A sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 21, 2014.  The lectionary readings are Jonah 3:10-4:11, Psalm 145:1-8, Philippians 1:21-30, Matthew 20:1-16.

A few years ago, a study was done with dogs. The dogs needed to know how to shake hands for the study, so after a few dogs were disinvited because they would shake, and one sheep dog was dismissed because he kept trying to herd the others, that left 29 dogs to be included in the study, a study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (106:1, 2008).  [A parishioner subsequently told me of the capuchin monkey study and the TED talk that is in this video.]

The dogs were tested in pairs. They sat side-by-side with an experimenter in front of them. In front of the experimenter was a divided food bowl with pieces of sausage on one side and brown bread on the other. [A similar experiment, with capuchin monkeys, is discussed in this TED talk video.]

The dogs then were asked to shake hands and this was done so that each dog could see what reward the other dog received. When one dog got a reward and the other didn’t, the unrewarded animal stopped playing. When both got a reward all was well. One thing that did surprise the researchers was that — unlike primates — the dogs didn’t seem to care whether the reward was sausage or bread.

But the dogs had an understanding of what was fair and what wasn’t. Similar responses have also been shown in monkeys. And children. And, well….. all of us.

When I’m in a long line at the grocery store and another checker opens up and a person who just came in jumps into that line just in time to be helped— it’s not fair!

When I’ve waited patiently in the proper lane of traffic waiting to make a turn and another person zooms by us all and jumps in front—it’s not fair!

And most of us are probably right there in today’s Gospel, right there with the ones crying, “Unfair!.”

We heard the story: A householder needs work done, so he goes to hire some people. He makes a deal that he’ll pay them the day’s wage. And then three more times during the day, he goes to get more workers. At the end of the day, the workers are paid, beginning with those who only worked an hour. Even those are paid one denarius, the typical wage for a day of work. Well, guess who complains. Those poor folks who had worked all day— why should they, too, only be paid the daily wage. If those who have worked only an hour are paid the amount, how much more should those who worked longer be paid! But the landowner replies, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

In the first lesson of the morning, the story of Jonah, God asks Jonah a similar question.

God has asked Jonah to prophecy to the Ninevites. Jonah does this and the Ninevites repent. God forgives them. But then Jonah feels like they’ve gotten off too easy. Jonah complains, and God replies that it is for God to forgive whom he chooses. Forgiveness, blessing, bounty, is God’s for the giving. God’s goodness is not restricted, even when we try to make God’s system fit into our own systems of what we think might be fair play.

The Gospel today asks in the old Revised Standard Version, “Do you begrudge my generosity?” or in the Message Bible, the manager asks simply, “Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?”

We can easily imagine that Jesus might be telling this story primarily for those who are a little self-satisfied, those who might feel as though because they have been faithful Jews, or because they have followed Jesus the longest, then they should gain special favor in God’s kingdom.

But those words of Jesus (Why do you begrudge my generosity?) can seem like an indictment to some of us who come to church. I wonder, if in talking about those who come at the last hour who get the fullness of the blessing, I wonder if Jesus doesn’t mean this story primarily as a story of welcome for the newcomer.

This parable that Jesus tells about the householder and the workers in the field is one of Jesus’s kingdom parables. Over and over again, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as more than we can possibly imagine, bigger than we might ever suppose. In the kingdom of heaven, loaves and fishes are multiplied so that everyone is fed. Water is turned into wine. Mustard seeds sprout into huge trees, and even a little, tiny bit of faith can move mountains. And the kingdom of heaven is also a place where Jesus says, “the last will be first, and the first last.”

The Gospel we proclaim this morning is Good News. We have all been promised the inheritance of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Is it ours as a gift of grace. It belongs just as much to the lifelong member of All Souls as it does to the person who might have just walked in from the street. We have not earned it by the hours we’ve put in at church. We have not earned it by the tears that have gone into our confessions. We have not earned by your money or our intelligence or even our faithfulness. God’s love, God’s eternal life, is a gift.

Today’s Psalm puts the words on our lips, “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; there is no end to his greatness.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

A sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, which fell on the day normally  observed as Holy Cross Day, September 14, 2014.  The lectionary readings are Genesis 50:15-21, Psalm 103:1-13, Romans 14:1-12, and Matthew 18:21-35.

