21 Pentecost, 20-A: Practitioners of covenant love

Lectionary: Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46 

Living in covenant relationship can be a challenge. So many things can divide us from within and without. That’s why we prayed in our Collect that God might increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity. As followers of Christ who are pushed beyond our comfort zones on a regular basis, we seek to hold fast to our faith that God is guiding us in every circumstance so that we might embody hope in the face of injustice and respond with charity to hatred or fear. 

About every week I have at least one conversation with someone who has hit their wall. The top five culprits in their dead-end experience are the helplessness they feel over how or when we might stem the destructive tide of the coronavirus, their heartbreak over revelations of a systemic racism they simply hadn’t noticed before and what to do about it, their anxiety over an increasing sense of economic instability for so many, the daily assault of our political divisions in the news, and relationships on the brink of rupture or already lost, either to illness or ideology.

We may not have solutions to the ills of the world - yet, but we can do two things; love God and neighbor as self. At least that’s what Jesus recommends. 

In today’s reading from the gospel of Matthew, another group of religious experts, lawyers this time, makes their attempt to publicly entrap and discredit Jesus. Feigning respect by calling him Teacher, they ask Jesus to teach them which commandment in the law is the greatest.

Without hesitation, Jesus answers them by holding up the divine command for covenant love - and it is two-fold. Quoting first from Deut 6:5, which is also the second line of the Shema, a prayer his listeners would have prayed every day, Jesus holds up what our part of covenant love with God looks like: we are to love God: totally – with all the strength of our hearts, minds, and souls.

He completes his answer by quoting from Leviticus, holding up what covenant love with one another looks like: we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. This love, agape love, is active and concerned with the welfare of the other. As one commentator says, “The person who loves with agapao love will want to do something positive for the beloved––to find a way to help.” On these two commands, which have equal weight, Jesus says, hang all the law and the prophets.

Then Jesus asks the Pharisees a question of his own and it seems he had two purposes in mind. The first was to confront the preconceived notion most people, including the religious leadership, had about the Messiah. Whose son is he? They answer David’s son but Jesus proves them wrong using Psalm 110, which says, “The Lord said to my lord…” How can the Messiah be David’s son and his Lord? He can't.

The second was, I think, to stop the useless intellectual battling and open the minds of his listeners, to reveal to them the shocking reality that their thinking and assumptions just might be inadequate in comparison to the abundant graciousness of God. His plan worked. The religious leadership was confounded and no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. The challenge of letting go of preconceived notions and inadequate assumptions about how God might be acting to redeem, however, continues for us to this day. What do we think?

Are we called as Christians to win arguments? To what end? Does doing so keep the divine law of covenant love?

There is a symbol in the church called the Christus Rex. It’s a cross with the body of the triumphant risen Christ on it, robed in white, arms raised in prayer, and a crown on his head. This symbol visually forces us to go beyond our preconceived notions and inadequate assumptions about death and resurrection life. It connects us to the scriptural stories of the resurrected Jesus, who was unrecognizable to his closest companions - at least at first - doing something as spectacularly unexplainable as walking through locked doors, and something as mundane as eating fish with his friends on the beach.

Whenever we think we know something with certainty, all we need to do is look at a Christus Rex to remember that all we know is what we think we know, and our assumptions may be limiting God’s redeeming work in the world right now.

For the early Christians, God’s redeeming work was limited by their preconceived notion of inclusion. Did a person have to be a Jew, and therefore circumcised, in order to be a Christian? In the end, the answer was no.

Today, God’s redeeming work just might be being limited by our preconceived notions and our lack of discipline in keeping the divine command of covenant love. The evidence we have of that is that there are real divisions among us fomenting growing helplessness, hopelessness, and broken or lost relationships.

When we rely on our thinking to address these issues we rely on an inadequate tool. Jesus teaches us to focus instead on the divine command for covenant love and act from that. Our purpose is not to be right but to be loving.

And we discern how to do that, how to practice covenant love, by praying together, holding fast to our friendships instead of our biases. Then we can build our servant-listening muscle remembering that what may sound like anger is often fear, and what may seem like a big to-do over nothing is often a hurt that is inadequately expressed or understood.

Approaching someone with agape love is the only way we will hear what’s behind their words and perceive what’s behind their actions. Only then can we do something positive for the beloved one before us, and find a way to help. Then will the graciousness of God be upon us, prospering the work of our hands. (Ps 90 :17)

Let us pray. God of love and mercy, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity, that we may become disciplined practitioners of covenant love. Amen.

20 Pentecost, 2020-A: Our sacred work

Lectionary: Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22 

En el nombre del Dios, ques es Trinidad en unidad. Amen. 

The line between religion and politics is always a popular discussion online and in the news. Should religion be involved in politics and vice versa…? 

In the gospel reading today, some Pharisees, that is, members of a religious sect who were kind of the religious alt-right of their time, joined up with some unlikely allies, Herodians, who were presumably members of a political party supporting the Roman occupiers. Their purpose of this unholy alliance was to entrap and discredit Jesus using the issue of paying the Roman poll tax.

