Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 26A

Who remembers Holy Week?

It’s not a trick question. Believe it or not, Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week, was April 5, just a little less than six months ago.

A little over six months ago on March 13 our congregation, and many around us, moved worship online and closed our buildings, in a faithful effort to manage the impact of the novel coronavirus on our community. None of us imagined then that we would still be managing life in a pandemic six months later, but here we are.

And while autumn’s arrival helps us mark time and distances us even farther from springtime, this year especially, it feels like Holy Week happened a very, very long time ago.

But today’s gospel is a Holy Week text. On Palm Sunday our attention turns to the triumphant procession that carries Jesus into Jerusalem, but this gospel text takes place on what we call Holy Monday, the day following Jesus’ arrival in the royal city.

As we listen to this gospel text, it’s helpful to place it in the context of the days preceding Jesus’ arrest and execution.

It isn’t surprising to hear some of the religious leaders question Jesus’ authority. These same leaders had questioned his disciples about why he ate with tax collectors and sinners (9:11) and why they didn’t fast (9:14) and why he healed on the Sabbath. They were convinced his authority came from the devil. (9:34) Matthew tells us they were angry after hearing about the Hosannas that were shouted the day before. (21:15)

So now, fueled by their resentment and fear, they confront Jesus, hoping to expose him as a charlatan, a fraud.

And instead, he reveals their own hypocrisy.

Jesus tells the leaders he will answer their question if they will answer his. Similar to Socratic questioning where the teacher probes the students’ knowledge with questions, Jesus poses his own question to search for the truth behind the question they have asked.

But instead of answering truthfully, the leaders hem and haw, arguing about which answer was best. They could answer that the baptism of John came from heaven and, consequently, admit they denied the evidence of God’s power at work in front of them. Or they could deny God’s power was at work in John and incur the wrath of the people who saw him as a prophet.

When they realized that neither answer would get the result they wanted, they chose not to answer at all, telling Jesus, “We don’t know.”

He wasn’t fooled.

They didn’t like the evidence before them, but they knew the answer.  They didn’t like what telling the truth would cost them, so they lived the lie.

When the leaders wouldn’t answer him, Jesus tells them the parable of the two sons, clearly comparing these leaders to the second son, the one who feigned obedience and told his father he would go to the vineyard and work, but never went.  Like the leaders, that son had all the right words and he was courteous and respectful, but his actions were empty.

In contrast, the first son answered truthfully, “No, I won’t go.” Jesus doesn’t tell us how the father reacted, but he does tell us that late, this son changed his mind. The Greek here is “he repented.” And after he repented, he followed his father’s instructions and did his father’s work.

Jesus compares the tax collectors and prostitutes to this son. These same sinners who had drawn the leaders’ criticism earlier in Jesus’ ministry aren’t the people who spend all day in the temple court (or the church). They don’t know the prayers, they don’t follow the rules, and they don’t show the religious leaders the reverence they expect. But they see the truth in John’s proclamation, and they believe and follow Jesus.

And Jesus says they will go into the kingdom of God before the so-called religious leaders who have failed to recognize God’s power at work first through John and then in Jesus.

Jesus’ question, “Which of [these] did the will of his father?” invites us to reflect on how we respond to God.

When have we said, “yes” but not lived out that “yes”?

When have we said we are “Christian” but forgotten to follow Christ?

When have we been unwilling to give the unpopular answer because it will be uncomfortable or inconvenient?

When have we refused to let God change us?

When have we rejected the ways God is at work because accepting God’s transformative love for all is disruptive?

I expect most of us recognize times when we have followed more closely in the footsteps of the chief priests and elders, than we have followed Jesus. Our sinful nature turns our attention to ourselves and our self-preservation and turns us away from God.

The Good News we hear today is that we can repent,
change our minds and hearts, think differently,
and go to work in the vineyard, doing our Father’s work
in God’s kingdom here on earth.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who came into this world, revealing your power and authority.

Forgive us when we become captive to fear, resentment and self-centeredness, especially when it hurts your beloved children.

