Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
Preached by The Rev. Jason Haddox
The rabbis tell a story that, when the children of Israel had safely crossed the Red Sea and escaped from slavery in Egypt, as they stood on the shore and watched the waters roll over the Egyptian army, the angels around the heavenly throne wanted to sing and rejoice at the downfall of the Egyptians. But God stopped their singing, saying, “The works of my hands are drowning in the sea, and you wish to sing praises?!?”
The deliverance of the children of Israel came at a price. The Egyptians could have let them go—God knows, by that time, the Egyptians themselves had suffered from frogs and locusts and boils and the death of the firstborn. You’d think they’d have figured it out!
But no, again they came after the children of Israel, chasing them even into the sea. Did they mean to kill them there on the shore, or take them back in chains to slavery again? In any case, they pursued the Israelites intending to destroy them, but their destruction came back upon themselves.
God did not rejoice wholeheartedly that day. Some of God’s children went out to freedom, and for them there was a new beginning. But some of them went down to their deaths, driven by the merciless arrogance of a ruler whose powers had been thwarted. No, God did not rejoice in that.
We have to be careful, when we assume that God is always and forever on our side, to the exclusion of someone (or someones) who differs from us. Paul writes to the Christians at Rome this morning, cautioning them about how they deal with one another—and these are all followers of Christ! “Who are you to judge your sister or brother?” again and again he asks. If you keep feast days or not; if you eat or if you do not eat, give thanks to God and do not look condescendingly upon those who do differently—for none of us are in this alone. This work of being Jesus’ followers, of seeking to embody the work and witness of the Risen Christ in our own lives, is never a solo virtuoso act. “We do not live to ourselves; we do not die to ourselves…whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Christ lived, and died, so that he might be Lord of all—the living and the dead.” And so we say or sing these words at funerals—declaring in the very face of death, that death has not, shall not have, the last word.
Judge not your brother, or sister—because you do not know how to judge rightly.
Judge not—except in the way you wish to be judged by God.
“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us” we will pray momentarily. In other words, Treat us, O God, as we treat one another.
Lord, have mercy upon us!
And guess what?
He does. For no reason at all, except that God is determined to love us into the kingdom of love, by love and love alone, he does indeed have mercy.
This is what it looks like, to be one of God’s people. This is what it looks like, to be a follower of Jesus.
In this work of being Jesus’ followers, Peter comes to Jesus with a question. Lord, if someone sins against me, how many times shall I forgive? As many as seven?
Try Seventy-seven times, Pete. Or how about four hundred and ninety…
Which is to say—stop counting. God has given up keeping the heavenly log books of who’s naughty or nice—why do you insist on keeeping score?
So he tells this outrageous story, just in case they still don’t get it.
Ten thousand talents is a sum beyond imagining. It is not possible that an ordinary slave, in Jesus’ culture, would ever have had access to that kind of money. Whole national economies would have not involved that kind of funding. Jesus is drawing the picture as big as possible, just to get the point across.
The master—the king—forgives the debt. And as soon as the slave is released from that debt, he goes and starts insisting that a fellow slave, who owes him roughly a few months’ wages—petty cash in comparison—pay up or get carted off to debtor’s prison.
The other slaves see this exchange and go running to tattle.
And the parable ends with the wicked slave being handed over, “to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”
What I want to know is, how’s he supposed to pay anything if he’s being waterboarded and electroshocked?
This is not a subtle parable. Jesus is hitting them over the head with the point: Forgive one another, as you hope to be forgiven yourselves.
I ddin’t pick these readings, friends. The lectionary appointed them for this Sunday years before today—before the events of ten years ago, when in the aftermath of September 11th, the temptation broke upon us as a nation to lash out in anger, to seek vengeance, to find someone (or someones) to blame. Clearly that temptation has been around for a while—several centuries at least—and when we succumb to it, God bids the angels to silence again. “Why are you singing, when my children are destroying one another?”
Unforgiveness damages everything it touches—most of all, the one who will not forgive. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what has happened—as if that were possible. It does not mean that everything goes back to the way it was before. It does not mean “kiss and make up.” Rather, it means freedom…from the past, from old anger and resentment and bitterness and being “stuck”—or even “enslaved.” I don’t think it’s by coincidence that Jesus contrasts slavery—a common enough cultural reality in his day—with forgiveness, as a synonym for being set free.
“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Last week—in fact, only three verses earlier!) Jesus gives his followers—that’s us, folks—the power to set each other, and ourselves, free.
The children of Israel went into freedom through the sea. Perhaps, in their haste and joy, they had forgiven their captors in Egypt for what they had suffered there. The armies of Egypt came in haste and vengeance to the sea, and went in to their own destruction. They had neither forgiven nor forgotten. They were willing to perish themselves rather than let go of the past. They became the agents of their own destruction.
Forgive us…as we forgive. Each one of us; and all of us together.
May it be so for us; may it be so among us. Amen.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
11 Pentecost, Year A, August 28, 2011
Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28
Preached by The Rev. Jason Haddox
Last year when we began to plan for Holy Week, I asked about a wooden cross we might use for Good Friday. There was no such object, so I asked Bob Hatcher to make one for us—and did he ever come through! Made from two huge tree branches, and rope to lash them together, “Old Rugged” is outside in the churchyard if you haven’t seen it already. Sometimes we hear Jesus’ words in the gospel this morning “Take up your cross” and imagine that he’s talking about something that big and rough and heavy, that we’re literally supposed to lug around with us. I don’ t think that’s the point.