For some years I’ve kept a sermon blog. Unless I forget, I take whatever I’ve written for Sunday morning and then I edit it. I clean up things. I add things. I sometimes take things out. On good weeks, the sermon that appears is readable and gives people who can’t be with us in person a way to get into the conversation of what we’ve been talking about on Sunday. Though the blog allows for comments to be left by people who might read the blog, I have the “comments feature” turned off the general public. It’s something I don’t particularly want to manage, and the comments usually are pretty personal (having to do with a problem or struggle in someone’s life.) The person commenting would not mean for the comment necessarily to be public for all to see. But comments may be left, and the comment comes to me as an email, and I read them. Last week’s sermon had to do with forgiveness and one person’s comment said something to the effect, “What do you do when forgiveness is thrown back in your face?”

I think I know what the comment means. I think the writer wonders what about the times when one forgives another, but the person forgiven goes on to act like nothing wrong ever happened, or to in some way ignore the cost of forgiveness, to cheapen the whole act of what is basically (to use church language) “contrition and absolution.”  Today’s Gospel does not word the work of forgiveness in exactly the same way as the comment-writer on my blog, but it comes close.

Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?” And then, as if to look for some kind of approval, some recognition for his efforts at forgiving, Peter adds, [Should I forgive them] “as many as seven times?” Jesus answers and doesn’t answer by saying, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” And then, as if to explain that this forgiveness business has much more to do with quality than with quantity, Jesus adds, “You must forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The middle part of today’s Gospel is a story that Jesus tells to Peter to try to convey what he means. It’s a story that has a number of hurdles for most of us—it has to do with slaves and a master, and debts of money owed, claimed, and sometimes (but not always) forgiven.

But even though we live in a culture very different from the First Century Roman Empire, I think we still can learn from Jesus’ telling the story. We can learn something about forgiveness and mercy.

One slave owes an amount of money and can’t pay it. He’s asks for pity from the owner of the place. He asks for time and patience. And the owner grants it. But no sooner is this slave’s debt forgiven, that he comes across another slave who owes HIM money. He demands to have his due. This second slave begs with him and asks patience, but instead, he has him thrown into prison. The other slaves hear about this and tell the owner. The owner is furious at the forgiven but unforgiving slave, and deals with him in harsh terms.

And so we’re back to that question I raised about everyday traffic-mercies. What happened to the slave who was forgiven, that he seemed to completely forget his experience and then refuse to forgive the other slave? What keeps us from extending mercies, from passing on forgiveness, from giving others a break like maybe we’ve been given?

It’s easy to forget that we’ve been forgiven.

The first slave in the story was forgiven. The owner showed him mercy, forgave the debt and sent him on his way. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the slave began to rationalize his forgiveness. Being shown forgiveness means admitting a certain vulnerability and neediness, and that’s not easy to do. I imagine the first slave saying to himself, “You know, I deserve forgiveness. That owner is rich. What is my debt to him? I had this coming to me. I am worthy of this forgiveness, since the owner is really just recognizing my worth and his mistake. And so, this slave does not really recognize that he has been show mercy—unearned, undeserved, un-explained mercy. Perhaps because he doesn’t understand what he’s been given, he is incapable of giving it to someone else.

It’s also easy to forget the source of forgiveness.

The first slave who was forgiven his debt may have been grateful to the owner, but really the owner was not the source of mercy. To stop with the owner is to short-circuit what might be called the mystery of mercy. Mercy comes not from one person to the next, but from a far deeper source. This is what Jesus alludes to when he says, “you must forgive from your heart.” This kind of forgiveness is not so much something we do, as it is something we allow to pass through us, to move through us, to use us in order to further God’s mercy.