Help us see how you are changing lives in our congregation and in our community and drawing people to you, and put us to work in your kingdom here on earth.

Amen.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 25A

Matthew 20:1 - 16

We have jumped ahead a chapter in Matthew; in chapter 19, Jesus had a conversation with a young man who wanted to know what he had to do to have eternal life, and when Jesus told the young man to give up everything he had and follow him, the young man went away grieving. And then Peter said, "… we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Matt. 19:27) This parable is a response to Peter’s question.

Author Brené Brown tells the story of teaching this parable to children in vacation Bible school. She had one group of children start jumping jacks and promised if they did jumping jacks the whole time, they would be paid $500 in Monopoly money. So they began, and then a few minutes later Brown invited another group of children to begin, and then in the last minute she invited a third group. After she told them all to stop, she paid the children what she had promised. And when the children who had jumped the longest saw that everyone was paid the same amount, the kids immediately protested saying how unfair it was.[i]

I think that’s probably how most of us react to this parable.

We want our effort to matter. We want to be set apart and rewarded for our faithfulness. It’s as if everyone is competing for a share and we want to be sure to get ours. And, if we’re honest, we want people who don’t work as hard as us to get less.

But, again, Jesus teaches us differently.

In the parable, the landowner promises the laborers they will be paid “what is right.”

And we learn that
“what is right” is not a calculation or a formula;
“what is right” is not “what we think we deserve”;
and “what is right” is not what we think others deserve either.

“What is right” is not determined by us.

In God’s economy, God decides what is right.

The grace that is given to us through faith in Jesus Christ is free and unmerited, unearned.

God graces us because God loves us. And God loves us because God created us and formed us. There isn’t any other reason.

The parable lets us choose how to respond to God’s grace.

In the parable we hear from the ones who started early in the morning and felt like they were treated unfairly. They grumble that the landowner has made all the workers equal, without any regard for how much harder the earliest ones had worked.

The landowner challenges the grumbling workers, asking, in this translation, “Are you envious because I am generous?” (v. 15) The question is even more pointed than that though; the translation of the Greek is,

“Is your eye evil because I am good?”

Earlier in Matthew Chapter 6, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says,

22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matt. 6:22-23)

Remember how Luther defines sin as being turned in on oneself? Here we have the laborers turning their eyes not toward God but toward themselves and what they might gain. Their evil eyes cannot see God’s goodness.

We don’t hear from the laborers who showed up late but we can use our imaginations to consider how they may have responded.

When Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon tells this parable he sets it in modern times, and he casts the late workers as unkempt, wearing a lot of leather and playing loud music on the street. He suggests that when the last ones hired see what they’ve been paid, they just keep walking, quickly, sure there’s been a mistake, and just as sure they aren’t going to be the ones to correct it.[ii]

But in my imagination I don’t think the last ones hired were lazy.

Maybe they had spent the day navigating remote learning for their children and only went to the marketplace when the school day was finished. Maybe they had been caring for an elderly family member who couldn’t be left alone. Maybe they had anxiety or another disability and could not come to the marketplace when it was crowded, so they waited until later in the day.

Imagine the latecomers’ surprise and joy when they discover that they get the same grace, the same unconditional and boundless love from God as everyone who got there before them!

In this parable Jesus teaches me that God’s grace for me is not diminished because God loves you or anyone else, too.

It may take a while, but eventually even Peter understands.

In the Acts of the Apostles Peter witnesses the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles and when he reports the events to the church in Jerusalem, he tells them,

If then God gave the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God? (Acts 11:19)

Despite all the ways we try to make the kingdom of heaven look like our world and we want God to do what we want God to do, Jesus shows us the kingdom of heaven is where God’s grace springs from God’s goodness and nothing else.

Thanks be to God.