Let’s review. Last Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 16:13-20) was part one of this morning’s story—Jesus asks this followers “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter responds, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s chosen and Holy One.
No sooner has he said this, but “Jesus [begins] to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
All of the Christian scriptures were written after the resurrection, so the raising on the third day is a given in the minds of the hearers. It is the lens through which they read the scriptures, and through which they see and make sense of the world they live in.
“Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Peter’s response is perfectly understandable. We’ve just established a few verses ago that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the chosen Holy One of God. What on earth could Jesus now mean by saying all this about suffering and being killed? What self-respecting Messiah would put any of that on his to-do list? The Messiah should go to Jerusalem, certainly, and be hailed as the hero who would restore the fortunes of Israel and put the Davidic monarchy back together…but this agenda Jesus suggests is not only inappropriate, but foolish and degrading and just WRONG! Jesus, Jesus—what are you talking about?
“But he turned to Peter and said ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Now it is Peter who is rebuked—and the word here is most apt. “Satanas” is a proper name, often associated with “the tempter,” as we learned back in Ch. 4, in the wilderness after Jesus’ baptism. In fact, the words Jesus uses here to address Peter are EXACTLY the words he uses to rebuke the third temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:10).
“You are a stumbling block to me”…you are causing me to fall down, get distracted. “Stumbling block” is our translation of the Greek word skandalos…from which we get our English word “scandal.” Someone falls down in public and we laugh. Someone in public authority is discovered to be all too human, and we rush together to hurl insults and place blame. It is death by stoning in a media-soaked culture, where every move is known almost as it happens.
You, Peter, are causing me to get distracted, to go in the wrong direction. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Better translation: You are not thinking of God-things but of man-things. (from Greek, anthropos, so “human” is okay, but the NRSV is avoiding “mannish” language and so loses the God/man contrast.)
In other words—you, Peter, have just not two minutes ago said as plainly as can be that you understand who I am—but you don’t. Not really. You still think it’s about the power game as Jerusalem and Rome have set the terms.
He calls everyone together and says “Look y’all, here’s the deal…
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or, what will they give in return for their life?”
The NIV translates “save/lose his soul,” which is also proper, but problematic (to say the least!) in the first instance… the possibility of “losing one’s soul” is not the same question.
Nevertheless, it’s a worthy question. Life (in the abundance that Jesus intends for his followers) or Soul (in its fullness, in this world and the life of the world to come)—what is the price of such a treasure? And how is it to be gotten and kept? Jesus seems to be telling them—and us—that it is not by the ways we think. That holding on to status or dignity or our own notions of how power in this world works, will ultimately prove a disappointment. That in fact there is something far deeper and more subtle at work here…something in which the universe itself has a vested interest.
This language of self-denial and carrying the cross is, and has been, a profound part of our vocabulary as Christians. I would argue that it is profoundly powerful language—and as with any great power, it can do great harm, or great good.
The great danger is that it be given as counsel or guidance too soon, or wrongly. For someone who is not yet sure of who they themselves truly are—because of being chronologically or emotionally young or unformed—“deny yourself” might be used as a means of control. For someone who has been the victim of systemic oppression or even abuse, “Deny yourself” could be a distorted use of scripture, an attempt to justify that abuse or oppression to the one victimized.
Jesus does not ask anyone to pretend that they themselves do not exist. That is not what’s going on here.
He tells the disciples, Peter and James and John and Magdalen and Joanna and all the others who were within earshot: “You know what you have seen and heard while you have been with me. And you know that some of it has not made sense—not in the ordinary way. Not in the same way you were taught to understand, and to see the world. But I’m telling you, this is the God-way of seeing, and understanding, and exercising leadership and power. It’s not about forcing other people to do things against their wills—it’s about looking at your own will, and desires, and fears and worries, and saying “In spite of all of this, I will follow the way of God. Which is not violent, or coercive, or angry—even when it is met with violence and anger and coercion.” Which does not insist on winning at any cost; which is even willing to suffer the indignity of death rather than meet hatred with more hatred.
Paul is telling the Romans the same thing. “Bless those who curse you; do not avenge yourselves; give food and drink to your enemies when they hunger and thirst.” It is beyond strange—such actions overturn the world’s values, by intentionally and consciously and repeatedly choosing to follow a different way of life.
That’s what Jesus is telling his hearers this morning. I am taking a road to God, which will be misunderstood and feared and scorned by the powers of this world as impotent and foolish and useless. And I’m inviting you to come with me. No obligation; no coercion. You can try to go it alone, the way you always have, the way the principalities and powers of Rome and Jerusalem, Washington and Wall Street and Beijing tell you you’re supposed to. But I have something wonderful, something they can’t even imagine, that I want you to have also. And I want you to share it with everyone you meet. Come with me and see—you’ve begun to discover it already.
Every time we baptize, we brand the new Christian with the cross. In water and oil, with the words “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” We don’t have to go find a cross to carry, or ask someone to build one for us from tree branches and rope—it’s already on us.
The question then is: What are you—what are we—going to do with it?
Preached by The Rev. Jason Haddox
Last year when we began to plan for Holy Week, I asked about a wooden cross we might use for Good Friday. There was no such object, so I asked Bob Hatcher to make one for us—and did he ever come through! Made from two huge tree branches, and rope to lash them together, “Old Rugged” is outside in the churchyard if you haven’t seen it already. Sometimes we hear Jesus’ words in the gospel this morning “Take up your cross” and imagine that he’s talking about something that big and rough and heavy, that we’re literally supposed to lug around with us. I don’ t think that’s the point.
