The Greatest Commandment at a Time of Greatest Need

This has been another terrible week in the world. Not only are things escalating in the war between Israel and Hamas, I was shocked and deeply saddened when I opened Facebook about 9:30pm on Wednesday and saw a message from one of my friends marking them "safe" from the mass shooting in Lewiston, ME. 

Lewiston is not a huge metropolitan area. By Florida standards, it might be considered a large town or a very small city. The population, roughly 36,000 people, is one of those places where you know your neighbors in ways that most urban areas don't. 

To have 18 people killed...and more than a dozen wounded? My New England heart felt the injury. 

The next day...listening to the news was an exercise in collective grieving. And it was those thoughts that I had to sit down and start writing my sermon for the 22nd Sunday After Pentecost. 

Text: Matthew 22:34-46

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“The world is losing its humanity.”

I heard that statement on the radio this week.

Philippe Lazzarini said it.

He’s the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. He was speaking of the humanitarian crisis growing in Gaza…a result of Israel’s retaliation for the brutal and horrific attack unleashed on them by Hamas a few weeks ago.

In that same radio hour that I heard Lazzarini’s interview…I also listened with a heavy heart to a shell-shocked and saddened reporter in Maine.

The otherwise small and quiet city of Lewiston has joined the list of places in America reeling from a mass shooting event.

No one knows why it happened.

The gunman was found dead after a massive manhunt.

A report on the CBS Evening News suggested that this man…who was an Army reservist suffering from mental health issues… may have become enraged over a breakup with his girlfriend.

But that’s only speculation…as people try to make sense of a senseless act of violence.

“The world is losing its humanity.”

I thought about this comment…and the news of the week… as I stared at the words of our Gospel lesson.

I thought about the time frame in which this Gospel was written…roughly twenty years after the second destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The original hearers of this Gospel…just like us…were living in a time of upheaval…violence…and uncertainty about the future.

Judaism has lost one of its major structural grounding points…the temple.

A new thing…which would come to be called Christianity…was emerging for those who found Jesus as the way…the truth…and the life amidst the chaos of the world around them.

With that in mind…Jesus appears in this Gospel lesson as the symbolic representation of the beatitude: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

In this scene in our Gospel…we see another attempt to get Jesus to indict himself…and lose credibility among the people who are listening to his reinterpretation of the law.

He’s already dealt with business about paying taxes.

In the exchange right before this one…he’s had to answer a question about the resurrection to people who didn’t believe in resurrection.

Now here comes a smarty-pants lawyer asking him a question about the commandments.

It’s really a silly question in some ways to pose to an observant Jew.

The First Commandment…one Jews know as the Shema…is a phrase which is recited every day.  

Any Jew worth their salt would know that the first command is to love God.

God is one…love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength.

These were the words Moses spoke in Deuteronomy.

The fact that Jesus could rattle that off probably didn’t surprise anyone.

What this cheeky lawyer wasn’t prepared to hear was Jesus’ further commentary on his question. Jesus expounds upon the law…drawing on a phrase found in Leviticus… that one must love the neighbor as one’s self.

He then ties the two together by saying that to love God and love your neighbor… are the underpinning to the rest of the law and everything the prophets ever said.

If we’ve been paying attention throughout this year of Matthew…we remember that Jesus famously told those listening to his Sermon on the Mount that the love of neighbor means not just loving the people you like to hang out with.

Loving our people…the ones who look like us…talk like us…think like us…is actually a pretty easy thing to do.  

But in addition to loving our own kind…Jesus expects his disciples…which includes us…to love our enemies.

As Jesus said:

“God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

Tough as this is…what Jesus is saying is that to love God with our all and all means that we must love the things that God loves: which is basically all of creation.

The trees…the birds… the animals…the waters…and most importantly….the people.

All humankind.

All the things who God has made in God’s image.

That sounds good, right?

Putting it into practice?

That’s where we hear again the lament: we are losing our humanity.  

