Your Market Value

Sermon for Oc.t 22, 2023
Isaiah 45:1-7; Matthew 22:15-22

Welcome to the stewardship season!  If you’ve been part of other churches’ stewardship efforts, you may be familiar with the variety of ways congregations tackle this annual time of gratitude and fundraising.  There’s the “give us money” approach:  Here are the church’s financial needs; please pony up.  There’s the duty-based approach:  The Bible says give, so give.  There’s the “pray and pay” approach:  If we pray hard enough, we won’t have to ask for pledges because the money will just come in.  There’s the assessment approach:  Let us know your adjusted gross income, and we’ll figure your pledge for you.  (That actually happens in some faith traditions.)

Our approach is a little different.  I think there’s a lot that will bless you over the next five weeks, and I don’t want you to miss it.  So, we offered a “road map” in this weekend’s communications, but I want to give you a quick overview now, too.

The theme is “going deep and going wide to find God’s peace,” so we’ll be offering several resources to help us on that journey.  Here in worship, we’re beginning a sermon series titled, “Is It Well With My Soul?”; and today we’re kicking it off by asking, “Do I have worth?”  In these sermons, we’ll ask God questions that keep us up at night, which certainly beats trying to wrestle with them alone.

Then, after each sermon, we’ll hear an interview with a St. Andrew’s member who’s tapping into God’s love, and the peace it brings, through the life of the church.  For example, today we’ll hear from Sara Welch, a relatively new member who came into St. Andrew’s through classes and discussions from our Adult Formation ministries – and who’s now helping to lead them.

A final resource you’ll have is a daily prayer-and-Scripture guide, inviting us to still the anxiety of our lives by reflecting on God’s love.  For example, in this first week, as the sermon asks, “Do I have worth,” the daily Bible readings and prayers will help us remember that God loves us unconditionally – and what greater worth could we seek?  You’ll find these readings and prayers on St. Andrew’s daily social media, on the website, and in your mailbox, part of the stewardship packet you’ll receive this week.

Then, at the end of this season, we’ll ask you to make a financial pledge, an estimate of your giving for 2024 to support God’s work here at St. Andrew’s.  What does that have to do with finding God’s peace?  Well, to me, it works this way:  The church is like an app, a resource for tapping into the peace the world cannot give.  The more you use it, the more peace you find.  The more peace you find, the more gratitude you feel.  And the more gratitude you feel, the more you want to give back – in thanksgiving for the blessings you’ve found and to support the church’s work to bless others.

So, for today – here’s the first big question in our sermon series: “Do I have worth?”  I did a little looking for ways the world around us conceives of self-worth.  You probably won’t be surprised to know there’s a psychological instrument for measuring the “contingencies of self-worth,” showing us where we tend to look to gauge our own value.  These sources of our self-worth fall on a range from more extrinsic to more intrinsic – categories like personal appearance, approval from others, success in academics, success in competition, family support, the practice of virtuous behavior, and an awareness of God’s love.¹  The instrument doesn’t make judgments about those different contingencies of self-worth; it just lets you identify where yours lie. 

I mention this because it illustrates the different places we might look to gauge our worth.  I’m no psychologist, but I’d bet my next paycheck that those who find their self-worth in their appearance or in approval from others have a less-peaceful life than those who find their self-worth in virtuous behavior and the love of God.  

To me, seeing our worth is about claiming our true identity and the blessings that flow from it.  And I think we get a glimpse of that from our readings today.  They aren’t explicitly about such a modern construct as self-worth but about the true source of our value instead.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus is still confronting the religious authorities, who are trying to get him sent to prison.  They’ve joined forces with the lackeys of King Herod, himself a lackey of the emperor in Rome.  They try to get Jesus to indict himself by preaching against paying taxes to Rome.  But Jesus beautifully avoids the trap by rejecting the either/or, stepping out of the false choice by turning the question around.  Sure, Jesus says, “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s” – coins bearing his name and face – but “give to God the things that are God’s” (Matt 22:21).   

