Stressed out over the sheer amount of things to be done to prepare for this night, I called a dear friend a few days ago. “Settle down,” he said, “Christmas Eve sermons basically write themselves.”
My dear friend is usually right, but not this year. Christmas Eve sermons do usually write themselves, as we read the same story every year, we light candles the same way every year. We talk about what we are going to eat and the gifts we are going to open in the same way every year. So the message seems to stay the same year after year. But not this year.
Not this year, because something has changed. Perhaps there is some grace in this change, but most of us come to this night a little bit off kilter. More people than ever before have come to my office this year complaining that they just can’t seem to get in the holiday spirit. It doesn’t feel quite like Christmas, no matter how hard they try, no matter how many times they listen to Christmas songs, buy presents, or bake cookies. More people than ever before have stopped by the office because they have lost jobs this year and can’t afford to buy presents for their kids, and they don’t know what to do. More people have stopped by because they are afraid they are going to lose their homes this year, they’ve lost their livelihoods already. So this year, Christmas Eve doesn’t write itself because it feels like a different kind of year. A scarier year, a year that is ending without things nicely wrapped up. With our financial lives in turmoil, with friends and loved ones unemployed and losing their homes, this year ends a little messy, with people we see everyday tightening their belts and bracing for a coming year that might get even worse.
The story of this night is the same, but our hearing of it this year is different. Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man in the all the world, orders that all people shall return to their homelands to be registered and to pay a tax to the empire. There in Bethlehem these two outsiders, Mary and Joseph, can’t find room in those dark streets, so they stumble into a stable, and prepare for the birth of this most mysterious, most wonderful, most special child. I wonder if in that stable Mary remembered the words of the angel only months before, the angel who came to her and told her that she was with child, that she would give birth to the son of God, and that most of all, despite everything, that she ought not be afraid, because God was with her. I wonder if she carried those words in her heart, that hope of God’s future as they entered that humble stable and prepared for this most important birth, even if it wasn’t what she imagined, even though she was far from her family, I wonder if Mary remembered those words, if she could still hear that angel’s voice, “do not be afraid…”
Do not be afraid, we hear those same words only moments later, as angels fill the skies over shepherds watching their flocks. These outcast, lonely, shepherds not counted in this great census, doing their everyday work on an everyday kind of night. They are the first to hear tell of this good news, as the heavens break open and their everyday life is filled with an incredible light. Unto you, nameless shepherds, is born a savior in the city of David. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.
And so those shepherds hurry off, leaving their flocks to fend for themselves, because they have heard the greatest of news. In the middle of their everyday life, everything is drowned out by the good news, the gospel in flesh, that God has been born among them. That everything has changed. That the world has been turned upside down, and that they, who are at the bottom of the social world, they who work in the fields, they who live in the fields, they who are so far from the powerful emperor who began this story, they are the first to hear this news. They are the first to rush off with great haste. They are the first to rejoice because it is all true. They are the first to write the Christmas eve sermon, to rejoice at what God has done. In the middle of the every day.
This year is different. Christmas doesn’t write itself. Some of us come to this night in knowledge of our desperate need for this story. Understanding our most desperate need for hope. Perhaps we have become cynical, hearing stories day after day of unending greed in the people around us and even in ourselves. Perhaps we come to this night scared because things appear to be getting worse instead of better- we have realized that we can’t secure our own future, no matter how hard we try, because things happen beyond our control. Perhaps we come to this night with the deepest of sadness, because there is someone missing at the table, there is one stocking that won’t be hung this year. Perhaps we come to this night tired, just tired of the piles of stuff that fill our lives and the pull of all those things that grasp for our time. Christmas didn’t write itself this year, we don’t just fall into the spirit. We very well might enter into another year with more sadness, more despair, more darkness, more cynicism. What we need is that greatest of hopes, that reminder that we need not be afraid, because a baby has been born to shake the world from its moorings, a baby has been born to offer us hope, hope against cynicism, hope in the goodness of the world, hope that God will always be with us, will be with us so much that God will be born among us, hope that sadness and grief and pain and anger can’t have the last word, because God has so wrapped us in love that God was born among us. Born in that little child, born on that holiest of nights so that we need not be afraid.
On that cold, dark night, God met the people with the greatest of promises, in the midst of their fear. In the midst of a census meant to count them and tax them, in the midst of an oppressive rule and questions if God was even with the Israelites anymore, in the midst of greed and corruption and violence, in the midst of every reason to be afraid, God is born to two outsiders in a stable in Bethlehem. God’s reign is announced not in halls of power, but in fields among the lowliest. God’s reign is testified to by outsiders, not by kings and princes. And they go no longer afraid, no longer afraid because the promise is real. God is with us.
Tonight, born in the city of David is our Savior, Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us. Tonight all that we are in bondage to, all the fear and the cynicism, all the hopelessness and the anger, all the pain and the things that separate us from each other and from God, on this night we are told that in the midst of all that we bring, God meets us. God lives among us. God has come to set us free. We do not know what the next year will look like. We do not know if we will hear more stories of pain and despair, we don’t know if those stories will be our own. But on this night, we do know that God’s reign has been proclaimed among us. That God is with us. That despite our fears, despite our lack of the Christmas spirit, despite all we might bring to this snowy evening, God’s reign has already begun. Jesus Christ has lived that we might have life. That we might, like Mary, ponder these things in our hearts. That we mi ght, no matter what surrounds us, that we might hear God’s word, “Do not be afraid.” Amen.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Weekly Texts: Christmas Eve
First Reading
Isaiah 9:2–7
2The people who walked in darknesshave seen a great light;those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.3You have multiplied the nation,you have increased its joy;they rejoice before youas with joy at the harvest,as people exult when dividing plunder.4For the yoke of their burden,and the bar across their shoulders,the rod of their oppressor,you have broken as on the day of Midian.5For all the boots of the tramping warriorsand all the garments rolled in bloodshall be burned as fuel for the fire.6For a child has been born for us,a son given to us;authority rests upon his shoulders;and he is namedWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7His authority shall grow continually,and there shall be endless peacefor the throne of David and his kingdom.He will establish and uphold itwith justice and with righteousnessfrom this time onward and forevermore.The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 96
1Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD;
proclaim God's salvation from day to day.
3Declare God's glory a- mong the nations
and God's wonders a- mong all peoples.
4For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised,
more to be feared than all gods. R
5As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols;
but you, O LORD, have made the heavens.
6Majesty and magnificence are in your presence;
power and splendor are in your sanctuary.
7Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD hon- or and power.
8Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name;
bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. R
9Worship the LORD in the beau- ty of holiness;
tremble before the LORD, all the earth.
10Tell it out among the nations: "The LORD is king!
The one who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved will judge the peo- ples with equity."
11Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein.
12Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your com- ing, O LORD,
for you come to judge the earth.
13You will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with your truth. R
Second Reading
Titus 2:11–14
11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, 12training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, 13while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Gospel
Luke 2:1–14 [15–20]
2This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3All went to their own towns to be registered. 4Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,14"Glory to God in the highest heaven,and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Isaiah 9:2–7
2The people who walked in darknesshave seen a great light;those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.3You have multiplied the nation,you have increased its joy;they rejoice before youas with joy at the harvest,as people exult when dividing plunder.4For the yoke of their burden,and the bar across their shoulders,the rod of their oppressor,you have broken as on the day of Midian.5For all the boots of the tramping warriorsand all the garments rolled in bloodshall be burned as fuel for the fire.6For a child has been born for us,a son given to us;authority rests upon his shoulders;and he is namedWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7His authority shall grow continually,and there shall be endless peacefor the throne of David and his kingdom.He will establish and uphold itwith justice and with righteousnessfrom this time onward and forevermore.The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 96
1Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD;
proclaim God's salvation from day to day.
3Declare God's glory a- mong the nations
and God's wonders a- mong all peoples.
4For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised,
more to be feared than all gods. R
5As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols;
but you, O LORD, have made the heavens.
6Majesty and magnificence are in your presence;
power and splendor are in your sanctuary.
7Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD hon- or and power.
8Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name;
bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. R
9Worship the LORD in the beau- ty of holiness;
tremble before the LORD, all the earth.
10Tell it out among the nations: "The LORD is king!
The one who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved will judge the peo- ples with equity."
11Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein.
12Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your com- ing, O LORD,
for you come to judge the earth.
13You will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with your truth. R
Second Reading
Titus 2:11–14
11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, 12training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, 13while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Gospel
Luke 2:1–14 [15–20]
2This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3All went to their own towns to be registered. 4Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,14"Glory to God in the highest heaven,and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Weekly Texts: All Saints Sunday
First Reading
Revelation 7:9–17
9After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10They cried out in a loud voice, saying,"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"11And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12singing,"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdomand thanksgiving and honorand power and mightbe to our God forever and ever! Amen."13Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" 14I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal ;they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.15For this reason they are before the throne of God,and worship him day and night within his temple,and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.16They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;the sun will not strike them,nor any scorching heat;17for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 34:1–10, 22
I will bless the LORD at all times;
the praise of God shall ever be in my mouth.
2I will glory in the LORD;
let the lowly hear and rejoice. R
3Proclaim with me the greatness of the LORD;
let us exalt God's name together.
4I sought the LORD, who answered me
and delivered me from all my terrors.
5Look upon the LORD and be radiant,
and let not your faces be ashamed.
6I called in my affliction, and the LORD heard me
and saved me from all my troubles. R
7The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear the LORD
and de- livers them.
8Taste and see that the LORD is good;
happy are they who take ref- uge in God!
9Fear the LORD, you saints of the LORD,
for those who fear the LORD lack nothing.
10The lions are in want and suffer hunger,
but those who seek the LORD lack nothing that is good.
22O LORD, you redeem the life of your servants,
and those who put their trust in you will not be punished. R
Second Reading
1 John 3:1–3
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Gospel
Matthew 5:1–12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.7Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.10Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Revelation 7:9–17
9After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10They cried out in a loud voice, saying,"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"11And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12singing,"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdomand thanksgiving and honorand power and mightbe to our God forever and ever! Amen."13Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" 14I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal ;they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.15For this reason they are before the throne of God,and worship him day and night within his temple,and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.16They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;the sun will not strike them,nor any scorching heat;17for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 34:1–10, 22
I will bless the LORD at all times;
the praise of God shall ever be in my mouth.
2I will glory in the LORD;
let the lowly hear and rejoice. R
3Proclaim with me the greatness of the LORD;
let us exalt God's name together.
4I sought the LORD, who answered me
and delivered me from all my terrors.
5Look upon the LORD and be radiant,
and let not your faces be ashamed.
6I called in my affliction, and the LORD heard me
and saved me from all my troubles. R
7The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear the LORD
and de- livers them.
8Taste and see that the LORD is good;
happy are they who take ref- uge in God!
9Fear the LORD, you saints of the LORD,
for those who fear the LORD lack nothing.
10The lions are in want and suffer hunger,
but those who seek the LORD lack nothing that is good.
22O LORD, you redeem the life of your servants,
and those who put their trust in you will not be punished. R
Second Reading
1 John 3:1–3
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Gospel
Matthew 5:1–12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.7Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.10Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Sermon: Reformation 2008
I am the kind of Lutheran that loves this church so much that I pre-ordered my ticket to see the Luther movie in the movie theater. I can’t pretend that I didn’t cry when I saw Luther post those theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg. Our celebration of Reformation makes me proud to be a Lutheran, proud to have a heritage of reform, proud to be a part of a church grounded in growth. I love that this church was formed by a man wanting to put the scriptures into the hands of the people. I love that we believe that in those scriptures we could find a real truth. A real life. A real freedom.
The days are coming says the Lord. So begins our reading from Jeremiah for this morning. The days are surely coming when our celebration of reformation will be just a distant memory, when we will be finished with our constant reforming, when the Spirit of God will have had her way with us, and we will finally reach that place where we become our most full selves, the body of Christ in the world. The days are coming, but even on this day, those days seem far off, too far off.
I went to a small religious college. It was there that I came face to face for the first time with an altar call. It was the first time someone told me that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. I had never heard of this before, growing up Lutheran, I was baptized, I went to church camp, I went to confirmation classes, I missed the memo about asking Jesus into my heart. I was also quite confused when I saw many of my friends asking Jesus into their hearts all the time. They would have big moments of conversion, then something would get in the way, they wouldn’t feel as close to their faith anymore, they would do a few things that definitely fell into the sin category, and there they would be again, marching down the aisle of the church and asking Jesus back into their hearts.
