25th Sunday after Pentecost

Today, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, a feast first instituted by the Catholic Church in 1925 to witness against the increasing secularism of that age, and in defiance of the rising fascism of Italy’s Mussolini.

On this last Sunday of our church year, we hear the final parable that Jesus tells his disciples as we reach the conclusion of his teaching in Matthew’s gospel. It’s a parable that leads easily to judgment and division, as the shepherd king separates the sheep from the goats, as the righteous will be separated from the unrighteous. Matthew’s repeated theme of judgment throughout this gospel emphasizes the importance of obedience in discipleship. However, in our human condition, we are quick to seize the opportunity to accuse others, to point fingers and ask, “Where were you?” and, “What did you do?”

But in Scripture, God is always the actor, God is always the one whose work is at hand. So, reading this this morning’s texts, instead, we’re going to ask, “What do these texts say about God?”

Matthew’s comparison of the king’s actions to those of a shepherd may hold little meaning for us in modernity, but in Scripture, shepherding language recognizes the sustenance that sheep provided communities in ancient Israel and the importance of the leadership provided by the shepherds “who cared for the flock, making sure it had food and protecting it from harm.”[i]

A shepherd king sharply contrasted with ancient Near East kings who were more likely to be brutal warriors, motivated by power and unmoved by compassion. Nonetheless, the people of Israel had longed for a king after they reached Canaan. Then, for centuries, they suffered through kingships that were, with rare exceptions, characterized by corruption and ambition. Even the greatest kings, like David and Solomon, were defeated by selfishness, lust and greed. 

Now, Ezekiel, a prophet born in Jerusalem and living in exile in Babylon, was addressing people who no longer found comfort or security in kings and monarchies.

Against Israel’s painful history, the prophet sets God’s words of promise to shepherd and lead God’s people. Instead of judgment or accusation, these are words of comfort, meant to encourage and assure God’s people, and to renew the care of the people by their leaders.

Promising to search and seek out the sheep of his fold, God reminds us that God watches for each one of us and knows us by name. God sees each one of us as we are, and knows when we are weighed down by grief and pain, trapped by fear or weakened by disease.

God is a caregiver who binds up our wounds, wipes away our tears, provides balm for our pain and soothes our hurt.

God is a protector who rescues us, delivering us from danger, providing safety and security, and sheltering us from harm.

And God gathers us together. Sure, there is strength in numbers, but, more importantly, God created us for relationship and flock life is communal. Our life together is enriched by our shared gifts and presence.

And finally, God feeds us. God tends to our basic needs, but God also feeds us spiritually, by the Word of God that is the bread of life, and, in Holy Communion, we are fed and nourished as well, strengthened to face the world.

Some twenty-five hundred years after Ezekiel prophesied, these promises and provisions that God offered to the people of Israel remain pertinent to us.

On this day, especially, we recognize all the ways that Christ prevails as our King, and our Lord and Savior. Like the communities of ancient Israel, we are dependent on the sustenance and leadership that God provides. Against the divisive rhetoric of the world, we remember that Christ has a unique authority over us that contrasts with other secular or civic authorities. And against the temptation to separate and accuse each other, we are drawn together as one people, led by our God and King.

Let us pray…

Holy God and King,

We thank you for your mercy and your promises to us.

Remind us of your provision and help us trust in your care.

Gather your people and unite us under your sovereign reign,

that the Church would be a living witness to your love,

instead of a place where conflict and hurt fester.

We pray all this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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[i] Gail Ramshaw. Treasures Old and New: Images in the Lectionary (p. 366). Kindle Edition.

24th Sunday after Pentecost

Hearing the parable in this morning’s gospel, it’s helpful to know a little more about life in the first century. First, a talent wasn’t a special ability or skill, and calling it a “valuable coin” is a dramatic understatement; a talent was equivalent to more than fifteen years of wages for an average worker.  Imagine one coin worth several hundred thousand, or even a half million dollars today. It was a fortune! And, second, as much as the idea of burying one’s treasure in the ground may make us laugh today, at that time, it was considered a safe and prudent action to guard against robbers and thieves. So, the third servant who had been entrusted with this small fortune was not called wicked or lazy because he wasn’t a smart investor.

But then, “Why was he banished to outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth?”

In his telling of this parable, Matthew’s dialog draws our attention to this third servant, and we hear how he made different assumptions about the master, acted differently and was judged differently than the others.

First, he believed the master was both harsh and selfish; and then, because of what he believed about the character of the master, the servant made different choices about completing the work that had been entrusted to him. Motivated by fear of the master, his response was restrained, reserved and safe; he did only what would secure a good result, and, he hoped, protect him from the wrath of the master.

The others, whose obedience was shaped by a different understanding of the master, took greater risks and were welcomed “into the joy of the master.” (v. 21, 23) Identity and obedience are two dimensions of discipleship that begin with understanding who the master – for us as Christians, God – is, and the parable shows us how wrong things can go when we don’t know God’s true character.

What thrusts us into outer darkness is not knowing God. Knowing God means being in relationship with God, remembering God’s promises for us and receiving the grace that God gives us freely and abundantly.

