Live into the Questions

 

I am a big fan of John the Baptizer. And so I am always happy to have him show up in Advent to kick our butts.

But as I was thinking about things at St. Barnabas, where we have had to say good bye to multiple people who are moving away, and the general malaise that seems to be hanging over the nation as we grapple with more and more outrageous news every day, I found myself thinking about John's ranting at the Jordan River as not just a dressing down of those who talk a good game about their faith, but don't show much for it, but also as an invitation to figure out why we don't live up to our ideals, and then what do we need to do to change that. 

The end result was this sermon. See what you think.

Texts: Isaiah 11:1-11; Matt 3: 1-13

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If you’ve ever gone shopping for Christmas cards…you know that you have basically two choices.

You can go either the route that emphasizes secular images of Santa Claus and reindeer….snowflakes.

Or you have the Christian images of the Holy Family and usually a very white Jesus in the manger.

Perhaps you might find some with a bright star of Bethlehem…but that’s pretty much the gamut of the Christmas card rack.

What we never see are Advent cards.

Probably because no one wants to open up a card with John the Baptizer in his camel’s hair shirt and leather belt greeting them with a hearty “Blessed Advent You Brood of Vipers!”

Not the friendliest of holiday greetings.

And for John…he’s not interested in being warm and fuzzy.

Let’s remember who he is.

He’s the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah…a pastor’s kid.

If we recall…his mother was an older woman.

The angel Gabriel told Zechariah while he was in the Temple that his wife was pregnant.

She was going to have a son…and they were to name him John.

 Zechariah was like…

“Hmmmm….I dunno about this. I’m old and she’s old…so…hmmm”

That’s when Gabriel mutes Zechariah…until the time that John is born and at his circumcision…the people wanted to know the child’s name.

Elizabeth told everyone, “His name is John.”

But nobody else in their family line had that name…so the crowd turns to Zechariah.

And Zechariah gets a tablet and writes down that the child’s name is John…and…miracle of miracles…he gets his speech back.

Finally able to speak again…he launches into a proclamation…which we have in our Book of Common Prayer…. the Song of Zechariah….which y’all can find on page 92 if you want to look it up.

It’s one of the many canticles we use weekly in Morning Prayer services.

It’s a loving tribute of father to son…as he makes this prediction about John’s future:

“You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give the people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”

Now…I don’t know if Zechariah knew that his son…having grown up with a priest for a dad…was going to become a rebel.

John saw the ways in which the religious institution and those wishing to preserve the institution under a hostile power like the Roman Empire…had been…in his opinion…letting things get corrupted.  

John saw the way that those embedded and invested in the system had not lived up to expectations and he wanted a more pure religion.

This would lead him to start another branch of Judaism…the Essenes.

John went out into the wilderness…to the outskirts of Jerusalem…west of the Dead Sea.

He called upon people to come out to the Jordan River to be baptized…or immersed…in the waters and confess that they’d turned away from keeping God front and center in their lives.

And I don’t know if Zechariah or Elizabeth knew their son would be yelling at other Jewish leaders and calling them a “brood of vipers”….which is a pretty ugly slam on the Sadducees and Pharisees.

A brood is a group of newborn vipers…and newborn vipers were known to eat their way out through the stomachs of their mothers…killing off their mamas in the process.

When these leaders…make an appearance before John for a baptism… John rails against them…accusing them of having eaten away at Judaism in favor of their own comfort and power.

They’ve come to the Jordan for baptism…but he says they haven’t done anything to show they’re ready to turn themselves in a Godward direction…and drop their ego-driven ways and their need for power and self-satisfaction.

John isn’t playing.

Because he knows there’s yet another one coming…one with a baptism that is greater than his own.

A baptism not of water but of fire.

Not a wildfire…burning out of control and scorching the earth.

But more like the fire of blacksmith…melting and warming and refining the people’s souls and refashioning them in the image of God.

Just as Zechariah had a vision of his son’s future…John has a vision of a future that will come with this One whose so great that John doesn’t feel worthy to carry his sandals.

This is the coming of Jesus…the second person of the Trinity…coming to be in the world…living as one of us…and putting into motion a work of teaching us to live into Love.

This is what’s at play during this season of Advent.

While the world around us is encouraging us to buy more stuff…go to more parties…and listen to holiday music as we move around the grocery store…John is yelling at us to prepare our inner house…our hearts…for a greater gift…the gift of God coming to us through Jesus and realigning our lives to God’s will.

To take care of one another.

To pay attention to those around us.

To show kindness…mercy…and compassion to ourselves and those who are on this journey with us.

That’s what “repentance” really means.

Like it’s sister season of Lent…Advent is the invitation for all of us to step back and do a self-assessment and take stock of how we’re doing during this time…what are the things that are feeding us and leading us in the direction of that peaceable kingdom we heard in the Isaiah reading.