[i] Brené Brown. “Grace is not attractive.” https://www.theworkofthepeople.com/grace-is-not-attractive, accessed September 19, 2020

[ii] Robert Farrar Capon. Kingdom, Grace and Judgment. 391-397.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 24A

There’s a scene in the movie “Seabiscuit”where the young jockey Red plans to keep his horse just behind the favorite until he makes his sprint and then pull ahead for the win, but his plans change. Another horse and jockey foul him and suddenly Red urges his horse forward and the two lead the race as Red berates the other rider and pushes him repeatedly toward the rail, punishing him for the foul. In the home stretch, all the other horses pass them, and when the race ends, Red and the offending rider finish in last place. When the owner and trainer come to Red after the race and ask him what happened, he’s agitated and angry and he yells, “He fouled me! Was I supposed to let him get away with that?” “He fouled me!”

When we have been wronged, often our emotions run high, like Red’s. We want revenge or retaliation. We want to calculate the cost and make the offender pay.

But Jesus teaches us differently.

In today’s gospel when Peter asks, “how often should I forgive?” (Matt. 18:21), Jesus answers him, “"Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. (Matt. 18:22)

And then he tells the parable of the unforgiving servant to show what the kingdom of heaven is like.

In this parable, a king calls in his debts and one of his slaves, who cannot repay the enormous debt that he owes, falls on his knees and pleads to the king for mercy. And the king takes pity on the slave and forgives the debt. But instead of gratitude and mercy toward others, that slave then threatens another one who owes him a debt and throws that one into prison until he can repay him. When the king hears what his slave has done, he is angry; he calls the man wicked, withdraws his forgiveness and orders him to be tortured.

Immediately we should hear the echo of Jesus’ preaching the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, where he said:

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. 6:13-15)

We probably also hear Red’s voice screaming, “You want me to let him (or her) get away with that?”

Because often that is how we understand forgiveness. It feels like forgiveness means letting someone get away with something or excusing bad behavior, or even violence. It feels like we are giving something up to someone who has only taken from us. And we feel justified in announcing our judgment and withholding forgiveness.

But judgment isn’t ours to execute. God is the ultimate judge.

As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans,

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. (Rom 14:10)

Forgiveness is a hard teaching from Jesus. As Bishop Michael Rinehart from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod wrote, “Forgiveness is relinquishing my right to get even, and giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” It is not easy to grant forgiveness. And as Jesus tells Peter, it isn’t quick.

Thankfully, the parable doesn’t hide how difficult or tenuous forgiveness is. I cringed when I heard how the king later acted out of anger, and how the unforgiving servant dug an even deeper Pit for himself by refusing forgiveness to the one who needed it.

I’m sure part of my reaction is because I recognize myself in their humanity — wanting to limit who I forgive, depending on how much contrition they’ve shown, or wanting to get what’s mine, forgetting that all I am and have is God’s.

The heart of what Jesus is teaching here is that when we practice judgment and withhold forgiveness, it is as if we are forgetting the forgiveness we ourselves have received,
“the free gift of God’s promise” for you and for me.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who hid Jews in her home during the Nazi occupation of Holland during World War 2. Before the war ended, she and her sister Betsie were imprisoned at the Ravensbruck concentration camp and Betsie died in the camp in 1944.

After the war, Corrie traveled and preached about forgiveness and reconciliation. In an interview later, she spoke about an encounter she had in 1947 when she traveled to a Munich church. After she spoke at the church, she recognized one of the men there as one of the guards from Ravensbruck. She was flooded with memories of their imprisonment and her sister’s death as she watched him approach her. When he spoke, he told her that he had become a Christian and knew that God forgave him for his cruelty, and now he was asking Corrie for her forgiveness. And in the interview, Corrie revealed with great honesty that she could not answer him immediately, and that in the passing seconds, which felt like years to her, all she felt was anger. She continued,

…I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too.

Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling."

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.[i]

Forgiveness is an act of compassion. Throughout Matthew’s gospel, we hear how Jesus had compassion for the crowds he encountered and how people were transformed afterward by his actions toward them (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32). The same word is used here when it says that the king had pity on his slave –he was moved to compassion for the slave.

When we forgive, we surrender the outcome to God and say, “Thy will be done.” We believe that the past will not control the future, and that a different future is possible. [ii] We believe that God can work in circumstances and people in ways we cannot understand.

