Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17
Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo. —Ambrose Bierce, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
The senior warden and the head of the Sunday School wanted to speak with me. They had the intense looks of people on a mission. Since they were both women they didn’t have skinny black ties on, but they were on the war path.
“You know that Ron is teaching Sunday School this year.”
“Yes, I do.”
“He is teaching directly from the bible.”
“I believe he is.”
“His bible has a zipper on it.”
“I’m pretty sure I noticed that.”
“The words attributed to Jesus are written in red.”
“Somehow that does not surprise me.”
Pause.
“Well, we can’t have that.”
“Why not?”
“He is teaching a literal interpretation of the bible that hardly any of us believe in.”
“I’m pretty sure that is right. Why can’t we have it?”
“We just don’t believe in that stuff.”
“I know we don’t. How many people are in his class?
“Six.”
“How many members does this congregation have?”
“Around 800.”
“That sounds right. And what is one of the fundamental, if you will excuse the expression, fundamental values of our common life around here?”
“We really value the inclusion of a variety of people . . . .”
Their voices trailed off as they indicted themselves on their own deeply felt core values. They were wonderful people who had been willing to struggle with inclusion issues. The problem arose when inclusion needed to extend to the right, not just to the left. They also had a conversion experience. They came to believe that core values matter. They came to understand that when we make up values they will take us places we may not one to go. I also believe they found out that the unwelcome destination was of God. Ron continued to offer his class to a handful of people who were glad to have him do what he did. It was one of the proudest moments I have had in 42 years of ordained ministry.
The Pharisees had a rule, a rule based on the 4th commandment: Observe the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. Since this was Judaism and a religion, the job of the head people was to parse words like: “keep holy” and “Sabbath day.” After a while, “keep holy” meant not doing much of anything except what the rabbis considered holy. Reading Torah, praying, lots of food were good. Bad was long drives in the country, bowling, jokes, and any kind of activity that could be construed as work. Sabbath day was easier. It was the 24 hours beginning Friday afternoon until sunset on Saturday. Not a minute later or earlier.
I love my GPS. When the sun goes down it changes from daytime to nighttime mode. Now I know exactly when the sun goes down—officially. Don’t need a rabbi for that anymore.
Jesus tells a story about this good Jewish lady who had the arthritis real bad. She’d had it for 18 years and was so stooped she looked like an angle bracket with legs. Jesus heals her on the spot. She doesn’t ask for his help. He sees her condition and heals her. Apparently his GPS was broken since he didn’t know it was the Sabbath! Horrors! He did doctor work on the Sabbath!
The Pharisees quote the rules about the Sabbath. They had Jesus cold on every count. His bad. Not only was Jesus doctoring without a permit or license, he was also adept at practicing religious law without being admitted to the bar.
Jesus comes right back at them: “Who are you people to talk. Even you, you righteous prudes, even you would bring water to your cow on the Sabbath to keep it from suffering or worse, dying. When your money is at risk, so much for Sabbath rules. Further, this woman is a child of Abraham, a card-carrying Jewess who has been suffering for 18 years. And God healed her, not me. So who are you to say that healing is bad on the Sabbath when God goes ahead and does it.”
Of course Jesus is teaching that compassion is at the root of all religious observance, including the Sabbath. I love the cartoon I saw the other day: A Fire station in convent has a sign on it: “In case of fire, break vow of silence.”
I don’t know about you, but if this stuff is good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me. I think it would be a good time for all of us so-called Christians to look at our core values about religious freedom. I get pretty nervous when modern Pharisees decide for all of us where hallowed ground is and is not.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
11 Pentecost, Year C, August 8, 2010
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50:1-8; Hebrews 11:-13, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40
Moral Decisions, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
Jesus also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"
How is it hypocritical to predict the weather based on local versions of the farmer’s almanac? Perhaps in the first century when there were no alternatives to folk wisdom about weather, people who could predict it accurately would be held in high esteem. I lived in the desert for a year. Trust me, weather forecasting isn’t very hard. “It will be hot/very hot/dangerously hot today.” Likewise in Hawaii: “trade winds 5-20 mph, temperatures in the 80’s with chance of late afternoon showers.” These days predicting the weather in Augusta is pretty easy too. “any chance of rain less than 80% means “No rain”.”
