"Jesus' Business Plan" - Pentecost 16A

 

The Eve of the Feast of Saint Matthew

Saint Matthew 9:9-13

Saint Matthew 20:1–16

One of the times this gospel was the subject of a Sunday at my former parish a very successful general contractor said while shaking my hand, “I don’t believe it! If I would have run my business like that nobody would have shown up on time.”  He was giving his pastor “the business” as some of you delight in doing sometimes after church but we both knew he was right.

Jesus’ business plan left a little to be desired not that it hasn’t been tried. 

In 2015 Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments who had been raised in a Christian home, announced that he was slashing his multi-million dollar salary to raise the base rate for all the workers at his company to $70,000 per year. Price said in an Inc. Magazine interview that he saw “establishing a $70,000 minimum wage is a moral imperative, not a business strategy.”

He was immediately criticized.

Then the inevitable backlash came. Price has been ... trashed by [a] multimillionaire radio personality who said, "I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it's gonna fail". A Times story in July was so laden with quotes from disgruntled customers and staff that Price's worried friends called to say he could always come and stay with them if things don't work out. Others accused Price of orchestrating a clever publicity stunt. "If it was," he replies, "I'm a genius." Shortly after Price announced his minimum pay plan, his brother Lucas sued him.1

Gravity Payments is a credit card processing firm that caters to to the small business economy with much of its services being delivered to the hospitality industry – restaurants, bars, and hotels.  By May of this year that part of the business was down 65 percent with total revenue down 55 percent.

So Price went to the 200 employees of the Seattle-based company looking for ideas. The solution to stemming Gravity’s hefty losses was voluntary pay cuts, with employees choosing how much they could sacrifice individually. [While] as many as a dozen people opted to take no pay at all.  Price said. “Many of our employees stepped up, and to me it’s humbling.”

“While this is the craziest and most horrible crisis maybe of our lifetime, it’s also a really, really big opportunity to make a difference if we can stick to our values,” Price said. “Our whole thing is sticking up for people who are being squeezed, sticking up for underdogs,” Price said.2

 That is exactly what the landowner who went out early one morning looking for workers in his vineyard did.  

While I am not sure what happens here in the suburbs but on any given morning in Chicago one can go the parking lot of any big-box home centre and see countless labourers waiting around in the parking lot.  They are day labourers, often immigrants, and they are looking for work.  

If you hang around long enough you will see other guys with large pick-up trucks or multi-passenger vans pull up.  They are contractors looking for help.

Unfortunately for the landowner in Jesus’ parable when he gets back to his vineyard he discovers that he has more work than he has workers. So back he goes a little later in the morning, then again at noon, at 3 o’clock, and finally as the sun was setting and he really begins to feel the crunch he goes back again around 5 o’clock hoping that someone will be left.  

Some labourers are still waiting   and so he asks them a question that has been grossly mistranslated.  The Greek word he uses is argos which doesn’t mean “idle” but only “not working.”

 “‘Why haven’t you been working today?’ [he asks.] “‘Because no one hired us,’ they replied.  “‘Then go on out and join the others in my fields,’ he told them.”3

The hour was growing late for the vintner but it must have seemed  like a far later hour for those workers “still standing there, tools around their waist, faces looking long and realizing they’ll be going home to their kids without any food that night.”4

Their being hired was literally a godsend.

As you know, things begin to go south real fast when all the workers line up at the payroll window.  I find it interesting that it is the manager and not the owner who calls the workers together and gives them their pay envelopes.  

Really, this is the owners fault!  If he had paid the first ones first and the last ones last they all would have gone home happy and no one would have been the wiser.  Instead he pays the last first and this causes the others to start thinking about overtime, double-time and triple-triple time until they look at their pay-stubs and realize that everybody received the same amount.

“And when they received it, [those hired earlier] grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’”5

They feel ripped off and begin to turn on each other making a distinction between “us” and “them” and that “we” are better than “they.” “We” deserve more than “they.”  They are also giving the vineyard owner the stink-eye for the literal translation is “Is you eye evil because I am good?”6

We know what that is!  It’s the side-ways glance that says with a look, “I’m being cheated.”  Or, it may even be the death-stare that glares at another person never and leaves any doubt that the person feels like they are being ripped off.

The landowners response in the J.B. Phillips paraphrase is masterful.  He says.  “‘My friend, I’m not being unjust to you. It is my wish to give the latecomers as much as I give you. May I not do what I like with what belongs to me? Must you be jealous because I am generous?’”7

What Jesus is talking about here is the generosity of God.  This is not a business plan unless we see the business as the kingdom of heaven where grace is always the coin of the realm.

That is why I paired today’s gospel with the one for tomorrow which is the feast day of Saint Matthew.  

Before he was called Matthew was a tax collectors and the charge most often leveled again Jesus was, “he eats with sinners and tax-collectors.”  It was “the insiders” versus “the outsiders”.  It was the “us” versus “them”.  

Jesus is telling us that there is no first or last in the Kingdom of God. There are no “insiders” nor “outsiders.” God has more than enough grace, more than enough love, for everybody.  You’re neighbour doesn’t have more or less of God’s love than you have and you don’t have more or less of God’s love than your neighbour.

