For Max Schultz’s fifteenth Birthday his parents decided to treat the young lad and some of his friends to an evening in Philadelphia that included an overnighter at the upscale Sheraton Society Hill Hotel. By all account Max and his friends all behaved admirably.
Several floors below however, in the hotel’s atrium lobby a hockey game quality fight broke out between two wedding parties. It was reported that one of the weddings booked at the hotel that evening had a cash bar while the other did not. One does not have to have a degree in hotel/motel management to wonder how that turned out. When it was discovered that guests from the " cash bar" wedding were availing themselves of the free libations offered just in the other room more than fisticuffs erupted. It was a full-blown battle royal involving more than 100 guests from both weddings.
Some of us have seen this because Max did what any fifteen year old, but no adult that I know of, thought to do. Max grabbed his cell-phone, and started the video recorder app, and then posted it for everyone to see on YouTube™ . He captured a scene of pure pandemonium that, were it not for Max’s play-by-play, could have been right out of a Hollywood comedy.
Men in suits and tuxedos, women in formals were involved in this " bench-clearing-brawl." The police rushed in batons and tazers. Some punches missed by miles but some landed. One in particular caught Max’s attention, causing him to exclaim, " Did they just deck the bride?" Indeed Max was right as a woman in a white wedding dress took one to the chin and fell to the floor.
It is quite a video and while it made tens of thousands of YouTube viewers, including myself, laugh out loud I am sure than none of the guests at either wedding, especially those arrested, were laughing or have laughed about it even to this day.
Jesus might have been a little proud of this wedding because he once created a story, right off the top of his head, about one that was just as crazy.
It was our Gospel reading for today and I have to quickly point out that this wedding never actually happened, it was the product of Jesus’ fertile imagination.
Biblical scholars, who have nothing better to do with their lives, have spent enormous time speculating about whether this is a parable or allegory. Without turning this into an English literature class, you all remember that in an allegory all the characters or details represent something else.
So, in this case the king would be God. The banquet would be life in God’s kingdom given in honour of his son, Jesus. The messengers would be the prophets who issue invitations to the perennial fall guys – the scribes and the pharisees – who turn them down. The allegory breaks down for me when those invited kill some of the messengers who bring the invitation and in an act of obvious over retaliation the king sends in troops and burns their town to the ground. Finally, God seems to be acting more like " The Godfather" when he takes one of the guests and throws him out with the trash.
I think this is a pure parable because, where it an allegory it would be a terrible one and it would leave us off the hook. And, as I have said to you many times, Jesus does not leave us off the hook. This is a parable and it is a parable that is as perfect for our day as it was his.||
For instance, most recent polling done by the Pew Research Religion and Public Life project found that: "Nearly three-quarters of the public (72%) now thinks religion is losing influence in American life, up 5 percentage points from 2010 to the highest level in Pew Research polling over the past decade. And most people who say religion's influence is waning see this as a bad thing."1
While in the same report and increasing number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.
This means that every week, in countless places and countless ways, the king is giving a banquet, and people have better things to do.
We know who they are and what they are doing. They’re bowling, or boating, or golfing, or fishing, or sleeping, or immersed in the Sunday political talk shows all the while bemoaning the fact that religious influence is waning.
Do you see the same inconsistency here as shown by those invited by the king in Jesus’ story? They had other things to do. They had more pressing business to carry out. The invitation was an imposition. Their lives are full of more personal concerns that they think are more important than the king’s invitation. It’s not that they can’t come it is just that they don’t want to. But by not coming they dishonour the king.
It has been speculated that perhaps the king was unpopular and this was a way to get back at him. Most of us could understand this.
There is always a tendency on our part to try to get even by staying away. Something has happened to make us angry with another person in the church so we lock ourselves behind our doors and really do say to ourselves, " Boy those people at the banquet must be having a lousy time because I am not there. I wonder if they are wondering where I am?"
Or, and this is the saddest thing of all. Troubles come to our lives and we decide that we’re not going to have anything to do with God or God’s banquet anymore. " We’ll show, God. We’re going to be mad at him and stay away from this banquet God throws for us every week because we’ve been hurt or are hurting and we want God to know it."
Wise people do just the opposite. When disaster strikes their lives they don’t move away from God they move toward God. Maybe they turn back to the faith that they once held, never really lost, but also never really maintained. Maybe they show up at the banquet hall and are treated like the long lost friends that they are as they feel the warm embrace of a new community or old friends who really do love and care about them.
What we cannot miss in Jesus parable is the absolutely crazy part of the kings invitation. He scratches out the words, " black tie only" and tells his servants, " ‘ Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’
" So the servants did, and brought in all they could find, good and bad alike; and the banquet hall was filled with guests."2
This new invitation is issued to everybody both good and bad.
Those people who never thought they would see the inside of a king’s banquet hall in a million years were welcomed. And the good? Maybe, some of those good people where ones who had turned down the king’s original invitation but had a change of heart. Maybe they looked back over the totality of their life with the king and said, " Hey! The guy wasn’t all that bad. Let’s give him a second chance." And when they did, they were welcomed with open arms and open hearts.
But, there is always one wiseacre is every crowd, and even he is addressed by the king as " Friend." This guy got his invitation and didn’t even bother to put on his wedding garment.
I could quote boring theologians at length about what this is all about but instead I will share a brief internet conversation between Lowell’s cousin, Aaron Wester, who writes a fashion blog called " The Modern Otter" and his mother.
His mother bragged on her Facebook page that she had worn her pair of Converse tennis shoes to the Symphony and " when it came time to walk home I felt like a woman 20 years younger than myself. Practically running past those women teetering on little heals and grimacing in pain"
To which her younger and much hipper son replied, " I don’t believe it is right ... there are certain institutions that should be elevated. There is a certain respect due ... the work happening on the stage."
Aaron got it right. To wear a t-shirt and dirty jeans to a party thrown by a king shows no small amount of disrespect to the host – especially if the party is in a palace and the host is a king.
But I don’t think that Jesus is trying to make a fashion statement here. I don’t think he’s talking so much about what you are wearing on the outside but what you are wearing on the inside.
If you show up at the king’s castle looking for a fight. If you show up, like a guest at a Philadelphia wedding, waiting for something to happen so that you can turn a banquet into a brawl then you are always going to be on the outside looking in. You are always going to be on guard for the slightest slight, the minor misdeed, that can turn a person who is so kindly disposed to you that they call you " friend" into an enemy. And the weeping and gnashing of teeth will be your fault, not theirs.
The good news is that those of you who have gathered this day is that you have accepted the king’s invitation. And even those of you who are watching on your computers or reading these words via our weekly mailing are acknowledging that you need what the king has to offer.
You may have been battling God for awhile. You still may not be sure about him. You may wonder if you even have a place in his banquet hall anymore. But the assurance is that if you want it, it is still there. There is room for everybody at God’s great banquet.
And Saint Paul might just give us the best clue of all about what your wedding garb should look like. He isn’t talking about your shoes, or your shirt, or your blouse or your tie. He’s talking about your mind set. Don’t think about something that happened so long ago that you can hardly remember the details. Don’t think about all the trouble you might have had in your life. Rather, Saint Paul suggests: " Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about."3
Or, if you can’t remember all that, remember what Auntie Mame once said, " Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"
Christ doesn’t want you slugging it out in the lobbies of life. He doesn’t want you " weeping and gnashing your teeth" out by the trash. He doesn’t want you to " starve to death" emotionally and spiritually. Christ wants you to live!
And to do so all you have to do is accept his invitation to come inside. Come to Christ’s banquet and live!
Thanks for listening.
_____________________
Endnotes:
1, Pew Research Group, " Public Sees Religion’s Influence Waning." September 22, 2014.
2. St. Matthew 22:9-10. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]
3. Philippians 4:9. (TLB)
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
"Pity the Angels" - Revelation 12:7–12 and Saint Matthew 21:33–46
And war broke out in heaven..."[1]
If ever there was a line in scripture designed to make people – especially people of our day – sit up and take notice that was it. "
In heaven too?" we might ask as a war weary world looks again to the middle east and sees the same battles being waged among the same people who have been waging them for the last decade.
We look and we do not understand. We do not understand the difference between Shiite and Sunni. We wonder if even they understand.
The capitalists among us, of which I count myself as one, shake our heads and wonder why they don’t work together to build rather than destroy? Their countries have great climates. They have historical sites that would draw tourists by the thousands if not hundreds of thousands. "
"Hey! Hey!" we want to shout, " there is money to be made here people. Lots of money! From oil! From tourism! There is enough for all if you would just put down your guns and stop trying to blow each other to smithereens."
And now we hear, in scripture no less, that a war once broke out in heaven. It is a war of almost mythological proportions between the angels and a dragon. The good news in this story, that most biblical scholars believe is a myth, is that the angels prevail. The dragon was defeated! The angels win and cast the beast out of heaven.