Here’s some background information that is helpful to know: 

1) The Roman poll tax was an annual head tax. Basically, this was Caesar taking money on a per-person basis and in return, he didn’t hurt or kill them. It was rather like a mob payoff. 

2) It was required that the tax be paid with the denarius a Roman coin with a value akin to a day’s pay – not an exorbitant amount for each person, but cumulatively it generated a healthy haul for Caesar. 

3) Jews held the coin to be a graven image, and therefore, idolatrous. They also held the inscription on the coin to be blasphemous. Since it was also the currency of the land, many Jews used the denarius despite the religious law against it. A few, like the alt-right Pharisees, refused to use them at all, which put them in a bind: break the law of God and use the idolatrous coin or break the law of the land and get punished by the Roman occupiers. 

This is the conundrum they brought to Jesus. Would he advise his listeners to break God’s law or Caesar’s? Either way, he would be toast. That was their plan anyway. 

But this is Jesus. He knows what they’re up to and he tells them so.

Bring a coin, he says. Whose face is on it? The emperor’s, they reply. Then Jesus gives his answer and it’s theological and political genius: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The political genius of this is: Know the truth of your moment in history. Give Caesar the coin with his image on it, Jesus says. He thinks it belongs to him anyway to do with as he pleases.

Here’s the theological genius: We know as we read this, that Jesus is the 2nd person of the Trinity, the one through whom all things are made. ALL THINGS. What things, then, are not God’s? All things, all people, all time, all activities, all of creation, all resources - including all coins – everything belongs to God. Genius!

Recognizing this and living faithfully into it, is the very definition of stewardship. If all people belong to God, then who can we allow to be hungry, or homeless, or un-shoed in winter? Whose physical and mental health needs can be overlooked or underfunded? If all people are God’s, who is our enemy?

We can only exclude today those whom Jesus excluded as he died on the cross. Oh right, he died once for ALL as St. Paul said (Ro 6.10). Likewise, we can exclude no one.

If all time belongs to God, then isn’t it important for us to establish a harmony of rhythms of our time at work, with family, and with God in prayer?

Do our activities speak love? Are they serving the welfare of God’s people, including ourselves, and thereby bringing God glory? Do we hold the precious gifts of our earth in trust for future generations?

What about our finances? Ah, that’s the sticky one, as we saw in our gospel today. Do we hold our wealth as a gift given to us for the accomplishment of God’s purposes or do we, like Caesar, think it belongs to us for our own purposes? Jesus made the answer pretty clear, I think.

The world is a difficult place and life is so hard for so many. As the pandemic continues, the numbers among us who are hungry, unwell physically or mentally, lonely, unemployed, or trapped in fear or anger, steadily increases.

But we have Good News to share and the responsibility to share it – by our words and our actions. The world is desperate for the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ. Just listen to the news (only a little – too much might make you crazy!)

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry once said Episcopalians need to get busy “committing to making a practical, tangible difference…helping the world look more like God’s dream and less like our nightmare… It’s sacred work” he said.

To do that, Bp. Curry recommends we make five things a priority: Formation, Evangelism, Witnessing, Relationship, and Structures that serve our mission. We have much of this happening right now at Calvary. For example, our formation currently includes Inquirers Class, Bible and book studies, and a plan for Christian formation for the upcoming seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany adapted to the COVID restrictions. We’re also working on an Inquirers Class geared to children and youth.

Calvary’s evangelism has blossomed with online Daily Office services that enable people to deepen their relationships with God and one another through prayer everyday - something that wasn’t happening before the shutdown.

Our Interim Parish Summits, which begin today, will lay the groundwork for examining our institutional structures so that we can ensure our structures serve our current divine mission. It’s important, faithful work being done here at Calvary – sacred work.

The Church has traditionally supported its sacred work through an annual stewardship campaign calling on people to ‘give sacrificially’ like Jesus did for us. Over time, this has come to feel more like a Roman poll tax than a joyful offering, so let’s faithfully re-frame it.

Jesus said, “Give… to God the things that are God’s.” It’s pretty simple: everything is God’s - including us. Our bodies, our relationships, our activities, our finances, our resources, our church, our prayer – all belong to God.

So don’t give sacrificially – Jesus already did that – once for all! Instead, let’s give until it feels really good! Let’s give gratefully, generously, joyfully - knowing that each of us has been chosen by God to be here in this time and this place, to activate resources entrusted to us to make the world here in Columbia and Boone Co. more like the dream of God.

Annual campaigns are important. Financial resources are necessary for a church to fulfill its divine purpose. As you consider your 2021 pledge to Calvary, hear what St. Paul says about stewardship: “…For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable… I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need...” (2 Cor 8. 9, 11, 13-14)

We are called to participate in making a tangible difference in our world. We who have enough to eat are called to share food with those who are hungry. We who are accepted according to societal preferences of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or economic standing are called to build bridges of friendship and inclusion with those who are marginalized in our time – modeling Jesus who served those judged to be unworthy in his time.

Those who have financial means are called to take up their responsibility and support the church’s mission and ministries so that Calvary can fulfill its divine purpose: being a living, activating vessel of the Jesus movement.