And what are those things?  Well, in one sense, those things are … everything.  As God says in the reading from Isaiah, “There is no one besides me, I am the Lord, and there is no other.  I form light and create darkness … I the Lord do all these things.” (45:6-7)  So, you could say that what we should give to God is … everything.  But what I find amazing in that Isaiah reading is where God goes with this overwhelming authority.  “I am the Lord, and there is no other” … and, I know you by name.  You may not fully know me, but I know you, God says.  I am Love, and I made you in love, and I will use you to bless the world with love.  God is willing to come to us, to begin the relationship, because that’s what Love does.  So, if we’re called to “give to God the things that are God’s,” the most fundamental thing you can give is relationship – returning the love that comes to you as a beloved child of the One who knows you and calls you by name.

Contrasting with that source of our worth, we have the culture around us insisting it has the power to define our value.  The culture says our worth comes from our possessions or our assets or our power.  The culture says our worth comes from what others think of us.  The culture says our worth comes from how hard we work and what we achieve, that our value is a function of our outputs.  The culture says our worth comes from making it on our own, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps to achieve individual success.  

And then there’s maybe the loudest voice arguing with God about our worth – our inner critic, the voice that tells us we’re imposters who’ll never be good enough anyway.  Isn’t it amazing, and a little tragic, how we can hear 10 affirmations of our talent and maybe begin to accept it, but just one well-placed criticism affirms the inner critic and sucks the wind out of the sails of our self-worth?

Well, here’s a way to see our worth differently, a perspective from a higher authority than the culture or the inner critic.  Think about this:  According to the principles of economics, how do we assess something’s value?  Well, the market tells us value is the price someone is willing to pay for a good or service. So, imagine that someone is God, and the good being paid for is you. 

What price is God willing to pay for you?  The calculation works regardless of the theology of the atonement you prefer.  You could say the Father sent the Son to suffer and die to pay the debt for our sin, a debt we could never pay ourselves.  Or you could say God took human flesh and dwelt among the lowest of the low, enduring constant oppression and unimaginable suffering, to share the Love that gives us eternal life.  Or you could say God went to war against the forces of evil, dying in order to vanquish sin and death and win a battle we could never win on our own. 

However you see Jesus’ work to redeem us, the message is the same:  You are of ultimate value to the sovereign of the universe.  You are worth dying and rising for, because God loves you enough to pay the ultimate price for you.

That sounds great. But how do we come to believe it for ourselves?  Well, by walking the pilgrimage of faith, going deeper with God and coming to know God’s love one-to-one.  It’s a journey of being formed into the person God has created you to be, coming more and more into spiritual “maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).  The church calls that process Christian formation, and it can happen all along and all across our lives.  And it happens explicitly through ministries here that give us the chance to go deeper in relationship with God through learning, praying, and sharing with others.  We’re formed into the full stature of Christ through Bible studies, book groups, discussion opportunities, classes, podcasts, daily Scripture reading, daily prayer, and contemplative practice. 

All those formation opportunities point us toward the God who sees such worth in us that God gave up the distance of divinity, paying the ultimate price to let you know how deeply you’re beloved.  And what does God ask in return?  Just that you return the favor, making your own effort to bridge the gap between humanity and divinity, giving back to God the ultimate gift, the best you can offer – the gift of love.

1.     https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/psychology/crockerlab/documents/CSWscale.pdf

The Story of God in the World

Sermon for Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023
Psalm 23; Matthew 22:1-14

I find myself today in the position of preaching a sermon no one will like.  If you’re looking for me to rally us around horrific images of mutilated Israeli children, you won’t get that this morning.  If you’re looking for a historical review of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you won’t get that this morning.  If you’re looking for me to share heartbreaking stories from people I met in the Holy Land, I’m afraid you won’t get that this morning, either.  The one person whose story I felt I learned with any depth was that of our guide, a Palestinian Christian whose family has been among the tiny minority of Christians in the Holy Land for centuries … and who, I’m sure, is now keeping her head down, literally and figuratively, praying the conflict doesn’t spread to her family in the West Bank. Her name is Ranya, and I certainly pray for her.

