{Sermon preached Advent 1, November 27, 2011, St Christopher's by-the-Sea}
It’s become popular in recent years to complain about how very, very early the various retail stores – presumably fueled by their godless worship and pursuit of the almighty dollar – have begun decorating their stores for Christmas. “But it’s not even Thanksgiving!” we say, with indignity. We roll our eyes at the hedonism of our age.
And then, every year, we come to this Sunday, the one just after Thanksgiving, and in our turkey-drunk stupor we act totally surprised, “What?? You mean it is Advent already? Why didn’t anybody say something? Nobody told ME! You mean it happened again?”
Yes. Yes. And yes. It’s Advent already. It happened again. And a part of me laughs: even godless consumer capitalism saw it coming – even godless consumer capitalism tried to warn us – the very rocks were crying out. Three months ago, while we were still buying swimsuits! We mocked Noah as he built the boat and warned us about the flood. Too much??
Now, I realize there’s a danger in making Black Friday sound semi-pious; I get that in no way does the consumer culture capture the true spirit of the season - it needs the church’s help for that - but it DID try to tell us: Sleeper, awake! 4 AM special! Christmas is coming.
In any case, here we are again, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the first Sunday of Advent, one more time allegedly surprised by the impending coming of our Lord.
Happy Advent.
By the way, no one else is surprised. But we are. The people who proclaim each week, “Christ will come again.” God’s sense of humor: his church.
Christ will come again. The promise of Advent. The promise of the whole Christian life: not that we will go up, says NT Wright, but that Christ will come down, make all things right, restore the whole earth; that heavenly city, the glorious New Jerusalem.
Or, if you prefer the imagery from Isaiah this morning, that God “would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at [God’s] presence.”
Christ will come again.
Ready or not, here he comes.
Good news on this front, by the way. Did you know that because Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, this is the single longest Advent you’ll ever get? We may not have remembered; this Sunday may have surprised us, but there’s still time to prepare. Advent is the season of preparation, and in Advent, as in life, you’ll never have more time to prepare for his coming than you have today.
In Advent, we prepare for Christ’s coming.
Now, if we allow ourselves a moment’s honesty, the fact that we are surprised by Advent every year suggests that preparing for Christ’s coming is not something that comes naturally to us. This could be for any number of reasons:
Maybe we take his coming for granted. Like we’re entitled to glory, the goodness of God. Or, on the other end of things, maybe we’re in denial with respect to God’s glory. We know too much about ourselves to believe that any good could come to Nazareth - or to us. Maybe, somewhere along the spectrum between entitlement and guilt, it’s not that we don’t know it’s coming, but we’re disappointed when it does. Call us the skeptics, but we’ve seen Christmases come and go and things can be good for a season but it’s a pretty big hole that we start from and by January 2nd everybody’s more or less as ordinary as when they started; we quickly forget whatever good came for a season. Entitlement. Guilt. Disappointments of the past. All of these things can make it hard to prepare.
And I don’t know about you, but when I feel guilt or disappointment coming, some days I’m tempted to just stay in bed. Sleep it through. Self-medicate. Disconnect.
If you know what I’m talking about, if you've been there in that feeling, then you hear, maybe, the power of Jesus’ words when he says to friends this morning, “Keep awake.”
Keep awake.
(Quick story: Sometimes it’s too late to keep awake. I remember my own first communion - six years old on Christmas Eve. I took my Advent first communion class, preparing for Christmas. But that was back when midnight masses were still the norm and midnight hit me hard that night and I don’t remember much except an elbow in my side at the altar rail, just in time, as Dad put the host in my hands. Some of us need the kind, strong words of encouragement - stay awake; and others of us need the sharp elbow. Christ is coming!)
The arrival of change, the prospect of new creation, leaves even the most mature among us closing our eyes like small children, wishing the fears, our failures, and the future away.
“Therefore, keep awake,” Jesus says. “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.”
So Christ is coming. Our job is to prepare, and we have time to prepare.
The only other point I want to make this morning is that to prepare for his coming is to commit to the hope that only God can bring.
To prepare for Christ is to prepare for hope of the God-can-bring kind. How does one do that? What does it look like to prepare for the coming of God?
I wonder if you’ve noticed that the entire Christian year is present every time we celebrate the Eucharist. Every season present to the liturgy. Here’s what I mean by that... that on Christmas, the shepherds hear the angels’ song: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth.” And at every Sunday’s Eucharist we sing the angels’ song: we sing the Gloria.
Epiphany is the season in which God shows us more clearly who God is, most especially in Christ - that action roughly corresponds to the part of the service in which we read from Holy Scripture. God telling the story again, so that we might know God more nearly.
Lent might be that time in the service wherein we commit ourselves to prayer for ourselves and the world, most especially the confession of our sins. But also talking us all the way to Holy Week, as we gather around the table at the Last Supper: “this is my body, broken for you.” And then, through Good Friday - on the cross, we learn the words that only the cross makes possible when, in the three-day mystery, we call God our Father.
Easter comes just a moment later: “Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us!" That glorious A-word of the Christian faith. Alleluia! "Therefore let us keep the feast!”
Pentecost might come at a couple of times - when we call on the Holy Spirit to bless the bread and wine and us, but also, and maybe most principally at the end of the service - the dismissal, which becomes a kind of paraphrase of the Great Commission: “Go in peace to love and serve that Lord!”, whereby we take on our calling to proclaim the Good News in word and deed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But where does all that leave Advent? Just before Christmas - the Gloria. I think that makes Advent the short prayer we say before all else, the collect of purity (join me as you find the words familiar): Almighty God, to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from You no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Advent, this season in which we ask God to help us prepare for the rest of what comes; to open our hearts; to cleanse them by the inspiration of God’s Spirit; so that - and this is the best part - we may perfectly love God and - listen to this - worthily magnify God’s holy Name. Worthily magnify. That's the dead give away that this prayer is for Advent. Do those words sound familiar? Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, both of them pregnant, Mary preparing for the coming of Jesus, Mary says this: My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Mary’s calling, made our own, in Advent. Magnify the Lord. This is what we pray for in Advent - to be opened, cleansed, inspired by the Spirit, that we might know the “yes” of Mary to the angel; that we might make room for Mary's yes - magnifying the Lord, rejoicing in God, our Savior. The angel who said to Mary that God sees you, loves you, would like to live in and with you, in order that the world might be saved through God’s Son.
And if that sounds vague to you - if you’re left wondering what that means for you and the next four weeks ahead, preparing this Advent, and if you’re thinking you don’t have any clear steps yet, and all that you know for sure is you’re going to pay more attention to Mary and her “yes” this time around - you’re more than good for the rest of the season, I think.
Happy Advent.
Amen.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
A Short Invitation on Consecration Sunday
Late Monday night, I got back from CREDO (thank you for your prayers, and your card; it made my day) a clergy wellness workshop put on by the larger church. A lot of good learning, sharing, challenging, growing, and one simple thing that is no less important: a lot of traveling. Five flights in all. Corpus Christi to Houston to Atlanta to Asheville. That was on the way out. Asheville to Houston to Corpus Christi coming back. Lots of travel. And not just the flying. During the Health and Wellness portion of the week, we were given complimentary pedometers in order to count our steps each day. The goal is 10,000 steps. One Rector texted her associate, who had stayed back at home: “They gave us pedometers,” she said, “and I got one for you. Oh yeah, and I’m learning to assert my authority. You’re in for it now. Look out!”
Plane flights and counted steps, lots of travel.
St Christopher’s, of course, is the patron saint of travelers. The legend holding that Christopher encountered Christ in his day job helping travelers cross a hazardous river. Oddly, though, it isn’t St Christopher that I think of when I strap in on the runway and say a quick prayer. Instead, I think of St Francis.
Why St Francis? Truthfully, I’ve remembered St Francis so many times as I’ve boarded airplanes and said a quick prayer to God that I sometimes have to remind myself why. St Francis - because the story goes that as he was planting flowers in the monastic courtyard one day, a visitor approached him and asked him what he would do if he knew that God would take his life in the next ten minutes. What would he do - St Francis - knowing that these minutes were his last? St Francis looked up from his work, thoughtful, and said, “I suppose I would finish planting this next row of flowers.”
I know, I know - lots of things more likely to bring about death in this life than airplanes, but maybe because of the vulnerability of sitting in row 14 of that thin metal tube flying through the air, I think of St Francis.
What if you knew that these were your last ten minutes?
What kind of work gives you peace of the St Francis kind?
When you sort out your life into piles - the chores, the delights, the thanksgivings, the regrets - when you think about the distractions and detours and destinations of your life - what are the matters that matter to you, and how do break the pull of the orbit of the mundane and live into the things that matter, daily?
At the end of your mortal life, if this was it, what are the matters that matter to you?
The reading from Zephaniah this morning reminds us that there are lots of matters that don’t matter; mortality can help us identify them. And we need help from time to time letting go of them. Thus the phrase, “You can’t take it with you.” As resurrection people, however, we know that there are also some things you can take with you; they just aren’t the usually things folks tend to hold on to. Love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, forgiveness, self-control, joy. The character, the disposition, of the People of God. These things are not lost in the economy of God's Kingdom.
Today is Consecration Sunday, the day that we collect our pledge cards for 2012 and, as a parish family, ask God to bless them. Our theme these past few weeks has been ‘Growing Generous Hearts’. Our guiding verse has been from Proverbs 11: “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.” Along the way, we have observed that giving opens us up as people to the movement of God in our lives. We have also observed that generosity itself is a gift of God: we can give because God has given us everything, even his Son. To say that we open ourselves to the Spirit in giving and that God is a giving God is to say that generosity is part of the image of God planted in each one of us. It’s what we were made for.
