Keep Awake: First Sunday of Advent -- Hope

 

Mark 13:24-37

December 3, 2023

 

            Babysitting was my primary source of income when I was a young teenager. Until I was old enough for parttime jobs, I babysat. I babysat on and off all the way through seminary. I love kids and I had no money, so babysitting was the way to bring my love for kids and my need for cash together.

            When I began to babysit, my mom taught me early on that I always needed to pick up before the parents came home. I didn’t have to clean their house for them, but if the kids had eaten something I needed to gather all the dishes and get them to the kitchen; load the dishwasher if that was an option, but at least get them collected and in the sink. After I put the kids to bed, I needed to pick up whatever toys or books might be scattered around. I took my mom seriously and I always made sure to do that. I told Phoebe the same thing when she started babysitting. Parents appreciate coming home to a picked up house.

            Because I was never exactly sure when parents would arrive back home, I worked to keep things cleaned up as I went. I didn’t wait until a few minutes before I thought the parents might arrive to start cleaning. I did it right away. I didn’t want to be caught asleep on the sofa with toys and dishes scattered all around me. When the parents came home, I wanted a neat house to be the first thing they saw.

            Waiting for parents to arrive at the end of a babysitting gig is not quite the same thing as what Mark is describing in these verses from chapter 13, but you get the idea. In the last paragraph of our reading, Jesus tells about a man who goes on a journey and leaves his servants in charge of their work and tells the doorkeeper to be on watch for his return. You don’t know when the man is going to return so keep awake, be ready, keep awake. Don’t drift off. Don’t relax your stance. The man of the house could return at any moment. Keep awake.

Warnings to stay awake. Stars falling. A darkened sun and moon. Heavenly powers shaken up.  Not exactly images we normally picture at the beginning of Advent. There’s no babe lying in a manger for Mark. No cattle lowing, no shepherds being led to the child by a host of heavenly messengers. 

Instead on this first Sunday of Advent, we have what is known by Biblical scholars as Mark’s little apocalypse. This chapter begins with Jesus’ predictions about the destruction of the temple. Then Jesus and a few of the disciples – Peter, James, John and Andrew – retreat to the Mount of Olives, look out over the temple and discuss the end times.

The disciples question Jesus.

“Tell us, when will this be; and what will be the signs that all these things are about to be accomplished?”

Jesus tells them about many signs. False prophets and false messiahs. Beware those who come in his name, making claims in his name, yet in reality lead the faithful astray. Wars, nation rising up against nation. Earthquakes, famines, natural disasters.  Don’t be alarmed, these are the beginning of the birth pangs.

There will be suffering, Jesus warns them. The disciples will be forced to testify to the good news in front of councils and governments. But don’t worry, he reassures them, the Holy Spirit will speak through them. And again, there will be false prophets and false messiahs pointing the people in the wrong direction. Leading the elect astray. So, wake up! Stay awake! 

Then we come to our verses. When the end times truly arrive, cosmic signs will fill the sky. Stars, sun, moon. Then Jesus, the Son of Man, will come surrounded by clouds in his power and glory. Angels will be sent to bring the elect from every corner of heaven and earth. All this will happen in God’s time. Not even the angels or the Son himself know when the end will come.  Only God the father, and he is not telling. So, stay awake! Remain on watch, wait open-eyed for the master’s return. Because no one knows when he will come.

Apocalyptic literature and predictions about the end times, such as what is found in Daniel, the book of Revelation and this chapter in Mark, usually come out of a community that is oppressed and under siege by political, religious, or military leaders. The situation in the community seems so utterly dire and desperate that their only hope is in divine intervention. No mortal means can end their suffering. Only action from God and God alone. Then their suffering will be justified. A new world will be issued in.

The word in Greek that gives us our word Apocalypse does not refer to the end of the world. When Jesus speaks about end times, he is not talking about the earth blowing up on God’s orders with nothing remaining. Apocalypse means an unveiling, a revealing. The end times that Jesus refers to are the times when God will be fully revealed, completely unveiled. They will see God. And when you are living in a crisis moment, when you are living with catastrophe all around you, what more do you want than to see God; to see God revealed and unveiled? What more do we want than to know that God is right here with us? Look, there is God! Can we see God? Can we finally see Him?

            Can we finally see God?

            I admit that I’m having a hard time with seeing God lately. I know that may shock some folks, and it certainly says more about my struggling faith than it does about God. I know that God is with us. I just can’t see God with us these days. I can’t see God because catastrophe and chaos feels very near, very close at hand.

            The war in Ukraine goes on and on. The war between Israel and Hamas is brutal, and not only do we read or hear about its brutality, but we can also see it through live news coverage. We can hear the anguished voices of children who have lost their parents and parents who have lost their children. The news here at home isn’t much better. There is violence and anguish and sometimes it all gets to be too much. When I’m listening to the news in my car, I reach a point where I can’t listen anymore. I turn off the news and I listen to one of my audiobooks or music or nothing at all. And at those moments, other moments too, but especially those moments when I hear and feel the anguish of the world, I long to see God. I long for God to be revealed, to be unveiled. I long to see God at last.

            Jesus begins our passage by saying, “But in those days, after that suffering.” But in these days, the suffering is current and real. It’s happening right now. It hurts to feel this suffering, and you may be feeling that hurt too, and if you are, you probably wish that you could come to church and just sing Christmas carols and admire the decorations in the sanctuary and look forward to the coming of a little baby into the world. Instead you get a little apocalypse and talk about the end times.

            But remember that the apocalyptic writings that we have in our scriptures came out of communities who were being persecuted, oppressed, who were living in chaos and with catastrophe close at hand. They longed to see God’s revelation. They longed to see God revealed at last. It’s what gave them hope. To look for the revealing of God in their midst kept their hope alive. And isn’t hope what we need as well? This is the first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of this season when Hope is the key word, it is the theme. Hope.

            And our Hope, our hope that comes from faith, is not a blind hope. It isn’t a fingers crossed and a wishful thinking kind of hope. Our Hope with a capital H is hope that names the reality in which we live. It names that which is hard and scary and disturbing. In fact, if we can’t name it here, in this sacred space, in this sacred moment, where can we name it? No, with our Hope we name the chaos in which we live. We name the catastrophe that is all around us, and then we proclaim Hope even more. As long as we are living, as long as we are breathing and moving and in this world God has given us, we have reason to Hope. We have reason to Hope because in spite of appearances there is good and there is love. We have reason to Hope because we have been given hands and hearts and minds and bodies to do the work of God in the world – in the larger world and in our corner of it. We have reason to Hope because we have the ability and the responsibility to act, to do, to create, to live in such a way that our Hope becomes the Hope for others.

            We have reason to Hope because in the growing darkness the light from one candle can make all the difference. We have reason to Hope because in the growing darkness, we are finally able to see the stars. Advent is a season of expectation, of waiting, of hoping, and trusting that our Hope, our constant and abiding Hope will be fulfilled in the coming of Christ into our world. As a babe. As a man. As God revealed. So I say to you and I say to myself, keep watch. Keep awake. Keep watch. Keep awake. Our Hope is at hand.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Entrusted

Matthew 25:14:30

November 19, 2023

 

            I am not an extreme sports kind of person or a thrill seeker. When I was younger, I used to love going on roller coasters, but now I look at them and think “that’s going to kill my neck.” But even though I have never been one to go looking for excitement-slash-terror, I have tried a few activities that might be considered more extreme or scarier than others. When I was in my early 20’s, I got the chance to try rappelling. I went with some longtime friends and their friend, who was a certified instructor, so he was big on safety. But I was still nervous-slash-terrified that I was about to go bouncing backwards down the side of a cliff. But the instructor and my friends helped me get harnessed and walked me through what would happen. Once the instructor was at the bottom of the cliff with the rope to belay me, he would give me the signal, then I would walk backwards to the edge of the cliff and then I would rappel my way down. No problem.