And for me that is great news because as Greg Delosch reminded us on this morning’s Day1 program:

This really isn't about you or me or what time we show up to work. This is really about day after day the goodness of God keeps showing up - in the morning, in the evening - all day long - to lepers, to prostitutes, to prodigal children, to Samaritans, to thieves on the cross, to outsiders - to you and me too. It is not about merited work, but generous inclusion.

[When] God shows up and settles up, and it is not always what we expect but it is more than we understand.8

 There are no grace cuts in the kingdom of God like there are pay cuts in the world.  God’s business plan is always on the side of outsider and the person feeling squeezed. We all get the same amount and it is always there in good times in bad, in prosperity and adversity, in crises or calm, God’s grace and love sustains.  

In Jesus’ business plan there is enough grace and love for today and there will be grace and love enough for tomorrow.  

So, it turns out that Jesus’ business plan is a good one after all. Don’t you think?

____________

1. Paul Keegan, “Here's What Really Happened at ThatCompany That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage,” Inc.com (Inc., October 21, 2015), https://www.inc.com/magazine/201511/paul-keegan/does-more-pay-mean-more-growth.html.

2. Kurt Schlosser, “Gravity Payments Employees Volunteer to Take Pay Cut as Revenue Drops 50% during COVID-19 Crisis,” GeekWire, March 31, 2020, https://www.geekwire.com/2020/gravity-payments-employees-volunteer-take-pay-cut-company-sees-revenue-dive-50-crisis/.

3. Saint Matthew 20:6-7. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1971]

4. Philip Martin, “Not My Favorite Parable,” Sermonforeverysunday.com (A Sermon for Every Sunday, September 15, 2020), https://asermonforeverysunday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Phillip-Martin-Laborers-in-the-Vineyard.pdf.

5. St. Matthew 20:11–12. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

6. Brian Stoffregen, “Matthew 20.1-16 Proper 20 - Year A,” Crossmarks.com, accessed September 19, 2020, http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt20x1.htm.

7. St. Matthew 20:12-15. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English: a Translation (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1960).

8. St. Matthew 20:12-15. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English: a Translation (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1960).

 

"Haywired Grace" - Pentecost 15A

Romans 14:1-12 

Saint Matthew 18:25-35

Before the start of this year whenever one of those multi-state super lottery jackpot drawings my friends and I would play the game, “What would you do with all that money?”  And then we would all sit around and fantasize of what we would buy or where we would go. Sometimes we got so caught up in our dreams that each of us would pitch in a dollar or two and a volunteer would be sent off to buy the lucky ticket.  When they returned from the convenience store with a fistful of tickets in hand our imaginations would shift into overdrive.

Lotto tickets sell us hope.  It may even be hope again hope and it built on the almost perfect slogan enticing us to try: “Somebody’s gotta win and it might as well be you.”

“Yeh!  Why not me?  Remember what they say: “You can’t win if you don’t play!” and so we produce another dollar so that the daydreaming can begin again.

What would you do if you won the 17 trillion, bazillion dollars in offered up as the latest jackpot in the Lottery?
That question has been changed over the past nine months.  No longer are we asking each other about what we would do if we became unbelievably rich; now we are asking each other what we are going to do when this virus comes under control.

I’ve been asking this of friends, aquaiintences, and even the young man bagging groceries at the check out line of my local grocery.

The answers have been heartbreaking.  “We were going to get married,” said one couple, “but now that’s on hold.”  A friend said that he and his partner were planning a trip to Brazil.  A woman and her partner had to postpone their honeymoon in Paris.  The young fellow behind the counter at Happy Foods told me that he was scheduled to start at the University of Cincinnati this fall but instead he’s taking online courses at Wright Junior College.  One person you know very well was hoping for a transatlantic crossing but has only been able to cross the county line between Cook and Kane County on more than one occasion.

These are but trifles compared to the big picture.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a loved one hospitalized and have them disappear into their restricted ward never knowing if you would see them again.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be “an essential worker” who went to work every day never knowing if you would become infected. For them, “what are you going to do when the quarantine is lifted” must have a special, deeper, meaning.

While we may console ourselves with the thought that we we’ll finally be able to take that vacation we have been meaning to take since March.  That we’ll be able to eat out until you are as tired or fine dining as you were of home cooked meals.  Invite friends and family over for a huge party and when the arrive greet each with a long and lingering hug. Have Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving and Easter all rolled into one as soon as we have received your all clear.

What would you do with your new found freedom and your life restored?  That’s the issue behind Jesus’ parable that comes hard on the heels of Peter’s important question.

Peter is still working out his theology of forgiveness left over from last week.  He hasn’t had six days to mull over Jesus’ teaching on restoration of a fallen member of the church like we have. Probably no more than a minute has passed between when Jesus taught about restoring a wayward brother or sister to the life of the community and the question coming to Peter’s mind.

Peter’s question is perfectly rational: “Lord, when someone has sinned against me, how many times ought I forgive him? Once? Twice? As many as seven times?”1

The rabbinical standard in Peter’s day was three.  “Three strikes and you’re out!” Peter decides to double the standard and add an extra one for good measure.  Seven is a very good guess except when you are dealing with Jesus.