Let’s review. Last Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 16:13-20) was part one of this morning’s story—Jesus asks this followers “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter responds, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s chosen and Holy One.
No sooner has he said this, but “Jesus [begins] to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
All of the Christian scriptures were written after the resurrection, so the raising on the third day is a given in the minds of the hearers. It is the lens through which they read the scriptures, and through which they see and make sense of the world they live in.
“Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Peter’s response is perfectly understandable. We’ve just established a few verses ago that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the chosen Holy One of God. What on earth could Jesus now mean by saying all this about suffering and being killed? What self-respecting Messiah would put any of that on his to-do list? The Messiah should go to Jerusalem, certainly, and be hailed as the hero who would restore the fortunes of Israel and put the Davidic monarchy back together…but this agenda Jesus suggests is not only inappropriate, but foolish and degrading and just WRONG! Jesus, Jesus—what are you talking about?
“But he turned to Peter and said ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Now it is Peter who is rebuked—and the word here is most apt. “Satanas” is a proper name, often associated with “the tempter,” as we learned back in Ch. 4, in the wilderness after Jesus’ baptism. In fact, the words Jesus uses here to address Peter are EXACTLY the words he uses to rebuke the third temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:10).
“You are a stumbling block to me”…you are causing me to fall down, get distracted. “Stumbling block” is our translation of the Greek word skandalos…from which we get our English word “scandal.” Someone falls down in public and we laugh. Someone in public authority is discovered to be all too human, and we rush together to hurl insults and place blame. It is death by stoning in a media-soaked culture, where every move is known almost as it happens.
You, Peter, are causing me to get distracted, to go in the wrong direction. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Better translation: You are not thinking of God-things but of man-things. (from Greek, anthropos, so “human” is okay, but the NRSV is avoiding “mannish” language and so loses the God/man contrast.)
In other words—you, Peter, have just not two minutes ago said as plainly as can be that you understand who I am—but you don’t. Not really. You still think it’s about the power game as Jerusalem and Rome have set the terms.
He calls everyone together and says “Look y’all, here’s the deal…
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or, what will they give in return for their life?”
The NIV translates “save/lose his soul,” which is also proper, but problematic (to say the least!) in the first instance… the possibility of “losing one’s soul” is not the same question.
Nevertheless, it’s a worthy question. Life (in the abundance that Jesus intends for his followers) or Soul (in its fullness, in this world and the life of the world to come)—what is the price of such a treasure? And how is it to be gotten and kept? Jesus seems to be telling them—and us—that it is not by the ways we think. That holding on to status or dignity or our own notions of how power in this world works, will ultimately prove a disappointment. That in fact there is something far deeper and more subtle at work here…something in which the universe itself has a vested interest.
This language of self-denial and carrying the cross is, and has been, a profound part of our vocabulary as Christians. I would argue that it is profoundly powerful language—and as with any great power, it can do great harm, or great good.
The great danger is that it be given as counsel or guidance too soon, or wrongly. For someone who is not yet sure of who they themselves truly are—because of being chronologically or emotionally young or unformed—“deny yourself” might be used as a means of control. For someone who has been the victim of systemic oppression or even abuse, “Deny yourself” could be a distorted use of scripture, an attempt to justify that abuse or oppression to the one victimized.
Jesus does not ask anyone to pretend that they themselves do not exist. That is not what’s going on here.
He tells the disciples, Peter and James and John and Magdalen and Joanna and all the others who were within earshot: “You know what you have seen and heard while you have been with me. And you know that some of it has not made sense—not in the ordinary way. Not in the same way you were taught to understand, and to see the world. But I’m telling you, this is the God-way of seeing, and understanding, and exercising leadership and power. It’s not about forcing other people to do things against their wills—it’s about looking at your own will, and desires, and fears and worries, and saying “In spite of all of this, I will follow the way of God. Which is not violent, or coercive, or angry—even when it is met with violence and anger and coercion.” Which does not insist on winning at any cost; which is even willing to suffer the indignity of death rather than meet hatred with more hatred.
Paul is telling the Romans the same thing. “Bless those who curse you; do not avenge yourselves; give food and drink to your enemies when they hunger and thirst.” It is beyond strange—such actions overturn the world’s values, by intentionally and consciously and repeatedly choosing to follow a different way of life.
That’s what Jesus is telling his hearers this morning. I am taking a road to God, which will be misunderstood and feared and scorned by the powers of this world as impotent and foolish and useless. And I’m inviting you to come with me. No obligation; no coercion. You can try to go it alone, the way you always have, the way the principalities and powers of Rome and Jerusalem, Washington and Wall Street and Beijing tell you you’re supposed to. But I have something wonderful, something they can’t even imagine, that I want you to have also. And I want you to share it with everyone you meet. Come with me and see—you’ve begun to discover it already.
Every time we baptize, we brand the new Christian with the cross. In water and oil, with the words “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” We don’t have to go find a cross to carry, or ask someone to build one for us from tree branches and rope—it’s already on us.
The question then is: What are you—what are we—going to do with it?
Monday, August 15, 2011
9 Pentecost, Year A, 14 August 2011
Psalm 133, Genesis 45:1-15, Romans 11:1-2, 29-32, Matthew 15:21-28
Preached by Rev. Erwin Veale
I usually like to preach on the gospel lesson, the good news. Today’s gospel is a hard one for me so I want to take a different approach. I love the Old Testament story we see concluded today. Joseph had a chance for revenge. He had all the authority and resources behind him to wipe his brothers from the face of the earth. What would we have done?