In a God-awful moment like this, as we’re bombarded with bloody images and stories that enrage and frighten us, I think we yearn most for clear answers, especially to the question of who’s right and who’s wrong.  That’s what we want to hear, right? – clear judgment.  “Fr. John, we should be standing with Israel, right?”  “Fr. John, we should be seeing the humanity of the Palestinians, right?”

Well, if we want guidance on what’s right and what’s wrong beyond our gut reactions, we might turn to the field of ethics.  That gets complicated quickly because, of course, there’s no single way of approaching ethical decision-making, even just within the narrow framework of Western ethics.  A utilitarian ethicist might look at the war in Israel and Gaza and argue for the solution that brings the greatest good to the greatest number.  A virtue ethicist might examine the values being followed by the two sides and advocate for actions that reflect virtuous character.  A deontologist, or duty-based ethicist, might focus on the rules governing this conflict and advocate for strict adherence.

I remember the first day of ethics class in seminary.  The professor began by asking us a question: What sets Christian ethics apart from other ethical approaches?  We students mined our paltry intellectual reserves and came up with possible answers.  Maybe Christian ethics applies the rigor of philosophical investigation to religious life.  Maybe Christian ethics places love above all other values.  Maybe Christian ethics develops the rules and models for life in an explicitly Christian community.  This went on for several minutes, but finally, the professor shook her head and said, “No.  You’re trying too hard.  What sets Christian ethics apart from other ethical approaches is … Jesus.  It’s called Christian ethics because we start with Jesus.  Remember him?”

The point she was making was this: Our beliefs and actions as Christians must reflect something different from the dominant narratives of society.  Our ethics must be specific to our call to follow Christ, to live out his reign and rule in the world.

Where does that start?  Well, I think it starts with what we proclaim here all the time: Love God and love neighbor.  That’s the constitution of the kingdom of God. 

Then we learn what that looks like, primarily through Scripture.  We see Jesus in the Gospels, and we reflect on Jesus in the rest of the New Testament, and we hear the foundations of his Good News in the Hebrew Scriptures – and through all that, we get the story of God in the world.  That story forms us.  The Bible isn’t there to give us verses we can pull out to reinforce what we already think.  The Bible is there to give us a narrative by which we can pattern our lives in contrast to the forces pushing back against God’s living and active presence in the world. 

Well, all that gets especially tricky when we ask what Christian ethics might say about war, because war is maybe the ultimate example of not-the-kingdom.  Now, you can find a verse or two where Jesus’ words might seem to justify violence.  In fact, in the parable today, the king “destroyed” the people who killed the king’s messengers, and he burned their city (Matt 22:7).  But it’s a parable, a story that brings us to a surprising conclusion and makes us wrestle with what it means to pattern our lives on God’s life in the world.  You can also find a verse where Jesus says, “I have come not to bring peace but a sword” (Matt 10:34).  But would any of us really say Jesus advocated violence over peace?  Look at his life and his teaching:  Turn the other cheek.  Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.  Find the people you like least, and break bread with them.  Forgive not seven times but seventy times seven times – even the people who are crucifying you.  That’s kingdom living, the story of God in the world – and it’s the path we’re called to walk.

So, how do you apply that to war?  Again, even within Christian ethics, faithful followers of Jesus offer a wide range of answers.  Christian realists would say that, because of sin and the danger it poses, we have to be willing sometimes to use means that aren’t consistent with Jesus’ life and teaching.  That’s the basis of a theology of just war, which goes back to St. Augustine in the 400s.  To be just, the tradition says, the decision to go to war must meet several criteria:  It must be waged by a legitimate authority through a formal declaration, not just insurgent action.  Its cause must be just, in the sense of promoting justice.  The war must be a last resort.  The war plan must practice proportionality, only enough violence to defeat the evil it opposes.  The war must have a reasonable chance of success.  And the war must be fought with right intention, motivated not by hate but by the need to right a wrong.  There are criteria for the just conduct of war, too.  They come down to discrimination and proportionality:  Discrimination means only legitimate targets may be attacked, and proportionality means only the necessary destructive force may be used.¹

So, that’s what Christian realists might argue.  On the other hand, Christian pacifists would say that, regardless of a war’s purpose, a follower of Jesus simply may not use a means unworthy of Jesus’ reign and rule.  In addition to honoring his call to love the enemy and not to retaliate, Christian pacifists would say their nonviolence embodies allegiance to God as the ultimate authority, superseding allegiance to the state.

