Sermon preached at St. Stephen's Church, Rochester, NY on the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, September 21, 2008: Matthew 20:1-16
Are you envious because I am generous?
The parable we just heard grates on us. By any standard we have, the landowner acts unjustly. Those who work more should be paid more. That’s simply fair.
Now this is when I am supposed to remind you that this is a parable, so don’t take it literally. It’s an allegory. The wages are the grace of God, which everyone receives in the same measure no matter how deserving they are.
And that’s a good message.
But it’s not the only message in the parable. Jesus told parables in part because they are multi-layered, they can mean different things on different levels. And that means that we can not easily dismiss the economic message that is here.
God calls us to a different kind of generosity, a different kind of economics, a different kind of fairness, a different vision of how we provide for one another’s welfare in this world.
And suddenly, I know, I am treading on very thin ice. Mixing religion and economics or religion and politics is dicey business in our culture, or any culture, for that matter. It is perhaps exacerbated in the United States because of the constitutional separation of church and state, but that separation is not the same as religion and politics. Martin Luther King, Jr once responded to criticism of his mixing of religion and politics by saying, rather bluntly, “My religion is my politics.” And as uncomfortable as it is, that is as it should be.
It is, I believe, the vision of the Bible. We would all be amazed by how much the Bible would shrink if we took out all the parts that mix religion with politics, or religion with economics, or a vision of social justice in general. Today’s parable is among the things that would go away.
This appropriate mixing of religion and politics is what the Anti-poverty campaign of the Sojourner’s community is all about. It is asking us, urging us, to take seriously the social justice vision of the Bible, when we evaluate candidates for political office and decide how to cast our vote.
A fundamental assumption of this campaign, and a biblically correct one, I believe, is that God is anti-poverty. God made a creation where there was enough for everybody and that remains God’s dream and God’s standard for our lives. No one should or need go without the basic necessities of life, including the right the founders of this country claimed in the Declaration of Independence, the “pursuit of happiness.” Everyone has a right to flourish.
Now I suspect that all of us would agree with that sentiment, until perhaps we started getting practical about it. Health care for all sounds good until taxpayers have to pay for it. A living wage for all sounds good until it means that corporate executives and even middle management have to make less so there is more for workers. Good job opportunities sound good until it means that companies are penalized for moving jobs somewhere else in the world because labor is cheaper.
You see, there is a certain order to our life as a society, an order that we don’t want to admit to, but is very real. And that order includes a goodly number of people living on the bottom of the heap. It’s only logical. We create jobs with wages that fall below the poverty level, which means that we accept the fact that there will be people who have to live below the poverty level. And it doesn’t matter whether they work really hard or not, they’re still going to fall short. There are people—a lot of them—in this very neighborhood I dare say who are working two jobs and still fall below the poverty level, because those are the kind of jobs that are out there.
Even in the church we have had this assumption. We have even believed that God created this order. Most of you probably know the old hymn
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.
It’s a bright, cheery hymn about the goodness of God’s creation. When that hymn was written in the nineteenth century, however, this was one of the verses:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
Let me make it clear: that is an unbiblical, even anti-biblical vision. Yes, Jesus once said, “You will always have the poor with you.” I take that as a pessimistic statement about the human will for equality, not how God intends creation to work.
And we do pay, pay in so many ways, for our acceptance of this unbiblical order of economic haves and have-nots. The violence that remains epidemic on our streets is just one of those ways. Thirty people murdered in the city thus far: three recently in the 19th Ward, six of them teenagers, three of them 15 years old including young Donald Stephens earlier this week.
And we can say that they just shouldn’t do it, that violence is no answer to anybody’s problems, but the bottom line is that thousands of people in this city don’t see any way they will ever pursue happiness, much less than flourish and hopelessness results in destructiveness as sure as the day follows the night.
This means that a serious campaign to eradicate poverty is a matter of life and death for our children, which makes it a matter of life and death for God.
The dilemma in all of this is that we need to maintain some order in our society. We do. But the problem is that our order is often at the expense of justice, and when it is, the God of the Bible is not pleased.