As St. Paul said in today's letter, “the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you…” When our church buildings were closed by the pandemic, Calvary let our community know that they matter, by immediately setting up a Blessing Box and adapting the Saturday Café to a To-Go format. The hungry were fed. The houseless were supplied with food and personal hygiene products. Our COVID Help Fund recently saved two families, furloughed from their jobs due to COVID, from eviction.

Calvary is living proof that there is no nightmare the dream of God isn’t already overcoming and the people in our area are seeing the truth of that proclaimed and lived in this parish. That’s why the theme for this year’s pledge campaign is: Serving Community with Gratitude and Generosity.

We are grateful for all God has given us and we want to continue to give generously to our community. I pray everyone will give to Calvary’s ministries during this fall campaign as generously as God has given to us, giving until it feels really good, remembering that all things, all people, all time, all activities, all of creation, all resources – all of it belongs to God. And that our work, serving our community in God’s name with gratitude and generosity, is sacred work. Amen.

19 Pentecost, 2020: A moment of holy discomfort

Lectionary: Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14 

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” That’s such an ominous ending to a pretty harsh sounding story, and I always get nervous when Jesus sounds ominous. So did the Pharisees and Scribes to whom Jesus was directing his remarks. 

The parable of the wedding banquet is only found in the gospel of Matthew, and it is in keeping with the author’s purpose to show that Jesus is the Messiah… that in Jesus, “God has begun to fulfill the promises to Israel.” It is also the last teaching Jesus does in the temple before his conflict with the Jewish leadership escalates. 

This parable was meant to sound ominous. Jesus was deliberately pointing to a present evil and calling attention to the disastrous consequences that would follow for those, specifically religious leaders, who remained complacent and self-focused rather than faithful.

From the beginning, God called the people of Israel into covenant relationship so that through them the good news of salvation might be brought to the whole world. Remember God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:3) And in Isaiah: “I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.” (Isa 49:6)

In today’s parable, Jesus is announcing that this promise is being fulfilled. In Jesus, God’s plan of salvation is about to break out of the House of Israel and reach the ends of the earth - and the Jewish leadership doesn’t want to hear it.

They, like so many today, have grabbed hold of God’s grace as if it were theirs to own and give to those whom they choose. This is at the core of classism. A few hoard the resources meant for many, then justify and legitimate doing so. When we look at the disparity of resource distribution in our country and in the world today, it seems clear that the overwhelming graciousness of God’s generosity continues to elude us. 

Jesus’ listeners have become so accustomed to being ‘chosen,’ that they have become complacent, even hypocritical, about it ignoring the rest of what being in covenant relationship required of them. They were called to be “a light to the nations,” to be imitators of God in the world, to reveal God’s grace to the world by the example of their lives. (NISB commentary notes)

But the lives of the religious establishment Jesus is confronting were far from that description, and Jesus slams them for their lack of compassion, their lack of justice, and the arrogance of their self-satisfaction. It is a harsh confrontation, but as harsh as it is, Jesus is actually doing what God always does… making room for repentance… giving the Pharisees and Scribes the chance to make a new choice.

He does this using words that have deep meaning to his listeners. For example, they recognize that the ‘banquet’ symbolizes the kingdom of God, that the slaves represent the prophets of Israel, and that those receiving the invitation represent the chosen people of Israel. They know that the invitation is the call of Israel into a covenant relationship with God, but as the parable says, …they would not come.

So more prophets are sent, Jesus says, this time with the message: the king is still waiting, “everything is ready…come to the banquet” but they still refuse. When they finally did respond, they were insolent and violent, mistreating even killing the prophets.

Enraged by their insolence, the king (God) sends armies to destroy them and burn their city. Some commentators have suggested that this reaction by God seems a bit overdone. That was on purpose. Rabbis often used exaggeration to make a point; and Rabbi Jesus’ point was: they are living in a way that is unacceptable to God.

So finally, God sends out a third group of prophets. These are meant to be understood as the followers of Jesus who will soon go out telling everyone they meet about the new age being inaugurated in Jesus, the Messiah of God.

This third group is told to go out into the streets. The original Greek of this word translates as ‘thoroughfare’…which is a road that is open at both ends. Go out beyond the boundaries, Jesus says in the parable, and gather all you can find …the good (the Jews) and the bad (the Gentiles)… and invite them into the kingdom of God.

But then the parable takes a darker turn. The king comes upon one of the new guests, who, though he did respond to the invitation, is not wearing a wedding robe… The king commands that the guest be tied up and thrown out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Why was this poor soul cast out and punished? Well, he made two mistakes which Jesus’ listeners would have noticed.

First, he failed to honor the king by doing what was expected of him as an invited guest. In those days, guests at weddings were expected to wear wedding robes. Vesting, that is, putting on new clothing, represents putting on a new identity. Think about our Baptism and Ordination rites.

The wedding robe is the symbol of a new identity, a converted life. Refusing to wear the robe means being unwilling to be converted. That was the guest’s second mistake.

This part of the parable is a warning to the new guests at the banquet, the New Covenant guests - us. We are the Gentiles Jesus foretold would be invited to the banquet. As such, we are now included among those called to be a light to the nations and bearers of the good news in the world.

As chosen people, we are called to honor God… remembering that our salvation is God’s gift, freely given. We can’t earn it, and we don’t own it.