It’s a matter that matters.
This morning we’ll be rearranging some things in our worship to give each of us time to reflect and respond. There will be no confession, no creed, this morning. In a moment, the lay reader will lead us in some reflective prayers to open a short time of quiet. This is a chance to respond, to fill out your pledge card, if you haven’t already. You have a pledge card in your bulletin. A
If I were to brave some unsolicited counsel, it would be this: Relax. Take time to breathe. Reflect on where God has been moving in your spiritual life. Where are your blessings? Reflect also on what you hope God might be hoping for you. How is he calling you now?
Lastly, if you’re visiting St Christopher’s this morning - and just lucked out to meet us on Stewardship Sunday (and the day the A/C is out) - or if you’re not ready to call St Christopher’s home in the form of a pledge - feel no pressure. Don’t fill out a card. But take the time to reflect. It’s a gift meant for you. A gift born of the conviction that God has made each of us in his image, and that the image of God is generous, giving, kind. We believe in the call of a generous God because he feeds us here. The call if for all of us. The time is for you.
Plane flights and counted steps, lots of travel.
St Christopher’s, of course, is the patron saint of travelers. The legend holding that Christopher encountered Christ in his day job helping travelers cross a hazardous river. Oddly, though, it isn’t St Christopher that I think of when I strap in on the runway and say a quick prayer. Instead, I think of St Francis.
Why St Francis? Truthfully, I’ve remembered St Francis so many times as I’ve boarded airplanes and said a quick prayer to God that I sometimes have to remind myself why. St Francis - because the story goes that as he was planting flowers in the monastic courtyard one day, a visitor approached him and asked him what he would do if he knew that God would take his life in the next ten minutes. What would he do - St Francis - knowing that these minutes were his last? St Francis looked up from his work, thoughtful, and said, “I suppose I would finish planting this next row of flowers.”
I know, I know - lots of things more likely to bring about death in this life than airplanes, but maybe because of the vulnerability of sitting in row 14 of that thin metal tube flying through the air, I think of St Francis.
What if you knew that these were your last ten minutes?
What kind of work gives you peace of the St Francis kind?
When you sort out your life into piles - the chores, the delights, the thanksgivings, the regrets - when you think about the distractions and detours and destinations of your life - what are the matters that matter to you, and how do break the pull of the orbit of the mundane and live into the things that matter, daily?
At the end of your mortal life, if this was it, what are the matters that matter to you?
The reading from Zephaniah this morning reminds us that there are lots of matters that don’t matter; mortality can help us identify them. And we need help from time to time letting go of them. Thus the phrase, “You can’t take it with you.” As resurrection people, however, we know that there are also some things you can take with you; they just aren’t the usually things folks tend to hold on to. Love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, forgiveness, self-control, joy. The character, the disposition, of the People of God. These things are not lost in the economy of God's Kingdom.
Today is Consecration Sunday, the day that we collect our pledge cards for 2012 and, as a parish family, ask God to bless them. Our theme these past few weeks has been ‘Growing Generous Hearts’. Our guiding verse has been from Proverbs 11: “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.” Along the way, we have observed that giving opens us up as people to the movement of God in our lives. We have also observed that generosity itself is a gift of God: we can give because God has given us everything, even his Son. To say that we open ourselves to the Spirit in giving and that God is a giving God is to say that generosity is part of the image of God planted in each one of us. It’s what we were made for.
It’s a matter that matters.
This morning we’ll be rearranging some things in our worship to give each of us time to reflect and respond. There will be no confession, no creed, this morning. In a moment, the lay reader will lead us in some reflective prayers to open a short time of quiet. This is a chance to respond, to fill out your pledge card, if you haven’t already. You have a pledge card in your bulletin. A
If I were to brave some unsolicited counsel, it would be this: Relax. Take time to breathe. Reflect on where God has been moving in your spiritual life. Where are your blessings? Reflect also on what you hope God might be hoping for you. How is he calling you now?
Lastly, if you’re visiting St Christopher’s this morning - and just lucked out to meet us on Stewardship Sunday (and the day the A/C is out) - or if you’re not ready to call St Christopher’s home in the form of a pledge - feel no pressure. Don’t fill out a card. But take the time to reflect. It’s a gift meant for you. A gift born of the conviction that God has made each of us in his image, and that the image of God is generous, giving, kind. We believe in the call of a generous God because he feeds us here. The call if for all of us. The time is for you.
Of Saints and Holy Laughter
Funeral homily preached at the Burial Office of Evelyn Lawrence, November 11, 2011.
I remember an Easter Vigil service at which the bishop was visiting this church in North Carolina. It was his custom to mention the clergy by name and to thank them for their ministry. This could not help but sound route at times: Thank you, Father Soandso; Bless you, Mother Soandso. But when he came to one rector, the usual politeness gave way to a much, much richer moment. Instinctively, the people knew that polite words would not be enough for this priest. The bishop sensed it, too. He smiled broadly. “And Timothy,” he said, “What shall we say of Saint Timothy?” The people erupted with the laughter that happens when truth has been spoken.
That image and that instinct have been recurring in my soul the past few days. Though Evelyn would be the first to roll her eyes at her being called a saint, the people know better. Evelyn Lawrence had the quality of cloth soaked in holy oil. Not on account of any perfection, but precisely because she knew her flaws; the humility with which she shared them. Not on account of her having it all put together, but precisely because she knew and lived into her deep, abiding need of God.
What shall we say of Saint Evelyn?
Now, her grandchildren tell me Evelyn wasn’t always this way. That’s not a dig on Miss Evelyn, either. It’s a point the family wanted very clearly to make: that the St Christopher’s family because the place where, for the last thirty years of her life, Evelyn found room to live the life of faith. Not just words on her lips, but in deeds, in her life.
Even two days ago, when we spoke, Jennifer and Natalie wondered out loud if the St Christopher’s family knew the full extent to which Evelyn loved, valued, and was grateful for the holy friends this place provided. My response was that that was quite a thing to suggest, because Evelyn was so beloved of our parish family. Her pew cushion was revered by all of us, even in her absence. Jennifer and Natalie nodded, but stood by their assertion. I believe it. So those of this parish, please hear it again: Evelyn loved you with a gratitude and love that ran all the way down.
Evelyn’s family remember her adventurous spirit and courage. Her adopting a child even as another was leaving the home. Her immigration from her home in Jamaica, first to the east coast, then to Portland. In these things, Evelyn displayed determination and direction. Indeed, her candor and determination conveyed a strength and made her easily readable to others. If you didn’t like what Evelyn had to say, you at least knew she believed it was the most loving thing that could be said. And if you knew her long enough, you learned to trust that.
My own time with Evelyn is marked in my mind by two things: that she never let me leave without making me promise to “kiss that dear sweet child of yours.” And that as often as I asked her how she was doing, her answer was always: “I am thankful.”
I am thankful. Thankful for the family she had; thankful for the things she enjoyed; thankful for the change to have enjoyed the things she could no longer enjoy.
Today we are thankful that Evelyn enjoys the nearer presence of our Lord; that hers is the company of saints and angels in heavenly realms, and that the resurrection morning broken open by Christ, what we called that first, uncertain Easter in dark predawn hours, now belongs to her as fullness of light. She is found, this morning, completely in Christ’s story. Her joy and our Lord’s are made complete.
We are thankful.
The image of Evelyn’s entering the presence of the Risen Lord makes me smile a little bit, because the story of Evelyn’s entering the presence of this church is so widely known. She had just relocated to Portland. As one raised in the Anglican tradition, she came to this church, but was understandably suspect of how she would be received as a Jamaican woman in deep South Texas. She snuck out early for three weeks, attending service, but leaving before the final prayers. A while later, as she told it, she was at a doctor’s office when the doctor abruptly called out the his wife: “It’s her! This is Evelyn, the woman who keeps running from church.”
Dr. Long catching the one who always snuck out early. Evelyn, afraid she wouldn’t be accepted. She laughed at how wonderfully wrong she turned out to be. St Christopher’s became her home, where she lifted up her song to the Lord, and where she knew and loved many friends.
I smile at her story because there are so many who wonder if they can be accepted by God. Will there be room for me? Is the kindness there real - and for me? Be not afraid! Evelyn - relax! He’s got you. And to you, also, he’s got you. There is plenty of room for God’s People. Plenty of room in the People of God for saints like Evelyn and us:
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."
And she laughed with the angels, Miss Evelyn did, the laughter that happens when truth has been spoken.
Amen.
I remember an Easter Vigil service at which the bishop was visiting this church in North Carolina. It was his custom to mention the clergy by name and to thank them for their ministry. This could not help but sound route at times: Thank you, Father Soandso; Bless you, Mother Soandso. But when he came to one rector, the usual politeness gave way to a much, much richer moment. Instinctively, the people knew that polite words would not be enough for this priest. The bishop sensed it, too. He smiled broadly. “And Timothy,” he said, “What shall we say of Saint Timothy?” The people erupted with the laughter that happens when truth has been spoken.
That image and that instinct have been recurring in my soul the past few days. Though Evelyn would be the first to roll her eyes at her being called a saint, the people know better. Evelyn Lawrence had the quality of cloth soaked in holy oil. Not on account of any perfection, but precisely because she knew her flaws; the humility with which she shared them. Not on account of her having it all put together, but precisely because she knew and lived into her deep, abiding need of God.