One character from literature (and now, film and stage) who comes to understand this mystery of mercy is Jean Valjean, the character from Les Miserables. If you’re familiar with the story you know that Valjean serves time in prison for stealing bread to feed his family. Eventually, he is released. Turned away from places to stay the night, he sleeps in the street. until he is taken in by a local bishop. While he’s treated well by the bishop, Valjean hasn’t begun to forgive anyone—not his captives, not the world in which he lives, not God. He’s still angry about prison, resentful for the cards he has been dealt. And so, during the night, he’s had enough of the bishop’s kindness, and so he decides to steal some of the bishop’s silver and run away. But Valjean is caught. He’s brought back to the bishop and then something amazing happens. The bishop tells the police that there’s been an awful mistake. He gave Valjean the silver, and furthermore, Valjean forgot to take the other pieces. Then to Valjean, Bishop Myriel says

But remember this, my brother
See in this some higher plan
You must use this precious silver
To become an honest man
By the witness of the martyrs
By the Passion and the Blood
God has raised you out of darkness
I have bought your soul for God!

The bishop knows that the mercy he gives is not really his to give. It comes from God. And Valjean comes to understand this. He makes a decision to turn his life around, and he begins to live out this kind of mercy and forgiveness toward others. We forget sometimes that we’ve been forgiven and we forget that forgiveness comes from God. With Saint Peter, we might sometimes ask God, “How long will people continue to do wrong? How long will it be before a certain person apologizes? How long will it be that my anger subsides or my own resentment lessens?

What to do when forgiveness is thrown back in one’s face? The cross suggests an answer, though not an easy answer or a simple one. God answers with the love of the Holy Cross, from which Jesus forgave his persecutors, and absolved the criminals dying with him.

St. Francis often prayed before a cross saying,

Both here and in all your churches throughout the whole world,
we adore you O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Francis got angry at people just like us. He was hurt and ignored and made fun of, just like us. Francis would forgive, but have that forgiveness either forgotten or thrown back at him. But he kept on praying that he would be able to keep on forgiving, understanding the source of forgiveness to be deeper than anything he could ever imagine.

God answers with the love of Christ on the Cross, who says to each one of us, “You are forgiven.” “Keep trying. Keep praying. Keep moving toward forgiving others. Try to forgive a little bit every day. Let mercy work its way into your daily routine, because one day, you’ll wake up, and you’ll be free.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 7, 2014.  The lectionary readings are Ezekiel 33:7-11, Psalm 119:33-40, Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 18:15-20.

I would imagine that most of you are familiar with the recent trend called the “ice bucket challenge.” The effort is meant to raise awareness (and money) for research to find a cure for ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. In the ice bucket challenge, people make videos of themselves and challenge others to send money and/or throw a bucket of cold ice of themselves. On the internet there are videos of famous people and ordinary people, of church organists (including our own) and Irish nuns, and all kinds of people being silly for a good cause.

The videos and the effort reminded me of how many of us first came to know a little about Lou Gehrig’s Disease: It was through the book written a few years ago by Mitch Albom called, Tuesdays with Morrie. In that book, Albom recounts his weekly meetings with a former professor and mentor who was then dying of ALS. The conversations become a kind of primer for life, but especially near the end, there’s one Tuesday that really stood out for Albom.

On this particular day, Morrie Schwartz tells about how, years earlier, one of Morrie’s closest friends moved to Chicago. Soon thereafter, Morrie’s wife had to undergo a serious operation. Norman, this friend who had moved away, never called. He never wrote, he never did anything. And so, filled with anger, with disappointment, with resentment, Morrie dropped the friend. But it wasn’t too long afterwards that this friend died, as well.

In his Tuesday discussion with Mitch, Morrie Schwartz talks about the weight of his anger towards his friend. That anger weighed a ton. It was burden on Morrie. It slowed him down. It changed him. It kept him from moving on. There was the weight of the actual anger, but then compounding that was the regret at having been outwardly angry at the friend, and never being able to resolve the situation.

 

It had eaten at him and taken far too much time and worry and energy. Morrie remembers all of that and says to his friend, “We cannot live in the past… it will consume us. We cannot live in regret.” And then he says, simply, “Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.” Though Morrie Schwartz was not preaching on today’s Gospel, he easily could have been.

A couple of weeks ago we read of Saint Peter’s encounter with Jesus in which Peter is proclaimed the rock on whom Jesus will build the church. Jesus then gives Peter what he calls the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and in today’s Gospel Jesus goes on to explain what these “keys” really are.

“Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven,” Jesus says. “And whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” In other words, this power of binding and loosing, is the power of having keys, of being able to keeps something locked up, or to unlock it and let it be loose, free and fully alive.