Forgiveness recognizes what God has already done for us. As Paul writes in his second letter to the church in Corinth, “When we are forgiven, in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; … everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

When the unforgiving servant refused forgiveness to the slave who owed him, he refused the new life that had been given to him. He refused the abundance of mercy that had been offered to him. His refusal to be changed and redeemed by God is what led to his own imprisonment; it was a cell of his own making, built on the foundation of unforgiveness.

Jesus shows us we have a choice. We can choose to harden our hearts toward others and remain in bondage to anger and vengeance, or we can choose to surrender ourselves, our hearts and our wills, extending the mercy that we have first been given.

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your grace that You do “not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities” but instead offer us new life in Christ.[iii]
We confess that we forget the abundant mercy and forgiveness that you have already given us when we declare judgment on others.
Help us live in the kingdom of heaven here on earth, forgiving others as you have first forgiven us.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. 
Amen.

[i] Corrie ten Boom, “I'm Still Learning to Forgive.” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/boom.html, accessed September 11, 2020.

[ii] Sermon Brainwave. Luther Seminary.

[iii] Psalm 103:10

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 23A

Matthew 18: 15-20

When I hear this gospel, I cannot help but hear it in the context of church discipline; in our model constitution in the ELCA, these verses provide the framework for the discipline of church members. On our first hearing of the text, it comes across as “three strikes and you’re out” —a lot of law, not a lot of gospel, and, frankly, not a very interesting sermon text.

The first strike isn’t even the sin. While Jesus says these are the steps to take “if” someone sins against you, we know there’s no “if”. In our human condition, we will sin.

So, Jesus says that when another person sins against you, first you should address them one on one. If he or she cannot hear you, that’s strike one.

If they cannot hear you, then you should find two or three witnesses to accompany you and try again. If he or she still cannot hear you, that’s strike two.

The next step is to bring the matter before the church for resolution. And if he or she still cannot hear you, that’s strike three.

It is only after these three failed attempts – one on one, with witnesses and as the corporate body of Christ –that you treat the person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Three strikes and you’re out.

But that doesn’t sound like the same Jesus who had just told his disciples in verse 14, “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. (Matt. 18:14)

So this morning, I want to invite you to ask a couple of questions about the text, and then hear the text as if you have never heard it before.

The first question I want you to ask is , “Why is Jesus talking about this now?” Immediately before this he told the disciples the parable of the lost sheep where the shepherd leaves the 99 to find the lost one. And next week we will hear Peter ask how many times he should forgive. Matthew is the only gospel writer to include this conversation; we don’t know why the other gospel writers don’t include it, but it could suggest that Matthew was trying to address conflict that was happening in his community in the late first century.

The second question to ask is, “Who is Jesus talking to?” We know he’s talking to his disciples, but it’s helpful also to remember that what Matthew calls the church would have been small house churches of a dozen or so people who gathered together. Many of them might have been extended families. There weren’t congregations with hundreds, or even dozens, of people during Matthew’s lifetime. There were none of the denominations, confessional doctrines or even creeds that we associate with the capital-C Church today.

That’s also why in my reading, I used the words “brother or sister” instead of a “member of the church” which is what you find in the New Revised Standard Version translation in verse 15. The Greek word used here is ἀδελφός  which actually means “brother”. Translating the word as “brother or sister” helps us remember that, in Christ, we are all adopted as children of God, siblings to one another, in one family.

So now, as we listen to this passage, instead of hearing it as policy for the institutional church, let’s try to hear Matthew speaking to the small communities and families of Jesus’ followers who were gathered around Word and Table.

While we like to imagine churches as places where peace and goodwill prosper, we know families squabble. Generations of family linked together by blood and DNA and church families too. That doesn’t surprise us and it didn’t shock Jesus either. Whenever there is a group of people gathered together there is going to be disagreement.

In our communities of faith we have used this text as prescriptive policy for church discipline. And, because Pharisaic law looked at Gentiles and tax collectors as either unclean or unrepentant and cast them out of community, we have heard this instruction as if Jesus was saying, “If the sinner doesn’t listen to you, cast them out.” Excommunicate them. Cut off fellowship with them. Banish them.

