to prepare for the arrival of the Christ Child.  Now certainly, unpacking ornaments, advent wreaths, and crèches are one way to prepare.  But God is talking about a different kind of preparation today.  God is not talking about an outward change – like decorating our homes.  God is talking about an inward preparation – an inward change in anticipation of the LORD.  I am reminded of how one of our parishioners just recently prepared himself for the LORD.  Several weeks ago, one of our young parishioners decided to receive his first communion.  He prepared by reading about the Eucharist at home with his family, asking questions, and talking with them about their experiences.  He worked on memorizing the Lord’s Prayer, so that he might fully participate in the prayer life of our community.  And then he sat with me as we walked through the Eucharistic liturgy, talking about what each part means, why that part is significant, and what all those crazy things on the altar are called.  Finally, he chose someone to present him before the entire community, where he and we all declared that he was prepared to be in full communion with this community.  He waited and worked to prepare himself for the consumption of our LORD.  And now, each week that I have placed the body of Christ in his hand since then, I have felt a sweet, deeply abiding satisfaction when he reaches his hands toward me to receive Christ’s body.

The kind of preparation that our young parishioner did is a small taste of the kind of preparation God calls for in our Old Testament today.  Isaiah says that in order to prepare, we need to make straight in the desert a highway for our God, lift up every valley, make low every mountain and hill, level the uneven ground, and make plain the rough places.  This passage is so familiar to us, that many of us miss the magnitude of what God is saying.  When was the last time you tried to fill in a valley or level a mountain?  Of course, God is not telling us to literally take the winding roads of deserts and make them straight.  But in the metaphors, God is telling us that preparing for God is not easy work.  In fact, preparing for the LORD is a monumental task.  Preparing for the LORD is not like preparing our homes for Christmas, where we can make a basic checklist and slowly check the items off the list.  When given the hefty work of preparing ourselves inwardly for God, the task of leveling our valleys and mountains and smoothing out our rough places is much more difficult.

In some ways, I have watched St. Margaret’s do a lot of this interior work.  Over the course of the last year, our Vestry and Buildings and Grounds Committee have made level the mess that had become our Undercroft.  Though taking on an expensive project, they together worked to clean out harmful mold and mildew, solved a drainage problem to prevent that kind of damage again, and reimagined how that space could be utilized by us and our community.  Meanwhile, our educational offerings have been totally made low in this last year.  We revamped our Sunday School program after years of struggling to find the best way to raise our children in the faith.  We reworked our worship schedule so that adults could claim an hour in their busy lives to ponder their faith and make straight paths in the desert.  We have filled in the valleys by marching in parades, sponsoring baseball teams, eating pancakes at local diners, and inviting total strangers into our midst so that they might help us fill in those valleys.  Of course, anyone who knows St. Margaret’s also knows that you are only a stranger here for about one Sunday before our wonderfully welcoming community has made sure they know your whole life story before your coffee cup is empty.

All of those have been wonderfully positive things in our lives, but not easy work.  I cannot tell you the number of people who worried and fretted over our Undercroft expenses, complained about how long the work was taking, and questioned the wisdom of the work.  I cannot tell you the number of times I myself considered whether we should halt educational offerings altogether due to low turnout.  I cannot tell you how many times I needed each one of us to invite someone to church and instead heard someone say, “Oh, well isn’t that what our new website is for?”  We have been making progress toward straightening paths, filling in valleys, and leveling mountains.  But we have also gotten very dirty, been impatient and frustrated with each other, and sometimes have dropped our shovels altogether.  That is what happens when you do this kind of preparation for the LORD.  The work is not easy.  The work is monumental.  The work is, well, work.  And work is what God is inviting us into today.

The good news is that today’s text is one of those “both-and” texts.[i]  Yes, God is inviting us into some hard work today.  As we reflect on another year of service, at the mounds of dirt we have already moved, God is charging us to roll up our sleeves and keep digging.  And yes, God promises that the work of preparing will not be easy work.  But God also makes a promise while we are in the mire of making roads straight.  Our text today from Isaiah says, “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”  This last sentence has been lingering with me this week.  Maybe because I am a nursing mom, or maybe because this is the only time that scripture talks about the work of a mother sheep, but I find myself riveted by these words.

Just this week, I had one of “those” nights at our house.  I do not know whether she was teething or just had a rough day, but I lost count after the fifth time I woke up to my infant’s crying one night.  The next morning, I woke up bleary-eyed, almost falling asleep while eating my morning cereal, spilling my coffee on my computer, and generally having a rough time trying to focus.  That is the life of a mother with young children.  And I assume, the life of a mother sheep is not much easier – constantly using her body to protect and feed her lambs.  To that wearied mother sheep, God says that God will gently lead her.  In fact, not only that, God will gather up her lambs, embracing them in God’s bosom, and then God will gently lead the mother sheep.  I am reminded of the many times someone has scooped up my daughters when they were losing their cool.  I am reminded of the individuals who have forced me to go take a date night while they watched my kids.  I am reminded of the encouraging words and sympathetic nods I have received over these last five years.

That is the kind of care God promises us in the midst of our work.  God says, “Go out there and get dirty filling valleys, leveling mountains, and straitening roads.  And when you are weary from the work, I will scoop up your little ones, and gently lead you by my side.”  As I look forward to the coming year, I hear both a charge and a comfort for us today.  We all have more to learn, more people to serve, more spreading of the gospel to do.  But we also have a shepherd who tenderly encourages and comforts us – and then kicks us right back into the ring.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 28.

Sermon – Mark 13.24-37, A1, YB, November 30, 2014

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

I live a very loud life these days.  If any of you have ever visited the Rectory between the hours of five and seven in the evening, you have witnessed the sheer volume of my life.  Between the baby who can only communicate frustration through crying and the kindergartner who is quite verbose nowadays, mixed in with the fatigue they both feel after a long day of school and nursery care, let’s just say these hours are full of a lot of noise.  That is not to say that all of the noise is unpleasant – there is also the noise of laughter, storytelling, and shaking rattles.  But our house in those hours is not the place where you would want set up a yoga mat and try to meditate.

I sometimes blame all the noise in my life on my beloved children.  But the truth is I am as much a cause of the noise as they are.  I am admittedly loud myself – whether barking instructions around the house, singing aloud, or simply talking my husband’s ear off.  But I am not just loud in the house – I am also loud inside my head.  My mind is in constant conversation:  my to-do list, searching for ideas for a blog post, worrying about a sick friend or parishioner, trying to make plans for the weekend, processing a troublesome conversation, or wallowing in guilt for missed exercise or time in prayer.  As loud as my outside world is, my inside world is probably much worse.  Add Christmastime to the mix, and the loudness of my life reaches levels that can be incapacitating.