Predictions, like those Jesus mentions, are not all that hard to make. Try these:
“There will be at least one or more major oil spill every decade followed by intense hand wringing and blaming of a) government regulators, b) mine owners/managers c) God.”
“The drop-out rate will continue at 50%, SAT scores will barely maintain previous levels” followed by intense handwringing, finger-pointing and blaming of school superintendants whose tenures continue to shorten.
“The Athletic Director/Coach of fill-in-the-name-of-a major-college-program arrested for fill in the other blankfollowed by intense handwringing, finger-pointing and blaming the a) college president, b) NCAA regulators c) the crazed fan base for whom winning is everything d) God.
Jesus’ dire predictions of what was going to happen and what he was sent to do are his wake up call. Jesus says “Enough of this late-inning hand wringing. Enough of prognostication about simple things like weather predictions. Pay attention to what is actually going on now. Don’t forget to look in the mirror during the hand-wringing and blaming portion of the process.”
What distracts us from our own lack of responsibility for at least some of these enduring social problems is that we have had some success in dealing with some others. The sea-change with regard to tobacco use in America is nothing short of a miracle. I have lived in two tobacco states. Both of them were among the first and largest to adopt smoke-free policies for virtually everyone. Even in Nevada which is so libertarian it has laws against passing laws, even there smoking is now hard to do indoors. This leaves smokers out in the broiling heat. We have all seen smokers huddled next to office buildings trying to avoid pouring rain as they fill up on fumes all because most of us don’t want them on us.
Jesus’ violent wake up call is a religious one. Religious wake-up calls used to be a dime a dozen. They came so often and with such splenetic frenzy that people learned to ignore them. We still do.
The truth of the human condition is that if it doesn’t seem to affect us, we don’t care too much. We liked cheap Chinese imports until they started poisoning our pets and our children. We liked cheap interstate highways until the bridges began to fall. It is exactly this kind of self-satisfied attitude that Jesus finds to offensive in religion.
The problem with threatening people is that it is almost impossible to make a moral decision under duress. If some one says they will hurt you if you don’t do what they want and you do it to assuage the threat, you have not made a moral decision.
We make moral decisions when we consciously decide to change our behavior because it benefits the larger community. Recycling trash comes to mind. I believe in it. I think it helps everyone especially in the long run. And I don’t always do it with the fervor my spouse thinks appropriate. Jesus is warning me that I can predict the weather, but I am no good at predicting my own behavior. This week I am working on making moral decisions since Debby is away and I am doing all the trash.
Moral Decisions, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
Jesus also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"
How is it hypocritical to predict the weather based on local versions of the farmer’s almanac? Perhaps in the first century when there were no alternatives to folk wisdom about weather, people who could predict it accurately would be held in high esteem. I lived in the desert for a year. Trust me, weather forecasting isn’t very hard. “It will be hot/very hot/dangerously hot today.” Likewise in Hawaii: “trade winds 5-20 mph, temperatures in the 80’s with chance of late afternoon showers.” These days predicting the weather in Augusta is pretty easy too. “any chance of rain less than 80% means “No rain”.”
Predictions, like those Jesus mentions, are not all that hard to make. Try these:
“There will be at least one or more major oil spill every decade followed by intense hand wringing and blaming of a) government regulators, b) mine owners/managers c) God.”
“The drop-out rate will continue at 50%, SAT scores will barely maintain previous levels” followed by intense handwringing, finger-pointing and blaming of school superintendants whose tenures continue to shorten.
“The Athletic Director/Coach of fill-in-the-name-of-a major-college-program arrested for fill in the other blankfollowed by intense handwringing, finger-pointing and blaming the a) college president, b) NCAA regulators c) the crazed fan base for whom winning is everything d) God.
Jesus’ dire predictions of what was going to happen and what he was sent to do are his wake up call. Jesus says “Enough of this late-inning hand wringing. Enough of prognostication about simple things like weather predictions. Pay attention to what is actually going on now. Don’t forget to look in the mirror during the hand-wringing and blaming portion of the process.”