What are those prejudices…jealousies…and desires to control others that are interfering with us living into a life where we model the love of God as known to us through the life of Jesus?

John’s voice in the wilderness is an echo to us here in the 21^st century to slow down and pay attention and not treat this inbreaking of God into the world as a one-off or a fad.

But to see this as a chance to do some reflecting on where we might not be living up to our promises made at baptism…those ideals of “seeking and serving Christ in all people” and…”striving for justice and peace among all people.” This is our chance to do a course correction.

Now that might feel like…”Sheesh! Yet another thing during this hyper busy time of the year!

But it’s really not meant to be taken that way.

Advent is about a beginning.

This is the season to ask those questions of ourselves…and to ponder them…and NOT to answer them right away…but rather to live into those questions as we progress along toward Christmas.

During this season…we can receive this message from John the Baptizer…and hear it as an invitation.

Consider it as an opportunity to do some weeding and pruning of those things that keep us from experiencing that Love which comes to us each year.

Use this as a time to sit with questions…and pray for the guidance we need to bear that good fruit of our lives and to be the best versions of our beloved selves.

Ponder and prepare…as we draw nearer to this Love of God in Christ.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

The Hope of Advent

 

Well, here we are again at the beginning of another cycle. And as bleak as things are in the nation, with our Secretary of Defense on the defensive for ordering the extrajudicial killing of two people whose fishing boat the U.S. had bombed on suspicion that they were drug smugglers...I am not hopeless.

I feel something is coming...which is strange to have that feeling in a true sense about our nation at the same time that we, who believe in the story of Jesus and determination of God to get us to come back to Love, are in the season of Advent. Advent is about beginning. It's about the build up and anticipation of God with Us...Emmanuel. 

Even as things are not all positive and happy, I still sense that we are moving toward a turn toward a truly new thing in the United States as more and more people are getting fed up with the status quo that leaves them in the status of NO.

Buckle up. Here we go! 

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Happy New Year!

Yes…it is a new year…a new season…as we move into this time called “Advent”…a time of expectation and waiting.

We also transition into hearing more readings from the Gospel of Matthew.

We will be getting a little more Luke…and a smattering of the Gospel of John toward the end of the month.

But in this new cycle of the church year…the primary evangelist we’ll be hearing from is Matthew.

Like all our Gospels…Matthew has a particular way of looking at the life and ministry of Jesus.

Where Luke wants to give an orderly account of our Messiah…and has a keen focus on God’s concern for the disenfranchised and the poor….Matthew’s Gospel wants us to know that Jesus is most definitely the fulfillment of all the dreams of the Jewish prophets.

Matthew will remind us that whatever we hear and read about Jesus and the things Jesus is doing…it’s because Isaiah or Jeremiah told us so first.

Matthew also wants us to be good students…as he emphasizes Jesus as a teacher.

The Sermon on the Mount is the master class in how we are to live and move and have our being.

The Jesus of Matthew gets into many arguments with the Pharisees over interpretation of the Torah.

In that way…we might understand that Jesus really is a rabbi’s rabbi.

And Matthew’s Gospel gives us the birth narrative as seen through the experience of Joseph.

We hear the story of the Holy Family as refugees…and a father following messages in dreams to take his young family into a foreign land and away from the danger of the bullies and tyrants of the Roman Empire.

Matthew gets placed first in the roster of the Gospels …largely because Matthew’s version of Jesus’s life was the most popularly shared by the very early Christian church.

And that very early Christian church…the one of 80CE…was so moved by the First Advent of Jesus…his birth and life among them…that they anxiously were awaiting Jesus’s return.

Which brings us back around to this season of Advent…and today’s odd Gospel reading on this First Sunday of Advent.

It’s a little strange that as we are preparing for Christmas….what we heard this morning was a reading where Jesus is in one of his teaching moments…preparing his followers for the dangerous trek into Jerusalem.

This talk of staying awake…being prepared…people being taken and others left behind…sounds more like an ending than a beginning.

We’re starting this new year not with a baby shower…but with a reminder of what was the experience of God’s people…what now is…and what will be.

For those of us sitting here today…this all may sound strange.

But this was important to those first hearers of this Gospel… a people who had been conquered multiple times…and are now reeling from yet-another war and the destruction of their main institution: the Temple of Jerusalem.

They’ve been waiting and wondering what’s been taking Jesus so long to come back?

When is the Messiah coming to help us?

I think we can relate to those feelings.

How many of us at one time or another have looked at things happening around us….the news reports that come to us every night…the realities of wars happening around the world…our own country’s participation in violence…and senseless shootings on the streets and in public spaces… that have us asking that question:

“How long, O Lord, how long?”

When chaos seems to be the rule of the day…we can feel our faith getting tried and tested.

That’s where Matthew’s Jesus steps in.

Jesus is here to remind us that God is aware…and is not idly standing by…and will make things right…by us…through us…and with us.

