Sermon preached at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene, Rochester, New York on November 23, 2008: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25:31-46
One of the images we use to describe ourselves is, “A School for Justice.” I want to unpack what that means this morning with the help of the readings we have just heard.
First of all, where did the image come from? Perhaps from an unusual place. It comes from St. Benedict, who is often called the father of western monasticism. In the 6th century Benedict was led to gather a community of Christian men who would live together under a rule of life. It was a very difficult time in his native Italy, a time when the Roman Empire was disintegrating, partly because of invasions by barbarians from the north and partly under the weight of its own corruption. Benedict wanted to create an island of order in a sea of disorder.
In writing the rule of life for his community, Benedict says, “And so we are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord.” He meant “school,” of course, in a broad sense, a place of formation in a way of life.
So it is how we mean “school for justice.” We mean to be a place where we are formed in justice as a way of life. And we might as well say “the Lord’s justice,” because we certainly mean justice as it is practiced within the reign of Christ, within what Jesus calls “the kingdom of God.”
Now there are two important questions here. What exactly is this “justice” that is the Lord’s? And how, in fact, are we schooled in it?
Today’s Gospel reading makes it clear and simple what justice looks like in the kingdom of God: the feeding of the hungry, the welcoming of strangers, the clothing of the naked, and the visiting of the sick and imprisoned. The king in the story (who is surely meant to be Jesus) calls these persons “the least of these who are members of my family.”
It’s important to recognize just who these “least” are. First of all, they are not just some objectified “them.” From time to time all of us are among these “least,” if for no other reason than all of us experience illness and all of us are at least occasionally in situations where we are a stranger. It’s one reason why we try to be careful here when we pray that we pray for “those among us who are sick,” or, “those among us who are unemployed.” “The least” is us, not them. This is one way we are a school for justice: we avoid the creation of us and them. This is not to say that we do it perfectly, by the way.
Second of all, it is important to recognize that in our culture, the folks among us who are experiencing these things—alienation, poverty, sickness, and imprisonment—are generally thought of and treated as failures. For instance, the majority of Americans believe that those who live in poverty do so because of their own shortcomings. That is even true of African-Americans. A majority of African-Americans believe that those who live in poverty do so because of their own shortcomings.
This culture worships success, including the idol of the rugged individualist who is able to rise above the station of his or her parents. We need to believe that we have worked hard and deserve what we have.
The Jesus view of things is that we may indeed have worked hard and that is admirable, but we should never allow ourselves to fall into the delusion that we deserve anything. Everything is a gift in the reign of Christ. Our attitude should always be one of thanksgiving that leads to generosity, not a sense of deserving that leads to possession. This, too, is to live in justice, to believe that nothing is mine.
This means that justice and stewardship have something to do with one another, everything, in fact. A Christian sense of stewardship means fundamentally the attitude that everything I have is a gift, and it is only this attitude that truly enables me to act with justice.
Now there is a problem in this parable. It is a parable of judgment, and there is the harsh separation and rejection. We have seen this the past two weeks as well. The foolish bridesmaids get locked out of the wedding party and the bridegroom declares that he does not know them. The slave who hid the one talent is roundly condemned, and the master commands that he be thrown into the outer darkness. This morning the goats are sent away “into eternal punishment.” Not nice pictures, especially when we consider how easy it is for any of us to be a foolish bridesmaid, a frightened slave, or a goat.
And I would suggest that we are these things. It is simply impossible for any of us to believe that we are anything but goats. The sheep have lived up to an extraordinarily high standard. Not to say that we have not risen to the occasions many times and acted like sheep, but who among us has never acted like a goat?
So, according to these parables we are in big trouble! We can look forward to a future of being locked out in a state of weeping and gnashing of teeth because of our eternal punishment. Yikes.
It is the prophet Ezekiel that holds out some hope even for us goats, or, as he says, us “fat sheep.” He too says there will be a judgment:
I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.
The lean sheep will have their wounds bound up and their weakness turned into strength. But what of the fat sheep? God says through Ezekiel, “I will feed them with justice.”
Now this can be taken at least two ways. It could mean, “I will stick it to them.” That is, justice as punishment. I will force justice down their throats and it will choke those miserable wretches. But isn’t it possible that it could also mean that I will nurture them, school them, if you will, in the ways of justice? By such feeding they will be converted.
I choose to believe the intention is the latter, and so I choose to believe that the judgment Jesus expresses in these parables from Matthew is not the last word. I choose to believe that the goats will be fed with justice. That means I have a problem with the declaration of “eternal” punishment. Although I can understand even that to mean that I, as a goat, will spend eternity being fed with justice. I only hope and pray that I will come to find its taste sweet.
All of this, of course, may be a rationalization, but so then is the entirety of biblical faith, so I am not afraid of it.
Which brings me to the answer to my second question: How, in fact, are we schooled in justice?
It is about being fed, a very important metaphor for us. What we do around this Altar is, in fact, the primary way we are constantly schooled in justice. We, the goats, come to the Altar week by week and are fed with the bread of justice.
Why is it the bread of justice? Because as a meal it is a continuation of Jesus’ eating with those among us who were least and lost, outcast and those labeled sinners. We come not only to eat with them as Jesus did, but to be fed by him as one of them. And in this is his presence, as he promised.