We have been invited by God to vest in the robes of our new identity and our lives must reflect that identity. The living out of our Baptismal vows must actually happen in our works, not just in our thoughts and prayers.

To be clear, putting on our ‘wedding robes’ and intentionally converting our lives doesn’t mean we weren’t good people serving God well before. It means, as St. Paul said last week, that we haven’t finished the race so we press on…

Vesting in a new identity given to us by God can be unsettling. See if this sounds familiar: “But we’ve always done it this way.” Well, right now, “this way” isn’t working. The video evidence of the suffering of members of our family in God cannot be denied anymore. Their cries cannot be ignored. This is a moment of holy discomfort meant to call us to conversion of our lives. 

By issuing a continual invitation to live a converted life, Jesus gives us the chance to convert in ourselves whatever still needs converting or needs converting again until the overwhelming graciousness of God’s generosity no longer eludes us or anyone else, but is an apparent reality for all to see. Only then will we live as one in justice and in peace.

I close today with an adaptation of the Collect for the Oppressed, which we shared in our diocesan clergy meeting this past week. Let us pray:

Notice the suffering, generous God, of the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us and help us to notice too. Then lead us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 826)

17 Pentecost, 2020-A: At the heart of our faith

 Lectionary: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32 

Our gospel story today starts with the religious authorities asking Jesus a question: “By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?” We who read this today have to wonder what were the “things” Jesus was doing? 

It helps to look at what led up to this moment. This chapter of Matthew’s gospel begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey with people shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” This was a public reception of the Messiah by the people, and a grand show of the divine authority Jesus possessed. 

Then Jesus goes to the temple where he turns over the tables of the money changers in an angry application of this authority while quoting the voice of God in Scripture: “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” 

It’s important to remember, as one commentator said, that it is the authority of the religious leaders that “Jesus defied when he overturned the tables of the moneychangers because moneychangers would require the approval of religious authorities to pursue their business in the temple.” Jesus’ usurped the authority of the religious leaders calling out their corruption: lining their own pockets by exploiting the poor who came to pray. 

People began to flock to Jesus, and he healed them, even the blind and the lame. This display of divine authority was quickly winning over the crowds and the religious leadership realized they couldn’t control it, which leads us to their question in today’s story. 

Jesus is in the temple teaching, as a rabbi would be. The religious authorities, who represent the holders of divine authority, confront Jesus, publicly asking him by what authority he had been doing all of these things.

Jesus answers like a quintessential rabbi: if you can answer my question, I’ll answer yours; and he asks them: by whose authority did John baptize people - was it divine or human?

They can’t answer ‘divine’ since they didn’t believe John or receive his baptism. Neither can they answer ‘human’ since most of the people believed that John was a prophet sent by God and if the religious authorities openly denied that, the people might revolt against them.

The only safe response they could make was, “We don’t know” but their answer only further undermined their authority. True to his word, Jesus replied to them with a victorious dismissal, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

While he had center stage and wore the crown of authority, Jesus publicly challenged the religious authorities to interpret his rabbinic teaching. “What do you think?” he asked, and he told the parable of the two sons: A father tells his sons to go work in the vineyard. The first son says, no” but ends up changing his mind later and going. The second son says, OK, but doesn’t go. Which son did the will of the father?

Caught in another spectacularly laid trap, the religious authorities had no choice but to answer, ‘the first son,’ after which Jesus springs the trap. Speaking directly to the religious authorities who refused to repent when John called them to it, Jesus says, know this: even the wretched tax collectors and prostitutes, who are like the first son, will enter the kingdom of heaven before you who, like the second son, refuse to repent.

That’s a pretty scathing rebuke of their authority, their morality, and maybe worst yet, their place in the hierarchy. Being used to being first, Jesus proclaims they will be last, behind even the worst of the worst sinners in their culture.

“So the last will be first and the first will be last.” (Mt 20:16) In case we missed that point in last week’s gospel, it’s repeated for us here.

Why is this such an important point? Because it is at the very heart of our faith and beautifully stated in our Collect today: “O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly by showing mercy and pity.” Think about it; God’s almighty power is declared primarily in God’s compassion for those who suffer and God’s willingness to act to relieve that suffering.

We who work in God’s vineyard today, are to declare this same truth and do this same work. I promise, we don’t have to look far to find people who are suffering and in need of compassion. With over 200,000 people dead from COVID, there are that many families grieving right now. Our isolation from in-person contact with friends and family is wearing us out.

Add to that the pain and frustration of African Americans who are denied justice from an unjust system that allows armed white supremacists to storm a government office undisturbed while using lethal force against a black child playing the park, or a black woman asleep in her bed, or an unarmed black man with and obvious mental disability.

We also don’t have to look far to find people who need to repent. In fact, we only have to look as far as the mirror. We all need to repent. We need to change direction collectively and walk in the way of righteousness, as John the Baptist did.

John was in right relationship with God and the people God sent him to serve. His oppositional relationship with the unjust, unmerciful rulers who killed him was right too - because he called out the truth about them, saying what everyone knew but was afraid to declare: that they were corrupt and needed to repent.