It is the age old struggle of the epic battle between good and evil and in literature, certainly more often than in life, good wins out.
That is the way we want it to be. That is the way we hope it is in our time,
Rick Marshall, was a writer for Disney and an editor at Marvel Comics, who admits that he " spent a lot of time trafficking in the contemporary versions of civilizations’ epic confrontations and traditional fairy tales."
"But, I have to report that I wondered during my Marvel days, why millions of readers were so invested in superheroes, forever asking " what if?" about characters with super powers, invincibility, the ability to defy nature, fighting life-threatening foes and defeating evil, as good as good guys can be … but how so many of those young (and older) readers could be indifferent about Jesus."[2]
That may also be why people are drawn to angels over Jesus -- at least of the Hallmark variety. They are the quintessential winged good guys who protect us when they function as our guardians, and find us good parking spots when they are functioning as our G.P.S. devices. They would never get their hands dirty, much less bloody, in a battle for territory. And, if they did, those would not be the angels we would want to purchase to hang around our neck as costume jewelry or keep in our curio cabinets.
It also may be why people do battle to keep the real Jesus out of their lives.
For some it is just easier and I understand them. I actually understand them better than fiercely fundamentalist Christians. In fact, I gravitate to their kind even though I am somewhat disappointed in them.
For instance, one of my intellectual heros is Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George F. Will who, up until last week, I thought was an Episcopalian. Turns out that even though Will majored in religion in college he describes himself now as an " amiable, low-voltage atheist."[3]
Only George F. Will could come up with the phrase, " amiable, low-voltage atheist" and in so doing also give us a huge clue as to why wars break out if not in heaven, at least on earth.
They break out when people, nations, tribes or cultures become less than amicable, high-voltage groups – holding on to land, political positions, religious affiliations, no matter what the cost.
Take the tenants in today’s parable who certainly were no angels.
They had made a deal with the landowner that seemed at first to be not only fair but friendly. They would work the land for him – not without pay but certainly not for 100 percent of the profits. The problem is that somewhere along the line they got to believing the land and crops belonged to them.
It’s a strange little leap in logic but one we make all the time. We look over our lives, our accomplishments, our treasures, and begin to believe that since we have worked hard for them they belong to us.
In most cases, you have worked very hard for what you have. I know precious few people who were born with silver-spoons in their mouths. And, even those people of means who I do know are not on a beach in Greece somewhere drinking Ouzo but are going to work at something, somewhere, everyday.
We’re the workers in the vineyard and our only requirement is to remember that the vineyard doesn’t belong to us it belongs to God.
That’s what the servants in today’s parable forgot and the Pharisee’s (who are not the bad guys here but rather the voices of truth) tell what happens to people who will go to any lengths to keep what belongs to them – up to and including murder. They end up with nothing.
Think of the lands in which wars have been fought. Think of those pictures we see every evening on the news. One word sums it all up: rubble.
Think of churches where people come to the believe that it belongs to them and their kind. They become social clubs dedicated to people who are only like us no matter what the us might be. Strangers are viewed as people whose strange ideas just might upset our tried and true ways of doing things even if those paths have lead to a desolate landscape barren of new ideas.
Pastors sometimes are put in the position not of leaders but adversaries who are to be opposed at all costs.
Church Council is not seen as a place where people go to think creatively on how to solve problems but a place where people go to create problems.
And what happens to nations and institutions whose deepest desire it is only to do battle with one another. God takes what they have away from them and gives it to others who will use it wisely.
Some of those who have toiled so hard in the church for years only to come to believe it was their own sometimes find themselves in exile wondering what is going in on the inside but still choosing to remain on the outside.
The problem with all of Jesus’ parables is that much as we would wish they are not about those people way back then they are about us. They are not about just the people in his original audience, they are about you and me.
They are warnings to us that war can break out at any time in any place – from heaven to earth – whenever we begin to think that any part of heaven or earth is ours and ours alone.
Thanks for listening for them and to me.
__________
Endnotes:
1. Revelation 12:7. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
2. Rick Marshall, " Pity the Angels." Www.realclearreligion.com September 22, 2014.
3. Nicholas G. Hann, III, " George F. Will: The RealClearReligion Interview." www.realclearreligion.com. September 22, 2014.
If ever there was a line in scripture designed to make people – especially people of our day – sit up and take notice that was it. "
In heaven too?" we might ask as a war weary world looks again to the middle east and sees the same battles being waged among the same people who have been waging them for the last decade.
We look and we do not understand. We do not understand the difference between Shiite and Sunni. We wonder if even they understand.
The capitalists among us, of which I count myself as one, shake our heads and wonder why they don’t work together to build rather than destroy? Their countries have great climates. They have historical sites that would draw tourists by the thousands if not hundreds of thousands. "
"Hey! Hey!" we want to shout, " there is money to be made here people. Lots of money! From oil! From tourism! There is enough for all if you would just put down your guns and stop trying to blow each other to smithereens."
And now we hear, in scripture no less, that a war once broke out in heaven. It is a war of almost mythological proportions between the angels and a dragon. The good news in this story, that most biblical scholars believe is a myth, is that the angels prevail. The dragon was defeated! The angels win and cast the beast out of heaven.
It is the age old struggle of the epic battle between good and evil and in literature, certainly more often than in life, good wins out.
That is the way we want it to be. That is the way we hope it is in our time,
Rick Marshall, was a writer for Disney and an editor at Marvel Comics, who admits that he " spent a lot of time trafficking in the contemporary versions of civilizations’ epic confrontations and traditional fairy tales."
"But, I have to report that I wondered during my Marvel days, why millions of readers were so invested in superheroes, forever asking " what if?" about characters with super powers, invincibility, the ability to defy nature, fighting life-threatening foes and defeating evil, as good as good guys can be … but how so many of those young (and older) readers could be indifferent about Jesus."[2]
That may also be why people are drawn to angels over Jesus -- at least of the Hallmark variety. They are the quintessential winged good guys who protect us when they function as our guardians, and find us good parking spots when they are functioning as our G.P.S. devices. They would never get their hands dirty, much less bloody, in a battle for territory. And, if they did, those would not be the angels we would want to purchase to hang around our neck as costume jewelry or keep in our curio cabinets.
It also may be why people do battle to keep the real Jesus out of their lives.
For some it is just easier and I understand them. I actually understand them better than fiercely fundamentalist Christians. In fact, I gravitate to their kind even though I am somewhat disappointed in them.
For instance, one of my intellectual heros is Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George F. Will who, up until last week, I thought was an Episcopalian. Turns out that even though Will majored in religion in college he describes himself now as an " amiable, low-voltage atheist."[3]
Only George F. Will could come up with the phrase, " amiable, low-voltage atheist" and in so doing also give us a huge clue as to why wars break out if not in heaven, at least on earth.
They break out when people, nations, tribes or cultures become less than amicable, high-voltage groups – holding on to land, political positions, religious affiliations, no matter what the cost.
Take the tenants in today’s parable who certainly were no angels.
They had made a deal with the landowner that seemed at first to be not only fair but friendly. They would work the land for him – not without pay but certainly not for 100 percent of the profits. The problem is that somewhere along the line they got to believing the land and crops belonged to them.
It’s a strange little leap in logic but one we make all the time. We look over our lives, our accomplishments, our treasures, and begin to believe that since we have worked hard for them they belong to us.
In most cases, you have worked very hard for what you have. I know precious few people who were born with silver-spoons in their mouths. And, even those people of means who I do know are not on a beach in Greece somewhere drinking Ouzo but are going to work at something, somewhere, everyday.
We’re the workers in the vineyard and our only requirement is to remember that the vineyard doesn’t belong to us it belongs to God.
That’s what the servants in today’s parable forgot and the Pharisee’s (who are not the bad guys here but rather the voices of truth) tell what happens to people who will go to any lengths to keep what belongs to them – up to and including murder. They end up with nothing.
Think of the lands in which wars have been fought. Think of those pictures we see every evening on the news. One word sums it all up: rubble.
Think of churches where people come to the believe that it belongs to them and their kind. They become social clubs dedicated to people who are only like us no matter what the us might be. Strangers are viewed as people whose strange ideas just might upset our tried and true ways of doing things even if those paths have lead to a desolate landscape barren of new ideas.
Pastors sometimes are put in the position not of leaders but adversaries who are to be opposed at all costs.
Church Council is not seen as a place where people go to think creatively on how to solve problems but a place where people go to create problems.
And what happens to nations and institutions whose deepest desire it is only to do battle with one another. God takes what they have away from them and gives it to others who will use it wisely.
Some of those who have toiled so hard in the church for years only to come to believe it was their own sometimes find themselves in exile wondering what is going in on the inside but still choosing to remain on the outside.
The problem with all of Jesus’ parables is that much as we would wish they are not about those people way back then they are about us. They are not about just the people in his original audience, they are about you and me.
They are warnings to us that war can break out at any time in any place – from heaven to earth – whenever we begin to think that any part of heaven or earth is ours and ours alone.