Depending on what translation you are reading Jesus either says 77 times or seventy times seven times.  Either way that is a lot of forgive­ness for one person.  Seventy-seven is a considerable number but (for those of you who did not bring your calculators to church or can’t do challenging math in your heads) seventy times seven is 490.

Most preachers I’ve read leave it there.  Don’t keep score. Be forgiving.  They throw at their listeners some examples of people who are more forgiving than they will ever be.  Like a magician they cause us to conjure up in our minds all the gruesome details of those times when we have not been forgiving.  They conclude with “God loves you and so do I” and send their people on their way.

Jesus never seems to want to leave well enough alone.  He is not going to send us on our way before we hear a little parable about a guy who, even though he had been forgiven, just could not be forgiving toward others.
The servant who is dragged before the king owes more than a tidy sum of money.  He owes the equivalent of the national debt.  Ten thousand talents? The entire budget for the province of Judea for a year was 600 talents.  This guy must have been quite the high-roller.  Cue Edie Adams for a chorus of “Hey big spender, why don’t you spend a little time with me.”

It would take a lot of time, effort, and moxie to come up with that kind of money.  It is the stuff of which at least a half-a-dozen corporate bankruptcies could be made.  And for a minute there we might think that the guy had learned his lesson.

With a jail sentence looming over not only his head but the heads of his wife and children he throws himself at the mercy of the king.  “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything."1

Considering the amount of the debt what the servant is promising is impossible.  This isn’t a promise the guy is just blowing smoke. There is no way he is going to be able to come up with that kind of cash.

Jesus doesn’t give us any hints about what the king was thinking. Did the king honestly think that the servant would turn his life around? Did the king really believe that the servant would be so chastened and embarrassed at being called out that he would mend his ways?  Or, did the king start an office pool with overs and unders as to how long it would take the servant to get in trouble again.

Those who had “less than a minute” in that lottery are the winners.

The newly liberated man doesn’t even make it to the sliding-doors before he finds a slave that owes him a paltry sum of money in comparison, grabs him by the throat and yells, “pay me what you owe.”

This guy had just won the lottery of all lotteries.  He had walked away absolutely free of debt.  He owed nothing to anybody.  He could start his life all over again.  All those worries he might have had at night about his tremendous debt were gone.

I’d like to think I would have sailed out of the king’s palace happier and more relieved than I had ever been in my life.  I’d like to think that coming upon a fellow slave that only owed me a paltry sum by comparison I wouldn’t have attacked him but invited his and his whole family out for dinner and drinks.  I would have been walking on air and would have gathered all my friends together to share my good-fortune.

Instead of celebration this guy practices retaliation.

His entire life may have been built around them principal of using fear as a weapon. Free as he was, he thought that the only way he could hold on to whatever power he had left was through fear.  As one politician was quoted as saying: “Real power is – and I don’t even want to use the word – fear.”3 He may have equated fear with respect.

Or, and this one puzzles me even more but Dr. Brian Blunt, President of Union Presbyterian seminary, made me realize something obvious and something deeper.

There are a lot of angry people out there in our city, our country, our world. And you can’t convince me that they don’t enjoy the anger that they’re feeling. they’re angry. They’re mad. And they can’t let go because it’s become part of them. Anger is like that. It gets in you. It becomes you.4

I honestly don’t want to believe that some people live their lives like that as they angrily going about attacking others for the least little thing. I don’t understand the person who spends their time on the internet to expressing their ire at anybody they believe has wronged them. 

I cannot understand how, for some, anger is their dominate word.  They wake up angry, they go to bed angry, and they spend most of their day angrily trying to get back at those they believe have slighted them. They demean and degrade others with a contemptuous attitude.  They are angry, period.

For them God’s grace has gone haywire.  They never ask for forgiveness because they don’t think they need it.  God is a talking point not a reference point. Their life is centered on whatever money they can make and whomever they can use to achieve their ends.

But this dastardly slave gets done in by some whistle blowers, fellow slaves who saw what he did and not only said to themselves but told the king, “something’s not right here. Your grace has gone haywire.”

The king investigates and adjudicates and before the servant can plead for mercy he hears the bars of the jailhouse doors clanging shut behind him.

He wasn’t put there by the king but by his own actions.  He has caused the grace which was shown to him to go haywire.

It is never God’s intent to cut us off from God’s love but humans have an infinite ability to do it to ourselves and when we do it is nothing less than torture.

There are some people who by all outward appearances have it all. They have titles, fame, and fortune beyond measure but they are angry, unforgiving, and always on the lookout for the slightest slight.  They live in a prison of their own making.

We don’t have to be like that.  We’ve heard the good news!  Even in the midst of these difficult days we have the assurance of God’s love and forgiveness for us and for those we love.

We have the assurance of God’s presence in our lives that has brought us through the tough times of the past and will bring us through these days as well.