Like John, we need to be truth-tellers about our corrupt, unmerciful earthly powers - both historically and presently. We need to have compassion for those who suffer and be willing to act to relieve that suffering.

We can do that by amplifying the voice of the oppressed among us, people who have been systematically executed, impoverished, and tortured by our earthly authorities: African Americans executed today as horribly as they have been for generations; indigenous peoples who suffered near-complete genocide and who continue to suffer in the “third world conditions” of the reservations we exiled them to; Mexican children taken from their parents and put in cages at our borders, and now allegations of forced sterilizations of Mexican women in a detention center in GA. 

None of this is new in human history, but our response today can be. We can choose to repent.

We can choose to re-aligned ourselves in right relationship with God, whose almighty power is chiefly declared in showing mercy and pity. We can choose to get into right relationship with one another, respecting the dignity of every human being as our Baptism calls us to do.

We can choose to repent and bear the divine authority of God into our world today by letting down our guards and opening ourselves to feel and acknowledge the suffering of God’s people among us instead of denying it or dismissing it, or blaming them for it in order to maintain our comfort and advantage. 

We can choose to repent and bear the divine authority of God into our world by being truth-tellers, calling out corrupt powers and systems in our world, even when that might lead to our own discomfort. If we are to be of the same mind that was in Christ we must, as St. Paul says, look not to our own interests but to the interests of others. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, [Paul says] but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” Putting others ahead of ourselves is at the heart of our faith, for the last will be first and the first will be last.

I close with a prayer from our hymnal that sang in me as this sermon wrote through me. It’s hymn  #594: “God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your power. From the fears that long have bound us free our hearts to faith and praise. Cure your children's warring madness; bend our pride to your control; Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the living of these days, serving you whom we adore.” Amen. (1982 Hymnal, #594, CCLI # 11330380)

16 Pentecost, 2020-A: Walking the talk

 Lectionary: Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105: 1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

En el nombre de Dios que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen. 

 

There is a theme in our readings today - and it’s perfect for us after nearly 6 months of COVID-restricted living. Can you guess what it is? 

Grumbling! Right? 

The whole congregation, in the story from Exodus, is grumbling that they’re tired of living in the wilderness. They’re tired of having no meat or bread to eat. They’re tired of not being at their final destination. The promised land of milk and honey seems impossibly distant and the hard work of getting there isn’t worth it anymore. They’d rather die than live like this.

Then in our gospel story, the laborers who worked in the vineyard all day grumbled because they were paid the same as those who worked only the last hour.

Even Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, admits that he’s hard pressed between his preference to die and be done with his labors on earth and his call to live and press on for their sakes.

Walking the Christian talk is hard work. The unfairness in the parable makes a lot of sense to us, that’s because we’re looking at it from an earthly perspective. Jesus is teaching us, however, that what seems true and fair on earth isn’t necessarily what’s true and fair in heaven.

From an earthly perspective, fair payment for work is a justice issue we Christians would be called upon to seek for everyone here on earth. But this story isn’t about unfair labor practices. Nowhere in the parable are the laborers exploited.

The unfairness that grabs us and makes us grumble is the generosity of the landowner who treats the last who are hired equally to those hired first, paying them the same amount - not just the same rate. We can identify with the complaints of the first-hired who worked long hours in the scorching heat, partly because we cling to the values of the Protestant work ethic handed down to us by our ancestors: hard work, frugality, and a lingering sense of predestination, that is, that God creates some people of value and they will be blessed with wealth and riches on earth and in eternity, while others whom God created are of no value and they will be cursed here on earth and in eternity.

These values helped form our current society and economic structure where a few at the top of the hierarchy justify their wealth by their chosen-ness and dismiss, even scorn those at the bottom of the hierarchy, whose pitiable state of existence is their lot - determined by God.

The parable Jesus tells turns all of that upside down and convicts us to examine how we as Christians, are working to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth, the kingdom described in this parable, where everyone is chosen, everyone is valued, and everyone has a generous share of the bounty that belongs to God.

The parable presents a question for us to ponder: why is generosity unfair?

If we shift into the interpretation of this parable, the laborers are those whom the landowner, God, has chosen to work in the vineyard, which represents the world. The day represents the time we have on earth doing this work, and the payment for our labor is our eternal reward.

The work the laborers are doing is bringing the good news of salvation to the world. They are doing their part toward the reconciliation of the whole world to God, which, the last time I checked our Catechism (BCP, 855) is our ministry too.

We are the laborers in the vineyard today. We were chosen by God to do this work. and are sent into the world to do it. If we recoil at the apparent unfairness in the parable, then we must ask ourselves: do we resent doing the work we were chosen by God to do, and do we expect more reward than those whom God calls later in the day to work beside us?

Part of the Christian talk we must walk is taking up our cross and following Jesus. There is no ambiguity in that. We know the work is hard at times, that it will feel like we’re laboring in scorching heat.

We chose to answer God’s call to work in the vineyard. We choose it continually.