God hasn’t forgotten the covenant made with humanity…the promise to Noah not to drown us,

Jesus didn’t fail in teaching us to love and care for one another…if we…you and me together…trust and keep putting forth the effort to seek and serve Christ in each other….and strive for justice…peace…mercy and compassion.

That’s the encouragement we hear in this Gospel message.

We don’t know when Jesus’ Second Coming…the Second Advent…will come.

And we aren’t supposed to know.

And we also aren’t supposed to sit around….parsing ancient texts and developing formulas to figure out when Jesus is coming back.

We have all heard and seen the countless stories of people predicting Jesus’ return.

And in the words of the great theologian Rocky the Flying Squirrel…”That trick never works.”

Instead…we are to take in a reality that has already been…that Jesus came into the world…ministered to the needs of a beleaguered and oppressed people…taught and showed those who would listen how to love…died for committing the crime of love…and ultimately proved that death doesn’t defeat God’s purposes…and Love always wins.

And Love shows up in our lives in the most unpredictable ways.

There’s a story that the theologian Howard Thurman tells about the time when he was heading off to a boarding school.

Because Thurman was black…there were no educational opportunities available to him in Daytona Florida during the early part of the 20^th century.

Schooling for black children ended at the eighth grade.

But his teachers saw something in him and he was given this chance to go to a high school and live with relatives in Jacksonville..

He had the money to buy his train ticket.

But when he arrived at the station with his trunk…he found out that he would also have to pay a fee for his luggage.

The fourteen year-old Thurman was crushed.

He had no money.

He sat on a bench weeping as he thought about his dreams fading away.

That’s when a stranger dressed in overalls came along.

He saw Thurman and asked him why he was so distressed.

And when the stranger heard that Thurman was penniless and couldn’t pay the fee to put his luggage on the train….this stranger pulled out his wallet and paid the fare.

That act of kindness was all it took to help Howard Thurman live into his dream of getting an education which led him to follow his calling to become one of the influential religious thinkers of the 20^th century.

Not only did that stranger help a distraught teenaged Thurman…his generosity benefitted all of us.

It’s these types of small but consequential actions that help to bring more light into the world.

Advent invites us to into considering how we…doing our best each day to live into that hope and that trust in Love…can help shed light back out into our broader communities.

Our Jewish relatives have a term for this: tikkun olam: the repairing of the world.

And it’s a constant task set before us.

It’s what we mean when we pray “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

By living into the way of Love and hope…we are doing our part to keep building a better future and a more just society…both in the giving and the receiving.

In this season of expectation and preparation…may we stay awake to ourselves and those around us…as we continue our journey in grace…peace and love.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

The King Who Topples Tyrants

Anyone who has been a longtime reader of this blog, and I don't think there are that many of you out there anymore, will likely recognize some of what's here. For the first time in my priestly career, I am doing a "rerun" of the sermon I preached on this text six years ago when I was a seminarian at St. Monica and St. James Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. 

The president was the same man currently occupying the Oval Office. And, sadly, the words I chose six years ago are still very relevant...possibly even more so...than they were in 2019.

I made a few adjustments, added a slightly new beginning, but this is that same sermon. How sad...yet fortunate since I've been down with a nasty head cold...that it remained "fresh." 

See what you think.

Text: Luke 23:33-43

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The Church has been calling this last Sunday after Pentecost “Christ the King Sunday” since the early part of the 20^th century.

Pope Pius XI introduced this idea at the end of World War I…as a counter to growing secularism…and the turmoil in post-war Europe.

The idea being that while governments rise and fall…Christ’s reign is forever.

Yet nothing about this situation described in our Gospel seems fitting for a king.

Let’s consider this scene for a moment.

The man Jesus hangs bloodied and bruised between two criminals.

“Leaders” are shouting at him. And in their taunting, they are calling into question his healing works and undermining faith in his teachings: 

“You saved others; save yourself!” 

Soldiers are also getting in on the act.

They’re making fun of him and laughing as they take articles of his clothing like they are party favors at this execution.

And then there are “the people” who stand by watching.

We don’t know who they are.

We aren’t given details about them.

We can imagine that if they are fellow Jews living in this Roman-occupied state… they might be angry…feeling dejected and hopeless in the face of tyranny…and quite probably afraid. That was the purpose of crucifixion: to instill fear into the hearts of anyone who might dare to stand up to the authority.

Terrorizing people who are powerless is a favorite tactic of bullies and authoritarians.

It’s the way to keep people anxious…uneasy…compliant…and silent. 

What kind of a King dies in such a horrible way…stripped down….his arms outstretched and pinned high above his chest and his head bloodied?

How can a king be hung up on hard wood like a common criminal?

For those who claim earthly power, both then and now, 

Jesus is a joke. 

Encouraging an ethic of love, 

loving the stranger as your neighbor, 

forgiving the wayward one who comes home and says, “I’m a screw up and am not worthy,” 

healing people struggling with all kinds of demons; 

that’s not how a powerful person lives their life.