God’s grace to us, God’s love for us, never goes haywire and for this day and for all the days to come that may be better news than winning the lottery.  For God’s grace and love is a sure thing, a sure bet.
____________
1. St. Matthew 18:21. (VOICE) [VOICE=Ecclesia Bible Society (Nashville: TN Thomas Nelson and Son Publishers. (2012)

2.St. Matthew 18:26. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

3.Austin Sarat, “Trump Says He Wanted to Avoid COVID Panic‑But Panic Is His Whole Shtick,” The Bulwark, September 10, 2020, https://thebulwark.com/trump‑says‑he‑wanted‑to‑avoid‑covid‑panic‑but‑panic‑is‑his‑whole‑shtick/?utm_source=afternoon‑newsletter.

4.Br3. Brian K Blount, “Extravagant Forgiveness,” A Sermon For Every Sunday, September 8, 2020, https://asermonforeverysunday.com/wp‑content/uploads/2020/09/Brian‑Blount‑Extravagant‑Forgiveness.pd

"Better Together" - Pentecost 14A

Romans 13:8–14

Saint Matthew 18:15–20

In my former congregation we had a man who was difficult to say the least. 

His family has been members since the cornerstone of the first building was put in place and no matter how sparse the crowd was he, his wife, and his children always occupied the very last pew of the church just like his father did. 

He loved to read Scripture in worship and, when he did, he did it well.  The only problem was that even though the text from the New Revised Standard Version was printed in the bulletin he always brought his own bible to the lectern which was the King James Version and caused some confusion to those who were not familiar with his proclivities.

These were minor matters but on other occasions his disruptive tendencies were more difficult to overlook.

During the week of Christian Unity the local Roman Catholic priest and I decided to preach and lead forums in each other’s churches. 

When my parishioner saw Father Sakowitz coming down a narrow hallway toward him he turned on his heals and made an obvious show of going the other way.  Clearly, he was not going to shake hands, or even acknowledge the presence of a Catholic priest in his Lutheran Church. I’m sure he believed that Father was not just a priest but a Papist.

The breaking point came when we were approached by a congregation of Korean Presbyterians about renting our building.  They were good people, very kind, very friendly, very Christian. 

Needless-to-say, my always cantankerous member was against it.

The usual reasons were put forth:  Wear and tear, use of electricity, messing up the kitchen, etc.  But he pushed it one step too far when he said, “I’ll never forgive them for what they did during the Korean War.”

As luck would have it I had just finished reading David McCullough’s very fine biography Truman and my last nerve had been worked.  I shot back at the man in front of God, country, king, crown, and congregation. “The Korean War ended in July of 1953!  That was six months before I was born and I’m old! Get over it!”

He never did.

I confess that my response was not in keeping with the words Jesus and Saint Paul have placed before us in today’s readings.  So, as you listen to what I have to say remember that these words may be being spoken by the chief of sinners who needs to hear them the most.

I like to call Jesus admonitions “Evangelical Order” because they offer a careful and precise directions over what to do if a fellow believer hurts you or the community in some way.

Dr. Thomas G. Long, reminds us in his commentary on this passage:

Matthew has no romantic illusions about the church. He knows that the church is not all sweet thoughts, endlessly patient saints, and cloudless skies. In Matthew's church, people ‑‑ no matter how committed ‑‑ are still people, and stormy weather is always a possible forecast.1

The trouble for Matthew’s community is the same as it is for most churches today.

According to a study from Duke University “In 2012, the average congregation had only 70 regular participants, counting both adults and children”2 while “a huge church in Matthew's day included at the most 50 members. Their gatherings were much more like small family reunions -- maybe 20‑30 people. We can easily imagine how the actions or attitude of one family member could spoil the festive gathering for the rest.”3

In our deeply divided culture we know what these occasions can be like.  We dread the thought of having a holiday, or even coffee, with family members who are on opposite ends of the political spectrum from us.  Nothing is more unpleasant than sitting between an MSNBC loyalist and a FOX News aficionado.

And now, we can even be forewarned about just how unpleasant our anticipated encounter may be by following their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter accounts.  The only upside of knowing what might be in-store at the next gathering is that we can decide to use paper plates instead of the fine china just in case things get out of hand.

In this instance Jesus first instruction is particularly helpful.

Whi­le we may stew over what to do if one member of the clan shows up wearing “Make America Great Again” hat and another arrives sporting a Biden campaign button as big as their chest, Jesus suggests there might be a better way to handle the matter.  Go and talk to the two parties involved privately.  Tell them no buttons and no hats.  Tell them that for one night at least your house with be for all people and therefore it will be a politics free zone.

Now I know this is easier said than done.  It is very hard to go and tell a person face to face that what they do upsets you.  As C.S. Lewis said  once: “It is much easier to pray for a bore than to go visit him.”

One of my favourite people and preachers Judith Watt said in a sermon: 

The process outlined is set up so that no one will be shamed. No one is to be called out in front of others. Go first, and speak privately about the offense. By implication, no one should be shamed by being talked about behind his or her back. The first step if you are hurt, or have been offended, is to talk to that other person privately. And if you aren’t heard, then to take a couple of people with you, not as people on your side, but instead ... for the purpose of being sure both you and the one who has offended you are hearing one another. The process is meant to lead both parties to greater knowledge, to lead both parties to growth and expansion, to lead both parties to a wider ability to love, to bigger hearts, to expanded understand­ing. When that happens, both people are preserved and the well‑being of the community is preserved.5

Restoration is the ultimate goal but Jesus is also a realist and he knows that some people will hold on to their grudges, their differences, their anger no matter what.  They may be like my former parishioner and hold on to their anger for a lifetime. 