That is why I love Advent so much.  In the lead-up to Christmas, the outside world bombards us with noise:   Christmas songs on the radio, shopping to complete, parties to attend, gifts to wrap, houses to decorate, gatherings to host, cards to send, and loud relatives or friends to entertain.  In contrast, the Church at this time asks us to do the exact opposite:  slow down, take a breath, light some candles, breath in the fresh greenery, sing quiet, meditative songs, and worship in the soothing purple of anticipation.  When the outside world is telling us, “Do more, buy more, run more, fuss more, stress more,” the Church says, “Do less, worry less, run less, talk less, be busy less.”  The contrast between the two worlds is like night and day, and at a time of high stress, Advent becomes the Church’s greatest gift to us.

Into this contrast, we hear words from Mark’s gospel today.  The text says, “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.  Therefore, keep awake– for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”  Many of us hear this text today with a sense of anxiety – of needing to keep anxious watch for the Lord.  We might imagine the many apocalyptic movies, predictions, and preachers we have witnessed over the years and wonder whether Jesus really does want us to be more alarmed.  Certainly the outside world would have us also be alert and anxious for the coming Christmas.

But I think the Church is saying something else today.  Instead of an anxious alarm, our gospel lesson sounds like a gentle reminder to me.  Keep awake, for you do not want to miss the quiet beauty of Advent.  Keep awake, for you do not want to miss the gift of time set apart in these four weeks.  Keep awake, for you do not want to miss the lead in to the manger, the dramatic retelling of why the manger is so important, and the grounding for this entire season.[i]  Jesus’ words for us to “keep awake,” are not meant to be one more anxiety to pile on top of a mound of concerns.  Jesus’ words for us to “keep awake,” are meant to help us focus on what is really important.

So make a commitment to come to church each Sunday in Advent and spend those Sundays in quiet worship with your church family.  Grab an Advent calendar or devotional to help you more intentionally mark the days leading up to the manger.  Or set up that Advent wreath at home, so that you might bring the quiet candlelight of prayer and meditation to your home.  Whatever the discipline, choose something this Advent that will help you maintain the quiet peace you find here at Church and carry that quiet peace throughout your weeks leading up to Christmas.  My guess is that noise of life will slowly fade into a quiet hum in the background – which is right where it should be.  Amen.

[i] Lillian Daniel, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 22.

Sermon – Matthew 25.31-46, P29, YA, November 23, 2014

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Once upon a time, “there was a cobbler who lived alone in his shop with one window that looked out on the street.  His wife and children had all died and he asked God, “Holy One why have you so long delayed your coming?  I have almost given up hope in seeing you.  Please come to my humble shop this day and show me your face.”

Outside on the street the cold winter brought snow.  Through his window he saw a beggar who shivered in the cold.  The cobbler invited the beggar into the shop to warm him and offer a meager meal from his shrinking larder.  The beggar thanked him and left.

As the day passed, a few customers came with repairs they needed for their shoes and harnesses.  A young boy sought shelter from the cold and snow.  The child’s feet were wrapped in old dirty rags and stuffed with paper.  Into the shop he invited the boy.  After making him some warm milk and a sandwich from the little food he had he went to his closet and found a pair of shoes that [had] belonged to his son.  He fit the shoes to the boy.  Grateful, the boy left with a promise to return to visit him.

It was approaching dusk and the cobbler despaired of a visit from the Lord.  A woman with her young babe appeared in front of the window.  She was dressed in a thin piece of cloth and she looked as if she might freeze to death.  The cobbler invited her into his shop.  Wary of the old man, she hesitated at the door, but feeling the warmth within she stepped across the threshold.  The cobbler made her some tea and went to his closet to find a heavy woolen cloak that [had] belonged to his wife.  Giving her the cloak the woman thanked him and after he shared the rest of his larder with her, she left with the child.

The sun descended and left the cobbler bereft.  “Why didn’t you come and visit me today,” the cobbler asked?  There was a voice that spoke to him in his humble shop:  “But I did come to you.  When you invited in the beggar, the boy, and the mother and her child, I was there with you.  In each of their faces you looked into my eyes.”  [The cobbler] then remembered the scripture: “When did you see me hungry and feed me, alone and naked and clothe me and thirsty and you gave me a drink.”  The visitors who had come to his shop that day had been his master.  In their faces he had looked into the eyes of God.

That night the cobbler slept happy and at peace for the first time in many months.”[i]

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those lessons that we might hear and immediately panic, for fear that we are those goats at God’s left hand.  We can picture all of those homeless persons we passed without a nod or a coin; that nursing home that we go by everyday but fail to stop in for a visit; or that prison that we avoid because passing the prison makes us nervous enough – we cannot imagine actually going inside.  In fact, we are pretty sure that we are the goats of Jesus’ story, and we know that when those goats do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, tend the sick, and visit the prison, they are sent away to eternal punishment.  Talk about a sobering text.

Truthfully, we probably all could use a little sobering from time to time.  But today, I am more intrigued by the ways in which we are sheep.  In fact, St. Margaret’s gives us all kinds of opportunities to be sheep:  when we plant, tend, and pick produce that feeds the hungry in Huntington Station and Hicksville; when we donate money to the Outreach Fund, which provides clothing, gas, food, and toiletries to needy students at JFK High School here in Plainview; when we take communion to the shut-ins, or simply stop by for a visit or drop off a container of soup; or when we clear out our closets for veterans we may never meet.  All of these ways are ways in which St. Margaret’s is seeking and serving Christ in our neighborhood, and inviting us to fully become sheep at God’s right hand.

But as proud as I am of each of us, and as much as I want to assure us that we fall into the sheep category as often as we fall into the goat category[ii], the more important point is that Jesus’ words today are not meant to make us worry about completing a check list that will get us into heaven someday.  Instead, Jesus’ words today are meant to be a different kind of wake up call.  Jesus is saying today [clap], “Hey!  I am right here.  Wake up!”  Jesus does not want you to do all those wonderful things because that is what will get you into heaven.  Jesus wants you to do those wonderful things because that is where we will see his face and he will see ours.  Only when we are in those places of vulnerability, messiness, and desperation will we find each other.

I do not mean to romanticize poverty or helping the less fortunate.  But here is what I do know:  for the person who is in need, asking for help is one of the most humiliating experiences a person can know.  Asking for help means swallowing one’s pride, admitting defeat, and opening up oneself to rejection.  And for the person who is giving aid, giving that help means talking to someone we usually try to ignore, acknowledging our own privilege, and seeing afresh how thin the line is between “us” and “them.”  In that narrow space is where we can hear God say, “But I did come to you.  When you invited in the beggar, the boy, and the mother and her child, I was there with you.  In each of their faces you looked into my eyes.”  That is the invitation of today’s gospel lesson: not to panic in fear, but to step into those narrow spaces where Christ resides, and to see Christ face to face.  Amen.

[i] Leo Tolstoy, “Martin the Cobbler,” as retold by Bob Stuhlmann in “Goat Cheese And Starfish: For November 23, 2014,” posted on November 18, 2014, as found at http://storiesfromapriestlylife.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/goat-cheese-and-starfish-for-november-232014/.

[ii] Mark Douglas, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 336.