What distracts us from our own lack of responsibility for at least some of these enduring social problems is that we have had some success in dealing with some others. The sea-change with regard to tobacco use in America is nothing short of a miracle. I have lived in two tobacco states. Both of them were among the first and largest to adopt smoke-free policies for virtually everyone. Even in Nevada which is so libertarian it has laws against passing laws, even there smoking is now hard to do indoors. This leaves smokers out in the broiling heat. We have all seen smokers huddled next to office buildings trying to avoid pouring rain as they fill up on fumes all because most of us don’t want them on us.
Jesus’ violent wake up call is a religious one. Religious wake-up calls used to be a dime a dozen. They came so often and with such splenetic frenzy that people learned to ignore them. We still do.
The truth of the human condition is that if it doesn’t seem to affect us, we don’t care too much. We liked cheap Chinese imports until they started poisoning our pets and our children. We liked cheap interstate highways until the bridges began to fall. It is exactly this kind of self-satisfied attitude that Jesus finds to offensive in religion.
The problem with threatening people is that it is almost impossible to make a moral decision under duress. If some one says they will hurt you if you don’t do what they want and you do it to assuage the threat, you have not made a moral decision.
We make moral decisions when we consciously decide to change our behavior because it benefits the larger community. Recycling trash comes to mind. I believe in it. I think it helps everyone especially in the long run. And I don’t always do it with the fervor my spouse thinks appropriate. Jesus is warning me that I can predict the weather, but I am no good at predicting my own behavior. This week I am working on making moral decisions since Debby is away and I am doing all the trash.
10 Pentecost, Year C, August 1, 2010
Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21
Rich Toward God, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
A young man asked a rich old man how he made his money.The old guy fingered his Armani vest and said, “Well, son, it was 1932 in the depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel.“I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for 10 cents.“The next morning, I invested those 10 cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 p.m. for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $1.37.”“And that’s how you built an empire?” the boy asked.“Heavens, no!” the man replied. “Then my wife’s father died and left us two million dollars.”
Ah, the great preacher, Quoheleth speaketh to us today: All is vanity. Everything is a waste. Life is hard and then we die.
At one level it is true, isn’t it? We really can’t take it with us! We leave it to ungrateful heirs who should have gone to school and gotten a job or the government gets it or ex-spouses. Later on the only people who care about what we got are those who got it from us.
Still, we all know that nice stuff is, well, nice.
Several years ago a parish church building I worked in got hit by a major lightning bolt. I guess it was major. When 50,000 volts hits your building it knocks a huge chunk of granite off the tower and fried everything it within reach. I don’t know if God is in charge of lightning bolts, but I’m sure no one else is. All our cool electronics was pretty useless in the face of the power of well, an act of God.
Ecclesiastes and the Gospel of Luke refer to vanity this week. This is not the Snow White kind of vanity where the queen has a special mirror which lies to her about who is the most beautiful in the kingdom. I got caught looking in a mirror once by my prep school trained college roommate. He was expert at deflation. He simply said to me: “I caught you looking in the mirror. Did you get any better looking?”
No, biblical vanity is supposing that God thinks our stuff, our looks, our possessions are as important as we think they are.
Our spiritual task is to erect a greed guard. Our vanity is usually greed. There are lots of different ways to be greedy, even including being covetous of someone else’s relationship with God.
Jesus said, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (12:15). Here, Jesus invites us, not to avoid a life of success, but to choose a life of significance — a life which is balanced and meaningful. There are three questions which can help us balance ourselves.1. How do you spend your time?2. How do you spend your money?3. How do you make your decisions?Tolstoy’s short story, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” seems close to the mark. A Russian peasant was told that he could have all the land he could walk around in the time between sunup and sundown. At sunup the peasant began walking as fast as he could. By mid-morning he was disappointed at his progress so he increased his pace and didn’t even stop for lunch. Even in the afternoon heat he hurried yet more as the promise of great landowning stretched out before his fevered vision. Late in the afternoon he was soaked with sweat from head to toe. He was exhausted. He had walked around a huge section, but still he yearned for more. So, he began to run. Breathlessly he pushed himself beyond what he though anyone could endure. His heart pounded, his eyes blurred--sundown was only a few minutes and his goal still wafted in the distance. Faster and faster he raced. Just as he returned to the first corner stake he fell to the ground dead. Vanity, all is vanity.Jesus’ comment to the rich man, to the peasant, was “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God” (12:21).We can be rich toward God, but never on the cheap.
