“The View From Mount Nebo” -- Deuteronomy 34:1–22 & Saint Matthew 22:34–46

I firmly believe that I was destined to become a theologian at a very early age because of the church of my childhood. The place were the faith embraced me was full of warm, wonderful people all of whom, if they had an ounce of energy in them, were willing to devote it to the cause. A retired coat-hanger salesman banged out gospel hymns by ear on the piano, while a postal worker whose children were so past Sunday School age that they were teachers, led the singing. And it was all headed up by an unmarried woman (a spinster, in the PC-incorrect parlance of those days) name Martha a middle school teacher, who like here biblical namesake was a workhorse even though she weighed little more than a Clydesdale’s hoof.

The most obvious problem with the place was its name. Most of you grew up in churches with understandable names. Messiah, Bethesda, Ebenezer, Saint John, Saint Mark, Saint Mark or Saint Luke – clearly names right out of the bible. Or, place names like Park View that told you in what neighborhood the church was located. Or, the numbering system of the Presbyterians and Methodists -- First, Fourth – and the like. And then there were the faithful Swedes who gathered at Menard and Dakin at the turn of the last century and named their church Nebo. From that day until the church closed it doors generation upon generation had to answer the question, “What’s a Nebo?” You had to have an instant recall of biblically obscure places to come up with the answer, “It was the mountain on which Moses died.”

(I am forever grateful that the founders of the church did not name it Mount Nebo. That would have been the ultimate oxymoron because Portage Park, like this area, is as flat as the plains of Moab.)

Or, maybe the church was aptly named because we can never really get to the promised land in this life – we can only get an occasion glimpse of it. The rest of our time it may feel like we are wandering around in the wilderness.

The Children of Israel, we are told, wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Listen to me now because I am about to tell you something stunning. While I don’t know just what the boundaries of Egypt and the Promised land were then I do know that the distance between downtown Cairo, Egypt and downtown Jerusalem is 264 miles. That is the distance between Detroit and Chicago.

History tells us that the Mormon wagon trains headed westward averaged 11¼ miles per day so simple math would tell us that the trip from Egypt to the promised land should have taken no more than 23½ days. Less than a month! Instead it took them forty years! What was once just an accepted fact now becomes a puzzle: What took them so long?

Scripture tells us that they “wandered” in the wilderness. And I’m telling you that they wandered because they spent most of their time fighting. Pick any part of the wilderness journey at random and you will find the people complaining and bickering and fighting. Not three days into their journey they were complaining about their meager provisions and longing for Egypt so God gives them manna and before long they complain about that so God sends them quail, a little something to go with the manna. Before long they complain about that. Moses goes up to the mountain for the ten commandments and they build an altar to Baal which gets God so angry with the people that Moses has to fight with God for their continued existence. And the point to us is simply: If you want to spend all your time fighting it’s going to take you a whole lot longer to get where you want to go than it would any other way.

Suddenly the view from Mount Nebo is clearer. You might even be able to see yourself their on the plains of Moab. If your inclination is to fight rather than move forward you can forget about making any progress. You’re just going to wander in the wilderness until the day God calls you home or wherever it is God calls you to. If there is one word in the clouds that you can see from your view from Mount Nebo and the word is – focus.

Recently I saw the Book of Mormon on Broadway. It’s coming to Chicago next year and, let me warn you right now, it is not for those who are easily offended. But with that disclaimer out of the way it is story of the triumph of faith.

Elder Kevin Price is a gooder than gold young Mormon whose greatest desire for his missionary trip is to be sent to Orlando, Florida. He butters up everybody for this plum assignment but instead is sent to Uganda where the outpost has not had a single convert in years. Nothing works and even after Price arrives with his many skills and his sizable ego there is still nothing. After witnessing the brutality of a local war Lord he begins to lose faith in his religion and desides that he is going to ask be reassigned to Orlando.

Remember this is a musical and these are Mormons and I’m not going to take forty years to make my point. Price is in his own personal wilderness. He is lost, he is complaining, and he is longing for home. But instead of abandoning his church Elder Price decides to reaffirm everything his church believes as he sings, “I am a Mormon and I believe.” It’s a powerful number that even while reciting their somewhat strange history and doctrines also reminds Price and his audience that “God has a plan for all of us” and that “God always has your back.” In the middle of song he has gained enough courage to march himself into the camp of the war lord, grab the guy by the hand, and by the conclusion , has the war lord sort of swaying along too. Sort of.

Sometimes we wander but sometimes faith can cause us to do brave things.