The days are coming says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people. I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts, I will be their God and they shall be my people.
That’s the funny thing about our hearts, on this celebration of Reformation, we remember that God has promised to be with us, to wash us in grace. There is no rhyme or reason to why God has chosen to be in relationship with us. Most of us haven’t asked for it, and if we have, we certainly have trouble living as if that is the truth. We are sinners, but called saints by a God who has made an unbreakable covenant with us, has written the law in hearts, has made us God’s people, has invaded our hearts, filled them, shaped them so that they can only be called the shape of God. Walter Brueggeman says, “this covenant is given by God without reason or explanation, God wants the relationship with the people and resolves to have it. So God declares that he will write himself into the people.” It isn’t about us asking, it is about God doing. God comes down, and fills us with God’s very presence. We don’t have to keep asking, we just have to feel into those places where God already is. It isn’t about our work, it is about God’s.
We need this reminder of reformation, because it reminds us of the shape of our hearts. We don’t need flashy programs or new ideas, the covenant has been written into our hearts, we are made in the shape of a God that is constant through time, a God who has promised that we will be in relationship with him regardless of ourselves. God has wormed into our hearts, written herself upon them, and we cannot get out of this relationship without cutting out part of our own hearts.
That’s where Jeremiah and John seem to meet. Because Jeremiah tells us about the law written on our hearts, and Jesus in John’s gospel promises us that it is the writing that will set us free. It is the inscription inside of us, that gives us freedom we can’t get from anywhere else. It isn’t about heritage or ancestry; it is about what God has done and continues to do. The celebration of Reformation, for as proud as it makes us to be Lutherans, isn’t the point. The point is what God has done, where God has gone, how far God will go to be in relationship with us, to set us free from all the binds us, from all those things that hold us prisoner. We are in constant reformation, because those sinful natures keep getting in the way, keep telling us that there is something that will be more satisfying that will give us more than a relationship with God.
We are the people that both Jeremiah and Jesus are speaking about. We are the people of God, we are the ones who receive this promise. We have been grafted into this everlasting covenant. We are the ones that God loves with such depth that nothing can separate us from that love. And yet, we are also with that gathered crowd in our gospel wondering how we could ever be slave to anyone or anything. We are the ones who will listen to the freedom of the gospel and then wonder if there is something a little less difficult out there to give us the same results. We can’t imagine that we have ever been slaves, that there are forces and sins that have such a deep hold on us that we can’t even see it anymore.
Today, we will celebrate with six young adults as they affirm the promises made in their baptisms. They will stand before us and decide for themselves that they are a part of this holy family. But, confirmation is not the end, it is only another beginning. Just as we seek constant reformation in our church, we also seek constant reformation in our lives. Because for as much as we desire to live into the freedom of the gospel, to taste the free gift of grace, sin gets in the way. We do not live as we ought. We forget these promises, we ignore God’s law, we turn off the voice inside of us that urges us to live as God’s faithful people. It is in that relationship with Christ that we are set free. It is in the love that God has for us that we are set free. We exchange all the pain, all the ugliness, all the sin and the sorrow, all those things that bind us and break us down, we exchange all of it, for a relationship with God. For a return to the way we were made. And it doesn’t end on one day. It doesn’t end with one promise. It is difficult work, coming back again and again and falling down only to be covered with grace.
The truth of Reformation is that God is always doing a new thing, always within us, always with us, always covering us with grace. We will be made free. We don’t ask God into our hearts, God is already there. God desires to be in relationship with us, even as we break our end of the bargain, even as we ignore what God has done and continues to do. This is a new kind of covenant, one that cannot be broken, and so it doesn’t count on us. It counts on God. Amen.
The days are coming says the Lord. So begins our reading from Jeremiah for this morning. The days are surely coming when our celebration of reformation will be just a distant memory, when we will be finished with our constant reforming, when the Spirit of God will have had her way with us, and we will finally reach that place where we become our most full selves, the body of Christ in the world. The days are coming, but even on this day, those days seem far off, too far off.
I went to a small religious college. It was there that I came face to face for the first time with an altar call. It was the first time someone told me that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. I had never heard of this before, growing up Lutheran, I was baptized, I went to church camp, I went to confirmation classes, I missed the memo about asking Jesus into my heart. I was also quite confused when I saw many of my friends asking Jesus into their hearts all the time. They would have big moments of conversion, then something would get in the way, they wouldn’t feel as close to their faith anymore, they would do a few things that definitely fell into the sin category, and there they would be again, marching down the aisle of the church and asking Jesus back into their hearts.
The days are coming says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people. I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts, I will be their God and they shall be my people.
That’s the funny thing about our hearts, on this celebration of Reformation, we remember that God has promised to be with us, to wash us in grace. There is no rhyme or reason to why God has chosen to be in relationship with us. Most of us haven’t asked for it, and if we have, we certainly have trouble living as if that is the truth. We are sinners, but called saints by a God who has made an unbreakable covenant with us, has written the law in hearts, has made us God’s people, has invaded our hearts, filled them, shaped them so that they can only be called the shape of God. Walter Brueggeman says, “this covenant is given by God without reason or explanation, God wants the relationship with the people and resolves to have it. So God declares that he will write himself into the people.” It isn’t about us asking, it is about God doing. God comes down, and fills us with God’s very presence. We don’t have to keep asking, we just have to feel into those places where God already is. It isn’t about our work, it is about God’s.
We need this reminder of reformation, because it reminds us of the shape of our hearts. We don’t need flashy programs or new ideas, the covenant has been written into our hearts, we are made in the shape of a God that is constant through time, a God who has promised that we will be in relationship with him regardless of ourselves. God has wormed into our hearts, written herself upon them, and we cannot get out of this relationship without cutting out part of our own hearts.
That’s where Jeremiah and John seem to meet. Because Jeremiah tells us about the law written on our hearts, and Jesus in John’s gospel promises us that it is the writing that will set us free. It is the inscription inside of us, that gives us freedom we can’t get from anywhere else. It isn’t about heritage or ancestry; it is about what God has done and continues to do. The celebration of Reformation, for as proud as it makes us to be Lutherans, isn’t the point. The point is what God has done, where God has gone, how far God will go to be in relationship with us, to set us free from all the binds us, from all those things that hold us prisoner. We are in constant reformation, because those sinful natures keep getting in the way, keep telling us that there is something that will be more satisfying that will give us more than a relationship with God.
We are the people that both Jeremiah and Jesus are speaking about. We are the people of God, we are the ones who receive this promise. We have been grafted into this everlasting covenant. We are the ones that God loves with such depth that nothing can separate us from that love. And yet, we are also with that gathered crowd in our gospel wondering how we could ever be slave to anyone or anything. We are the ones who will listen to the freedom of the gospel and then wonder if there is something a little less difficult out there to give us the same results. We can’t imagine that we have ever been slaves, that there are forces and sins that have such a deep hold on us that we can’t even see it anymore.
Today, we will celebrate with six young adults as they affirm the promises made in their baptisms. They will stand before us and decide for themselves that they are a part of this holy family. But, confirmation is not the end, it is only another beginning. Just as we seek constant reformation in our church, we also seek constant reformation in our lives. Because for as much as we desire to live into the freedom of the gospel, to taste the free gift of grace, sin gets in the way. We do not live as we ought. We forget these promises, we ignore God’s law, we turn off the voice inside of us that urges us to live as God’s faithful people. It is in that relationship with Christ that we are set free. It is in the love that God has for us that we are set free. We exchange all the pain, all the ugliness, all the sin and the sorrow, all those things that bind us and break us down, we exchange all of it, for a relationship with God. For a return to the way we were made. And it doesn’t end on one day. It doesn’t end with one promise. It is difficult work, coming back again and again and falling down only to be covered with grace.
The truth of Reformation is that God is always doing a new thing, always within us, always with us, always covering us with grace. We will be made free. We don’t ask God into our hearts, God is already there. God desires to be in relationship with us, even as we break our end of the bargain, even as we ignore what God has done and continues to do. This is a new kind of covenant, one that cannot be broken, and so it doesn’t count on us. It counts on God. Amen.
Weekly Texts: Reformation Sunday
First Reading
Jeremiah 31:31–34
31The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 46
1God is our ref- uge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved,
and though the mountains shake in the depths of the sea;
3though its waters rage and foam,
and though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
4There is a river whose streams make glad the cit- y of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be shaken;
God shall help it at the break of day.
6The nations rage, and the kingdoms shake;
God speaks, and the earth melts away. R
7The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
8Come now, regard the works of the LORD,
what desolations God has brought up- on the earth;
9behold the one who makes war to cease in all the world;
who breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire.
10"Be still, then, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth."
11The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our stronghold. R
Second Reading
Romans 3:19–28
19Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.21But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.27Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.
Gospel
John 8:31–36
31Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 33They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?"34Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Jeremiah 31:31–34
31The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 46
1God is our ref- uge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved,
and though the mountains shake in the depths of the sea;
3though its waters rage and foam,
and though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
4There is a river whose streams make glad the cit- y of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be shaken;
God shall help it at the break of day.
6The nations rage, and the kingdoms shake;
God speaks, and the earth melts away. R
7The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
8Come now, regard the works of the LORD,
what desolations God has brought up- on the earth;
9behold the one who makes war to cease in all the world;
who breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire.
10"Be still, then, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth."
11The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our stronghold. R
Second Reading
Romans 3:19–28
19Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.21But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.27Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.
Gospel
John 8:31–36
31Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 33They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?"34Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Sermon: 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
If you don’t know that there is an election in exactly 16 days, than you must be living under a rock. Whether it is local or national news, we are fully immersed in the political world these days, hearing about who we should vote for, who we shouldn’t vote for, and why one candidate over the other should have our vote. For any of you that watched the most recent presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, you heard plenty about a little guy from Ohio named Joe, who happens to be a plumber. Both Obama and McCain offered different explanations for what they would do for Joe the plumber, leaving many of us to think, who the heck is this Joe guy? But, at the base of all the promises to Joe was a question about taxes. Who will raise them for him and who will lower them? Who is being real about the taxes we are going to pay and who is trying to pull the wool over our eyes?
You can barely turn on the television without confronting someone who says that they are the person who is going to lower your taxes. And then, we arrive at church this morning, imaging that perhaps here we will get a break from hearing the back and forth, and what do we find Jesus talking about? Taxes.
Even if you haven’t read much of the bible, it would still be a surprise if you hadn’t at least a blurb of this passage before. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, give to God what is God’s. For some, these words have been the warrant to head off to the hills, establish their own compound and stop paying taxes. For others, it has been a big green light to keeping a strong barrier between their political and religious lives. There are two extremes to this text, and it seems that we often head towards one or the other, leaving the middle to those who are just confused. We find ourselves trying to identify as citizens of this country, all the while know that we are citizens of a very different kingdom, the kingdom of God, where things like the economy, the structures of power and privilege, and the very day to day of life are often completely different from what might be filtering out of Springfield or Washington, DC.
Jesus is confronted by a gathering of Pharisees and Herodians. They are odd bedfellows to say the least, the Herodians were those who defended and supported the rule of the land by Herod- direct and open supporters of the Roman occupation. This tax that they come asking about was an annual tribute tax sent to Rome, a total of one denarius for each person. This was, by no means, the largest of the taxes paid by the people. They also gave tithes to the temple, paid customs taxes as well as taxes on the land. The people who worked the land were forced into subsistence farming by these taxes, taking home only about 1/3 of the production of the land. So the question isn’t really about all taxes, it is about this particular tax, a tax that was supported by the Pharisees and collected by the Herodians.
So these two sets of leaders come to Jesus and begin with some false flattery. And then comes the big question- is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? This was the trap- either to make him lose favor with the people, oppressed by these taxes, or to cement him as a political threat, a teacher who was encouraging the people to openly defy the occupation. Either way, he was set to lose.
Which leaves us to wonder, how would we answer that question? Is it lawful for us to pay taxes? Are we first citizens of this country or world, or are we citizens the kingdom of God? Where do we have our primary allegiance? Can we really do both?
Jesus asks them for a coin, a coin bearing the face and title of Caesar. Most likely, it also included an inscription about Caesar’s divinity, he was considered descended from God to rule the people. And so Jesus tells them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Our greater church has a lot to say about this, but what I find most helpful is from our social statement on church and society, “The church must participate in social structures critically. Not only God but also sin is at work in the world. Social structures and processes combine life-giving and life-destroying dynamics in complex mixtures and in varying degrees. The church, therefore, must unite realism and vision, wisdom and courage, in its social responsibility. It needs constantly to discern when to support and when to confront society's cultural patterns, values, and powers.”