What shall we say of Saint Evelyn?
Now, her grandchildren tell me Evelyn wasn’t always this way. That’s not a dig on Miss Evelyn, either. It’s a point the family wanted very clearly to make: that the St Christopher’s family because the place where, for the last thirty years of her life, Evelyn found room to live the life of faith. Not just words on her lips, but in deeds, in her life.
Even two days ago, when we spoke, Jennifer and Natalie wondered out loud if the St Christopher’s family knew the full extent to which Evelyn loved, valued, and was grateful for the holy friends this place provided. My response was that that was quite a thing to suggest, because Evelyn was so beloved of our parish family. Her pew cushion was revered by all of us, even in her absence. Jennifer and Natalie nodded, but stood by their assertion. I believe it. So those of this parish, please hear it again: Evelyn loved you with a gratitude and love that ran all the way down.
Evelyn’s family remember her adventurous spirit and courage. Her adopting a child even as another was leaving the home. Her immigration from her home in Jamaica, first to the east coast, then to Portland. In these things, Evelyn displayed determination and direction. Indeed, her candor and determination conveyed a strength and made her easily readable to others. If you didn’t like what Evelyn had to say, you at least knew she believed it was the most loving thing that could be said. And if you knew her long enough, you learned to trust that.
My own time with Evelyn is marked in my mind by two things: that she never let me leave without making me promise to “kiss that dear sweet child of yours.” And that as often as I asked her how she was doing, her answer was always: “I am thankful.”
I am thankful. Thankful for the family she had; thankful for the things she enjoyed; thankful for the change to have enjoyed the things she could no longer enjoy.
Today we are thankful that Evelyn enjoys the nearer presence of our Lord; that hers is the company of saints and angels in heavenly realms, and that the resurrection morning broken open by Christ, what we called that first, uncertain Easter in dark predawn hours, now belongs to her as fullness of light. She is found, this morning, completely in Christ’s story. Her joy and our Lord’s are made complete.
We are thankful.
The image of Evelyn’s entering the presence of the Risen Lord makes me smile a little bit, because the story of Evelyn’s entering the presence of this church is so widely known. She had just relocated to Portland. As one raised in the Anglican tradition, she came to this church, but was understandably suspect of how she would be received as a Jamaican woman in deep South Texas. She snuck out early for three weeks, attending service, but leaving before the final prayers. A while later, as she told it, she was at a doctor’s office when the doctor abruptly called out the his wife: “It’s her! This is Evelyn, the woman who keeps running from church.”
Dr. Long catching the one who always snuck out early. Evelyn, afraid she wouldn’t be accepted. She laughed at how wonderfully wrong she turned out to be. St Christopher’s became her home, where she lifted up her song to the Lord, and where she knew and loved many friends.
I smile at her story because there are so many who wonder if they can be accepted by God. Will there be room for me? Is the kindness there real - and for me? Be not afraid! Evelyn - relax! He’s got you. And to you, also, he’s got you. There is plenty of room for God’s People. Plenty of room in the People of God for saints like Evelyn and us:
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."
And she laughed with the angels, Miss Evelyn did, the laughter that happens when truth has been spoken.
Amen.
The Shepherd and the Lamb: Two Images for Christ the King Sunday
Sermon preached on Sunday, November 20, St Christopher's by-the-Sea
This past Monday, November 14, the church celebrated the feast day of Samuel Seabury, the first American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Seabury was elected by the American church in...anybody know? 1783 and sent, later that year, to London to be consecrated bishop. The Church there refused to consecrate him because part of the vows required of bishops in the Church of England included an oath of allegiance to the King. In 1783 that was still something of a sore spot, as you can imagine. Even though Seabury was a loyalist at the time of the American Revolution, he found himself unable to take the oath. After being refused in England, he sailed on to Scotland, where a worthy occasion to stick it to King George was warmly welcomed by the people. Seabury was consecrated in Aberdeen on November 14, 1784.
We Americans have never felt quite at home with kings. Mixed emotions, clear allegiances, and an indomitable spirit of independence that springs from the day that declaration was first signed.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. This morning I want to ask the question: “What does it mean to call Christ King?” - even for Americans.
Now, someone might say, "no problem, Jonathan, no worries. Christ isn’t a king like King George or even Hussein. This is different." Maybe so. That, to me, only highlights the question more clearly: how ARE we thinking about Christ’s kingship? Of his kingdom? Is it poetic license? Pretty words that no one really means to take literally or all that seriously? That seems too harsh. Is it a kind of spiritual metaphor, the kingship of Jesus? That is, do we at the same time call Christ our King and insist that that kingdom not touch our politics on the ground? And on what grounds do we do that?
One of you told me that Smokey made the simple but poignant point on All Saints’ Sunday that to walk with the Spirit is to be out of step with the world. That’s the area we’re exploring this morning - the land between kingdoms.
No agenda at this point, just unfolding the question: “What does it mean to call Christ your King?"
Because Americans, as we know, have never felt quite at home around kings.
Specifically, this morning I want to suggest that our Scripture lessons focus our attention on two things that Christ’s being King means for us. And the two things that Christ’s being King means for us are lifted up in two images: that of shepherd and that of lamb. The first image, shepherd, speaks to the question: “Is God able?” The second question, lamb, speaks to the question: “How will this be?”
We’ll start with shepherd. In the reading from Ezekiel, God presents himself as the shepherd of God’s people. And of course this is the image that Jesus takes for himself most especially in John’s gospel when he says, “I am the good shepherd.” It’s a comforting image; read most recently in this space at the Burial Office for Evelyn Lawrence - and read frequently at funerals: God as the one who finds good pasture for God’s people; God as the one who seeks and cares for God’s sheep, especially the lost and strayed and weak; God as the one who brings sheep - er, people - from all countries together - hints here of the new Jerusalem, that glorious heavenly city of Revelation, wherein every people from every tribe and tongue and nation are gathered as one people in praise. Hints, therefore, that American, British, or even Texan might not be the most important thing someone can say about a person if God means to make a people out of all these disparate people: behold, a new Kingdom.
Lots of comfort in the image of God as shepherd, as provider. It’s meant to bring us comfort. But not only comfort. That God will take care of God’s Kingdom is a promise to those who need care and a warning to those who don’t trust God to do it. Indeed, much of the work that we’re told God will do for God’s people is undoing the damage of those who have failed to trust the provision of God. See, for example, our reading from Ezekiel: "Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged."
And this is important to name, I think: that even (or especially) for people who desire to trust God, there are lots of tempting reasons to doubt God’s provision. Lots of anxieties, worries, burdens that we carry: what about my church and its long-term wellbeing? Yes, my local church, but are those whispers about the decline of Christianity true? What about our children and the future of the faith? What about the moral direction of our country? (And here, depending on your leaning, you could point with equal sincerity in either direction.) What about my life - my retirement “number” (if you've seen the commercial, my financial pressure, and always, always, my persistently present fear of loneliness?
These are true worries. At its (dubious) best, worry can be a way of expressing compassion and concern; but worry can also become a deep chasm of doubt. Doubt that God is capable and determined to shepherd God’s people, and/or you. Like when the disciples panic when they find Jesus asleep in the boat. Maybe we better do it ourselves, you know, without him, if we have to.
Of course, failing to trust God is not something we necessarily set out to do. Sometimes it just happens. We just forget. I remember the confirmation class that was asked on its final exam who was the head of the Episcopal Church in America:
the Pope
the Archbishop of Canterbury
the Presiding Bishop
the local bishop
the local priest
either the biggest giver or the longest tenured member
other
The answer was g, but more important, g stood for Jesus.
Jesus is the head of even the Episcopal Church. He’s in charge. The upside of remembering this simple truth is tremendous. When we remember that God will deliver what God has promised, we are able to say the prayer Bishop Frey taught me: “Lord, it’s your church, I’m going to bed.”
[Those of you who know Bishop Frey know that his prayer was not license for irresponsibility or sloth. But he preached and preaches the Living God who has acted, is acting, and will continue to act for God’s People.]
The God who delivered Israel from slavery and broke death’s back and the tomb’s hard rock, acting now for God’s People, acting now for you: Christ as shepherd, provider, and King. “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”
Christ the King is our Shepherd, the leader we follow, whose arm is strong, whose voice calls your name.
The second image of Christ the King is the lamb. And where the shepherd image means to remind us that Christ is able, the lamb is God’s answer for how this will be.
We turn to our gospel where the king will come to his throne and set all things right. ("All things" - that wonderful chorus throughout our readings this morning.) And he’ll start by surprising people with invitations to the kingdom on account of the way they treated the sick and the naked and hungry and thirsty and the prisoners. Because, in his words, “in so much as you did if for one of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me.” And this would be tempting to read as hyperbole, the king simply wanting to get the thrust of his point across, but we who hear these words as Christians cannot help but think that Christ DID come naked, and, on the cross, we found him thirsty, that he was killed as a prisoner. It’s not JUST that Christ cares for the least of these (though he certainly does that); by the world’s standards, he came as one, too.
Jesus as the lamb who on the cross was slain for us. The powers of the world - the old kingdoms - defeated by the one who would not accept their power; instead, exposing them for the charades of fear that they are.
But to take the gospel’s connection seriously, we must back up and slow down a bit and linger in the words “he was killed as a prisoner.” He didn’t just care for the least; he poured himself out as the least.
Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal has asked,
“Isn’t it odd that Christendom - that huge body of humankind that claims spiritual descent from the Jewish carpenter of Nazareth - claims to pray to and adore a being who was a prisoner of Roman power, an inmate of the empire’s death row? That the one it considers the personification of the Creator of the Universe was tortured, humiliated, beaten, and crucified on a barren scrap of land on the imperial periphery, at Golgotha, the place of the skull? That the majority of its adherents strenuously support the state’s execution of thousands of imprisoned citizens? That the overwhelming majority of its judges, prosecutors, and lawyers - those who condemn, prosecute and sell out the condemned - claim to be followers of the fettered, spat-upon, naked God?”
Christ comes as Shepherd and as lamb. The strength of God revealed in the weakness of the cross. The provision of God found in the blood that pours from his side.
What does all this mean for us? What's the take-home, preacher?
At the very least, this should make us look twice for God in places and people we don’t think he’d think twice about. In God-forsaken places and people. At the very least, we should look twice for God there. If Christ the crucified lamb is King, we know God IS there.
And at more than the very least, we might wonder what it would mean to risk ourselves being least - to risk rejection at the hands of the world with which Smokey said we’d be out of step - what would it mean to risk being least by the standards of the world? And how would this risk open me to see and understand the new standard - the vibrant, forgiving, merciful life - of the Kingdom with which my world is necessarily out of step?
I don’t know the answer to that last one for sure. But I believe this is what it means to call Christ my King.
Amen.
This past Monday, November 14, the church celebrated the feast day of Samuel Seabury, the first American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Seabury was elected by the American church in...anybody know? 1783 and sent, later that year, to London to be consecrated bishop. The Church there refused to consecrate him because part of the vows required of bishops in the Church of England included an oath of allegiance to the King. In 1783 that was still something of a sore spot, as you can imagine. Even though Seabury was a loyalist at the time of the American Revolution, he found himself unable to take the oath. After being refused in England, he sailed on to Scotland, where a worthy occasion to stick it to King George was warmly welcomed by the people. Seabury was consecrated in Aberdeen on November 14, 1784.
We Americans have never felt quite at home with kings. Mixed emotions, clear allegiances, and an indomitable spirit of independence that springs from the day that declaration was first signed.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. This morning I want to ask the question: “What does it mean to call Christ King?” - even for Americans.
Now, someone might say, "no problem, Jonathan, no worries. Christ isn’t a king like King George or even Hussein. This is different." Maybe so. That, to me, only highlights the question more clearly: how ARE we thinking about Christ’s kingship? Of his kingdom? Is it poetic license? Pretty words that no one really means to take literally or all that seriously? That seems too harsh. Is it a kind of spiritual metaphor, the kingship of Jesus? That is, do we at the same time call Christ our King and insist that that kingdom not touch our politics on the ground? And on what grounds do we do that?
One of you told me that Smokey made the simple but poignant point on All Saints’ Sunday that to walk with the Spirit is to be out of step with the world. That’s the area we’re exploring this morning - the land between kingdoms.
No agenda at this point, just unfolding the question: “What does it mean to call Christ your King?"
Because Americans, as we know, have never felt quite at home around kings.
Specifically, this morning I want to suggest that our Scripture lessons focus our attention on two things that Christ’s being King means for us. And the two things that Christ’s being King means for us are lifted up in two images: that of shepherd and that of lamb. The first image, shepherd, speaks to the question: “Is God able?” The second question, lamb, speaks to the question: “How will this be?”
We’ll start with shepherd. In the reading from Ezekiel, God presents himself as the shepherd of God’s people. And of course this is the image that Jesus takes for himself most especially in John’s gospel when he says, “I am the good shepherd.” It’s a comforting image; read most recently in this space at the Burial Office for Evelyn Lawrence - and read frequently at funerals: God as the one who finds good pasture for God’s people; God as the one who seeks and cares for God’s sheep, especially the lost and strayed and weak; God as the one who brings sheep - er, people - from all countries together - hints here of the new Jerusalem, that glorious heavenly city of Revelation, wherein every people from every tribe and tongue and nation are gathered as one people in praise. Hints, therefore, that American, British, or even Texan might not be the most important thing someone can say about a person if God means to make a people out of all these disparate people: behold, a new Kingdom.
Lots of comfort in the image of God as shepherd, as provider. It’s meant to bring us comfort. But not only comfort. That God will take care of God’s Kingdom is a promise to those who need care and a warning to those who don’t trust God to do it. Indeed, much of the work that we’re told God will do for God’s people is undoing the damage of those who have failed to trust the provision of God. See, for example, our reading from Ezekiel: "Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged."
And this is important to name, I think: that even (or especially) for people who desire to trust God, there are lots of tempting reasons to doubt God’s provision. Lots of anxieties, worries, burdens that we carry: what about my church and its long-term wellbeing? Yes, my local church, but are those whispers about the decline of Christianity true? What about our children and the future of the faith? What about the moral direction of our country? (And here, depending on your leaning, you could point with equal sincerity in either direction.) What about my life - my retirement “number” (if you've seen the commercial, my financial pressure, and always, always, my persistently present fear of loneliness?
These are true worries. At its (dubious) best, worry can be a way of expressing compassion and concern; but worry can also become a deep chasm of doubt. Doubt that God is capable and determined to shepherd God’s people, and/or you. Like when the disciples panic when they find Jesus asleep in the boat. Maybe we better do it ourselves, you know, without him, if we have to.
Of course, failing to trust God is not something we necessarily set out to do. Sometimes it just happens. We just forget. I remember the confirmation class that was asked on its final exam who was the head of the Episcopal Church in America:
the Pope
the Archbishop of Canterbury
the Presiding Bishop
the local bishop
the local priest
either the biggest giver or the longest tenured member
other
The answer was g, but more important, g stood for Jesus.
Jesus is the head of even the Episcopal Church. He’s in charge. The upside of remembering this simple truth is tremendous. When we remember that God will deliver what God has promised, we are able to say the prayer Bishop Frey taught me: “Lord, it’s your church, I’m going to bed.”
[Those of you who know Bishop Frey know that his prayer was not license for irresponsibility or sloth. But he preached and preaches the Living God who has acted, is acting, and will continue to act for God’s People.]
The God who delivered Israel from slavery and broke death’s back and the tomb’s hard rock, acting now for God’s People, acting now for you: Christ as shepherd, provider, and King. “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”
Christ the King is our Shepherd, the leader we follow, whose arm is strong, whose voice calls your name.
The second image of Christ the King is the lamb. And where the shepherd image means to remind us that Christ is able, the lamb is God’s answer for how this will be.
We turn to our gospel where the king will come to his throne and set all things right. ("All things" - that wonderful chorus throughout our readings this morning.) And he’ll start by surprising people with invitations to the kingdom on account of the way they treated the sick and the naked and hungry and thirsty and the prisoners. Because, in his words, “in so much as you did if for one of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me.” And this would be tempting to read as hyperbole, the king simply wanting to get the thrust of his point across, but we who hear these words as Christians cannot help but think that Christ DID come naked, and, on the cross, we found him thirsty, that he was killed as a prisoner. It’s not JUST that Christ cares for the least of these (though he certainly does that); by the world’s standards, he came as one, too.
Jesus as the lamb who on the cross was slain for us. The powers of the world - the old kingdoms - defeated by the one who would not accept their power; instead, exposing them for the charades of fear that they are.
But to take the gospel’s connection seriously, we must back up and slow down a bit and linger in the words “he was killed as a prisoner.” He didn’t just care for the least; he poured himself out as the least.
Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal has asked,
“Isn’t it odd that Christendom - that huge body of humankind that claims spiritual descent from the Jewish carpenter of Nazareth - claims to pray to and adore a being who was a prisoner of Roman power, an inmate of the empire’s death row? That the one it considers the personification of the Creator of the Universe was tortured, humiliated, beaten, and crucified on a barren scrap of land on the imperial periphery, at Golgotha, the place of the skull? That the majority of its adherents strenuously support the state’s execution of thousands of imprisoned citizens? That the overwhelming majority of its judges, prosecutors, and lawyers - those who condemn, prosecute and sell out the condemned - claim to be followers of the fettered, spat-upon, naked God?”
Christ comes as Shepherd and as lamb. The strength of God revealed in the weakness of the cross. The provision of God found in the blood that pours from his side.
What does all this mean for us? What's the take-home, preacher?
At the very least, this should make us look twice for God in places and people we don’t think he’d think twice about. In God-forsaken places and people. At the very least, we should look twice for God there. If Christ the crucified lamb is King, we know God IS there.
And at more than the very least, we might wonder what it would mean to risk ourselves being least - to risk rejection at the hands of the world with which Smokey said we’d be out of step - what would it mean to risk being least by the standards of the world? And how would this risk open me to see and understand the new standard - the vibrant, forgiving, merciful life - of the Kingdom with which my world is necessarily out of step?
I don’t know the answer to that last one for sure. But I believe this is what it means to call Christ my King.
Amen.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Show v. Service
Sermon preached 10/30/11.