If, after numerous attempts at restoration, they still refuse to be reconciled to a person or to the community, Jesus says, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”6 

Some of us believe that Jesus might have said this with a smile and a nod to the Gospel’s author who was standing right next to him at the time.  It may have even made Saint Matthew laugh because before he met Jesus he was a tax collector.

Throughout his ministry Jesus “was a great friend to tax collectors (for which the pious ridiculed him), and the inclusion of Gentiles ... is at the heart of everything Christian. Dare we imagine Jesus giving a little wink,”7 in Matthew’s direction and Matthew laughing out loud as he made a point to remember what Jesus said and include it if he ever got around to writing all of this down.

When he heard Jesus refer to tax collectors Matthew may have thought back to his colleagues at the office still pouring over accounts and trying to finagle an extra nickel from their fellow citizens.  He may have remembered the puzzled looks around the the place when he announced that he was giving it all up to take his life in a new direction by going on this adventure with Jesus.  He may have even heard again in his mind them calling him a “loser” and wondering what was in it for him.

Matthew made sure to include this little encounter because he knew that lives could be changed when people met Jesus because his was!

Gentiles, tax collectors, sinners, and other ne’re-do-wells, were the objects of Jesus’ love and so are we.  It’s called “forgiven grace” and it is where we all stand.

We bring nothing to Jesus and receive everything in return.  “You did not choose me but I chose you.”7 he said once and then added. “And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last...”8 Our only task is to spread the love we have received around.

Saint Paul reminds us that we don’t owe each anything but to reflect the same love to others that we have been given by God.  All the laws of God he says “are summed up in this one saying: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. Love hurts nobody: therefore love is the answer to the Law’s commands.”9

How different is that from the attitudes of our prevailing culture where, “Somebody hits me, I hit back harder” has become a mantra. Or, “if somebody hassles you, forget them. It’s their problem, not yours.”

Christians offer something greater to each other.  The opportunity to become restored in Christ’s love and God’s grace.

Every week the Korean congregation that I mentioned earlier would have a light lunch after church.  It was mostly soup and bread spiced up with some Kimchi on the side.  The soup warmed our hearts while the Kimchi had most of us Anglos reaching for the antacids.  

Every week they invited us all, every single one of us, including the member who couldn’t get over what happened in a war he did not serve.  Every week while we had spent the hour it took them to worship drinking our coffee and conversing they would invite us down to fellowship hall for lunch and many of us accepted except, as you might have guessed, the man who decided to keep nursing a grudge from a lifetime ago.

Had he made the effort he may have discovered something. 

He would have discovered that many of them fled their country during the war in fear for their lives.  He would have even discovered that some had fled North Korea after suffering years of religious oppression.  He would have discovered that the people who couldn’t forgive were as committed Christians as he believed himself to be.  He would have discovered that he had more in common with his Korean brothers and sisters than he had ever imagined.

But instead, he made himself an outsider.  Instead he rejected the fellowship they offered.  He couldn’t accept that they too had been embraced by Christ’s love and been restored in him.  He never understood because he refused to understand that God’s forgiving grace was so broad that it even reached out to individuals and groups he disliked.  God’s forgiving grace was so wild and untamed that it even included Roman Catholic priests and Korean Presbyterians.

Every day of our lives the choice is put before us. 

It is a tougher choice than we ever might have imagined because it asks us to not only accept God’s forgiving grace for ourselves but to understand that this very same grace, love, and forgiveness is being extended to others, even those people we do not particularly like.

As my pastor friend, Judy Watt observed, “We ought to remember that what makes a church a church is presence of so many troublesome people.”10

You, me, everybody has that potential to be a troublemaker, but we also have the potential to be people who reflect God’s forgiveness, grace, and love in our lives.

Now, all we have to do is figure out what kind of of person we will be, today, tomorrow, and everyday for the rest of our lives.  May God help us as we not only try to figure this out but to live this out.

---

1.   Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p. 209.

2.  Mark Chaves and Allison Eagle, “Religious Congregations in 21st Century America,” n.d.

3.  Brian Stoffregen, “Matthew 18.15‑20 Proper 18 ‑ Year A,” Matthew 18.15‑20, accessed September 4, 2020, http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt18x15.htm. 

4.  C. S. Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm (London: Fount, 1998).

5. Judith Watt, “Protecting Community” 8 A.M. Worship. Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. (September 10, 2017).

6. St. Matthew 18:17. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

7. James Howell, “What can we say September 6? 14th after Pentecost” James Howell's Weekly Preaching Notions (blog) (Myers Park United Methodist Church, July 1, 2020), http://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

8. St. John 15:16. (NRSV)

9.  Romans 13:8-10. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English: a Translation (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1960).