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann says,
Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is no friend to order, but insists on justice and is ready and able to intervene in decisive ways, against legitimized order if necessary, to establish justice. If God must choose between order and justice, God characteristically chooses justice.[1]
Now all of this does not give us much practicality. The Bible does not contain the blueprint of a divinely-inspired economic system, unfortunately. We have to make our own decisions, but they are decisions to be made within a vision, within a set of overarching values: that God has made a creation in which there is enough for everybody, that we are responsible together for how people are able to live, and that everyone has the right to have at least the tools to flourish.
Those are the values we need desperately to have if we are to follow the God of the Bible. Those are the values we need to keep in the forefront of our hearts and minds when we make decisions about how we are going to vote. Those are the values we need to hold dear when we try to influence those in elected office and in leadership in the business community. And try to influence them we must, for the sake of our fellow human beings and for the sake of God.
It is not easy coming to terms with the generosity of God. It will always be a struggle and we will fall short, but try we can and must, and in real, practical ways that take real, practical steps toward establishing the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. That is both our religious and our political calling.
[1] Peace (Chalice Press, 2001), pp. 110-111.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
This Little Song of Ours
Sermon preached at the thanksgiving Eucharist for James T. "Buddy") Young, Sr., 1914-2008, a bleoved member of the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene, September 20, 2008: Matthew 5:13-16
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
The Gospel reading we just heard uses two images—salt and light—to describe how we are called to bring in the kingdom of God.
Buddy especially loved the light imagery, which is why we have this particular reading today. Buddy was a light and he loved the light. I’ll say more on that in a bit; first a few words about salt.
Buddy was also salt and he loved saltiness; he brought the saltiness out in others. He was spice in the life of all of us.
Buddy Young was never anything but gracious, but he loved to tease, with a twinkle in his eye. And he expected this teasing to be reciprocated; he could get as well as he could give. His humor and his ability to create an easy “atmosphere of humor” was one of the things that most endeared him to us. It was one of the ways he made friends quickly and easily. He wanted people to smile about life, as he seemed always to be doing himself.
Saltiness, however, is not only about humor. Salt, in the right quantity, brings out the flavor of things. This, too, helps describe what it was like to know Buddy Young. He made life more flavorful. Life was simply better in Buddy’s presence.
It’s hard to describe, but he had an ability simply to help you like life more when you were with him. Part of that was because he not only left you plenty of room to be yourself when you were with him; he actually helped you be more who you were. Again, it’s hard to describe, but nevertheless a very real experience that I dare say most of us had.
Buddy was also a light to the world. He was “this little light of ours.” It is said that “saints are people the light shines through.” In this regard, Buddy was a saint. This is not to say that he was perfect, none of us is. He was as human as the next person and would want me to say so. But he allowed the light to shine through him more than most of us, and, like his saltiness, he encouraged that light in others.
It is, of course, the graciousness and love of God that shone through Buddy. That was the source of the light we experienced through him. He allowed God to use him for good, and God did use him for good, to the benefit of all of us.
Buddy knew above all things that the love of God was indeed good news, good news for all people. So we celebrate that good news today as we give thanks for his life.
And just as important as knowing this good news, Buddy acted on it, as we are all called to act on it, with graciousness, with humility, but also with passion.
Besides “salt” and “light,” another image we might use for how we are called to live out the kingdom is song, and, of course, this is more than appropriate for Buddy, because he loved to sing. He was a member of this Church for at least eighty years and I believe he sang in the choir for most, if not all, of them. He loved to sing. It was his favorite way to help proclaim the good news.
So we can hear Jesus say, “You are a song for the people, let your song be heard that all will hear the good news and believe they are loved beyond their wildest dreams.”
Buddy’s life was song and he helped all of us sing, whether we can carry a tune or not.
In all these images—salt and light and song—we not only have a description of our experience of Buddy, but also our experience of God if we let it be. For God is the salt of our life, the light of the world, and the song of good news. As Paul says in Romans, “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that message is the message Buddy would have us hear today, and allow it to shape our lives for good.
Thanks be to God for this wonderful man, for the good long time we had him in our lives, and for the example of graciousness and unconditional love that he was. Thanks be to God for this little salt of ours, this little light of ours, this little song of ours.
This little song of ours, I’m gonna sing it out,
This little song of ours, I’m gonna sing it out,
This little song of ours, I’m gonna sing it out,
Sing it out, sing it out, sing it out.