Let’s look more deeply at what the reward for our labor is. Many might say its heaven, by which they mean going to heaven at the end of our life and labors here on earth. But in the previous chapter of Matthew, Jesus says that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” (19:29) 

Somehow, we conflated reward with eternal life. They are different things. Our reward, which comes from receiving the abundance of God’s generosity and grace in our lives, happens now in our earthly lives and takes many forms: freedom from anger or oppression, abundant and diverse family, joy, meaning and purpose for our lives.

Eternal life is life in the eternal presence of God, and it is by definition without beginning or end, so it can’t begin at our death. It is our present, not our future state.

When we own that eternal life is our current reality, it changes how we view the present moment. It changes how we view every moment in our earthly lives.

This parable describes the extravagant, counter-cultural generosity of God, and the question it offers us to ponder is: why is generosity unfair?

Let’s pause for an earthly perspective on day laborers. First of all, they aren’t paid well. When a person is desperate for work, the employer can pretty much pay whatever they want. It’s generally an off-the-books cash transaction.

When they do find work, these day laborers will likely get paid just barely enough to eat, sleep, and return the next day to work again. They rarely, if ever, get ahead. They are also vulnerable to the employer who chooses them and many suffer indignities and injustices at the hands of these employers.

So, the parable Jesus tells is a story of amazing hope. The workers chosen last would be the ones no one wanted, no one valued. Their desperation would be so great that they might have reached the point of hopelessness.

Then the employer shows truly surprising generosity - paying them first and for a full days’ work. These last-chosen ones suddenly realize that they are wanted, valued, and have a share in the abundance of their Lord.

The first-chosen, who are us, should be celebrating this moment of reconciliation, joyfully watching as each last-chosen one is welcomed in and made whole by the generosity and abundance of God’s love. We should rejoice that God, who sought and found us, continually seeks and finds more laborers to join us in our reconciling work.

This parable offers us, who are mostly first-chosen in the world, the opportunity to check the structures we have built or accepted from our ancestors, structures that separate us, elevating some while subjugating others. As followers of Christ, we must all be as invested in the welfare of the least among us as we are in our own for that is what the kingdom of heaven is like.

Let us pray: Generous God, grant us the grace to dismantle the earthly structures that separate and restrict us that we may be free to receive the abundance you have ready to give to us, remembering that you created us all, you love us all, and you choose us all to be your beloved ones. Unite us into one body by your Holy Spirit, that we may rejoice to serve you, working to make life on earth more like life in the kingdom of heaven. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

14 Pentecost, 2020-A: Prophets of the way of love

 

 Lectionary: Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

Note: This sermon can also be found on my website.

I once had a bishop who used to tell our diocese that we are all called to be prophets. I always agreed with that. I still do… because a prophet is an inspired teacher, a person who proclaims the will of God, who speaks in a visionary way about a new idea, belief, or cause that God is revealing to the world.

So much of what is called Christian teaching isn’t Christian at all. As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is wont to say, “If it isn’t about love, it isn’t about God.”

 

So, a prophet teaches about love, proclaims the will of God, which is the reconciliation of the whole world to God who is love, and envisions a way to go that leads to love on earth as it is in heaven.

We are all prophets, and as Walter Brueggemann teaches, ‘the prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. For those who realize the need for change in society if justice, peace, and the Will of God for the world are ever to be achieved, the new vision that must be molded requires immersion in the mind of Jesus and time, time, time.’

I came across this quote at our clergy retreat this week and it got me thinking… We’ve been living within a disjointed experience of quick and sudden change together with slowing to a standstill. It’s been very disconcerting at times for me to be so rushed and so completely stopped at the same time.

Time has been transformed. For example, for Deacon Janet and me, most of our Sunday is now on Thursday, while part of our Sunday is still on Sunday. My internal rhythms have been so disrupted by this that I hardly know what day it is anymore.

Being off-balance in this way feels vulnerable, but the truth is, for a person of faith, it’s an opportunity for transformation - of ourselves and of the world we serve in God’s name. When we know for sure that we cannot rely on ourselves, on our intellect and our strength, we are reawakened to the reality that what we can, and already do rely on- is God.

 

This place of vulnerability is our stronghold. Everything we do - from how we understand what we see happening around us to how we respond to what’s happening around us - comes from this foundational reality that we rely on God, not ourselves, to see, understand, and respond.

 

It’s also the only answer to the problems of racism, classism, sexism, individualism, all the -isms that have risen up into our communal awareness in such a big way right now. How we understand what we’re seeing and how we respond, when they come from God’s inspiration and not our own intellect or strength, can be transforming to us and to the world.

 

Like many people, I’ve dedicated much of my personal reading time lately to books that help me break open from what I was taught and go more deeply into new ways of understanding race, class, history, and religion, and I’m participating in book studies and discussions that help me hear other perspectives. When we invite God to use our time of imbalance and vulnerability to awaken us to a new reality, we can own that the church, and we the members of it, have sinned.

 

This isn’t news to us. There isn’t much disagreement that the Crusades and the Inquisition are blights on our church’s history. We all know that our beloved Episcopal Church was complicit with the institution of slavery, segregating African Americans to the balconies in the back of the church, while rich white families sat in their gated pews up front.  

 

But did you know this about our history?  “In 1882, a Mississippi [Episcopal] priest launched a virulent attack on blacks, arguing that sparse black Episcopal growth was due to their intellectual, moral and leadership inferiority. The southern bishops then proposed the Sewanee plan to segregate blacks into a racial diocese…  In response, the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People was formed.