At times of war…in the face of such horrific atrocities…how does one love the enemy who kidnaps and kills innocent people?

How does one love the enemy who retaliates with dropping bombs from the air with no concern for those getting killed on the ground?

How can one’s heart not harden with one mass shooting after another and no effort to change that narrative?

The phrase “thoughts and prayers” rings so empty now.

And yet the words in today’s collect…where we ask God to “increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity” and keep us moving in the direction of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves…are so timely for this moment.  

It’s when the world seems to want to jack up our fears that our faith in a God who loves must become stronger and more resilient.

Much in the same way our ancestors heard these Gospel messages when they were facing times of crisis in their world…we must resolve to not give up hope…to not lose sight of those helpers who show up and stay with us during moments of pain and suffering.

Helpers like the 23-year-old Palestinian ambulance driver who stayed to administer aid to those Israelis wounded by Hamas gunmen at a music festival.

Or the doctors and nurses in Lewiston Maine who rushed back to work on a Wednesday night to treat people injured by high-powered bullets.

It was the PBS host and Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers who encouraged the young viewers of his television show to “look for the helpers” when they’re feeling scared and under threat. 

Look for those who show the love of God through the way the show up for others.

Not only can we be that for each other…we can look for those people in our lives.

We can elevate those stories and give thanks for those who despite efforts to undermine peace and justice…persist in never giving up on Love as their truth…their way.

Perhaps then we can hope to recover our humanity.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.  

 

Give God What is God's

Sermon for 21A Pentecost

Proper 24

October 22, 2023

 

 

Last week, I was off at Virginia Theological Seminary to celebrate my alma mater's Bicenntenary. It was fun to visit with a few of my friends, and walk around the campus without a care in the world. No paper to write. No tests or chapters to read. I could just enjoy myself. 

Now I'm back and just in time for the passages in Matthew's Gospel where we witness Jesus having repeated run-ins with people who want to trip him up. Yeah, good luck with that!

It is also coming at a time when there is a war raging in the Middle East. The October 7th attack by Hamas, which was horrific in its indiscriminate slaying of Jews in Israel, has been met by an awful retaliation of bombings of Gaza, which has killed thousands of Palestinians. 

The Holy Land...is not so holy. It is hell. And I pray for the violence to stop. 

All of this was on my mind as I wrote this sermon. See what you think. 

 

Text: Matthew 22:15-22
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There’s a woman we’ve been praying for this year who recently passed away after a relatively short illness.

Her name is Lucy Morgan.

Lucy was a friend of mine and a journalism colleague in Tallahassee.

Back in the 1990s…when I was working in public radio…Lucy was the bureau chief for the St. Petersburg Times…now the Tampa Bay Times.

The St. Pete Times holds the distinction of having been one of the best newspapers in the state…and Lucy was among their Pulitzer Prize winning journalists.

She was called the “Dean of the Press Corps” not just because of her long-tenure as a bureau chief…but because she was a formidable presence…and not a person to mess with.

She was quick-witted…funny.. and was dogged in her pursuit of the truth.

And…like any good journalist…she had an ethical core that demanded fairness in her quest to get to the bottom of a story.

If there was one thing Lucy could not abide…it was those journalists who liked to play the game of “gotcha.”

Lucy didn’t feel the need to set up her interview subjects for the purposes of entrapping them.

In the world of political reporting…liars would become quickly self-evident.

Armed with facts…a good ethical reporter has no need to play “gotcha.”

Those reporters who liked to play the “gotcha” game earned Lucy’s disdain…and by extension…the rest of us in the Capital Press Corps would also shun and shame them for their behavior.

The “gotcha” style of questioning is more about the ego of that journalist…the insecurity that makes them need to play a game in order to feel like they have the power and the upper hand in the interview.

It has nothing to do with getting the information the public needs to know.

That same kind of egotistical power playing is on full display in our Gospel lesson this morning.

Here we have this unholy alliance of the Pharisees and the Herodians coming together against their common irritant: Jesus.