By earthly standards…such caring and compassionate behavior shows weakness and vulnerability.

Jesus is the embodiment of a person full of empathy…an emotion that some today deride as “toxic.”

But then isn’t it interesting that even though there are three people being crucified, only Jesus draws out the ire of the powerful. 

There is something about Jesus that makes them so bitter that they make a spectacle of his death.

Something about him has a strange pull on them.

He seems to be such a threat to their comfort at the top that they feel they must not only inflict punishment and shame on him; they have to kill him to prove to themselves and others that they are the strong ones here.

Perhaps deep inside their hearts they are also afraid. 

Maybe they sense that he is stronger than them and his strength might expose their own weakness. 

That is the paradox of being a bully, isn’t it?

It’s because they are weak…that the bullies and tyrants of the world act out in destructive ways to mask their own vulnerability. 

It’s why they feel the need to attack and mock others.

In this whole scene there is only one person who sees through all the horror and the mayhem and can fix upon the truth of Jesus. 

And it’s not a soldier. 

Not a leader. 

It’s one of the criminals, another rejected member of society. 

In his own dying moments, this condemned convict looks to Jesus, and in his suffering, he pleads: “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

This man knows that Jesus is innocent.

And in his request to be remembered into Jesus’ kingdom he is signaling to us that he has seen below the skin level of Jesus and is perceiving something more.

He is seeing God made incarnate in the flesh.

This man understands that this one…hanging next to him…and experiencing the same torture…is the one who came into the world to 

“preach the gospel to the poor, 

heal the brokenhearted, 

free the captives, 

give sight to the blind, 

and liberate the oppressed.” 

It takes one who is among the broken…one who has been brought low himself…to know the divinity of Christ shining through that bruised and battered skin.

It is one without earthly power who can perceive the real power hanging in agony with him.  

Here again we see the wonderful and un-worldly way that God’s grace works.

Because it is not the prestigious and powerful or the bullies and tyrants who recognize Jesus.

It’s the one who’s been banished to die.

The one who might otherwise have been intimidated into silence.

The one who…realizing that he has done wrong…begs Jesus: remember me.

Remember me when you come into your kingdom. 

What this man sees in Jesus is what so many who have ever found themselves on the margins of society throughout history have seen in the Christ. 

This is the king who can maintain compassion in the face of violent opposition. 

A king who can resist anger and can keep loving all the way to the end. 

A king being unjustly crucified by a corrupt system and yet can still maintain dignity enough to promise Paradise to the repentant criminal. 

If social media had existed in the First Century…Jesus would have been vilified by all those hiding behind their avatars.

Because he is type of king whose power of love and true righteous justice intimidates and topples the bullies who feed on fear and hatred. 

We proclaim Christ as King because…in his dying and then his rising again… Jesus makes a pledge to one on the lowest rung of society that he will restore and liberate him from his worst self…and deliver him from his separation from God. 

If Jesus can say this to a criminal…how much more so do his words apply to us?

How much more is he bringing us into his mission to face the injustices of our time which keep people in poverty…keep them captive to their fears and addictions…and press down upon those who yearn to breathe free?

This promise of being “re-membered” into God’s kingdom is renewed each time we come to this Eucharistic table and receive the body and blood of Christ.

We are being renewed and reinvigorated with a life force…grounded in love…to resist the powers of this world that want to break us.

When we take in Christ we are being given the strength to meet the needs of our community in the mission of God to love those who are lost…alone…or afraid. 

It is through us and our resilience to live into that love that we wear the crowns of our royal priesthood.

And it is in this way…working through us… that Christ reigns as a true king on earth as in heaven. 

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Saintly Guidance

Oopsie: I realized that I never posted my sermon text from November 2nd aka All Saints Sunday. There's just been a lot going on and I haven't been thinking about sermons because, well, I've been blessed with having TWO...count 'em...TWO whole weeks off from preaching! 

So here's the text from All Saints Sunday. And you can look forward to a new sermon text for Christ the King this coming week.

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About a month ago…on my drive home from Valdosta…I saw something I’d never seen before.

On an otherwise clear day as the sun was setting…I spotted a rainbow…very faintly stretching up over the trees and disappearing into the scattering of clouds.

There hadn’t been any rain.

It wasn’t even particularly humid.

And yet this rainbow appeared.

Curious…I pulled off the road to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

They weren’t.

Although it was very faint…there clearly was a rainbow emerging near the Georgia-Florida state line.

And as I looked at this amazing sight…I was reminded of the verse in Genesis…the one where God says that the “bow in the clouds” would be the reminder of God’s everlasting covenant…that promise God has made to every living thing…that never again will God try to annihilate us.

I thought about the symbolism of a rainbow.

That colorful spectrum of light has served as a sign of hope to so many.

It’s the mark of pride and assurance of goodness…and the visible symbol of that pledge that we are never alone.