10. Watt, op. cit. 

"Living Arguments" - Pentecost 13A

 

 

Romans 12:9–21

Saint Matthew 16:21–28

 

 

In the year 1952 a book was published called The Power of Positive Thinking.  It was written by Norman Vincent Peale who was then the pastor of Marble-Collegiate Church in New York, City.  Even to this day we are not sure whether the book set the tone for its time or simply reflected the sentiments of the age.

My personal opinions about Peale and Marble-Collegiate are conflicted.  On the one hand my preaching professor in seminary, Dr. Ernest T. Campbell, who was then the pastor at Riverside Church in New York, couldn’t stand the guy.  One the other hand, under the last three senior pastors since Peale’s death, if I lived in New York it would probably be the church I attended.

The book’s teachings are straightforward, orga­nized around 10 key principles, like the laws of Moses. The author ... recommends visualizing success, drowning out negative thinking, and minimizing obstacles—pretty much a Tony Robbins seminar or a Sunday morning with Joel Osteen. Certain Bible verses (“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”; “If God be for us, who can be against us?”) stripped of context, interpretation, and theology, are to be repeated 10 times per day to ward off the evil spirit of negative thought. The purpose of these psychological and spiritual practices is to free individuals from self‑doubt and feelings of inferiority and help them to become the people God truly intends them to be: happy, wealthy, popular, and professionally successful.

Peale was exceptional for cutting the flock some spiritual slack, encouraging them to look for the sunny side and conquer their inferiority complexes. In his world, you can have the economic gains minus the guilt, which seems perfectly suited to the American sensibility. The Power of Positive Thinking must have been a like a tonic, or perhaps a gin and tonic, some­thing to soothe the wired, weary, worried soul.1

Unfortunately the “positive thinking” of Peale and the “possibility thinking of his protege Robert Schuller doesn’t leave much room for the cross.

In fact I once heard Robert Schuller suggest that the letters in the word, Lent should stand for “let’s, eliminate, negative, thinking.”  Theology like this certainly turns the idea of Lent as following Jesus on the way to the cross on its head.

It also can cause a severe disconnect with how the way things are as enumerated by conservative columnist Charlie Sykes in last Thursday’s Bullwork:

So we wake up to this: Hurricane Laura makes landfall in Louisiana; a 17‑year‑old is charged with murdering two people in Kenosha during protests over the shooting of Jacob Blake; NBA and MLB games are postponed after players declare a boycott, wildfires continue in Califor­nia; the death toll from the coronavirus neared 180,000; an asteroid is speeding toward earth; and Vice President Mike Pence warned us all how awful things would be if Joe Biden was elected president.2

No matter how rosy a picture some paint the events of almost every day tell us that there is a cross in there somewhere.  

We can’t wish it away, we can’t hope it away, we can’t even push it away with all of our might. We know this when even the long standing counterclaim that “Everyday in every way things are getting better and better” doesn’t seem to ring true anymore. 

In light of all the evidence to the contrary we still are slow to embrace the cross as central symbol of our faith.  But don’t feel bad. Even the great Saint Peter wasn’t so excited by the prospect when it finally dawned on him that Jesus was serious.

In last week’s gospel Peter was being praised for confessing Christ. “Who do you say I am?” Jesus asked.  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter,[and on this rock I will build my church...”3

That is pretty high praise for Peter.  He gets an “A” on his confirmation class quiz!  But just as he is march­ing up to take his seat at the head of the class he discov­ers that the central sign for this church that Jesus is building was going to be a cross, with a man on it, and that man would be Jesus himself.

Scholars tell us that his “Never Lord” could have been a prayer. Literally, Peter could be offering a prayer, "May God be merciful to you, Lord; this will not happen to you." Being merciful would imply that God prevents bad things from hap­pening, thus the translation, "God forbid it" in NRSV. The CEV has: "God would never let this happen to you." Peter presumes to know God's will. Jesus makes it clear that Peter is mis­taken.4

 Peter is trying to correct Jesus’ negative thinking.  He is trying to make Jesus’ message into a simple “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t mess with mister in between.” That’s the stuff of song lyrics and not a messages of salvation.

Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ passion prediction has made him an adversary (satanas) and stumbling block (skanalon) to Jesus. Peter reacts to Je­sus’ prediction as if the prediction were scan­dalous. Jesus response to Peter shows Peter’s words to be the real scandal.5

Giving into the ways of the world has been a cause for concern since Peter’s first confession.  Jesus is calling “his disciples to ‘deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow’ – to lose their lives in order to save them – coupled with the warning that one can gain the whole world and lose one’s own life.”6

In his commentary on the book of Matthew, Dr. Thomas G. Long tells us what this means:

Cross bearers forfeit the game of power before the first inning: they are never selected “Most Likely to Succeed.” Cross bearers are drop outs in the school of self-promotion. They do not pick up their crosses as means for personal fulfil­ment, career advancement, or self-expression: rather, they ‘deny themselves” and pick up their crosses, like their Lord, because of the needs of other people.”7

Saint Paul calls this genuine love.  Like Peale and Schuller he has made a list only his list is much more difficult than anything those two came up with.  Paul is much more demanding than Peale’s advice to, when you are stuggling, “Just give it a quarter turn on the mental carburetor” or Schuller’s hopeful, “The me I see is the me I’ll be.”