 

This according to the UBE, the Union of Black Episcopalians which is the current iteration of this Conference. The Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People “met annually. Every third year, it met at the site of General Convention and appointed lobbyists to press for black goals… through protest and agitation, [the Conference] served as the conscience of the Church, recalling it to its catholic ideal.[As a result,] Segregation was never written into national policy or canon law [in the Episcopal Church].”

Today the Union of Black Episcopalians continues its tradition as the conscience of the church by its prophetic teaching, proclamation, and visioning the way of love. I encourage you to check out their website.

In every generation, we as a church and as individual members of it, fail to love one another as Jesus loved us. That’s why we have to be able to talk to one another about our sin. It isn’t about passing judgment, that isn’t ours to do. It’s about opening the doorway to freedom and walking together on the path of love toward wholeness.

 

Jesus knew this and showed us how to go here, and it’s really important in our world today to hear this good news. Jesus said, “If a member of the church sins…”

 

I need to point out here that the words “against you” were added later and weren’t in the earliest manuscripts. The sin Jesus was talking about wasn’t an individual offense, but a corporate one. It was about things like complicity in racism, trans and homophobic segregation, or covering up child abuse.

 

If a member of the church sins, go and speak to them alone first. Respect their dignity. Humiliation and confrontation are not part of the way of love. If they refuse to listen, take one or two others with you and try again. If they still won’t listen, tell it to the church.

 

Coming from the deep south, it is a common practice among some Christians who take this passage literally, to force a sinful member to confess their sin in front of the whole congregation. That is not only coercive and unloving, but it accomplishes little besides shaming. More importantly, it misses the point of this teaching.

 

Telling it to the church is what the UBE does so well, as we heard earlier: “through protest and agitation” they continue to serve as an inner guide, leading to Church back to the way of love, to its all-embracing ideal.

 

Telling it to the church is why we have required training programs like Safeguarding God’s People and Safeguarding God’s Children - because child abuse in the church was (and sadly still is) real. People didn’t want to believe that such things would happen in church, but they do happen, and the church was called upon to wake up from its collective sleep, be transformed in how we understand what’s happening around us, and respond from that transformed understanding.

 

The next part of Jesus’ teaching is critical. If, after telling the church, the offender still refuses to listen, Jesus says, “let that one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” I hear so many people interpret this as a direction to cast out the offender from the community - but that too misses the point.

 

All we have to do is look at how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors. He healed and forgave them, reconciling them back into love, even welcoming one of them - the writer of this gospel - to be his disciple.

 

There is a place for the separation of an offender from the one they have harmed. It’s in our Disciplinary rubrics (BCP, 409), but that’s a discussion for another time.

 

The point is, we have one direction to go - the way of love. Right now, the revelation of how far we as a church and a culture have strayed from that path of love is bright with the clarity of Christ’s light. Now is the moment for us to wake up from our collective sleep on the issues of racism, sexism, individualism, and the other -isms that plague our church and society.

 

Our response, our responsibility as Christians, is to refocus on God’s vision for us and for the world. That will mean shaking ourselves loose from our habitual and comfortable, yet sinful ways of understanding, and binding ourselves to God’s inspiration, that is, God’s breathing into us the divine way of love as it is being revealed to us in this moment.

 

It will mean listening to the prophetic voices among us, like the UBE, and joining with them as prophets who teach about love, proclaim the will of God, which is the reconciliation of the whole world to God who is love, and envision a way to go together that leads to love on earth as it is in heaven.

 

Let us pray... “Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts” and guide us on your way of love. Amen.

Pentecost 12-A: Be like Peter, Son of Jonah

Lectionary: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

Note: This sermon can also be viewed on my website

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En el nombre del Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.

As many of you know, I co-founded a nonprofit dedicated to enabling churches to be agile and resilient in changing times. When we formed this nonprofit three years ago, my partner and I were addressing the steady decline churches were experiencing.

Even then there was hand-wringing and perturbation about the long-term consequences of downward trending church statistics and the rise of the generation of the “nones.” The future of the church as we have known it has been uncertain for decades.

Then the pandemic hit and now so much more has become uncertain. How do we educate and socialize our children if schools are closed and sports leagues are canceled?  How do poorer children without iPads and internet access connect with online learning? How do parents get to work if their children are at home? How long can businesses survive continued quarantine? As the economic impact continues, how will our society cope with rapidly rising numbers of unemployed, evicted, and hungry people and families?

In the midst of all of this, what is becoming clearer is that the church as we knew it is gone. It isn’t likely we’ll ever return to the way things were in February, but that isn’t a bad thing, just a true thing. I see this moment in our history as church as an opportunity for us to be like Peter, Son of Jonah.

 

You know, in all of these years studying this Scripture, I never noticed how significant it was that Jesus called Peter the Son of Jonah. I was preoccupied with Jesus changing Simon’s name to Peter and giving him the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

 

I rejoiced in Jesus’ promise that not even the gates of Hades could prevail against the church he was birthing in that moment - a hope, by the way, I repeat often as a facilitator of church vitality - and as a church leader in the midst of a pandemic.