Such a graphic message in the sky seems an important one for all of us to remember in these times when we are witnessing cruelty in our cities…both near and far… and as we bear up under the burdens placed on us spiritually…mentally…and financially.

Yes…we are living in dark times.

And Jesus…in speaking to his disciples…both then and now…also wants us to remember that in our moments when we are feeling despair and at our lowest…He is still with us.

He is that member of the Godhead who has been there…done that…felt that…been rejected and betrayed…beaten up and killed….and yet…as the Maya Angelou poem says…like air…he tells us “I rise.”

I am not defeated.

I am not dead.

I am Love…and Love always wins.

It may not feel like it now.

We may not be able to look around and see it…or experience it… at this time.

But Love does win.

Our saints…those lives that we look to and celebrate on this Sunday…have known and lived by this type of assurance.

They’re trust and connection to this life…ministry…death and resurrection of Jesus was that critical element that kept them going…even in the face of adversity and hostility and even danger.

Those of us who have played along year after year with the Forward Movement online game Lent Madness have had the benefit of reading and learning about some ordinary people celebrated for their extraordinary ability to keep on the path with God when it might have been easier or simpler just to give up.

Naturally…we have those well-known saints of the church: Paul who became one of the major writers and shapers of the Early Church.

St. Francis of Assisi who found a true kinship with all living creatures…and we remember and celebrate him with our Blessing of the Animals each year.

And St. Mary Magdalene…a towering figure…who has been called “the apostle to the apostles” as the first witness of the resurrected Christ at the tomb.

But in our Episcopal Calendar…we also remember those a little closer to our time…who endured suffering and many setbacks…and yet remained persistent in standing for what was the good…and right…and joyful thing.

Two years ago…we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of women being ordained in The Episcopal Church.

But long before there was an Allison Cheek or a Carter Heyward…there was the Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi…who we remember on January 24^th.

Li was born in 1907 in Hong Kong…one of five children.

Her father was the principal at an English school and Catholic nuns had taught her mother.

While her dad had hoped one of his sons would become a pastor…it was Li who was drawn to the Gospel.

She graduated from seminary as the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937.

She was working with refugees at the Morrison Chapel of the Anglican Church in Macau when the Anglican bishop of Hong Kong and Maucau….Ronald Owen Hall…needed a priest.

Maucau was in social disarray and there were no men to serve the church.

And so Hall took it upon himself to ordain Li to be first a deaconess and then made her the first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion in May, 1941.

Word of this ordination was not well-received…and the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered Hall that either he would have to give up his holy orders…or Li would have to give up hers.

Florence Li Tim-Oi decided to take the fall…but continued to do work in schools in China…but she was not safe.

In 19-61…she was forced to undergo re-education and embraced Chinese socialism…and was sent to work in a factory making syringes and medicine cabinets.

The Red Guard would raid her home periodically over the next several years…taking valuable possessions and causing her physical injury.

In 19-82…she finally left China and moved to Toronto…where the Canadian Anglican Church embraced her and reinstated her orders as a priest.

She died in 19-92 at age 85.

In our own diocese…we celebrate the life and Christian witness of St. Anna Alexander…the daughter of former slaves of the Butler Plantation on Georgia’s coast.

Even though Georgia Bishop C.K. Nelson ordained her as the first Black deaconess in the Episcopal Church in 19-07 …Anna had to accomplish her mission of educating children without much help from the Church.

And she did it against the backdrop of the Georgia of the early 20^th century… when Jim Crow laws were in full swing…and “good” Christians would leave their white churches on Sundays to attend a lynching in the afternoon.

Despite the bigotry and hatred of the day…Anna refused to let other people’s prejudices stop her.

And to this day…she is remembered for her commitment to the people of Pennick…Darien and Brunswick…and for inspiring so many to seek higher education and better opportunities.

And she grounded all her work in the Bible and the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

And no doubt…Luke’s version of the beatitudes…spoke to the heart of her task.

Because when the Jesus of Luke talks about blessed are the poor…the hungry…and the sorrowful…he’s not saying:

“Yippee! Isn’t this fantastic to be the outcast!”

To be “blessed” in this case is to be with Jesus…with those who are left waiting and wanting at the gates.

To be “blessed” is to be with the Florence Li Tim-Ois’ and the Anna Alexanders…caught in the systems that fail to stand with them…and in a world that denigrated them.

And yet…they faced the challenges…and with the strength of Jesus… they stood up…rose up… and refused to let bitterness sour their spirits.

This version of the beatitudes from our Gospel captures the truth of the saints…and all of us…who are striving to stick close to God in times that test and challenge our faith.

It’s the message to that our pains are seen…felt…understood…and will be vindicated.

It’s the “bow in the clouds” that the Spirit is still with us in thick of things…and continuing to call us into action.

We are empowered to turn our suffering into a drive to make things better.

Because out of our pain…we have been given the gift of empathy.