So, in a different setting that where we are here this morning, we could have a great conversation about how all this applies in the war between Israel and Hamas, the extent to which Hamas’ attacks on Israelis and Israel’s attacks on Gaza meet those criteria for just war.  I’m working on putting that conversation together, actually, so stay tuned.  But for now – in this past week, as appalling attacks on children came to our devices and TVs – I had to decide what we should do in the moment.  So, in the spirit of narrative theology, I want to tell you a story.

The week’s news and images have hit me as hard as they’ve hit you.  A few months ago, my pilgrimage group was driving along the highway from Jerusalem to Jaffa, the ancient port city next to Tel Aviv.  Jaffa is 40 miles from Gaza, the distance from Belton to KCI.  Now, some of you may remember that on that same day, I wrote on Facebook about how I was cutting my trip short.  I’d planned to stay two days on my own once the pilgrimage ended, but Hamas had started firing rockets into Israel, not far from the road we were traveling that day to get to Jaffa.  It all felt a little too close.  Well, rocket attacks are scary enough.  I never even imagined hand-to-hand killing of people at music festivals or schools.  Clearly, last weekend, Hamas was slaughtering noncombatants; and just as clearly, this would be only the beginning.

Early in the week, Rabbi Alan Londy at New Reform Temple emailed me.  He and I have met for coffee before, though we hadn’t taken it to the next step of figuring out some way our congregations could collaborate on something.  But now, Rabbi Londy was asking for help – simply the blessing of pastoral presence in the midst of deep grief and fear.  He invited us to join their congregation for Shabbat prayers that Friday, a service of solidarity with Israel.  Now, I knew there would be folks at St. Andrew’s who would see this as taking sides – people who would cheer that we were supporting Israel and people who would point to the moral evil of 75 years of Israeli governments taking Palestinians’ land.  And the last thing I wanted to do was divide us here over a conflict thousands of miles away.

So, I know it sounds trite, but I found myself wondering, “What would Jesus do?”  If Jesus had a church, and a nearby synagogue asked his disciples to come and stand alongside them in their grief and fear, what would Jesus do?

So, Friday night, about 25 St. Andrew’s people showed up at New Reform Temple for Shabbat worship.  Now, I don’t know what each of those 25 people believes about the morality of the Israelis or the Palestinians.  I didn’t ask just for Israel’s allies to gather at New Reform Temple.  I asked anyone who wanted to stand with a neighbor in pain to come out and pray – to pray for them and to pray for peace.  As Queen Elizabeth the First once said about whether her English subjects needed to believe the same things in order to worship together, “I would not open windows into men’s souls.”²  I don’t know what our members who came out on Friday think about the war.  I do know they showed up for their neighbors who needed love and support in a horrifying moment.

To be clear: I’m not arguing for moral equivalence in the war between Israel and Hamas.  I’m not even arguing for immoral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.  If you want to know how I see the conflict, I’d be happy to share a coffee or a beer, but what I think isn’t what matters.  Instead, I’m saying that our need to argue about who’s right reflects our own brokenness, our need to see “my” side as virtuous and “their” side as sinful.  

For followers of Jesus, I’d argue that what matters most is that our actions reflect the example and the sovereignty of the one we call Lord.  After all, that title is the same one that the Roman emperor claimed, Kyrios; so when we use it for Jesus, we’re saying something specific about where our allegiance lies.  In that beautiful, familiar psalm we prayed today, we named the Lord as our “shepherd” (23:1) – which, for the ancient Israelites, implied not just tender care but political authority: The kings of Israel were known as the people’s “shepherds.” 

So, if we’re following our Lord and our royal Shepherd, what might be a faithful response?  In the face of war in the Holy Land, what would Jesus do?  First, I think he would grieve, because if we’re grieving the atrocities of the past week, imagine how they break the heart of pure Love.  Then, he might ask us to look to God, to the Trinity of Love, as the model for human behavior.  Then, he might ask us not “whose side are you on?” but “which ruler are you following?”  And then, he might ask, “What neighbors need you to come alongside them in love?”