Has anybody done you wrong? What has your response been? What is your attitude about that issue even in this very moment? I’d rather you answer these questions! I would not want to tell all with regard to my story and that of my family. What are we to do? We are to do as Joseph does in what we call the Old Testament.
Joseph’s actions precede those of Jesus and we are to also do as Jesus does. Jesus knew the story of Joseph very well. He was beginning to understand his role in this world. I believe he knew the power he had behind him to judge the world with a power even greater than Joseph had.
Joseph forgave. Jesus forgives. We are to do the same.
Preached by Rev. Erwin Veale
I usually like to preach on the gospel lesson, the good news. Today’s gospel is a hard one for me so I want to take a different approach. I love the Old Testament story we see concluded today. Joseph had a chance for revenge. He had all the authority and resources behind him to wipe his brothers from the face of the earth. What would we have done?
Has anybody done you wrong? What has your response been? What is your attitude about that issue even in this very moment? I’d rather you answer these questions! I would not want to tell all with regard to my story and that of my family. What are we to do? We are to do as Joseph does in what we call the Old Testament.
Joseph’s actions precede those of Jesus and we are to also do as Jesus does. Jesus knew the story of Joseph very well. He was beginning to understand his role in this world. I believe he knew the power he had behind him to judge the world with a power even greater than Joseph had.
Joseph forgave. Jesus forgives. We are to do the same.
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, 10 July 2011
Genesis 25:19-34;Psalm 119:105-112;Romans 8:1-11;Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Preached by Reverend Lou Scales
I once heard it said that the reason God created human beings is that God just loves good stories. In fact, God loves good stories so much that he gave Jesus the gift of being the Master Storyteller for us. For the next three Sundays, the Lectionary gives us Jesus’ parables from Saint Matthew’s Gospel.
Parables were Jesus’ favorite way of teaching. According to many scholars, the parables revealed the religious experience of Jesus and his insight into God in Heaven. Parables demand thought, and are often difficult to understand. Both today and next Sunday, in the two parables of the Sower (which may be different versions of the same parable) are part of a tradition of parables of reassurance, of encouragement, of confidence. They are paralleled by another tradition of parables of warning, of challenge, of urgency.
The trouble with parables is that they are disturbing, baffling, and puzzling. That Jesus intended them to be like that, as a tool for thought and insight, should go without saying. In fact, Marcus Borg tells us that the parables of Jesus “function in a particular way: they are invitational forms of speech. Jesus used them to invite his hearers to see something they might not otherwise see. As evocative forms of speech, they tease the imagination into activity, suggest more than they say, and invite a transformation in perception.”
It is significant and important for us to hear, and tell, these stories over and over again. In the telling and the hearing, time and again, we find new insights into ourselves, into those around us, and into God’s kingdom. Some times we’ll use the metaphor of God as Farmer to help us understand the way God seeks to grow us into the kingdom of his love and grace, and the patience God exercises in that effort. Hearing this parable again in these terms helps us to see how we can grow and mature in faith, depending on the kind of grounding we have in Word and Sacrament. We’ll use the metaphor of how the seed is planted to help us understand what happens to our efforts in evangelism. Same story, different insights for different times and circumstances in our lives. Different glimpses of the same loving God who continually calls us to a deeper knowledge and acceptance of grace and love.
And in that sense, today is no different, because you are not going to hear about either of those. Instead, you are going to hear, and, I trust, think and meditate, about what this parable tells us of how we deal with failure. In a world that seems to be consumed by the effort to succeed wildly in everything, we inevitably face that reality of not winning them all. We will not make a perfect score on every exam. We will not be the prime candidate for every job we want. We may not be admitted to the best university because there are others deemed more successful and having more potential that we do. In attempting to support our friends, spouses and children in their efforts to succeed, we will offer sound advice and guidance, based on our best intentions and considerable experience, only to have that advice and guidance graciously (and sometimes Ungraciously) rejected or ignored.
When it comes to facing failures in life, the farmer in Jesus’ parable sounds a lot like you and me. We work hard, and we only sometimes succeed. A lot of the best things we give to others are not well received by them. Much of what we want to plant in the lives of those around us doesn’t “take”…doesn’t become rooted and permanently planted in their lives. All of us have to deal with failure. All of us know those areas in our lives and the lives of those around us, where the best we give or attempt for ourselves comes up lacking, falling short of our hope, our dreams and our great expectations.
Some biblical commentators suggest that this parable of Jesus is somewhat autobiographical, and that well could be true. Jesus certainly had to face a great deal of apparent disappointment. He knows full well the pain of failure.
Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth, and his own hometown folk rejected Him. The people of Israel rejected both Him and his message. His handpicked twelve apostles? Well, one of them sold Him out for thirty pieces of silver, and the others fled when He was arrested, tried and crucified. Moreover, Peter was not too swift to take His message to heart. Thomas was the Doubter, and the others were not much better, either.
He died a criminal’s death, and was buried in a borrowed tomb.
Elijah, long before Christ, along with Jeremiah and other prophets as well, were notable failures, most of them ending up against the outside wall of Jerusalem on the receiving end of deadly stone throwing attacks.