This bread is for our comfort and strength, but it is also sometimes for our judgment. There ought to be times that we choke on it, and not just because the bread is dry. Sometimes we ought to come face to face with our own foolishness, our own fear, our own disregard for those among us in need, and the bread ought to judge us and change us.
It might do that in a moment. More than likely, however, it does so over time, doing its work of building up in us a sense of solidarity with one another in a circle that gets pushed wider and wider, beyond the bounds that we have set. The stranger—and the strange—are us. Those seen to be failures by the world—and even by us—are us. And we, in fact, are us, not because we deserve to be here and be fed, but because God chooses over and over again, in spite of ourselves, to give us a gift.
To be a school for justice is to be keenly aware that we all fall far short. We are all goats in need of conversion to the ways of Christ, the ways of justice.
These parables of judgment proclaim quite clearly that there is, ultimately, a choice to be made. I believe we make it, or should, every time we leave our pew and walk to the Altar rail. We ought always to hesitate for a moment and ask ourselves, are we willing to be fed with the bread of justice. And let our rising and walking and holding out our hand, be our answer, “yes.”
Friday, November 28, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Plant a Tree
Sermon preached at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene, November 16, 2007: Matthew 25:4-30
Martin Luther was asked once what he would do if he knew Jesus was coming again in a very short time. You would expect him to have answered something about getting ready for the judgment, getting his spiritual house in order. Instead he said, “Plant a tree.”
I think that is the simple message of the parable we just heard, although, granted, it takes a bit of hard thinking to get there.
Scholars and preachers have been known to call this story something like “the terrible tale of the talents.” This is a hard text, pointing out to the extreme that Jesus liked to tell stories that surprise in their choice of heroes, in the actions of the main character. And then there is the perplexing and perhaps outrageous line,
For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
That is not a pronouncement we expect to come from Jesus at all. It sounds simply unjust. How could Jesus say such a thing? What could he possibly mean by it? It is a temptation to simply dismiss the whole thing as some kind of weird anomaly, probably having more to do with sentiments in Matthew’s community than with Jesus himself.
Yet there it is in the text and in the lectionary. We just read it, which makes it the elephant in the living room. So we have to deal with it. So here goes.
A talent was a large sum of money. For a slave to be entrusted with it was itself outrageous, so the parable sends up a red flag right from the beginning. Here is Jesus again speaking in one of his favorite devices: hyperbole, exaggeration. It also reminds us that this is a story, not an historical event.
The money was “entrusted.” That’s a stewardship word. The root of the Greek word used her is the word for “gift.” In biblical language, the word “gift” does not imply a transfer of ownership but a giving of stewardship.
The money was entrusted according the “ability” of the receiver. It is a neat play on words in English that the word “talent” has come to mean, literally, an ability. The master has a sense of the talent, as we would say, of each of the slaves.
Then the master only returns “after a long time.” There was this same detail in the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids last week, the first parable of judgment from Matthew 25. There is no sense here of having to “hurry up.”
The master does eventually return, however. The slave who was entrusted with five talents returns an additional five, likewise the one with two returns two. The master has doubled his money. The third slave used the one talent he was given in a different way, he saved it, protected it. He is honest, perhaps brutally so, in explaining his motivation to so.
Master, I knew that you were a harsh man…so I was afraid…and hid your talent in the ground.
The motivation was fear and the result of the fear was the impulse to protect—to hide the talent rather than use it.
We can sympathize with this slave. If, in fact, the master was indeed a harsh man, his fear is understandable and his saving the talent can be seen as prudent. It also may have been wise given his lesser ability. He was, after all, entrusted with only one talent.
The master, however, is angry and the prudent slave is condemned as worthless.
This parable may seem to be about the use of money, but Peter Gomes, the Dean of the Chapel at Harvard and a well-known preacher, says that he thinks the parable is actually about time, that is, how we use the time while we are waiting for the master to return.[1] Last week’s parable admonished us to wait and watch. This week’s tells us that this waiting is to be active, not passive.
We are called to use the gifts that we have been given and to live without fear, be willing to take risks with what we have been given.
Whether our ability is large or small in the eyes of others, we are called to use it. And Jesus is telling us that the consequences of not using it are grave. Abilities must be exercised to be any earthly good. Gomes tells the story of the great pianist Arthur Rubenstein, who was asked why he continued to practice every day. He replied,
If I don’t practice one day, I know it; if I don’t practice two days, the critics know it; and if I don’t practice three days, everybody knows it.[2]
A “talent,” be it money or an ability, is given to do good in the world on God’s behalf. Unused talents are good for nothing. Jesus’ saying about those with talents being given more and those who don’t use them being left with nothing is not about taking away the means of life from the poor and adding to the riches of the rich. As Gomes says,
It is rather to say that those who dream no dreams shall have no vision; this [kind of] poverty is not a virtue; this poverty is the worst kind of impoverishment—the lack and fear of imagination.[3]
In the end, Jesus says, we do not, and cannot, profit from our lack of trust or our lack of action.