We’ve already given our allegiance, and it is an allegiance proclaimed in baptism. We are made children of God, marked with the cross of Christ, people who are called to live into the kingdom of God, making it manifest in the world. We are citizens of a kind of kingdom that is different than the one of this world, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t also, at the very same time, live in a country that both blesses and oppresses. That is what structures do- God can be found in them just as sin can corrupt them. We are citizens of both, living in the tension that this life creates. Do we pay taxes, of course. But, we don’t understand our money to come from anywhere but the hand of God. It isn’t a choice between Caesar or God- it is all God’s. What we give to Caesar, is still God’s. All we have and all we are is God’s, and so our primary allegiance will always be to that creator.
But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t pulled in all kinds of directions and our allegiance is sought after by all kinds of structures. We can ignore them, tell ourselves that they have no place and talk consistently about the evils of the world. Or we can whole heartedly fall into them, telling ourselves that our faith is relegated to only one teeny, tiny part of our lives. Either way, we lose. If we see the world around us, the political structures that have been set up, the secular world as evil, we miss the chance to discover our God hidden among the brokenness of the structure of the world. If we pretend that our faith is only something that effects us on Sunday mornings, we miss the incredible opportunity to bring our God into places that are hungry for what God is all about.
And so that is where we find Jesus’ answer to this tricky question. Somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t provide us with an easy answer, and I still find myself feeling a little uncomfortable when I see my tax dollars spent on things that I find grossly negligent of the needs of the world. But I give to Caesar what is Ceaser’s, remembering that in all reality, it is already all God’s. We are first and foremost, members of the kingdom of God, made children of God through baptism, taught to live in a world where we are marked by love and trust, hope and generosity. We can’t pretend it isn’t tricky to make our way in a world that doesn’t often reflect the gifts of God’s kingdom, but it is where we find ourselves. And regardless, we trust that because it is all God’s, because every breath and day are blessings of our God, because all we have and all we are is a blessing from God, that we are people of a different kind of kingdom. We are people of God, called to live in a broken world, called to proclaim a different kind of life. We live in the middle of the tension, in the already and not yet of the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus gives us no easy answer, but instead a blessing to try it on our own, to be citizens of the kingdom of God while participating in the political structures of the world. We can’t separate the two, we can only live into the mystery, knowing that when we search, when we question, we will always find God. Amen.
You can barely turn on the television without confronting someone who says that they are the person who is going to lower your taxes. And then, we arrive at church this morning, imaging that perhaps here we will get a break from hearing the back and forth, and what do we find Jesus talking about? Taxes.
Even if you haven’t read much of the bible, it would still be a surprise if you hadn’t at least a blurb of this passage before. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, give to God what is God’s. For some, these words have been the warrant to head off to the hills, establish their own compound and stop paying taxes. For others, it has been a big green light to keeping a strong barrier between their political and religious lives. There are two extremes to this text, and it seems that we often head towards one or the other, leaving the middle to those who are just confused. We find ourselves trying to identify as citizens of this country, all the while know that we are citizens of a very different kingdom, the kingdom of God, where things like the economy, the structures of power and privilege, and the very day to day of life are often completely different from what might be filtering out of Springfield or Washington, DC.
Jesus is confronted by a gathering of Pharisees and Herodians. They are odd bedfellows to say the least, the Herodians were those who defended and supported the rule of the land by Herod- direct and open supporters of the Roman occupation. This tax that they come asking about was an annual tribute tax sent to Rome, a total of one denarius for each person. This was, by no means, the largest of the taxes paid by the people. They also gave tithes to the temple, paid customs taxes as well as taxes on the land. The people who worked the land were forced into subsistence farming by these taxes, taking home only about 1/3 of the production of the land. So the question isn’t really about all taxes, it is about this particular tax, a tax that was supported by the Pharisees and collected by the Herodians.
So these two sets of leaders come to Jesus and begin with some false flattery. And then comes the big question- is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? This was the trap- either to make him lose favor with the people, oppressed by these taxes, or to cement him as a political threat, a teacher who was encouraging the people to openly defy the occupation. Either way, he was set to lose.
Which leaves us to wonder, how would we answer that question? Is it lawful for us to pay taxes? Are we first citizens of this country or world, or are we citizens the kingdom of God? Where do we have our primary allegiance? Can we really do both?
Jesus asks them for a coin, a coin bearing the face and title of Caesar. Most likely, it also included an inscription about Caesar’s divinity, he was considered descended from God to rule the people. And so Jesus tells them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Our greater church has a lot to say about this, but what I find most helpful is from our social statement on church and society, “The church must participate in social structures critically. Not only God but also sin is at work in the world. Social structures and processes combine life-giving and life-destroying dynamics in complex mixtures and in varying degrees. The church, therefore, must unite realism and vision, wisdom and courage, in its social responsibility. It needs constantly to discern when to support and when to confront society's cultural patterns, values, and powers.”
We’ve already given our allegiance, and it is an allegiance proclaimed in baptism. We are made children of God, marked with the cross of Christ, people who are called to live into the kingdom of God, making it manifest in the world. We are citizens of a kind of kingdom that is different than the one of this world, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t also, at the very same time, live in a country that both blesses and oppresses. That is what structures do- God can be found in them just as sin can corrupt them. We are citizens of both, living in the tension that this life creates. Do we pay taxes, of course. But, we don’t understand our money to come from anywhere but the hand of God. It isn’t a choice between Caesar or God- it is all God’s. What we give to Caesar, is still God’s. All we have and all we are is God’s, and so our primary allegiance will always be to that creator.
But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t pulled in all kinds of directions and our allegiance is sought after by all kinds of structures. We can ignore them, tell ourselves that they have no place and talk consistently about the evils of the world. Or we can whole heartedly fall into them, telling ourselves that our faith is relegated to only one teeny, tiny part of our lives. Either way, we lose. If we see the world around us, the political structures that have been set up, the secular world as evil, we miss the chance to discover our God hidden among the brokenness of the structure of the world. If we pretend that our faith is only something that effects us on Sunday mornings, we miss the incredible opportunity to bring our God into places that are hungry for what God is all about.
And so that is where we find Jesus’ answer to this tricky question. Somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t provide us with an easy answer, and I still find myself feeling a little uncomfortable when I see my tax dollars spent on things that I find grossly negligent of the needs of the world. But I give to Caesar what is Ceaser’s, remembering that in all reality, it is already all God’s. We are first and foremost, members of the kingdom of God, made children of God through baptism, taught to live in a world where we are marked by love and trust, hope and generosity. We can’t pretend it isn’t tricky to make our way in a world that doesn’t often reflect the gifts of God’s kingdom, but it is where we find ourselves. And regardless, we trust that because it is all God’s, because every breath and day are blessings of our God, because all we have and all we are is a blessing from God, that we are people of a different kind of kingdom. We are people of God, called to live in a broken world, called to proclaim a different kind of life. We live in the middle of the tension, in the already and not yet of the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus gives us no easy answer, but instead a blessing to try it on our own, to be citizens of the kingdom of God while participating in the political structures of the world. We can’t separate the two, we can only live into the mystery, knowing that when we search, when we question, we will always find God. Amen.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Weekly Texts: 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
First Reading
Isaiah 45:1–7
Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus,whose right hand I have graspedto subdue nations before himand strip kings of their robes,to open doors before him — and the gates shall not be closed:2I will go before youand level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronzeand cut through the bars of iron,3I will give you the treasures of darknessand riches hidden in secret places,so that you may know that it is I, the LORD,the God of Israel, who call you by your name.4For the sake of my servant Jacob,and Israel my chosen,I call you by your name,I surname you, though you do not know me.5I am the LORD, and there is no other;besides me there is no god.I arm you, though you do not know me,6so that they may know, from the rising of the sunand from the west, that there is no one besides me;I am the LORD, and there is no other.7I form light and create darkness,I make weal and create woe;I the LORD do all these things.
Psalm 96:1–9 [10–13]
1Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD;
proclaim God's salvation from day to day.
3Declare God's glory a- mong the nations
and God's wonders a- mong all peoples.
4For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised,
more to be feared than all gods. R
5As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols;
but you, O LORD, have made the heavens.
6Majesty and magnificence are in your presence;
power and splendor are in your sanctuary.
7Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD hon- or and power.
8Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name;
bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. R
9Worship the LORD in the beau- ty of holiness;
tremble before the LORD, all the earth.
[10Tell it out among the nations: "The LORD is king!
The one who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved will judge the peo- ples with equity."
11Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein.
12Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your com- ing, O LORD,
for you come to judge the earth.
13You will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with your truth.] R
Second Reading
1 Thessalonians 1:1–10
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:Grace to you and peace.2We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead — Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.
Gospel
Matthew 22:15–22
15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" 18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. 20Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" 21They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Isaiah 45:1–7
Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus,whose right hand I have graspedto subdue nations before himand strip kings of their robes,to open doors before him — and the gates shall not be closed:2I will go before youand level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronzeand cut through the bars of iron,3I will give you the treasures of darknessand riches hidden in secret places,so that you may know that it is I, the LORD,the God of Israel, who call you by your name.4For the sake of my servant Jacob,and Israel my chosen,I call you by your name,I surname you, though you do not know me.5I am the LORD, and there is no other;besides me there is no god.I arm you, though you do not know me,6so that they may know, from the rising of the sunand from the west, that there is no one besides me;I am the LORD, and there is no other.7I form light and create darkness,I make weal and create woe;I the LORD do all these things.
Psalm 96:1–9 [10–13]
1Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD;
proclaim God's salvation from day to day.
3Declare God's glory a- mong the nations
and God's wonders a- mong all peoples.
4For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised,
more to be feared than all gods. R
5As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols;
but you, O LORD, have made the heavens.
6Majesty and magnificence are in your presence;
power and splendor are in your sanctuary.
7Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD hon- or and power.
8Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name;
bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. R
9Worship the LORD in the beau- ty of holiness;
tremble before the LORD, all the earth.
[10Tell it out among the nations: "The LORD is king!
The one who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved will judge the peo- ples with equity."
11Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein.
12Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your com- ing, O LORD,
for you come to judge the earth.
13You will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with your truth.] R
Second Reading
1 Thessalonians 1:1–10
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:Grace to you and peace.2We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead — Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.
Gospel
Matthew 22:15–22
15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" 18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. 20Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" 21They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Sermon: 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
When we read this parable at my text study this week, the pastor reading it finished by saying, “The gospel of the Lord?” And I definitely find myself in that camp this week, digging desperately into the words of Jesus read this morning and imagining that somewhere, buried in there, is some good news. I just couldn’t see it at first glance, and it didn’t get any more apparent the tenth time through, but I think there is something, buried within the text that speaks to us this morning.
Yesterday we held a wedding here at Irving Park. Only months ago I was planning my own wedding, so I feel for the king in this parable. People aren’t sending in their RSVP cards! And he is hosting a very important wedding, the wedding of his son. The invitations have gone out, he has killed the oxen and the fat calf. The tables are spread with the most decadent of food. So his servants go out to the get the guests, the a-list guests. And instead of straightening their ties and heading to the king’s feast, they turn their backs to return to their fields and their offices. They go back to the day to day of their lives and ignore this most important of invitations. The regular work of living crowds it out. And, so when the servants return without guests, the king sends them out one more time, to tell them what is in store for them. And they still don’t come. They ignore the invitation.
So he starts again, this time with a new slate of guests, anyone that will come off the street, good and bad, the people you would never expect at the table, and those that have been there all along. And so the wedding hall is filled. Just filled with guests.
Let’s just stop here. If this is another allegory, than we can fill in the cast of characters. Jesus is telling this parable to those same chief priests and elders we’ve been following the last few weeks. So we have to imagine that the banquet is being hosted by God, and that the invitation keeps going out, again and again, and those people in power keep ignoring it, because they are too caught up in the day to day of the temple, in the day to day of doing what they have always done, never stopping to consider that they might have gotten it all wrong. And because the invitation keeps getting ignored, God invites everyone to the table, and that means that the table gets filled with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes, and addicts and every other character you can imagine. The party will go on, and if the invitation is ignored, God is still hosting it, and anyone can come.