God offers freedom in discipleship, in following Jesus, but, too often, fear shackles us and shapes our obedience.

Fear infects the world around us. A glance at headlines reveal a bloodless coup in Zimbabwe, tensions with North Korea and Russia and a blatant disregard for the personhood of women and girls. And those are just the headlines. Fear is an everyday reality for hurricane-stricken communities living without access to power or clean water; parents who have lost children and children whose parents are facing deportation. Naturally, we react and grasp at certainty and safety.

Catholic priest Henri Nouwen describes three lies around which we naturally center ourselves:

·     I am what I do.

·     I am what I have.

·     I am what others think of me or say that I am.

Fear feeds these lies, keeping us captive to them and prompting us to rely on ourselves – our efforts and abilities, our material security or financial acuity, or our reputations and accolades – instead of trusting in who God is,

what God has provided for us and entrusted to us,

and who God says we are.

Fear is what keeps us from knowing God and leaves us in darkness. But into this outer darkness where the world would have us believe hope cannot exist; into this void where atheists and skeptics would proclaim God is dead, faith speaks.

The Scriptures for this day remind us that God is steadfast and “our refuge from one generation to another” and God “destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation.” (Psalm 90: 1; 1 Thess. 5:9) This is the character of the master that we know, God who loves us and forgives us.

Our salvation is not in what we do, but in what God has already done for us, in the person of Jesus. And now, God entrusts us, not with a valuable coin, but with the Kingdom, calling us to bear witness to God’s love and mercy, and not with a spirit of slavery that falls into fear, but one of adoption, remembering we have been made God’s sons and daughters.

We find our freedom in the faith we’ve been given. One of our early Church Fathers St. Augustine (Au-gus′-tin) is remembered for writing, “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” Our freedom as Christians calls us to act. Not to play it safe. To risk. To call a thing what it is.

The list of people who have been “othered” in history is long and too often the church has stayed quiet.

When we hear talk that demeans another human being and says they are “less than” because of their identity, our faith empowers us to speak out.

When we see power abused and victims shamed, our faith empowers us to speak out.

When we see children and teenagers endangered, our faith empowers us to speak out.

When we see privilege go unchallenged and those who do not have it are silenced or ignored, our faith empowers us to speak out.

Jesus, crucified and risen, knows the risks God calls us to take as disciples, and when the risky hard work is completed, God invites us into the joy of the master that is found in increasing the Kingdom of God here on earth, and in sharing the treasure of good news that God loves us and forgives us.

Let us pray…

Holy God,

Thank you for loving us and forgiving us and for entrusting the work of Your Kingdom to us.

Help us remember your grace and mercy to us, and reject lies and fear.

Empower us to act on our faith, following Jesus and talking risks for the sake of the world.

Amen.

23rd Sunday after Pentecost

The parable in today’s gospel is hard to hear. It doesn’t sound like the Jesus who preached the sermon on the mount or had the disciples share what they had so that all would be fed.

Instead, here the word of judgment resonates loudly. Five bridesmaids are called foolish. And with that declaration, our hearts clench because none of us wants to be seen as foolish, do we?

Of course not. We want to be like the wise characters in this parable. We want to know what they knew, do what they did and be approved by Jesus.

But that’s problematic, too, isn’t it? Grace by definition is unmerited – unearned and given freely by God – so what we do, or perhaps more importantly, what we have left undone doesn’t change the measure of grace that we receive.

So why does Jesus tell this story?

In the parable. Jesus says that the bridesmaids were waiting to meet the bridegroom. This wasn’t an episode of reality tv where someone waits for a surprise arrival from off-stage. “In first-century Palestinian marriage customs, …the groom would go to his bride’s family home to complete [the marriage] arrangements and bring her to his own house …where a celebration would take place.”[i]

According to the parable, and the custom, these women were waiting for the bridegroom’s arrival. You can imagine them watching out a door or window, filled with anticipation, but, as the evening lengthened, they became drowsy and slept, even as their lamps continued to burn.  And then, a shout startled and woke them!

The bridegroom had arrived. Their task was at hand. They were there to welcome the bridegroom. This was their moment, the time that they had awaited and prepared for!

But instead of welcoming the bridegroom, five of them left to find more oil so their lamps would burn as brightly as the others’.

These five are called fools. Yes, it would have been good for them to have been better prepared and to have carried an extra flask of oil, but they are not fools because they made a mistake. They are fools because they were distracted from their one job:

to welcome the bridegroom!

As followers of Jesus, our one job is to let the world see Jesus in us; to show God’s love for every created thing by our words and actions.

Like the bridesmaids who left to find more oil, it’s easy to be distracted by the particularities of our work as disciples. But, as business author Steven Covey has said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

And, the so-called “wise” bridesmaids failed at discipleship, too, didn’t they? Sure, they were there to welcome the bridegroom, but the welcome was diminished by the absence of the others who they sent out at midnight to find more oil for themselves. The celebration would have been more full if they had been less stingy or selfish with what they had; if they had not been afraid of scarcity or of not having enough, the whole community would have been together for the celebration.