At this point in Matthew’s Gospel…Jesus has already run afoul of both groups with his triumphant ride into Jerusalem…mocking the Empire… and his table-turning in the Temple.

He’s a threat to the status quo…a rebel with a cause.

The Herodians would have allegiance to King Herod Antipas…the King installed by the Roman Empire…the oppressors of the Jews.

Herod’s also the one who arrested and then beheaded John the Baptist.

The Pharisees represent the rule-keeping religious sect of Judaism…who see Jesus and his disciples not keeping with the proper order of things…and calling into question “the way things are.”

These two groups are looking for ways to trip him up.

So, they send some underlings to harass him.

After his inquisitors put on a show of flattery…they try to zing Jesus with their “gotcha” question:

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor or not?’

What a set up!

If he says, “No”…the Herodians can accuse him of sedition against the Emperor.

If he says, “Yes”…the Pharisees hope it will undermine his credibility among the occupied Jewish citizens by making him look like a Roman sympathizer.

The denarius…the coin Jews had to use to pay taxes to Rome… not only had the image of Tiberius Caesar; it proclaimed Caesar to be divine.

Such a phrase was highly offensive to the Jews and they resented this idea of Caesar being “divine” in any way.

Jesus isn’t interested in their gotcha question.

He knows what they’re trying to do.

Afterall…this is the Jesus who has earlier in the Gospel flipped over tables in the Temple… so he’s not playing.

He takes their gotcha question and turns it inside out.

“Show me the coin! Who’s head is this?”

“The Emperor”

“OK…well…then you give this secular object representing secular things with this secular authority’s image to the secular authority. And you give to God those things with God’s image what is owed to God….”

And what bears this image of God?

Well…look in the mirror.

The thing God desires is us…the whole of us.

Every part of us.

Our good…bad…and even our ugly us.

All our love… all our heart, all our mind, all our soul…all our strength.

As it’s said in Luke’s Gospel, for God… the very hairs on our heads are of more value than the cost of sparrows in the market place. (Luke 12:6-7)

The image of Caesar on the coin…just like the images we have of our founding fathers on our own currency …are fine for earthly commerce.

But God deals in hearts and minds…not silver and gold.

Jesus’ answer raises for us the importance of seeing the difference between what poses as powerful in our secular society versus the power of God which is over and beyond all that worldly authority.

This language is putting before us the tension that we must live into as citizens in our society.  

We must negotiate how to move from this place…this safe haven where we confess a belief in the risen Christ and come to God’s table to remember Christ’s work through the cross to bring us into relationship with God…and allow that to shape our actions when we leave here.

That includes how we put our earthly income to use and how we confront the systems and structures of our world.

What are the values we carry from here that inform those choices about our finances and what we take out into the public life?

The group that writes our Prayers of the People often wrestles with this…especially as we contemplate the writing prayers for “the nation and all in authority.”

We talk about where the needs are in our community and the pressures that weigh on our elected officials.

We also recognize that we live in a pluralistic society…so we don’t seek a Christian theocracy.

But we know that if our leaders would work from a basic level of following the words of the prophet Micah…to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God… our world would be a kinder and more equitable place for all people.

We might actually bring about a society where all people have equal access to food…shelter… and education.

Where our differences in age…income…orientation…skin color…national origin…are seen through eyes of awe and delight instead of fear and suspicion.

This is the dream that we would hope would bring about peace for all…and end such conflicts as we are seeing play out in Israel and Gaza…Ukraine…and Sudan.

Praying for our leaders…seeking peace and justice for all people…helps to form us and the guide us in the decisions we make.

By asking for God’s guidance for others…we’re directing our own hearts toward making this a better society…and helping us to put our resources to the best use for everyone.

May we lift those prayers in hopes of God’s will being manifested on earth as it is in heaven.

In the name of God…F/S/HS. 