So I get that. I mean, we talk about that all the time around here. We want our church to be the kind of place where all people will feel welcome, where the table is open for everyone. But, we’d miss a lot of this parable if we imagine that we are always ready to skip down the sidewalks to church and answer God’s invitation. I know that for years, I ignored God’s invitation to ministry. I thought I had some better things to do, maybe ways to make a bit more money. But that nagging call kept getting in my way. I kept feeling God tugging on my heart, and the world kept looking more and more broken to me. But God’s invitation isn’t just to pastors- God’s invitation is to all kinds of places and all kinds of situations. Sometimes, God’s invitation is to the celebration of new ministries, sometimes it is to bring new life to places where there is only death, and sometimes, God’s invitation is just to come to the table. The invitation is just to come into the community, to be born anew here, to be grafted into a new family. And that invitation is too often ignored. It gets crowded out. For the people in our parable, as Dr. Elton Richards suggests, the choice isn’t between good and evil. It isn’t as if the invitation was to the king’s banquet and the people instead chose unsavory activities. The choice was to do the good work of the land or to go to the king’s banquet. Both are good choices. And we get confused if we consider that those things that beg for our time, that cause us to crowd out God are going to be choices between good and evil. They won’t be that apparent. They might just be the choices between the everyday and the new life in Christ. And if our stomachs aren’t growling and our hearts aren’t broken, than we might not have that hunger for the kingdom of God. We might just be satisfied with the everyday. And so we’ll turn away from the invitation and go back to those things that will never be quite the spread of the banquet.
But the parable isn’t over yet. Because now the new slate of guests are feasting and celebrating, and then the king notices a man who isn’t dressed like the rest. He isn’t wearing a wedding robe. He has shown up, gotten his plates full of food, feasted with the rest of the guests, but he looks different. Now, here is what I know about wedding attire in this ancient community- when a celebration was being held, the people would wear longer, usually white robes. You did not attend this kind of celebration wearing the everyday cleaning out the garage kind of stuff. If you could not afford this kind of robe, you would borrow one from a neighbor. It was inconceivable to consider showing up at a celebration not wearing the right kind of attire. There are even some scholars who suggest that the King most likely provided robes for those in attendance. So to not wear a robe, means that you refuse to join in the rejoicing. You have only contempt for the host and the occasion.
Again, the guest has refused the invitation. Yes, he has shown up. He has taken his appropriate place at the table. But he isn’t interested in the celebration, he just wants the face time. Perhaps he just wants people to see that he is there, but he doesn’t care for the king or for the celebration. He doesn’t want to change even his clothing.
We believe the invitation is open to all. That God’s table is open to all. The love of God that we celebrate here is available to all. God’s love for us cannot be denied, it cannot be changed, it cannot be removed. But, we can refuse to be changed. We can refuse to let grace to change us. We can come here Sunday after Sunday, maybe even a few other days during the week, and we can hear the words and shake the hands, and all the while keep blocking up our hearts and refusing to let God in. Grace is free, but it does not leave us where we are. God expects more from us than just showing up. God expects us to do something, to respond somehow to the invitation.
This is a tough parable. But at its core is that invitation- the invitation to the banquet, the invitation to the celebration. We can ignore it, we can turn away, we can even show up and refused to be changed. But in all of this, we are not living into our full potential as children of God. We are settling with less than the best, with things that will never satisfy the same way. The invitation is open, to come to the table, to rejoice with God, and to be changed. How will we respond? Amen.
Yesterday we held a wedding here at Irving Park. Only months ago I was planning my own wedding, so I feel for the king in this parable. People aren’t sending in their RSVP cards! And he is hosting a very important wedding, the wedding of his son. The invitations have gone out, he has killed the oxen and the fat calf. The tables are spread with the most decadent of food. So his servants go out to the get the guests, the a-list guests. And instead of straightening their ties and heading to the king’s feast, they turn their backs to return to their fields and their offices. They go back to the day to day of their lives and ignore this most important of invitations. The regular work of living crowds it out. And, so when the servants return without guests, the king sends them out one more time, to tell them what is in store for them. And they still don’t come. They ignore the invitation.
So he starts again, this time with a new slate of guests, anyone that will come off the street, good and bad, the people you would never expect at the table, and those that have been there all along. And so the wedding hall is filled. Just filled with guests.
Let’s just stop here. If this is another allegory, than we can fill in the cast of characters. Jesus is telling this parable to those same chief priests and elders we’ve been following the last few weeks. So we have to imagine that the banquet is being hosted by God, and that the invitation keeps going out, again and again, and those people in power keep ignoring it, because they are too caught up in the day to day of the temple, in the day to day of doing what they have always done, never stopping to consider that they might have gotten it all wrong. And because the invitation keeps getting ignored, God invites everyone to the table, and that means that the table gets filled with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes, and addicts and every other character you can imagine. The party will go on, and if the invitation is ignored, God is still hosting it, and anyone can come.
So I get that. I mean, we talk about that all the time around here. We want our church to be the kind of place where all people will feel welcome, where the table is open for everyone. But, we’d miss a lot of this parable if we imagine that we are always ready to skip down the sidewalks to church and answer God’s invitation. I know that for years, I ignored God’s invitation to ministry. I thought I had some better things to do, maybe ways to make a bit more money. But that nagging call kept getting in my way. I kept feeling God tugging on my heart, and the world kept looking more and more broken to me. But God’s invitation isn’t just to pastors- God’s invitation is to all kinds of places and all kinds of situations. Sometimes, God’s invitation is to the celebration of new ministries, sometimes it is to bring new life to places where there is only death, and sometimes, God’s invitation is just to come to the table. The invitation is just to come into the community, to be born anew here, to be grafted into a new family. And that invitation is too often ignored. It gets crowded out. For the people in our parable, as Dr. Elton Richards suggests, the choice isn’t between good and evil. It isn’t as if the invitation was to the king’s banquet and the people instead chose unsavory activities. The choice was to do the good work of the land or to go to the king’s banquet. Both are good choices. And we get confused if we consider that those things that beg for our time, that cause us to crowd out God are going to be choices between good and evil. They won’t be that apparent. They might just be the choices between the everyday and the new life in Christ. And if our stomachs aren’t growling and our hearts aren’t broken, than we might not have that hunger for the kingdom of God. We might just be satisfied with the everyday. And so we’ll turn away from the invitation and go back to those things that will never be quite the spread of the banquet.
But the parable isn’t over yet. Because now the new slate of guests are feasting and celebrating, and then the king notices a man who isn’t dressed like the rest. He isn’t wearing a wedding robe. He has shown up, gotten his plates full of food, feasted with the rest of the guests, but he looks different. Now, here is what I know about wedding attire in this ancient community- when a celebration was being held, the people would wear longer, usually white robes. You did not attend this kind of celebration wearing the everyday cleaning out the garage kind of stuff. If you could not afford this kind of robe, you would borrow one from a neighbor. It was inconceivable to consider showing up at a celebration not wearing the right kind of attire. There are even some scholars who suggest that the King most likely provided robes for those in attendance. So to not wear a robe, means that you refuse to join in the rejoicing. You have only contempt for the host and the occasion.
Again, the guest has refused the invitation. Yes, he has shown up. He has taken his appropriate place at the table. But he isn’t interested in the celebration, he just wants the face time. Perhaps he just wants people to see that he is there, but he doesn’t care for the king or for the celebration. He doesn’t want to change even his clothing.
We believe the invitation is open to all. That God’s table is open to all. The love of God that we celebrate here is available to all. God’s love for us cannot be denied, it cannot be changed, it cannot be removed. But, we can refuse to be changed. We can refuse to let grace to change us. We can come here Sunday after Sunday, maybe even a few other days during the week, and we can hear the words and shake the hands, and all the while keep blocking up our hearts and refusing to let God in. Grace is free, but it does not leave us where we are. God expects more from us than just showing up. God expects us to do something, to respond somehow to the invitation.
This is a tough parable. But at its core is that invitation- the invitation to the banquet, the invitation to the celebration. We can ignore it, we can turn away, we can even show up and refused to be changed. But in all of this, we are not living into our full potential as children of God. We are settling with less than the best, with things that will never satisfy the same way. The invitation is open, to come to the table, to rejoice with God, and to be changed. How will we respond? Amen.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Weekly Texts: 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
First Reading
Isaiah 25:1–9
O LORD, you are my God;I will exalt you, I will praise your name;for you have done wonderful things,plans formed of old, faithful and sure.2For you have made the city a heap,the fortified city a ruin;the palace of aliens is a city no more,it will never be rebuilt.3Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;cities of ruthless nations will fear you.4For you have been a refuge to the poor,a refuge to the needy in their distress,a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,5the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place,you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds;the song of the ruthless was stilled.6On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoplesa feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.7And he will destroy on this mountainthe shroud that is cast over all peoples,the sheet that is spread over all nations;8he will swallow up death forever.Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,for the LORD has spoken.9It will be said on that day,Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.This is the LORD for whom we have waited;let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 23
1The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.
2The LORD makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me be- side still waters.
3You restore my soul, O LORD,
and guide me along right pathways for your name's sake.
4Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil;
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. R
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.
6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. R
Second Reading
Philippians 4:1–9
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.2I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.8Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Gospel
Matthew 22:1–14
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' 5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' 10Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.11But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14For many are called, but few are chosen."
Isaiah 25:1–9
O LORD, you are my God;I will exalt you, I will praise your name;for you have done wonderful things,plans formed of old, faithful and sure.2For you have made the city a heap,the fortified city a ruin;the palace of aliens is a city no more,it will never be rebuilt.3Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;cities of ruthless nations will fear you.4For you have been a refuge to the poor,a refuge to the needy in their distress,a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,5the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place,you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds;the song of the ruthless was stilled.6On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoplesa feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.7And he will destroy on this mountainthe shroud that is cast over all peoples,the sheet that is spread over all nations;8he will swallow up death forever.Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,for the LORD has spoken.9It will be said on that day,Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.This is the LORD for whom we have waited;let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 23
1The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.
2The LORD makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me be- side still waters.
3You restore my soul, O LORD,
and guide me along right pathways for your name's sake.
4Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil;
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. R
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.
6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. R
Second Reading
Philippians 4:1–9
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.2I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.8Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Gospel
Matthew 22:1–14
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' 5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' 10Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.11But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14For many are called, but few are chosen."
Sermon: 21st Sunday after Pentecost
Twice we hear about a vineyard in our readings for today. Twice we hear about a disappointing vineyard. First, from the prophet Isaiah, God plants a vineyard on hill, clears it of stones, plants it with the choicest of grapes. But that vineyard doesn’t turn out the way God desired, God does not get what God expected. There is no justice, there is only bloodshed. There is no righteousness, there is only rubbish. And then we hear the parable spoken by Jesus this morning, right on the heels of our texts for the last two weeks. It is the same leaders of the temple that were asking about authority last week, it is the same crowd that caused them to fear. Now Jesus tells another parable, this time about a vineyard. The people hearing his words would have remembered Isaiah’s vineyard, the one that did not yield what God expected.
For those of us that have heard this parable before, it might have been explained as a simple allegory. The tenants are those wicked leaders, the servants sent by that landowner are the prophets- so those wicked leaders beat them and send them away. Then, God finally sends God’s son, Jesus, and those wicked leaders kill him. Even the end of the parable says that those leaders, who were seeking to destroy what Jesus had been building realized with great anger that he was talking about them. They had been ignoring and silencing those people God sent. But if that is the only layer of this parable, then the sermon should end here. Because that means this parable is stuck in a time we no longer live in, and it doesn’t have anything to do with us.
I think that there is so much more to the parable of the vineyard than just a condemnation of those leaders that sought to oppress the people through their power. I think there is much more in this parable that speaks to us this morning- because in so many ways we have become those wicked tenants.
Every morning over the last week I turned on NPR, and I was bombarded with stories about the bailout. There were people appalled that we are giving money to those rich people on wall street, there were people who said that if we don’t do this, if we don’t bail out the market than the sky is going to fall, credit will grind to a halt, and we will find ourselves in the middle of the grapes of wrath. Economists have been saying for months that things have gotten as bad as they are going to get, and then another morning rolls around and someone is telling us that things have actually gotten worse. We’re in real trouble.
And we are. We’re in trouble bailing out wall-street, and we’re in trouble if we hadn’t. We’re in trouble, because things have gotten so far out of control, we have been tilling the land for so long, we have become so obsessed with credit and the access to credit, that we have become completely separated from the one who really owns the land. Like those wicked tenants, we have forgotten who owns the land on which we live, the one who owns those things for which we labor, our primary relationship is not with the giver, the landowner, our primary relationship has shifted to the stuff that is produced. And it is one big risky, frightening disappointment, isn’t it?