            All this took place. I took several deep breaths, then I started to walk that backwards walk. I reached the edge and had one foot in the air and one foot still on solid ground when I heard a “pop!” I stopped right where I was and called out, trying to sound calm,

“I just heard something pop.”

The others didn’t know what I was talking about, so I repeated myself.

“I just heard something pop. I don’t think I should hear a popping sound as I’m about to go backwards off a cliff.”

To my mind my friends didn’t seem to be responding fast enough or with the right sense of urgency, so I decided to speak a little louder.

“I. Just. Heard. Something. Pop! SOMETHING POPPED!”

By this time, the instructor and my friends were at my side trying to figure out what I’d heard. There were two carabiners, these little hooks things, that held all the ropes in place. One had a safety closure on it, and the other didn’t. The one that didn’t have the safety closure had come a little undone and that was the popping sound I heard. It turns out I was still very safely harnessed and would not have gotten hurt or, you know, tumbled to my death. So, the carabiner was refastened, and I went through those first backward steps again. And … I did it. I rappelled my way down. Midway, I got some confidence and started to have fun with it. I even went down the cliff a second time. It was an extraordinary experience and I’m glad that I overcame some of my fear and took the risk.

There is no rappelling in this morning’s passage from Matthew’s gospel. But there is risk, and I suspect that fear is closely associated with that risk. Often when we have heard this story, we hear it as part of a stewardship sermon. God, who must then be the man in this parable, has given us a significant number of talents. We must use them, or we risk disappointing God, and look what happened to the servant who did that.

Yet while we associate talents with special abilities that we have been given or skills that we have, for example Brent’s singing, Pamela Sue’s artistry, Kim’s photography, Charlie’s skill at medicine or gardening, in this parable a talent was a sum of money. A large sum of money! One talent was equivalent to what a daily wage earner might make in 15 to 20 years! That’s a lot of talent, and it is a lot of money. One commentator estimated that combined, the property owner entrusted his three servants with approximately 1.5 million dollars in today’s money! 1.5 million! Other scholars have suggested it was even more than that. That’s a lot of money to be entrust to someone. It's a risk to entrust and it is a risk to invest.  

This is the more traditional interpretation of this parable. A second that I have read in several sources this week has been slightly different. Rather than see this parable as allegorical, with God being the master who goes away leaving his slaves with a lot of money to watch over, perhaps the real hero in the story is the third slave. If we are reading this parable in economic terms, and it would make sense that the original hearers of this parable would have been well aware of the economics of it, then hearing about a master expecting his servants to make even more money for him hints in this of economic exploitation. The idea of trading or reinvesting goes directly against specific laws found in Leviticus. And the first two slaves, in doing that, would have been accessories to the breaking of that law. It was only the third slave who understood that what the master was doing was wrong, and in burying the treasure he was given, refused to participate in any economic exploitation. If there is an allegorical angle to this parable, then that third slave would be Jesus, who spoke truth to power just as the slave speaks truth to the master, and who, in a very short time, would also be buried.

I debated which way I should go with this, which interpretation I found the most compelling. But the truth is, I think there’s truth in both. This is a hard passage. This is a hard parable. The parables Jesus are telling are becoming increasingly challenging and dark. He knows that his time is limited. He knows that his arrest and crucifixion is not far away. He needs those who follow him, those who will hear him, to understand the urgency of his message.

The first five words of this passage are “For it is as if …” Seemingly innocuous little words. But they tell more than you would expect. Because this is a kingdom parable. For it is as if the kingdom of God is a man who goes on a journey. But before he leaves, he entrusts three people who are bound to him with talents.

So, is there a way to understand this parable as Jesus reminding his followers that he is entrusting them – not necessarily with money or skills but with mercy, with compassion and forgiveness and the gospel itself? I am entrusting you with God’s good news for the world. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. I am entrusting you, I am faithful to you, and this trust requires faith on your part. It requires you to take risks on your part. It requires you to overcome your fear and trust in God, trust in me.

And is there also a way to hear this parable as a call to be the one who goes against the culture? Just because there is temptation to live as the world lives, to measure success as the world measures success, that does not mean that you should give in. To do what is considered foolish, to refuse to participate in harming others, might just cause you to be banished and cast out and even lose your life. But those who lose their life for the sake of the gospel will save it, and those who save their life for the sake of the world will lose it. Being foolish is what the gospel is all about. We follow a foolish gospel – at least according to the standards of some. But don’t be so fearful of being foolish that you give into temptation. Following the gospel requires risk. And I am entrusting you to take that risk.

I think there is truth in both interpretations. I could find reasons to support either one, but I’m not sure that making a choice is what is important. It seems to me that the crux of the message that we need to take with us this morning, what we need to be reminded of – probably again and again – is that when it comes to the kingdom of God we are entrusted to live as though we believe that the kingdom is really in our midst. We are entrusted with mercy, so we need to be merciful. We are entrusted with grace, so we need to be gracious. We are entrusted with justice and righteousness, so we need to act with justice and live righteously. We are entrusted with peace, so we must be peacemakers. We are entrusted with hope, so we must be hopeful even in the face of what seems hopeless. We are entrusted with love, with love that risks, with love that acknowledges fear but does not let fear stop it or stand in its way. We are entrusted with love that puts its boots on and gets out in the world and works to make love real for others through everything that I just said and more.

We are entrusted with the gift and the call and the responsibility and the requirement of the gospel. We are entrusted to live out and share the good news. And that can be a scary thing, even scarier than walking backwards off a cliff. We are entrusted to take the risk of faith, and that can be more frightening than hearing the pop of a carabiner coming open.

We are entrusted with the gift and the call and the responsibility and the requirement of the gospel. There is no time to lose. There is no time to waste. The kingdom is in our midst. Are we ready to live and to give and to love with all which we have been entrusted? Are we ready to live out the risky business of faith?

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

 

Trim Your Lamps

Matthew 25:1-13

November 12, 2023

 

            In my final year of seminary, I faced my ordination exams. The ords, as we called them, are a series of five exams that must be passed to be ordained. They focus on biblical content, worship and sacrament, theology, polity, and biblical exegesis. As potential lawyers must pass the bar exam to practice law. presbyterian candidates for ministry must pass the ords to practice the ministry of word and sacrament.  

            The time of my ordination exams was upon me. I spent months, well actually four years, preparing. The morning of my first round of exams, I woke up early. I made sure to get plenty of sleep the night before, so waking up wasn’t hard. I went for a walk to get exercise and clear my head. I ate a healthy breakfast. I made sure to have all my materials that I could bring with me the night before. I got to the exam room early. I was calm. I was prepared. I was ready to go. Then a classmate looked at me and said, “Amy, where’s your Book of Confessions?” We were allowed to bring that with us into the exam for reference. I knew exactly where it was. It was sitting on my bedside table in my apartment. I had been reading through it the night before.