At the end of his life, Buddy frequently said things like the quote at the end of his obituary, “I’ve been blessed with so many people.”
Thank you dear friend for being a beautiful person yourself and blessing us.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
The Gospel reading we just heard uses two images—salt and light—to describe how we are called to bring in the kingdom of God.
Buddy especially loved the light imagery, which is why we have this particular reading today. Buddy was a light and he loved the light. I’ll say more on that in a bit; first a few words about salt.
Buddy was also salt and he loved saltiness; he brought the saltiness out in others. He was spice in the life of all of us.
Buddy Young was never anything but gracious, but he loved to tease, with a twinkle in his eye. And he expected this teasing to be reciprocated; he could get as well as he could give. His humor and his ability to create an easy “atmosphere of humor” was one of the things that most endeared him to us. It was one of the ways he made friends quickly and easily. He wanted people to smile about life, as he seemed always to be doing himself.
Saltiness, however, is not only about humor. Salt, in the right quantity, brings out the flavor of things. This, too, helps describe what it was like to know Buddy Young. He made life more flavorful. Life was simply better in Buddy’s presence.
It’s hard to describe, but he had an ability simply to help you like life more when you were with him. Part of that was because he not only left you plenty of room to be yourself when you were with him; he actually helped you be more who you were. Again, it’s hard to describe, but nevertheless a very real experience that I dare say most of us had.
Buddy was also a light to the world. He was “this little light of ours.” It is said that “saints are people the light shines through.” In this regard, Buddy was a saint. This is not to say that he was perfect, none of us is. He was as human as the next person and would want me to say so. But he allowed the light to shine through him more than most of us, and, like his saltiness, he encouraged that light in others.
It is, of course, the graciousness and love of God that shone through Buddy. That was the source of the light we experienced through him. He allowed God to use him for good, and God did use him for good, to the benefit of all of us.
Buddy knew above all things that the love of God was indeed good news, good news for all people. So we celebrate that good news today as we give thanks for his life.
And just as important as knowing this good news, Buddy acted on it, as we are all called to act on it, with graciousness, with humility, but also with passion.
Besides “salt” and “light,” another image we might use for how we are called to live out the kingdom is song, and, of course, this is more than appropriate for Buddy, because he loved to sing. He was a member of this Church for at least eighty years and I believe he sang in the choir for most, if not all, of them. He loved to sing. It was his favorite way to help proclaim the good news.
So we can hear Jesus say, “You are a song for the people, let your song be heard that all will hear the good news and believe they are loved beyond their wildest dreams.”
Buddy’s life was song and he helped all of us sing, whether we can carry a tune or not.
In all these images—salt and light and song—we not only have a description of our experience of Buddy, but also our experience of God if we let it be. For God is the salt of our life, the light of the world, and the song of good news. As Paul says in Romans, “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that message is the message Buddy would have us hear today, and allow it to shape our lives for good.
Thanks be to God for this wonderful man, for the good long time we had him in our lives, and for the example of graciousness and unconditional love that he was. Thanks be to God for this little salt of ours, this little light of ours, this little song of ours.
This little song of ours, I’m gonna sing it out,
This little song of ours, I’m gonna sing it out,
This little song of ours, I’m gonna sing it out,
Sing it out, sing it out, sing it out.
At the end of his life, Buddy frequently said things like the quote at the end of his obituary, “I’ve been blessed with so many people.”
Thank you dear friend for being a beautiful person yourself and blessing us.
It's (Always) Morning in the Church
Sermon preached at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene on Holy Cross Day, the patronal feast of St. Simon Cyrene, September 14, 2008: Mark 15:15-25. We baptized five children this morning!
Two things are identified in the New Testament as having occurred at nine o’clock in the morning. We just heard one:
They nailed him up at nine o’clock in the morning.[1]
What’s the other?
It is when the Holy Spirit falls upon the followers of Jesus at Pentecost and the Church is born (Acts 2).
These two great events, with the Resurrection between them, are what we are about today as we baptize. Without them there would be no Christian faith into which to baptize anybody.
These great events all take place in the morning—two at “nine o’clock in the morning” and the Resurrection, early in the morning “on the third day.”
And so I submit to you today that it is always morning in the church.