The gospel reminds us that we are gathered as a community of believers and that we live as followers of Jesus in life together.

It reminds us that being disciples does not mean being perfect, but it does mean knowing we are perfectly loved by God in God’s abundant grace.

It reminds us that while we appreciate our setting of stained glass and candles or quiet meditation, worship is not about the beauty of the paraments, singing in the right key, pronouncing the words correctly, or praying with eloquence. Worship is about being gathered together in God’s presence, even as we wipe the sleep from our eyes.

And finally, the gospel reminds us that we are not called together to celebrate how well we have done our work or how carefully we have prepared, but to celebrate the God who calls us and sends us that the world may know God’s love.

So maybe this parable sounds like the Jesus we know after all. The Jesus who preaches in his Sermon on the Mount, “do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”[ii] The same Jesus who taught, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”[iii] And the same Jesus who told his disciples,

³⁷ 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'[iv]

Let us pray…

God of light and love,

Thank you for your abundant grace, given to us as an unmerited gift, and for your love that never runs out, but is always plentiful;

Thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus who shows us the foolishness of the cross in a world that walks away from it;

By the Holy Spirit give us wisdom to share your love and mercy in a world that fails to welcome you.

Amen.

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[i] Donald Senior. Matthew. 274.

[ii] Matthew 5:42

[iii] Matthew 7:1

[iv] Matthew 22:37-39

All Saints Sunday 2017

I wonder today, how would you describe a saint?

On this All Saints Sunday, we remember the lives of saints who have moved from the Church Militant, a way to describe the Christian labor of life on earth, where sin and evil persist. With great love, we celebrate that these beloved ones are now in the Church Triumphant, where they have entered an eternal presence and heavenly rest with God.

More regularly we name saints who are recognized by the church universal: Saints Peter and Paul, Matthias, Joseph and Mark; Philip and James; Barnabas, John, Mary and Matthew; Michael, Luke, Simon, Jude and Andrew; Bartholomew, Thomas and Stephen. This group includes Mary and Joseph, as well as apostles of Jesus, some of whom were martyred for their faith.

But in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the word “saint” which translates as “the holy ones” never refers to people who have died; it always refers to living people.

So while it is good and right that we should remember those who have preceded us, we do so because they are witnesses to us.

Scripture is one record of the witnesses who came before us.

Revelation was written in the late first century during a time of Roman dominance when authorities were insistent that emperors be worshiped as gods, and early Christians were facing persecution.  Its author, a disciple named John, wrote to encourage the early Church with a vision of hopefulness for the future.

We are invited to read this book with a holy imagination, forgetting what popular movies or books have portrayed and setting aside any discomfort we have with the text. Instead we are invited to experience God’s Word with all our senses, like we do on the Day of Pentecost when we see the flames of the Holy Spirit dancing above the apostles’ heads and hear a chorus of voices praying in different tongues.

Here, the text says there is a great multitude of people. Whether that evokes images of New York’s Grand Central Station, Keeter Stadium during the American Legion World Series, or the stores on Black Friday, nothing about a multitude of people evokes solemnity or quiet. A multitude of people, even holy ones, would be chaotic and noisy, in a joyful and raucous way.

But no one is shushing anyone. Instead this crowd is crying out with loud shouts of praise and the angels and elders around them are singing. We cannot know if their singing is the four-part harmony of a skilled choir or the imperfect pitch of congregation song; we can imagine that while it was reverent, it was not reserved or even rehearsed.

Like the saints welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem before his arrest and crucifixion, these saints are robed in white and carrying palms. Perhaps their vestments were heavy coarse cloth, or woven from rich silk, or maybe there were both kinds, depending on where they traveled from in the world. Like our paraments today, the color white symbolizes light and joy in the celebration of our Lord, in the Resurrection and in the mystery of the Holy Spirit.

Visible, noisy and active, this great multitude shows up to worship God with confidence and with thanksgiving for the promises God makes to God’s people. 

Saints can be described as humble, hard-working and honorable; pious, prayerful and persevering; compassionate, caring and centered on God, but we must acknowledge that we are describing living and breathing human beings who, as often, are imperfect.

The Good News is that we are not saints because of how we have lived, but because God - who cares about our well-being and our very lives - has made us holy, sanctified us. And not just us, who can be counted here in these pews on a Sunday morning, but people from all nations and peoples and languages.

The text gives us a hope-filled image for the world God promises. As one writer said, it is “a candle’s flame shouting against what is otherwise the overwhelming darkness of midnight.”

Despite our limitations and our faults, we are made the keepers of this great light, given the freedom to respond to the world where we live and “to take responsibility for the world and actively resist evil and injustice.” Our worship prepares us to live boldly and continue to bear witness to God’s transforming grace, that works through us.

Let us pray…

Sheltering God,

We give you thanks that you deliver us from the great ordeal of sin and separation from You;

Renew us in springs of the water of life.

Free us from fear and make us faithful witnesses to your transforming grace.

Amen.