            I am not a runner, and when I do try to run, I am certainly not speedy, but I have never run so fast as I did that morning, running back to retrieve the one thing I’d forgotten. Gone was my calm. Gone was the peace of mind that I felt from having such an organized and well planned morning. My heart was pounding. Adrenaline was racing through me, and all the anxiety about the exams that I worked so hard to quell was now overflowing. But I got back to the classroom with minutes to spare. I was able to take some deep breaths, regain a little of the calm I’d felt before, and proceed with my test taking. And, in case you were wondering, I passed.

            Remembering this moment in my life gives me a lot of empathy for the five bridesmaids who are collectively known as foolish. Maybe they thought they were well-prepared for the wait for the bridegroom. Maybe they believed they had done everything necessary to assume their responsibility as bridesmaid. Perhaps they trusted that their lamps were fully trimmed, that their oil was plenty, and that they were ready to go. I can imagine how they must have felt when they realized the opposite was true, how their hearts must have raced when they had to run to the shops to buy more. And unlike me, who made it back before the exam doors closed, these bridesmaids must have felt nothing but bitter disappointment that the door to the wedding was closed on them. They may be known as the five foolish bridesmaids, but I feel for them in their foolishness.

            When I come to this text, I must admit that I have more questions about it than I do interpretative answers. Debi Thomas, in her essay from a few years ago, brings many questions to this text as well, and her questions inspire and provoke many of mine. So here are a few that I have of our passage.

            First question, where is the bride? There are 10 bridesmaids and a bridegroom, but no bride. I know that this is a kingdom parable, it says so right at the beginning. But where is the bride? Who is the bride? Who is the bride meant to be? Is the bride an allegory of the kingdom? Is she God or creation? Who is the bride?

Second, at what wedding is there not a specific time for the bridegroom to show up? When Brent and I planned our wedding, we both knew that at 4:00 pm we were heading down the aisle. This uncertainty about the bridegroom’s arrival makes me anxious.

Third, why are the five “wise” bridesmaids so stingy with their oil? I have a hard time not hearing them in my head as a cross between mean girls and valley girls.

“Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.”

“Like no. There will totally not be enough for you and for us. I mean if we were you, which we’re not, because, you know, ew, we would go find an oil dealer and get some more. So, you better go. No, really, you better go.”

And my final question, why is it that the bridegroom doesn’t even recognize the other bridesmaids when they return? Be angry at them for not planning? Okay, I get that. But not to even recognize them? Shut the door, lock them out, cry ‘I don’t know you’?! I don’t get it.

I don’t get it, and that’s why I’m asking these questions. It isn’t to be irreverent or to make fun of the parable and the characters within it. It is to try and make some connection, cling to some inkling of understanding that might come my way if I only ask the right questions.

But I cannot ask these questions of this parable without asking questions of the larger context around it. This parable Jesus tells does not stand alone. It is surrounded by other stories about people told to watch and to wait. In the chapter and verses before these, Jesus spoke about the end times, about the necessity for watchfulness, and the signs and events to watch for. At the end of our passage today, Jesus warned those who would listen to stay awake. Keep watch. Neither the day nor the hour of the bridegroom’s return is known, so you must stay awake. And unlike the foolish bridesmaids you need to be prepared for the long haul.

Maybe the question to ask of this parable is not so much about the details, but about the message that is being relayed through them. What is Jesus trying to tell people to do in this parable? What is he telling them about the kingdom? What is Jesus saying about the people’s response?

Is Jesus trying to make folks afraid, afraid they will be shut out of the kingdom? Or is he trying to make them let go of their assumptions that they will be the wise bridesmaids? Once again, I too often see myself as the “good guy” in scripture. I assume I do the wise and right thing. But it is quite possible that I am a foolish bridesmaid, instead of one who came prepared. It is highly probable that Jesus is warning me, not the person sitting next to me, to be watchful, to stay awake, and to make the necessary plans for the long haul that is waiting. When it comes to our faith and our understanding of God’s word, should we always assume we get it right? What do we need to hear in these words of Jesus? What message do we need to cling to and what lesson do we need to learn?

A colleague of mine said about this passage that maybe it means that when we are asked to show up, we should really show up. If we’re told to stay awake, we should try to stay awake. If we’re told to watch and wait, then that’s what we should do. Yet waiting and watching and staying awake is challenging to say the least because we cannot skip easily over verse 5. “As the bridegroom was delayed.” 

The bridegroom was delayed. They were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written for a people who were waiting. None of the gospels were written at the exact moment of Jesus’ life.  They were written after his life, his death, and his resurrection. They were written by people for people who were waiting. The first letter to the Thessalonians, which was part of the lectionary choices for this morning, is considered the earliest of all the epistles. Paul was also writing to people who were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written approximately 30 years after that letter. The people who believed in Jesus, who believed he was the Son of God, who believed in his resurrection, also believed that he would return to them soon; maybe not immediately, but soon. Yet here they were, generations after the resurrection and they were still waiting. You can’t really fault the bridesmaids for falling asleep. The bridegroom was delayed. 

Here we are, some 2000 years after the resurrection and we’re still waiting. If you think about it, our faith is based on waiting. We are people living in the interim. We are living in the time between the times, waiting for the promises of God that were embodied in Jesus to come to fruition. I am not shy about saying that I’m not generally an apocalyptic preacher. I don’t focus on the end times to scare people into faith. I disagree with the popular interpretation of the rapture because I think that what passes for rapture theology is iffy theology at best. I often think that we get so caught up in looking for signs of the end times that we forget to be the people God calls us to be right now, here, in the present. But the promise is that Jesus will come again. Again, to reference Debi Thomas, if we dismiss, minimize, or deny that, then we make Jesus a liar. We are almost to the season of Advent, and that season begins not with the story of a baby but of the time when Jesus will come again, and that the world as we know it will be transformed.

So, if Jesus is coming again, and we are called to be watchful and wakeful and to keep our lamps trimmed, than it seems to me that this parable challenges us to think about how we wait. It challenges us to consider how our daily lives connect with what we proclaim to believe. Waiting for the bridegroom is not a mindless state of being. Waiting for the bridegroom calls us to be intentional.  It calls us to be thoughtful about what we do and how we live. Waiting is not passive. It is active. No one knows when the bridegroom will finally arrive, so let’s assume that we are in it for the long haul. Let us wait with intention. 

What does this waiting with intention look like?  In our parable, it’s about being ready.  Amos chastises the people listening to him that they are more worried about correct ritual, then about caring for the least of God’s people. They worship in name only, but their hearts are not involved. It seems to me that waiting with intention is about trying to make our daily lives match up to the faith we profess. I’m not leveling criticism at any one of us. It is easy to say that those two things should match; it’s another thing to do it.  But that doesn’t exempt us from trying, from striving to make our waiting and our living sync. 

Waiting with intention means that we live with hope. We live with hope that the kingdom of God will come to fruition right here and right now. We live with hope that God truly is doing a new thing, in our midst in this moment, and what was flat will be lifted high, and what was high will be made low. We live with the hope that there will be streams in the desert and a way made in the wilderness. Hope may feel in short supply these days with wars raging around the world, and with violence here at home. Hope may even feel foolish in the face of so much hatred and death.