Thus the envelope I gave you this morning. Each one has five magnets in them. One of those magnets you can place on your own refrigerator door but the rest you are to share with friends. Yes, I am asking you to do your own personal missionary journey and share your faith. I’m not shipping you off to Uganda and there is no trip to Orlando involved. All I am asking you to do is give four magnets away to people who you think might benefit from an exposure to Christianity. And here is what makes the part so much easier than a trip to Africa – the magnets say “St’s” or “Park View in Your PJ’s.” All you have to tell people is “Our pastor [modestly spoken] had this brilliant idea an put our church on the web. You can watch at home late at night, early in the morning, whenever you want dressed however you want. And if it interests you, come join us.”

I read an article recently about how the Roman Catholic Church in Southern India concerned, like their American counterparts, about dwindling numbers are encouraging their members to have more children. Believe me when I tell you, this method is infinitely cheaper!

God is not calling you to lead people into the promised land. God didn’t ask that of Moses and he doesn’t ask that of you. All he is asking you to do is give them a glimpse of what it is like. As Elder Price found out in the play, you can’t bring people to faith by just winning words and promises. As Moses found out you can’t drag people kicking and screaming into the promised land. But you can invite them to come up to the top of the mountain and take a look at the life God offers them, discover the difference God can make, and experience the love of a community of faith that is firmly rooted in Jesus Christ.

Share your magnets! Tell others that you’re a Christian and that you believe! Let them experience what you’ve experienced – paraphrasing Elder Price, “Dang it, the view from the top of Mount Nebo is pretty good.” Amen.

16 October 2011

"Whose Dime Is It Anyway?" --Saint Matthew 22:15-22

I always hated it when Pastors returned from their vacation and then told stories about what happened to them in their sermons but here I go this Sunday not only being the chief sinner but sinning boldly.

This week I was in New York with a friend to see some Broadway shows that when they arrive in Chicago will almost certainly not have the same casts:“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” with Daniel Radcliffe and John Larrocette and “The Book of Mormon.” More about that play in another sermon. Sorry.

Also going on in New York while we were there was something called the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations. As someone who came of age during the sixties and grew up watching sit-ins and demonstrations that closed down large portions of cities and universities for days I was looking forward to seeing a major news making event first hand. I was disappointed.

First, because if the demonstrators were going to try and take back Wall Street they missed their target by at least a-half-a-mile. That is where my friend Les and I originally looked. We went to Wall Street but there we found business as usual. However, walking over to Trinity Church to attend the Noon Eucharist (And yes, I do practice what I preach and attend church when I am on vacation even when it is a Wednesday!) we walked past this park full of people. Liberty Park is small, probably no bigger than Independence Park and from across the street we couldn’t tell what was going on but upon closer examination we discovered that we had stumbled upon the rally of rally’s and found it to be a dud.

After church, as we walked through the park trying to find out just what it was the demonstrators wanted we were less jostled than we were just walking down the average New York sidewalk – where walking is considered to be a full contact sport – and it seemed that they didn’t know what they wanted. Many of their ideas were great: “End greed.” Sounds good to me except, of course when I want more than I have. “End Government Waste!” A conservative could hold that sign. “Wipe out Hunger!” Couldn’t agree more. “Cure HIV/AIDS! Malaria! Parkinson’s! Cancer!” All great signs. All worthy causes. And I am sure that the people holding the signs and the people immediately around them were deeply committed while others in the park were content to use those upside-down paint buckets for drums, like they do outside of the ball park, and listen to a pretty good band, but there were no speeches, no outrage, no “to the barricades.” What the rally was really about was money. Who gets it? Who has it? And what are they doing with it? In that sense the demonstration would have been far more powerful if so many people were not taking pictures of each other with the i-Phones and listening to music on their i-pods.

Money has a tendency to get people to fighting. In families, in churches, in communities, the distribution of funds can cause a major disturbance. It also can get people who really are on the same side to fighting among each other.

The religious leaders try to entrap Jesus using a Roman coin. This is irony in the first degree because if there was one thing that Jesus and the religious leaders could have agreed upon was how the Roman government was the oppressor. Sure it built roads, kept the peace, and made sure things were nice and quiet but it did so with a very heavy hand. It bled you dry in taxes and made sure every thing was peaceful by severely punishing anybody who stepped out of line. While a Roman Soldier would keep you safe from a predator there was nothing or no one who could keep you safe if you fell prey to a Roman Soldier. Jesus would soon find that out more than any of those who were trying to trick him.

What you have to remember most when you read of this encounter is that nobody in this story enjoyed the protection of the First Amendment that we cherish so dearly. Freedom of speech was not seen as a right. So, the question is designed to get Jesus in trouble with the government. If he says taxes are not lawful and word gets back to the authorities he could be charged with sedition.