1.     https://iep.utm.edu/justwar/

2.     https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00004114

God's Executive Leadership Profile

Sermon for Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023
Matthew 21:23-32; Philippians 2:1-13

In today’s Gospel reading, the religious leaders, baffled by Jesus, sputter at him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (Matt 21:23).  Clearly, there’s a conflict here about where real authority comes from – and, by extension, what real leadership looks like. 

So, to make sense of that conflict, we need to know what Jesus has done to upset the religious leaders.  Well, with today’s reading, we’ve skipped ahead in Matthew’s Gospel, leapfrogging over Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and we find ourselves this morning in the rising conflict leading up to Good Friday.  So, here’s what Jesus has done to push the religious leaders’ buttons:  He’s ridden in triumph into Jerusalem, the political capital and center of the Jewish universe.  And then he’s driven the merchants out of the Temple, literally turning the tables on the existing religious order.  In two quick strokes on the same day, Jesus has taken on the Roman Empire and the Jewish leadership.  Both church and state need to be turned upside down, Jesus says.  No wonder the leaders are asking him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”

And then, as if this fire needed stoking, Jesus responds by telling a series of parables against the religious leaders, letting them know their days in the sun are numbered because of their arrogance and self-righteousness. 

It’s a story we still know all too well.  This past week, the news has given us pictures of a powerful senator who’s become a cartoon character, with bars of gold and wads of cash sticking out of his pockets.  But like all characters in a political cartoon, Senator Menendez is a symbol of so much more that’s wrong in our world of political leadership.  Yesterday, our legislators did, actually, meet the deadline to attend to their most basic responsibility, keeping the government’s doors open and the lights on … at least for 45 more days.  Then we’ll get to watch them fight over shutting down the government again, substituting their own agendas for the nation’s interest.

Sadly, arrogance doesn’t stop at the Capitol steps.  There’s been plenty of it in beautiful spaces like this, too.  For years, the Church could count on social pressure to drive people to come to worship on Sundays.  The question was which congregation had the more attractive preacher or music program or kids’ ministry.  Now, the social pressure to go to church is gone; and, as we hear over and over, folks are voting with their feet, leaving to find meaning somewhere else.  For example:  In 2006, the proportion of Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated was 16 percent.  Now, it’s 27 percent and growing.¹  The Episcopal Church faces the same problems but even more intensely.  Our general Church’s membership has dropped 21 percent in the past 10 years.²

Why is that?  I think much of the issue comes down to whose needs we’ve been prioritizing.  In a nutshell, I think church leaders, lay and ordained, have become conditioned to think in terms of the well-being of the institution first.  We hear it all the time: “The Church needs to grow; the Church needs younger members,” etc.  That’s not wrong, it’s just not the point.  Mtr. Jean and I have been blessed to have some great conversations with a member here who’s a marketing professional.  He’s been helping us see the difference between focusing on the institution versus focusing on the people the institution is here to serve – and then communicating that way.  It’s part of the shift we’ve been trying to make for years here, a shift toward reclaiming mission over maintenance – in other words, trying to discern what the people in the pews and the people around us actually need, rather than trying to cook up the next attractive offering to keep the church chugging along.  Ironically, paradoxically, the Church will find success by focusing less on our desire to succeed and focusing more on our call to give ourselves away, loving and serving the people God brings here and the people God places alongside us.  

I pray that kind of reflection also will be happening in our diocese in the months ahead.  You may have noticed a new intercession in the Prayers of the People each Sunday – and you’ll hear it about a hundred times more over the next 18 months.  We’re searching for a new bishop for the Diocese of West Missouri.  Over the past year, our diocesan leadership bodies have studied the missional history of the Episcopal Church in West Missouri, including how previous bishops spent day after day on the road, visiting tiny mission stations, preaching in larger congregations, confirming new members, speaking to civic groups, and uniting people in twice as many West Missouri communities as have an Episcopal presence today.  Based on that return to our roots, we’ve redone the diocesan budget from scratch, trying to prioritize equipping smaller congregations to serve the people around them rather than simply gasping for breath.