But hope, like waiting, is active not passive. Hope is intentional, and a reminder that our trust is not in ourselves or what we can do or not do. We hope because we trust the One who is the light of the world, and who promised to come again to finally and forever make us and all of creation whole. Therefore, we wait with hopeful intention, living as Jesus taught us to live, siding with the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, doing justice and walking in righteousness, and never taking for granted each day that we are given, keeping our lamps trimmed.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

 

 

           

As Yourself -- Reformation Sunday

Matthew 22:34-46

October 29, 2023

 

            At the beginning of January, I encouraged all of us to take a Star Word. Star Words are an Epiphany practice that our congregation began a couple of years ago, and the word we pick is really the word that picks us. For whatever reason, whether it’s clear to us or not, our Star Word is a word that we need to live with and live into over the course of the coming year. If you didn’t take a Star Word last January, you’ll get your chance again in just a few months.

            The Star Word that I chose last January – or the one that chose me – was “tenderness.” When I got it, I thought, “Hmm. I guess this means I need to be mindful of how tender I am with people this year. Maybe there will be particular people I need to be tender with.”

            Within just a couple of weeks of receiving my word, my mom died. Five days later, I fell and broke my wrist. Without warning, I went from days that seemed fairly normal and typical to grieving and to hurting both physically and emotionally. And I went from feeling relatively in control to feeling helpless, needing assistance with the small, everyday things I generally take for granted, like taking a shower, opening a bottle, and tying my own shoes. And because so much seemed to be happening at the same time, it took me a little while to realize that the person I needed to show tenderness to was me.

            It should seem obvious, I guess, that I needed to show myself some tenderness during that time. I don’t think anyone would have argued that with me, but I discovered that I’m not very good at being tender with myself. I think I should just push through pain or grief or both. I’m more than happy to help someone else. If someone else in my circumstance had come to me needing help with a small task, I would have done it gladly. I’m sure you would have too. But when it was me needing the help, I was embarrassed and even ashamed that I couldn’t do for myself. But life can be so hard and sometimes we can’t help ourselves, so a little tenderness toward self is necessary.

            I know that I’m not alone in this, in struggling with tenderness toward myself. I think our struggle with is connected to our culture’s equating self-compassion, self-tenderness, and self-love with self-centeredness and self-obsession. And certainly there are self-centered people out there, plenty of them, who take it to the extreme of narcissism. But that’s a whole other sermon.

            The thing is, showing yourself some tenderness, some compassion does not mean that you are self- centered. However, being filled with self-hatred or toxic shame or guilt can make you self-obsessed without even realizing it. Brent and I are big fans of the public radio show, The Hidden Brain. If you don’t catch it live, you can listen to the podcast. About a month ago, Brent told me about an episode that focused on self-compassion and how necessary it is. The guest was a psychologist who told a difficult story about herself from her days as a graduate assistant. I won’t go into the details, but she messed up big time. She made bad decisions, life-changing errors in judgment, and she suffered overwhelming shame, guilt, and self-loathing because of them. In her words, she was a mess. And the more she focused on her shame and guilt and self-hatred, the more inward she turned. The more self-centered she became. Amid this inner chaos and with her outer life in tatters, she was invited to attend a meditation group. She went reluctantly, but through the process of sitting quietly and mindfully, she began to grasp just how self-centered her shame and guilt had made her. It had become all about her, even though it was negative, it was still all about her.  And it wasn’t self-love that did it. It was the lack thereof.

            This changed her life. This changed her research. She quoted studies that have been done that show that people who are constantly berating themselves, beating themselves up, who refuse to cut themselves some slack are more self-centered than those who do. She stated that self-compassion is not about letting ourselves off the hook for our mistakes or not being accountable. It’s about recognizing that we are all a mess. And the people who acknowledge that, who show themselves compassion and tenderness and love, are much better at loving others. To show yourself compassion opens you up to the needs of other people. If you can be compassionate to yourself, you are better at being compassionate to others.

            In this passage where Jesus states what we know as The Greatest Commandment – and it really is – we most often focus on only two tenets of it. We are to love God and to love our neighbor. But as we read this morning, that is not the end of the sentence. We are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. I think we overlook this last part to our detriment. And I think Jesus knew this.

            At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus knows that he is in the last days of his life. He knows that those in power are plotting against him, plotting to have him killed. And as scholar Debi Thomas pointed out, it is interesting that when he is asked this question about which commandment is the greatest, he doesn’t quote doctrine to them. He doesn’t tell them to adhere to dogma. No, he tells them to love God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus isn’t calling them to participate in a feeling or an emotion, he is calling them to a way of living. Love God with everything you are, your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.

            And how did Jesus show this kind of love? How was he a role model and an example of this kind of love? Jesus had compassion for those who suffered. He had compassion for the crowds who were hungry and who were like lost sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion for the blind, the lame, the voiceless, the ignored, and the marginalized. He had compassion for those who were labeled as sinners and therefore less than by others. And he had compassion for those who did the labeling in the first place. He spoke truth to them, but he still did it with love. Jesus’ compassion was not just a feeling. He demonstrated it. He acted on it and lived it. In Greek, the word for compassion relates to the gut. When you have compassion for someone, you feel it in your gut. Your gut twists in compassion for others. When you see the suffering of others, whoever they may be, your stomach clenches in empathy and compassion for them. And you act on that compassion. You act on that twisting of your gut for someone else’s suffering.

            When reading this passage in the past, I’ve thought of Jesus’ words as linear. You love God first, then you love your neighbor, and if you have time, throw in a little love for yourself. But I think that this is far more cyclical than it is linear. Loving God with everything we have, we everything we are opens us up to loving our neighbors, and loving our neighbors opens us up to loving God even more. And loving ourselves makes us more loving of our neighbors, and when we do both, we love God even more. And when we love God even more, we love ourselves and our neighbors even more. It goes around and around and around.

            To love God, to love our neighbor, and to love ourselves is not just an intellectual exercise. It is a physical, physiological, emotional, mindful, active response. To love God, to love our neighbor, to love ourselves is to see suffering and pain and hurt, no matter who is experiencing it, and respond with love, compassion, and tenderness. And to love God, neighbor, and ourselves, is to act on all of the above. Our neighbors here and around the world are suffering. Humanity is suffering. No matter what side you have chosen in this terrible war in Israel- Palestine, humanity is suffering. Humanity is suffering in Ukraine and in Russia. Humanity is suffering in the Sudan. Humanity is suffering in Mexico. Humanity is suffering in Lewiston, Maine and in Nashville and Uvalde and Baltimore and Buffalo. Humanity is suffering, and I’m not saying that all of this suffering would be alleviated or ended altogether if we just knew how to show ourselves a little more compassion, if we took the words “as yourself” a little more seriously. But if we can be compassionate to ourselves, more tender and forgiving to the mess we sometimes are, then maybe we could be more compassionate, tender, and forgiving of the mess in others. Maybe self-compassion helps to widen the circle of love that Jesus called us to follow. Maybe if we could allow ourselves to be human, then we could remember that even those we might consider enemies are also human and worthy of the same dignity and respect that we are, and vice versa.

            One final note, when we love God, we’re not just loving an idea or a concept or even some being in the sky. We’re loving the One who became like us, who took on our skin and our blood and our bones, who took on our frailties and our limits, so we could finally figure out what it means to really be human. And thanks be to God for this, because when it comes down to it, it is the incarnation, the belief that God became like us, that keeps me going. It gets me up in the morning. It gets me in this pulpit, even when I feel that I have nothing to offer, even when I feel as though my faith has shriveled in the face of humanity’s suffering. God became us because of love for us so we could finally learn how to love God and love one another and ourselves. Humanity is suffering, and the Greatest Commandment is needed now more than ever before. Indeed, it is the only thing that will save us.