This power to bind and to loose belongs not only to Peter. Peter hands this power on to the early church community, made clear in today’s Gospel. Today’s Gospel comes out of a community wrestling with this power. The Gospel of Matthew is thought to have been written somewhere between 50 and 100 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus didn’t talk about casting people out of the community. He didn’t equate difficult or sinful Christians with “Gentiles and tax collectors.” Remember, he went out of his way to include Gentiles and tax collectors and prostitutes and outcasts of all kinds. What we hear in Matthew is Matthew’s church community struggling with itself, trying to understand how to maintain relationships, how to live with each other, and how to confront each other and forgive each other.

What developed was the tradition of the victim confronting the person who has offended or done wrong. If that doesn’t work, then take a couple of others with you. If the person still does not address the wrong she or he has done, then you tell the whole church, and if the person still doesn’t repent, she or he is put out of the church. We recall this tradition of repentance and reintegration into the full life of the church every Ash Wednesday, as we begin the season of Lent. The Prayer Book reminds us that Lent is a time for preparing new converts for Holy Baptism, but also, when those who, “because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church” (BCP 265).

It is in that context, the context of owning the power of forgiveness, that Matthew’s Christian community remembers the words Jesus spoke to his disciples, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

The power to loose, to set another person free from guilt, from worry, from fear—this power clearly does good for the person who is separated or feels cut off or left out. We have all probably had times when we felt like the prodigal son or daughter, first who feels like a stranger and an outcast, but eventually (inexplicably) we are welcomed home. The power of forgives works wonders on the person forgiven, but it also sets loose the one who is able to forgive, or accept, or welcome.

Those who study connections between mind, body, and spirit are telling us how anger and resentment affect the body. Not only do they contribute to the obvious problems of high blood pressure and heart problems, but anger “bound up” seems to contribute to depression, addiction, and some studies are showing connections with other conditions such as arthritis and even some allergies. To forgive, or to move a little in the direction of forgiveness, begins to loose some of this anger, resentment, or whatever it is that has built up deep inside. The release of anger and resentment (through meditation, through prayer, through mindful exercise) helps us to live healthy and holy lives.

As the Church, we gently hold onto this power to loosen and to heal. The Church gives us prayer, We have the saints to teach us and show us how to forgive. We have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which many call simply “confession.” We confess and are unburdened and freed, but a part of what we can confess includes the anger and resentment and the other ways in which we keep people bound up in us, with us, to us.

And we have the Holy Eucharist—this meal of forgiveness, in which we drink new wine and eat new bread, symbols of our being re-made into new bodies of Christ to extend the message “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).

In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Shylock demands a pound of flesh from Antonio, who owes him three thousand ducats and can’t pay. Lady Portia, posing as a lawyer, tries to talk Shylock out of his vengeance. A part of her argument is subtle, but powerful (because it points to truth.) She says that Shylock should show mercy. Shylock asks, “On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.” Portia replies simply, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes” [Merchant of Venice, 4.1.175-176].

Mercy is not “strained.” It’s not forced, it’s not going to be demanded of you. You don’t have to do it. But the one who shows mercy, who forgives, who unloosens and unbinds… that one sets loose also a double blessing.

I don’t know which is more powerful or more healing: to say with conviction and faith and hope and love, “I forgive.” Or to say with all belief in a God who loves us beyond our wildest imagining, “I am forgiven.” But through prayer, through the liturgies of the church, through the quiet wrestlings of our consciences, our Risen Lord whispers those words into our ear, and prays that we might hear them, live them, and carry them in our heart. The Good News of Jesus Christ is that we are forgiven, and we have the grace and power to forgive. Thanks be to God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

A sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 31, 2014.  The lectionary readings are Jeremiah 15:15-21, Psalm 26:1-8, Romans 12:9-21, and Matthew 16:21-28.

Poor Peter. Last Sunday, he was on top of the world. Having misunderstood Jesus on several occasions, having lost his faith and found it again several times over, having denied Jesus after the Resurrection, but then being redeemed—in last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus renames Simon Peter. He emphasizes “Peter,” which in Aramaic means “rock.” And so on Peter the Rock, the whole church is founded. But this week is different.