Sermon – Matthew 25.1-13, P27, YA, November 9, 2014

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

I am fortunate in that I do not have a long commute to work.  But there have been a few times when I have needed to take the Long Island Railroad during morning rush hour.  What I found fascinating about those trips is how people use their time on the train.  Most people are on their phones, probably doing any number of things:  scanning email, sending a few quick texts, checking Facebook, reading the news.  Some people are reading the paper:  catching up on the headlines, reading the sports page, or checking the financial reports.  Others use their hour on the train to catch up on sleep.  That one always scares me – how people sleep lightly enough not to miss their stop is beyond me.  And I suppose there are a few people like me, who enjoy the people watching.  But those are rarely the morning regulars – they got over that fascination a long time ago and chose some other way to spend their time.

We make choices every day:  how we spend our money, what we will do with free evenings, what groups we want to be involved in, and with whom we want to spend our time.  What we do while commuting is just one example of the myriad choices available to us on a given day.  But over time, those choices begin to shape who we are.  Those choices begin to define whether we are an avid reader, someone who is connected to the goings-on of the world, someone who is physically fit, or someone who is known for their volunteer work.  What seem like inconsequential decisions, like regularly watching a TV show, a standing appointment with a friend for dinner, or joining a civic group, slowly begin to shape a life.  Those little choices we make day in and day out shape who we are and what our life is really about.  In my line of work, I go to a lot of funerals, and that is one of the consistent things I see:  the choices a person makes over time informs who they are.  So in a eulogy, someone is described a devoted mother, or an avid sailor, or an advocate for the poor.

Our gospel lesson today is all about how our choices matter.[i]  The most obvious choice we see is the choice by the foolish bridesmaids not to bring extra oil.  Actually, the foolish bridesmaids make two choices.  First, they choose not to bring extra oil, perhaps assuming the groom will not be long.  Second, once they realize they are out of oil and the others are not going to share, they choose to go buy more.  Neither of their choices is illogical really.  Based on the customs of the time, the maids should not have needed extra oil.[ii]  Their choice not to bring extra oil is a perhaps presumptuous, but not scandalous.  The second choice is reactionary.  The wise bridesmaids tell them to go and they do – in the middle of the night, the foolish maids make an impetuous decision that ends up costing them greatly.  The foolish maids’ choices create a world fraught with risk – where split-second decisions leave the maids with little footing in a world that is constantly throwing choices at them

But the foolish bridesmaids are not the only ones making choices in our parable today.  The wise ones make choices too.  When faced with the needs of the oil-less bridesmaids, the wise bridesmaids send the foolish ones away to get their own oil.  They do not consider sharing their oil or allowing the foolish ones to stand with them.  Quite frankly, they should not have to share.  They have thoughtfully constructed a world in which careful planning and preparation pay off in great rewards.  Their choices have lead to a world in which everyone fends for themselves, where pity is not necessary, and boundaries are clear and concise.

And of course, the bridegroom makes a choice too.  When the foolish bridesmaids knock at the door, the groom has a choice:  he can justifiably send them away since they were not considerate enough to be ready and waiting for him; or he can be forgiving and graciously allow them into the celebration.  The choice of the groom to close the door leads to a world in which mistakes are severely punished and there are no second chances.

This parable is one of those parables that does not leave us feeling good about the world.  In fact, the choices of the characters in the parable depict a world that is marked by rigidity, scarcity, and lacking in forgiveness.  We know this world all too well.  All we have to do is listen to the current debate in the United States about immigration.  Whenever we debate the issue of what to do with illegal immigrants, the arguments are similarly marked by rigidity, scarcity, and a lack of forgiveness.  We worry about the drain on our resources with illegal immigrants – the health care, education, and social services needed for them.  We worry about the jobs they will be taking from legal citizens.  And we worry about our capacity for compassion – I have heard many argue that we cannot save every child in the world by welcoming them here.  All of those fears are valid.  And so we draw boundaries, we put up limits, and we say no.  We make choices that shape our experience as Americans.  And like the bridesmaids with extra oil, our decisions could probably be labeled as wise.

Although that wisdom is usually praiseworthy, and is clearly praised in our lesson today, for some reason, that wisdom does not sit well with me this week.  Instead, I have found myself wondering what other choices the three characters in this story could have made. [iii]  The foolish bridesmaids could have simply chosen to stay.  Sure, they would have had to risk being in the dark for a while, and leaning into the light of others.  They may even have had to plead their case with the groom once he arrived.  But at least they would have been there.  They could have stayed.  Staying would have been scary and made them vulnerable.  But they could have chosen to stay.  Meanwhile, the wise bridesmaids could have chosen to either share their oil, or stand side-by-side with the foolish ones, letting their light shine the way for both of them.  Sure, they were within their right to refuse.  They are the ones who thought ahead and did the right thing.  But they could have chosen another way.  They could have chosen to share their abundance with the foolish.  The bridegroom had a choice too.  The groom had every right to refuse entry to the foolish maids – based on what he knew, they were late and unprepared.  He had no obligation to let in people to his celebration who do not care enough about him to be prepared to wait for him.  But the groom could have chosen to let them in anyway.  He could have chosen gracious hospitality, even to the undeserving maids.

I recently had a conversation with another parent about creating healthy eating habits for children.  She was explaining to me a philosophy in which parents let children guide their own eating choices.  So instead of serving children the healthy food first and then bringing out the dessert, the parent is to put everything out on the table and allow the child to serve themselves.  The argument is that through experience, the child will eventually learn that loading up a plate with dessert leaves the child unsatisfied, if not sick.  Over time, the child will learn what foods make her feel good, what portions she needs to feel full, and how to plan her plate accordingly.  Truthfully the idea sounded crazy to me – like some hippy, permissive parenting that would lead to malnourished, unruly children and wasted healthy food.  But then again, I tend to choose a world guided by structure and order imposed from an authority.  This parent was suggesting a different kind of world guided by trust, that makes room for growth through mistakes, and that leads by example.

That is the funny thing about choices.  Our choices shape our world.  Most people read today’s gospel and think:  Okay, the moral of the story is to choose preparedness and alertness and when Jesus returns, we will be ready.  But instead, the moral of this story might be that the choices that we make shape our world – and our choices may not be as obvious as we think.  So yes, we can choose to live lives with strict boundaries and rules, lives that are guarded and have limits, and lives that are grounded in consequences.  We can also choose to live lives that are grounded in forgiveness, that make room for mistakes, and that make us uncomfortable, but also make room for joy.  Sometimes those choices will be obvious: when we actively decide to forgive someone who has wronged us or when we purposefully decide to share our resources even though the other does not deserve our generosity.  But sometimes the choices will not be so obvious:  when we commit to a new ministry, even if we are not sure where that ministry will take us or what that ministry will demand of us; when we choose to give up some of our disposable income to support the work of this church, even if we are not sure we can spare the money; or when we give up some of our family’s outside commitments so that we can be more present in the life and work of the church.  Those choices demand sacrifice, vulnerability, and work.  But those choices might also be the choices that make someone say at our funeral, “He loved the Lord, he loved the church, and he boldly lived a life of trust and abundance.  And look where his life led.”  Amen.