            Let all of God’s children, all of humanity, say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

The Things That Are God's

Matthew 22:15-22

October 22, 2023

 

            Way back when in the 1980’s a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy was released. It wasn’t widely known in this country, and I don’t remember even hearing about it until I was in college. It was very funny movie, although looking back on it, there were a lot of stereotypes that wouldn’t and shouldn’t play so well anymore. But its premise and plot has remained with me all these years.

            A man name Xi, a member of a remote tribe who had never encountered industrialized western civilization before, was out walking one day when a small plane flies overhead. The pilot throws out a glass coke bottle – clearly the ideas of recycling and not littering were not part of the movie’s consciousness. The bottle lands, unbroken, near Xi who had never seen anything like it before. It seems to Xi that this strange bottle had fallen from the heavens, from the gods.

            He picks it up and brings it back to his people. This small glass object is treated with wonder and amazement. The people discover that the bottle has multiple uses. It can be used to break open large fruit. It can be used to roll out dough for baking. The bottle’s mouth can be dipped in dye and used to decorate cloth. Everyone in the village finds many ways to use this bottle, this gift from the gods, and with each new use the popularity of the bottle grows.

            Here is the problem. There is only one bottle. And the people of Xi’s clan begin to fight with one another over who gets to use this supposed gift from the gods. The desire to use the bottle leads two women to fight over it, and one woman grabs it and hits the other woman on the head with it. What had been a gift of great utility has now become a weapon.

            The woman who hit the other is distraught at what she has done. The whole village is in turmoil. Nothing like this has ever happened between them before. It’s clear that they don’t have a mine versus yours mentality, just what is ours is ours. But the introduction of this bottle changes that. The people realize that the bottle must go. It must be returned to the gods, even if that means taking it to the edge of the world. So, Xi, who brought the bottle to them, takes on the task of returning it. He takes the bottle, and he walks out into a big world, much of which he has never seen before, and encounters the civilization that we take for granted. Misadventure ensues. At one point in the movie, Xi is giving paper money as payment for his help. Money means nothing to him. Just as the bottle turned out to be a problematic gift, this paper stuff is useless, and he leaves it on the ground. And watching this, you realize that so much of what we place value on – things, money – is just made up, artificial. Xi, who had never known anything but his family and tribe, the land, the earth, the sky, the trees, the animals, can’t see the value in the money paid to him because in his world it has none. And the one object that he thought came from the gods caused more trouble and strife than good for his people. If this was a gift from the gods, clearly the gods must be crazy.

            But unlike Xi, we have lived our entire lives in a world where money and objects do hold value, where money is necessary to live. And although economics may play out differently today than they did in the time of the gospels, economics is economics. Economics and politics were the underpinning of the society that Jesus lived and ministered in as well. And that brings us to our passage from Matthew’s gospel this morning.

For the first time in a while, our passage is not centered on Jesus responding to his questioners with a parable. But our story does involve a confrontation with the Pharisees. The Pharisees have been confronting Jesus since he came into Jerusalem and into the temple. But this confrontation is different. Not only are the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus, the Herodians have joined them. We do not read about the Herodians very often. In fact, I think this story is maybe one of two where they are mentioned at all. In a casual reading of this story, we might just accept their presence without question, but it is significant that this group we know little about are siding with the Pharisees against Jesus. Consider the name; Herodians suggests Herod.  Herodians were Jewish leaders who allied themselves with Herod and the Roman Empire. The Romans were the occupiers, the alien force who held them and their land under the empirical thumb. Just as tax collectors were despised and given their own special category for sinfulness because they collected the taxes demanded by the Roman government, the Herodians would not have been popular or loved by the common folks. Certainly, the Pharisees, the religious leaders and authorities of their day, would not have cared for them. But here they stand together trying to trap Jesus. Their collaboration gives new meaning to the phrase,

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

            Both the Pharisees and the Herodians hated Jesus. Both were threatened by him. He had been stirring people up for a long time, but at first, he was just a nuisance, an annoying thorn in their collective side. Now this itinerant rabbi has become dangerous. So, as Matthew tells it, they schemed to entrap him. 

            “‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’”

            Jesus knows what they are trying to do. The text says that he is “aware of their malice.” Jesus turns the question back on them. As one commentator pointed out; the question Jesus was asked was extraordinarily clever, but his response was ingenious. Jesus asks them to show him the coin that they used to pay the tax to the emperor. They produce a denarius, and he asks them to tell him whose head and whose title is stamped on the coin. The emperor’s. Then, Jesus says perhaps some of his most well-known words.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Some interpreters have used Jesus’ words to justify the separation of church and state. That is not a debate that needs to be waded into in this sermon, but I do think that that kind of political and religious separation is our modern understanding. Given the context and the culture of the time, I doubt that anyone listening to Jesus or even the first hearers and readers of Matthew’s gospel would have thought in those terms. Religious law was the law. There would have been no separation between the two. But that is also why the empirical tax was so odious. 

This tax was the Roman census or the “head tax” that was instituted when Judea became a Roman province. The tax was not only considered unfair, but it also went against Torah. The land of Israel belonged to God alone. Since Caesar was a usurper, paying the tax was considered an act of disobedience to God. Not only would Caesar’s image have been on the denarius, but the inscription would also have read something like, “In Caesar we trust.”

The common understanding of Caesar was not just that he was the governing ruler; as emperor, he was, for all intents and purposes, a god. Paying the Roman head tax meant that the Jewish people consistently broke the first two commandments. They put another god before the Lord God, and they used a coin that bore a graven image. I expect that Jesus fully recognized the irony of the religious leaders being able to produce this coin which went against the Law, while he could not. I’m sure that the hypocrisy of the religious leaders having a coin like in this in the holiest of places, was not lost on Jesus. 

Yet even when this passage isn’t interpreted as a reason for separation of church and state, it is used as a way for believers to find their way through a complex world that is driven by money. Just give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and the rest goes to God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  But real life is a different beast altogether. We are, like it or not, driven by money. It is a reality of our lives. You need a certain amount of money just to survive. If you don’t have it, survival can be tough to say the least. People come in and out of our church office on a regular basis needing help with money to pay gas bills and water bills and electric bills so they too can survive. To be without money is to know firsthand money’s necessity.

            While I think that money is one critical element of this confrontation, I also think that what is being called into question is allegiance. Perhaps when Jesus questioned the Pharisees and the Herodians about the coin, he was also questioning their allegiance. Who do you belong to, God or the emperor? What are the things that are Gods?

            Jesus was the master at turning trick questions meant to trap him back onto those doing the questioning. But the question of allegiance, the question of priorities is also asked of us?  Who do we belong to? Where does our allegiance lie? What do we consider to be the things that belong to God?  

            We might glibly answer that we, of course, belong to God. Along with that everything we have, everything we are, everything in God’s creation are the things that belong to God. Yet how does our answer play out in our daily lives?   

            I must be honest, when it comes to my daily life the idea that I belong to God, that everything I am and everything that I hold dear belongs to God, does not always factor in. When I make a decision, whether it is about a purchase or what to have for lunch, am I thinking, “what does this mean considering the fact that all I am belongs to God?” No. Do I think on a regular basis about how what I do and say reflects my allegiances? No. As much as I want to live mindfully and intentionally, I know that I fall short of this repeatedly.