Jesus is in a mood this morning. That’s all I can think of. He’s come to Jerusalem and he’s not holding back. Makes me think of the Cardinals’ pitcher who let loose a couple of choice words after inducing a long fly ball out to end the inning in game 5 of the series. What a series. No sound, of course, but you didn’t need it. Lips were easy to read. Was that really called for? Bek asked. And we have the same reaction of Jesus, maybe. Relax, Jesus, they’re on your side; they’re the religious establishment, it’s all good. But it’s not all good. It’s not all good at all. Jesus is calling out the Pharisees and scribes for behavior he sees as nothing less than destructive to the souls of those who would inherit the Kingdom of God.
What’s going on?
It is especially confusing to see Jesus reacting so strongly because I have grown up in an age that preaches tolerance as the ultimate expression of love. Tolerance: live and let live. Not rocking the boat. The opposite of Jesus in the gospel this morning. By confronting the Pharisees so harshly, Jesus challenges what I thought I knew about love. Says one theologian:
“It is often assumed that Jesus’s judgmental tone and his unforgiving judgments are incompatible with the great commandment (love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself), (and) even more at odds with his admonition that we should love our enemies. Yet...the love that Jesus preaches is not incompatible with judgment and, in particular, judgment on hypocrisy. Faithful love, if faithful, is judgment” (Hauerwas 2006, p195)
Specifically, and plainly, Jesus makes clear that the love of Jesus has not erased the Law, God’s standard for God’s people. And this should not surprise us. Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. That for all its direction, order, and structure, there are things that the Law couldn’t reach, like the inmost motivations of the human heart.
It is possible, after all, Jesus says, to simply go through the motions or, worse, to attempt to turn relationship with God into a position of power over others. The attempt to turn relationship with God into a position of power over others is what has Jesus so upset this morning.
His frustration is that love of God and love of neighbor are being commandeered for personal gain. By crying out against this, Jesus is intentionally locating himself in Israel’s long tradition of prophets: prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah (whom we hear this morning) who called the people again and again to worship of sincerity and truth: justice, and compassion for the least, last, and lost in the People of God.
So Jesus starts talking today, and his original hearers have the bells and whistles of the prophets going off in their heads. We might be less familiar with some of these prophets, but no worries, I have us covered. Jon Foreman, of Switchfoot fame, has written a song, Instead of a Show, which aside from being a pretty good song, is also a pretty good paraphrase of Isaiah 1:11-18. In it, we see something of the beginning of the complaint Jesus picks up for God in the 23rd chapter of Matthew’s gospel.
[Play music]
Instead Of A Show, by Jon Foreman
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stomp on my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
Your eyes are closed when you're praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There's blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don't fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There's blood on your hands
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Let's argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let's argue this out
You'll be one of the clouds
Let's argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can't love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can't stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
I want to suggest this morning that the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, and Jesus, too, puts before us the question of Show versus Service. Show, the putting on of a religious costume for the sake of respect. Service, the endless procession of righteous living, seeking and serving Christ in all persons. The question of Show versus Service has the potential to be uncomfortable for us as Episcopalians because we wear vestments similar to the ones the Pharisees get called out for wearing. Because some of us call priests and parents “Father,” even though Jesus thinks this confuses some people as to who their true Father is. Even so, I think we should be encouraged when we remember that what we do here on the Lord’s Day is not called “The Show,” but the “service.” After all, as one author says, “The externals are not the problem, but they become a problem when they no longer shape the life of prayer.” The life of prayer. This may be an obvious point, but here, our life of prayer is called the Sunday service because, in our Sunday services, we Christians learn what it means to serve. Not a show, but our service.
Here, in the Eucharist, we learn the proper place of power in our lives because we worship a king who climbed on a cross for his people. We learn what it means to serve when Jesus washes our feet.
This understanding of power’s proper place in our lives orders our worship. So, for example, the one we call the priest, the presider over the Assembly shows off his power by what? Bussing the table. By service. And the ones with great wealth, great monetary power, come here and...share their plenty with those people in need. And the ones who have been wronged, and so find themselves in positions of power over others, come here to pour out forgiveness, exchange God’s peace, even with one-time enemies. It is here, at this Table, that we learn to serve one another. Here, that we learn that power is not for privileging ourselves, but for raising up the powerless. That love is not first for the lovely, but for the loveless and unloving. That hope is not first for the hopeful, but for the hopeless and despairing. We learn this here, and only here, because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Here that we learn that there is no gift under heaven but those that might make us servants one to another. Because he came as our servant.
If this moment and this encounter with God mean to teach you anything for Monday through Saturday, it is how to serve. Go in peace, we say, to love and serve the Lord.
An obvious thing, maybe. But that’s why we’re here. You know, instead of a show.
Amen.
Jesus is in a mood this morning. That’s all I can think of. He’s come to Jerusalem and he’s not holding back. Makes me think of the Cardinals’ pitcher who let loose a couple of choice words after inducing a long fly ball out to end the inning in game 5 of the series. What a series. No sound, of course, but you didn’t need it. Lips were easy to read. Was that really called for? Bek asked. And we have the same reaction of Jesus, maybe. Relax, Jesus, they’re on your side; they’re the religious establishment, it’s all good. But it’s not all good. It’s not all good at all. Jesus is calling out the Pharisees and scribes for behavior he sees as nothing less than destructive to the souls of those who would inherit the Kingdom of God.
What’s going on?
It is especially confusing to see Jesus reacting so strongly because I have grown up in an age that preaches tolerance as the ultimate expression of love. Tolerance: live and let live. Not rocking the boat. The opposite of Jesus in the gospel this morning. By confronting the Pharisees so harshly, Jesus challenges what I thought I knew about love. Says one theologian:
“It is often assumed that Jesus’s judgmental tone and his unforgiving judgments are incompatible with the great commandment (love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself), (and) even more at odds with his admonition that we should love our enemies. Yet...the love that Jesus preaches is not incompatible with judgment and, in particular, judgment on hypocrisy. Faithful love, if faithful, is judgment” (Hauerwas 2006, p195)
Specifically, and plainly, Jesus makes clear that the love of Jesus has not erased the Law, God’s standard for God’s people. And this should not surprise us. Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. That for all its direction, order, and structure, there are things that the Law couldn’t reach, like the inmost motivations of the human heart.
It is possible, after all, Jesus says, to simply go through the motions or, worse, to attempt to turn relationship with God into a position of power over others. The attempt to turn relationship with God into a position of power over others is what has Jesus so upset this morning.
His frustration is that love of God and love of neighbor are being commandeered for personal gain. By crying out against this, Jesus is intentionally locating himself in Israel’s long tradition of prophets: prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah (whom we hear this morning) who called the people again and again to worship of sincerity and truth: justice, and compassion for the least, last, and lost in the People of God.
So Jesus starts talking today, and his original hearers have the bells and whistles of the prophets going off in their heads. We might be less familiar with some of these prophets, but no worries, I have us covered. Jon Foreman, of Switchfoot fame, has written a song, Instead of a Show, which aside from being a pretty good song, is also a pretty good paraphrase of Isaiah 1:11-18. In it, we see something of the beginning of the complaint Jesus picks up for God in the 23rd chapter of Matthew’s gospel.
[Play music]
Instead Of A Show, by Jon Foreman
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stomp on my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
Your eyes are closed when you're praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There's blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don't fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There's blood on your hands
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Let's argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let's argue this out
You'll be one of the clouds
Let's argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can't love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can't stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
I want to suggest this morning that the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, and Jesus, too, puts before us the question of Show versus Service. Show, the putting on of a religious costume for the sake of respect. Service, the endless procession of righteous living, seeking and serving Christ in all persons. The question of Show versus Service has the potential to be uncomfortable for us as Episcopalians because we wear vestments similar to the ones the Pharisees get called out for wearing. Because some of us call priests and parents “Father,” even though Jesus thinks this confuses some people as to who their true Father is. Even so, I think we should be encouraged when we remember that what we do here on the Lord’s Day is not called “The Show,” but the “service.” After all, as one author says, “The externals are not the problem, but they become a problem when they no longer shape the life of prayer.” The life of prayer. This may be an obvious point, but here, our life of prayer is called the Sunday service because, in our Sunday services, we Christians learn what it means to serve. Not a show, but our service.
Here, in the Eucharist, we learn the proper place of power in our lives because we worship a king who climbed on a cross for his people. We learn what it means to serve when Jesus washes our feet.
This understanding of power’s proper place in our lives orders our worship. So, for example, the one we call the priest, the presider over the Assembly shows off his power by what? Bussing the table. By service. And the ones with great wealth, great monetary power, come here and...share their plenty with those people in need. And the ones who have been wronged, and so find themselves in positions of power over others, come here to pour out forgiveness, exchange God’s peace, even with one-time enemies. It is here, at this Table, that we learn to serve one another. Here, that we learn that power is not for privileging ourselves, but for raising up the powerless. That love is not first for the lovely, but for the loveless and unloving. That hope is not first for the hopeful, but for the hopeless and despairing. We learn this here, and only here, because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Here that we learn that there is no gift under heaven but those that might make us servants one to another. Because he came as our servant.
If this moment and this encounter with God mean to teach you anything for Monday through Saturday, it is how to serve. Go in peace, we say, to love and serve the Lord.
An obvious thing, maybe. But that’s why we’re here. You know, instead of a show.
Amen.
"Happy Are They Who Have Not..."
a meditation on psalm 1
Sermon preached 10/23/11.