 

I’ve was so attentive to Jesus praising, blessing, and empowering Peter for his future ministry, that I missed that each of them had renamed the other.  Peter calls Jesus “The Son of the Living God,” which represents a hugely transformed understanding of his rabbi-friend.

 

Jesus calls Peter the “Son of Jonah.”  But Peter’s father was named John, not Jonah.

 

How did I never notice that before? Jesus called Peter the Son of Jonah - you know Jonah - the prophet who refused to bring God’s salvation to the people of Nineveh because he didn’t want God to save them! Jonah,  who sat down in defiance, refusing to respond to God’s call to him to serve by loving the unlovable. Jonah, who eventually acquiesced and did what God asked of him partnering with God for the salvation of a whole community of people.

 

To be named in Jewish culture is to be claimed, to have a declared relationship. By this encounter, Jesus and Peter have entered into a mutually declared, claimed relationship.  Here’s why that’s significant.

 

After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Peter used the authority Jesus gave him to keep the door to heaven closed to the Gentiles. It wasn’t until God spoke to Peter in a dream that Peter acquiesced, let go his old way of thinking, and declared that God showed no partiality, and neither would he or the church Jesus entrusted to his leadership.

 

We are Peter today. In what ways is God speaking to us and leading us to change our old ways of thinking so that we can open wider the gates of heaven in our ministries on earth?

 

Something else I noticed from this encounter with Jesus and Peter is that Jesus says, ‘you are Peter (Petros - which means rock) and upon this rock (petra which means foundation) I will build my church. For years, I heard that as the church taught me to hear it: as Jesus giving Peter ecclesial authority, hence the church tradition of popes and bishops.

 

What if this statement wasn’t referring to what Jesus had just said, but to what he was about to say? What if the foundation Jesus was referring to was his giving the keys of the kingdom of heaven to his representatives on earth?

 

That is the foundation upon which we stand today, is it not? In our sacrament of Baptism, we affirm that we continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers. (BCP, 304) This is the foundation of the church: Jesus, who reconciled the whole world to God by the forgiveness of sin.  He is the key that opens the gate of the kingdom of heaven - and he has given himself to us.

 

Jesus was not giving ecclesial, institutional power which Peter and the church could wield, he was giving the church the ability and the commission to show forth God’s power among all peoples, as our Collect says.

 

And what is God’s power? Love. The abundant, forgiving, reconciling love of Jesus, the Christ.

 

Our responsibility as followers of Jesus is to serve the way Jesus served: forgiving as radically as Jesus did from his cross, and reconciling all to God - even the bandits to our left or our right.

 

Having the keys to heaven, however, comes with this warning from Jesus: what the church holds bound on earth would be held bound in heaven,  and what the church looses on earth would be loosed in heaven.

 

The church will be accountable for what it teaches is right and wrong, for what is forgiven and what isn’t - so we must choose wisely and compassionately, in the manner and power of Jesus.

 

What is so amazing and comforting to me is that despite all of Peter’s demonstrated thick-headed, dim-wittedness, Jesus chose and trusted Peter. In the same way, Jesus has chosen us and trusts us to serve.

 

The church is undergoing a huge transformative moment, ushered in by the pandemic and the revelations we have witnessed on a global level, about the destructive nature of the -isms that bind us. We’ve discussed racism, sexism, and classism recently.

 

Today it is individualism that our Scripture lifts up for our contemplation - individualism that infects our churches and our society like a plague.

 

Paul addresses this -ism so beautifully and effectively in his metaphor of the church as a body, connected and unified by the Spirit of God into one magnificent, mystical whole.

 

Paul says, “we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” We are members of one another - not the church, not Christianity or our branch of it, the Episcopal Church. We are members of one another.

 

The sin of individualism is the temptation to believe that “I” matter most, that looking out for number one is morally or spiritually acceptable. It is not.

 

I have never worried about the survival of the church. Jesus promised that no matter how wide the gates of death open, the church will stand firm bringing life, eternal life in Jesus Christ, to all.

 

So rather than worry, we who follow Jesus can focus our vision and energy on the opportunities that are emerging for us in this moment. In what ways is God calling and strengthening us right now? What gifts are we discerning in ourselves and in our faith community?

 

Gifts are given for the purpose of serving God’s people in God’s name. The gifts we have change and adapt as the needs of God’s people change. The church, our church, is the repository of these gifts. The church is where our gifts are discovered, nurtured, and sent out to serve.

 

The uncertainties we face now are nothing to fear. Rather they are our signal, an alert message that God is calling to us and has a plan for us to implement. This plan, however, may be very different from the one we thought we were supposed to be doing. Like Peter, Son of Jonah, we may have to radically change how we think and act, but also like Peter, we have been chosen by God who trusts us to do just that.

 

Let us pray: God of love, we thank you for your trust in us, for the gifts you give us, and the call to serve. Help us discern how you are strengthening us right now that we may glorify you by using the keys you have given us to open wide the gates of heaven on earth, ministering to your people as Jesus did - with compassion, forgiveness, and reconciling love. It is in your holy name we pray. Amen.