The ultimate vanity story is one about the settlement of price-fixing charges against cosmetics manufacturers and retailers. The lawyers got $24 million, and each customer got a free cosmetic. (San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2003) Now that is vanity! Who is looking good now?
And then there was William Hogarth who was hired to do a painting that would be called “The Destruction of Pharaoh’s Host in the Red Sea.” The guy who hired him to do the painting was a notorious cheapskate.
Hogarth went to work, and painted the entire canvas with red paint, stepped back and declared it was done.When the buyer came to claim his painting, he was astonished. “Where are the Israelites?”“They’ve all crossed over,” Hogarth replied.“Well, where are the Egyptians?”“They’ve all drowned,” came the response.
Vanity, all is vanity, quoth the preacher.
Rich Toward God, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
A young man asked a rich old man how he made his money.The old guy fingered his Armani vest and said, “Well, son, it was 1932 in the depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel.“I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for 10 cents.“The next morning, I invested those 10 cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 p.m. for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $1.37.”“And that’s how you built an empire?” the boy asked.“Heavens, no!” the man replied. “Then my wife’s father died and left us two million dollars.”
Ah, the great preacher, Quoheleth speaketh to us today: All is vanity. Everything is a waste. Life is hard and then we die.
At one level it is true, isn’t it? We really can’t take it with us! We leave it to ungrateful heirs who should have gone to school and gotten a job or the government gets it or ex-spouses. Later on the only people who care about what we got are those who got it from us.
Still, we all know that nice stuff is, well, nice.
Several years ago a parish church building I worked in got hit by a major lightning bolt. I guess it was major. When 50,000 volts hits your building it knocks a huge chunk of granite off the tower and fried everything it within reach. I don’t know if God is in charge of lightning bolts, but I’m sure no one else is. All our cool electronics was pretty useless in the face of the power of well, an act of God.
Ecclesiastes and the Gospel of Luke refer to vanity this week. This is not the Snow White kind of vanity where the queen has a special mirror which lies to her about who is the most beautiful in the kingdom. I got caught looking in a mirror once by my prep school trained college roommate. He was expert at deflation. He simply said to me: “I caught you looking in the mirror. Did you get any better looking?”
No, biblical vanity is supposing that God thinks our stuff, our looks, our possessions are as important as we think they are.
Our spiritual task is to erect a greed guard. Our vanity is usually greed. There are lots of different ways to be greedy, even including being covetous of someone else’s relationship with God.
Jesus said, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (12:15). Here, Jesus invites us, not to avoid a life of success, but to choose a life of significance — a life which is balanced and meaningful. There are three questions which can help us balance ourselves.1. How do you spend your time?2. How do you spend your money?3. How do you make your decisions?Tolstoy’s short story, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” seems close to the mark. A Russian peasant was told that he could have all the land he could walk around in the time between sunup and sundown. At sunup the peasant began walking as fast as he could. By mid-morning he was disappointed at his progress so he increased his pace and didn’t even stop for lunch. Even in the afternoon heat he hurried yet more as the promise of great landowning stretched out before his fevered vision. Late in the afternoon he was soaked with sweat from head to toe. He was exhausted. He had walked around a huge section, but still he yearned for more. So, he began to run. Breathlessly he pushed himself beyond what he though anyone could endure. His heart pounded, his eyes blurred--sundown was only a few minutes and his goal still wafted in the distance. Faster and faster he raced. Just as he returned to the first corner stake he fell to the ground dead. Vanity, all is vanity.Jesus’ comment to the rich man, to the peasant, was “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God” (12:21).We can be rich toward God, but never on the cheap.