Brian Stoffregen suggests that the parable of those wicked tenants is most about our inherent selfishness. We don’t want to accept that God has authority over us, that what we have, all of it is from God, it isn’t from us. It isn’t about us. When we hear that God asks us to live differently, to shift our primary relationship from the stuff of the creator to the very author of creation, that is a threat to our very economic lives. When we start getting crazy and throwing around words like stewardship, suggesting that in order to free ourselves from this obsession with money and credit and things, we ought to give that first ten percent of time and talent and treasure to the one who blessed us with them in the first place, it is then that those selfish attitudes start to boil up within us, and we find ourselves considering that it might be easier to get rid of God than to give back some of the things of this life. Instead of returning the profits of the land to the landowner, those tenants start to believe that those profits are their own, that they deserve them, that the own them, and so those servants coming to take them away are really coming to steal what is rightfully theirs. So they beat them, and stone them, and finally they kill the last one.
When we start to use words like stewardship, I know that for some of us, our minds start to wander, and we begin making mental grocery lists or imagining what we are going to order for brunch. But, we would be fools if we didn’t talk about money this week. It is all anyone is talking about, our leaders voted for a seven hundred billion dollar bailout. Things have gotten so bad that we need to spend seven hundred billion dollars for a hope that things will improve. I can’t even comprehend how much money that is. I can’t even wrap my mind around that many zeroes.
You know, this is a hard lesson for me. But, here’s the gospel truth. Credit is all rubbish. It isn’t hope. There isn’t true power in credit. There isn’t true power in the stuff of the land. That is what those tenants didn’t understand, and that is the force we have to fight. That stuff isn’t going to save us. That stuff isn’t going to make us truly secure. It just can’t. The profits of the land will just make us more and more anxious, more and more afraid that someone is going to come and take it away from us. When our primary relationship, when the thing that is most important to us, when we invest all our hope for the future in the profit, than it is going to keep falling apart again and again and again.
But here is the hope my friends. As Paul writes from prison to the Philippians, all those gains, they are nothing compared to what we have found in Christ. That’s the good news, and I promise that it is deeper and stronger than anything you’ll hear from wall street. We are just stewards, managers, of the blessings of God. All creation, all profit, all abundance, comes from the hand of God, and we are just those who hold it for now. And we can white knuckle grip the profits of the land, we can kill the messengers who suggest a new way of living. We can keep putting all our hope and all our faith in money and the market and credit. We can care more about the produce and the profit than about God our landowner. And it will keep spiraling out of control. Or we can reimagine a different kind of market, a different kind of world. We can reimagine a world where our grip on the stuff of this life is not as white knuckled. When the profits and the credit and the money are all just blessings from God, not God himself. We can reimagine a world where the thing we desire most is not a relationship with creation but a relationship with the creator. A relationship not with the stuff, but with the one who knits us together in our mother’s womb. Friends, our attitude has to change. And, I don’t have any simple answers. I struggle to get there myself. I don’t know how to always be generous, how to always be good stewards. But I do know that we aren’t there now. That things are not as they ought to be.
But we can begin. We can begin by seeking to grow in our stewardship of the abundant blessings of God. We can seek to grow in our ability to let go, to give back, to loosen our grips on the profits. I know it is scary. I know it is threatening. But on the other side of the release of all this stuff, there is freedom. Freedom to live without anxiety and fear. I know the argument sounds weak. Give up some of what you have, give it back to God the landowner, and you will find a freedom that you will never get from wall-street. But, I promise that it is true. Because it is all loss, it is all rubbish compared to what we have found in Jesus Christ. Amen.
For those of us that have heard this parable before, it might have been explained as a simple allegory. The tenants are those wicked leaders, the servants sent by that landowner are the prophets- so those wicked leaders beat them and send them away. Then, God finally sends God’s son, Jesus, and those wicked leaders kill him. Even the end of the parable says that those leaders, who were seeking to destroy what Jesus had been building realized with great anger that he was talking about them. They had been ignoring and silencing those people God sent. But if that is the only layer of this parable, then the sermon should end here. Because that means this parable is stuck in a time we no longer live in, and it doesn’t have anything to do with us.
I think that there is so much more to the parable of the vineyard than just a condemnation of those leaders that sought to oppress the people through their power. I think there is much more in this parable that speaks to us this morning- because in so many ways we have become those wicked tenants.
Every morning over the last week I turned on NPR, and I was bombarded with stories about the bailout. There were people appalled that we are giving money to those rich people on wall street, there were people who said that if we don’t do this, if we don’t bail out the market than the sky is going to fall, credit will grind to a halt, and we will find ourselves in the middle of the grapes of wrath. Economists have been saying for months that things have gotten as bad as they are going to get, and then another morning rolls around and someone is telling us that things have actually gotten worse. We’re in real trouble.
And we are. We’re in trouble bailing out wall-street, and we’re in trouble if we hadn’t. We’re in trouble, because things have gotten so far out of control, we have been tilling the land for so long, we have become so obsessed with credit and the access to credit, that we have become completely separated from the one who really owns the land. Like those wicked tenants, we have forgotten who owns the land on which we live, the one who owns those things for which we labor, our primary relationship is not with the giver, the landowner, our primary relationship has shifted to the stuff that is produced. And it is one big risky, frightening disappointment, isn’t it?
Brian Stoffregen suggests that the parable of those wicked tenants is most about our inherent selfishness. We don’t want to accept that God has authority over us, that what we have, all of it is from God, it isn’t from us. It isn’t about us. When we hear that God asks us to live differently, to shift our primary relationship from the stuff of the creator to the very author of creation, that is a threat to our very economic lives. When we start getting crazy and throwing around words like stewardship, suggesting that in order to free ourselves from this obsession with money and credit and things, we ought to give that first ten percent of time and talent and treasure to the one who blessed us with them in the first place, it is then that those selfish attitudes start to boil up within us, and we find ourselves considering that it might be easier to get rid of God than to give back some of the things of this life. Instead of returning the profits of the land to the landowner, those tenants start to believe that those profits are their own, that they deserve them, that the own them, and so those servants coming to take them away are really coming to steal what is rightfully theirs. So they beat them, and stone them, and finally they kill the last one.
When we start to use words like stewardship, I know that for some of us, our minds start to wander, and we begin making mental grocery lists or imagining what we are going to order for brunch. But, we would be fools if we didn’t talk about money this week. It is all anyone is talking about, our leaders voted for a seven hundred billion dollar bailout. Things have gotten so bad that we need to spend seven hundred billion dollars for a hope that things will improve. I can’t even comprehend how much money that is. I can’t even wrap my mind around that many zeroes.
You know, this is a hard lesson for me. But, here’s the gospel truth. Credit is all rubbish. It isn’t hope. There isn’t true power in credit. There isn’t true power in the stuff of the land. That is what those tenants didn’t understand, and that is the force we have to fight. That stuff isn’t going to save us. That stuff isn’t going to make us truly secure. It just can’t. The profits of the land will just make us more and more anxious, more and more afraid that someone is going to come and take it away from us. When our primary relationship, when the thing that is most important to us, when we invest all our hope for the future in the profit, than it is going to keep falling apart again and again and again.
But here is the hope my friends. As Paul writes from prison to the Philippians, all those gains, they are nothing compared to what we have found in Christ. That’s the good news, and I promise that it is deeper and stronger than anything you’ll hear from wall street. We are just stewards, managers, of the blessings of God. All creation, all profit, all abundance, comes from the hand of God, and we are just those who hold it for now. And we can white knuckle grip the profits of the land, we can kill the messengers who suggest a new way of living. We can keep putting all our hope and all our faith in money and the market and credit. We can care more about the produce and the profit than about God our landowner. And it will keep spiraling out of control. Or we can reimagine a different kind of market, a different kind of world. We can reimagine a world where our grip on the stuff of this life is not as white knuckled. When the profits and the credit and the money are all just blessings from God, not God himself. We can reimagine a world where the thing we desire most is not a relationship with creation but a relationship with the creator. A relationship not with the stuff, but with the one who knits us together in our mother’s womb. Friends, our attitude has to change. And, I don’t have any simple answers. I struggle to get there myself. I don’t know how to always be generous, how to always be good stewards. But I do know that we aren’t there now. That things are not as they ought to be.
But we can begin. We can begin by seeking to grow in our stewardship of the abundant blessings of God. We can seek to grow in our ability to let go, to give back, to loosen our grips on the profits. I know it is scary. I know it is threatening. But on the other side of the release of all this stuff, there is freedom. Freedom to live without anxiety and fear. I know the argument sounds weak. Give up some of what you have, give it back to God the landowner, and you will find a freedom that you will never get from wall-street. But, I promise that it is true. Because it is all loss, it is all rubbish compared to what we have found in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Weekly Texts: Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
First Reading
Genesis 50:15–21
15Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers said, "What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?" 16So they approached Joseph, saying, "Your father gave this instruction before he died, 17'Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.' Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father." Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, "We are here as your slaves." 19But Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? 20Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. 21So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones." In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 103:[1–7] 8–13
[1Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless God's holy name.
2Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all God's benefits—
3who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases;
4who redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with steadfast love and mercy; R
5who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like an eagle's.
6O LORD, you provide vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
7You made known your ways to Moses
and your works to the chil- dren of Israel.]
8LORD, you are full of compas- sion and mercy,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; R
9you will not al- ways accuse us,
nor will you keep your an- ger forever.
10You have not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor repaid us according to our iniquities.
11For as the heavens are high a- bove the earth,
so great is your steadfast love for those who fear you.
12As far as the east is from the west,
so far have you removed our transgres- sions from us.
13As a father has compassion for his children,
so you have compassion for those who fear you, O LORD. R
Second Reading
Romans 14:1–12
Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. 2Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. 3Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. 4Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.5Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.7We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.10Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11For it is written,"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,and every tongue shall give praise to God."12So then, each of us will be accountable to God.
Gospel
Matthew 18:21–35
21Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" 22Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.23For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, 'Pay what you owe.' 29Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' 34And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
Genesis 50:15–21
15Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers said, "What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?" 16So they approached Joseph, saying, "Your father gave this instruction before he died, 17'Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.' Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father." Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, "We are here as your slaves." 19But Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? 20Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. 21So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones." In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 103:[1–7] 8–13
[1Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless God's holy name.
2Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all God's benefits—
3who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases;
4who redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with steadfast love and mercy; R
5who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like an eagle's.
6O LORD, you provide vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
7You made known your ways to Moses
and your works to the chil- dren of Israel.]
8LORD, you are full of compas- sion and mercy,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; R
9you will not al- ways accuse us,
nor will you keep your an- ger forever.
10You have not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor repaid us according to our iniquities.
11For as the heavens are high a- bove the earth,
so great is your steadfast love for those who fear you.
12As far as the east is from the west,
so far have you removed our transgres- sions from us.
13As a father has compassion for his children,
so you have compassion for those who fear you, O LORD. R
Second Reading
Romans 14:1–12
Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. 2Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. 3Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. 4Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.5Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.7We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.10Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11For it is written,"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,and every tongue shall give praise to God."12So then, each of us will be accountable to God.
Gospel
Matthew 18:21–35
21Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" 22Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.23For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, 'Pay what you owe.' 29Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' 34And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
Sermon: Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
It’s Rally Day. Fall is arriving in short order, we’re kicking off ministries, we are throwing open the doors, we are parading around the neighborhood and getting excited about what this church is all about. I can’t get enough of Rally Day. This is the Sunday when hopefully, as Paul writes to the Romans, you are ready to wake up. Get up, shake off the lazy days of summer, and wake up.
Rally Day is exciting, and we’ve tried to make it even more exciting. But, then Jesus has to give us the words for this morning, and if I were you, and if I was really awake and listening carefully, then I would high-tail it out of here before we have to start acting like Jesus is telling us to. If another member of the church sins against you, if you have been involved in the church in any way, you know as well as I do that it isn’t if another member sins against you, but when that member chooses to do it. Because this place, for as exciting and amazing as it is, is chock full of sinners and we’re in the business of adding more. Even as we seek to be the kind of people who center our lives around the teachings of Jesus, we know that the church is also often a place as full of relationship with God as it is with broken relationships between its members.