[i] Anthony B. Robinson, “Choices that Matter,” Christian Century, vol. 110, no. 29, October 20, 1993, 1011.

[ii] John M. Buchanan, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 286.

[iii] David R. Henson, “The Breaking of the Bridesmaids: Rethinking a Problematic Parable” as found at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidhenson/2014/11/the-breaking-of-the-bridesmaids-how-scripture-undermines-a-parable/ as posted on November 3, 2014.

Sermon – Matthew 5.1-12, All Saints Sunday, YA, November 2, 2014

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Today we hear one of the most beloved pieces of scripture.  The Beatitudes from Matthew’s gospel have been the source of inspiration for Christians for centuries, for artists and musicians, for entire ministries, and even for comedians like Monty Python.  As soon as we hear that phrase, “Blessed are…” our eyes close and we let the words flow over us.  We nod in assent, and maybe even whisper, “Yes!”  And as the preacher for In-Gathering Sunday, getting the Beatitudes in the lectionary is like being handed a silver platter.  What other inspiration can we need on a Sunday like this than to think about blessings?  That is what our Stewardship Committee has been encouraging us to do for weeks: to think about the ways that we are blessed and to return that blessing to this community through the gift of our financial resources.  That message could not be better captured than in the Beatitudes from our gospel lesson today.

Or at least that is what I thought before I started really working with the Beatitudes this week.  The more I poured over the text, the more I became confused.  Then the questions came pouring in:  What does it mean to be poor in spirit?  How do we know if we are pure in heart?  I might prefer peace, but could any of us in our everyday lives be considered peacemakers?  And those are just the surface level questions.  When we read at a deeper level, ethical questions begin to emerge.  Our news outlets have been flooded lately with people who are reviled, persecuted, and having evil uttered against them.  All we have to remember are Christians in Iraq, Palestine, or Burma whose very faith means a life of oppression and sometimes death.  Is the word for them today, “You are blessed”?  Many a liberation theologian has balked at the idea of Holy Scripture being used to keep down oppressed peoples.

Luckily, I stumbled on two things this week that opened up the Beatitudes for me in a fresh way.  First I began to look at what the word translated as “blessed” really means.  There are a couple of words in scripture that are translated in English as “blessed,” but they do not necessarily have the same meaning.  In our Beatitudes today, one scholar argues that the phrase translated as “blessed are you when…” is more rightly translated as “You are on the right road when…”  For example, “You are on the right road when you are poor in spirit.”[i]  So blessed does not really mean, “Happy are you when people persecute you,” but instead, “You are on the right road when people persecute you.”  Somehow this translation makes for a much more sober, honest rendering of Jesus’ words.  Jesus is not saying that these things are cause for happiness in a superficial way.  Jesus is saying that we are fortunate in those experiences because they point us to a deeper truth:  that we are heading in the right direction, making the right decisions, and living a meaningful life.

The other source of insight I found this week was from The Message’s translation of this text.  If you are not familiar with The Message, The Message is a paraphrase of the Bible:  not a literal translation of the Biblical language, but a modern rephrasing of the text to make the text more accessible.  Of course, biblical scholars often cringe when they hear certain paraphrases of key texts, but in the case of the Beatitudes, I found this paraphrase quite useful.

I have taken the two ideas – The Message’s paraphrase and the new introduction of “You are on the right road when…” and want to read for you my hybrid rephrasing of the Beatitudes.  Our text now goes like this:

You are on the right path when you’re at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God and God’s rule.  You are on the right path when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.  Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.  You’re on the right path when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less.  That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.  You’re on the right path when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God.  God’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.  You’re on the right path when you care.  At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.  You’re on the right path when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right.  Then you can see God in the outside world.  You’re on the right path when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.  That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.  You’re on the right path when your commitment to God provokes persecution.  The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.  Not only that— You’re on the right path every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit God.  What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable.  You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, God does!  And all heaven applauds.  And know that you are in good company.  God’s prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

This Stewardship Season, we have been talking about “Walking the Way.”  Certainly Walking the Way is a metaphor for our journey into a time of reflection about the value our money holds for us and how our relationship with that money is connected to our relationship with God.  But the Walking the Way metaphor is one that goes beyond just our money too.  Walking the Way is a metaphor for our entire journey with God – a path that is ever winding, has steep slopes at times, is sometimes full of potholes and rocks, and at other times is as smooth as a freshly paved road.  Our entire life is a journey – one in which we mature in faith from the time of our birth and baptism to the time of our old age and death.  We are constantly Walking the Way with Christ, growing, learning, messing up, and returning to a loving God.

What I like about this reworded rendition of the Beatitudes is the affirmation in them.  When we are on a journey, Walking the Way, we sometimes struggle to know whether we are on the right path.  We wonder if we are where we should be and whether God is really with us.  This rendition of the Beatitudes gives us a tiny glimpse into that affirmation:  You are on the right path when…  Of course, the description is not all roses.  Mourning, persecution, and making peace are not easy roads.  But a sign of true discipleship, of Walking the Way, are those times when the path is in fact quite rocky.  Then we know that we are on the right path, and Jesus is walking right beside us.  Amen.

[i] Earl F. Palmer, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 238.

Sermon – Matthew 22.34-46, P25, YA, October 25, 2014

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

I hear it all the time.  Whether talking to engaged friends or working with a couple in premarital counseling, inevitably the question will come up, “So why do you want to get married?”  And then I get the response, “Well, we’re just so in love.”  Though their googly eyes are endearing and make me somewhat nostalgic for a time long ago, my thought is almost always, “Cute.  I wonder how long that will last.”  Though I try not to squash their mushy moment, eventually we get around to talking about life outside of their love bubble – talking about what happens when they argue, how they will negotiate the in-laws, and who will balance the checkbook.  Those are the times when the warm emotions of love are sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to maintain.  I do not meant to suggest that those warm, fuzzies of love are temporary necessarily; I simply mean that the emotional experience of love is not enough to sustain any relationship – neither those between couples, family, nor friends.  We are right to assume that love is necessary for relationships, but our definition of love has to be much bigger if we are to maintain any kind of meaningful relationships with others.