The ultimate vanity story is one about the settlement of price-fixing charges against cosmetics manufacturers and retailers. The lawyers got $24 million, and each customer got a free cosmetic. (San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2003) Now that is vanity! Who is looking good now?
And then there was William Hogarth who was hired to do a painting that would be called “The Destruction of Pharaoh’s Host in the Red Sea.” The guy who hired him to do the painting was a notorious cheapskate.
Hogarth went to work, and painted the entire canvas with red paint, stepped back and declared it was done.When the buyer came to claim his painting, he was astonished. “Where are the Israelites?”“They’ve all crossed over,” Hogarth replied.“Well, where are the Egyptians?”“They’ve all drowned,” came the response.
Vanity, all is vanity, quoth the preacher.
Monday, July 26, 2010
9 Pentecost, Year C, July 25, 2010
Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 85;; Colossians 2:6-15, [16-19]; Luke 11:1-13
Bargains Galore! Preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
The LORD said to Abraham, "How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know."
So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham came near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake." Abraham answered, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." Again he spoke to him, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." He said, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."
I bought my first Ford Thunderbird on 8/8/88. As usual it was on impulse. It is in the nature of impulses that they act too soon. A month later the 89’s came out in a design that lasted until just a few years ago. I knew instantly that my impulse was wrong.
I managed to keep out of Ford dealerships for 12 straight months. When the sales person called the other Ford dealership nearby for the payoff figure so I could buy my 1990 T Bird with turbocharged V –6 he got the guy who sold me the 1988.
“Are you working with that Episcopal Priest from Virginia Beach?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!”
“He is a hard man!”
Our biblical ancestors were hard men too. Last week we remembered Abraham. He is the guy who lied about his wife to the neighbors and called her his sister. About how he and Sarah scoffed at God when God spoke of the miracle of birth for them. You have got to be hard to scoff at God when he sends a whole committee to deliver a message.
Today God has her hands full of hard people again. Not all of them are the bad guys either.
God hears a lot of whining about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He has a stack of faxes and emails on his desk outlining the bad stuff going on in those cities. He says to himself: “I better check these rumors out to see if it is true!”
God disguised herself as two tourists. This has been a popular disguise ever since for police undercover work. The first person the tourists come across is our friend Abe. He just stands there, looking kind of goofy.
God says: “Things are a mess down here, hunh?”
Abraham didn’t want to rat out his neighbors because they might key his truck or something worse. Abe was continually afraid of his neighbors. Still the situation was pretty self-evident..
God gets the message by reading between the lines and says: “I’ll fix this!” Just before God goes thermonuclear, Abe clears his throat.
“Uh, Lord?”
Pausing in mid stroke, and slightly annoyed to have his aim jiggered, God says “What is it?”
Abraham says: “This doesn’t seem right. I mean there are lots of bad guys in these towns, but what if there are four or five dozen pretty decent folks there. It doesn’t seem fair to nuke them too. After all, you are the king of the Universe, you ought to be able to run this railroad better than that.”
God took her thumb off the red button, squinted her eyes a bit, sighed and allowed, “ok if there were 50 decent types, I will spare the city.”
Abraham had been to the Ford dealership too. He replied: “What about 45.”
“OK, 45.”
“40?”
“OK.”
“30?”
“All right already!.”
“20?”
“Oy vey, ok?”
“10?”
“All right already. 10. And that’s it.”
God stomped off and caused a few tidal waves on some uninhabited islands just to let of steam.
Abraham thought he had gotten a pretty good deal.
As you know, Mr. and Mrs. Lot and their two daughters plus their fiancés, a total of 6 people were the only decent folks in the whole two cities. Even the future sons-in-law maintained the Sarah tradition and jeered and laughed at the idea that God might wipe them all out. So when Mr. and Mrs. Lot left town with their daughters, the fiancés got toasted along with everyone else.
What are we to make of this? Does bargaining work with God? If it does, what kind of God?
Is this a kind of prayer?