What Matthew writes about in our reading for this morning is not a checklist for success. It isn’t going to help to solve all kinds of congregational conflict. But, as we hear these words of Jesus we are reminded that we don’t give up, we keep on loving despite the circumstances even as we continue to add sinner after sinner to our community.
So here’s how it works. Step one, when someone sins against you, confront the person who has sinned against you. That’s all well and good, but we know that in the church or any other place, it always seems a lot easier to talk about that nasty old sinner to your neighbor, the person you share a pew with, your friends, because confronting the people who have hurt us never feels quite as good as making them look like the sinners they are to the people they know. This first step is meant to save the relationship, to stop the cycles of pain and rumors to name the places where a relationship has been broken and to heal the wound, rather than to let it fester. Step two, if that relationship is broken, if that first conversation doesn’t work, then you go and get a couple witnesses, and you try again. And if that doesn’t work, then you tell the church. And, if still, after all this work, the relationship is still broken, if there is still that painful wound festering between the two of you, then you bring it to the church. And, finally, if they still won’t even listen to the church, if you have faithfully and with an open heart gone to the individual, brought in the witnesses, and then opened it up to the church. Then, and only then, do you get to treat them like a gentile and tax-collector. Whew.
You get to treat them like a gentile or a tax-collector. You get to let them be to you and outsider, thrown out of the church and ignored. You let them be out this community. You don’t give them an invitation to come back, because with a three strikes and you are out rule, they’ve already had their three chances.
At least, at first glance. At first glance we hear treat them like a gentile or a tax-collector, and if you are anything like me you want to whiz through steps one through three and move right into banishment. Except that this is Jesus speaking, and if we know anything, we know that he is always eating with, drinking with, hanging out with gentiles and tax-collectors. In fact, he is with gentiles and tax-collector so often that it makes some of the other characters in our story uncomfortable. So maybe Jesus isn’t giving us a three steps and you can give up method here. Perhaps Jesus is asking us to confront that person that has talked about us, that person that is sarcastic and rude, that person that hurts us for no reason we can understand, that person who is just plain difficult to be around, perhaps Jesus is asking us to confront that person three times, to open the wound to the air, to try and find some healing, and when that doesn’t work, when that person just won’t meet us halfway, instead of giving up, Jesus is asking us to keep on loving, to keep on inviting, to keep on letting that person back into the fold because something has to change eventually.
Something has to change eventually, because God promises that when two or three gather that God is there. Now, that isn’t just any old random two or three people, Jesus tells us that when the offended, and the offender, and a witness or two get together, that God is going to be there. That is the promise. That God is going to cover up that wound that festers between God’s two children with God’s very being. And God is going to keep on coming down, getting in the mix of it all, and God is going to keep healing, because that is God’s business.
God never gives up on us, no matter how broken our relationship gets. God doesn’t give up on creation no matter how broken it gets. God doesn’t give up, and we ought not either. Love is what unites us, love is what sustains us, love is what binds us. And if we really are going to get ourselves mixed up in God’s business, than the first thing we have to have going for us is the desire, the passion, the goal of proclaiming forgiveness.
Today on Rally Day we do more than just get excited about the upcoming year, this year we dedicate a new baptismal font. We dedicated this font and we read the words of Jesus for this morning, because it is in the waters of baptism that we are forgiven, that we die to sin and rise again as children of God. It is in the waters of baptism that we remember that God never gives up, that God keeps meeting us, that whenever we gather with some water, a little bit of bread and some wine, God is there. Peace among members is not a precondition, because God promises to be with us regardless.
No matter how good or bad we are at it, our job is to proclaim forgiveness. Our job is not to bandage the wounds and pretend we don’t see them. Our job is to wash our wounds in the power of God’s love, to be vulnerable enough to tell each other when we are hurt, to keep on coming back, to keep on trying to heal what is broken because God is with us. Our job is to proclaim forgiveness in the waters of baptism, because God promises to be in them, to wash us, to wash our shame and our pain and the cleanse those wounds that we carry. This font is the symbol of the kind of love that goes beyond the grave, the kind of love that will hang on a cross and still proclaim forgiveness, the kind of love that does not give up on us. So let them be to you as a gentile or a tax-collector. Let them be to you those people that are never too far gone, never too far away to be a part of this community again. Let them be to you those people that we don’t give up on. Let them be to you as baptized children of God, daughters and sons of the author of creation, part of the family of the church. We’re still going to get hurt, relationships are still going to get broken. Pain is still going to be a reality in this very sanctuary, but God is still going to be with us. God is not in the business of giving up, God will not lose you, brothers and sisters, because forgiveness, reconciliation, and love proclaimed in the waters of baptism are God very promise.
Rally Day is exciting, and we’ve tried to make it even more exciting. But, then Jesus has to give us the words for this morning, and if I were you, and if I was really awake and listening carefully, then I would high-tail it out of here before we have to start acting like Jesus is telling us to. If another member of the church sins against you, if you have been involved in the church in any way, you know as well as I do that it isn’t if another member sins against you, but when that member chooses to do it. Because this place, for as exciting and amazing as it is, is chock full of sinners and we’re in the business of adding more. Even as we seek to be the kind of people who center our lives around the teachings of Jesus, we know that the church is also often a place as full of relationship with God as it is with broken relationships between its members.
What Matthew writes about in our reading for this morning is not a checklist for success. It isn’t going to help to solve all kinds of congregational conflict. But, as we hear these words of Jesus we are reminded that we don’t give up, we keep on loving despite the circumstances even as we continue to add sinner after sinner to our community.
So here’s how it works. Step one, when someone sins against you, confront the person who has sinned against you. That’s all well and good, but we know that in the church or any other place, it always seems a lot easier to talk about that nasty old sinner to your neighbor, the person you share a pew with, your friends, because confronting the people who have hurt us never feels quite as good as making them look like the sinners they are to the people they know. This first step is meant to save the relationship, to stop the cycles of pain and rumors to name the places where a relationship has been broken and to heal the wound, rather than to let it fester. Step two, if that relationship is broken, if that first conversation doesn’t work, then you go and get a couple witnesses, and you try again. And if that doesn’t work, then you tell the church. And, if still, after all this work, the relationship is still broken, if there is still that painful wound festering between the two of you, then you bring it to the church. And, finally, if they still won’t even listen to the church, if you have faithfully and with an open heart gone to the individual, brought in the witnesses, and then opened it up to the church. Then, and only then, do you get to treat them like a gentile and tax-collector. Whew.
You get to treat them like a gentile or a tax-collector. You get to let them be to you and outsider, thrown out of the church and ignored. You let them be out this community. You don’t give them an invitation to come back, because with a three strikes and you are out rule, they’ve already had their three chances.
At least, at first glance. At first glance we hear treat them like a gentile or a tax-collector, and if you are anything like me you want to whiz through steps one through three and move right into banishment. Except that this is Jesus speaking, and if we know anything, we know that he is always eating with, drinking with, hanging out with gentiles and tax-collectors. In fact, he is with gentiles and tax-collector so often that it makes some of the other characters in our story uncomfortable. So maybe Jesus isn’t giving us a three steps and you can give up method here. Perhaps Jesus is asking us to confront that person that has talked about us, that person that is sarcastic and rude, that person that hurts us for no reason we can understand, that person who is just plain difficult to be around, perhaps Jesus is asking us to confront that person three times, to open the wound to the air, to try and find some healing, and when that doesn’t work, when that person just won’t meet us halfway, instead of giving up, Jesus is asking us to keep on loving, to keep on inviting, to keep on letting that person back into the fold because something has to change eventually.
Something has to change eventually, because God promises that when two or three gather that God is there. Now, that isn’t just any old random two or three people, Jesus tells us that when the offended, and the offender, and a witness or two get together, that God is going to be there. That is the promise. That God is going to cover up that wound that festers between God’s two children with God’s very being. And God is going to keep on coming down, getting in the mix of it all, and God is going to keep healing, because that is God’s business.
God never gives up on us, no matter how broken our relationship gets. God doesn’t give up on creation no matter how broken it gets. God doesn’t give up, and we ought not either. Love is what unites us, love is what sustains us, love is what binds us. And if we really are going to get ourselves mixed up in God’s business, than the first thing we have to have going for us is the desire, the passion, the goal of proclaiming forgiveness.
Today on Rally Day we do more than just get excited about the upcoming year, this year we dedicate a new baptismal font. We dedicated this font and we read the words of Jesus for this morning, because it is in the waters of baptism that we are forgiven, that we die to sin and rise again as children of God. It is in the waters of baptism that we remember that God never gives up, that God keeps meeting us, that whenever we gather with some water, a little bit of bread and some wine, God is there. Peace among members is not a precondition, because God promises to be with us regardless.
No matter how good or bad we are at it, our job is to proclaim forgiveness. Our job is not to bandage the wounds and pretend we don’t see them. Our job is to wash our wounds in the power of God’s love, to be vulnerable enough to tell each other when we are hurt, to keep on coming back, to keep on trying to heal what is broken because God is with us. Our job is to proclaim forgiveness in the waters of baptism, because God promises to be in them, to wash us, to wash our shame and our pain and the cleanse those wounds that we carry. This font is the symbol of the kind of love that goes beyond the grave, the kind of love that will hang on a cross and still proclaim forgiveness, the kind of love that does not give up on us. So let them be to you as a gentile or a tax-collector. Let them be to you those people that are never too far gone, never too far away to be a part of this community again. Let them be to you those people that we don’t give up on. Let them be to you as baptized children of God, daughters and sons of the author of creation, part of the family of the church. We’re still going to get hurt, relationships are still going to get broken. Pain is still going to be a reality in this very sanctuary, but God is still going to be with us. God is not in the business of giving up, God will not lose you, brothers and sisters, because forgiveness, reconciliation, and love proclaimed in the waters of baptism are God very promise.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Weekly Texts: Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
First Reading
Jeremiah 15:15–21
15O LORD, you know;remember me and visit me,and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors.In your forbearance do not take me away;know that on your account I suffer insult.16Your words were found, and I ate them,and your words became to me a joyand the delight of my heart;for I am called by your name,O LORD, God of hosts.17I did not sit in the company of merrymakers,nor did I rejoice;under the weight of your hand I sat alone,for you had filled me with indignation.18Why is my pain unceasing,my wound incurable,refusing to be healed?Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook,like waters that fail.19Therefore thus says the LORD:If you turn back, I will take you back,and you shall stand before me.If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,you shall serve as my mouth.It is they who will turn to you,not you who will turn to them.20And I will make you to this peoplea fortified wall of bronze;they will fight against you,but they shall not prevail over you,for I am with youto save you and deliver you,says the LORD.21I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 26:1–8
1Give judgment for me, O LORD, for I have lived with integrity;
I have trusted in the LORD and have not faltered.
2Test me, O LORD, and try me;
examine my heart and my mind.
3For your steadfast love is be- fore my eyes;
I have walked faith- fully with you.
4I have not sat with the worthless,
nor do I consort with the deceitful. R
5I have hated the company of evildoers;
I will not sit down with the wicked.
6I will wash my hands in inno- cence, O LORD,
that I may go in procession round your altar,
7singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
and recounting all your won- derful deeds.
8LORD, I love the house in which you dwell
and the place where your glo- ry abides. R
Second Reading
Romans 12:9–21
9Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." 20No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Gospel
Matthew 16:21–28
21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." 23But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."24Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?27For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
Jeremiah 15:15–21
15O LORD, you know;remember me and visit me,and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors.In your forbearance do not take me away;know that on your account I suffer insult.16Your words were found, and I ate them,and your words became to me a joyand the delight of my heart;for I am called by your name,O LORD, God of hosts.17I did not sit in the company of merrymakers,nor did I rejoice;under the weight of your hand I sat alone,for you had filled me with indignation.18Why is my pain unceasing,my wound incurable,refusing to be healed?Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook,like waters that fail.19Therefore thus says the LORD:If you turn back, I will take you back,and you shall stand before me.If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,you shall serve as my mouth.It is they who will turn to you,not you who will turn to them.20And I will make you to this peoplea fortified wall of bronze;they will fight against you,but they shall not prevail over you,for I am with youto save you and deliver you,says the LORD.21I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 26:1–8
1Give judgment for me, O LORD, for I have lived with integrity;
I have trusted in the LORD and have not faltered.
2Test me, O LORD, and try me;
examine my heart and my mind.
3For your steadfast love is be- fore my eyes;
I have walked faith- fully with you.
4I have not sat with the worthless,
nor do I consort with the deceitful. R
5I have hated the company of evildoers;
I will not sit down with the wicked.