Sometimes we forget the multilayered meaning of love when we hear passages like the one from our gospel lesson today.  When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind… and… love your neighbor as yourself.”  These commandments are so familiar to us that we sometimes forget how hard they really sound.  If our definition of love only includes the emotional kind of love that we might call “being in love,” does that mean we need to have googly eyes toward God?  I know very few people who profess to be “in love” with God.  In fact, I am not sure we would even say that we love God.  We might be grateful to God, we may revere God, or we might even be in awe of God.  But I know very few people who would say, “I love God.”  That emotion just feels strange to us.  And yet, Jesus says today, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Now the second commandment is a little easier.  We are used to loving our neighbors – loving people is what we are used to doing.  We love our friends and our family.  But Jesus says to love our neighbor, not just our friends.  Our neighbor includes those grouchy neighbors next door, that kid from school or that guy from work who always pushes your buttons, and most certainly that woman who cut you off while driving.  Our neighbor also includes those neighbors that often go unseen by us: the teen at JFK High School whose family cannot afford clothes and school supplies this year, that family who picked up our produce in Huntington Station through Food Not Bombs, that homeless man who received basic toiletries from St. Ignatius this week, or that Veteran’s family who is struggling to put life back together after returning to Plainview from war.  About these grouchy, mean, and unseen neighbors Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

When I work with those couples planning weddings, I am grateful when they choose the First Corinthians passage for their wedding, “Love is patient, love is kind…”[i]    I am grateful because then we can talk about what love really is.  We can talk about how love is more than simply a warm feeling or even a passionate desire.  In fact, when scripture talks about love, more often than not the kind of love scripture is talking about is not a passive emotion, but an active mercy.  In scripture, love is not something we feel, but something that we do.  To help us understand the difference, scripture will often translate the word for love as “loving-kindness.”  Love is not a feeling, but a choice:  a choice that we have to make over and over again.  As one person explains, “To love neighbor as oneself is to act toward the other as one would act toward those close to you.  We treat the stranger as well as we treat those that we love emotionally.”[ii]

So what does this active love look like?  For our neighbor, this kind of love is a bit more obvious.  The next time someone is rude to you or unkind to you, instead of reacting to them defensively, perhaps you take a moment to wonder what happened to them in life that made them act this way toward you.  Once you start to wonder about what things make them human and what has hurt them in life, your ability to be angry with them for hurting you lessens a bit.  In my early working days, I worked with a woman who most of the time was pretty pleasant to be around.  But there were times that she lashed out – and when she did I used to be both perplexed and angry.  I eventually started avoiding her altogether when, in a totally different context, someone who knew her shared with me that her father and an ex-husband had been alcoholics and were both abusive.  Suddenly the pieces fell together for me.  She had not known the kind of love that God commands – and I had not loved her as my neighbor.  The next time she snapped at me, her snapping felt less personal and awful – and instead I could see a vulnerable, hurting person who did not know how to love.  When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, this is the kind of shift in thinking Jesus invites.

In some ways, loving our neighbor is a tangible task we can imagine assuming.  But loving God still feels a little foreign, let alone loving God with all our heart, mind, and soul.  Luckily, God leads by example.  Our stories of God tell us of how, time and again, God chooses God’s people, makes covenants with them, forgives them, and invites them into relationship again. God’s love for God’s people is not an emotion, but an action.  Just recently we reheard the Exodus stories of how as soon as the people get out of bondage, they complain about not having food, not having water, and feeling separated from their creature comforts.  We heard again about how when God takes too long with Moses up on the mountain, they quickly revert to worshiping a golden calf.  And yet God keeps providing for, caring for, and loving them.  This is our model for how we are to love God too.  “We can love with our heart: through generosity to God’s people.  We can love with our soul: by worshiping God and praying for our neighbors and ourselves.  And we can love with our minds: studying God’s Word and letting it correct us, enlighten us, and send us out in loving action to the world.”[iii]

As we continue to prayerfully walk the way through this stewardship season, I first wondered whether this lesson really had anything to say about stewardship.  But as I thought about loving God and neighbor, I realized that is what stewardship is really all about.  Like love, stewardship is not something we feel or think about – stewardship is something we do.  When we make a financial pledge or contribution, we are expressing to God our gratitude for our blessings.  We take money from our pockets – money that certainly could be used for a hundred other things we want or need – and we instead give that money to God.  This is our full-bodied way of loving God with our heart, soul, and mind.  And, when the church uses that money for educating our children, serving our neighbors in need, and sharing the Gospel in our community, the church helps us to love our neighbor through our money too.  Jesus is certainly inviting us to change our feelings about God and our neighbor – but Jesus is also inviting us to change our actions toward God and neighbor.  That is what love is.

Next week, you will have the chance to act on that love.  We will process our pledge cards forward, as a symbolic gesture of our financial commitment to the work and ministry of St. Margaret’s.  We commit to funding the worship, which helps us love God with our soul.  We commit to funding the outreach and evangelism, which helps us love God with heart.  We commit to funding education and formation, which helps us love God with our minds.  And we commit to funding a ministry that enables us to not only love God, but to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I cannot think of a better way to invest our money than to invest our money in love.  Amen.

[i] 1 Corinthians 13.1-13.

[ii] Clayton Schmit, “Matthew 22:34-46 Commentary,” 2011, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1063 on October 21, 2014.

[iii] Schmit.

Sermon – Matthew 22.15-22, P24, YA, October 19, 2014

23 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those funny lessons in the Bible that is often quoted, but frequently misconstrued.  Jesus’ says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  As one scholar points out, “Some people point to this passage as proof that God and politics should be kept separate — that things like taxes have absolutely nothing to do with one’s theological commitments.  Others say that this story proves that religion is a matter of the heart, and that Jesus doesn’t really care about mundane things like what you do with your money.  And some have cited this passage as proof that Jesus taught that the law is the law, and our duty as Christians is to support the government no matter what.”[i]

All of these conclusions are based in modern assumptions, and ignore the context within which Jesus says these words.  Jesus is not laying out a treatise of how his followers are to navigate the tensions between church and state.  What Jesus is doing is navigating the various factions that would much rather have him eliminated than hear the real meaning of his words.  The Pharisees and the Herodians have little in common.  In fact, they are pretty much enemies, with the Herodians being dedicated to King Herod and the Pharisees being dedicated to Jewish Law – including being opposed to paying the tax to Caesar for religious reasons.  But despite these divided loyalties, the Pharisees and Herodians are united in their desire to remove Jesus from the scene.[ii]  And so they play this game, trying to trick Jesus into either angering the state or angering the faithful – either way cursing Jesus.  What they had forgotten is how clever and insightful Jesus can be.  And with this one response, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” Jesus answers a trick question much more broadly than the answer that either the Pharisees or the Herodians were hoping for.

Jesus is not really talking about the separation of church and state today.  He is not even really talking about taxes.  Jesus is talking about a new perspective on the whole of our lives – a way to think about money certainly, but also a way to put all things in perspective.  Now I do not know about you, but I am kind of a visual learner.  I need to see something in writing or have something in a chart or spreadsheet to really grasp a new idea.  So let’s take Jesus’ statement, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” and make a mental pie chart.  Are you ready?  First, let’s put our taxes pie piece in the chart.  What is that, like twenty percent, right?  So now we have a pie chart that leaves about eighty percent.  From that, let’s take our pledge out.  For ease of argument, let’s say you subscribe to giving a tithe, so we will take ten percent out.  That leaves us with seventy percent with which to play.  But Jesus says that the things that belong to God should be given to God.  If we have jobs or we go to school, our ability to do those things belongs to God.  So, we have to give that back to God.  That probably leaves us with about fifty percent in our pie chart.  Our good health is all owed to God as well, so now we are down to about forty percent.  Those friends and family that we hold so dear – those are also gifts from God.  Now we are down to about thirty percent.  And let’s not forget about food, shelter, and clothing.  We just dropped down to about fifteen percent.  Then there is the air we breathe, and God’s own creation upon which we rely.  Now we are down to about five percent.