The Apostle Paul would not make the “short list” of aspiring rectors anywhere in this area – what with his contentious relationships with authorities, his numerous arrests and convictions, his unwillingness to stay in one place for any length of time; his candidacy could not possibly survive the background check.
We know about missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams and unmet expectations. We know the pain of giving it everything we had, and coming up short. We know the terrible agony of moving along, minding our own business, and then being devastated by a disaster of sickness, death, betrayal or catastrophe. What this parable invites us to re-discover is the goodness and strength that come through surviving and enduring the trials and disappointments. The parable of the Sower invites us – challenges us - to look again at how we deal with our losses and disappointments, and whether we allow them to beat us down, or choose to grow from them and become stronger because of them. Over the centuries there are marvelous stories of those who, when faced with the overwhelming option of quitting, refused to give up, refused to be beaten. I will remind you briefly of three:
John Milton wrote the classic Paradise Lost at the age of 60 – after he had been blind for 16 years.
After years of progressive hearing loss, by age 46, German composer Ludwig von Beethoven had become completely deaf. Nevertheless, he wrote his greatest music, including five symphonies, during his later years.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with polio at the age of 39, yet went on to be elected President of the United States – four times.
The stories of people who learned and grew and overcame obstacles and refused to quit go on and on. And Jesus knew those stories when he told his parable, and tried to let us discover for ourselves the liberating and challenging truths that only failure, disappointment and hardship can teach.
Some of our efforts will fall on the path, and will amount to nothing but birdfeed. Other efforts will fall on rocky ground, come up quickly, and wither just as quickly. Still other efforts will look, sound and feel good, only to be cruelly choked off before they really produce. But other efforts will find their way to success and faithful completion, not because we are lucky, but because we are faithful, persistent, and trusting in God’s never ending love for us and presence with us.
Listen to the words spoken by God through God’s servant Isaiah: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return until they have watered the earth, making it blossom and bear fruit, and give seed for sowing and bread to eat, so shall the word which comes from my mouth prevail; it shall not return to me fruitless without accomplishing my purpose for succeeding in the task I give it.”
Hope, encouragement and reassurance, spoken when we need it most. Jesus’ followers from then on, even to today, have needed to hear the same good news, and be reminded that our courage and persistence is born of hope in the risen Christ, and the complete trust in the reality of the risen Christ in our world and in our lives now.
As we come to the Eucharist feast, we may be coming bloodied, bruised and almost beaten, possibly disappointed and dejected. But coming to this feast is the renewal the parable calls us to remember. While our disappointment and frustration may be great, the goodness of love that is before us is absolutely overwhelming. Saint Paul reminds us, again and again, that we are the daughters and sons of God, and forever receive the indescribable gift of God’s love and grace. Again, Isaiah calls us to hear the words of the never ending promise of God who loves us: “Come to me and listen to my words, hear me, and you shall have life.”
So come to the feast, buy bread and wine without price, without cost. Know you are comforted and challenged, renewed and called to be the sons and daughters of the risen Christ.
Preached by Reverend Lou Scales
I once heard it said that the reason God created human beings is that God just loves good stories. In fact, God loves good stories so much that he gave Jesus the gift of being the Master Storyteller for us. For the next three Sundays, the Lectionary gives us Jesus’ parables from Saint Matthew’s Gospel.
Parables were Jesus’ favorite way of teaching. According to many scholars, the parables revealed the religious experience of Jesus and his insight into God in Heaven. Parables demand thought, and are often difficult to understand. Both today and next Sunday, in the two parables of the Sower (which may be different versions of the same parable) are part of a tradition of parables of reassurance, of encouragement, of confidence. They are paralleled by another tradition of parables of warning, of challenge, of urgency.
The trouble with parables is that they are disturbing, baffling, and puzzling. That Jesus intended them to be like that, as a tool for thought and insight, should go without saying. In fact, Marcus Borg tells us that the parables of Jesus “function in a particular way: they are invitational forms of speech. Jesus used them to invite his hearers to see something they might not otherwise see. As evocative forms of speech, they tease the imagination into activity, suggest more than they say, and invite a transformation in perception.”
It is significant and important for us to hear, and tell, these stories over and over again. In the telling and the hearing, time and again, we find new insights into ourselves, into those around us, and into God’s kingdom. Some times we’ll use the metaphor of God as Farmer to help us understand the way God seeks to grow us into the kingdom of his love and grace, and the patience God exercises in that effort. Hearing this parable again in these terms helps us to see how we can grow and mature in faith, depending on the kind of grounding we have in Word and Sacrament. We’ll use the metaphor of how the seed is planted to help us understand what happens to our efforts in evangelism. Same story, different insights for different times and circumstances in our lives. Different glimpses of the same loving God who continually calls us to a deeper knowledge and acceptance of grace and love.
And in that sense, today is no different, because you are not going to hear about either of those. Instead, you are going to hear, and, I trust, think and meditate, about what this parable tells us of how we deal with failure. In a world that seems to be consumed by the effort to succeed wildly in everything, we inevitably face that reality of not winning them all. We will not make a perfect score on every exam. We will not be the prime candidate for every job we want. We may not be admitted to the best university because there are others deemed more successful and having more potential that we do. In attempting to support our friends, spouses and children in their efforts to succeed, we will offer sound advice and guidance, based on our best intentions and considerable experience, only to have that advice and guidance graciously (and sometimes Ungraciously) rejected or ignored.