It is clearly morning in these five young lives before us today. That’s easy enough to see. Their lives are fresh and full of promise. They delight our hearts (most of the time) as children do.
In some ways we are ruining this freshness today—figuratively drowning them, signing them with an instrument of torture and oppression and laying claim on their lives to a loyalty that is a higher loyalty than even to their families. It’s no wonder a lot of our fellow Christians wait until somebody can actually choose to do this stuff.
Especially in the case of these three infants, it seems like we are celebrating the joy of birth, and we are. But it is an odd celebration, with a hint of death in the air.
Now I suppose in some ways that is simply calling us to be realistic even before we can be conscious of being realistic, that this is what our life is. All life is lived with a hint of death in the air, like it or not. Each of these children will have to get used to that, and, parents, one of the hardest things you’ll have to do is get them used to that reality. And it won’t do them any good at all if you don’t help them do that.
But you have something else to tell them, something so strange that they won’t believe it at first. Some of us have trouble believing it even now. And that something is that despite the fact that death is ever present in this life, and the Church makes us be real about that, it is always morning in the Church.
It is always morning in the Church.
Despite the fact that we live under the cross, which we try to make as pretty as possible but we can’t stop it being what it is—not a pretty thing, it is always morning in the Church.
Despite the fact that there are so many tombs in the course of our lives at which we must weep, it is always morning in the Church.
Despite the fact that we are called into this sometimes wonderful and sometimes maddening body we call the Church, where we are forced to rub up against people with whom we would never dream of making friends outside of these walls, and Jesus tells us that they are the most important people in our lives, no matter what, it is always morning in the Church.
It is always morning in the Church because we are the people for whom Jesus died and with whom Jesus dies, and so there is nothing we cannot face with him among us.
It is always morning in the Church because we are the people who come to weep and mourn and find instead an empty tomb and are offered new life time and time again, whether we deserve it or not, whether we want it or not, or whether we believe it or not. We are God’s people, that’s the bottom line truth and nothing is going to get in the way of God giving his people new life.
It is always morning in the Church because despite all of its flaws, and the flaws of all of us who make it up, this Body is the place where the Holy Spirit keeps showing up, every time as a gift, every time as a promise and every time as the truth that will set us free.
It is always morning in the Church.
Oh Church, what an amazing thing we are doing here this morning. If you think about it even just a little, if you allow yourself to smell the hint of death in the air, and if you hear the words of raw hope that we say in spite of it, it will take your breath away.
You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.
How dare we say such a thing? How dare we say such a thing when although we pray that there will be joy and abundance ahead in life for these children we also know in all honesty there will be doubts and fears, frustrations and screw ups, pain and turmoil and, yes, eventually, death. How dare we say such a thing?
We dare because Jesus has died, Jesus is risen and Jesus comes again whenever we are gathered together, and it is always morning in the Church.
Whatever comes, may these children always be children of the morning. Let us give them that gift now even as we renew it in ourselves.
Church what time is it always when we are together? It is nine o’clock in the morning.
[1] Translation of The Message copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.
Two things are identified in the New Testament as having occurred at nine o’clock in the morning. We just heard one:
They nailed him up at nine o’clock in the morning.[1]
What’s the other?
It is when the Holy Spirit falls upon the followers of Jesus at Pentecost and the Church is born (Acts 2).
These two great events, with the Resurrection between them, are what we are about today as we baptize. Without them there would be no Christian faith into which to baptize anybody.
These great events all take place in the morning—two at “nine o’clock in the morning” and the Resurrection, early in the morning “on the third day.”
And so I submit to you today that it is always morning in the church.
It is clearly morning in these five young lives before us today. That’s easy enough to see. Their lives are fresh and full of promise. They delight our hearts (most of the time) as children do.
In some ways we are ruining this freshness today—figuratively drowning them, signing them with an instrument of torture and oppression and laying claim on their lives to a loyalty that is a higher loyalty than even to their families. It’s no wonder a lot of our fellow Christians wait until somebody can actually choose to do this stuff.
Especially in the case of these three infants, it seems like we are celebrating the joy of birth, and we are. But it is an odd celebration, with a hint of death in the air.
Now I suppose in some ways that is simply calling us to be realistic even before we can be conscious of being realistic, that this is what our life is. All life is lived with a hint of death in the air, like it or not. Each of these children will have to get used to that, and, parents, one of the hardest things you’ll have to do is get them used to that reality. And it won’t do them any good at all if you don’t help them do that.