But Jesus is not fooled. He looks at the coin and inquires about the image. “Whose is it?” he asks. “Caesar’s” they reply. And then he gives them the best advice they ever received: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

We stand and smile at the wisdom of Jesus and how he put down his challengers but what does this say to us? Jesus is not passing out free tax advice. He is not even trying to teach us how to stay out of hot water with the law. He is saying something to the Wall Street Broker and the protestors banging on their drum in the park. He is talking to the “Tea Party” member and the most liberal member of congress. He is talking to every one of us.

And the key to understanding what he is saying lies in the face and the inscription on that coin. Marcus Borg tells us that the image was “of course, an image of Caesar (presumably of Tiberius, the current Caesar). Moreover, its inscription heralded Tiberius as "son of the divine Augustus" (that is, son of a divine being).” The guy on the coin thought he was god. He was not and anybody who put their faith in him or his money was doomed. Because neither the emperor nor the money he coined or in our case the government prints, is god.

What Jesus goes on to remind us is that everything belongs to God. That coin, that emperor, the state, the religious leaders, all of it, all of us, belong to God. If we rendered to God the things that are God’s it would be everything that we have and are.

What if the largest hedge fund manager in the world looked at his computer screen and said, “All this doesn’t belong to me or even the investors, it belongs to God?” What if the most powerful people in government stopped for one second and said, “all this doesn’t belong to me – or even the American people we so confidently claim to speak for – it belongs to God?” What if you and I every time we summoned up our Quicken® on our computer or for those of you who like to do things the old fashioned way, opened up our checkbooks said, “all this” or “this little bit belongs to God.” Somehow I think this little change would have more impact on life than the occupation of a small city park in the middle of New York.

Later that same day I looked up at a ticker on one of the numerous billboards in Times Square and read that Apple® founder Steve Jobs had died. It was not unexpected. He had pancreatic cancer, the most virulent form imaginable, and had survived with it for longer than most. Steve Jobs was rich, incredibly rich, but he had made a lot of other people rich too. You probably own some Apple® stock in your retirement accounts, too and they are more secure because of it.

In 2005, long after his diagnoses, Jobs addressed the Stanford graduating class and said:

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.

Something wonderful, something meaningful, something important can only be done if we remember that we, and all things belong to God. Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and give all that you have, all that you are, all that you’ve got, all that you will ever have to God and at the end of your day, at the end of your life, you’ll have done something wonderful. Just like Jesus promised. Amen.

©The Rev’d Dr. David C. Nelson
9 October 2011

"Whose Dime Is It Anyway?

"Does Scripture Really Say..." Exodus 32:1-14 and Saint Matthew 22:1-14

Some stories are almost too good to be true. When I tell one myself I always borrow the line from Dave Berry: “I’m not making this up.” Some stuff you can’t make up. So you have to believe the story J.C. Austin, Associate Pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, told about a visitor who attended worship pretty regularly but always showed up at events where free food was involved.

(The man was the living, breathing, proof of my axiom: “If you feed them they will come.” And you know what I mean. There are some people who only attend church events when there is food is being served otherwise they are nowhere to be seen.)

Austin’s guy at Madison Avenue showed every time there was a church supper and ate like there was no tomorrow. Some of the members worried that the guy was underemployed and couldn’t afford a good meal on his own but, with some checking, found that he had a job, his own apartment, and clearly wasn’t someone having trouble meeting his basic needs. He just liked to chow down.

And for a hot minute Austin thought they had reached the guy because he showed up for Inquirers Classes where there was, naturally, a free lunch. When they got to the end of the course Austin’s dreams for the faith of the man were dashed. Here is the magic moment in J.C.’s own words:

When we got to the end of the course, I explained the five responsibilities of membership as defined by MAPC's Session: centering your faith in regular worship attendance, deepening it through education, putting it into action through one form of service, making it tangible through a financial pledge that is generous according to your resources, and sharing it by inviting two others to MAPC. I asked if there were any questions. Putting down the chicken salad wrap he was working on, he wiped his mouth and raised his hand. "What's the point?" he asked. I said I wasn't sure what he meant. "I mean, what do you get out of it?" he continued. "You don't kick people out of stuff because they're not members, do you?" Of course not, I said. "Then what difference does it make? Why would anyone bother to join?" he asked. I responded that joining the church wasn't about things that you had to do for the church in order to reap the benefits; membership itself is the benefit, because if you follow those practices you will be led into a deeper and richer relationship with God as you follow Jesus Christ, and you will have the whole church to both give you support and give you opportunities to support others. He snorted: "Well, I can't see any reason why anyone would do that, and I'm not going to."

One would have thought that would have been that but no...