These are times of trouble. They are not times of doubling our money; they are times of seeing our resources dwindle. Our impulse in a time like this is to protect. God calls us to continue to risk, to continue to use our money, our talent, and our time, for the good of all, which includes ourselves, although by no means exclusively.
Is there a place for prudence? Yes. Jesus in another place calls us to be “wise as serpents” and “as shrewd as the children of this world.” But caution should never trump the continued use for good of the gifts we have been given. To act with caution is still to act; it is not to hide in fear.
John Wesley once said,
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.[4]
Or, in the words of Martin Luther, when faced with a time of crisis, “plant a tree.”
This has been a stewardship sermon. Let those with ears hear.
[1] Gomes, Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living (1998), p. 200.
[2] Gomes, p. 203.
[3] Gomes, p. 203.
[4] Quoted by Gomes, p. 204.
Martin Luther was asked once what he would do if he knew Jesus was coming again in a very short time. You would expect him to have answered something about getting ready for the judgment, getting his spiritual house in order. Instead he said, “Plant a tree.”
I think that is the simple message of the parable we just heard, although, granted, it takes a bit of hard thinking to get there.
Scholars and preachers have been known to call this story something like “the terrible tale of the talents.” This is a hard text, pointing out to the extreme that Jesus liked to tell stories that surprise in their choice of heroes, in the actions of the main character. And then there is the perplexing and perhaps outrageous line,
For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
That is not a pronouncement we expect to come from Jesus at all. It sounds simply unjust. How could Jesus say such a thing? What could he possibly mean by it? It is a temptation to simply dismiss the whole thing as some kind of weird anomaly, probably having more to do with sentiments in Matthew’s community than with Jesus himself.
Yet there it is in the text and in the lectionary. We just read it, which makes it the elephant in the living room. So we have to deal with it. So here goes.
A talent was a large sum of money. For a slave to be entrusted with it was itself outrageous, so the parable sends up a red flag right from the beginning. Here is Jesus again speaking in one of his favorite devices: hyperbole, exaggeration. It also reminds us that this is a story, not an historical event.
The money was “entrusted.” That’s a stewardship word. The root of the Greek word used her is the word for “gift.” In biblical language, the word “gift” does not imply a transfer of ownership but a giving of stewardship.
The money was entrusted according the “ability” of the receiver. It is a neat play on words in English that the word “talent” has come to mean, literally, an ability. The master has a sense of the talent, as we would say, of each of the slaves.
Then the master only returns “after a long time.” There was this same detail in the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids last week, the first parable of judgment from Matthew 25. There is no sense here of having to “hurry up.”
The master does eventually return, however. The slave who was entrusted with five talents returns an additional five, likewise the one with two returns two. The master has doubled his money. The third slave used the one talent he was given in a different way, he saved it, protected it. He is honest, perhaps brutally so, in explaining his motivation to so.
Master, I knew that you were a harsh man…so I was afraid…and hid your talent in the ground.
The motivation was fear and the result of the fear was the impulse to protect—to hide the talent rather than use it.
We can sympathize with this slave. If, in fact, the master was indeed a harsh man, his fear is understandable and his saving the talent can be seen as prudent. It also may have been wise given his lesser ability. He was, after all, entrusted with only one talent.
The master, however, is angry and the prudent slave is condemned as worthless.
This parable may seem to be about the use of money, but Peter Gomes, the Dean of the Chapel at Harvard and a well-known preacher, says that he thinks the parable is actually about time, that is, how we use the time while we are waiting for the master to return.[1] Last week’s parable admonished us to wait and watch. This week’s tells us that this waiting is to be active, not passive.
We are called to use the gifts that we have been given and to live without fear, be willing to take risks with what we have been given.
Whether our ability is large or small in the eyes of others, we are called to use it. And Jesus is telling us that the consequences of not using it are grave. Abilities must be exercised to be any earthly good. Gomes tells the story of the great pianist Arthur Rubenstein, who was asked why he continued to practice every day. He replied,
If I don’t practice one day, I know it; if I don’t practice two days, the critics know it; and if I don’t practice three days, everybody knows it.[2]
A “talent,” be it money or an ability, is given to do good in the world on God’s behalf. Unused talents are good for nothing. Jesus’ saying about those with talents being given more and those who don’t use them being left with nothing is not about taking away the means of life from the poor and adding to the riches of the rich. As Gomes says,
It is rather to say that those who dream no dreams shall have no vision; this [kind of] poverty is not a virtue; this poverty is the worst kind of impoverishment—the lack and fear of imagination.[3]
In the end, Jesus says, we do not, and cannot, profit from our lack of trust or our lack of action.
These are times of trouble. They are not times of doubling our money; they are times of seeing our resources dwindle. Our impulse in a time like this is to protect. God calls us to continue to risk, to continue to use our money, our talent, and our time, for the good of all, which includes ourselves, although by no means exclusively.
Is there a place for prudence? Yes. Jesus in another place calls us to be “wise as serpents” and “as shrewd as the children of this world.” But caution should never trump the continued use for good of the gifts we have been given. To act with caution is still to act; it is not to hide in fear.
John Wesley once said,
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.[4]
Or, in the words of Martin Luther, when faced with a time of crisis, “plant a tree.”