 

Taking Care of the Vineyard: A Sermon for 19A Pentecost

This has been a hard week to get into writing a sermon based on the Gospel of Matthew. We just had our annual Fall Clergy Conference where I spent time getting ready for preaching the Gospel of Mark. And so my mind has been filled with lots of thoughts about Mark. And not as many thoughts about Matthew. I tried a little experimentation with my sermon which my loyal audience (aka my spouse) told me wasn't worth the effort. After tinkering some more, this is where I landed on discussing "vineyards." See if this works for you. 

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Texts: Ex. 20:1-4;7-9;12-20 and Matt 21:33-46

 

When I first sat down and read through this morning’s Gospel…I thought, “Wow! This is violent!”

I considered the message of the Ten Commandments we heard earlier.

These are basic rules or law.

All the people in this Gospel… and the community who heard this Gospel…would have known this law.

Presumably…we know this too…although Jesus did give us a simpler way to remember it as, “Love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and you should love your neighbor as yourself.”  

And my next thought, “How quickly do we forget the basic rules of how to live and treat one another!”

This story…often called the Wicked Tenants… is telling the sad history of Israel…which isn’t that different than the tale of humanity today.

I think we can all figure out who is who…but just in case we need a refresher…the landowner is God.

God has this lovely vineyard…which in this case… we’re to understand as Israel. We might even broaden that thought to include the whole earth…but Matthew seems to be mostly interested in Israel.

This vineyard is producing fruit…good fruit.

The tenants in this story represent the stiff-necked Israelites who refused to listen to the prophets of the Old Testament.

The prophets in this case are the slaves in Jesus’ parable.

The books of the Old Testament are full of stories about how Israel failed to heed the prophet’s warnings to stick close to God.

That failure was often seen as the reason Israel found itself  conquered and exiled and occupied.

In this Gospel moment… the occupier is the Roman Empire.

We know that the landowner’s son is Jesus.

Because Matthew is writing post-resurrection, post-the second destruction of the temple in Jerusalem…Matthew has Jesus predicting his own fate in this squabble he’s having with the elders and the chief priests.

He even includes the fact that the son gets killed “outside” of the vineyard.

Jesus was killed outside Jerusalem.  

Jesus has been having a LOT of arguments with the religious authorities lately.

If you remember last week…the debate was over why the elders didn’t believe John the Baptist…and questioning by what authority is Jesus making trouble in the Jerusalem temple. 

As background: this chapter of Matthew starts with Jesus’ triumphant entry into the holy city… and then he goes into the Temple and starts flipping over tables and cursing fig trees.

This is a riled-up and ready to rumble Jesus.

Rumble with wit and words not weapons.

The elders, chief priests and later the Pharisees confront him…and this is when Jesus launches into parables that point to their shortcomings.

And he intentionally uses language that his challengers…and Matthew’s community… know very well.

He provokes them with his choice of imagery.

A vineyard that has a fence around it.

One of the common phrases used in rabbinic Judaism is “putting a fence around Torah” or “a fence around the law.”

What would the law be?

Well…it’s the commandments we heard.

Think about this vineyard then producing fruit.

The fruit is what comes from us. The seed of love planted in us with our baptism and watered through scripture and community gathering.

When we follow the very basic concept of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves…the vineyard produces beautiful and abundant fruit.

Love builds a better community.

This is an idea that would not have been foreign to the religious authorities engaged with Jesus in this scene.

So when the “tenants” refuse to let the landowner collect

the fruit of this vineyard…it’s an act of defiance and rejection.

They’re refusing to give back to the landowner the fruits. The fruits which have been nurtured by this vineyard.

Jesus quotes Psalm 118, a psalm celebrating God’s mercy that was sung at many a Jewish festival…about rejected stones becoming chief cornerstones.

This was his way of saying:

“Y’all have strayed from your roots…from those basic ideas of love God and love your neighbor. And because you have…don’t be surprised when you find tax collectors and prostitutes and everyone else you think of as the riff-raff occupying your seats.”

This is a harsh Gospel. Not just for them. But for us.

This parable speaks to the ways we can fail to recognize the gifts God has freely given to us…and our refusal to acknowledge and return that favor by giving ourselves back to God.