What are the things that belong to God?

What I’ve come to realize is that this doesn’t stop just with me being mindful of the things that belong to God. Where the rubber hits the road is what I do with that mindfulness. If I believe that the things that belong to God are all things and all people, how do I live that out? How is it reflected in my actions, my purchases, my consumption? And even more importantly, how is it reflected in my interactions with others? If I believe that all things are God’s, than does that include all people? Doesn’t that mean all life holds value, that all people should be treated humanely and with dignity? Even the people who have hurt me. Even the people with whom I vehemently disagree.

The coin that the religious leaders produced to show Jesus bore the image of Ceasar on it. But the hands that held the coin bore the image of the One who created them. We bear the image of the One who created us. And I’ve realized that we don’t get to choose who bears the divine image and who does not. So, if our allegiance is to God, than our allegiance must also be to all God has created. What are the things that belong to God? We are all the things that belong to God. Thanks be to God and may it be so. And may it be so.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

The Banquet

Matthew 22:1-14

October 15, 2023

 

            Normally I try to begin my sermons with a clever or pointed illustration that leads us into the passage before us. But this has been a hard, sad, and frightening week. Too many weeks feels this way because the news here at home and from around the world is often bad news. But the terrible news coming out of Israel and Gaza, of the catastrophic loss of life of both Israelis and Palestinians is horrific. Although it has been many years since I was there, I vividly remember the people I met and the places I saw so it feels personal in a way other conflicts have not. Sadly, I believe the worst is still to come.

            So, when I tried to think of a story or illustration that would move us into this passage from Matthew’s gospel, nothing seemed appropriate or helpful. It has been a disturbing week, and we have a disturbing passage before us.

            Last week I said that sometimes there should be a warning label on scripture because scripture can both challenge and change us. It can also disturb and unsettle us, sometimes making me as a preacher want to skip the hard stories altogether and preach on something “nice” instead. But I am convinced we need the hard stories, the challenging stories, even the painful stories as much as we do the comforting ones. So, we dig into this parable duly warned.

            Matthew’s parables are getting darker, but the times in which Jesus is telling them are getting darker as well. The plots to have Jesus killed are fomenting. He is angering the religious authorities. He speaks truth to those in power, and therefore he is a threat to those in power. This parable, which is dark and hard to hear, is right in line with what is happening in the world around Jesus.

            “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.  Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’  But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

            The context in which Jesus is speaking this parable and the others that we have read is dark. As much as the crowds around him have lauded him, followed him, sought after him, and beseeched him, Jesus knows that his ultimate rejection by the world is fast approaching. As I said earlier, he is angering the powers-that-be. He is making enemies, and those enemies are plotting to seek their revenge. That is the context in which Jesus is speaking these parables. But we are dealing with a larger context as well because Matthew is writing his gospel account to a particular audience in a particular context too.

Biblical scholars believe that Matthew is writing to a community in conflict. In his community, his church if you will, a split is happening. His community is splintering and dividing. Matthew and those others who have heard the good news of Jesus and believed are most likely the minority. It seems that the majority are unwilling or unable to hear or believe the good news, and the result is a theological and emotional battle for the soul of the community.

            Although a similar parable to this one is found in the gospel of Luke, Matthew takes this parable and makes it a grave, even sinister, warning. If you do not accept the invitation to the king’s feast, if you decline, even though you were supposed to be on the guest list, you will not only be replaced by someone else, but you will also be destroyed.

            And, just as in last week’s parable of the vineyard, the emissaries of the king who brought the invitations were not only dismissed, but some of them were also abused, mistreated, and killed. So it is understandable, sort of, why the king would be angry, but it is still a struggle – at least for me – as to how to grasp the terrible turn that takes place in the parable. The king is not only angry. The king sends out his troops and destroys those who declined, those who murdered the emissaries and burns down their city. Then, while the city is on fire, others are invited. The party doors are thrown open to a brand-new guest list.

            But as I said, Matthew is writing to a community that is splintering over who believes and who does not. Matthew Skinner, a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, and one of the contributors to WorkingPreacher.org. said that we must read this parable and indeed this gospel with empathy. We must have empathy for what the community Matthew is writing to is going through. We must have empathy because in moments of division and polarization, do we not also wish that those on the other side of the line might suffer consequences for what we feel are their wrong beliefs or lack of belief entirely?

And while it might be hard for us to consider the possibility that Matthew would be manipulating this parable to awaken the collective conscious of those in his community who have turned away from the gospel, that may be some of what is happening here. Does this mean that Matthew is putting words into Jesus’ mouth to evoke a particular response from his community? No. But I think Matthew is putting into words what the minority group of believers in his community must have felt. We have told you the truth, and you won’t believe, so here are the consequences … the kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son …

But while I can by empathetic with Matthew’s community because I know that I have also been guilty of wishing dire consequences for people I think have distorted the truth, especially what I believe to be the truth of the gospel, the violence of this passage is hard to take. That’s an understatement.

            When I think about the kingdom of heaven being like a banquet, I think more in terms of Isaiah’s poetry than I do Matthew’s stark and violent depiction. I relate more to the imagery of people from every nation gathered on the Lord’s holy mountain for a wonderful feast, a feast of celebration and thanksgiving. I have had dreams of feasts like this, where we sit at the table with friends and family, with neighbors and strangers who we realize were our neighbors all along, with those who are living and those who are living in God, and it is the most beautiful and wonderful dream. But the stuff of my dreams is far from the reality that we are living in the world today.

            You see as hard as this parable is, to hear, to read, to understand, to contend with, we also hold it in tension with what we believe and know about God. What we believe and know is that God is a God of grace. God is a God of love and mercy, and yes, judgment too. But judgment in Matthew’s gospel is not so much about punishment as it is on opening the eyes and heart and mind of the one being judged so that person can change course and can turn back to God. That does not make this parable any easier to hear or understand, but it helps – at least a little.

            But there is one more piece of this parable that we have not dealt with yet, and that is this poor, underdressed wedding guest at the end. What about him and his fate?

            This seems to take the parable from difficult to downright impossible. In my study of this passage, I have heard a few theories. One is that if we accept the invitation, then we must be prepared to follow through in every way. Being a disciple of Christ is not just about saying, “yes,” then sitting back and resting on our laurels. Being a disciple means striving to live the life we have been called to live, in our words and in our deeds. If we are going to show up to the banquet, then we must really show up.  

            A second possibility is that the idea of the king representing God is wrong. When it comes to the guest who is thrown out of the banquet, we must consider that the party goers are us and the man banished from our communion is Jesus himself. If Jesus, a Middle-Eastern itinerant, hard truth speaking, temple cleansing, parable telling, welcomer of society’s outcasts, misfits, and rogues preacher were to show up at our doors, would we welcome him in? Would we make room at the table for him especially since he would not look like us or sound like us or think like us?

            And if this guest was Jesus, was his banishment about being underdressed or was it that he refused to clothe himself in the same violence and vengefulness as all the rest? Maybe it wasn’t so much that he was underdressed but that he was wearing different clothes altogether?