6I will wash my hands in inno- cence, O LORD,
that I may go in procession round your altar,
7singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
and recounting all your won- derful deeds.
8LORD, I love the house in which you dwell
and the place where your glo- ry abides. R
Second Reading
Romans 12:9–21
9Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." 20No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Gospel
Matthew 16:21–28
21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." 23But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."24Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?27For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
Sermon: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
In January we were a part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Irving Park Baptist church. Many of our neighborhood congregations took part in the celebration, and between music and dance, we read excerpts from King’s writings. There was a line read that afternoon that has stuck with me since that day, even if sometimes I have trouble understanding what it might mean. “When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Our reading from the book of Exodus for today tells the story of that long bend. The Israelites have made for themselves a home in Egypt, forced there by famine in their homelands, making for themselves a place because Joseph served Pharaoh. But then a new Pharaoh comes to power, one that does not know Joseph, and that new king is afraid. He is afraid of losing his power, and he is afraid that these people will rise up, join the enemies of Egypt and take power from him. So he subjects them to great injustice, making them slaves to the Egyptians, making their lives bitter with hard service. But that arc only bends one way- and so even under this oppressive rule, the Israelites continue to grow numerous. Their bitter life will not stop them from living, and so the Pharaoh comes up with a new plan.
The Pharaoh calls into his throne room two of my favorite characters from the Old Testament, Siphrah and Puah. These two women are midwives- people who help to bring life into that dark world of hard labor. They go to women as they are giving birth and they help to usher that new life out of the darkness and into light. So they come into Pharaoh’s palace, and he tells them that they have a new job- when they go to these women, when they see that the baby is a boy, they are to kill him, but they can let the girls live. Surely, this will keep the Israelites from growing in number- how could they overcome this kind of oppression?
What Pharaoh doesn’t know, is that Siphrah and Puah are no ordinary midwives, they are actually extraordinary. They are called by God to the ministry of life, and no power structure will bend them away from the work they are called to do. So with fingers crossed they leave the presence of Pharaoh, and they quietly go back to the work they were called to, the first women to engage in civil disobedience in the story of God’s people. They are extraordinary, brave, courageous women, doing the most ordinary of tasks, bringing life into the world.
The Israelite people will not be kept down, and they continue to grow in number. Pharaoh, confused, calls Siphrah and Puah into his chambers- demanding they account for all these boys wandering around. They tell the Pharaoh that it’s a genetic issue. These Hebrew women just deliver in a snap! They can’t get there in time to fulfill Pharaoh’s orders.
We know how the rest of the story goes. We’ve seen the movies- baby Moses is born, hidden away in a basket and sent down the river. He is found and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. The universe arcs toward justice, or perhaps irony. But, those two names, Siphrah and Puah are forgotten. Those two extraordinary women who would not be denied their call, who would not do injustice in the name of God, those two extraordinary women get lost to the record books, but it was those two women who allowed that baby to be born. It was those two women who refused to compromise who set in motion the circumstances that allowed for the birth of the prophet Moses.
There are plenty of forces in this world that try to remind us that we are nothing if not ordinary. There are plenty of forces in this world that try to convince us that what we see around us is as good as it gets. But, we, friends, we know better. We know that we are riding that arc toward justice, because that is what our God is all about. We know that we are more than ordinary, because we are made in the image of our God, and we are set to do extraordinary things. Because God continues to use us to bring about God’s kingdom, we are more than ordinary, even if our names our lost to the record books for all time.
As has been said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Who were those women to defy the greatest power they had ever known, held by Pharaoh? They were children of God, destined to do amazing things, destined to be a part of that arc towards justice. Their names are not famous, but their deeds changed the history of a people.
So as we hear their story this morning, we must ask ourselves, who are we? Who are we to deny that God has called us to extraordinary things? Who are we to imagine that we are not to shine with the glory of God? Because day by day, as I watch the story of this congregation unfold I see that arc towards justice. Day by day I see cracks in the huge walls of oppression. Day by day, I see you raising up children who will do extraordinary things. Only weeks ago I watched more than one hundred children dance down the aisles of this sanctuary as we ended magic mushroom, and I saw in their joy, in their spirits, that in this place, extraordinary things are being done. A program that was started by a few people thirty years ago has raised up thousands of children, girls and boys who know that no matter what the world tells them, God loves them. I see you stepping forward in faith and daring to believe that this congregation can have an impact on this neighborhood, supporting a free clinic in this neighborhood when people were saying it was only going to serve drunks and addicts and the bad element. I see you supporting an afterschool program focused on children in this neighborhood that people say aren’t worth our time or our energy, because they are poor or they come from difficult circumstances. And I tell you, somewhere those two Hebrew midwives are saying, well done.
So who are you? In your ordinary work, you are an extraordinary child of God. We are called to do more than we can imagine in ways we can only dream of- but we are called to lives of extraordinary service. I can’t tell you when it will feel like you are standing at the foot of Pharaoh, but I can tell you that time will come. And when it does, when you are afraid and facing that tough choice, I hope you will hear the voices of those two forgotten women, Siphrah and Puah, reminding you that made in the image of God, you are extraordinary, and you are standing in a world that arcs toward God’s justice. Amen.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Our reading from the book of Exodus for today tells the story of that long bend. The Israelites have made for themselves a home in Egypt, forced there by famine in their homelands, making for themselves a place because Joseph served Pharaoh. But then a new Pharaoh comes to power, one that does not know Joseph, and that new king is afraid. He is afraid of losing his power, and he is afraid that these people will rise up, join the enemies of Egypt and take power from him. So he subjects them to great injustice, making them slaves to the Egyptians, making their lives bitter with hard service. But that arc only bends one way- and so even under this oppressive rule, the Israelites continue to grow numerous. Their bitter life will not stop them from living, and so the Pharaoh comes up with a new plan.
The Pharaoh calls into his throne room two of my favorite characters from the Old Testament, Siphrah and Puah. These two women are midwives- people who help to bring life into that dark world of hard labor. They go to women as they are giving birth and they help to usher that new life out of the darkness and into light. So they come into Pharaoh’s palace, and he tells them that they have a new job- when they go to these women, when they see that the baby is a boy, they are to kill him, but they can let the girls live. Surely, this will keep the Israelites from growing in number- how could they overcome this kind of oppression?
What Pharaoh doesn’t know, is that Siphrah and Puah are no ordinary midwives, they are actually extraordinary. They are called by God to the ministry of life, and no power structure will bend them away from the work they are called to do. So with fingers crossed they leave the presence of Pharaoh, and they quietly go back to the work they were called to, the first women to engage in civil disobedience in the story of God’s people. They are extraordinary, brave, courageous women, doing the most ordinary of tasks, bringing life into the world.
The Israelite people will not be kept down, and they continue to grow in number. Pharaoh, confused, calls Siphrah and Puah into his chambers- demanding they account for all these boys wandering around. They tell the Pharaoh that it’s a genetic issue. These Hebrew women just deliver in a snap! They can’t get there in time to fulfill Pharaoh’s orders.
We know how the rest of the story goes. We’ve seen the movies- baby Moses is born, hidden away in a basket and sent down the river. He is found and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. The universe arcs toward justice, or perhaps irony. But, those two names, Siphrah and Puah are forgotten. Those two extraordinary women who would not be denied their call, who would not do injustice in the name of God, those two extraordinary women get lost to the record books, but it was those two women who allowed that baby to be born. It was those two women who refused to compromise who set in motion the circumstances that allowed for the birth of the prophet Moses.
There are plenty of forces in this world that try to remind us that we are nothing if not ordinary. There are plenty of forces in this world that try to convince us that what we see around us is as good as it gets. But, we, friends, we know better. We know that we are riding that arc toward justice, because that is what our God is all about. We know that we are more than ordinary, because we are made in the image of our God, and we are set to do extraordinary things. Because God continues to use us to bring about God’s kingdom, we are more than ordinary, even if our names our lost to the record books for all time.
As has been said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Who were those women to defy the greatest power they had ever known, held by Pharaoh? They were children of God, destined to do amazing things, destined to be a part of that arc towards justice. Their names are not famous, but their deeds changed the history of a people.
So as we hear their story this morning, we must ask ourselves, who are we? Who are we to deny that God has called us to extraordinary things? Who are we to imagine that we are not to shine with the glory of God? Because day by day, as I watch the story of this congregation unfold I see that arc towards justice. Day by day I see cracks in the huge walls of oppression. Day by day, I see you raising up children who will do extraordinary things. Only weeks ago I watched more than one hundred children dance down the aisles of this sanctuary as we ended magic mushroom, and I saw in their joy, in their spirits, that in this place, extraordinary things are being done. A program that was started by a few people thirty years ago has raised up thousands of children, girls and boys who know that no matter what the world tells them, God loves them. I see you stepping forward in faith and daring to believe that this congregation can have an impact on this neighborhood, supporting a free clinic in this neighborhood when people were saying it was only going to serve drunks and addicts and the bad element. I see you supporting an afterschool program focused on children in this neighborhood that people say aren’t worth our time or our energy, because they are poor or they come from difficult circumstances. And I tell you, somewhere those two Hebrew midwives are saying, well done.
So who are you? In your ordinary work, you are an extraordinary child of God. We are called to do more than we can imagine in ways we can only dream of- but we are called to lives of extraordinary service. I can’t tell you when it will feel like you are standing at the foot of Pharaoh, but I can tell you that time will come. And when it does, when you are afraid and facing that tough choice, I hope you will hear the voices of those two forgotten women, Siphrah and Puah, reminding you that made in the image of God, you are extraordinary, and you are standing in a world that arcs toward God’s justice. Amen.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Weekly Texts: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
First Reading (Semi-continuous)
Exodus 1:8—2:10
Chapter 1
8Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.15The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live. 17But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." 20So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."
Chapter 2
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.5The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. "This must be one of the Hebrews' children," she said. 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" 8Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. 9Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water."
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 138
1I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with my whole heart;
before the gods I will sing your praise.
2I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your name, because of your steadfast love and faithfulness;
for you have glorified your name and your word a- bove all things.
3When I called, you answered me;
you increased my strength within me. R
4All the rulers of the earth will praise you, O LORD,
when they have heard the words of your mouth.
5They will sing of the ways of the LORD,
that great is the glory of the LORD.
6The LORD is high, yet cares for the lowly,
perceiving the haughty from afar.
7Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe;
you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand shall save me.
8You will make good your pur- pose for me;
O LORD, your steadfast love endures forever; do not abandon the works of your hands. R
Second Reading
Romans 12:1–8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.3For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
Gospel
Matthew 16:13–20
13Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 17And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." 20Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Exodus 1:8—2:10
Chapter 1
8Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.15The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live. 17But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." 20So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."
Chapter 2
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.5The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. "This must be one of the Hebrews' children," she said. 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" 8Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. 9Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water."
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 138
1I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with my whole heart;
before the gods I will sing your praise.
2I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your name, because of your steadfast love and faithfulness;
for you have glorified your name and your word a- bove all things.
3When I called, you answered me;
you increased my strength within me. R
4All the rulers of the earth will praise you, O LORD,
when they have heard the words of your mouth.
5They will sing of the ways of the LORD,
that great is the glory of the LORD.
6The LORD is high, yet cares for the lowly,
perceiving the haughty from afar.
7Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe;
you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand shall save me.
8You will make good your pur- pose for me;
O LORD, your steadfast love endures forever; do not abandon the works of your hands. R
Second Reading
Romans 12:1–8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.3For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
Gospel
Matthew 16:13–20
13Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 17And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." 20Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Sermon: Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The first sermon I ever preached in this sanctuary was from a text talking about divorce. I remember thinking as I wrote that first manuscript, geez… it really can’t get worse than this. What am I supposed to talk about? I can imagine God having a quiet chuckle thinking about what I was going to find in a text in the middle of August in 2008, because if it was up to me, I would want to take a bottle of white-out and cover up all the pages of your bibles that hold Matthew 15: 10-28. I don’t like the Jesus we confront in our text for this morning, in fact, I think this passage makes him sound like someone I certainly wouldn't want to know.