But you have something else to tell them, something so strange that they won’t believe it at first. Some of us have trouble believing it even now. And that something is that despite the fact that death is ever present in this life, and the Church makes us be real about that, it is always morning in the Church.
It is always morning in the Church.
Despite the fact that we live under the cross, which we try to make as pretty as possible but we can’t stop it being what it is—not a pretty thing, it is always morning in the Church.
Despite the fact that there are so many tombs in the course of our lives at which we must weep, it is always morning in the Church.
Despite the fact that we are called into this sometimes wonderful and sometimes maddening body we call the Church, where we are forced to rub up against people with whom we would never dream of making friends outside of these walls, and Jesus tells us that they are the most important people in our lives, no matter what, it is always morning in the Church.
It is always morning in the Church because we are the people for whom Jesus died and with whom Jesus dies, and so there is nothing we cannot face with him among us.
It is always morning in the Church because we are the people who come to weep and mourn and find instead an empty tomb and are offered new life time and time again, whether we deserve it or not, whether we want it or not, or whether we believe it or not. We are God’s people, that’s the bottom line truth and nothing is going to get in the way of God giving his people new life.
It is always morning in the Church because despite all of its flaws, and the flaws of all of us who make it up, this Body is the place where the Holy Spirit keeps showing up, every time as a gift, every time as a promise and every time as the truth that will set us free.
It is always morning in the Church.
Oh Church, what an amazing thing we are doing here this morning. If you think about it even just a little, if you allow yourself to smell the hint of death in the air, and if you hear the words of raw hope that we say in spite of it, it will take your breath away.
You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.
How dare we say such a thing? How dare we say such a thing when although we pray that there will be joy and abundance ahead in life for these children we also know in all honesty there will be doubts and fears, frustrations and screw ups, pain and turmoil and, yes, eventually, death. How dare we say such a thing?
We dare because Jesus has died, Jesus is risen and Jesus comes again whenever we are gathered together, and it is always morning in the Church.
Whatever comes, may these children always be children of the morning. Let us give them that gift now even as we renew it in ourselves.
Church what time is it always when we are together? It is nine o’clock in the morning.
[1] Translation of The Message copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
When Two or Three Are Gathered
Sermon preached on September 7, 2008 at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene, Rochester, NY: Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20 (Proper 18A)
When two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them there.
The one who loves has fulfilled the law.
At its heart our religion is very simple. We hear the simplicity from both Paul and Jesus this morning. Paul tells us that it’s all about love—love of neighbor is what fulfills the law. Jesus tells us that whenever two or more people gather in his name, he is present with them.
That’s it. We really don’t need to know much else. It’s simple and direct.
But the implications are staggering.
“Love does no wrong to a neighbor,” Paul says. It sounds like his more well-known passage in the First Letter to the Corinthians, the famous “love chapter.”
Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Couples frequently choose those words to be read at their wedding or commitment celebration. I almost always include in my sermon on such occasions the reality that this is a very high standard, one from which they are likely to fall short by the end of their wedding day.
Love of neighbor is simple and clear and it is a very difficult and high standard. It is difficult because of who my neighbor is, some of whom I like very much and some of whom, well, not so much.
And it gets worse, because it is not simply personal. The neighbors about whom Paul speaks are not even necessarily people I know. In fact, most of them are strangers to me, people whose lives seem in no way connected to mine. Part of that simple and clear message of our religion, however, is that they are, they are connected—my life with every life on the planet. In fact, in that great reality we call the communion of saints, our lives are connected to every life that has been or ever will be.
If you think about it for more than a few seconds it is overwhelming—such a high responsibility and even an outrageous one.
As I said, the implications are staggering.
So too are they for those often quoted words of Jesus, “When two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” They are very comforting words, until you begin to think about who the other person I am with might be. And from what Jesus says in this morning’s Gospel reading, he clearly means that the two or three just might be enemies. The person I am with just might be someone who has done me wrong.
There is comfort in Jesus’ words about his presence when we gather but there is also deep responsibility and accountability. Jesus’ presence means that relationships change—enemies work to be reconciled, strangers work to become friends, friends seek to deepen their relationship with one another. These things have to be or the presence of Jesus is betrayed, because Jesus is not present and things remain the same. Jesus always transforms.