Whew!  We have five percent of our “stuff” that belongs to us.  But wait – Jesus did not say, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s…and then keep the final five percent for yourselves.”  Surely Jesus knew we would need a night on the town, or a moment to just be self-absorbed, and not think about those suffering around the world.  But here is where the rub is in our lesson today.  The reason why the Pharisees and the Herodians leave Jesus amazed and go away is because they are shocked into silence.  If Jesus answers that the people should not pay the tax, the Herodians will be able to call him a seditionist.  If Jesus tells the people they should pay the tax, the Pharisees will be able to accuse him of not following the law of God because the use of the coin alone, which claimed Caesar’s divinity, was blasphemous.  Not to mention the fact that Caesar was oppressing the people.  If Jesus says they should pay the tax, surely the people of faith will turn on him.[iii]  But Jesus answers with “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The reason Jesus is able to send the people away amazed is because Jesus point out one even trickier, harder truth – everything we have – our tax money, our tithe, our jobs, our health, our family and friends, our food, shelter and clothing, the very air we breathe – everything belongs to God.  What Jesus is really saying today is that our question – and yes, this is our question too, not just the question of the Pharisees and Herodians – our question today is laughable.  We can make all the pie charts and balance sheets we want.  The pie chart really only has one big piece – and that piece says, “God’s.”

This past week, my daughter and I were talking about the prayer rocks that we got from the Stewardship Committee last week.  If you have not received yours yet, there are some in the back.  The idea is that when you received your pledge card and stewardship packet, you would have a tool to help you prayerfully consider your pledge for the coming year.  The rock is meant to be your tactile way of praying about your pledge this year.  The other nice thing about the rock is that the rock is also a conversation piece.  That is how my daughter and I had a prayerful conversation this week.  We were comparing our rocks – both of ours says “love” on the rock, but hers is more oblong and black, while mine is rounder and grayer.  When my daughter asked me what we were supposed to do with our rocks, I told her that the rock was supposed to help us think about what we wanted to give to God this year.  I suggested she decide on a coin that she could take to church every Sunday.  Instead, my daughter told me she wanted to give a can of food every Sunday.  See, I wanted her to understand the connection of our money with God.  But perhaps my daughter understood the bigger statement of Jesus today – that everything, including the food on our shelves, belongs to God.  So we compromised, agreeing that she could do both.  Because she was right – our money, our food, our livelihood all belongs to God.  Our poor pledge coordinator is going to have to figure out how to calculate that pledge when we turn in our card on November 2nd.

I joke, but I think our pledge card this year might be some hybrid of our ideas.  The adults of our family will certainly be putting on a tithe.  The children in our family will have to calculate a dime or nickel times 52 weeks in the year.  And our cupboard will have to sacrifice 52 items as well.  Normally once a month or so, our family goes to Costco and gets a packet of something to put in our food drive.  But I like my daughter’s idea better – because my daughter’s idea reminds us that the food on our shelves – our food, not food bought for others – belongs to God.  And as Jesus reminds us today, we are to give to God the things that are God’s.  Amen.

[i] Lance Pape, “Commentary on Matthew 22:15-22, found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2201 on October 15, 2014.

[ii] Marvin A. McMickle, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 191.

[iii] Susan Grove Eastman, “Exegetical Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 191, 193.  Other resources explain this duality as well.

Sermon – Matthew 11.25-30, St. Francis’ Feast Day, YA, October 5, 2014

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Today we honor the life of St. Francis of Assisi.  Francis is one of the most popular and admired saints of all time.  Most of us know the highlights of his story: born the son of a wealthy man in 1182; had a conversion experience and devoted his life to Lady Poverty; shaped monastic and lay devotion; was a friend to all God’s creatures – being know to have preached to the birds.

But the story I like most is the story about St. Francis and the Wolf.  According to legend, there was a wolf that was terrorizing the town of Gubbio, killing and eating animals and people.  The villagers tried to fight back, but they too died at the jaws of the wolf.  Francis had pity on the townspeople and went out to meet the wolf.  When Francis found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross, and said, “Come to me, Brother Wolf.  In the name of Christ, I order you not to hurt anyone.”  In response, the wolf calmly laid down at Francis’ feet.  Francis then went on to explain to the wolf how he was terrorizing the people and other animals – all who were made in the image of God.  The wolf and Francis then made a pact that he would no longer harm the townspeople and the townspeople would no longer try to hurt the wolf.  The two traveled into town to explain the pact they had formed.  The people were amazed as Francis and the wolf walked side-by-side into town.  Francis made the people pledge to feed the wolf and the wolf pledge not to harm anyone else.  From that day on, the wolf went door to door for food.  The wolf hurt no one and no one hurt the wolf; even the dogs did not bark at the wolf.[i]

What I love about this story of St. Francis is that the story is about reconciliation and relationship.  At the beginning of the story the town and the wolf are at an impasse – the wolf is hungry and getting attacked; the people are afraid and are lashing out.  What Francis does for both parties is shock them out of the comfortable.  For the wolf, no one has addressed the wolf kindly – they have either shut the wolf out or actively tried to kill him.  For the people, the wolf has not asked for help – he has simply and violently taken what he needed and wanted.  Francis manages to shock the wolf first – not through violence or force, but with the power of love and blessing.  By giving a blessing in the name of God, Francis is then able to implore the wolf to reciprocate with love.  Francis also manages to shock the village – not with a violent victory, but with a humble display of forgiveness and trust.  By walking into town with a tamed wolf at his side, Francis is able to encourage the town embrace, forgive, and care for the wolf.  Francis’ actions remind both parties that unless their relationships are reconciled, unrest and division will be the norm.

The funny thing about this story is that the story is pretty ridiculous.  I mean, how many of us go around talking to wild animals, blessing them with the sign of the cross, expecting anything other than being attacked?  We will never really know whether the story is true.  But like any good Biblical story, whether the story is true is hardly the point: the point is that the stories point toward “Truth” with a capital “T.”  What this story teaches is that peace and reconciliation only happen through meeting others where they are.  We cannot expect great change unless we are willing to get down in the trenches – to go out and meet that destructive wolf face-to-face.  The other thing this story teaches is relationships are at the heart of peace work.  Only when the wolf and the town began to get to know each other and began to form a relationship with one another could they move forward.