Pity the angels and the God they serve who have to spend enormous time and effort to keep us from destroying our neighbours and eventually ourselves.
Pity them, but then follow them, God and God’s angels, I mean. For what they are telling us is simple.
Work as hard as you can in this world that God has given you, but work for the causes God cherishes – justice, love and peace – otherwise you shall have none.
Work for your church, your family, your friends, your neighbours, your vocation, yourselves but know that all of them, every single one belongs to God.
Work for the cause of Christ but do so knowing that Christ isn’t just your personal Saviour but the redeemer of the world.
Be amiable to each other but not indifferent to the cause of Christ which is nothing less than bringing all of us under his reign and rule until we gather as one around his throne and feel the touch of angel’s wings bringing us finally what we have longed for all along, God’s great heavenly peace.
Work until the day the promise we sing about every Christmas is realized because " man, at war with man, hears not the love song which they bring. So, hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing."
Thanks for listening for them and to me.
__________
Endnotes:
1. Revelation 12:7. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
2. Rick Marshall, " Pity the Angels." Www.realclearreligion.com September 22, 2014.
3. Nicholas G. Hann, III, " George F. Will: The RealClearReligion Interview." www.realclearreligion.com. September 22, 2014.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
"Task Rabbits" - Philippians 2:1–13 and Saint Matthew 21:23–32
Everybody here knows what outsourcing is. It is something that we used to think only large companies do but, I hope you realize that, small companies and individuals have also been doing it for years.
Mark Twain wrote about a form of outsourcing in a famous scene from Tom Sawyer. Remember? Tom, is ordered by as his aunt Polly to whitewash her fence on a beautiful summer’s day just made for swimming. Tom’s friend Ben comes along and Tom convinces him that he likes whitewashing the fence so much that there is nothing he would rather be doing at that particular moment. Ben begs Tom to let him try and Tom hands him a brush. Twain writes:
Tom knew how to outsource – except that he made money at it. For most of us hiring a landscaper, a cleaning person, a plumber costs money. And if it is a skilled trade it can cost lots of money.
Stein went a little overboard. He bought a logo, a press release, a ukulele jingle, 500 posters spread through-out the University of Chicago campus, a translation of his column into Chinese and a rap song. He also outsourced the writing of one of his columns of which he said, " I believe, per amount of work I put in, this is my best column ever."
We've just read the parable and it is pretty simple but a little context will be helpful. Jesus had just
wreaked havoc in the temple in the famous scene from Palm Sunday. The religious leaders are pretty miffed – as we would be if somebody came in started to upset the tables and chairs of this place. They question his authority, and in true
rabbinical form, Jesus turns their question back on them with one they cannot answer without risking the ire of the people.
The parable Jesus leaves them and us to ponder is about two sons who both, in their own way, begin to have second thoughts about doing the will of their father.
For some, deciding to do something or not, is more than saying to yourself " I need a TaskRabbit to help me with my lawn. Or, maybe a Fiverr can punch up my writing a bit." It is a decision that has implications far greater than one would expect.
You simply can’t outsource being a Christian. I read an article by Niki Whiting who several years ago walked away from church to follow her own spiritual path. She said " no" to the father’s invitation to follow. But now she misses it. She misses getting lost in the beautiful liturgy, the rhythm and flow of the services, the chants and the singing, even the incense.
She was a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church but now is practising her faith at home, in isolation. And what she misses most is the kindness of the people who surrounded her in worship and the beauty of the space – especially the altar. She writes:
Do you have the feeling that someday Niki just might be back? Do you have the feeling she is going to be one of the brothers and sisters we all know who say " no" to God only to rethink their position and, before they know it, find themselves again working in the vineyard of their Heavenly Father.
It happens all the time you know. It happened to Pastor Bob Fuquay, Senior Minister at Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis.
For a brief moment in his life he took an interest in alpine climbing so his wife Susan sent him to a climbing school because " if I was going to risk my life it might be good to get some training. Besides, my life insurance wasn’t paid up."
So off he went to Washington State where he was to spend a week on a glacier in the Cascades learning how to be a mountain climber.
On his first morning at the Starbucks he met a couple of his fellow would be mountaineers. A guy from New York, significantly bigger than Pastor Fuquay, turned to him and said.
" Okay, I understand you’re a pastor. Is that right?" I could tell by his tone he was not excited about this possibility. I said, " As a matter of fact I am." He continued, " Well, let me get this straight right now. I don’t want to hear a bunch of religious stuff all week. Got that? My girlfriend and I are on vacation, and we don’t want to be preached to!"
I responded, " It’s a deal. I’m on vacation and I don’t feel like preaching." He swallowed a shot of espresso like it was whiskey and then ordered a extra large dark roast. This was not someone to mess with. I would learn later that he was Jewish but not active in his faith.
You probably know what is coming. The group honed their climbing skills in twelve-hour days until their instructors felt they were ready to take on the summit of a local peak.
Pastor Fugual reported. " Right before we departed the guy from New York said, ‘ Wait! Before we start we need the Rev to say a prayer.’ Yes, this was the same guy who threatened me five days earlier about preaching. I just about fell out of my harness! A prayer request from this guy?"[4]
That may sound like a whitewash job where the good Reverend was being used as a TaskRabbitt. " Here Padre, for a fiver will you say a prayer before we run the risk of falling off a mountain?"
Tempted as we might we can’t use God as our Taskrabbit, there when we need a little help and then asking God to mind God’s own business when we don’t. Neither can we outsource our faith and we certainly can’t say one thing and do another as far as our relationship to God goes. The world is full of people who can say yes. What God wants, what God requires, what God demands are people who can live yes.
With Jesus there is always a surprise. He says to those who think they have their religious act together that they too have some decisions to make, too. He says to us, as we may be tempted to judge Niki and her ramshackle altar that looks like it is about to host a garage sale rather than the presence of the living God, don’t be so quick to come to any conclusions. She knows she’s missing something and today’s " no" may be tomorrow’s " yes".
He says to us who might judge the guy shaking in his boots at the foot of a mountain, don’t be too quick to come to a final conclusion. He may look like all he has is a Fiverr faith as he gazes up at the climb before him and decides he might just need a little Jesus right now. But, who knows, this one yes may be just the beginning of a life of yeses.
The problem with Jesus is that he keeps welcoming people that good upstanding folk would rather not be around. He keeps welcoming people whose view of life, and the life of faith, we can’t even begin to comprehend. He keeps welcoming people like you and like me. And, because we have been welcomed, we can’t pawn the job of welcoming others off on someone else.
Thanks for listening.
___________
Endnotes:
1. Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer. (New York: Barnes and Noble Classic Series,2003), p. 32.
2. Joel Stein, " Here’s What Happened When I Outsourced My Entire Life." Time. September 11, 2014.
3. Niki Whiting, " What I Miss About Being a Christian." www.realclearreligion.com. September 14, 2014.
4. The Rev’d Robert Fuquay, " The God We Can Know." www.realclearreligion.com. September 17, 2014.
5. Philippians 2:10. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]
Mark Twain wrote about a form of outsourcing in a famous scene from Tom Sawyer. Remember? Tom, is ordered by as his aunt Polly to whitewash her fence on a beautiful summer’s day just made for swimming. Tom’s friend Ben comes along and Tom convinces him that he likes whitewashing the fence so much that there is nothing he would rather be doing at that particular moment. Ben begs Tom to let him try and Tom hands him a brush. Twain writes:
The retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with -- and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.[1]
Tom knew how to outsource – except that he made money at it. For most of us hiring a landscaper, a cleaning person, a plumber costs money. And if it is a skilled trade it can cost lots of money.
That is why I was so intrigued when I heard columnist Joel Stein talk about how he had outsourced his entire life. He did it through two websites called TaskRabbit™ and Fiverr® . As Stein writes:
Got some shopping you want to do, but just don’t have the time? A site like TaskRabbit can help you find someone else to handle it at rock-bottom prices.
If your needs are more design or technical ... that’s not a problem either, on Fiverr you can get a 500 word article written or a graphic drawn for five bucks.[2]
Stein went a little overboard. He bought a logo, a press release, a ukulele jingle, 500 posters spread through-out the University of Chicago campus, a translation of his column into Chinese and a rap song. He also outsourced the writing of one of his columns of which he said, " I believe, per amount of work I put in, this is my best column ever."
We've just read the parable and it is pretty simple but a little context will be helpful. Jesus had just
wreaked havoc in the temple in the famous scene from Palm Sunday. The religious leaders are pretty miffed – as we would be if somebody came in started to upset the tables and chairs of this place. They question his authority, and in true
rabbinical form, Jesus turns their question back on them with one they cannot answer without risking the ire of the people.
The parable Jesus leaves them and us to ponder is about two sons who both, in their own way, begin to have second thoughts about doing the will of their father.