Our message is simple and clear, but also a little frightening. What Jesus wants of us—unconditional love for all and a commitment to his presence that always, always transforms us—is deep and broad. How, in fact can we do it?
The first thing to grasp in wrestling with that question is not about us. It is about God. God does these things. God loves perfectly like Paul describes in First Corinthians. God shows up in relationships of all kinds, in all places, under all circumstances. There is no one who is not God’s neighbor. God even puts Mr. Rogers to shame.
Why is it important for us to grasp this? Well, because we are not God. We don’t do perfect, that’s part of the definition of being human. God expects us not to get it right.
But that, of course, does not let us off the hook. God does want us to try and try again. In the passage in Matthew immediately following this morning’s we hear the question, “How many times must I forgive, as many of seven?” Jesus answers, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” He does not mean literally to count and you’re off the hook at 78, he means “as long as it takes.”
This is difficult stuff. It stretches us. It’s not necessarily what we were taught growing up, either in word or by example. It’s not necessarily the “normal” standard in the world around us. In fact, I dare say forgiveness is a rare commodity in this world. I would say that is unfortunately true even among Christians.
This is sad, but not necessarily surprising. Being reconciled with everyone is hard work. And we are, as I said, human.
But this work is so important especially in a parish family like ours with all of its diversities. If we are known both for our diversity and the quality of our love for one another, we will have gone a long way to living into our mission and fulfilling our vision. We will be living close to the heart of God, and displaying that Jesus, is, indeed, among us.
Let us continue to commit ourselves to the good news of the simple and clear message of God’s love for all and work hard to make it so among us. And let us always remember that Jesus is with us in this great work, whenever two or three of us are gathered.
When two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them there.
The one who loves has fulfilled the law.
At its heart our religion is very simple. We hear the simplicity from both Paul and Jesus this morning. Paul tells us that it’s all about love—love of neighbor is what fulfills the law. Jesus tells us that whenever two or more people gather in his name, he is present with them.
That’s it. We really don’t need to know much else. It’s simple and direct.
But the implications are staggering.
“Love does no wrong to a neighbor,” Paul says. It sounds like his more well-known passage in the First Letter to the Corinthians, the famous “love chapter.”
Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Couples frequently choose those words to be read at their wedding or commitment celebration. I almost always include in my sermon on such occasions the reality that this is a very high standard, one from which they are likely to fall short by the end of their wedding day.
Love of neighbor is simple and clear and it is a very difficult and high standard. It is difficult because of who my neighbor is, some of whom I like very much and some of whom, well, not so much.
And it gets worse, because it is not simply personal. The neighbors about whom Paul speaks are not even necessarily people I know. In fact, most of them are strangers to me, people whose lives seem in no way connected to mine. Part of that simple and clear message of our religion, however, is that they are, they are connected—my life with every life on the planet. In fact, in that great reality we call the communion of saints, our lives are connected to every life that has been or ever will be.
If you think about it for more than a few seconds it is overwhelming—such a high responsibility and even an outrageous one.
As I said, the implications are staggering.
So too are they for those often quoted words of Jesus, “When two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” They are very comforting words, until you begin to think about who the other person I am with might be. And from what Jesus says in this morning’s Gospel reading, he clearly means that the two or three just might be enemies. The person I am with just might be someone who has done me wrong.
There is comfort in Jesus’ words about his presence when we gather but there is also deep responsibility and accountability. Jesus’ presence means that relationships change—enemies work to be reconciled, strangers work to become friends, friends seek to deepen their relationship with one another. These things have to be or the presence of Jesus is betrayed, because Jesus is not present and things remain the same. Jesus always transforms.
Our message is simple and clear, but also a little frightening. What Jesus wants of us—unconditional love for all and a commitment to his presence that always, always transforms us—is deep and broad. How, in fact can we do it?
The first thing to grasp in wrestling with that question is not about us. It is about God. God does these things. God loves perfectly like Paul describes in First Corinthians. God shows up in relationships of all kinds, in all places, under all circumstances. There is no one who is not God’s neighbor. God even puts Mr. Rogers to shame.