This morning begins our new series on the psalms. One psalm each week. For the next 150 weeks, ending about this time in 2014 (a little more if we do 119 any justice)…just kidding. But today's psalm IS number one. And this past week has been for me the rekindling of an old love with the first of the psalms. Psalm number one. The psalm whose quasi-repetition moves from images of walking to images of lingering to images of sitting and invites the hearer to slow down, pay attention, describing the lives of those who walk apart from God, maybe those who have given up, sat down, and also those who remain standing, who dare to move, to keep step, who brave the pilgrim walk with God. These words speak a prophetic healing that my soul knows it needs. To be planted by streams of water.
Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful.
Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law both day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper.
It is not so with the wicked; they are like chaff which the wind blows away.
Therefore, the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, nor the sinner in the council of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed.
To be planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither. With leaves that do not wither. South Texans know something about withering leaves, I think. And what are the streams, but the living water of Christ, and what is the fruit but the produce of the Spirit, and what are the leaves but the leaves of Revelation; where the leaves of the tree are for the healing of nations.
To be planted by streams of water.
Their delight is in the law of the Lord.
Does your soul also long for these things?
The promise of being planted by the waters of Christ. The prospect of walking with God in the cool of the shade. The psalmist in consciously alluding to pictures of paradise, images of Eden, illustrations that begin the story in Scripture and images that find their perfection in the Scripture’s last book. The story for beginning to end all the way through of the healing, the reconciling, of all things and everything to God.
The psalmist seems to hold all of these things together, lifts up this hope like strong branches on a wide trunk whose roots quench their thirst with the water of life, running clear as crystal.
So like a lost, treasured gem, I turn these verses over and over again in my hand. Like a choice cut of meat, I savor the hope of this psalm. And like a good book I don’t tire of rereading, revisiting, I discover something new, alive, and fresh each time in the familiarity of the words.
This past week, for example, familiarity allowed a kind of playful irreverence which uncovered in turn an unexpected newness: I started the first verse and stopped half-way through, knowing full well that no self-respecting grammar teacher would approve of separating a helping verb from the verb it helped. So instead of saying ‘Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful,’ I simply said, “Happy are they who have not…” Tried it on, to see how it fit.
Happy are they who have not. Huh. And it’s ridiculous, of course, not in keeping with the full context of the psalm. But I wondered if the psalm still spoke its truth, even with one hand tied behind its back like that.
Happy are they who have not. Of course, I thought, poverty should not be romanticized. And yet, stopping there, the words of Matthew’s gospel seemed to audibly echo from the pages of Scripture: Jesus, telling his disciples, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
Happy are they who have not. Maybe there’s something there after all.
And I thought of the fear that drives so much of the American existence. The fear that I might, in my life, miss out on something. Anything. All manner of even unappealing things that somehow become justifiable - indeed, indispensable! - because, like they say, “you only live once.” Like fried Oreos. Fried Oreos, in a picture someone shared with me from their recent trip to the State Fair of Texas in my beloved hometown. Under normal circumstances, no way, she said. “But then,” she paused. “I got to thinking...why not? At least once?”
In this way, ours has become the day and age of the bucket list. That list of things we’d want to do at least once before we die, even if it’s not something we’d ever do twice, because, for better or worse, who wants to miss out? Because questions of better or worse are no match for the bottom-line threat - the existential dread - of not having had the experience at all.
So a short-run billboard in New York played this fear to its logical extreme; it said: “Life is short, have an affair.” Again, the overwhelming fear of missing out, this time placed squarely within the anxiety of our own mortality, used to justify behavior in opposition to the purposes for our lives that most of us would say we value.
Happy are they who have not.
Maybe so. Even so, the human preoccupation with being left behind, of being left out, of fearing not having, is perhaps nearing a peak unequalled in the history of civilization. So we strap ourselves to networks and text works, the so-called crack-berry that sends us notifications when we are emailed, text messaged, mentioned, tagged, photographed or noticed. We hesitate to commit to social engagements too far ahead because, in a world as connected as this one, what if something better comes along?
But what when the crack-berry’s not ringing? Who are we then?
Along the way, relatively simple decisions like where we will rest our heads and how we will use our hands become opportunities to obsess on our own sense of self-importance and whether or not we are maximizing our opportunities fully. The grass is always greener. That’s not a new notion for humanity. But rarely in human history have we had the luxury of coveting so many distant hills. So many possibilities by which to second-guess our present standing.
Happy are they who have not.
Ironically, some of the distant hills that we covet belong to the ones who have not.
Like the couple who died this past week, married for seventy-two years; they died within an hour of each other, holding the other’s hand. Or the strength of the man who, rising at three-in-the-morning has done 1,000 curls each day for the past fifty years. Or the wisdom of the elder who spends an hour in prayer each morning and radiates holiness, and you figure that you don’t have enough years left in your life to equal her lifelong dedication. Each one a brilliant 'yes' representing a thousand 'no's along the way.
But jealousy of this kind, the coveting of the committed, is a false jealousy because their possession of the thing does not prevent my having it. If I am honest, I may only like the idea of fitness or wisdom, because the way of the thing itself is open to me, too. Happy are they who have not walked on other paths. Happy are they who have not. Can I believe this?
I encountered a woman recently who faulted her daughter for not having fallen into drugs. That her daughter had not fallen into drug use kept her, the mother said, from being able to empathize with her drug using sister. While there may be some truth in the ability of shared experiences to produce empathy between people, I believe the mother’s anger was misdirected insofar as she found herself indirectly wishing that the one daughter had also encountered the hell of drug use.
Happy are they who have not.
No, we will not live forever in this life, but death does not make every experience beneficial, an experience to seek out. We’re not called disciples for nothing.
Disciples, baptized in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Planted by steams of water. Bearing fruit in due season. With leaves that do not wither.
And if we are planted by the waters that connects both shores of paradise, then the threat of not having loses all of its power. If when we die life is not ended but changed, as the Prayer Book teaches, and as the Risen Christ stands even now as the witness, missing out is not a fear that needs to or ought to determine my next move. Rather, as baptized members of a resurrection people, I have been given both a new criterion and the freedom to pursue it. My questions are clear: Does it bring me closer to the Kingdom? Does it bring me nearer to Jesus? Can I see the cross of Christ from where I’m standing?
And can you think of a difficult relationship, encounter, decision, or purchase in the next week for which those questions would not give you direction, instruction, and peace?
Finally, because the freedom to ask these questions comes from my walking with the risen Jesus, I believe these questions are more than mere moralism. That is, they do not become hopeless words for when we inevitably mess up. They are hopeful words because the same God who gives us all the time we need to love God and each other walks with us, forgives us, restores in us the new and unending life of his Son. To learn to be content with this Son is the fullness of joy.
So ends my love song with the first of the psalms. The psalm whose quasi-repetition moves from images of walking to images of lingering to images of sitting and invites the hearer to slow down, pay attention, describing the lives of those who walk apart from God, maybe those who have given up, sat down, and also those who remain standing, who dare to move, to keep step, who brave the pilgrim walk with God. These words that speak a prophetic healing my soul knows that it needs. To be planted by streams of water.
Amen.
This morning begins our new series on the psalms. One psalm each week. For the next 150 weeks, ending about this time in 2014 (a little more if we do 119 any justice)…just kidding. But today's psalm IS number one. And this past week has been for me the rekindling of an old love with the first of the psalms. Psalm number one. The psalm whose quasi-repetition moves from images of walking to images of lingering to images of sitting and invites the hearer to slow down, pay attention, describing the lives of those who walk apart from God, maybe those who have given up, sat down, and also those who remain standing, who dare to move, to keep step, who brave the pilgrim walk with God. These words speak a prophetic healing that my soul knows it needs. To be planted by streams of water.
Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful.
Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law both day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper.
It is not so with the wicked; they are like chaff which the wind blows away.
Therefore, the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, nor the sinner in the council of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed.
To be planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither. With leaves that do not wither. South Texans know something about withering leaves, I think. And what are the streams, but the living water of Christ, and what is the fruit but the produce of the Spirit, and what are the leaves but the leaves of Revelation; where the leaves of the tree are for the healing of nations.
To be planted by streams of water.
Their delight is in the law of the Lord.
Does your soul also long for these things?
The promise of being planted by the waters of Christ. The prospect of walking with God in the cool of the shade. The psalmist in consciously alluding to pictures of paradise, images of Eden, illustrations that begin the story in Scripture and images that find their perfection in the Scripture’s last book. The story for beginning to end all the way through of the healing, the reconciling, of all things and everything to God.
The psalmist seems to hold all of these things together, lifts up this hope like strong branches on a wide trunk whose roots quench their thirst with the water of life, running clear as crystal.
So like a lost, treasured gem, I turn these verses over and over again in my hand. Like a choice cut of meat, I savor the hope of this psalm. And like a good book I don’t tire of rereading, revisiting, I discover something new, alive, and fresh each time in the familiarity of the words.
This past week, for example, familiarity allowed a kind of playful irreverence which uncovered in turn an unexpected newness: I started the first verse and stopped half-way through, knowing full well that no self-respecting grammar teacher would approve of separating a helping verb from the verb it helped. So instead of saying ‘Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful,’ I simply said, “Happy are they who have not…” Tried it on, to see how it fit.
Happy are they who have not. Huh. And it’s ridiculous, of course, not in keeping with the full context of the psalm. But I wondered if the psalm still spoke its truth, even with one hand tied behind its back like that.
Happy are they who have not. Of course, I thought, poverty should not be romanticized. And yet, stopping there, the words of Matthew’s gospel seemed to audibly echo from the pages of Scripture: Jesus, telling his disciples, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
Happy are they who have not. Maybe there’s something there after all.