Saint Paul’s response to the “call of God at any given moment: genuine love, tenacious goodness, mutual affection, competition not to gain honor but to give it.The list goes on and on, prominently featuring such practices as suffering patiently, blessing those who persecute, refusing to repay evil in kind, and renouncing retribution – all clearly counterintuitive to a project of self-advance­ment.8

The one thing you can never accuse Jesus of is false advertizing. He is calling his followers to follow the way of the cross which means we cannot just deny realities and keep moving but have to face evil head on.  We are not going to be able to conquer the challenges of our day by blinding ourselves to them we have to face them.

What we are talking about is giving up, dying to, crucifying, our old ways and building a radically inclusive community where ... Jesus followers defy customary social divides between classes and ethnic groups reaching out to even to one’s declared adversary.

This means we have to reverse the parlance of the wild west and to ask questions first and shoot much, much, much later.  It is to realize that no matter how angry one may be destruction is not the answer and may end up hurting your cause. 

Taking up ones cross means working together in genuine love so that Saint Paul’s dream that we live peaceably with all might be fulfilled.

Jacob Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, said it best when she called for peace and healing. “Let’s use our hearts, our love, and our intelligence to work together to show the rest of the world how humans are supposed to treat each other.”9

This is going to take work but it is our cross to bear for our time. And can be fulfilled when we realized that if one life, any life, doesn’t matter then no life will matter.

May we bear the cross that has been given us this day with resilience, strength of character, and the courage that we can be “Living Auguements” for the truth of the Gospel that has come from the one who bore the cross for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.

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1.   Brent Orrell, “The Power of Positive Thinking: Too Much and Never Enough,” The Bulwark, August 26, 2020, https://thebulwark.com/the‑power‑of‑positive‑thinking‑too‑much‑and‑never‑enough/?utm_source=afternoon‑newsletter.

2.   Charles Sykes, “America's Dark Moment,” The Bulwark, August 27, 2020, https://thebulwark.com/newsletter‑issue/americas‑dark‑moment/.

3.   St. Matthew 16:16–17. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

4.   Brian Stoffregen, “Matthew 16.21‑28 Proper 17 ‑ Year A,” Matthew 16.21‑28, accessed August 29, 2020, http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt16x21.htm.

5.   Raquel St. Clair Lettsom, “St. Matthew 16:21-28. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with the World.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Teaching 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminister| John Knox Press, 2020): pp. 278‑280.

6.   David J. Schlafer, “St. Matthew 16:21‑28. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Teaching 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminister| John Knox Press, 2020): pp. 278‑280.

7.   Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 190.   

8.   Schlafer, loc. cit.

9.   Blase J. Cupich, “Statement of Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, on Jacob Blake Shooting,” Archdiocese of Chicago, August 28, 2020, https://www.archchicago.org/en/statement/‑/article/2020/08/28/statement‑of‑cardinal‑blase‑j‑cupich‑archbishop‑of‑chicago‑on‑jacob‑blake‑shooting?fbclid=IwAR1qZ5LXJ8XXWR2_VtIkUHVDQgNArX85ike0GWGAO95w4ntjHI2kkKdOKUw.

"From Call to Commitment" - Pentecost 12A

Feast of Saint Bartholomew

 Saint John 1:43--51'

Saint Matthew 16:13–20

More years ago than I care to remember I was called upon by a funeral director friend to help a family whose loved one died “without the benefit of clergy.”  It is always an honor to do this and I take the task very seriously.

Prayers were to be said after dinner and so by the time I arrived it was just the family.  I entered the chapel, looked around, and decided to forgo a formal service in favour of asking his wife, his children and grandchildren to reminisce about their loved one after which I would read a scripture and say a prayer.

All was going well.  Warm stories about  their husband, dad and grand-dad were told.  There were a few tears but mostly there was laughter.  His wife kept returning to the single theme that her husband was not very religious.

When it became apparent that the family had told their last story I asked if they were ready to hear a word of scripture and pray with me.

No sooner than I had started with the familiar: “Let not your heart be troubled . . . ” the man’s wife interrupted with “Yes, but how do I get that?”

 It would have been a great question were it not for the fact that it seemed to be spoken by someone who was about to enter into mortal combat of the verbal variety.

 “You say I should have an untroubled heart,” she repeated, “How do I get that?”

 I was taken back a little and her children were looking at her with a look of horror that is reserved for full-grown adults who are being embarrassed by their parents.  There was the uncomfortable shifting in their seats and the sideways glances that seemed to implore one of their siblings to “please, say something.”

 Unfortunately, I am not of the Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, Joel Osteen school that would have us believe they always had or have just the right word for any occasion to affect immediate conver­sion.  I usually don’t but I tried my best.

 I thought back to the “Four Spiritual Laws” of Campus Crusade for Christ.  “God loves you and has a plan for your life . . . ”  only to be interrupted with another question.  I thought maybe Billy Graham’s, “Have you given your heart to Jesus?” might be the solution only to face another interruption.  Nothing was working.