We can become possessive…greedy and exploitive of those gifts.

And at what cost to us?

 I’ve been thinking a lot about how this parable reflects the current crisis we’re in with our climate.

I listen to a lot of radio shows.

Many of the programs I’ve heard lately are asking the question, “Is it too late to save our planet?”

Everyone now seems to agree that human beings and fossil fuels are the main contributors to climate change.

Seriously, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in DC…there’s a whole exhibit funded by the Koch Brothers…that shows the devastating impacts of humans and our industries have had on the planet.

Farmers are seeing firsthand that climate change affects their growing seasons…and the yields they’re getting at the harvest time.

Because storms are getting more intense… because droughts are happening more frequently… and wildfires are more prevalent…everyone’s insurance rates are on the rise…homeowners…businesses…churches.

So…the older generations are beginning to get antsy about all of this …while the younger generations are clamoring for something to happen right now to move away from fossil fuels and invest in cleaner energy sources.

And it gets me wondering about what our Christian response should be.  

If we truly believe the things we say in the church…if we believe that the earth is the Lord’s for God made it…that “all things come of thee…O Lord…and of thine own we have given thee”…then care for creation… “this fragile earth our island home”… must be a priority.

We only have a relatively short time on the planet.

We can either treat what we have here as a gift that we nurture and take care of…or we exploit and abuse the gift at our own peril.

The landowner in this parable and our planet are the examples of God’s selfless giving…and grace freely bestowed on us.

How we respond to that generosity is what Jesus is driving at in the parable.

God’s desire is for us to enjoy what we have…and live in peace and love for one another and all creation.

In turn…our response needs to be selfless gratitude and love for the gifts of God.

When we view all that is within us and around us as part of God… when we place God at the center and grounding for our lives…our focus shifts away from acting out of self-centeredness.

That’s true love which makes for a better and happier community.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

"Be of the Same Mind": A Sermon for 18A Pentecost

 It's always a good reminder to the church that we are stronger together than when we pull apart. And yet human nature seems to always want us to get into competition with each other.  And competition brings out the accusations and the nitpicking and the feelings of worthlessness...at least it does in some of us.

I thought it was important to address those things, especially since we've been spending so much time these past few weeks on texts about living in community. See what you think. 

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Text: Phillipians 2:1-13

I came across an interesting story about three American women writers: Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde.

It was 1974.

Each of them had been nominated for a National Book Award in poetry.

Adrienne Rich ended up winning the award.

But in an act of solidarity and radical humility…her acceptance speech began:

“We…Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker…TOGETHER…accept this award in the name of all women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world.”

The three of them had conspired that… no matter who won the prize…this would be the statement they would make.

They rejected the model of competition that such award ceremonies generate.

For them… it was important to stand together in unity…recognizing that each of them were gifted writers deserving of the prize.

Our American culture…and really all of western culture… puts a lot of stock in individual achievement.

We love to crown winners and sigh and shake our heads at losers…. offering a “better luck next time.”

This type of competition and hyper-individualism are exactly the things that Paul is cautioning the Church at Phillipi to avoid.

Paul’s Letter to the Philippians is a love letter.

He founded this church and clearly holds a deep affection for the people. This is one letter where the apostle brings up “joy” and “rejoicing” over and over…at least sixteen times.

So, there are definitely good things happening in that church…things which help lift his spirits as he is writing this letter from one of the many jail cells he found himself in during the course of his ministry.

But there’s also clearly something amiss.

Somewhere… in some portion of the community… there’s been a disagreement…or some deep resentment of some kind… that’s threatening to rob the Church of Philippi of its joy.

Scholars have tried to figure out exactly what was happening there…but they can’t quite put their fingers on it.

What we do know is that in some of the other churches around the Mediterranean region in Paul’s time…there were outsiders who would come in and question customs or beliefs…or…in the case of the Corinthians…there were those who thought their particular gifts made them better than others.