For some, deciding to do something or not, is more than saying to yourself " I need a TaskRabbit to help me with my lawn. Or, maybe a Fiverr can punch up my writing a bit." It is a decision that has implications far greater than one would expect.
You simply can’t outsource being a Christian. I read an article by Niki Whiting who several years ago walked away from church to follow her own spiritual path. She said " no" to the father’s invitation to follow. But now she misses it. She misses getting lost in the beautiful liturgy, the rhythm and flow of the services, the chants and the singing, even the incense.
She was a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church but now is practising her faith at home, in isolation. And what she misses most is the kindness of the people who surrounded her in worship and the beauty of the space – especially the altar. She writes:
It’s different from my altar, which I clean once a month. It’s different because my altar shares space with shoes and bags of outgrown baby clothes waiting to be donated to Goodwill. It’s different because sometimes when I’m chanting in a Christian liturgy I can feel the weight of two millenia of believers chanting with me.[3]
Do you have the feeling that someday Niki just might be back? Do you have the feeling she is going to be one of the brothers and sisters we all know who say " no" to God only to rethink their position and, before they know it, find themselves again working in the vineyard of their Heavenly Father.
It happens all the time you know. It happened to Pastor Bob Fuquay, Senior Minister at Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis.
For a brief moment in his life he took an interest in alpine climbing so his wife Susan sent him to a climbing school because " if I was going to risk my life it might be good to get some training. Besides, my life insurance wasn’t paid up."
So off he went to Washington State where he was to spend a week on a glacier in the Cascades learning how to be a mountain climber.
On his first morning at the Starbucks he met a couple of his fellow would be mountaineers. A guy from New York, significantly bigger than Pastor Fuquay, turned to him and said.
" Okay, I understand you’re a pastor. Is that right?" I could tell by his tone he was not excited about this possibility. I said, " As a matter of fact I am." He continued, " Well, let me get this straight right now. I don’t want to hear a bunch of religious stuff all week. Got that? My girlfriend and I are on vacation, and we don’t want to be preached to!"
I responded, " It’s a deal. I’m on vacation and I don’t feel like preaching." He swallowed a shot of espresso like it was whiskey and then ordered a extra large dark roast. This was not someone to mess with. I would learn later that he was Jewish but not active in his faith.
You probably know what is coming. The group honed their climbing skills in twelve-hour days until their instructors felt they were ready to take on the summit of a local peak.
Pastor Fugual reported. " Right before we departed the guy from New York said, ‘ Wait! Before we start we need the Rev to say a prayer.’ Yes, this was the same guy who threatened me five days earlier about preaching. I just about fell out of my harness! A prayer request from this guy?"[4]
That may sound like a whitewash job where the good Reverend was being used as a TaskRabbitt. " Here Padre, for a fiver will you say a prayer before we run the risk of falling off a mountain?"
Tempted as we might we can’t use God as our Taskrabbit, there when we need a little help and then asking God to mind God’s own business when we don’t. Neither can we outsource our faith and we certainly can’t say one thing and do another as far as our relationship to God goes. The world is full of people who can say yes. What God wants, what God requires, what God demands are people who can live yes.
With Jesus there is always a surprise. He says to those who think they have their religious act together that they too have some decisions to make, too. He says to us, as we may be tempted to judge Niki and her ramshackle altar that looks like it is about to host a garage sale rather than the presence of the living God, don’t be so quick to come to any conclusions. She knows she’s missing something and today’s " no" may be tomorrow’s " yes".
He says to us who might judge the guy shaking in his boots at the foot of a mountain, don’t be too quick to come to a final conclusion. He may look like all he has is a Fiverr faith as he gazes up at the climb before him and decides he might just need a little Jesus right now. But, who knows, this one yes may be just the beginning of a life of yeses.
The problem with Jesus is that he keeps welcoming people that good upstanding folk would rather not be around. He keeps welcoming people whose view of life, and the life of faith, we can’t even begin to comprehend. He keeps welcoming people like you and like me. And, because we have been welcomed, we can’t pawn the job of welcoming others off on someone else.
A lot of people think that they can TaskRabbit their faith off on another – their parents, their cousins, their aunts or uncles. A lot of people approach their faith like the people who use Fiverr – its great to use it when they need it but otherwise it is enough to know it is there when, or if, they will ever need it again.
But God never gives the task of saving our lives to anyone else. God takes the initiative and God will not, God does not rest until " at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow ... and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."[5]
That is not a task that can be hired out but it something that all of us need to be about everyday – confess Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Thanks for listening.
___________
Endnotes:
1. Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer. (New York: Barnes and Noble Classic Series,2003), p. 32.
2. Joel Stein, " Here’s What Happened When I Outsourced My Entire Life." Time. September 11, 2014.
3. Niki Whiting, " What I Miss About Being a Christian." www.realclearreligion.com. September 14, 2014.
4. The Rev’d Robert Fuquay, " The God We Can Know." www.realclearreligion.com. September 17, 2014.
5. Philippians 2:10. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Complaining No Matter What - Exodus 16:2-15 and Saint Matthew 20:1-16
Last winter several friends and I saw a hilariously funny show called, " Old Jews Telling Jokes." It was two hours of non-stop Jewish humour and songs that I highly recommended to almost everybody I met.
Even so, one woman, at a party said, " It sounds anti-Semitic." I include this only to serve as a disclaimer. The show was not even close to being anti-Semitic but was a celebration of Jewish humour that had seen this particular ethnic group through some pretty tough times. It could have been about any nationality, but I don’t think " Old Danes Telling Jokes" would have sold out a theatre.
So with that nod to political correctness out of the way. Here is the story that perfectly sets up our message today.
A grandmother was watching her little grandson play at the beach, right at the water’s edge. Suddenly a huge wave rolled up the beach and swept the little boy into the sea. The frantic grandmother dropped to her knees in prayer. "Gracious God," she began, " This is my only daughter’s only child, my only grandchild. Please, God, spare his life."
Just then she saw her grandchild, over joyed, riding back to shore, holding on to the dorsal fin of a dolphin. The dolphin brought the young lad close enough to shore so that he could safely walk into the waiting arms of his grandmother. The dolphin then did his " Flipper thing" joyfully swimming backwards on his tail and squawking with glee!
The grandmother looked at the dolphin and said. " You know, he had a hat!"
To complain when you just received everything you wished for is not a trait limited to one ethic group or another. All of us know people who will complain no matter what. So it is with today’s reading from Exodus and Gospel.
Everybody here knows what that is like. We have tried to solve people’s problems and maybe have
succeeded. Perhaps we lead them through troubled financial times when they didn’t know how they would pay their next bill. Maybe we wheeled and dealed, and not only helped them get not only a second chance but a completely new start. We hoped that now they would sit back enjoy what God had given them and relax. But what we discovered is that some people will complain no matter what.
Here is the interesting part of the story for me. God doesn’t write the Children of Israel off. Instead, God gives them exactly what they need for their day to day existence.
They wake up one morning, stagger out of their tents, and are surprised to find a white, dew-like substance scattered all over the ground. It is what we call manna but according to Dr. M. Craig Barnes, now the President of Princeton Theological Seminary, " the literal translation of manna is " What is it?" So Barnes says:
This means that every morning the people would go out and gather the " What is it?" The mothers would prepare it as creatively as they could, which was tough because there was no " What is it?" helper. The family would sit at the table to eat. The kids would ask, " What is it?" The mother would sigh and say, " Yes." They’d bow their heads and pray, " Thank you God for ‘ What is it?’"[2]
It would not soon be long before even " what is it" wouldn’t be enough. It was not very long before they ran out of clever ways to prepare " What is it?" and began to complain that they needed something to go with it. And so God also sent them quails – protein to go with their carbohydrates. Surely, this would have been enough. But, in the very next chapter, the people are complaining again.
This time the " What is it" for breakfast and the quails for dinner were proving to be a bit dry. The people needed something to wash them down so they complained again to Moses, who with God’s help, brought forth fresh water from the dry rocks of the desert. But everybody knows that with some, enough is never enough, and soon there would be complaining again.
For some complaining is a way of life. For them, " enough is never enough". They want more. They want perfection. But, in many cases, the very people who claim to want things to be better, do precious little to help make that possible. There only contribution to the cause is to complain.
To their credit, at first, there was very little complaining among the workers in Jesus’ parable.
This is a scene we can see reenacted in cities and towns all across America. Just go to the parking lot near any home improvement centre and you will see unemployed labourers looking for work. A contractor in the city or farmer in the country will drive up and shout, " I need eight workers today!" and off they will go.
This is what happens in today’s parable from Jesus. The farmer shows up at sunrise and hires as many workers as he thinks he might need. They and he agree on a days wages. They were to receive a denarius – about all a family could live on for one day. It was manna and quails in the form of cold hard cash but the same idea. Just like the Children of Israel had to trust God for their provisions, the labourers had to trust that there would be another job for them tomorrow. They lived " day-check to day-check." They understood the system and did not ask for more. And he gives them a denarius, a full days pay!