If the Washington Post were covering the story, I think Peter would appear in “Worst Week” section. “Peter, for getting in the way, slowing down the coming of the kingdom of God, and being called ‘Satan’ by Jesus Christ… you had the worst week.”

Last Sunday’s readings showed us Peter as “rock,” and looked at how he was able to stay strong especially because of what might be called the “mortar” around him, like a stone wall. This week, Peter is still like a rock, but this time, but the mortar isn’t helping, and he’s like a big rock that’s fallen out of place and now sits in the middle of the road. He’s in the way, which is why in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls Peter a stumbling block.

How, exactly, has “Peter the Rock” become “Peter the problem?” Well, I think it has to do with Peter’s image of Jesus and Peter’s perception of what God is up to. Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter recognizes Jesus is the Messiah, and he says as much. But very quickly, Peter begins to get his own ideas about what all of that means. He begins to imagine Jesus not in the image of God’s making, but in the image of Peter’s making. Jesus becoming a king or, becoming a great leader like the Caesar, or at least like a Temple priest or local ruler. Like the other disciples, Peter may have also come to have certain expectations about how he would fit into this new kingdom of God, with Christ as King—maybe Peter would be put in charge of something important. Maybe Peter would have a position of responsibility. After all, hadn’t Jesus called him the Rock? Great things were sure to be coming, it was only a matter of time.

But then when Jesus begins to explain to the 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,” Peter says, “No.” No way, Lord. God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you.” And with that statement (a statement that surely represents Peter’s unwillingness to accept the will of God), Peter falls out of his place as a foundational rock for the church. He becomes a stumbling block. Jesus is sharp with Peter: “Get behind me Satan,” he says.

The word that is translated as “satan,” means “accuser,” one who (like the devil when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness) suggests cutting corners, taking the easy way out, and looking out for number one above all else. “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus says. “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
It’s when Peter’s OWN agenda gets in the way of God’s, that things get “clogged.” It not only slows down what God can do in Peter’s life, it also slows down what God can do around Peter.

A similar thing happens to Jeremiah in our first reading. Jeremiah has the work of speaking hard truth to a lazy and self-satisfied Jerusalem. With Babylon to the north and Egypt to the south, Jeremiah warns Jerusalem that it should look to God. But then, even as he warns the city, Jeremiah falls victim to his own despair, and becomes self-consumed. He laments to God, “I’ve done my part. I’ve said the difficult things and I’ve stood up for you, God, but no one listens.” Jeremiah begins to doubt his ministry and even to doubt the goodness of God. He asks, “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.” Jeremiah, through his own doubt and despair, becomes a kind of stumbling block to God’s way, but God picks him up and puts him where he needs to be, as God says, “I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the LORD. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

Last week, we recalled how we, along with Peter and believers from every age and place, are called by God to be like building blocks, like living stones that make up the church. As living stones we provide strength for the weak, refuge for those not accepted elsewhere. We attempt the feed the hunger (both the physically hungry and the spiritually hungry) and we do our part to be, rock-with-rock, stone-alongside-stone. But sometimes we fall out of place, like stones that fall out of a wall?

We might do it like Jeremiah. It’s hard to live a life of faith, and so we might get to a place of doubt and despair. We become self-consumed and wonder when we’re going to get our share. Or perhaps we fall out of faithful place like Peter. We get our own ideas about what God’s kingdom should look like and what our place should be within it. We are filled up with our own sense of what we want, or what we think we deserve, or how God should be blessing us.

We might do it in other ways. St. Paul warns us against becoming stumbling blocks for others through our living—when we say one thing with our lips, but say another with our lives. We can become stumbling blocks for God’s way through our attitude or outlook, through arrogance that holds ourselves apart from others, or even through negligence that surrenders to the world, assuming that God has no plan, or that God has forgotten us.

The Good news of today’s Gospel is that once we are called, carved, created to be God’s living stones, God never forgets us. There’s no earthquake strong enough to shake us out of God’s care, out of the family of faith. Each of us is precious and has his or her place in the building of God’s kingdom. And when we do occasionally become stumbling blocks, God, in his grace, gets us out of the way and puts us in a more faithful place.

God’s grace and favor go with us always, helping us to be God’s house of living stones.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.