This has been a stewardship sermon. Let those with ears hear.
[1] Gomes, Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living (1998), p. 200.
[2] Gomes, p. 203.
[3] Gomes, p. 203.
[4] Quoted by Gomes, p. 204.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Seeing the Arc Bend
Sermon preached on November 9, 2008 at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene: Amos 8:18-24, Matthew 25:1-13
Martin Luther King, Jr. once quoted a 19th century Unitarian minister named Theodore Parker:
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.[1]
Most of the time this truth is a matter of faith. We simply must trust that it is a description of God’s reality. Once and awhile it is our glory, and God’s, actually to see the bend happening. Such was a time this week.
The prophet Amos preached to ancient Israel, “Let justice roll down like waters..”
This past Tuesday the waters of justice became a little wider and a little deeper.
Today, as we gather for the first time around this Table since the election, we do first and foremost what we come to do every week: give thanks. I found people nearly speechless on Wednesday, and perhaps that is best. To see the arc bend! How many of us thought it was truly possible, even right up to the end? Wow! Glory to God! Amen!
We have been like the bridesmaids in the parable from Matthew this morning, waiting in the meantime. Sometimes, like them, we have fallen asleep, resigning ourselves to the status quo. But we have also, for the most part, kept faith. We have kept our lamps trim. And the bridegroom has come, which is just another metaphor like “seeing the arc of bend toward justice.” It is not, of course, a coming at the end, but it is a coming nevertheless.
Much is being said about the difficult road ahead for our president-elect. We all know it is true. I think one of the most difficult things for him will be the whole set of pressures that surround being “the first.” It was heartening to hear that he is more than aware of this dynamic. Our own Bishop Gene Robinson, himself a significant “first,” has reported that Obama had conversation with him about this reality at least three times over the past year and half or so.[2]
Part of this dynamic will be the reality of presiding within an institution that remains in its actions, if not its words, unsure of your own value. Institutional racism did not die on Tuesday. It took a serious blow, but we would be like the foolish bridesmaids to think that it is dead.
My chief prayer for president-elect Obama (and I invite you to join me in this) is for him to be sustained as he constantly deals with this reality, and that his administration may be a sustained blow to it.
But, related to this, we must remain clear-eyed. As all leaders do, Barack Obama will disappoint us from time to time. He is a politician and at least some of his decisions will be based on expediency. It is the nature of the beast we call government, dealing with competing interests in an extraordinarily diverse and complex country.
Yet we must be cleared-eyed as the prophet Amos. Amos prophesied in a difficult time for prophecy, a time of great peace and prosperity for the great majority of Israel. His call, however, in the midst of seeming abundance, was to point out that this prosperity was built on the backs of a minority, that this peace and prosperity was built on fundamental injustice. It did not make him popular with the king or the majority.
Kings, however, always need prophets. David needed Nathan, Ahab needed Elijah, Jeroboam needed Amos. Obama will need a prophet as well.
It is not clear to me that there is currently a prophet in the land we call America, someone in particular who bears the progressive conscience of the nation. We should pray for one.
In the meantime, we, collectively should be one. The church, in its relationship to the world, in its place in the world, is called to be prophetic, to be the voice that cries for justice in season and out of season. It is our lot, like Amos and like Jesus, to warn that the day of accountability will come, the day when all our expediencies will be judged. We must live in the meantime but we must never settle for it.
The heartening thing for me is that I think president-elect Obama is able to hear the voice of prophecy, and has on occasion himself channeled that voice. I recently read his book, Dreams from My Father and was struck by this line. He was reflecting on the effect Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago, had, particularly on African-Americans in that city.
Like my idea of community organizing, he held out an offer of collective redemption.[3]
“An offer of collective redemption.” It is a wonderful phrase. It is also God’s dream, and the church’s call to proclaim and embody.
There remains justice work to be done to keep moving down the road toward our collective redemption. Just part of this truth is the downside of Tuesday, how lesbian and gay folk took it on the chin in four states, including having rights taken away from them in California. And, as I said, racism is hardly dead in America, even if it is, perhaps, stunned.
There is great work to be done, and we have our call from God to be a part of it.
The hope we feel today is real and to be savored in deep gratitude. Five generations or so after the horrific reality of slavery, an African-American will govern the country as its President. We have, as a people, taken a mighty step forward.
Now it remains to keep moving forward and we must continue to lead the journey. We must continue to build the city of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Can we do this? We learned this week that, by the grace of God, yes we can!
[1] Dr. King quoted the sentence frequently, most notably in a speech to the SLCC on August 16, 1967. Theodore Parker died in 1860.
[2] As reported by Ruth Gledhill online by The Times of London, November 6, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5100064.ece
[3] Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Remembrance (2004 edition), p. 158.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once quoted a 19th century Unitarian minister named Theodore Parker:
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.[1]
Most of the time this truth is a matter of faith. We simply must trust that it is a description of God’s reality. Once and awhile it is our glory, and God’s, actually to see the bend happening. Such was a time this week.
The prophet Amos preached to ancient Israel, “Let justice roll down like waters..”
This past Tuesday the waters of justice became a little wider and a little deeper.
