A sermon for September 24, 2017.  The lectionary readings for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost are Jonah 3:10-4:11, Psalm 145:1-8, Philippians 1:21-30, and Matthew 20:1-16. 

Listen to the sermon HERE.

During my first year at the University of North Carolina, Michael Jordan was still playing college basketball. Because there was such a huge demand on student basketball tickets, there was a lottery system. Tickets were free with a student I.D., but they were given out beginning at 8 AM on Monday morning. Most of us wanting tickets would plan way in advance. We would get together in groups, and beginning sometime on Sunday, we would set up camp outside the ticket office. With snacks and radios and sleeping bags, and maybe even a book or two, we would wait for Monday morning. On Monday morning, the tickets would be given out, but in a random, lottery-type method. Most of the tickets would be gone in a couple of hours.

My college roommate would try to get tickets every week. But he would sleep in the dorm room, have breakfast, go to his first class, and between classes, would stop by the ticket office, show his I.D., and try his luck. Almost every week, he would get far better tickets than those of us who slept out all night.

As surely as there was basketball season, each year, there would be student protests at the unfairness of the lottery system for tickets. Students of alumni claimed that since their parents gave a lot of money to the athletic program, they should get first dibs on tickets. Freshman claimed that since they were the newest students, they should get the best seats. Graduate students made their case. The loudest of all were those students who customarily camped out and waited for tickets. The system was unfair, they all said. It goes against any system of justice— those who took the time to plan, to schedule, to be responsible enough to get all their affairs in order and give up time to wait— they deserved the best tickets. The University’s response, year after year, was, “You are getting free tickets. Everyone is allowed a ticket. You have nothing to complain about.” This echoes of the householder’s words in this morning’s gospel: “Do you begrudge my generosity? (RSV, verse 15).

We just heard the story proclaimed in the Gospel. 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 New Revised Standard Version, “Are you envious because I am generous?” Those words can seem like an indictment to us who come to church. We can easily imagine that Jesus might be telling this story primarily for those who are a little selfsatisfied, 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 I wonder if such an interpretation is simply too self-centered. 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, welcome for the anyone regardless of how much they have studied, accumulated, or succeeded. It’s about God’s love for all of us—for BEING—regardless of our “doing.”

I wonder how much of our love of what we perceive to be “justice” underlies the difficulty in our country of achieving any kind of universal healthcare.  I think there’s a little voice inside a lot of people that says, “Those people don’t take care of themselves. They eat the wrong things, drink the wrong things, do drugs, and don’t exercise. They don’t deserve healthcare.  And I (who exercises, eats right, and takes great care in my living) shouldn’t have to have my taxes pay for it!  But that’s not the mentality of the kingdom of God.

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 unbaptized and the newly baptized, to the person who walks into the church from the street for the first time, as it does to the oldest, holiest person around. We do not earn God’s grace.  Not by the hours we’ve put in at church.
We have not earned it by the tears that have gone into our confessions. Not by the money we’ve earned, or the degrees we’ve accumulated. God’s love, God’s eternal life, is a pure, undeserved GIFT.

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 Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 17, 2017.  The lectionary readings are Genesis 50:15-21, Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13, Romans 14:1-12, and Matthew 18:21-35. 

Listen to the sermon HERE.

There’s a story from the Desert Tradition that has to do with forgiveness. As many of you know, the Desert Tradition began in the 3rd century when women and men left cities to live in caves or small communities in the Egyptian desert, some looking for holiness, some trying to find themselves, and most trying to find God. Abba Moses was one of the most revered of these, and he was always being asked to stand judgment or as witness about some matter. One day a bunch of the brothers came to him. They wanted him to be a part of a council that would pass judgment on another brother who had committed some terrible sin. Abba Moses was not interested in being involved. But eventually, they convinced him to go to such and such a place on such and such a day and join them. He went. But he put on his back a jug of water. The jug of water leaked as he walked. It leaked in such as way as to drop a little water out with each few steps.

When he reached the gathering, the others saw him, but they were puzzled about the jug strapped to his back. When they looked at him for an explanation, Abba Moses said, “My sins pour out behind me wherever I go, and yet I have the audacity to come here and judge someone else’s errors?”