The Bible is a couple thousand years old… but human behavior…with jealousy…envy and rubbing each other wrong way… are still things which plague us.

To address this under-the-surface trouble that’s rippling through the Church of Philippi… Paul writes this letter and encourages them to remember who they are and whose they are.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…”

(Y’all remember him, right? You remember Jesus?)

And then he goes on to quote what many believe are the words of an ancient hymn:

“who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited…but emptied himself…. humbled himself…and became obedient to the point of death…”

The example Jesus gives to us is that of a person who understands that true power doesn’t come from “winning” or “conquering” in the way we’re encouraged to think about it.

True power is when we bring our full selves… our skills…our experiences… and our wisdom… and join with others who share a common vision.

Together…a unified church works toward creating a world where all people… no matter who they are… are reminded they are valued and given the dignity and respect due to everyone.

Hallelujah!  There’s power in humility!

But not humble to the point of being a doormat.

For reasons that are among the great mysteries of English translations when it comes to the Bible…the line

“Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others”

lacks a critical word.

In the Greek…there is a “kai” inserted into the sentence… “kai” meaning “also.”

So the line should actually read:

“Let each of you look not to your own interests but ALSO to the interests of others.”

In other words… do take care of yourself.

But not to the point of narcissism…because you must still have appreciation for others’ gifts.

People who are narcissistic becomes hoarders of the love they are expected to extend to their kinfolk and even the stranger.

They are the takers without ever giving back to the community.

Narcissism has no place in the Christian community.

At the same time…Paul’s reminding us of Jesus’ humility…and how he emptied himself…didn’t lord it over others that he was on equal footing with God.

So…what does that mean…”to empty ourselves”?

Liz Cooledge Jenkins… in writing for The Christian Century magazine… suggests that when we think of this type of humility…the thing that needs “emptying” are the extremes of how we view ourselves…especially when we get into that place of viewing ourselves and comparing ourselves to other people.

We can get caught up in that mind game of seeing other people as less than our idea of perfect or even so much better than ourselves.

The extremes can lead us to become really arrogant…

Or we collapse ourselves into the tiniest ball of self-belittlement.

In both cases… these extremes can damage the church community.

So then it’s on the church to keep us from falling into one of these destructive behaviors.

Those who become too arrogant… need the community to hold them accountable in love.

Those with that tendency to think they’re a nobody…and take humility to the point of thinking they’re of no worth… need the community to remind them that they do matter.

Not only does God value them as much as the lilies of the field…so does the church.

I think this letter to the Philippians couldn’t come at a better time for us at St. Barnabas…especially as we are engaging in a listening process as a congregation.

It’s the reminder that each one of us plays an important role here and each one of us contributes gifts of this community…gifts which come from that love of Christ that brought us here together here in the first place.

We each have a variety of skills and smarts.

We come from diverse experiences and backgrounds… all of which matter.

No one here is a greater than or less than in this church.

We all have something that we can contribute toward our stated vision for a world of “health, healing, and hope with unconditional love.”

Paul’s letter encourages us to see ourselves rightly as beloved children of God…and give mutual respect to each other.

We need that reminder early and often.

To take the time to acknowledge the work each of us is doing to help grow and sustain our community.

It’s number crunching the budget…creating and folding bulletins…cleaning up of the grounds…watering plants…visiting the sick…working with community groups…serving on diocesan committees…or preparing coffee.

Each of us is doing something that contributes to our community.

It’s about living into this ethic of love which keeps the ego in check and puts aside self-centered righteousness.

And it takes practice.

Because it’s counter to our culture which lures us into wanting to shine the spotlight on some but not others… and demands that there must be winners…or heroes…while others are losers and villains.

If we’re going to claim unity in Christ…if we’re going to  follow in Christ’s teachings…then we have to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” 

Regard others as people also worthy of praise…dignity and respect.

If we do this…we’ll show others a side of Christianity that seems to have been lost in all the noise of culture wars and such.

And we might show God at work in us…shining like a lamp in the darkness for those seeking to know this God who loves so deeply.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.