Today, as we gather for the first time around this Table since the election, we do first and foremost what we come to do every week: give thanks. I found people nearly speechless on Wednesday, and perhaps that is best. To see the arc bend! How many of us thought it was truly possible, even right up to the end? Wow! Glory to God! Amen!
We have been like the bridesmaids in the parable from Matthew this morning, waiting in the meantime. Sometimes, like them, we have fallen asleep, resigning ourselves to the status quo. But we have also, for the most part, kept faith. We have kept our lamps trim. And the bridegroom has come, which is just another metaphor like “seeing the arc of bend toward justice.” It is not, of course, a coming at the end, but it is a coming nevertheless.
Much is being said about the difficult road ahead for our president-elect. We all know it is true. I think one of the most difficult things for him will be the whole set of pressures that surround being “the first.” It was heartening to hear that he is more than aware of this dynamic. Our own Bishop Gene Robinson, himself a significant “first,” has reported that Obama had conversation with him about this reality at least three times over the past year and half or so.[2]
Part of this dynamic will be the reality of presiding within an institution that remains in its actions, if not its words, unsure of your own value. Institutional racism did not die on Tuesday. It took a serious blow, but we would be like the foolish bridesmaids to think that it is dead.
My chief prayer for president-elect Obama (and I invite you to join me in this) is for him to be sustained as he constantly deals with this reality, and that his administration may be a sustained blow to it.
But, related to this, we must remain clear-eyed. As all leaders do, Barack Obama will disappoint us from time to time. He is a politician and at least some of his decisions will be based on expediency. It is the nature of the beast we call government, dealing with competing interests in an extraordinarily diverse and complex country.
Yet we must be cleared-eyed as the prophet Amos. Amos prophesied in a difficult time for prophecy, a time of great peace and prosperity for the great majority of Israel. His call, however, in the midst of seeming abundance, was to point out that this prosperity was built on the backs of a minority, that this peace and prosperity was built on fundamental injustice. It did not make him popular with the king or the majority.
Kings, however, always need prophets. David needed Nathan, Ahab needed Elijah, Jeroboam needed Amos. Obama will need a prophet as well.
It is not clear to me that there is currently a prophet in the land we call America, someone in particular who bears the progressive conscience of the nation. We should pray for one.
In the meantime, we, collectively should be one. The church, in its relationship to the world, in its place in the world, is called to be prophetic, to be the voice that cries for justice in season and out of season. It is our lot, like Amos and like Jesus, to warn that the day of accountability will come, the day when all our expediencies will be judged. We must live in the meantime but we must never settle for it.
The heartening thing for me is that I think president-elect Obama is able to hear the voice of prophecy, and has on occasion himself channeled that voice. I recently read his book, Dreams from My Father and was struck by this line. He was reflecting on the effect Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago, had, particularly on African-Americans in that city.
Like my idea of community organizing, he held out an offer of collective redemption.[3]
“An offer of collective redemption.” It is a wonderful phrase. It is also God’s dream, and the church’s call to proclaim and embody.
There remains justice work to be done to keep moving down the road toward our collective redemption. Just part of this truth is the downside of Tuesday, how lesbian and gay folk took it on the chin in four states, including having rights taken away from them in California. And, as I said, racism is hardly dead in America, even if it is, perhaps, stunned.
There is great work to be done, and we have our call from God to be a part of it.
The hope we feel today is real and to be savored in deep gratitude. Five generations or so after the horrific reality of slavery, an African-American will govern the country as its President. We have, as a people, taken a mighty step forward.
Now it remains to keep moving forward and we must continue to lead the journey. We must continue to build the city of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Can we do this? We learned this week that, by the grace of God, yes we can!
[1] Dr. King quoted the sentence frequently, most notably in a speech to the SLCC on August 16, 1967. Theodore Parker died in 1860.
[2] As reported by Ruth Gledhill online by The Times of London, November 6, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5100064.ece
[3] Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Remembrance (2004 edition), p. 158.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Our Prayer from Ancient Times
Barack Obama's election has me soaring inside this morning, and, lo and behold, I come to Morning Prayer today and the psalm appointed is one of ancient Israel's great prayers for their ruler (Psalm 72):
Give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the King's Son; that he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice; that the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, and the little hills bring righteousness.
We have not, of course, elected a "king," but this prayer belongs to us this day nevertheless. And there is a wonderful sense in which this prayer has some of its own fulfillment in this election, for surely what has happened, among other things, is a step toward justice. A step, mind you, with many more needing to follow, but a decisive step to be sure.
This prayer from our ancestors, of course, had to be prayed (and does still) because rulers have other options than righteousness and justice. Our ancestors knew this well, and we should never forget it. The kings of Israel always needed the prophets to remind them of this. Perhaps we have no singular prophets in our time, people like Amos or Jeremiah or Isaiah, or even, for that matter, Martin Luther King, Jr. All the more reason for us to live into our common vocation to be a prophetic people, holding the feet of our leaders to the fire of God's justice. Yes, we will even have to do this for President-elect Obama.
There is another line of the psalm that is poignant for me today, because the news is not all good.
For [the king] shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, and the oppressed who has no helper.