You can almost see the wheels of the other worker’s minds shifting into high gear. " Hey!" they are probably saying to each other as they wait in line, " If they got a full days pay for working only a couple of hours, imagine how much more we’re going to get!"
The complaining starts when they open their pay envelopes and to find a single denarius. It was the agreed upon amount, remember, but they think they should have received more and so they complain.
" What is this?" They might have even asked. " We worked all day and those late comers got the same as us?" In one translation the landowner replies: " Do you begrudge my generosity? Take what belongs to you and go."[3]
I have always loved that translations because, it seems to me, every time we complain, we are begrudging God God’s generosity. We are saying we should have more. That we should get everything we want and not have to sacrifice anything for it. We who, every newscast tells us, are among the blest of the earth are always looking for more. We complain no matter what.
Think of this week! Amid the turmoil of the world and the danger or terrorism Apple announces a new wrist watch that can do everything an iphone can do. It is the stuff of the Dick Tracy comics! Talk on your watch, text from your watch, have a watch that tells you directions, and the time of your next appointment. News and sports updates on your watch. Pay bills with your watch. And, how did some people react? They said, and I am not making this up, " The screen is a little small." For the love of God, it’s a watch! Some people will complain no matter what.
Please understand that there are some people who will never be satisfied. No matter how much you do for them, they will still complain. And, if you look at their lives, you will discover that they have chosen to live in a world where complaining is a way of life. But to live in this fashion leaves the life of the chronic complainer as arid, and lifeless, and hungry as the Children of Israel in the Sinai desert.
Thanks for listening
_________________________
Endnotes:
1. Exodus 16:3. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]
2. Dr. M. Craig Barnes, " Nurtured in Mystery." Sermon preached at the Shady side Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. February 28, 2010.
3. St. Matthew 20:15b & 14 (ESV) [ESV=The English Standard Version]
Even so, one woman, at a party said, " It sounds anti-Semitic." I include this only to serve as a disclaimer. The show was not even close to being anti-Semitic but was a celebration of Jewish humour that had seen this particular ethnic group through some pretty tough times. It could have been about any nationality, but I don’t think " Old Danes Telling Jokes" would have sold out a theatre.
So with that nod to political correctness out of the way. Here is the story that perfectly sets up our message today.
A grandmother was watching her little grandson play at the beach, right at the water’s edge. Suddenly a huge wave rolled up the beach and swept the little boy into the sea. The frantic grandmother dropped to her knees in prayer. "Gracious God," she began, " This is my only daughter’s only child, my only grandchild. Please, God, spare his life."
Just then she saw her grandchild, over joyed, riding back to shore, holding on to the dorsal fin of a dolphin. The dolphin brought the young lad close enough to shore so that he could safely walk into the waiting arms of his grandmother. The dolphin then did his " Flipper thing" joyfully swimming backwards on his tail and squawking with glee!
The grandmother looked at the dolphin and said. " You know, he had a hat!"
To complain when you just received everything you wished for is not a trait limited to one ethic group or another. All of us know people who will complain no matter what. So it is with today’s reading from Exodus and Gospel.
The Hebrew people, enslaved in Egypt have just been dramatically delivered. They had escaped the plagues, they had escaped from Pharaoh’s army, and they were free from bondage. But, the way to the Promised Land leads through the Sinai wilderness where their food supplies begin to run short. The people are hungry and crabby. And so they don’t just complain, they accuse Moses and Aaron, of trying to kill them. Suddenly the days of slavery were the " good old days."
" If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!" they complain. " There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."[1]
Everybody here knows what that is like. We have tried to solve people’s problems and maybe have
succeeded. Perhaps we lead them through troubled financial times when they didn’t know how they would pay their next bill. Maybe we wheeled and dealed, and not only helped them get not only a second chance but a completely new start. We hoped that now they would sit back enjoy what God had given them and relax. But what we discovered is that some people will complain no matter what.
Here is the interesting part of the story for me. God doesn’t write the Children of Israel off. Instead, God gives them exactly what they need for their day to day existence.
They wake up one morning, stagger out of their tents, and are surprised to find a white, dew-like substance scattered all over the ground. It is what we call manna but according to Dr. M. Craig Barnes, now the President of Princeton Theological Seminary, " the literal translation of manna is " What is it?" So Barnes says:
This means that every morning the people would go out and gather the " What is it?" The mothers would prepare it as creatively as they could, which was tough because there was no " What is it?" helper. The family would sit at the table to eat. The kids would ask, " What is it?" The mother would sigh and say, " Yes." They’d bow their heads and pray, " Thank you God for ‘ What is it?’"[2]
It would not soon be long before even " what is it" wouldn’t be enough. It was not very long before they ran out of clever ways to prepare " What is it?" and began to complain that they needed something to go with it. And so God also sent them quails – protein to go with their carbohydrates. Surely, this would have been enough. But, in the very next chapter, the people are complaining again.
This time the " What is it" for breakfast and the quails for dinner were proving to be a bit dry. The people needed something to wash them down so they complained again to Moses, who with God’s help, brought forth fresh water from the dry rocks of the desert. But everybody knows that with some, enough is never enough, and soon there would be complaining again.
For some complaining is a way of life. For them, " enough is never enough". They want more. They want perfection. But, in many cases, the very people who claim to want things to be better, do precious little to help make that possible. There only contribution to the cause is to complain.
To their credit, at first, there was very little complaining among the workers in Jesus’ parable.
This is a scene we can see reenacted in cities and towns all across America. Just go to the parking lot near any home improvement centre and you will see unemployed labourers looking for work. A contractor in the city or farmer in the country will drive up and shout, " I need eight workers today!" and off they will go.
This is what happens in today’s parable from Jesus. The farmer shows up at sunrise and hires as many workers as he thinks he might need. They and he agree on a days wages. They were to receive a denarius – about all a family could live on for one day. It was manna and quails in the form of cold hard cash but the same idea. Just like the Children of Israel had to trust God for their provisions, the labourers had to trust that there would be another job for them tomorrow. They lived " day-check to day-check." They understood the system and did not ask for more. And he gives them a denarius, a full days pay!
You can almost see the wheels of the other worker’s minds shifting into high gear. " Hey!" they are probably saying to each other as they wait in line, " If they got a full days pay for working only a couple of hours, imagine how much more we’re going to get!"
The complaining starts when they open their pay envelopes and to find a single denarius. It was the agreed upon amount, remember, but they think they should have received more and so they complain.
" What is this?" They might have even asked. " We worked all day and those late comers got the same as us?" In one translation the landowner replies: " Do you begrudge my generosity? Take what belongs to you and go."[3]
I have always loved that translations because, it seems to me, every time we complain, we are begrudging God God’s generosity. We are saying we should have more. That we should get everything we want and not have to sacrifice anything for it. We who, every newscast tells us, are among the blest of the earth are always looking for more. We complain no matter what.
Think of this week! Amid the turmoil of the world and the danger or terrorism Apple announces a new wrist watch that can do everything an iphone can do. It is the stuff of the Dick Tracy comics! Talk on your watch, text from your watch, have a watch that tells you directions, and the time of your next appointment. News and sports updates on your watch. Pay bills with your watch. And, how did some people react? They said, and I am not making this up, " The screen is a little small." For the love of God, it’s a watch! Some people will complain no matter what.
Please understand that there are some people who will never be satisfied. No matter how much you do for them, they will still complain. And, if you look at their lives, you will discover that they have chosen to live in a world where complaining is a way of life. But to live in this fashion leaves the life of the chronic complainer as arid, and lifeless, and hungry as the Children of Israel in the Sinai desert.
They will always be as disappointed as the workers in the vineyard or the grandmother on the beach because they will always be wanting more than they already have.
The promise that comes from today’s scriptures is simply this: God only gave the people enough Manna and quail to last for one day. If they wanted another day’s supply tomorrow, they would have to trust God to provide it and they would have to go and collect it. It was never delivered to their door, UPS, though God came pretty close.
The workers got only a days pay. No more no less. This meant that they would have to come back tomorrow trusting the landowner would be there with more work for them to do. And those who didn’t come back would not only have missed out financially they would have missed the point that God was there waiting to give every one of them exactly what they needed for each new day.
So, it seems to me that the choice is clear.
You can stand on the beach like that grandmother and even when you’ve received a miracle complain that the miracle wasn’t enough because your grandson had a hat. Or, you can be grateful for the daily provisions God sends you and those big miracles that crop up every once and awhile.
You can complain no matter what or you can see every " What is it?" in your life as a sign of God’s grace which has the potential to strengthen and sustain you everyday with exactly what you’ll need for that day, and the next, and the next, if you’ll but allow it.
Thanks for listening
_________________________
Endnotes:
1. Exodus 16:3. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]
2. Dr. M. Craig Barnes, " Nurtured in Mystery." Sermon preached at the Shady side Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. February 28, 2010.