But again, does that sound like the Jesus you know?

When we look to Scripture to see how Jesus dealt with Gentiles and tax collectors, we see where tradition says that Matthew himself was a tax collector and yet he was called as one of the twelve apostles. (Matthew 10)

And Luke tells us Jesus called to Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and had dinner at his house. (Luke 19)

And the woman who spoke to Jesus a few weeks ago about the crumbs from the table was a Gentile. (Matthew 15:22)

So it turns out that Jesus did not cast out the Gentile or the tax collector, but instead broke bread with them, listened to their pleading, and loved them.

So when he tells his followers, “let such a one be to you like a Gentile or a tax collector”, perhaps what he is telling us is to love the person with the love of Christ.

What’s clear is that he does not say, “Break off relationship and never talk to them again.”

But all too often, in the church, we don’t follow Jesus’ teaching. We get it wrong from day one.

There are times we wound another person deliberately and the need for confession and forgiveness, and for reconciliation is obvious.

And there are circumstances, such as physical violence, murder or rape, when these gentler steps toward reconciliation do not apply.

But often, we may not know what we have done or how deeply we have hurt another person.

As we say in the confession at Compline, “Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed – but some is known only to God.”

Someone may be wounded, and we may not be able to see the pain we have inflicted upon them.

Jesus would have the person who is wounded confront the person who sinned against them.

But that isn’t the way our world, or our congregations, function most of the time. Instead, the wounded person turns to a third person or a group of people and vents their anger and frustration there. We create triangles and talk about each other, instead of speaking directly with one another. We fastidiously avoid confrontation.

But here’s the thing, as Michael Chan writes, “to deny someone God’s corrective word is every bit as sinful as the deed under scrutiny.”[i] As siblings in Christ, we do not confront one another to point out sin and pile on shame, judgment and condemnation. Instead we are called to name the sin that we see so that the person may be convicted or “convinced and confident that [the evidence] is true.”

When we confront the sinner, our goal is conviction, not condemnation; conviction that leads to Godly sorrow and repentance.[ii]

When I discover that I have wounded someone else, either through reflection or because it is brought to my attention, it is painful because that isn’t how I want to love others.

But it is even more painful to discover too late that someone has been hurt and is suffering and I didn’t know. All too often when that happens the wounded person has churned in frustration, only to get fed up and break off relationship, angry, hurt and disillusioned. The path to reconciliation is much more difficult then.

In today’s gospel, Jesus offers us a way to be a community of Christ followers, reconciled with one another and united in faith.

Jesus doesn’t promise that we won’t hurt each other and that it won’t be messy – lives lived in relationship are going to be messy – but he promises that faithful and loving community in Christ is possible. In fact, this whole passage is about choosing the kind of community we want to be: divided or united.

The later verses are ones that we again often hear out of context. It’s hard to hear the Good News in Jesus’ promise that “if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done” if you can recall a time when you prayed for something and your prayers went unanswered.

But in the context of pursuing reconciled relationships and restoration to community, what Jesus tells us is that if the two or three who have been in conflict can come together in prayer and be unified in faith, God is there with them and listening to their prayers.

The Good News that Jesus promises here is not that God will answer our prayers by giving us everything we ask, but that God cares about our relationships with one another, and is with us, even when we are in conflict. God is listening and watching and working in and through us, even in our brokenness and imperfections.

Instead of “three strikes and you’re out”, Jesus reminds us to “try, try and try again.”

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who reconciles us to You and through whom we know mercy and forgiveness.

Teach us to live as siblings together in community, and love each other as Christ loves us.

Give us courage to boldly name our sin and pursue redemption and reconciliation with those who we hurt.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. 

Amen.

[i] Michael J. Chan. Dear Working Preacher. Luther Seminary.

[ii] Notes from lectures by Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson in the NC Synod Racial Justice Network’s course “The Hidden Curriculum of White Supremacy”