Jesus and the disciples are in the district of Tyre and Sidon, when this Caananite woman comes wandering into the picture. The people who live in this region aren’t Jewish, they worship Phoenician gods, and so they are pagans. The Canaanites were descendents of Canaan, a son we hear a bit about in the old Testament. He was the son of Ham. According to the story, after the great flood Noah got a little drunk. He laid naked in his tent, and Ham walked in. Seeing his father’s nakedness, he tells his brothers in a half joking fashion, and those brothers, appalled that their father is lying naked, cover him. Waking, Noah is so angry at what Ham has done that he curses Ham’s son, Canaan, making him the slave to all these brothers. Later in the book of Genesis, God gives Abraham the land of Canaan, then in Dueteronomy, tells Joshua to kill the people and take their lands and their cities.
This woman carries all this with her- historical slavery to the Jews, curses on her people and her land. She is the victim of long-held racial prejudices, she is ignored and despised by good Jewish people. So when we find her screaming about some sick daughter, following Jesus and the disciples around, it doesn’t seem surprising that she appears a little off her rocker. That she won’t be quiet, that she keeps following them crying out for help.
And this is where I don’t really get Jesus’ response. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say anything. In fact, this is the only time in the entire gospel that Jesus does not respond to someone’s cry. He ignores her. How can the Jesus I know do that? The disciples ask him to please tell her to go away, with her carrying on the way she is. And Jesus says, you know, my ministry is for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He doesn’t send her away, but he doesn’t bless her either, because she is far outside of his ministry to the lost sheep of Israel.
Now let us remember what Jesus is all about- so far in our gospel we know he is all about the lost, he is all about the kingdom of heaven, he is all about healing and eating with tax collectors and sinners. He is all about challenging the in-group, in the face of incredible opposition. So is he just having a bad day? Because to me, this seems like a great teaching moment- when he can tell those disciples, well, my friends, you might think that this woman is outside of our ministry, but she is certainly not, because no one is. She is a child of God just as you are, so get out of the way and send her down because I have a healing ministry to get going. This, of course, is not what we hear from Jesus. In fact, the text seems to get even worse. This woman falls at the feet of Jesus, and she begs him to heal her daughter, sick, even dying and possessed by a demon. And Jesus says to her, “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Is this a misprint? Because I can’t figure out how that could ever be a nice thing to say. I can’t even figure out how Jesus just fed a crowd of 5,000 people with a couple loaves and some fish, and now he is calling this woman a dog and telling her there isn’t any food left. This just doesn’t square with who Jesus seems to be.
And I am not the only one who seems a bit stuck on this point. Scholars have battled with this passage, trying to figure out a way for Jesus to be meaning something nice. Some suggest that he was really just trying to prove a point, calling this woman a dog to her face so that those slow to learn disciples would really understand that all people are included in the kingdom of God. Others suggest that perhaps he was saying these terrible words to her in order that she could learn more about who she was, she could learn to stand up for herself even in the face of abuse. Others suggest that Jesus was trying to make a point, speaking out against prejudice to all who would hear this text. And others suggest that Jesus was tired, having a bad day, annoyed with all the miracles he was doing. The writer of the gospel of Matthew just doesn’t tell us. The writer doesn’t include a conversation later with the disciples where Jesus explains what he was doing, all we have are the words recorded in our lesson for today.
I battled with this text all week. I sat in my office and tried to figure out what to say. And I came home and fell asleep thinking about what Jesus was doing here. I think the problem is that I don’t know if I buy any of those other explanations. But then, I realized, perhaps we don’t have to.
I’m Lutheran by background and Scandinavian by heritage, so I know that in my upbringing the mark of strong person, the mark of a good leader was to stick it out no matter what kind of decision you made. Good leaders don’t change course. They don’t make mistakes, they don’t go back on their word and try something new. This kind of thinking happens in the church all the time. It happens in our jobs, when we know we’ve really screwed something up, and rather than turn around, we plow forward in order to save face. Or in our families, when we have made a bad decision, or done something hurtful or unfair, and rather than admit that we were angry, or tired, or scared, we just keep on enforcing that decision even if it doesn’t make any sense. We see it in politics. We see it in churches. Good leaders don’t change course, because it means that the first course was wrong.
And that is where I found some good news. Because, right there, in that messy passage in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus changes course. Without shame, without anger, he is challenged imagine something new. This woman teaches him something new. This woman asks him to consider that his mission and ministry might be a lot bigger than he first imagined. It isn’t just to the lost sheep of Israel, it is just as much to the poor, broken, pagans in Canaan. It is to the people that no one could have ever imagined were included.
Our call to ministry- ministry in the church, ministry in our jobs, ministry in our families, is marked by love for God’s people. As one writer put it, just when we think we’ve seen the limits of God’s love, that love grows. I think this woman in our text for today taught Jesus something. I think she taught Jesus that his ministry was bigger than he could ever have imagined, that it extended to the ends of the earth, past those places where good Jewish people could be assured God’s love did not go. So, we, too, can find something here. Faith points us down strange roads, and sometimes we are forced to change course. This woman, cursed since the time of Noah, alone, afraid, kneels at the feet of Jesus and reminds him of who she is. Because she is no dog. She is a woman of great faith. Faith that was profound enough to teach Jesus something. She, despite being cursed and ignored, reflects to all those wandering through her land, the face of God. Amen.
Jesus and the disciples are in the district of Tyre and Sidon, when this Caananite woman comes wandering into the picture. The people who live in this region aren’t Jewish, they worship Phoenician gods, and so they are pagans. The Canaanites were descendents of Canaan, a son we hear a bit about in the old Testament. He was the son of Ham. According to the story, after the great flood Noah got a little drunk. He laid naked in his tent, and Ham walked in. Seeing his father’s nakedness, he tells his brothers in a half joking fashion, and those brothers, appalled that their father is lying naked, cover him. Waking, Noah is so angry at what Ham has done that he curses Ham’s son, Canaan, making him the slave to all these brothers. Later in the book of Genesis, God gives Abraham the land of Canaan, then in Dueteronomy, tells Joshua to kill the people and take their lands and their cities.
This woman carries all this with her- historical slavery to the Jews, curses on her people and her land. She is the victim of long-held racial prejudices, she is ignored and despised by good Jewish people. So when we find her screaming about some sick daughter, following Jesus and the disciples around, it doesn’t seem surprising that she appears a little off her rocker. That she won’t be quiet, that she keeps following them crying out for help.
And this is where I don’t really get Jesus’ response. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say anything. In fact, this is the only time in the entire gospel that Jesus does not respond to someone’s cry. He ignores her. How can the Jesus I know do that? The disciples ask him to please tell her to go away, with her carrying on the way she is. And Jesus says, you know, my ministry is for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He doesn’t send her away, but he doesn’t bless her either, because she is far outside of his ministry to the lost sheep of Israel.
Now let us remember what Jesus is all about- so far in our gospel we know he is all about the lost, he is all about the kingdom of heaven, he is all about healing and eating with tax collectors and sinners. He is all about challenging the in-group, in the face of incredible opposition. So is he just having a bad day? Because to me, this seems like a great teaching moment- when he can tell those disciples, well, my friends, you might think that this woman is outside of our ministry, but she is certainly not, because no one is. She is a child of God just as you are, so get out of the way and send her down because I have a healing ministry to get going. This, of course, is not what we hear from Jesus. In fact, the text seems to get even worse. This woman falls at the feet of Jesus, and she begs him to heal her daughter, sick, even dying and possessed by a demon. And Jesus says to her, “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Is this a misprint? Because I can’t figure out how that could ever be a nice thing to say. I can’t even figure out how Jesus just fed a crowd of 5,000 people with a couple loaves and some fish, and now he is calling this woman a dog and telling her there isn’t any food left. This just doesn’t square with who Jesus seems to be.
And I am not the only one who seems a bit stuck on this point. Scholars have battled with this passage, trying to figure out a way for Jesus to be meaning something nice. Some suggest that he was really just trying to prove a point, calling this woman a dog to her face so that those slow to learn disciples would really understand that all people are included in the kingdom of God. Others suggest that perhaps he was saying these terrible words to her in order that she could learn more about who she was, she could learn to stand up for herself even in the face of abuse. Others suggest that Jesus was trying to make a point, speaking out against prejudice to all who would hear this text. And others suggest that Jesus was tired, having a bad day, annoyed with all the miracles he was doing. The writer of the gospel of Matthew just doesn’t tell us. The writer doesn’t include a conversation later with the disciples where Jesus explains what he was doing, all we have are the words recorded in our lesson for today.
I battled with this text all week. I sat in my office and tried to figure out what to say. And I came home and fell asleep thinking about what Jesus was doing here. I think the problem is that I don’t know if I buy any of those other explanations. But then, I realized, perhaps we don’t have to.
I’m Lutheran by background and Scandinavian by heritage, so I know that in my upbringing the mark of strong person, the mark of a good leader was to stick it out no matter what kind of decision you made. Good leaders don’t change course. They don’t make mistakes, they don’t go back on their word and try something new. This kind of thinking happens in the church all the time. It happens in our jobs, when we know we’ve really screwed something up, and rather than turn around, we plow forward in order to save face. Or in our families, when we have made a bad decision, or done something hurtful or unfair, and rather than admit that we were angry, or tired, or scared, we just keep on enforcing that decision even if it doesn’t make any sense. We see it in politics. We see it in churches. Good leaders don’t change course, because it means that the first course was wrong.
And that is where I found some good news. Because, right there, in that messy passage in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus changes course. Without shame, without anger, he is challenged imagine something new. This woman teaches him something new. This woman asks him to consider that his mission and ministry might be a lot bigger than he first imagined. It isn’t just to the lost sheep of Israel, it is just as much to the poor, broken, pagans in Canaan. It is to the people that no one could have ever imagined were included.
Our call to ministry- ministry in the church, ministry in our jobs, ministry in our families, is marked by love for God’s people. As one writer put it, just when we think we’ve seen the limits of God’s love, that love grows. I think this woman in our text for today taught Jesus something. I think she taught Jesus that his ministry was bigger than he could ever have imagined, that it extended to the ends of the earth, past those places where good Jewish people could be assured God’s love did not go. So, we, too, can find something here. Faith points us down strange roads, and sometimes we are forced to change course. This woman, cursed since the time of Noah, alone, afraid, kneels at the feet of Jesus and reminds him of who she is. Because she is no dog. She is a woman of great faith. Faith that was profound enough to teach Jesus something. She, despite being cursed and ignored, reflects to all those wandering through her land, the face of God. Amen.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Weekly Texts: Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
First Reading
Isaiah 56:1, 6–8
Thus says the LORD:Maintain justice, and do what is right,for soon my salvation will come,and my deliverance be revealed.6And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,and to be his servants,all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,and hold fast my covenant — 7these I will bring to my holy mountain,and make them joyful in my house of prayer;their burnt offerings and their sacrificeswill be accepted on my altar;for my house shall be called a house of prayerfor all peoples.8Thus says the Lord GOD,who gathers the outcasts of Israel,I will gather others to thembesides those already gathered.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 67
1May God be merciful to us and bless us;
may the light of God's face shine upon us.
2Let your way be known upon earth,
your saving health a- mong all nations.
3Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
4Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity and guide all the na- tions on earth. R
5Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
6The earth has brought forth its increase;
God, our own God, has blessed us.
7May God give us blessing,
and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe. R
Second Reading
Romans 11:1–2a, 29–32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. 29for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, 31so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. 32For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
Gospel
Matthew 15:[10–20] 21–28
10Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: 11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." 12Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" 13He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit." 15But Peter said to him, "Explain this parable to us." 16Then he said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."21Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." 23But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 27She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
Isaiah 56:1, 6–8
Thus says the LORD:Maintain justice, and do what is right,for soon my salvation will come,and my deliverance be revealed.6And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,and to be his servants,all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,and hold fast my covenant — 7these I will bring to my holy mountain,and make them joyful in my house of prayer;their burnt offerings and their sacrificeswill be accepted on my altar;for my house shall be called a house of prayerfor all peoples.8Thus says the Lord GOD,who gathers the outcasts of Israel,I will gather others to thembesides those already gathered.
Psalm (ELW)
Psalm 67
1May God be merciful to us and bless us;
may the light of God's face shine upon us.
2Let your way be known upon earth,
your saving health a- mong all nations.
3Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
4Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity and guide all the na- tions on earth. R
5Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
6The earth has brought forth its increase;
God, our own God, has blessed us.
7May God give us blessing,
and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe. R
Second Reading
Romans 11:1–2a, 29–32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. 29for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, 31so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. 32For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
Gospel
Matthew 15:[10–20] 21–28
10Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: 11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." 12Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" 13He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit." 15But Peter said to him, "Explain this parable to us." 16Then he said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."21Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." 23But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 27She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
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