Gay and lesbian citizens appear to have taken it on the chin yesterday in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas. It is all the more bitter because it was, by and large, portions of the church that delivered the blow. If we took a big step yesterday toward what the opening line of the Constitution calls a "more perfect union," there was a stutter in the step. All are not free in this land of freedom. This, too, must be addressed, and I, for one, don't have any illusions of how difficult this will be. It is almost always expedient for rulers to look the other way when it comes to the oppressed, in particular those deemed "unclean" by the prevailing religious view.
But despite this painful side of yesterday's result, this remains a day to be savored and celebrated. Martin Luther King, Jr. once quoted a nineteenth century Unitarian minister: "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." Most times that is a matter of faith. Occasionally you actually get to see the bending, and it is a marvelous sight.
Psalm 72 ends where all good prayer ends:
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous deeds! And blessed be his glorious Name for ever, and may all the earth be filled with his glory. Amen. Amen.
Give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the King's Son; that he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice; that the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, and the little hills bring righteousness.
We have not, of course, elected a "king," but this prayer belongs to us this day nevertheless. And there is a wonderful sense in which this prayer has some of its own fulfillment in this election, for surely what has happened, among other things, is a step toward justice. A step, mind you, with many more needing to follow, but a decisive step to be sure.
This prayer from our ancestors, of course, had to be prayed (and does still) because rulers have other options than righteousness and justice. Our ancestors knew this well, and we should never forget it. The kings of Israel always needed the prophets to remind them of this. Perhaps we have no singular prophets in our time, people like Amos or Jeremiah or Isaiah, or even, for that matter, Martin Luther King, Jr. All the more reason for us to live into our common vocation to be a prophetic people, holding the feet of our leaders to the fire of God's justice. Yes, we will even have to do this for President-elect Obama.
There is another line of the psalm that is poignant for me today, because the news is not all good.
For [the king] shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, and the oppressed who has no helper.
Gay and lesbian citizens appear to have taken it on the chin yesterday in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas. It is all the more bitter because it was, by and large, portions of the church that delivered the blow. If we took a big step yesterday toward what the opening line of the Constitution calls a "more perfect union," there was a stutter in the step. All are not free in this land of freedom. This, too, must be addressed, and I, for one, don't have any illusions of how difficult this will be. It is almost always expedient for rulers to look the other way when it comes to the oppressed, in particular those deemed "unclean" by the prevailing religious view.
But despite this painful side of yesterday's result, this remains a day to be savored and celebrated. Martin Luther King, Jr. once quoted a nineteenth century Unitarian minister: "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." Most times that is a matter of faith. Occasionally you actually get to see the bending, and it is a marvelous sight.
Psalm 72 ends where all good prayer ends:
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous deeds! And blessed be his glorious Name for ever, and may all the earth be filled with his glory. Amen. Amen.
Monday, November 03, 2008
And that is what we are
Sermon preached on All Saints' Sunday at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene: 1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12
It’s All Saints’ Sunday and we’ve got the best news to tell in the whole wide world, that is, if we can avoid the traps that are set before us that can undo that good news in the wink of an eye.
There are at least three places where the trap is manifest this morning. First up is the Collect of the Day, the prayer at the opening of the Service. It begins with an amazing lead-in that is Anglican praying at its best:
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord…
Beautiful. Makes the heart leap. Except perhaps for that little word “elect” which foreshadows the trap. And here it comes:
Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you…
What do those words seem to tell us? That we are saints when we are virtuous and our living is “godly,” and if we manage to do that we will get into heaven. Sprong! The trap has got us.
Second we just heard the Beatitudes, one of the most familiar and beloved passages of Scripture. “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” They are profound and beautiful. But the trap is there, because it is so easy to read them as a formula: “if you do this, then you will get this.” It seems there is a reward for good behavior or for suffering. Sprong! The trap has us again!
And then there is this baptism we are doing this morning. We are making little Izayah a member of the body of Christ, a saint. The trap is that we think we can do this because he is just an innocent child. He couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong yet. He is as pure as the driven snow. Sprong! The trap has us again!
We mean well. We want to be good, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. God is happy when you and I try to be “virtuous” and to lead “godly lives.”
The trap we set for ourselves, however, is thinking that it is our goodness that will save us. The trap is believing that it is our virtue that makes God fall in love with us. The trap is proclaiming that in order to be right with God you have to behave yourself. You need to make yourself worthy of God’s favor.
It is what we proclaim far too often. It is, at least, what people hear. “I’m no saint,” they say, even we say sometimes. “I hope the roof doesn’t fall in,” they say when they come into church after a long absence. Thousands of people give up on God because they hear us saying that God has given up on them.
Which is not the good news.
The good news is this: We are saints. We are. Good, bad and everything in between. We are saints. It’s a miracle!
We are saints not because we behave ourselves but because God loves us, and God always loves us first, before we do anything at all.
That’s why we can baptize this baby. That’s what his baptism is an amazing sign of: it is not what we do that matters, it’s what God does. God has taken the initiative to love us. As John says in the little bit of his letter that we just heard,
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.
That is what we are! Can you hear that Church? That is what we are. I know your ears are hearing it, but does your soul hear it deep down in the center of your very being? That is what we are!