This is the way life is under Jesus Christ.  In our gospel lesson today, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Jesus’ words have layered meaning.  The first meaning we all catch is that Jesus offers us rest and refreshment.  Jesus encourages us to come to him, to cast our burdens and cares upon him, and to take rest, to take Sabbath in Christ.  Our souls will find peace in Christ Jesus.  The second meaning is that peace in Christ Jesus is not without work.  Jesus does not say come unto me and relax forever in happy retirement.  Jesus says we will still have to take on a yoke – the burden of disciple living.  But luckily, that burden of being Christ’s disciple will not be burdensome – it will be light.  Finally, not only will Jesus make the workload “light,” as in not heavy.  Jesus will also make us “light” – as in lights that shine into the darkness and refuse to allow the shadow to overwhelm.[ii]  We become the light when we work for reconciliation in our relationships with others.

That is why we do so many special things today.  Today, we ask for healing prayers – that God might help us reconcile the relationships in our life that need healing.  Today, we ask for blessing on our animals – that God might help our relationship with our pet be one of blessing and light.  Today, we come to Jesus for Sabbath rest – that God might renew us on this Sabbath day, use the rest to fill us with light, and renew our commitment to be agents of reconciliation, gladly putting on Christ’s yoke.  Amen.

[i] John Feister, “Stories about St. Francis and the Animals,” as found at http://www.americancatholic.org/features/francis/stories.asp on September 30, 2014.

[ii] Mel Williams, “Let it go…and rest” Faith and Leadership, July 6, 2014 as found at http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/mel-williams-let-it-go%E2%80%A6and-rest  on September 30, 2014.

Sermon – Philippians 2.1-13, P21, YA, September 28, 2014

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Humility has always been one of the trickiest virtues for me.  I actually see myself as a pretty humble person, mainly because life has deflated my ego enough times that I learned pretty quickly to be humble.  In high school I was at the top of my class, and I remember how my classmates all thought I was pretty smart.  But when I got to college, everyone else had been at the top of their class too – and quite frankly, the workload was crazy hard.  Any ego I had started to build up in high school was immediately brought down to size.  Or, as I like to tell the acolytes, in one of my first Sundays as an ordained priest, I was serving the chalice.  We missed a latecomer, so I grabbed the chalice and rushed around the altar to serve them.  In my rushing, my elbow hit the side of the altar, and the wine splashed all over the stone floor.  The gasp from the choir in the chancel was audible.  For someone who holds the sacredness of liturgy dear, I was mortified; but there was nothing I could do.  So humility has never really been an issue for me.  But the weird thing about humility is owning the virtue.  As soon as you declare, “I am a pretty humble person,” haven’t you just negated your humility by bragging about your humility?

Of course, the quest for humility can go to the other extreme as well.  I have a friend who went through a phase of being a pretty fanatical Christian.  At some points I found talking with him to be so frustrating that I avoided him altogether.  He was so obsessed with being a humble Christian that you could never pay him a compliment.  I might say something simple like, “I’m so proud of how well you are doing in school.”  And his immediate retort would be, “Oh, well I had nothing to do with that.  All the credit belongs to God.”  There really is no good response to a retort like that without sounding sarcastic or rude.

But humility is what our epistle lesson today demands.  Paul addresses the community at Philippi with a letter from prison.  Worried that the community of Philippi stay on the right track, Paul tells them, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”  In three simple sentences, Paul’s instructions get harder and harder.  First, Paul tells the community not to let their egos get too big.  Paul wants the community to right-size itself by looking at their intentions and attitudes.  Second, Paul tells the community not just to be humble, but to put the needs of others above their own needs.  Here Paul is commanding the community not just to correct their attitudes, but to reorient their actions as well, focusing on others before themselves.  Finally, as if the other two were not hard enough, Paul takes his instructions one step further and tells the community to have the same mind as Christ Jesus.  Paul wants the community to be a humble as the man who sacrificed his own existence for the sake of humanity.  The more I read Paul’s letter this week, the more I wondered whether my fanatical friend had not been rooting his whole life in the mandate presented here by Paul.  Maybe my friend’s annoying, over-the-top humility was actually what Paul was suggesting.

The challenge with trying to take on any spiritual discipline, like taking on the mind of Christ, or becoming more humble, is that we tend to fret so much over the discipline that we get lost in ourselves – which is, in fact, the very opposite of what Paul invites us to do today.  In focusing on our weaknesses or lack of humility, and trying to work our way into a more humble way of being, instead, we find ourselves alone, struggling with God, but separate from others who may actually be able to help us in our quest for humility.  The secret to mastering humility is not by focusing on the self, but instead by focusing on others.  One scholar describes this method by explaining, “One does not ‘self-empty’ by focusing upon oneself.  One is emptied of self to the degree one is overcome by the needs, pains, hopes, and desires of others.  When concern for others takes one utterly beyond self-interest, beyond obsessions with achievements and self-obsessing guilt over failures, beyond self, then one receives the comfort of an Easter ‘yes’ so overwhelming, unconditional, undeniable, and absolute that [the ‘yes’] is experienced as unfailing and forever – a yes more potent and enduring than any imaginable no.”[i]

When I did my year of AmeriCorps service, I arranged to clean and lock up the Episcopal Campus House in exchange for a free room in the back of the house.  Since AmeriCorps volunteers get a very modest living stipend, the free housing was a huge help.  But one day, at the end of a particularly physically grueling day of work, I was talking to one of the clients that the Food Bank served.  He lived in a group home and was trying to transition to independent housing.  We were talking about my housing situation and he marveled, “Man, I wish I could find a situation like that!”  Truthfully, I had taken my housing situation for granted – occasionally I even resented having to clean toilets and mop floors.  But after that conversation, every time I mopped those floors I remembered how incredibly lucky I was.  I needed that client to help me get to a place of humility and gratitude.

That realization is what Paul is hoping the community at Philippi will have as well.  Paul knows that setting aside the self is difficult.  That is why he pushes us to look at the needs of others.  Paul knew that when the community of faith began focusing on others, they would forget about themselves.  They would gain the perspective needed to help them on the journey toward humility.  And as the community turned more and more outward, they would be turning more and more toward the life of Christ – a life always oriented toward the other.  The work of building individual humility and having a mind like Christ only happens in the context of community.  The work cannot be done alone.

In 1974, poet Adrienne Rich was awarded the National Book Award in poetry, having beaten out fellow nominees Audre Lorde and Alice Walker.  When she gave her acceptance speech, she shocked the literary community.  She began, “We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world.”  The three women had sat down together before the event and written the statement.  No matter who won that night, this would be the statement of the winner.  When asked about the statement, they “said they believed that by supporting and giving to each other they could enrich each other’s lives and work more than by competing against each other.”[ii]  What these three poets did was refuse to play by the rules of the game.  Instead of accepting that there must be one winner, they declared that they had all won – despite what the award givers were proclaiming.