            I don’t know which of these ideas is technically “correct.” I suppose there is a measure of truth in all of it. But I do know that when it comes violence – whether in this parable or the violence that we witness in our world – I want to put on different clothes. I want to dress myself, head to toe, heart and mind, in the clothing of peace and peacemaking. To paraphrase Dr. King, violence begets nothing but more violence. The only way forward is to stop, even if that means I am banished from the party altogether. The only way forward is to stop and trust that this banquet of violence is not what God wants for us, for all of us, for all of God’s children. The banquet God wants for us is the one described in Isaiah – a rich feast where all people gather at the table on the Lord’s holy mountain and God destroys death which hangs over all of us like a shroud. It is a feast where every tear is wiped away, every disgrace is taken away, and we sit at table together and give our God our thanks and praise. That is the banquet I long to attend. That is the banquet we all must work for and live for, even die for. May it be so. May it be so.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

The Stone

Matthew 21:33-46

October 8, 2023

 

Warning labels are an inherent part of our modern society. It seems that just about everything we use or consume or touch or even smell has a warning attached to it. We’ve all seen the pharmaceutical ads where the first 50 seconds of a 60 second spot touts a new medication’s amazing, miraculous, curative benefits, and then the last 10 seconds are used to list every conceivable side effect. Often, the side effects sound worse than the illness that warrants the medication. But if the warnings were not given, whether it’s on a new medication or something else, there would be a public outcry. It is in the best interest of everyone to be warned about something potentially dangerous or threatening to our health or well-being, even when the dangers come with something that may help us in the long run. 

            I sometimes think the same should be true for scripture. A warning label should be pasted both on the outside and inside cover of every Bible. Before we turn one page of our Bible, whatever the translation, there should be a warning label.

“Warning to all readers! You enter these pages at your own risk. Reading may change you.”   

            I don’t say this to be irreverent. I say this because I believe that being faithful means that we must read scripture on its terms, not ours. It is not easy to do. I would much rather read the passages and stories in the Bible that confirm my understanding of God and skip the ones that challenge my preconceptions and firmly held notions. Yet if I want to be faithful in reading scripture, then I must also read the passages and stories and parables that challenge me, that push back at me, that make me struggle. I must read scripture on its own terms, not mine. That is where the warning label comes in. Reading scripture on its own terms may force us to not only see God differently, but to see ourselves differently as well. This passage from Matthew has the power to do both, so you have been warned. We read it at our own risk.

            As I studied this passage, what I repeatedly read in commentaries is that this parable has been used to justify anti-Semitism. If we read this story as pure allegory, it is easy to see how that interpretation has been reached.

To better understand the parable itself, we need to understand the scene in which it is set. Jesus is in the final days before his arrest and crucifixion. He is in the temple. He is in a confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, the religious authorities. They want to stop him, silence him, at any cost. They have been challenging his authority. Jesus has responded to their challenges with parables. Our parable today, like another we’ve read in recent weeks, takes place in a vineyard.

The vineyard would have been a relatable, familiar example to the people listening to Jesus. In this story a vineyard was planted by a landowner. The landowner plants it, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower. This was what any responsible landowner, any good landowner, would have done. He leaves the vineyard in the hands of his tenants and goes to another country. When harvest time rolls around, he sends his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. Again, this would have been standard practice. But the tenants turn on the servants. They beat one, they kill another, and they stone a third. Yet the landowner does not retaliate. Instead he sends more slaves to them, and those slaves are treated the same way. 

            I suspect that everyone who heard Jesus tell this was thinking that surely the landowner would now rain down vengeance on the heads of the tenants. It was bad enough that they beat and killed the first slaves sent to them, but to do that a second time? No landowner would put up with that. But here’s the twist; not only did the landowner not retaliate, but he also decided to send one more emissary: his son. Surely, he thinks, his son will be respected. They won’t harm the landowner’s own flesh and blood. But when the tenants see the son approaching, they hatch a plot.

“Let’s kill the son, and then we’ll receive the inheritance.”

They seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him too. When Jesus finishes his story, he asks the Pharisees,

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

The Pharisees respond,

“He will put those wretches to death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

            Just as Jesus did in the previous parables, the question that Jesus asks of the Pharisees puts them in a position to condemn themselves. The ones who refuse to give the share of the harvest to the landowner, the ones who kill the slaves and son of the landowner, then have the audacity and sense of entitlement to believe that the inheritance will still come to them, are the ones who will be put to a miserable death. They are the ones who will lose their place in the vineyard to others. The point of the parable seems obvious. Jesus says it. The Pharisees are the wicked tenants. 

            If the Pharisees are the wicked tenants who kill not only the slaves, but the son, then we can see how some interpreters have made the leap that the Jews are the ones who are sent out of the vineyard, and the Christians are the new tenants who “produce at the harvest time.” Reading the parable this way makes it an “us versus them” scenario. But here is where the warning label is needed. What makes us think that we – Christians, good church goers, etc. – are always the good guys? What makes us assume that we are the “good guys” in every story or parable?

Even more importantly, Matthew was writing to a congregation that was Jewish. Would he have been preaching their own replacement to them, to his people? I’m not convinced this parable is about one religious group replacing another, but about those who are called to be stewards of the vineyard – caretakers and cultivators – forgetting that call and grasping for power and ownership instead. The tenants seemed to have been confused as to who exactly owned that vineyard. The text makes it clear – it wasn’t them. But they were determined to live as though they owned it, as though they held power over it, and they made ghastly, terrible, deadly decisions to hold onto that power. And the repercussions of their decisions would not only haunt them but haunt future generations as well.

It seems to me that Jesus was calling out the Pharisees for forgetting the One to whom they and everyone else belonged. He called them out for forgetting that they were called to be stewards, not only of the Law, but of people. They were not the owners of the Law, but they thought they were. They believed it gave them power and they abused that power and they hurt God’s children, and that includes themselves. Jesus challenged the Pharisees and the religious leaders and all those who thought they knew God’s will and possessed power that only belongs to God to realize that God was and is doing a new thing. God would not be limited by their dogma. And God will not tolerate their abuse. Jesus goes on to quote,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” 

            The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

            Jesus also said,

“The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 

            I have always heard those words as a terrible and violent punishment, a terrible, violent judgment. Yet maybe it isn’t a literal judgment. Maybe falling on that stone, the stone, is exactly what must happen for us to see the truth about ourselves, to see the truth of bad decisions we make, to see the truth about our own lives and the struggles that we wage in our own hearts. Perhaps falling on the stone is what must happen to break open our hardened hearts and closed minds and blinded eyes and tightly clenched hands.

            “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

            This isn’t a parable about destruction for destruction’s sake. This is a parable about God building something new, using the stone that was rejected by some to be the cornerstone, the building block for the new thing God is doing.

            Yes, this is a hard, hard parable to read, to hear, to understand. But hearing the truth about us is never easy. Hearing the truth about our actions, our past, our history is painful. But it’s also necessary. Jesus was telling the Pharisees the truth about themselves, about their leadership, about their abuses. He was telling them that he was the stone upon which they would fall. They didn’t want to hear it. But maybe in doing this he was also offering them grace. Maybe he was also offering them mercy, a chance to repent, to turn around, to reorient themselves in the path God called them to follow. Maybe Jesus knew that he was the stone they must fall upon for their hearts to be broken wide open. Maybe he didn’t want the Pharisees, even them, to be destroyed as much as he wanted them to be made whole. Maybe that’s what we need from this parable as well: a moment of truth-telling that breaks our hearts wide open and God’s grace that makes us whole.