It is our identity that is proclaimed in our baptism and carried with us as a mark, a seal, on our souls. We are loved. We are children of God. We are saints. And we haven’t done anything to deserve it! Nothing!
Now isn’t that a kick in the pants!
That is the good news we have to proclaim. And it is worth proclaiming! And the world around us desperately needs to hear it! We need to hear it. Do we have to be convinced of how desperately?
Last night at this Altar, after we had read the names of all those who have gone before us into the nearer presence of God, we remembered all those who had been murdered in this city since All Saints’ Day last year. There were 48 of them. And that’s in a year of so-called “zero tolerance.” 48.
The tragedy is this: I’m willing to bet that very few of them knew in his or her heart that she or he was a child of God, beloved just because they are. And I’m certainly willing to bet that perhaps none of those who did the murdering knew that.
People do not know that God loves them. I mean really loves them, so that their dignity as a human being is never in question. No one can give them their dignity or take it away. It is an eternal gift from God. People don’t know that and it is our fault.
But what about behavior? Doesn’t behavior matter? Isn’t it an epidemic of bad behavior that is getting us into this trouble? I don’t think so. I think it is an epidemic of the lack of the belief in the unconditional love of God.
Loved people do not kill other people. Dignified people do not need intentionally to do wrong to another.
Let me speak to this family, but I want all of you to hear it. Don’t you ever dare let this child believe he is not a child of God no matter what. Don’t you dare let this child ever believe that he needs somebody else, including you, to give him the dignity that is his by right of his being alive. Teach him that nothing can separate him from the love of God. Tell him over and over again what we say over him today, “You are marked as Christ’s own for ever.”
Church, let us step back from the trap of thinking we can earn our way to God’s love, that we get into heaven when we’ve behaved ourselves. That is not the good news we have to proclaim. It’s not the good news that Jesus proclaimed. It’s not the good news that our ancestors like Paul and John and Mary and Luke and Simon and Stephen handed on to us.
The good news is that we are saints. The good news is that we are loved. The good news is that we are called children of God, and that is what we are.
It’s All Saints’ Sunday and we’ve got the best news to tell in the whole wide world, that is, if we can avoid the traps that are set before us that can undo that good news in the wink of an eye.
There are at least three places where the trap is manifest this morning. First up is the Collect of the Day, the prayer at the opening of the Service. It begins with an amazing lead-in that is Anglican praying at its best:
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord…
Beautiful. Makes the heart leap. Except perhaps for that little word “elect” which foreshadows the trap. And here it comes:
Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you…
What do those words seem to tell us? That we are saints when we are virtuous and our living is “godly,” and if we manage to do that we will get into heaven. Sprong! The trap has got us.
Second we just heard the Beatitudes, one of the most familiar and beloved passages of Scripture. “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” They are profound and beautiful. But the trap is there, because it is so easy to read them as a formula: “if you do this, then you will get this.” It seems there is a reward for good behavior or for suffering. Sprong! The trap has us again!
And then there is this baptism we are doing this morning. We are making little Izayah a member of the body of Christ, a saint. The trap is that we think we can do this because he is just an innocent child. He couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong yet. He is as pure as the driven snow. Sprong! The trap has us again!
We mean well. We want to be good, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. God is happy when you and I try to be “virtuous” and to lead “godly lives.”
The trap we set for ourselves, however, is thinking that it is our goodness that will save us. The trap is believing that it is our virtue that makes God fall in love with us. The trap is proclaiming that in order to be right with God you have to behave yourself. You need to make yourself worthy of God’s favor.
It is what we proclaim far too often. It is, at least, what people hear. “I’m no saint,” they say, even we say sometimes. “I hope the roof doesn’t fall in,” they say when they come into church after a long absence. Thousands of people give up on God because they hear us saying that God has given up on them.
Which is not the good news.
The good news is this: We are saints. We are. Good, bad and everything in between. We are saints. It’s a miracle!
We are saints not because we behave ourselves but because God loves us, and God always loves us first, before we do anything at all.
That’s why we can baptize this baby. That’s what his baptism is an amazing sign of: it is not what we do that matters, it’s what God does. God has taken the initiative to love us. As John says in the little bit of his letter that we just heard,
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.
That is what we are! Can you hear that Church? That is what we are. I know your ears are hearing it, but does your soul hear it deep down in the center of your very being? That is what we are!
It is our identity that is proclaimed in our baptism and carried with us as a mark, a seal, on our souls. We are loved. We are children of God. We are saints. And we haven’t done anything to deserve it! Nothing!
Now isn’t that a kick in the pants!
That is the good news we have to proclaim. And it is worth proclaiming! And the world around us desperately needs to hear it! We need to hear it. Do we have to be convinced of how desperately?
Last night at this Altar, after we had read the names of all those who have gone before us into the nearer presence of God, we remembered all those who had been murdered in this city since All Saints’ Day last year. There were 48 of them. And that’s in a year of so-called “zero tolerance.” 48.
The tragedy is this: I’m willing to bet that very few of them knew in his or her heart that she or he was a child of God, beloved just because they are. And I’m certainly willing to bet that perhaps none of those who did the murdering knew that.