And I thought of the fear that drives so much of the American existence. The fear that I might, in my life, miss out on something. Anything. All manner of even unappealing things that somehow become justifiable - indeed, indispensable! - because, like they say, “you only live once.” Like fried Oreos. Fried Oreos, in a picture someone shared with me from their recent trip to the State Fair of Texas in my beloved hometown. Under normal circumstances, no way, she said. “But then,” she paused. “I got to thinking...why not? At least once?”
In this way, ours has become the day and age of the bucket list. That list of things we’d want to do at least once before we die, even if it’s not something we’d ever do twice, because, for better or worse, who wants to miss out? Because questions of better or worse are no match for the bottom-line threat - the existential dread - of not having had the experience at all.
So a short-run billboard in New York played this fear to its logical extreme; it said: “Life is short, have an affair.” Again, the overwhelming fear of missing out, this time placed squarely within the anxiety of our own mortality, used to justify behavior in opposition to the purposes for our lives that most of us would say we value.
Happy are they who have not.
Maybe so. Even so, the human preoccupation with being left behind, of being left out, of fearing not having, is perhaps nearing a peak unequalled in the history of civilization. So we strap ourselves to networks and text works, the so-called crack-berry that sends us notifications when we are emailed, text messaged, mentioned, tagged, photographed or noticed. We hesitate to commit to social engagements too far ahead because, in a world as connected as this one, what if something better comes along?
But what when the crack-berry’s not ringing? Who are we then?
Along the way, relatively simple decisions like where we will rest our heads and how we will use our hands become opportunities to obsess on our own sense of self-importance and whether or not we are maximizing our opportunities fully. The grass is always greener. That’s not a new notion for humanity. But rarely in human history have we had the luxury of coveting so many distant hills. So many possibilities by which to second-guess our present standing.
Happy are they who have not.
Ironically, some of the distant hills that we covet belong to the ones who have not.
Like the couple who died this past week, married for seventy-two years; they died within an hour of each other, holding the other’s hand. Or the strength of the man who, rising at three-in-the-morning has done 1,000 curls each day for the past fifty years. Or the wisdom of the elder who spends an hour in prayer each morning and radiates holiness, and you figure that you don’t have enough years left in your life to equal her lifelong dedication. Each one a brilliant 'yes' representing a thousand 'no's along the way.
But jealousy of this kind, the coveting of the committed, is a false jealousy because their possession of the thing does not prevent my having it. If I am honest, I may only like the idea of fitness or wisdom, because the way of the thing itself is open to me, too. Happy are they who have not walked on other paths. Happy are they who have not. Can I believe this?
I encountered a woman recently who faulted her daughter for not having fallen into drugs. That her daughter had not fallen into drug use kept her, the mother said, from being able to empathize with her drug using sister. While there may be some truth in the ability of shared experiences to produce empathy between people, I believe the mother’s anger was misdirected insofar as she found herself indirectly wishing that the one daughter had also encountered the hell of drug use.
Happy are they who have not.
No, we will not live forever in this life, but death does not make every experience beneficial, an experience to seek out. We’re not called disciples for nothing.
Disciples, baptized in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Planted by steams of water. Bearing fruit in due season. With leaves that do not wither.
And if we are planted by the waters that connects both shores of paradise, then the threat of not having loses all of its power. If when we die life is not ended but changed, as the Prayer Book teaches, and as the Risen Christ stands even now as the witness, missing out is not a fear that needs to or ought to determine my next move. Rather, as baptized members of a resurrection people, I have been given both a new criterion and the freedom to pursue it. My questions are clear: Does it bring me closer to the Kingdom? Does it bring me nearer to Jesus? Can I see the cross of Christ from where I’m standing?
And can you think of a difficult relationship, encounter, decision, or purchase in the next week for which those questions would not give you direction, instruction, and peace?
Finally, because the freedom to ask these questions comes from my walking with the risen Jesus, I believe these questions are more than mere moralism. That is, they do not become hopeless words for when we inevitably mess up. They are hopeful words because the same God who gives us all the time we need to love God and each other walks with us, forgives us, restores in us the new and unending life of his Son. To learn to be content with this Son is the fullness of joy.
So ends my love song with the first of the psalms. The psalm whose quasi-repetition moves from images of walking to images of lingering to images of sitting and invites the hearer to slow down, pay attention, describing the lives of those who walk apart from God, maybe those who have given up, sat down, and also those who remain standing, who dare to move, to keep step, who brave the pilgrim walk with God. These words that speak a prophetic healing my soul knows that it needs. To be planted by streams of water.
Amen.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Money, Sex, and Gossip
Money, Sex, and Gossip
(Things that Belong to the Kingdom of God)
Preached October 16, 2011
On the surface, it’s an enticing, exciting, maybe even subversive question:
Do disciples of Jesus have to pay taxes?
The gist of what the leaders are onto when they ask him, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor...or not?"
Huh, we think. I hadn’t thought about that. Truthfully, I don't think of these lessons as being that concretely tangible. But now that you mention it, it’s about time this life of faith thing had a material perk. And it makes sense: we’re familiar with conscientious objectors in times of war, people who refrain from a certain military services on the grounds of religious belief. Why not with taxes?
In 1961, the Amish, objecting on religious principle to the concept of commercial insurance, successfully appealed their participation in Social Security, which had been first introduced in 1935. It took twenty-six years to sort out, but the IRS formally recognized the Amish exception in 1961. The Amish stated their religious situation thusly: "We do not want to be burdensome, but we do not want to lose our birthright to everlasting glory, therefore we must do all we can to live our faith!"
And American Christians, we lean in, intrigued, listening for the answer, the tax implications of the Kingdom of God. Are we off the hook? Did I just loophole my way into an extra ten grand a year? Can it be as simple as a self-exemption, a religiously minded civil disobedience that stands to help my cash flow situation?
Unfortunately, the answer is ‘no,’ even the Amish pay taxes. Their exemption is only for Social Security. I know, maybe that still sounds like a deal you want. But the other taxes, they pay - they insist on it - based in part on this morning’s gospel: Jesus’s answer to the question about tax evasion.
Still, the Amish instinct to see in the question put before Jesus this morning a pull between kingdoms - the government of the day on the one hand and the Kingdom of God on the other - is spot on. The tension between the kingdom of the day and the Kingdom of God is woven into the original context, the Herodians talking to Jesus.
Full disclosure: these Herodians are Pharisees who have pledged allegiance to Herod, the puppet-king of the Roman empire. They were testing Jesus because to not pay taxes would be treason against the occupying government, Rome. But to pay taxes might been seen as subordinating the Kingdom of God under the kingdom of Rome, which no self-respecting Messiah would ever do. Their question for Jesus has a kind of “put-up or shut-up” design, intended to force Jesus to declare his hand, and, either way, to end his ministry.
Instead, he asks for the coin used for the tax.
And nothing he says after this is as crucial to our understanding his response as his asking for the coin. We cannot miss this. He asks them for the coin used to pay the tax. And they have one to give.
Big deal, you say. And truthfully, not a big deal, maybe, for you or for me, except that no one these days carries coins in our pockets, but he asks them for the coin, and it is a big deal. Because they have one to give. Because for all their unsavory relationships with Rome, they’re still Jewish, and a metal coin with a graven image is still distasteful to them. Because the 2nd of the 10 commandments is one they take seriously, the one about other gods, idols, and their not having them. Because the Jewish understanding of that commandment dramatically shaped the limits of Jewish art clear through the 18th century - we're talking thousands of years. Because the coin in their hand convicts them of the compromise of their faith and signals in them their own participation in idolatry, even if it had started reluctantly.
He asks for the coin, and they have one to give. They're not proud of that.
The Pharisees try to trap Jesus. To peg him as a radical. To push him to the margins. To expose him. But they give Jesus the coin and the old quote is proved true: “...the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties, but through every human heart.”
The coin is in their pockets. Jesus doesn’t blame them; but he exposes their blaming. Another quote from my favorite movie - free points if you can name it after the service - "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness." They aren't such a people. They are aware. Like us, they find themselves caught between kingdoms - more than they know because Jesus is breaking the true Kingdom in - and the only proper response to their knowledge of their selves is grief and repentance.
Their grief and repentance, their sadness, if it should come, isn’t all bad - it’s different from shame - because it names somewhere deep in them their buried longing for their birthright. This is the effect of Jesus’s coming as Kingdom. "We do not want to be burdensome,” the Amish had said, “but we do not want to lose our birthright to everlasting glory, therefore we must do all we can to live our faith!"
So the question for us this morning is one of birthright and idolatry. Birthright, the Kingdom we were made for; idolatry, all the others that we fall for. More often than not, we’re not looking to trap Jesus, I think, (I'm not that clever) only to excuse ourselves from those parts of the life of faith we find unappealing. To justify our small flirtations in other kingdoms.
Like stewardship. Where the competition of the kingdoms is raw. Don’t worry, we’ve hit stewardship pretty hard the last two weeks, I won’t hit it the same way today. A week off. But if we’re talking parts of the life of faith that we’d rather excuse ourselves from, stewardship is up there on the list for most Christians, if we're honest. And not just stewardship, of course. Our worlds are built such that the so-called private realm might keep God's claims on portions of our lives at bay. Sex and gossip come to mind. (Side note: you should have seen the heads pop up just now!) Anything for which our first instinct is the words, "none of your business" - whether to each other or to God.
Another example.