 Finally, one of the children suggested that they had taken up enough of the good pastor’s time and that their mother should just let me finish, uninterrupted, so that I could be on my way.  Never had I heard more gracious words in my life. 

 I beat myself up all the way home.  Why couldn’t I get through to her?  Why wouldn’t she at least give a listen to what I had to say?  Even one of the daughter’s apologies for her mom on the way out didn’t make me feel better.  Her excuse that her mother likes to give everybody a hard time offered little consolation.

 I thought about the encounter for days.  Obviously, I’m thinking about it still. 

 The French have a term, l’esprit d’escalier or in English “the wit at the bottom of the stairs.”  It is that response that you wish you could have made at the moment but only comes to you much later on the drive home or when you are climbing the stairs to go to bed.

 Here, years later, is what I should have said to the widow woman. “What you want is a gift. Ask God and God will give it to you. But, once you have it you’re going to have to use it, learn more about it by reading the bible, going to church, studying and praying to figure out how this gift affects your life. And, I must warn you, that gift may not effect your life the way you want.”

 I think that is the theme of the two gospel stories we have before us.

As all of you who regularly consult the Lutheran liturgical calendar know tomorrow is the commemoration of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle so we will let his story go first.

All of the Gospels have stories in them about Jesus calling his disciples.  They follow the same pattern.  Jesus is walking along somewhere, he sees someone and says, “Follow Me” and they do.

Only in John’s Gospel do we get this account of some of Jesus’ disciples being called by other disciples and I take great comfort in the  fact that, at first, things don’t seem to go well for them either.

Jesus’ tried and true formula works with Philip. Jesus says “follow me” and Philip does.  But then Philip goes and finds Nathaniel and says to him: “‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathaniel asked.”1

That went almost as poorly as my encounter with the woman in the funeral parlor. 

It might have gone worse because Nathaniel is rejecting Jesus out of pure prejudice.  He has something against Jesus hometown.  In our day it would be even more true because “Nazareth is known as ‘the Arab capital of Israel’. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian.”2

It is prejudice that keeps these groups apart.  Years of distrust have made them wonder if any good can come from the other.  Nathaniel was just saying what everybody knew: Nothing good has, can, or ever will come out of that place.

We too reject places and people on the basis of their reputation.  We can’t get over who they are, what they look like, where they came from, we don’t want to give them a chance.  We may even insult them, call them names.

 The disciples challenge Bartholomew’s characterizations with, “‘Just come and see for yourself,’ Philip declared.”3  And he does. 

 Douglas John Hall, in his book Bound and Free: A Theologians Journey, wrote: “I owe such happiness as I have had to one Source ‑‑ namely, the sheer grace of God as it is mediated through the lives of other people.”4

That is how most of us got here.  Somehow, somebody, somewhere in our lives took the time to introduce us to Jesus and we followed.

 And like Peter in the gospel appointed for this day, we walked with him, we studied his life, we read his stories over and over until we came to make the same confession: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”5

 Dr. William H. Willimon could have been there in the chapel with me that night when he wrote:

Lots of people in our world  . . .  want a faith that they can put on a bumper sticker, three spiritual laws, six basic fundamentals, and four Christian principals to live by. But  . . .  God is so more interesting than that. Jesus is so much larger than that, and life is so much more demanding.

To be a Christian means to walk by faith, faith that even when Jesus does not come up with straightforward, simple answers, at least Jesus poses for us the very deepest and most impressive questions.6

While I am not sure that is what the woman in chapel A wanted.  I’m am sure that what she wanted after she lost the love of her life were answers, peace, security.  But, in order to get that we have to follow Jesus, listen to Jesus, be willing to learn from Jesus.

This Sunday is sandwiched between two great Quadrennial promise festivals otherwise known as political conventions in which the candidates of both parties promise us that they have all the answers to all our questions. They even have answers to questions we never asked.

 They promise that they will be able to give us what we need.  They promise that they and their party will give us safety, security, prosperity and anything else we desire.  They promise us an “untroubled heart.”

 That is why I think Jesus would have been such a terrible politician. He was always challenging people to new experiences. He was always asking people to associate with others who were different from them.  He didn’t offer a life of ease but a life that was always being challenged to stretch beyond traditional boundaries and enter into a different way of seeing things.

 My only hope for that woman out of the dark ages of my past, for all of us who have said of Jesus with Nathani­el and Peter, “You are the Son of God.  You are the Messiah!” is that we will get used to the idea that being a Christian does not call us to a life of ease but to a life of adventure.

May this be so in the lives of all who have called upon his name.

Amen.

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1.         St. John 1:44. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Versiion] 

2. “Nazareth,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, August 8, 2020), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth.

3.        St. John 1:46. (TLB) [TLB= The Living Bible]

4.        Douglas John Hall, Bound and Free: a Theologian's Journey (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 29‑30.

5.    St. Matthew 16:16. (NRSV) [NRSV= The New Revised Standard Version ]

6. William H. Willimon, “Daring Impossible Questions,” Pulpit Resource, 2008, pp. 33 ‑36.