Simone Weil writes that when we say “forgive us our debts” in the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking God to “wipe out the evil in us.” But, she says, God doesn’t have the power to forgive the evil that is in us—while it still remains there. “God will have forgiven our debts,” she says, “when he has brought us to the state of perfection. Until then God forgives our debts partially in the same measure as we forgive our debtors.” (Waiting for God, “Concerning the Our Father,” p. 225)

Simone Weil hardly represents orthodox Christian teaching, but her words give me hope. They give me hope because they point to the difficulty of forgiveness. They point to the incompleteness of forgiveness in our lifetime. That gives me hope when I can’t bring myself to forgive (yet.) It gives me hope when I have to live with the fact that someone else may not be able to forgive me.

Our scriptures today have to do with forgiveness, and with the weightiness of sin. Sin, evil, wrongdoing—whatever you want to call it—weighs. It is heavy stuff. It’s like a full jug of water strapped to our back, only it doesn’t leak nearly quick enough. It slows us down, it encumbers us. Sometimes it is so heavy, it disables us.

Last week, we remembered Shakespeare’s Shylock (The Merchant of Venice) who demanded a pound of flesh for the forgiveness of a debt. As primitive and gruesome as that sounds, Shylock at least understood that debt can get heavy.  But then Shylock slowly realizes that whatever measurement or weight one attributes to a debt or a wrongdoing, it cannot easily be weighed.  A pound of anything doesn’t amount to so much, and many debts might more appropriately be weighed in tons.

As Christians, we are to be on the side of lightening the load, of lifting the weight. But the really good news this day is that ultimately, that is not our work. Rather, it is the joyful, loving work of Jesus Christ.

The sermon today is not a simple one. Especially in the context of 9/11, I am not suggesting that the scriptures are calling us to an easy or quick forgiveness; if, in fact, they are calling us to forgiveness at all. (Forgiveness may almost entirely belong to Christ.)

But I am suggesting that ESPECIALLY today, the scriptures are calling us to notice the weight. Notice the weight of sin or resentment as it increases the longer we carry it. And remember and notice whenever that weight is lifted.

In the first reading, from Genesis, Joseph forgives his brothers. But a long story has brought us to this point. This is the same family in which the brothers have enough of Joseph being the favored son, and so they almost leave him for dead. But at the last minute they decide to sell him into slavery, instead. Later, the tables are turned. Joseph is in a position of power and his brothers approach him (not recognizing him), asking for help. Joseph gives them a little help, but begrudgingly. He tests them. In a way he even taunts them. He does not forgive easily or quickly. But eventually Joseph becomes aware of the weight he’s been carrying.

In chapter 45, Joseph “could not control himself before all who stood by him; and he cried.” He cries as he lets go. He cries as he forgives. In today’s reading Joseph and his brothers’ father, Jacob, has died. The brothers are afraid Joseph will now get revenge on them.

But Joseph has forgiven once and for all. The weight is gone. Why would he pick it up again? It’s for his brothers to trust and to feel the lightness they have received.

In the Gospel, Jesus continues a conversation about forgiveness that we’ve heard parts of on previous Sundays. 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, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

And then Jesus tells this story about a person who has a debt forgiven. No sooner is this one’s debt forgiven, and he forgets. He sees someone who owes him and demands repayment immediately. The point of the story is not about the fickler forgetfulness of people. The point has to do with the source of the forgiveness, the place and person from whom the forgiveness begins. In the story, it’s the king who forgives. In the story of our faith, it’s God who forgives.

God forgives. We receive that forgiveness, that lightness, that removal of all that is heavy, and binding, and weighing us down. And it for us to help others lighten their loads. Sometimes we do this by forgiving, or as last week’s Gospel put it, “by loosening, or unbinding.” But sometimes, we begin the work of forgiveness (I think) by handing it all to God, for God to work on. There are times when the work of forgiveness is just too much for us, and so (it seems to me) the most faithful thing to do is to turn it over to God the Author of All Forgiveness.

Those of you who know the older form of worship that appears in our Prayer Book, “Rite I,” the Elizabethan-sounding service, may know of “The Comfortable Words.”  After the Prayer of Confession, at the Absolution, the priest says words from Matthew, Chapter 11.  They are intended as words of comfort. They are words of assurance, refreshment, and promise. (from Matthew 11:28-30)

Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.

Other versions include:
Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.
Come to me all you who are weary and burdened (NIV) . . .
all ye that labor and are heavy laden (NKJV) . . .
all who are tired from carrying heavy loads (Good News) . . .

Eugene Peterson’s translation of the Bible, called, “The Message,” puts it even more bluntly:  Jesus asks,

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

Freely and lightly. Those are indeed comfortable words and words of refreshment. May we hear and know the forgiveness of God, so that even in this life, we might begin to be made holy, forgiving, and free.