A clergy friend of mine was sharing with me that his church unanimously agreed at a recent meeting that the standard for their congregation’s participation in Sunday worship should be 75%. 100% of them coming 75% of the time. Three out of four Sundays. That’s the goal they would like for themselves. A subsequent study of the church revealed that 17% of their congregation is living into that goal.
My friend did not point any fingers. Like Jesus before the Herodians, he didn’t have to. The fact that the congregation could name a common goal he counted as a good thing. A part of them still remembered their birthright, what they were made for.
So if birthright is what we were made for and idolatry is those things that we fall for, the question that marks the difference between where you hope to be and where you are is not unlike Jesus’s question to the Pharisees: (But instead of asking for the coin - because no one carries coins these days -) We might paraphrase it like this: “What’s in your wallet?” Have you heard that before? In your best Capital One Viking voice, turn to your neighbor and ask her, “What’s in your wallet?”
And I hope it’s clear at this point, but we’re not just talking money, though it may involve money. Our spiritual pockets are a bit like Mary Poppins’ fabled handbag, remarkably able to carry lots of big things. So many things that compete as would-be kingdoms against the Kingdom.
And this is the best of what Christian accountability can mean, I think: when we can turn to our neighbor and ask each other about God’s dreams for us and where we are now and what the difference between them is; when we can help one another empty our pockets of any and all idols we carry.
If you have trouble along the way identifying anything in your pockets that would lighten your load significantly, consider one author who says that all idolatry is the quest for certainty. That seems to fit. When one knows one carries the birthright of the Kingdom, the best distractions are often false appeals to certainty. Because the road is long and we walk by faith, certainty is the first temptation. Like Esau, Jacob's brother, in his hunger, selling his birthright to his brother for the certainty of a hot meal. But does that mean - does it follow - then that the Kingdom of God is uncertain, unpredictable, unstable, unexpected?
God, I hope so.
C.S. Lewis wrote of Aslan the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia - who was for Lewis a symbol for God: “He’s not a tame lion.”
And so with visions of the empty tomb, and soldiers made like dead men, and women running wildly with fear and great, great joy, I close my eyes in sleep at night, breathe out, and say a prayer, that I would be held in waking and sleeping, in living and dying, in rising, in serving, in the life of the Kingdom by nothing and no one else but the uncertain, unpredictable, unstable, unexpected God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
Amen.
(Things that Belong to the Kingdom of God)
Preached October 16, 2011
On the surface, it’s an enticing, exciting, maybe even subversive question:
Do disciples of Jesus have to pay taxes?
The gist of what the leaders are onto when they ask him, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor...or not?"
Huh, we think. I hadn’t thought about that. Truthfully, I don't think of these lessons as being that concretely tangible. But now that you mention it, it’s about time this life of faith thing had a material perk. And it makes sense: we’re familiar with conscientious objectors in times of war, people who refrain from a certain military services on the grounds of religious belief. Why not with taxes?
In 1961, the Amish, objecting on religious principle to the concept of commercial insurance, successfully appealed their participation in Social Security, which had been first introduced in 1935. It took twenty-six years to sort out, but the IRS formally recognized the Amish exception in 1961. The Amish stated their religious situation thusly: "We do not want to be burdensome, but we do not want to lose our birthright to everlasting glory, therefore we must do all we can to live our faith!"
And American Christians, we lean in, intrigued, listening for the answer, the tax implications of the Kingdom of God. Are we off the hook? Did I just loophole my way into an extra ten grand a year? Can it be as simple as a self-exemption, a religiously minded civil disobedience that stands to help my cash flow situation?
Unfortunately, the answer is ‘no,’ even the Amish pay taxes. Their exemption is only for Social Security. I know, maybe that still sounds like a deal you want. But the other taxes, they pay - they insist on it - based in part on this morning’s gospel: Jesus’s answer to the question about tax evasion.
Still, the Amish instinct to see in the question put before Jesus this morning a pull between kingdoms - the government of the day on the one hand and the Kingdom of God on the other - is spot on. The tension between the kingdom of the day and the Kingdom of God is woven into the original context, the Herodians talking to Jesus.
Full disclosure: these Herodians are Pharisees who have pledged allegiance to Herod, the puppet-king of the Roman empire. They were testing Jesus because to not pay taxes would be treason against the occupying government, Rome. But to pay taxes might been seen as subordinating the Kingdom of God under the kingdom of Rome, which no self-respecting Messiah would ever do. Their question for Jesus has a kind of “put-up or shut-up” design, intended to force Jesus to declare his hand, and, either way, to end his ministry.
Instead, he asks for the coin used for the tax.
And nothing he says after this is as crucial to our understanding his response as his asking for the coin. We cannot miss this. He asks them for the coin used to pay the tax. And they have one to give.
Big deal, you say. And truthfully, not a big deal, maybe, for you or for me, except that no one these days carries coins in our pockets, but he asks them for the coin, and it is a big deal. Because they have one to give. Because for all their unsavory relationships with Rome, they’re still Jewish, and a metal coin with a graven image is still distasteful to them. Because the 2nd of the 10 commandments is one they take seriously, the one about other gods, idols, and their not having them. Because the Jewish understanding of that commandment dramatically shaped the limits of Jewish art clear through the 18th century - we're talking thousands of years. Because the coin in their hand convicts them of the compromise of their faith and signals in them their own participation in idolatry, even if it had started reluctantly.
He asks for the coin, and they have one to give. They're not proud of that.
The Pharisees try to trap Jesus. To peg him as a radical. To push him to the margins. To expose him. But they give Jesus the coin and the old quote is proved true: “...the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties, but through every human heart.”
The coin is in their pockets. Jesus doesn’t blame them; but he exposes their blaming. Another quote from my favorite movie - free points if you can name it after the service - "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness." They aren't such a people. They are aware. Like us, they find themselves caught between kingdoms - more than they know because Jesus is breaking the true Kingdom in - and the only proper response to their knowledge of their selves is grief and repentance.
Their grief and repentance, their sadness, if it should come, isn’t all bad - it’s different from shame - because it names somewhere deep in them their buried longing for their birthright. This is the effect of Jesus’s coming as Kingdom. "We do not want to be burdensome,” the Amish had said, “but we do not want to lose our birthright to everlasting glory, therefore we must do all we can to live our faith!"
So the question for us this morning is one of birthright and idolatry. Birthright, the Kingdom we were made for; idolatry, all the others that we fall for. More often than not, we’re not looking to trap Jesus, I think, (I'm not that clever) only to excuse ourselves from those parts of the life of faith we find unappealing. To justify our small flirtations in other kingdoms.
Like stewardship. Where the competition of the kingdoms is raw. Don’t worry, we’ve hit stewardship pretty hard the last two weeks, I won’t hit it the same way today. A week off. But if we’re talking parts of the life of faith that we’d rather excuse ourselves from, stewardship is up there on the list for most Christians, if we're honest. And not just stewardship, of course. Our worlds are built such that the so-called private realm might keep God's claims on portions of our lives at bay. Sex and gossip come to mind. (Side note: you should have seen the heads pop up just now!) Anything for which our first instinct is the words, "none of your business" - whether to each other or to God.
Another example.
A clergy friend of mine was sharing with me that his church unanimously agreed at a recent meeting that the standard for their congregation’s participation in Sunday worship should be 75%. 100% of them coming 75% of the time. Three out of four Sundays. That’s the goal they would like for themselves. A subsequent study of the church revealed that 17% of their congregation is living into that goal.
My friend did not point any fingers. Like Jesus before the Herodians, he didn’t have to. The fact that the congregation could name a common goal he counted as a good thing. A part of them still remembered their birthright, what they were made for.
So if birthright is what we were made for and idolatry is those things that we fall for, the question that marks the difference between where you hope to be and where you are is not unlike Jesus’s question to the Pharisees: (But instead of asking for the coin - because no one carries coins these days -) We might paraphrase it like this: “What’s in your wallet?” Have you heard that before? In your best Capital One Viking voice, turn to your neighbor and ask her, “What’s in your wallet?”
And I hope it’s clear at this point, but we’re not just talking money, though it may involve money. Our spiritual pockets are a bit like Mary Poppins’ fabled handbag, remarkably able to carry lots of big things. So many things that compete as would-be kingdoms against the Kingdom.
And this is the best of what Christian accountability can mean, I think: when we can turn to our neighbor and ask each other about God’s dreams for us and where we are now and what the difference between them is; when we can help one another empty our pockets of any and all idols we carry.
If you have trouble along the way identifying anything in your pockets that would lighten your load significantly, consider one author who says that all idolatry is the quest for certainty. That seems to fit. When one knows one carries the birthright of the Kingdom, the best distractions are often false appeals to certainty. Because the road is long and we walk by faith, certainty is the first temptation. Like Esau, Jacob's brother, in his hunger, selling his birthright to his brother for the certainty of a hot meal. But does that mean - does it follow - then that the Kingdom of God is uncertain, unpredictable, unstable, unexpected?
God, I hope so.
C.S. Lewis wrote of Aslan the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia - who was for Lewis a symbol for God: “He’s not a tame lion.”
And so with visions of the empty tomb, and soldiers made like dead men, and women running wildly with fear and great, great joy, I close my eyes in sleep at night, breathe out, and say a prayer, that I would be held in waking and sleeping, in living and dying, in rising, in serving, in the life of the Kingdom by nothing and no one else but the uncertain, unpredictable, unstable, unexpected God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
Amen.
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