When it comes to facing failures in life, the farmer in Jesus’ parable sounds a lot like you and me. We work hard, and we only sometimes succeed. A lot of the best things we give to others are not well received by them. Much of what we want to plant in the lives of those around us doesn’t “take”…doesn’t become rooted and permanently planted in their lives. All of us have to deal with failure. All of us know those areas in our lives and the lives of those around us, where the best we give or attempt for ourselves comes up lacking, falling short of our hope, our dreams and our great expectations.
Some biblical commentators suggest that this parable of Jesus is somewhat autobiographical, and that well could be true. Jesus certainly had to face a great deal of apparent disappointment. He knows full well the pain of failure.
Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth, and his own hometown folk rejected Him. The people of Israel rejected both Him and his message. His handpicked twelve apostles? Well, one of them sold Him out for thirty pieces of silver, and the others fled when He was arrested, tried and crucified. Moreover, Peter was not too swift to take His message to heart. Thomas was the Doubter, and the others were not much better, either.
He died a criminal’s death, and was buried in a borrowed tomb.
Elijah, long before Christ, along with Jeremiah and other prophets as well, were notable failures, most of them ending up against the outside wall of Jerusalem on the receiving end of deadly stone throwing attacks.
The Apostle Paul would not make the “short list” of aspiring rectors anywhere in this area – what with his contentious relationships with authorities, his numerous arrests and convictions, his unwillingness to stay in one place for any length of time; his candidacy could not possibly survive the background check.
We know about missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams and unmet expectations. We know the pain of giving it everything we had, and coming up short. We know the terrible agony of moving along, minding our own business, and then being devastated by a disaster of sickness, death, betrayal or catastrophe. What this parable invites us to re-discover is the goodness and strength that come through surviving and enduring the trials and disappointments. The parable of the Sower invites us – challenges us - to look again at how we deal with our losses and disappointments, and whether we allow them to beat us down, or choose to grow from them and become stronger because of them. Over the centuries there are marvelous stories of those who, when faced with the overwhelming option of quitting, refused to give up, refused to be beaten. I will remind you briefly of three:
John Milton wrote the classic Paradise Lost at the age of 60 – after he had been blind for 16 years.
After years of progressive hearing loss, by age 46, German composer Ludwig von Beethoven had become completely deaf. Nevertheless, he wrote his greatest music, including five symphonies, during his later years.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with polio at the age of 39, yet went on to be elected President of the United States – four times.
The stories of people who learned and grew and overcame obstacles and refused to quit go on and on. And Jesus knew those stories when he told his parable, and tried to let us discover for ourselves the liberating and challenging truths that only failure, disappointment and hardship can teach.
Some of our efforts will fall on the path, and will amount to nothing but birdfeed. Other efforts will fall on rocky ground, come up quickly, and wither just as quickly. Still other efforts will look, sound and feel good, only to be cruelly choked off before they really produce. But other efforts will find their way to success and faithful completion, not because we are lucky, but because we are faithful, persistent, and trusting in God’s never ending love for us and presence with us.
Listen to the words spoken by God through God’s servant Isaiah: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return until they have watered the earth, making it blossom and bear fruit, and give seed for sowing and bread to eat, so shall the word which comes from my mouth prevail; it shall not return to me fruitless without accomplishing my purpose for succeeding in the task I give it.”
Hope, encouragement and reassurance, spoken when we need it most. Jesus’ followers from then on, even to today, have needed to hear the same good news, and be reminded that our courage and persistence is born of hope in the risen Christ, and the complete trust in the reality of the risen Christ in our world and in our lives now.
As we come to the Eucharist feast, we may be coming bloodied, bruised and almost beaten, possibly disappointed and dejected. But coming to this feast is the renewal the parable calls us to remember. While our disappointment and frustration may be great, the goodness of love that is before us is absolutely overwhelming. Saint Paul reminds us, again and again, that we are the daughters and sons of God, and forever receive the indescribable gift of God’s love and grace. Again, Isaiah calls us to hear the words of the never ending promise of God who loves us: “Come to me and listen to my words, hear me, and you shall have life.”
So come to the feast, buy bread and wine without price, without cost. Know you are comforted and challenged, renewed and called to be the sons and daughters of the risen Christ.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, 3 July 2011
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45:11-18; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Preached by Rev. Jason Haddox
In a scene from the movie “Julie and Julia” (released 2007?) Julia Child and her French cooking colleague, Simone Beck are waiting for their American hostess, Avis DeVoto, to meet them at the train station when they arrive in Boston. Simone asks Julia what Avis looks like, and Julia refers to her last letter from Avis: “Look for a middle-aged woman in a plaid jacket.” Simone realizes from this that, in fact, Julia has never met Avis in person, despite having been in regular written contact with her for many years. Julia is in the midst of explaining how this is possible when, in the background, a very short and petite middle-aged woman in a plaid jacket and hat (this is the late fifties, after all) comes running into the station, looking around the waiting room with great excitement. They see one another, and realize that yes—there she is, that’s the one. They stand face to face at last, and the viewers are simultaneously touched at this joyful meeting and amused at the disparity between their heights—Julia towers over Avis by at least a full head or more in stature.
“What are you looking for?” In this case, a plaid jacket, worn by a middle-aged woman. That was all she knew to look for.
In some respect, all of our lessons this morning are dealing with that question, What are you looking for?
The story from Genesis is almost a children’s bedtime story. “Once upon a time, in a far-away country, a man went on a long journey in search of a wife. Not for himself, but for the son of the man he worked for.