Why is it important for us to grasp this? Well, because we are not God. We don’t do perfect, that’s part of the definition of being human. God expects us not to get it right.
But that, of course, does not let us off the hook. God does want us to try and try again. In the passage in Matthew immediately following this morning’s we hear the question, “How many times must I forgive, as many of seven?” Jesus answers, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” He does not mean literally to count and you’re off the hook at 78, he means “as long as it takes.”
This is difficult stuff. It stretches us. It’s not necessarily what we were taught growing up, either in word or by example. It’s not necessarily the “normal” standard in the world around us. In fact, I dare say forgiveness is a rare commodity in this world. I would say that is unfortunately true even among Christians.
This is sad, but not necessarily surprising. Being reconciled with everyone is hard work. And we are, as I said, human.
But this work is so important especially in a parish family like ours with all of its diversities. If we are known both for our diversity and the quality of our love for one another, we will have gone a long way to living into our mission and fulfilling our vision. We will be living close to the heart of God, and displaying that Jesus, is, indeed, among us.
Let us continue to commit ourselves to the good news of the simple and clear message of God’s love for all and work hard to make it so among us. And let us always remember that Jesus is with us in this great work, whenever two or three of us are gathered.
Kingdom Living
Sermon preached on Sunday, August 31, 2008 at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene, Rochester, NY: Jeremiah 15:15-21, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-18
We have spent the summer talking about the kingdom of God. It all began back in chapter nine of Matthew’s Gospel when Matthew told us that Jesus went about preaching the good news of the kingdom (9:35), and sent his disciples out with the message that the kingdom of heaven had come near (10:7).
Then we spent several weeks hearing parables about the kingdom. We heard about a sower of seed, weeds sown among wheat, a mustard seed, a pearl of great price, treasure hidden in a field, and a net full of all kinds of fish.
In all these stories and images we learned that the kingdom was for everyone, everywhere in everytime (that is, it is catholic), that it had to be sought for and looked for intently because it is not under human control (that is, it is mysterious), that it does, however, manifest itself in reality, it is not a theoretical proposition (that is, it is actual), and that it requires our response.
There was so much good news in this message that the disciples were able to discern that Jesus was more than just a wise teacher, he was the long-awaited Messiah. We heard Peter lead with that confession last week. And Jesus said, “You are right, and on this message you will build a new community and this new community will hold the keys of the kingdom.
But that was just the up side. Today we hear the down side. To get to that wonderful place, where the kingdom is ultimately made manifest in all its ways, Jesus says he has, among all things, to die, willingly be killed.
Peter reacts with horror. He didn’t see this coming at all and, in all his impetuousness, denounces the very notion. “God forbid it!”
Jesus is as stern in his response as we ever see him. “Get behind me Satan. You are a stumbling block.” And then he tells them the true implication of all this talk about the kingdom, to live into it truly and wholly, they will have to follow him all the way to the cross, deny themselves and take up the sacrifice of their own lives, for if they seek to hold onto their lives, they will be lost.
It may be a miracle that they didn’t just all turn and walk away at that point. Suddenly all that good news was threatening and frightening.
What does it mean to take up our cross and follow Jesus? What does it mean not to hold onto our life, but to be what we say in our prayers, “a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee?” (BCP, p. 336).
St. Paul this morning makes it all very clear as he winds down his long letter to the Romans. In his many words there are really four main points:
· Love and show honor to others even higher than to your own self.
· Be generous and hospitable even to strangers.
· Live in such harmony with one another that you weep when others weep and rejoice when they rejoice.
· Never avenge yourselves, leave judgment to God.
This is what it means to take up our cross: an absolute commitment to love and honor for others, to generosity and hospitality as a way of life, radical harmony in community, and a total leaving aside of judgment.
These things are not easy. In many respects they are counter-intuitive. They require conscious choices, over and over again. The become second nature for very, very few people. And they certainly are not the values supported by the surrounding culture. A world in which
· Loyalty first and foremost to self is paramount.
· To be too generous or too hospitable is seen as a threat to security, a value which trumps them every time.
· Everyone wants to play the melody, playing the harmony is a sign of weakness.
· Judgment is at least good political sport if not an outright way of life.
But Paul and Jesus tell us that these are not the values of kingdom living. They are the values of slavery and fear. Any good news to them is temporary and always, always at the expense of others.