Our Hebrew ancestors expected a lot of God. They expected God to be consistent with God’s revealed will in the tradition. They expected that God wouldn’t do anything to them if they kept covenant with God.
God never has.
But God is not subject to hard men like me or Abraham. The story simply reveals that God does what is consistent with who God is. Abraham, to his great credit, is consistent with who he is, a persistent, faithful, take no prisoners stand up guy.
Scripture does not record Abraham’s response to the destruction of the two cities. It does tell of his willingness to sell his daughters to marauders to keep his home safe for his guests, but not a word about what happens after the Lot family leave town. He knew that even though he got God down to the 10 mark, he was counting on a j40% discount from this number since there were only 6, not even 10. God went the extra mile to save them even though they were under the limit.
Wow, more Gospel, God going past his own limits to reach out to us.
Bargains Galore! Preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
The LORD said to Abraham, "How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know."
So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham came near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake." Abraham answered, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." Again he spoke to him, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." He said, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."
I bought my first Ford Thunderbird on 8/8/88. As usual it was on impulse. It is in the nature of impulses that they act too soon. A month later the 89’s came out in a design that lasted until just a few years ago. I knew instantly that my impulse was wrong.
I managed to keep out of Ford dealerships for 12 straight months. When the sales person called the other Ford dealership nearby for the payoff figure so I could buy my 1990 T Bird with turbocharged V –6 he got the guy who sold me the 1988.
“Are you working with that Episcopal Priest from Virginia Beach?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!”
“He is a hard man!”
Our biblical ancestors were hard men too. Last week we remembered Abraham. He is the guy who lied about his wife to the neighbors and called her his sister. About how he and Sarah scoffed at God when God spoke of the miracle of birth for them. You have got to be hard to scoff at God when he sends a whole committee to deliver a message.
Today God has her hands full of hard people again. Not all of them are the bad guys either.
God hears a lot of whining about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He has a stack of faxes and emails on his desk outlining the bad stuff going on in those cities. He says to himself: “I better check these rumors out to see if it is true!”
God disguised herself as two tourists. This has been a popular disguise ever since for police undercover work. The first person the tourists come across is our friend Abe. He just stands there, looking kind of goofy.
God says: “Things are a mess down here, hunh?”
Abraham didn’t want to rat out his neighbors because they might key his truck or something worse. Abe was continually afraid of his neighbors. Still the situation was pretty self-evident..
God gets the message by reading between the lines and says: “I’ll fix this!” Just before God goes thermonuclear, Abe clears his throat.
“Uh, Lord?”
Pausing in mid stroke, and slightly annoyed to have his aim jiggered, God says “What is it?”
Abraham says: “This doesn’t seem right. I mean there are lots of bad guys in these towns, but what if there are four or five dozen pretty decent folks there. It doesn’t seem fair to nuke them too. After all, you are the king of the Universe, you ought to be able to run this railroad better than that.”
God took her thumb off the red button, squinted her eyes a bit, sighed and allowed, “ok if there were 50 decent types, I will spare the city.”
Abraham had been to the Ford dealership too. He replied: “What about 45.”
“OK, 45.”
“40?”
“OK.”
“30?”
“All right already!.”
“20?”
“Oy vey, ok?”
“10?”
“All right already. 10. And that’s it.”
God stomped off and caused a few tidal waves on some uninhabited islands just to let of steam.
Abraham thought he had gotten a pretty good deal.
As you know, Mr. and Mrs. Lot and their two daughters plus their fiancés, a total of 6 people were the only decent folks in the whole two cities. Even the future sons-in-law maintained the Sarah tradition and jeered and laughed at the idea that God might wipe them all out. So when Mr. and Mrs. Lot left town with their daughters, the fiancés got toasted along with everyone else.
What are we to make of this? Does bargaining work with God? If it does, what kind of God?
Is this a kind of prayer?
Our Hebrew ancestors expected a lot of God. They expected God to be consistent with God’s revealed will in the tradition. They expected that God wouldn’t do anything to them if they kept covenant with God.
God never has.