He sat at the place near the town where the young women would come in the evening to draw water for their families and animals, and there he saw her for the first time. But he didn’t know if it was really her, at first…he had to find out for certain.”
All he knew for sure was that he was looking for a wife for Isaac, from Abraham’s ancestral family. But who? Who was she, the one who would leave family and home and everything, and travel such a distance to live with someone she had never seen or met? Isaac, back home with Father Abraham, was still mourning his own mother Sarah, who had died some time before this. How could Rebecca know that this was a good thing to do?
But it happens…Rebecca goes with the man all that great distance, to become Isaac’s wife. I wonder what SHE was looking for, when she saw him walking in the field at evening, coming out to greet the travelers as they arrived. What did she think, when she saw him for the first time? Did she walk directly up to him and look right at him at once? Or did she hang back, watching and waiting to be introduced to her husband for the first time? I wonder.
In our gospel lesson this morning, John the Baptist is in lurking in the background. He needs no introduction, Jesus’ hearers all knew who he was. This morning John the Baptist is in prison, locked up for his criticism of King Herod. (By the way, this is not Herod the Great…more like Herod the Inadequate. Or Herod the Neurotic.) In a few chapters John will be executed, but for now he’s merely out of circulation. He has sent some of his own disciples to talk to Jesus, to ask him “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for someone else?”
This is the same John the Baptist who, at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus comes to the Jordan River to be baptized, says in no uncertain terms, “I need you to baptize ME! What are you doing here?” (Matt. 3:14) This is Matthew’s version of the story, wherein the theme of Jesus’ impeccable qualifications to be “the one, the Messiah, God’s chosen servant and messenger” is always front and center.
“Are you the one, or should we wait for another?” And Jesus, rather than answering the question directly, sends them back to John with the instructions “Go tell John what you yourselves have seen: The blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” (11:5-6)
“What are you looking for?”
Jesus asks the crowd standing nearby the same question. “You all went out to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist—why? What were you looking for? Lovely scenery? A celebrity press conference? No…a prophet. And what a prophet, like none other ever before!
“What are you looking for, even now? John came to you as a prophet, a stern austere ascetic preacher of the straight-and-narrow way and you said “Oh he’s nuts. He’s possessed. Don’t worry about him.”
“The Son of man came, eating and drinking and gathering people in convivial community and you say “Look at him—carousing and drinking and hanging out with THEM PEOPLE—what a lousy example of moral rectitude!”
What are you looking for? Dear God in heaven…these people are impossible!
And indeed, Jesus turns to God in prayer—and a strange and complex prayer it is. We’re still in Matthew’s gospel, but this sounds like something out of John. “No one knows the Son except the Father/No one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son reveals the Father.” That interpenetration between God and Jesus, the inseparability of them, is given a tiny bit of explanation here.
“Come to me, all you burdened and troubled ones, weighed down with your own struggles and troubles and worries, and I will give you rest.” We love that passage.
But here’s the funny thing of it. Jesus tells them to take another burden, another weight. To exchange their own heavy yoke of struggle and difficulty for a different one—a lighter one, perhaps, but another one nevertheless. The exchange is not “Sit down here and rest and don’t move any more.” MY yoke is easy; MY burden is light. This, only verses after he has told the disciples “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
There is a price to all this.
What are you looking for?
Paul, in the passage from Romans, is in a rough patch of theological weeds this morning. I would advise you to go home and read the passage in context, because what we’ve got in front of us is a dense and somewhat frantic extract from a larger argument that Paul is making.
Grace—God’s unearned, unmerited gift and favor—is over all. And Paul wants to insist on this throughout. But Sin (and that’s Sin with a capital S, again…not just individual misdeeds) is still interfering. Or trying to interfere…showing up in the individual misdeeds of which Paul is currently obsessing just a bit. At the end of it all (“I do not do the thing I want to do, but the thing I do not want is the very thing I do…”) he exclaims “Who will save me from all this dreadfulness? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Immediately followed by “Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
No condemnation. No condemnation whatsoever. In Christ’s life, and death, and resurrection from the dead, Death itself has been put to death, and we are caught up into the Resurrection even now. It may not feel that way some days, we may struggle to believe that that is the truth of it, but it’s not about how we feel on a given day. It’s much bigger than that.
It just may be that insisting on our own limited ability to perceive and understand—what Jesus describes as “sitting in the marketplace refusing to either mourn or dance” is a refusal to see, or to be pleased, with anything at all. Neither mourning nor feasting, but sitting in a pouty attitude with our arms across our chests and our lower lips thrust out. “Come to me” he invites…and that invitation to release our own burdens and struggles is not compulsory. We can hold on to our own “Stuff” for as long as we like—He will not force us. But then we’re stuck with it all.
The wisdom of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are open, not to the wise and understanding, but to “little children”…for they themselves are open to receive them.
What are you looking for?
Preached by Rev. Jason Haddox
In a scene from the movie “Julie and Julia” (released 2007?) Julia Child and her French cooking colleague, Simone Beck are waiting for their American hostess, Avis DeVoto, to meet them at the train station when they arrive in Boston. Simone asks Julia what Avis looks like, and Julia refers to her last letter from Avis: “Look for a middle-aged woman in a plaid jacket.” Simone realizes from this that, in fact, Julia has never met Avis in person, despite having been in regular written contact with her for many years. Julia is in the midst of explaining how this is possible when, in the background, a very short and petite middle-aged woman in a plaid jacket and hat (this is the late fifties, after all) comes running into the station, looking around the waiting room with great excitement. They see one another, and realize that yes—there she is, that’s the one. They stand face to face at last, and the viewers are simultaneously touched at this joyful meeting and amused at the disparity between their heights—Julia towers over Avis by at least a full head or more in stature.