            Warning to all who would hear these words. They just might change us.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

Make My Joy Complete -- World Communion Sunday

Philippians 2:1-13

October 1, 2023

 

            A Canadian public service announcement with the hashtag EatTogether came out a few years ago. It was obviously pre-Covid, that time which feels like a very, very long time ago when we knew nothing of social distancing. But I remember when I first watched it thinking, “This is good stuff right here. This is kingdom stuff.”

            I hadn’t thought about this PSA for a long time, but for some reason it rolled across my social media this week, and I watched it again. As I was preparing for this sermon, I looked for it on YouTube and watched it again, then I watched it a few more times just for good measure.

            This is one of the few times when I wish we had access to a screen, so I could show you this rather than try to describe it, but I’ll do my best. And if you have access to YouTube, I highly recommend that you watch this when you can.

            The PSA opens with a young woman coming home from work. She walks into her apartment building with other residents and everyone except her is staring at their phones, oblivious to everything and everyone around them. Many people have headphones on or earbuds in so they can tune out the world even more completely. The doorman sitting behind his desk is staring into his phone, not paying attention to who is coming and going. She gets onto the elevator to go to her apartment and it’s the same thing. There is no interaction, no smiling, no casual chatting as the elevator makes it journey upwards. The people are only aware of when the elevator reaches their floor and then they move off, still staring at their phones.

            The woman is clearly bothered by this. She looks at the people around her in dismay. And when she walks into her apartment, she finds her roommate, headphones on, staring at her laptop with her tablet also open beside her. The young woman is frustrated and drums her fingers on a small table beside the door. That’s when she gets an idea.

            The next scene is of this young woman and her roommate, bringing that table and another small table out into the hallway. They bring out chairs, and they set the tables with tablecloths and dishes and utensils and even some candles. They bring out their dinner, and they sit down and wait. In the next minute the elevator door opens, and a family – a mother, father, and daughter – step off. The little girl pulls her mother toward the two women, and they join them at the table, bringing out their own table and chairs and adding their own dishes of food to the meal. After this, some guys poke their head out their door, see what’s happening and join them, doing the same as the earlier family helping the collective table and meal grow by adding theirs. And so it goes. Neighbors up and down the floor do the same. People are talking and laughing, shaking hands, sharing food. It is all lovely.

Then the little girl crawls underneath the conglomeration of tables and goes to a door at the far end of the hallway. All talk at the table stops, and all heads turn her way, wondering what will happen. The little girl knocks on the door and when it is opened by an older gentleman, she beckons him to come join them. He looks at the people gathered in the hallway, then closes his door. In a second it is opened again, and he brings out a bottle of wine and a smoked sausage and walks with the little girl to join the others at the table. Everyone cheers and makes him welcome. There is no narration to any of this, other than a fabulous version of the song, What the World Needs Now. You don’t hear the conversations. There is no deep voice over explaining what is happening, but in a PSA that lasts less than two minutes, you watch as strangers become neighbors, and neighbors become friends, and bonds are made, and a meal is shared, and one table is created out of many, and all are welcomed. #EatTogether.

No matter how many times I watch this PSA, it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It reminds me of family meals growing up, meals where we could slow down a little, and enjoy one another’s company, and when – especially after a celebratory meal – we would relax, and stories would be told and memories shared even as they were being created. If there was one blessing from Covid and being in lockdown, its that our family gathered around the table on a regular basis, and once a week, other members of our family, still within our bubble, would join us and we would eat together and laugh and love – all around the table.

I doubt that Paul was thinking about a table in his letter to the Philippians, although food and eating together was certainly part of his theology. But in this letter, Paul is writing from prison. It may be that his life will soon come to an end. But Paul does not bemoan his situation. Instead he sees it as another opportunity to advance the gospel. Yet Paul must have realized that this might be his last opportunity to write to the church in Philippi, to encourage and exhort the people there, so he writes this letter, and he encourages the Philippians to remember that being disciples of Jesus the Christ goes against the grain of the world. The values to which disciples ascribe are often countercultural to the values proclaimed by the world. What the Roman Empire states as being important – getting ahead, keeping up with the Joneses, or the Caesars as the case may be, individualism and isolationism – are not the values that are important to those who would follow Christ.

To underscore all of this, he uses in our verses today what is believed by scholars to have been an ancient hymn, what is often referred to as the Christ Hymn. Paul begins this part of the letter by writing,

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 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 interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

And then Paul weaves in the words from what must have been the hymn. Words that affirm that even though Jesus was the human incarnation of God, he didn’t believe that his divinity was something to be used or exploited. Instead he humbled himself. He emptied himself. He took on the role of slave and became obedient to the point of death, even a criminal’s execution on a cross. So, those who would follow Jesus the Christ, those who would seek to be his disciples in the world must be willing to do the same. We must be willing to humble ourselves, to not think that we are better than others or above others regardless of our worldly situation. We are to approach life and each other with humility. We are to have the same mind as Christ and share that same mind with each other.

Now these words are beautiful, but they can also be tricky to interpret. They have sometimes been interpreted to mean that every Christian must think exactly alike. And if we don’t, if we think differently from one another, then somebody must be wrong. When it comes to interpreting these words about humility, we must be careful as well. There are people who have been humiliated by life, by unjust circumstances and oppression by others. To ask them for humility seems false and wrong. Paul’s urging for humility as also been interpreted as meaning that a “good Christian” should never think about themselves, their own needs, or their own welfare. Instead they should be a doormat for the world, and the truth is that when it comes to this interpretation, it has often been used against people who are already treated like doormats by others.

I’m not convinced that Paul meant for his words to be interpreted in this way. I don’t think he expected every disciple to think the same way. That would be uniformity, not unity. I don’t think he wanted people to be humiliated or to be treated like dirt for the sake of Christ. Instead, I think Paul wanted disciples to recognize that true humility is not about self-degradation but about seeing that God’s world is much bigger than our one, limited perspective can grasp. Maybe true humility is not about telling ourselves that we’re losers and others aren’t, that we are low and they are high, but about reminding ourselves that we could be wrong. Someone we may wholeheartedly disagree with could have a truth to share. Humility is understanding that there is no work too low for us to do, and that we are all on the same road together, trying to walk the same walk.

And that brings me back to the table. You see what I love about World Communion Sunday is the image I have of people all around the globe gathering at a table and sharing some form of the bread and drinking some version of the cup, and repeating the words that we will hear in just a few minutes: that when Jesus took the bread and the cup of wine, he infused these common, everyday elements with a deeper meaning and asked those at table with him to remember him. When we gather at this table, we too are called to remember him; to remember how he lived his life and how he approached his death and how God pulled him from the grave to new life, and in doing so, did the same for us.

And today, whatever the time zone, whatever the style of church or sanctuary, whatever the style of table – grand or simple, however the elements are presented, people around the world are remembering, and they’re recommitting to the walk, to this shared journey, to imitating the mind of Christ, the humility of Christ, so that the good news continues to be shared and so this world can be better for all of us and all creation. That is the power of the Lord’s Supper and what we do this day. And that is the power of this table. If we can see one another through this table, not just today but every day, and if we can remember what Jesus did and does and will do, than we come closer to sharing the mind of Christ. Then we will truly live lives of humility and obedience and love. When we come to this table, may we remember, may we grow in faith and love, and then may we leave this table and go out, living and loving likewise, making God’s joy complete.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.