3. St. Matthew 20:15b & 14 (ESV) [ESV=The English Standard Version]
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
"What's Important" - Romans 14:1-12 & Saint John 3:13-17
I used to love Sunday evenings during the summer sitting on my deck with The Chicago Tribune. One article would lead me to another, which would lead me to another, and before I knew it I was reading a fascinating article about something that I otherwise would have had no interest in.
Thanks to the Internet my horizons have broadened even further. No longer am I limited to a Chicago paper and a couple of weekly news magazines to keep me posted. Surfing the net, an article in one paper can lead me to another newspaper or news service entirely. One minute I’ll be reading something from The New York Times and the next The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post or The Christian Science Monitor. My horizons are broadening markedly.
Facebook friends are also a great source of material when they are not posting pictures of their grandchildren or where they went for dinner. One friend in particular, who is blessed with a dry sense of humour and an ability to find informative pieces along with some that are totally absurd is very helpful with inspirational stuff for sermons.
Those of you who receive our weekly e-mail blast already know what I am talking about. (To those watching who don’t get it but would like to just e-mail the address on the screen and we’ll be happy to send it to you. In light of what I am going to say in the next few minutes I need to underscore that at no time will you be asked for money.)
I have to say that because of the series of YouTube Videos that I stumbled upon this week. There where moments in them when I laughed until my sides hurt and moments is them when I looked at the computer screen in absolute amazement.
A comedian named John Bloom, created a character named Joe Bob Briggs who hosts a program called, " God-stuff: Crazy Television Preachers." The program is a compilation of the silliest and saddest moments of the less than main-stream charlatans whose programs dwell in the stratispherically high numbers on our cable or satellite menus.
The program I shared had some hilarious moments featuring – and I am not making this up – singing and dancing Orthodox Jewish Rabbis on something called the " Shalom" telethon. There were countless guys offering holy trinkets in return for cash, and of course, healing miracles.
While it is bad enough to send somebody holy oil in return for a love gift with the instructions that they should use it to anoint their wallets. What’s the worse that could happen there? You would be out a few bucks and have a grease mark on your back pocket. The quacks who offer healings are frightening.
The segment with an evangelist named Morris Cerullo left me gasping not in faith but in pure terror.
Cerullo gets a vision and calls a man out of the audience who is wearing a neck brace. The man reluctantly comes forward while Cerullo keeps repeating, " Oh ye, of little faith. Why do you doubt?"
Finally the man removes the brace and Cerullo grabs the poor guys head twisting it this way and that. The man looks troubled and for good reason for when he is finally asked why he was wearing the brace he replies, " I had a herniated disk and they fused a bone in there. The bone hasn’t mended yet. So that is why I had to wear the cast. [The Doctor] told me to wear it because if it slips out I’m subject to be paralysed."
The audience gasped and so did I. If you saw the video Cerullo had just twisted the poor fellow head in every way imaginable and in so doing risked permanent injury. " No wonder," I said to myself, " why the church has become so out of favour in our society."
This was our underbelly that always was there but could be seen only in side-shows run by travelling tent evangelists but rarely was experienced by any but a few. For decades now, that I don’t think accidentally coincide with the decline in church membership, this has been the face of the church to the world. Who would want to be a part of that?
Who would want to be a part of anything where no matter what you need it can be had by a donation of a couple of bucks? Who would want to be a part of something where you risk paralysis just by showing up?
Here is the most important thing to remember. The intended audience for the televangelists are not people like you and me who have been coming to church a long time and who watch these programs, if we watch them at all, as if they were a carnival side-show. The people watching are insomniacs who are up all night or pacing the floor all day because they really are desperate for a job, a car, a renewed family, a better life. And, they are being led astray.
Saint Paul might ask: " Is this the way you welcome those who are weak in faith?" And then he tells us what our only message should be: " For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s."[1]
Living or dying we follow the Lord. We don’t follow him to get rich as the prosperity gospel preachers would tell us. We don’t follow him so that we might get just the right miracle at just the right time as the healing evangelists would tell us. We don’t even follow him because we are afraid that if we don’t we’ll be consigned to the fires of hell. We follow him because in Jesus we have found something really special. We have found someone who would give his life for us and, in so doing, give us our life back.
Preachers who want to be popular don’t talk much about the cross. Some huge, mega-churches don’t even have crosses in them because market-research has told them that the cross turned people off. It did in Jesus’ day. It does in ours.
We wince when we hear that the Islamic State of Iran and Syria or ISIL, which stands for the Islamic State of Iran and the Levant,2 is back in the business of crucifying Christians.
The cross in Jesus’ day was a symbol of military might and oppression. Step outside of the rules of the Roman government and it just might be the place where you took your final breath.
But we celebrate it this day and some of us wear one around our necks everyday to remind ourselves of God’s love. The cross reminds us that we don’t need God to give us money, or miracles, or the trifles of this world. The cross reminds us that in Jesus God has given us all that we need or will ever need.
In the words of The Rev’d Shannon Johnson Kerschner, the wonderful new Senior Minister at Fourth Presbyterian Church the cross reminds us that:
This gift of belonging to God is the biggest and best miracle we will ever receive.
It’s a gift. Never forget that! It’s a gift! And because it is it means you don’t have to bribe God with a love gift of money. You don’t have coerce God into giving you some gift you don’t want – like healing for something doctors have already taken care of.
The cross may not have the drama and excitement of a highly produced television spectacular featuring crutches thrown away and dancing rabbis. It may not hold the promise of a new car or a new house but it does hold something else.
It holds the power of God to love us. It tells us that " God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."[2]
What the cross tell us is more simple than even the most simple-minded of the crazy television preachers seem to be able to grasp. It tells us quite simply that " God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."[3]
That is what’s important and it all ours when we take our eyes off the television crazies for a moment and survey in our hearts the wondrous cross.
_____________
Endnotes:
1. Romans 14:8. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]
2. The Rev'd Shannon Johnson Kerschner, " Take Up Your Cross the Saviour Said" Sermons from Fourth Church. August 31, 2014.
3. St. John 3:17. (MSG) [MSG= The Message]
4. St. John 3:16. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
Thanks to the Internet my horizons have broadened even further. No longer am I limited to a Chicago paper and a couple of weekly news magazines to keep me posted. Surfing the net, an article in one paper can lead me to another newspaper or news service entirely. One minute I’ll be reading something from The New York Times and the next The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post or The Christian Science Monitor. My horizons are broadening markedly.
Facebook friends are also a great source of material when they are not posting pictures of their grandchildren or where they went for dinner. One friend in particular, who is blessed with a dry sense of humour and an ability to find informative pieces along with some that are totally absurd is very helpful with inspirational stuff for sermons.
Those of you who receive our weekly e-mail blast already know what I am talking about. (To those watching who don’t get it but would like to just e-mail the address on the screen and we’ll be happy to send it to you. In light of what I am going to say in the next few minutes I need to underscore that at no time will you be asked for money.)
I have to say that because of the series of YouTube Videos that I stumbled upon this week. There where moments in them when I laughed until my sides hurt and moments is them when I looked at the computer screen in absolute amazement.
A comedian named John Bloom, created a character named Joe Bob Briggs who hosts a program called, " God-stuff: Crazy Television Preachers." The program is a compilation of the silliest and saddest moments of the less than main-stream charlatans whose programs dwell in the stratispherically high numbers on our cable or satellite menus.
The program I shared had some hilarious moments featuring – and I am not making this up – singing and dancing Orthodox Jewish Rabbis on something called the " Shalom" telethon. There were countless guys offering holy trinkets in return for cash, and of course, healing miracles.
While it is bad enough to send somebody holy oil in return for a love gift with the instructions that they should use it to anoint their wallets. What’s the worse that could happen there? You would be out a few bucks and have a grease mark on your back pocket. The quacks who offer healings are frightening.
The segment with an evangelist named Morris Cerullo left me gasping not in faith but in pure terror.
Cerullo gets a vision and calls a man out of the audience who is wearing a neck brace. The man reluctantly comes forward while Cerullo keeps repeating, " Oh ye, of little faith. Why do you doubt?"
Finally the man removes the brace and Cerullo grabs the poor guys head twisting it this way and that. The man looks troubled and for good reason for when he is finally asked why he was wearing the brace he replies, " I had a herniated disk and they fused a bone in there. The bone hasn’t mended yet. So that is why I had to wear the cast. [The Doctor] told me to wear it because if it slips out I’m subject to be paralysed."
The audience gasped and so did I. If you saw the video Cerullo had just twisted the poor fellow head in every way imaginable and in so doing risked permanent injury. " No wonder," I said to myself, " why the church has become so out of favour in our society."
This was our underbelly that always was there but could be seen only in side-shows run by travelling tent evangelists but rarely was experienced by any but a few. For decades now, that I don’t think accidentally coincide with the decline in church membership, this has been the face of the church to the world. Who would want to be a part of that?