Here's the kicker: six weeks later he showed up at the next Inquirers Seminar! I greeted him and told him that he didn't need to come through the course again, that if he had changed his mind about membership, he could simply proceed with joining the church. "Oh, I haven't changed my mind," he said, smiling. Puzzled, I asked if there was something about theology or history he wanted to dig into more deeply the second time around. "No," he said; "I'm just here to listen and eat lunch." At that, I took him aside [and] simply said, "Any time you want to inquire about something related to faith or membership, I'll be happy to meet with you personally. And if you're facing any kind of personal trouble, I'll be glad to talk about it and see if there's any way we can help. But you can't take this class again just to eat lunch." He glowered at me. "And I thought this was a church," he growled, and stormed off. (J.C. Austin, "Come As You Are...But You Can't Stay That Way." Sermon Preached at The Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York, 12 October 2008)

It should come as no surprise to you that as far as God is concerned a lot of people are “on the take.” They want God to provide for them and care for them but they absolutely do not want to have anything to do with God when God asks something of them. This is not new, in fact it goes back to the beginning of Scripture and continues through-out whole of the book. The two stories before us this day make that point crystal clear.

Placing the Exodus story in it’s proper context is important. This is Moses second visit to Mount Sinai and on his first he had returned with the Ten Commandments. So the Children of Israel already know about the “you shall have no other God’s” part and they know that what they are doing is wrong. But Moses is taking a long time up there and they are getting antsy so they talk his brother Aaron in to giving them something tangible to worship. For some reason Aaron does, and when he is done melting down all their stuff and making it into a tacky rendition of a calf he actually proclaims it not only to be a god but says: “‘Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.’” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well- being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.” Aaron calls the statue LORD, Elohim, in the Hebrew one of the cherished names for the LORD, God Almighty and then they had a buffet supper.

The Hebrews were not just trying to control God, they were trying to replace God with one who was more manageable, delivering religious benefits whenever they wanted them but without the pesky problem of being a living God who requires something of them. The real Lord, God Almighty will hear none of this and finally grows tired of the people’s rebellious nature deciding to reduce them to rubble.

It’s today’s Gospel writ large. Those invited to the great feast of the King snubbed him. It’s not that they were unwilling to attend they just plain didn’t want to attend. One goes to his field another to his business, these are personal, trivial concerns that they think are more important than the king’s invitation to this celebration for his son. To put it directly, they did not care about what God had to offer.

But this King, like God, is not wasteful. If some people don’t want what God has to offer there are others that do. And so the King sends his servants out and issues a general invitation to anybody to come to the feast. There is only one condition, and it seems like a simple one compared to sitting through two new members classes to get a chicken wrap sandwich. You had to go home, wash up a bit and change into your best wedding garment.

Sometimes we have had to do that too. You get an invitation that reads “Black Tie and Evening Wear” and no matter how you feel about it you rent or dust-off your tux if you are a guy and, if you are a woman, find, borrow or buy a nice dress so you can go. You do it because to do anything less is to dishonor the occasion. To show up in torn jeans, a dirty T-shirt and gym shoes would show not only contempt not just for the occasion but for the people who invited you.

The guy who gets the gate in Jesus’ parable is probably the easiest to understand in all of scriptures. He’s like the guy chowing down at the new members class but wanting nothing to do with the responsibilities of membership. He’s a rebellious teenager who has reached middle age. We understand his getting the boot. He is the personification of the children of Israel with whom God is so angry with that God could boot them into oblivion.

Yet, it was Moses who interceded with God on behalf of a people who had driven him crazy too. He says, in effect, “You can’t kill them. It would only prove the Egyptian’s point that they were so worthless that even the God they worshiped could find no good in them and so wiped them out. You can’t do this. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Remember how they did listen to you when you lead them out of slavery. One more chance. Come on. One more chance.”

And Scripture says plainly: “And the Lord changed his mind.”

This sermon would have been a whole lot more fun to preach if I could have let the people who come to church just to eat, or follow God just when they want to, or show their disrespect for God in countless different ways more dreadful than the dinner guest’s apparel, have it. But they are not here. They are in their torn pajamas blasting through a fast food drive-thru getting breakfast only to go home and do exactly what they want to do on Sunday morning, just like they do on any other.

But you are here and I think I know you well enough to know why. You got all dolled up and dropped by this morning because you know that God changed God’s mind about you. You went through your rebellious stage and found it wanting. You built your gold calves and found that what they offered was never enough. You turned your back on God more than once in your life and discovered that while you may have given God more than enough reason to drop you in the nearest dumpster, God never turned God’s back on you. That is why you’re here. That is why I’m here. Because God has always been faithful to us. You know it and I know it.
So, let’s celebrate God’s faithfulness, honor God’s invitation, and come to the feast. This is not just any old church pot-luck supper it is the supper of our Lord. It is a feast prepared for us by no less than Jesus Christ, he’s the one who has issued the invitation, and this is one thing about which he will not change his mind. Amen.
©The Rev’d Dr. David C. Nelson
2 October 2011