And our ability to empathize …our willingness to help one another through difficulty…to do to others as we would like them to do to us…is the way we stay in a right relationship with God.

It’s that understanding that leads us to take care of those who came here seeking a better life…just like our ancestors did.

Make sure that we feed people…and give them shelter…because that’s the right thing to do.

It’s what keeps us working for a just society…where all may have the opportunity to live with one another in peace.

We may not be sainted yet…but the lives of the saints…from throughout the course of time…can point us in the direction of a life well lived…making a difference for another person.

And with each act of kindness…we are making this a better place on earth.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

We Need Each Other

Jesus...why do you present parables that are so hard?

The one about the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 ought to have been an easy one to preach. Y'know, don't be so self-righteous. It basically says that in the introduction. 

Except....there is more to this story...and it speaks to the moment we're in right now in our culture of the not-very United States.

There are those who have lots of money...and control of our government...tech bros, casino owners, and other billionaires who have joined with those who are simply sadistic people, the types that like to see other people suffer.

And they have coalesced in the Republican Party. There's just no other way to put it. One political party has become rife with greed and avarice. 

The Democrats aren't saintly...but they also aren't sadists.

As the government shutdown drags on and on...Congress is still getting paid. ICE terrror troops are still getting paid. A billionaire named Timothy Mellon (descended from railroad magnate Andrew Mellon) shelled out $130 milllion to pay our U.S. Military. Gotta wonder what he wants in return for that?

What does any of this have to do with the Gospel?

Well...typically we're expected to side with the tax collector in this parable. But how uncomfortable that was for the original hearers....and should be for us, too...when we remember that tax collectors are part of the Empire...and traitors to their own people.

Sure...the tax collector offers "thoughts and prayers" but we don't know that he's changed. Ugh!

The more I think about what's happening currently...the more I am convinced that as white people start to feel the pinch of tariffs...no SNAP benefits...higher healthcare premiums....maybe they'll start to realize that there's something not right with this picture.

Maybe it's time to understand that our enemy isn't that "other"...whatever "other" that is...but it's the greed and the evil behind it all that we should fighting...not our neighbors.

See what you think.

Text: Luke 18: 9-18 

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A Pharisee and a Tax Collector walk into a Temple to pray.

That sounds like a good set up for a joke.

And maybe that’s what Jesus had in mind by telling this parable…talking presumably to those who are following him.

People such as you and me.

Leave it to Jesus to give us a lesson in self-righteousness.

We who have done the right things…have fought the good fights of our days…have come together to pray for ourselves…our families…our communities…and our nation during a crisis of politics and posturing this morning.

And now here’s …Luke’s Gospel giving us Jesus…with a parable.

A story that on the surface we might think we understand…thanks to years and years of Sunday School.

The church has tried to make Jesus easier to take.

But if we take time with this story of the pharisee and the tax collector…if we think about it through the mind and understandings of the original hearers of the Gospel…we might realize Jesus is here to give us a sharp elbow to the rib cage.

Not out of meanness or hatred of us.

Out of love…and a desire for us to start seeing each other as God intended from the beginning

As we listened to this parable and the prayer offered by the Pharisee…what did we hear?

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people…” and then he lists out all the “others” including the tax collector.

He notes all the good things he has done…how he has kept all the right laws of giving…and fasting.

In our minds…we might be hearing this as haughty and sanctimonious.

It certainly sounds that way, doesn’t it?

And then there is the prayer offered by the tax collector.

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” as he beats his breast as if this were a perpetual Yom Kippur recitation of the litany of sins.

We then hear that the tax collector goes home “justified”….we might be thinking:

Yes…of course.

Afterall…he wasn’t like that Pharisee…acting all high and mighty.

That tax collector: he was humble before God…just as he should be.

Sunday School has taught us well.

We ARE to be humble before God.

AND we’ve been conditioned to think:

 “Pharisee: bad.” Any person opposite the Pharisee: good.”

Except…if we really dig into this parable…it gets a lot more complicated than that.

Tax collectors were collaborators with the Roman Empire.

They were not the good Jews.

They participated in oppression.

Likewise…the Pharisees were not bad Jews.

In fact…this particular Pharisee…confessing about his tithing and the way he keeps the fasts…he’s doing all the right practices.

These Pharisees…annoy ritual cops…they were the guys who kept the fire of their faith burning in the aftermath of the Roman Empire’s destruction of the Temple.

In terms of their social status…the Pharisee would likely have represented some middle management type.

Meanwhile…the tax collector would have been the one wearing the gold Rolex watch…and the finest robes…bought with the money he gained through illegitimate means at the cost of his fellow Jewish citizens.

So…if we heard this parable and thought…we’d much rather be like that humble tax collector than that haughty Pharisee….consider which side we’re choosing.

Because if you side with the tax collector…you’ve just put yourself in the shoes of an oppressor…a person inflicting hardship on others.