But God is not subject to hard men like me or Abraham. The story simply reveals that God does what is consistent with who God is. Abraham, to his great credit, is consistent with who he is, a persistent, faithful, take no prisoners stand up guy.
Scripture does not record Abraham’s response to the destruction of the two cities. It does tell of his willingness to sell his daughters to marauders to keep his home safe for his guests, but not a word about what happens after the Lot family leave town. He knew that even though he got God down to the 10 mark, he was counting on a j40% discount from this number since there were only 6, not even 10. God went the extra mile to save them even though they were under the limit.
Wow, more Gospel, God going past his own limits to reach out to us.
Monday, July 19, 2010
8 Pentecost, Year C, July 18, 2010
Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42
Old Enough to Choose, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
Sixty-seven years ago today my parents had their first child. They named him Peter, no middle name. None of their children got middle names because my father hated his first name. They chose generic Anglo Saxon names for their three children and hoped that we could live with those names since there was no other choice. We have all lived happily enough with our parents’ choices.
On my 43rd birthday in 1986 Debby gave me a birthday breakfast at a nice restaurant in Virginia Beach. I hugged my colleague and friend Father Mike Vermillion goodbye. I never saw him again as he was killed on the way to the church conference.
I am a lot older today and a bit wiser. Father Mike never got to be old. I suspect he wouldn’t have missed some of the stuff that has happened in the meantime.
Still, I am getting to get older and he isn’t. For quite a few years now people I admire and who offer me friendship are older than I am. It has occurred to me that I am beginning to run out of people older than myself.
It happened to Abraham and Sarah. They were really old. They were older than almost anyone they knew. They had no children so there were no close relatives with grandbabies to admire. Tradition holds that God had a special plan for them.
God communicated this plan directly to them. He didn’t send a letter or an email; God sent a committee of three. Usually committees of three bear bad news. This one didn’t, it carried ridiculous news. Old Sarah was going to have a baby.
The committee politely asked Abraham where she was. It was polite for after all they had received generous hospitality from Abraham prepared by unseen minions now out of sight.
“Where is Sarah, your wife?”
They knew perfectly well where she was. Out of sight; out of mind.
“She is in the kitchen,” Abraham declared. Right! Cook. Scullery maid. Housewife. Typical woman. Knew her place. In the tent.
Tents, even in the desert are not soundproof so Sarah overheard this conversation. And she giggled. She chortled. She hiccoughed a few times too. Old Sarah. So old she knew almost no one older. She was going to have a child. Then she thought of the geezer Abraham. I suspect that is when the real hysterical laughter started.
All we know is that nine months later Isaac was born. No laughing matter this.
Things hadn’t changed 1,000 years later. Women were still in the kitchen providing hospitality while the men smoke and drank coffee. Martha, like her ancient ancestor Sarah was making nice. Well at least on the outside she was making nice. On the inside she was feeding a huge resentment. Her no-good, shiftless, lazy, show-off, know-it-all, high-brow, look-down-your-nose, sorry excuse of a sister was sitting with Jesus. This pitiful mess swanned it up while she Martha, hard-working, knew-her-own-place, self-less, generous, brought-up-right, Martha did all the work.
Martha tried what usually worked for her, some triangling and manipulation. Martha attempts to triangle Jesus into shaming Mary into doing the dishes.
Jesus, of course, does not bite. He knows the rules, the rules which applied to Sarah in the tent, still apply to all women. He ignores them. He doesn’t ridicule the rules. He just changes them.
We can be sure that this story about Jesus and Mary and Martha came out of the life of the church where some uppity women were doing bible study instead of the dishes. So the church remembered a story that showed that doing dishes was a good thing and so was bible study. Anybody, any man, any woman could do either or both as the Spirit gave utterance as St. Paul says in I Corinthians. Anybody could do either. Whichever choice anyone made was OK. There would always be someone who wanted to wash and others who wanted to study. What Jesus and St. Paul were at pains to demonstrate is that both were good.
No one had the right to enforce some hierarchy of goodness about the choices. Yes, we all know some people who would benefit from more bible study and less cooking and vice versa. We know that, but people make their choices. If they can stand them, so can we.