Who would want to be a part of anything where no matter what you need it can be had by a donation of a couple of bucks? Who would want to be a part of something where you risk paralysis just by showing up?
Here is the most important thing to remember. The intended audience for the televangelists are not people like you and me who have been coming to church a long time and who watch these programs, if we watch them at all, as if they were a carnival side-show. The people watching are insomniacs who are up all night or pacing the floor all day because they really are desperate for a job, a car, a renewed family, a better life. And, they are being led astray.
Saint Paul might ask: " Is this the way you welcome those who are weak in faith?" And then he tells us what our only message should be: " For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s."[1]
Living or dying we follow the Lord. We don’t follow him to get rich as the prosperity gospel preachers would tell us. We don’t follow him so that we might get just the right miracle at just the right time as the healing evangelists would tell us. We don’t even follow him because we are afraid that if we don’t we’ll be consigned to the fires of hell. We follow him because in Jesus we have found something really special. We have found someone who would give his life for us and, in so doing, give us our life back.
Preachers who want to be popular don’t talk much about the cross. Some huge, mega-churches don’t even have crosses in them because market-research has told them that the cross turned people off. It did in Jesus’ day. It does in ours.
We wince when we hear that the Islamic State of Iran and Syria or ISIL, which stands for the Islamic State of Iran and the Levant,2 is back in the business of crucifying Christians.
The cross in Jesus’ day was a symbol of military might and oppression. Step outside of the rules of the Roman government and it just might be the place where you took your final breath.
But we celebrate it this day and some of us wear one around our necks everyday to remind ourselves of God’s love. The cross reminds us that we don’t need God to give us money, or miracles, or the trifles of this world. The cross reminds us that in Jesus God has given us all that we need or will ever need.
In the words of The Rev’d Shannon Johnson Kerschner, the wonderful new Senior Minister at Fourth Presbyterian Church the cross reminds us that:
God is the one who holds your life. God is the one who will walk with you through death. God is the one who will give you new life. God is the one under whose reign and under whose power you live and move and have your being, not the economy, not your addiction, not your wealth, not your poverty, not your security, not your status, and not even your family. God alone is the one to whom you belong. And that means you matter, regardless of what other kinds of things you are told based on your gender or your race or your sexual orientation or the amount you have in the bank.[2]
This gift of belonging to God is the biggest and best miracle we will ever receive.
It’s a gift. Never forget that! It’s a gift! And because it is it means you don’t have to bribe God with a love gift of money. You don’t have coerce God into giving you some gift you don’t want – like healing for something doctors have already taken care of.
The cross may not have the drama and excitement of a highly produced television spectacular featuring crutches thrown away and dancing rabbis. It may not hold the promise of a new car or a new house but it does hold something else.
It holds the power of God to love us. It tells us that " God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."[2]
What the cross tell us is more simple than even the most simple-minded of the crazy television preachers seem to be able to grasp. It tells us quite simply that " God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."[3]
That is what’s important and it all ours when we take our eyes off the television crazies for a moment and survey in our hearts the wondrous cross.
_____________
Endnotes:
1. Romans 14:8. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]
2. The Rev'd Shannon Johnson Kerschner, " Take Up Your Cross the Saviour Said" Sermons from Fourth Church. August 31, 2014.
3. St. John 3:17. (MSG) [MSG= The Message]
4. St. John 3:16. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
Monday, September 1, 2014
"Love's Labour's Lost" - Saint Matthew 18:15-20
In the 1997 romantic comedy “As Good As It Gets”starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt there are a couple of classic lines. Nicholson plays a wealthy writer suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who finds himself slowly falling in love with the waitress who serves him the same breakfast, in the same booth, in the same diner everyday, played by Helen Hunt.
You know how romantic comedies work. They are all based around the theme of two people who “can’t live with each other and can’t live without each other.”
At the obligatory moment of exasperation with Nicholson, Hunt turns to her mother, played by Shirley Knight, and this classic exchange follows. Hunt asks: “Why can't I have a normal boyfriend? Just a regular boyfriend, one that doesn't go nuts on me!”
To which her mother replies: “Everybody wants that, dear. They don’t exist.”
Truer words were never spoken! An over-reaction to this would be to become like the characters in Shakespear’s “Loves Labour’s Lost” and swear off relationships entirely for something else. In their case it is scholarship. But, no matter what we choose we will soon discover that perfection (or even normalcy!) are like boyfriends, or girlfriends, or friends, or neighbours, and especially relatives. Regular ones, normal ones, don’t exist!
People get particularly disappointed when they discover that this is also true of churches. Perfect ones, normal ones, simply do not exist.
I follow a local pastor on Facebook, not long ordained and who has been in his parish a relatively short time. He is a generally good natured chap but to read his posts it is if he and his people have rediscovered Eden. An idyllic faith community where everybody loves each other, no one disagrees, and all the children are above average.
I have no idea whether Pastor McGuire is a Facebook friend of this pastor or not but, if he is, I am sure with every rendition of our friends, “Oh what a beautiful morning...” Guys like McGuire and me, with more than a few miles on our ordination vows, might be tempted to respond to this relative newbie with: “Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait.”
Everybody in this room knows, or, I hope knows, that just like perfect partners, there are no perfect churches. Even before it took on any form and was just a group of people trying to follow Jesus as best they could, there was squabbling, and feuding, and fussing, and fuming. Our Lord not only anticipated but experienced how difficult it is to keep any group together. Jesus seemed to understand that the idea of community would be great, if it weren’t for all the people.
Very seldom in the gospels do we find Jesus being prescriptive. Whenever he was asked a question he, in true rabbinical form, was most likely to answer the question with another question. Or, he would tell a story, give us a parable to illustrate his point, and then let us try to figure out what he meant.
Today Jesus is being direct. He is giving us a recipe for how to live in a less than perfect church in a less than perfect world. But, as with most things Jesus says what he tells us is not easy.
Just remember that “a huge church in Matthew’s day, included at the most 50 members. Their gathering were much more like small family reunions – maybe 20 – 30 people.” It is not hard for us to “imagine how the actions or attitude of one family member could spoil the festive gathering for the rest of the family.”
We know about that all too well.
Frankly, most of us are probably not particularly fond of Jesus first idea. “If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him – work it out between the two of you.”
At this point we may be saying to ourselves: “Have you any other suggestions Jesus?”
This is because most of us hate conflict. It is not our idea of a good time to get into a confrontation with another person. So what we often do is get Jesus’ steps way out of order. The first steps we take are the last steps Jesus says we should take.
We usually complain to a couple of friends and, almost before the words are out of our mouth, the whole community knows. That’s the easier way. Those with nothing better to do get on the phone and complain to each other how bad the situation is. The problem is that these conversations lead nowhere. They just cover the same territory over and over and since no creative thinking or even the slightest effort at problem solving is made, they only serve to make matters worse and turn slight wounds into deep divisions.
On occasions, however, I have found these conversations with a friend productive but only when they have been kind enough to call me out on my behaviour. You know you are dealing with a good friend when you say something like: “I can’t believe anybody would do that to me, or say that about me.” And your friend says, “O for the love of God! I’ve have people do and say worse things to me on some of the best days of my life. Get over it!”
Actually these people are following step one of Jesus’ pattern. In effect they are saying to you: “Your complaining is bothering me. Knock it off!” Sometimes that is exactly what we need to hear, but if that doesn’t sink in Jesus says we have to go to the person who has harmed us and talk to them.
Before we go we must understand the strategy and goals of the meeting because, Jesus goes on to say, that if the person listens you have gained back a friend.
The strategy is not one of “mutually assured destruction,” where you both yell at each other until the veins are sticking out in your foreheads, but restoration. The idea is to gain the person back as a friend and a member of the community.
Jesus is no fool about the human condition. He knows that sometimes even the best plans with the purest intentions do not work out. Restoration doesn’t happen but anger and resentment does. There is yelling, perhaps tears, and, for me, the most aggravating thing of all happens – the other person storms out of the room. I hate that! It makes me crazy! If you’re going to start something stay to the finish! Don’t go off and sulk like and overgrown three year old!
Jesus knows that some people are not into this restoration and healing business. For whatever reason, they would rather not only hang onto old wounds and grievances but nurse them. They feed them everyday making sure that the scars never heal.
Then it is helpful to understand that some people are lost to us forever.
It’s not that we wouldn’t welcome them with open arms and open hearts if we ever saw them again. It isn’t as if we wouldn’t sit them down, get them coffee or break out the finest wine in our supply if they ever came to our door. It’s not that we wouldn’t (We may already have!) tell them how much we’ve missed them and how glad we are to have them back. It’s just that we have become for them like a “tax-collector” or an “outcast.”