And…if we have chosen a side…. haven’t we then also become no better than that Pharisee…thanking God that we aren’t the Pharisee?

In truth…both characters fall short of perfection for different reasons.

The Pharisee offers a prayer that doesn’t have much to say about God’s goodness or his dependence on God.

He’s only thankful that he’s not like the people who he doesn’t consider “his kind of people.”

And while the tax collector’s prayer says all the right words and he submits himself to God’s mercy….we have no way of knowing from this parable if that the tax collector did anything to change his behavior.

Yes…he confesses he’s a sinner…but it doesn’t say that he’s going to change…give up making his money by ripping off people like the Pharisee.

And if there’s one thing prayer ought to do…it should lead us to become better versions of ourselves.

As the Letter of James reminds us: a faith that doesn’t produce action or lead us into doing the work of healing our world is dead.

If all he does is mouth the words and not follow through with a change of heart…and perhaps even a change of allegiance to Rome…then all the prayer in the world is just empty phrases going up to the heavens.

Perhaps we should not choose sides here.

Because if we are honest with ourselves…we have probably been both characters at one time or another…maybe even all at once.

In these times…when there is so much happening in our country to drive wedges between us…I think we’d be fooling ourselves if we didn’t acknowledge that we are drawn to look upon those we consider “on the other side” as terrible…horrible…sinners…’oh, thank God I’m not one of them.’

So…maybe we should think a little more critically of the translation we’ve been given.

Our English rendering of the Greek has Jesus saying that the tax collector “rather than” the Pharisee went down to his home justified.

But as New Testament scholar Amy Jill Levine notes, the phrasing could just as easily have been translated to read: “This man went down to his home justified alongside the other.”

You see…in truth…both men…in their perfect imperfection…need each other.

The Pharisee could stand to learn from the tax collector how to pray…admit he “ain’t all that” and be humble.

The tax collector could get more with the program of the Pharisee…fasting…tithing…actually taking the Torah more seriously…and reading how you don’t swindle people to enrich yourself.

And ultimately…wouldn’t that be an amazing thing for these two men in a Temple praying to see one another as brothers…rather than as others?

Refusing to allow the tyranny of Empire to make them enemies?

Wouldn’t it be a great improvement in our own culture and society if the children of God…whether they identify that way or not…come to realize that we are all in this life together?

Imagine what that might look like if white Americans could recognize themselves in the face of a Haitian immigrant and if the Haitian immigrant could find kinship with the Korean autoworker?

What if all of us could accept that unless our ancestry traces back to pre-colonial days on this continent…we are all immigrants?

At a time when there are those who want us to be separated from each other…and drawn apart over our differences of language…origin…gender…and identity…it is our task…as followers of Jesus…to take a prayerful stand in favor of unity  over division.

It’s up to us to live out our faith…based on the teachings of Jesus…to love God…and demonstrate that love of God by our actions of helping each other…supporting one another through our time…through our resources…and through our advocacy for those who are in need.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you and me to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven…as it happens…through us.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayerful Persistence

 

No Kings 2.0 in Tallahassee

Things are heating up in the country and dissent is growing among the masses who are getting tired of the tariffs, the government shutdown, the occupation of cities with National Guard troops, and the illegal arrests and deportations of people who came to this country in hopes of finding a better life. 

We've had a raid in the middle of the night on a Chicago apartment building where federal agents swooped in on blackhawk helicopters, rousing families out of their beds, putting zipties on half-naked children...only to release them later because (shocker!) they were American citizens.

And then there has been the assault on the freedom of speech by the government to shakedown network executives...requiring them to pay millions to settle frivilous lawsuits and cancel TV shows and comedians...in order to win approval for corporate mergers. The once stalwart and respected CBS Evening News now has a "bias monitor" who pledges allegiance to this regime. Edward R. Murrow is probably convulsing in his grave.

All these things have been occuring in the lead up to what was the largest mass protest in American history: more than seven million people in large cities to rural counties in the country protesting and demanding an end to this abuse of power and authoritarian rule.

And the lectionary served up a doozy of a Gospel passage: the parable of the unjust judge.

See what you think.

Text: Luke 18:1-8

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There’s a powerful story about the night that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was sitting at his kitchen table.

It was January 27^th…19-56 about midnight.

He had just received an anonymous phone call telling him to get out of town in three days or someone was going to shoot him and kill his family by blowing up their house.

As Dr. King sat at the table gripping his coffee cup…he thought about his family.

His wife who he loved dearly had just delivered their first child a month earlier…a baby girl who was the joy of his life.

This new baby brought him hope amid all the struggles he was facing as he led a movement for freedom and justice against the Jim Crow laws of the South.

As those images swirled in his brain…King began to pray:

“Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. But I am afraid … I must confess … I’m losing my courage.”

In the face of such ominous threats…we can understand this fear.

We can understand that King…only in his late twenties…and living far away from his parents…was turning to God in a prayer of desperation.