People do not know that God loves them. I mean really loves them, so that their dignity as a human being is never in question. No one can give them their dignity or take it away. It is an eternal gift from God. People don’t know that and it is our fault.
But what about behavior? Doesn’t behavior matter? Isn’t it an epidemic of bad behavior that is getting us into this trouble? I don’t think so. I think it is an epidemic of the lack of the belief in the unconditional love of God.
Loved people do not kill other people. Dignified people do not need intentionally to do wrong to another.
Let me speak to this family, but I want all of you to hear it. Don’t you ever dare let this child believe he is not a child of God no matter what. Don’t you dare let this child ever believe that he needs somebody else, including you, to give him the dignity that is his by right of his being alive. Teach him that nothing can separate him from the love of God. Tell him over and over again what we say over him today, “You are marked as Christ’s own for ever.”
Church, let us step back from the trap of thinking we can earn our way to God’s love, that we get into heaven when we’ve behaved ourselves. That is not the good news we have to proclaim. It’s not the good news that Jesus proclaimed. It’s not the good news that our ancestors like Paul and John and Mary and Luke and Simon and Stephen handed on to us.
The good news is that we are saints. The good news is that we are loved. The good news is that we are called children of God, and that is what we are.
TheRedemption of Remembering
Sermon preached at Evensong on All Saints' Day at the Church of St. Luke 7 St. Simon Cyrene (joint celebration with St. Stephen's Church): Wisdom 3:1-9
Their departure was thought to be a disaster… [but] their hope is full of immortality.
The part of All Saints’ Day that is remembering those who have gone before us, the saints of our own lives whose physical presence we longer have, is hard. Each of the names we will read in a few minutes is someone who is missed, who was once a part of one of our lives, who left a whole when they departed from us.
The Wisdom of Solomon recognizes this reality.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster…
Well, we are fools, and when some of those whom we name tonight died, it was a disaster. For some of us, it still is.
Remembering is hard. My grandmother Leah died thirty-seven years ago and when I think about her, I still feel it in my gut. Something seems wrong.
Remembering is hard. It is hard because it is trying literally to “re-member” someone, to put them back into the present, in the place they belong. But, of course, we cannot do that.
It is no wonder that we do things to try to forget. Who wants to be in pain; who wants to feel perpetual loss?
So we tell ourselves we must let go, move on, and “get closure.” But these things can never mean “forget,” and I think some of us get trapped into thinking that they do. Have I, in a sense, “moved on” since my grandmother’s death? Sure. I’ve continued to live and live as well as I could. Have I “let go?” No, and I think that is perfectly fine.
It’s perfectly fine because God never lets go. That is our hope, the rock-bottom of our faith. If we thought we really did have to “let go” then we would never say, “I believe in the communion of saints.”
All Saints’ Day is a day to remember, and remembering is hard. But it is also a day when we proclaim the redemption of remembering. The hardness of remembering is tempered by our faith “in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the live everlasting.”
So as we remember this evening and feel again that twinge of loss, we also believe that nothing is lost to God. As we remember and recall the sense of disaster we also proclaim the hope that continues to make life worth living. As we remember and wonder what has happened to those we love, we hear the amazing good news that God has made them and us “worthy of himself.”
Remembering is hard, but we are people for whom remembering has been redeemed, and so we can dare to keep on doing it.
Their departure was thought to be a disaster… [but] their hope is full of immortality.
The part of All Saints’ Day that is remembering those who have gone before us, the saints of our own lives whose physical presence we longer have, is hard. Each of the names we will read in a few minutes is someone who is missed, who was once a part of one of our lives, who left a whole when they departed from us.
The Wisdom of Solomon recognizes this reality.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster…
Well, we are fools, and when some of those whom we name tonight died, it was a disaster. For some of us, it still is.
Remembering is hard. My grandmother Leah died thirty-seven years ago and when I think about her, I still feel it in my gut. Something seems wrong.
Remembering is hard. It is hard because it is trying literally to “re-member” someone, to put them back into the present, in the place they belong. But, of course, we cannot do that.
It is no wonder that we do things to try to forget. Who wants to be in pain; who wants to feel perpetual loss?
So we tell ourselves we must let go, move on, and “get closure.” But these things can never mean “forget,” and I think some of us get trapped into thinking that they do. Have I, in a sense, “moved on” since my grandmother’s death? Sure. I’ve continued to live and live as well as I could. Have I “let go?” No, and I think that is perfectly fine.
It’s perfectly fine because God never lets go. That is our hope, the rock-bottom of our faith. If we thought we really did have to “let go” then we would never say, “I believe in the communion of saints.”
All Saints’ Day is a day to remember, and remembering is hard. But it is also a day when we proclaim the redemption of remembering. The hardness of remembering is tempered by our faith “in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the live everlasting.”
So as we remember this evening and feel again that twinge of loss, we also believe that nothing is lost to God. As we remember and recall the sense of disaster we also proclaim the hope that continues to make life worth living. As we remember and wonder what has happened to those we love, we hear the amazing good news that God has made them and us “worthy of himself.”
Remembering is hard, but we are people for whom remembering has been redeemed, and so we can dare to keep on doing it.
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