What the Gospel proclaims is that we make the choices, not someone else. The choices are ours. Things we have no choice over such as age, religion, gender, social class, regional geography do not make the choices in the Kingdom of God. Please join me in working for that kingdom all God’s children have more choices that most people did in Sarah’s or Martha’s time.
Old Enough to Choose, preached by Rev. Peter Courtney
Sixty-seven years ago today my parents had their first child. They named him Peter, no middle name. None of their children got middle names because my father hated his first name. They chose generic Anglo Saxon names for their three children and hoped that we could live with those names since there was no other choice. We have all lived happily enough with our parents’ choices.
On my 43rd birthday in 1986 Debby gave me a birthday breakfast at a nice restaurant in Virginia Beach. I hugged my colleague and friend Father Mike Vermillion goodbye. I never saw him again as he was killed on the way to the church conference.
I am a lot older today and a bit wiser. Father Mike never got to be old. I suspect he wouldn’t have missed some of the stuff that has happened in the meantime.
Still, I am getting to get older and he isn’t. For quite a few years now people I admire and who offer me friendship are older than I am. It has occurred to me that I am beginning to run out of people older than myself.
It happened to Abraham and Sarah. They were really old. They were older than almost anyone they knew. They had no children so there were no close relatives with grandbabies to admire. Tradition holds that God had a special plan for them.
God communicated this plan directly to them. He didn’t send a letter or an email; God sent a committee of three. Usually committees of three bear bad news. This one didn’t, it carried ridiculous news. Old Sarah was going to have a baby.
The committee politely asked Abraham where she was. It was polite for after all they had received generous hospitality from Abraham prepared by unseen minions now out of sight.
“Where is Sarah, your wife?”
They knew perfectly well where she was. Out of sight; out of mind.
“She is in the kitchen,” Abraham declared. Right! Cook. Scullery maid. Housewife. Typical woman. Knew her place. In the tent.
Tents, even in the desert are not soundproof so Sarah overheard this conversation. And she giggled. She chortled. She hiccoughed a few times too. Old Sarah. So old she knew almost no one older. She was going to have a child. Then she thought of the geezer Abraham. I suspect that is when the real hysterical laughter started.
All we know is that nine months later Isaac was born. No laughing matter this.
Things hadn’t changed 1,000 years later. Women were still in the kitchen providing hospitality while the men smoke and drank coffee. Martha, like her ancient ancestor Sarah was making nice. Well at least on the outside she was making nice. On the inside she was feeding a huge resentment. Her no-good, shiftless, lazy, show-off, know-it-all, high-brow, look-down-your-nose, sorry excuse of a sister was sitting with Jesus. This pitiful mess swanned it up while she Martha, hard-working, knew-her-own-place, self-less, generous, brought-up-right, Martha did all the work.
Martha tried what usually worked for her, some triangling and manipulation. Martha attempts to triangle Jesus into shaming Mary into doing the dishes.
Jesus, of course, does not bite. He knows the rules, the rules which applied to Sarah in the tent, still apply to all women. He ignores them. He doesn’t ridicule the rules. He just changes them.
We can be sure that this story about Jesus and Mary and Martha came out of the life of the church where some uppity women were doing bible study instead of the dishes. So the church remembered a story that showed that doing dishes was a good thing and so was bible study. Anybody, any man, any woman could do either or both as the Spirit gave utterance as St. Paul says in I Corinthians. Anybody could do either. Whichever choice anyone made was OK. There would always be someone who wanted to wash and others who wanted to study. What Jesus and St. Paul were at pains to demonstrate is that both were good.
No one had the right to enforce some hierarchy of goodness about the choices. Yes, we all know some people who would benefit from more bible study and less cooking and vice versa. We know that, but people make their choices. If they can stand them, so can we.
What the Gospel proclaims is that we make the choices, not someone else. The choices are ours. Things we have no choice over such as age, religion, gender, social class, regional geography do not make the choices in the Kingdom of God. Please join me in working for that kingdom all God’s children have more choices that most people did in Sarah’s or Martha’s time.
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