And in that moment…King recalls that he heard that still small inner voice within, saying:

“Martin Luther, stand up for truth. Stand up for justice. Stand up for righteousness. I will be at your side.’”

A bomb did blow up the King’s front porch three days later.

The threats to King’s life never stopped…and as we know…an assassin’s bullet did kill him in Memphis twelve years later.

But that kitchen moment in prayer had so grounded King that he felt a deep connection with the Spirit of God and he remained undaunted.

He held to his commitment to non-violence…wisdom he had gained from his professor…the theologian Howard Thurman.

Praying in that dark hour of his soul helped him overcome the efforts to rob him of his faith and imprison him in fear.

That’s the essential message behind this parable that Jesus is telling us in the Gospel of Luke this morning.

When things feel daunting and when we’re faced with the injustice of the world…do not lose heart.

Persist in prayer…which is our connection to God…because God’s justice will come.

The widow in Jesus’ story was a representation of the powerless facing off against an unjust system.

While we don’t know what the widow’s complaint was in the parable…we know that in the culture of First Century Palestine…widows and children were particularly vulnerable.

It was expected that the community would care for her…but clearly that isn’t happening.

And worse: the judge…the representation of the one who SHOULD be protecting this widow from whatever wrongs were happening to her…was clearly not doing his job…and really didn’t care that he wasn’t doing right by this woman.

And yet…as Jesus notes…he finally relents and grants her justice.

Because even those who don’t know God will eventually get it right.

But it took persistence…and an unwillingness to live with the injustice…that finally won the day for the widow.

And as Jesus notes…if an unjust…no good…blankety-blank judge…can provide the righteous remedy…then certainly the God of mercy…and love…will answer when our prayers knock…maybe even pound…on Heaven’s door.

Maybe the answer won’t come right away…and it could very well be that we don’t get exactly what we ask for.

Because praying to God isn’t like dropping a coin in the slot of a candy machine….put in enough prayers and-voila-there’s your Snickers bar.

But when we send up prayers…it’s an act of faith and trust in that power which is beyond our own selves and our understanding in the fervent hope that something will happen.

We are letting go of our ego-centric desire to control outcomes…in the aspiration that God is merciful…compassionate and just.

Just as the widow in this parable keeps raising her voice…we keep raising our pleas to God.

We do it with our words…and we also do it with our actions.

Again…I think about Dr. Martin Luther King and leading the march at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma.

Joining with King was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

He remarked that…in participating in this action…he felt his “legs were praying.” 

This was a prayer with the whole body…not just with saying words.

Heschel was a big believer in social justice and for him…prayer not only helps us to center in our own bodies but it propels us to engage with the struggles of the world.

It’s that idea of praying with your feet…and entering into the work of justice.

From our Christian perspective…praying with your feet is how we take on the work that Jesus is calling us to do….as we say in our post-communion prayer…”to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart.”  

Because our work in the here and now on earth is to keep encouraging one another so that we live into God’s dreamed reality for this world. 

A dream where all of God’s creatures know how to live with each other…so that life on earth might be more aligned with heaven.

Yesterday…here in Valdosta and in cities around the world…people prayed with their feet as they demonstrated for our nation…in the No Kings rallies.

I joined with thousands at the Florida state capitol to pray a prayer of hope for our country in this moment where we are seeing freedoms eroded and cruelty displayed against those already oppressed in our society.

And yet there are those in power who will insist we are a Christian nation even as we oppress the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.

I attended yesterday’s demonstration in my clerical collar…as I’ve done before.

I did it to stand with the people…those lifting their voices in shouts and song to say, “God bless America.”

God bless America with compassion.

God bless America with mercy.

God bless us with leadership that protects the vulnerable and doesn’t terrorize them.

God bless us with fair labor…and opportunities for people to make ends meet.

As I walked through the crowd…I saw young children resting on their parents’ laps…and old men…feebly and carefully moving through the crosswalks with their rollators.

I imagined this crowd was not unlike those throngs that surrounded Jesus on his fateful trek toward Jerusalem.

The common…every day…ordinary people…seeking someone to hear their cry for relief.

I don’t know that everyone there with me in Tallahassee believed in the God of love…but I do believe that God is hearing our prayers…both the silent ones of our hearts…and the prayers showed with our feet and legs.

Jesus asks, “Will he find faith on earth” when he comes again.

I think that’s really the big question for each of us to ponder.

When adversity happens…if life becomes more challenging…and if we continue to see state-sponsored cruelty celebrated as strength…will we remain faithful and persistent in prayer like the widow…or harden our hearts like the judge?

I pray that our faith will carry us…in the same way it has buoyed the spirits of many throughout the centuries.

The American writer and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson provides us with a powerful prayer for these times in the closing verse of the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing”:

God of our weary years

God of our silent tears

Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who hast by thy might led us into the light;

Keep us forever in the path we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met thee;

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;

Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand,

True to our God, true to our native land.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.