If you are like me you don’t have a hard time with a little confrontation. Get it out! Say it! Get it off your chest! But then, get over it! Perhaps it is the surfacing of my extremely recessive Italian genes that says. “Okay, we’ll have it out. We’ll yell a little. We’ll swear a little. And then, once we have both taken some time to catch our breath and cool off, we’ll sit down, we’ll have some nice pasta and a glass of red wine. We’ll eat, we’ll drink, we’ll laugh, it will be fine.”
A former administrator of this parish, Fawn Hurst, used to refer to my explosions, as my “going Italian.” Her secret was to do what Lyndon B. Johnson said he or his opponents would sometimes have to do. “Just hunker down like a jack-rabbit in a rainstorm” he advised, “and wait for things to pass.”
What I have spent my lifetime learning and am still learning is that sometimes people never get over these explosions. For them the storm is never over. Long after my clouds have passed, and I’m on to sunshine and brighter days, they are still cowering in their emotional rabbit holes searching the skies for any sign of a dark cloud. I have to keep reminding myself that what Jesus is talking about here is restoration. It is a return of the person who wronged us, or who we have wronged to life in the community.
This may not work the first time, or the second time, or even as Jesus might say, the seventy-seventh time. If it doesn’t “you’ll have to start over from scratch, confront him [or her] with the need for repentance, and offer again God’s forgiving love.”
In “As Good as it Gets” the Jack Nicholson character says to Helen Hunt, now his girlfriend, as they ride along together in the car. “Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're angry that so many others had it good.”
No one in this room, no one in any church, anywhere, in any place, at any time has a perfect life. So, if your idea of a perfect church is one where no one ever does wrong – one where it is just a long picnic by the lake with noodle salad – you’ll never find it on this earth.
But that’s all right, because that isn’t how God measures perfection. God measures by our love, by our concern for others, and by our readiness to give and receive forgiveness. And, with Jesus’ help, just when we might begin to think that all loves labour’s are lost, we’ll discover that our imperfections, lived out in God’s grace, really are, as good as it will ever get.
Thanks for listening.
You know how romantic comedies work. They are all based around the theme of two people who “can’t live with each other and can’t live without each other.”
At the obligatory moment of exasperation with Nicholson, Hunt turns to her mother, played by Shirley Knight, and this classic exchange follows. Hunt asks: “Why can't I have a normal boyfriend? Just a regular boyfriend, one that doesn't go nuts on me!”
To which her mother replies: “Everybody wants that, dear. They don’t exist.”
Truer words were never spoken! An over-reaction to this would be to become like the characters in Shakespear’s “Loves Labour’s Lost” and swear off relationships entirely for something else. In their case it is scholarship. But, no matter what we choose we will soon discover that perfection (or even normalcy!) are like boyfriends, or girlfriends, or friends, or neighbours, and especially relatives. Regular ones, normal ones, don’t exist!
People get particularly disappointed when they discover that this is also true of churches. Perfect ones, normal ones, simply do not exist.
I follow a local pastor on Facebook, not long ordained and who has been in his parish a relatively short time. He is a generally good natured chap but to read his posts it is if he and his people have rediscovered Eden. An idyllic faith community where everybody loves each other, no one disagrees, and all the children are above average.
I have no idea whether Pastor McGuire is a Facebook friend of this pastor or not but, if he is, I am sure with every rendition of our friends, “Oh what a beautiful morning...” Guys like McGuire and me, with more than a few miles on our ordination vows, might be tempted to respond to this relative newbie with: “Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait.”
Everybody in this room knows, or, I hope knows, that just like perfect partners, there are no perfect churches. Even before it took on any form and was just a group of people trying to follow Jesus as best they could, there was squabbling, and feuding, and fussing, and fuming. Our Lord not only anticipated but experienced how difficult it is to keep any group together. Jesus seemed to understand that the idea of community would be great, if it weren’t for all the people.
Very seldom in the gospels do we find Jesus being prescriptive. Whenever he was asked a question he, in true rabbinical form, was most likely to answer the question with another question. Or, he would tell a story, give us a parable to illustrate his point, and then let us try to figure out what he meant.
Today Jesus is being direct. He is giving us a recipe for how to live in a less than perfect church in a less than perfect world. But, as with most things Jesus says what he tells us is not easy.
Just remember that “a huge church in Matthew’s day, included at the most 50 members. Their gathering were much more like small family reunions – maybe 20 – 30 people.” It is not hard for us to “imagine how the actions or attitude of one family member could spoil the festive gathering for the rest of the family.”
We know about that all too well.
Frankly, most of us are probably not particularly fond of Jesus first idea. “If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him – work it out between the two of you.”
At this point we may be saying to ourselves: “Have you any other suggestions Jesus?”
This is because most of us hate conflict. It is not our idea of a good time to get into a confrontation with another person. So what we often do is get Jesus’ steps way out of order. The first steps we take are the last steps Jesus says we should take.
We usually complain to a couple of friends and, almost before the words are out of our mouth, the whole community knows. That’s the easier way. Those with nothing better to do get on the phone and complain to each other how bad the situation is. The problem is that these conversations lead nowhere. They just cover the same territory over and over and since no creative thinking or even the slightest effort at problem solving is made, they only serve to make matters worse and turn slight wounds into deep divisions.
On occasions, however, I have found these conversations with a friend productive but only when they have been kind enough to call me out on my behaviour. You know you are dealing with a good friend when you say something like: “I can’t believe anybody would do that to me, or say that about me.” And your friend says, “O for the love of God! I’ve have people do and say worse things to me on some of the best days of my life. Get over it!”
Actually these people are following step one of Jesus’ pattern. In effect they are saying to you: “Your complaining is bothering me. Knock it off!” Sometimes that is exactly what we need to hear, but if that doesn’t sink in Jesus says we have to go to the person who has harmed us and talk to them.
Before we go we must understand the strategy and goals of the meeting because, Jesus goes on to say, that if the person listens you have gained back a friend.
The strategy is not one of “mutually assured destruction,” where you both yell at each other until the veins are sticking out in your foreheads, but restoration. The idea is to gain the person back as a friend and a member of the community.
Jesus is no fool about the human condition. He knows that sometimes even the best plans with the purest intentions do not work out. Restoration doesn’t happen but anger and resentment does. There is yelling, perhaps tears, and, for me, the most aggravating thing of all happens – the other person storms out of the room. I hate that! It makes me crazy! If you’re going to start something stay to the finish! Don’t go off and sulk like and overgrown three year old!
Jesus knows that some people are not into this restoration and healing business. For whatever reason, they would rather not only hang onto old wounds and grievances but nurse them. They feed them everyday making sure that the scars never heal.
Then it is helpful to understand that some people are lost to us forever.
It’s not that we wouldn’t welcome them with open arms and open hearts if we ever saw them again. It isn’t as if we wouldn’t sit them down, get them coffee or break out the finest wine in our supply if they ever came to our door. It’s not that we wouldn’t (We may already have!) tell them how much we’ve missed them and how glad we are to have them back. It’s just that we have become for them like a “tax-collector” or an “outcast.”
If you are like me you don’t have a hard time with a little confrontation. Get it out! Say it! Get it off your chest! But then, get over it! Perhaps it is the surfacing of my extremely recessive Italian genes that says. “Okay, we’ll have it out. We’ll yell a little. We’ll swear a little. And then, once we have both taken some time to catch our breath and cool off, we’ll sit down, we’ll have some nice pasta and a glass of red wine. We’ll eat, we’ll drink, we’ll laugh, it will be fine.”
A former administrator of this parish, Fawn Hurst, used to refer to my explosions, as my “going Italian.” Her secret was to do what Lyndon B. Johnson said he or his opponents would sometimes have to do. “Just hunker down like a jack-rabbit in a rainstorm” he advised, “and wait for things to pass.”
What I have spent my lifetime learning and am still learning is that sometimes people never get over these explosions. For them the storm is never over. Long after my clouds have passed, and I’m on to sunshine and brighter days, they are still cowering in their emotional rabbit holes searching the skies for any sign of a dark cloud. I have to keep reminding myself that what Jesus is talking about here is restoration. It is a return of the person who wronged us, or who we have wronged to life in the community.
This may not work the first time, or the second time, or even as Jesus might say, the seventy-seventh time. If it doesn’t “you’ll have to start over from scratch, confront him [or her] with the need for repentance, and offer again God’s forgiving love.”
In “As Good as it Gets” the Jack Nicholson character says to Helen Hunt, now his girlfriend, as they ride along together in the car. “Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're angry that so many others had it good.”
No one in this room, no one in any church, anywhere, in any place, at any time has a perfect life. So, if your idea of a perfect church is one where no one ever does wrong – one where it is just a long picnic by the lake with noodle salad – you’ll never find it on this earth.
But that’s all right, because that isn’t how God measures perfection. God measures by our love, by our concern for others, and by our readiness to give and receive forgiveness. And, with Jesus’ help, just when we might begin to think that all loves labour’s are lost, we’ll discover that our imperfections, lived out in God’s grace, really are, as good as it will ever get.
Thanks for listening.
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