What these women did is what Paul was hoping the Church community would do.  By working together, these women resisted the temptation to lose their humility.  If any of them alone had won, they could have become puffed up with pride.  Conversely, if any of them alone had lost, they could have spiraled into the depths of self-doubt.  But together, they were able to claim a humble acknowledgement that God was working through each of them to do great things.  That is the true nature of humility – one found and expressed through community.  We are blessed to already have in place the kind of community that can support and encourage one another in the development of humility.  Our invitation is to trust this community enough to uplift us, to challenge us, and to help us grow.  We cannot face the journey alone; but luckily, we are not alone in the midst of this community.  Amen.

[i] William Greenway, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 114.

[ii] Entire story told by Mike Grave, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 113.

Sermon – Matthew 20.1-16, P20, YA, September 21, 2014

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Having worked in the non-profit sector for almost seven years before going off to seminary, I learned that even when people are trying to be at their best, sometimes ugliness slips in and makes the waters murky.  At Habitat for Humanity, as part of the homeowner application process, each applicant received a home visit before being selected to be in the program.  The home visit enabled us to get to know the homeowners better, to ask clarifying questions, and to get a real sense of how desperate their current housing situation was.  Since volunteers usually did these visits, we had to do a great deal of training – not just on the logistics of a visit, but really on how to be thoughtful visitors.  For example, many of our volunteers would come back to our staff and complain about the applicants.  “They would be a lot better off if they hadn’t bought that big TV and weren’t paying for cable,” some would argue.  Or another complaint often was, “If they weren’t giving so much of their income to church, they might be able to make ends meet.”

Both arguments were true – but they did not capture the full truth.  Yes, that big TV purchase and that cable bill might seem like an extravagance to one of our volunteers.  But if you can never afford going to the movies, eating dinner out, or going to a play or concert, the TV is the only thing that makes you feel connected to the world, offers release from stress, and gives some modicum of entertainment to your children.  Likewise, yes, that weekly donation to their church probably would be better used to pay down credit card debt.  But their relationship with God is probably the only thing that has helped them survive this long.  That contribution gives them a sense of grounding, of priorities, and a feeling like they too are contributing something to the world.  Even though the Habitat volunteers were generously giving of their time, and were generally kind-hearted people, sometimes their judgments got in the way of their good works.

The same can be true about our relationship with God.  We often give lip service to how much we appreciate that our God is a generous, gracious God who is full of love and compassion.  We have experienced that abundance many times in our lives and we strive to incorporate a sense of gratitude in our lives.  But our sense of gratitude often battles with our sense of justice – in a way that brings out the ugliest versions of ourselves.  Jesus knew this reality all too well.  Jesus captures that tension in the parable he tells today.  The parable is familiar.  A landowner goes out to the market five times in one day, hiring additional laborers each time.  The first group, hired at 6:00 a.m. is promised the usual daily wage.  Each subsequent group is promised “whatever is right” as a wage.  But when the time comes to pay the laborers, the landowner pays the group who only worked one hour a full day’s wage.  The group who started twelve hours earlier sees the landowner’s generosity and assumes they may be getting more than the landowner promised.  But when their turn comes, they only get the usual daily wage.  The workers do not like this, and immediately hoist up the “that’s not fair” flag.

The truth is that the twelve-hour workers are right.  The landowner is not fair.  I imagine any of us who saw a glimpse of the pay distribution at our jobs would be pretty miffed if the newest employees were making as much as the employees who had been there many years longer.  Many people have been advocating lately for legislation that helps to equalize pay for women.  And many activists have challenged the ways in which our justice system has a bias towards the wealthy.  We are a people who are passionate about fairness and justice.  Even when someone pushes back with the classic line, “well, life’s not fair,” we still will fight for fairness as much as we can.

The problem in our gospel lesson is that the kingdom of God does not value fairness over all other ethics.  The kingdom of God holds other values before fairness:  the value of love, the value of graciousness, the value of care.  Most of us can admit that when we hear of the landowner’s generous giving to the last round of workers, our immediate thought is how lovely the landowner’s generosity is.  We all love generosity until we see that some are getting more generosity than we are.  Then something awful happens.  The “evil eye” creeps in and starts to distort our view.  This is the very accusation the landowner makes.  The landowner’s response is simple, “Are you envious because I am generous?”  Other translations translate the phrase for “being envious” as “having an evil eye.”  In other words, insidious jealousy, envy, and greed immediately prevent any sense of celebration and goodwill among the workers.  Instead of a pat on the shoulder, or an acknowledgment of the incredible blessing the late workers receive, the early workers start grumbling about fairness and equality.  They forget that they got what they agreed to:  a day’s wage for a day’s work.

What the parable is trying to communicate, albeit a bit harshly, is that the fact that God is so generous is a benefit to all of us at some point in our lives.  For those of us who have ever been at the bottom, we know how blessed we can feel when God reaches out a generous hand to us.  But I think what makes today’s lesson so difficult for many of us is that although we know that God’s preference for generosity can help us when we are down, we do not ever want to actually be down.  We want to be earning our keep, striving for success, and achieving our way to the top.  We do not like the feeling of not being able to achieve our way through life.

I read an article this past summer about a woman who had been firmly ensconced in her middle-class life, making a reasonable amount of money.  She and her husband were pregnant with twins when two things happened in rapid succession.  First, they bought a house at the top of the housing bubble, right before the bubble popped, making their home depreciate in value by about $90,000.  Then, her husband lost his job.  The twins were born premature, necessitating very expensive formula.  The article goes on to explain how this middle-class, successful couple went from comfortable living to trying to make ends meet with assistance from Medicaid, food stamps, and the WIC program.  She describes the judgmental comments and gestures people made, from blaming her for her problems, to criticizing the food she was buying for her family.  She writes, “What I learned…will never leave me.  We didn’t deserve to be poor, any more than we deserved to be rich.  Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment.  I still have to remind myself sometimes that I was my harshest critic.  That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative politicians and Internet trolls.  It came from me, even as I was living it.”[i]

The invitation for the laborers in the field, and the invitation for with each of us is to remember the words from that offertory prayer, “All things come of thee, O Lord…”[ii]  When our hearts are set on gratitude for all that we have, instead of wrapped up in our manmade notions of entitlement, then celebrating with the one-hour workers is a lot easier.  Because we know, like that middle-class woman, that we could at any moment be one of those waiting all day for an hour’s worth of work.  As one scholar says, “This parable reminds us that God is a lousy bookkeeper and invites us to transform our pride, envy, and hardness into joy by admiring and celebrating God’s astounding generosity.  The parable calls us to look at ourselves honestly and lovingly, as God looks at us.  [The parable] invites us to turn from holding grudges because things did not go our way, to let go of the stuff of our lives that keeps us from being joy-filled and grateful people.”[iii]  When we accept that invitation, and turn ourselves toward gratitude, we catch a glimpse of the joyous party that is waiting with the landowner in the kingdom of heaven.  Amen.

[i] Darlena Cunha, “This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps,” Washington Post, July 8, 2014 found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/08/this-is-what-happened-when-i-drove-my-mercedes-to-pick-up-food-stamps/.

[ii] 1 Chronicles 29.14.

[iii] Charlotte Dudley Cleghorn, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 96.