But to embrace the values of the kingdom, to practice kingdom living, is to take up one’s cross, to live “a reasonable holy and living sacrifice” unto God rather than self. This is the choice we are called to make, and it is a stark one.
Thank goodness, thank God, that there are always second chances to get it right, that we serve a God who is himself hospitable and generous, loving, committed to our dignity, and who has left his own judgment at the cross.
We are bid to make choices and to try, try, try to live into the values of the kingdom. We are bid to get it right sometimes, and more and more often as we mature in our following of the God of Jesus Christ. But there is always forgiveness, thanks be to God. That too is the good news of living in the kingdom.
We have spent the summer talking about the kingdom of God. It all began back in chapter nine of Matthew’s Gospel when Matthew told us that Jesus went about preaching the good news of the kingdom (9:35), and sent his disciples out with the message that the kingdom of heaven had come near (10:7).
Then we spent several weeks hearing parables about the kingdom. We heard about a sower of seed, weeds sown among wheat, a mustard seed, a pearl of great price, treasure hidden in a field, and a net full of all kinds of fish.
In all these stories and images we learned that the kingdom was for everyone, everywhere in everytime (that is, it is catholic), that it had to be sought for and looked for intently because it is not under human control (that is, it is mysterious), that it does, however, manifest itself in reality, it is not a theoretical proposition (that is, it is actual), and that it requires our response.
There was so much good news in this message that the disciples were able to discern that Jesus was more than just a wise teacher, he was the long-awaited Messiah. We heard Peter lead with that confession last week. And Jesus said, “You are right, and on this message you will build a new community and this new community will hold the keys of the kingdom.
But that was just the up side. Today we hear the down side. To get to that wonderful place, where the kingdom is ultimately made manifest in all its ways, Jesus says he has, among all things, to die, willingly be killed.
Peter reacts with horror. He didn’t see this coming at all and, in all his impetuousness, denounces the very notion. “God forbid it!”
Jesus is as stern in his response as we ever see him. “Get behind me Satan. You are a stumbling block.” And then he tells them the true implication of all this talk about the kingdom, to live into it truly and wholly, they will have to follow him all the way to the cross, deny themselves and take up the sacrifice of their own lives, for if they seek to hold onto their lives, they will be lost.
It may be a miracle that they didn’t just all turn and walk away at that point. Suddenly all that good news was threatening and frightening.
What does it mean to take up our cross and follow Jesus? What does it mean not to hold onto our life, but to be what we say in our prayers, “a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee?” (BCP, p. 336).
St. Paul this morning makes it all very clear as he winds down his long letter to the Romans. In his many words there are really four main points:
· Love and show honor to others even higher than to your own self.
· Be generous and hospitable even to strangers.
· Live in such harmony with one another that you weep when others weep and rejoice when they rejoice.
· Never avenge yourselves, leave judgment to God.
This is what it means to take up our cross: an absolute commitment to love and honor for others, to generosity and hospitality as a way of life, radical harmony in community, and a total leaving aside of judgment.
These things are not easy. In many respects they are counter-intuitive. They require conscious choices, over and over again. The become second nature for very, very few people. And they certainly are not the values supported by the surrounding culture. A world in which
· Loyalty first and foremost to self is paramount.
· To be too generous or too hospitable is seen as a threat to security, a value which trumps them every time.
· Everyone wants to play the melody, playing the harmony is a sign of weakness.
· Judgment is at least good political sport if not an outright way of life.
But Paul and Jesus tell us that these are not the values of kingdom living. They are the values of slavery and fear. Any good news to them is temporary and always, always at the expense of others.
But to embrace the values of the kingdom, to practice kingdom living, is to take up one’s cross, to live “a reasonable holy and living sacrifice” unto God rather than self. This is the choice we are called to make, and it is a stark one.
Thank goodness, thank God, that there are always second chances to get it right, that we serve a God who is himself hospitable and generous, loving, committed to our dignity, and who has left his own judgment at the cross.
We are bid to make choices and to try, try, try to live into the values of the kingdom. We are bid to get it right sometimes, and more and more often as we mature in our following of the God of Jesus Christ. But there is always forgiveness, thanks be to God. That too is the good news of living in the kingdom.
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