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

 

A sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 10, 2017.  The lectionary readings are Ezekiel 33:7-11, Psalm 119:33-40, Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 18:15-20. 

Listen to the sermon HERE.

As we gather this morning, I know that we are all especially mindful of those needing God’s presence and care—those recovering from Hurricane Harvey and those even now being affected by Hurricane Irma. They are in our spoken prayer and in the prayer of our hearts.  We have already seen and read of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, but we will keep praying that God would strengthen the weak, protect the helpless, and make miracles wherever possible.

Though storms of this magnitude take our breath away and shake even old-time stormwatchers, I’ve been thinking this week about the observation of one of my favorite Southern writers, Walker Percy. Though Percy was a devout Roman Catholic, but his fictional characters often had a kind of world-weariness, fighting against what Percy called “the malaise”—except for when there was a hurricane.  Percy felt that some people were actually happier during a hurricane because the crisis not only brought adrenaline; it also brought focus, and clarity, and purpose.  Heroes and saints are made during a hurricane.  Priorities readjust, conversations are had, and I would add that often during a crisis—whether a hurricane or a sickness or something else—there are sometimes amazing opportunities of forgiveness.

Today’s Gospel talks about forgiveness as a powerful thing, as a force of nature, almost.  Not forgiving is a kind of bondage—both for the one who might forgive and the one who could be forgiven.  To offer forgiveness is to unbind, to free, and to loosen.

The Greek work meaning “to loose,” or “to loosen, or unbind” is a word that appears a number of times in scripture. And in several of these appearances, the word changes everything.

When Jesus sees a woman who is bent over from a disease, he heals her, and power is released. (Luke 13:16) He helps her to break loose from her sickness, from her deformity, from her embarrassment, from her isolation, from all that is limiting her and holding her back.

When Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus has died, he goes to see Martha and Mary. Jesus gets to the tomb. The entrance is cleared and Jesus prays to God. Then he says with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus comes. He gets up, he walks out, and then Jesus says, “Unbind him, (loose him) and let him go.” Lazarus will die again, on another day, but for now, Jesus has shown the power of setting loose. He has foreshadowed his power of freeing us even from the bonds of death.

A couple of weeks ago we read of Saint Peter’s encounter with Jesus in which he is named as a rock on whom Jesus will build the church. Jesus gives Peter what he calls the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and then 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 is not just kept by Peter. He hands this power on to the early church community.

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 a 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 are stewards of 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 if you do, if you can— the one who shows mercy, who forgives, who unloosens and unbinds… that one sets loose also a double blessing.  And we don’t have to wait until a crisis or a dangerous storm in order to offer it.

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 Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2017.  The lectionary readings are Jeremiah 15:15-21, Psalm 26:1-8, Romans 12:9-21, and Matthew 16:21-28. 

Listen to the sermon HERE.

As I’ve followed the news about Hurricane Harvey in Houston and the surrounding areas, I’ve thought a lot about faith in such a situation.  I know a couple who are priests in Houston and have followed them on social media, praying for them, but also admiring their tenacity and focus in the midst of so much that could overwhelm.  (Our bulletin insert and our newsletter list a number of ways we can respond and help, and I urge you to be generous as your heart suggests.)

Whether it’s a natural disaster, a human-made disaster, or a smaller-day-to-day disaster at home or at work—it’s easy to feel unmoored, to be thrown off center, to be knocked off our foundation.

But we’re not alone in this.  In today’s Gospel, we hear about the disciple Peter, who last week was strong as a rock, but this week is sinking in quicksand.  What causes that kind of change?  And when we lose faith, when we’re less than solid in our footing, how do we find our way back to a firm foundation?

Last Sunday, Peter 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 CNN were following the story, I think Peter might appear under the “Worst Week” heading: “It was a ‘worst week’ for 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,” the one who had full faith in Jesus.  But this week, 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, Peter was called “the Rock.”  The scriptures helped us to think about 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 do our best to be the Church, Christ’s Body in the World:  to provide strength for the weak, refuge for those not accepted elsewhere. We attempt the feed the hungry (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 fall out of place 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 flood strong enough to wash us away.  Each of us is precious and has his or her place in the building of God’s kingdom. Whether the storms of this world threaten to dislodge us from places of spiritual stability, or whether we become stumbling blocks ourselves, God, in his grace, gently kneels down to scoop us up, brush us off, and places us in again in a more faithful place. We can give thanks that 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 Spirit. Amen.