“What are you looking for?” In this case, a plaid jacket, worn by a middle-aged woman. That was all she knew to look for.
In some respect, all of our lessons this morning are dealing with that question, What are you looking for?
The story from Genesis is almost a children’s bedtime story. “Once upon a time, in a far-away country, a man went on a long journey in search of a wife. Not for himself, but for the son of the man he worked for.
He sat at the place near the town where the young women would come in the evening to draw water for their families and animals, and there he saw her for the first time. But he didn’t know if it was really her, at first…he had to find out for certain.”
All he knew for sure was that he was looking for a wife for Isaac, from Abraham’s ancestral family. But who? Who was she, the one who would leave family and home and everything, and travel such a distance to live with someone she had never seen or met? Isaac, back home with Father Abraham, was still mourning his own mother Sarah, who had died some time before this. How could Rebecca know that this was a good thing to do?
But it happens…Rebecca goes with the man all that great distance, to become Isaac’s wife. I wonder what SHE was looking for, when she saw him walking in the field at evening, coming out to greet the travelers as they arrived. What did she think, when she saw him for the first time? Did she walk directly up to him and look right at him at once? Or did she hang back, watching and waiting to be introduced to her husband for the first time? I wonder.
In our gospel lesson this morning, John the Baptist is in lurking in the background. He needs no introduction, Jesus’ hearers all knew who he was. This morning John the Baptist is in prison, locked up for his criticism of King Herod. (By the way, this is not Herod the Great…more like Herod the Inadequate. Or Herod the Neurotic.) In a few chapters John will be executed, but for now he’s merely out of circulation. He has sent some of his own disciples to talk to Jesus, to ask him “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for someone else?”
This is the same John the Baptist who, at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus comes to the Jordan River to be baptized, says in no uncertain terms, “I need you to baptize ME! What are you doing here?” (Matt. 3:14) This is Matthew’s version of the story, wherein the theme of Jesus’ impeccable qualifications to be “the one, the Messiah, God’s chosen servant and messenger” is always front and center.
“Are you the one, or should we wait for another?” And Jesus, rather than answering the question directly, sends them back to John with the instructions “Go tell John what you yourselves have seen: The blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” (11:5-6)
“What are you looking for?”
Jesus asks the crowd standing nearby the same question. “You all went out to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist—why? What were you looking for? Lovely scenery? A celebrity press conference? No…a prophet. And what a prophet, like none other ever before!
“What are you looking for, even now? John came to you as a prophet, a stern austere ascetic preacher of the straight-and-narrow way and you said “Oh he’s nuts. He’s possessed. Don’t worry about him.”
“The Son of man came, eating and drinking and gathering people in convivial community and you say “Look at him—carousing and drinking and hanging out with THEM PEOPLE—what a lousy example of moral rectitude!”
What are you looking for? Dear God in heaven…these people are impossible!
And indeed, Jesus turns to God in prayer—and a strange and complex prayer it is. We’re still in Matthew’s gospel, but this sounds like something out of John. “No one knows the Son except the Father/No one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son reveals the Father.” That interpenetration between God and Jesus, the inseparability of them, is given a tiny bit of explanation here.
“Come to me, all you burdened and troubled ones, weighed down with your own struggles and troubles and worries, and I will give you rest.” We love that passage.
But here’s the funny thing of it. Jesus tells them to take another burden, another weight. To exchange their own heavy yoke of struggle and difficulty for a different one—a lighter one, perhaps, but another one nevertheless. The exchange is not “Sit down here and rest and don’t move any more.” MY yoke is easy; MY burden is light. This, only verses after he has told the disciples “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
There is a price to all this.
What are you looking for?
Paul, in the passage from Romans, is in a rough patch of theological weeds this morning. I would advise you to go home and read the passage in context, because what we’ve got in front of us is a dense and somewhat frantic extract from a larger argument that Paul is making.
Grace—God’s unearned, unmerited gift and favor—is over all. And Paul wants to insist on this throughout. But Sin (and that’s Sin with a capital S, again…not just individual misdeeds) is still interfering. Or trying to interfere…showing up in the individual misdeeds of which Paul is currently obsessing just a bit. At the end of it all (“I do not do the thing I want to do, but the thing I do not want is the very thing I do…”) he exclaims “Who will save me from all this dreadfulness? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Immediately followed by “Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
No condemnation. No condemnation whatsoever. In Christ’s life, and death, and resurrection from the dead, Death itself has been put to death, and we are caught up into the Resurrection even now. It may not feel that way some days, we may struggle to believe that that is the truth of it, but it’s not about how we feel on a given day. It’s much bigger than that.
It just may be that insisting on our own limited ability to perceive and understand—what Jesus describes as “sitting in the marketplace refusing to either mourn or dance” is a refusal to see, or to be pleased, with anything at all. Neither mourning nor feasting, but sitting in a pouty attitude with our arms across our chests and our lower lips thrust out. “Come to me” he invites…and that invitation to release our own burdens and struggles is not compulsory. We can hold on to our own “Stuff” for as long as we like—He will not force us. But then we’re stuck with it all.
The wisdom of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are open, not to the wise and understanding, but to “little children”…for they themselves are open to receive them.
What are you looking for?
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