Meanwhile, the diocesan Standing Committee has been designing the process for our bishop search; and in a couple of weeks, we’ll announce the members of the Bishop Search Committee.  These are the people who will create a profile of our diocese – telling the story of who we’ve been, who we are, and who we hear God asking us to become.  This committee will screen the people who apply to be bishop and raise up those whom God might be calling to lead us in this transition time for The Episcopal Church.  Next August, the Search Committee will present three to five candidates for election, and our Diocesan Convention delegates will choose one of them a year from this November.

What kind of leader will we be looking for?  Today’s Gospel reading gives us one portrait of religious leadership – people who assume their credentials privilege their point of view, people who hear a challenge and rush to silence it, people who focus on protecting their power and end up saying and doing little of any real value for the people they supposedly serve.  We can definitely see that model of leadership among the cartoon characters in Washington.  But we’ve also seen it in the Church, over and over again – leaders who were interested in their own position, or anxious about the appearance of their congregation’s success, rather than guiding and forming people to follow Jesus and serve the folks God had placed around them.  

So, as we pray for the bishop search over and over again for the next year and a half, just who are we asking God for?

Before I answer that, I want to share something personal.  In search processes like this, the typical posture is for potential candidates to “dance a little sidestep,”² keeping their options open through artful noncommitment.  By the same token, the typical approach for folks in the pews, especially here in the land of Midwest Nice, is not to ask directly so they don’t put their leader on the spot.  I don’t think any of that does us much good.  In fact, I think it leads us into the kingdom of anxiety, into the thickets of “what’s Fr. John gonna do?” 

So, let me tell you what Fr. John’s going to do.  I’m not going to be a candidate for bishop, and here’s why:  Because God isn’t calling me to it.  If God were, this would be a very different conversation, but I believe I’ve gotten enough clarity to know the call isn’t there.  Why?  Part of that is about the historical moment:  I doubt that a middle-aged-to-older, straight, white man, from this diocese, is the one that we’ll be seeking once our profile is complete.  It’s also about the ministry of a bishop:  I’m not enraptured with the work of the larger Episcopal Church, and a bishop spends a lot of time and energy on that.  It’s also about the schedule of a bishop:  As we’ve learned looking back at the inspiring work of bishops from a century ago, and from the inspiring work of our current bishop provisional, a good bishop must be on the move, showing up all over the diocese and doing the long, slow, slogging, one-on-one work of leading the sheep.  If I were bishop, that’s how I’d need to do it.  But here’s the primary reason that this isn’t a good fit:  That kind of schedule won’t work for Ann and me.  As you know, she struggles with a lot of health issues secondary to her lupus.  Honestly, we never know what’s coming.  Even as it is now, I struggle to be present at home enough.  So, I don’t think I’m called to a job that would put me always on the road.

So, back to the more important question:  Who are we asking God for when we offer that prayer for the bishop search?  Specifically, I don’t know yet.  We have a lot more work to do as we discern the mind of Christ on this question.  But I can tell you this much:  Looking to the mind of Christ is exactly the right way to approach this discernment.  So, let me leave you today with the very best answer to the question, “Who should be our next bishop?”  Because this much I know with all my heart:  Our next bishop must be the person who best fits the executive leadership profile we heard today in the reading from the letter to the Philippians:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests but the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (2:3-11)

Amen.

1.      Public Religion Research Institute. “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval.” May 16, 2023. Available at: https://www.prri.org/research/religion-and-congregations-in-a-time-of-social-and-political-upheaval/. Accessed Sept. 30, 2023.

2.      Paulsen, David. “Episcopal Church’s latest parochial reports point to denominational decline, hope for future.” Sept. 21, 2023. Available at: https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2023/09/21/episcopal-churchs-latest-parochial-reports-highlight-denominational-decline-hope-for-future/. Accessed Sept. 30, 2023.

3.      IMDb. “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). Charles Durning: Governor.” Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083642/characters/nm0001164. Accessed Sept. 30, 2023.

Reconciling Hearts of Stone

Sermon for Sept. 17, 2023
Matthew 18:21-35

I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, but please don’t put up your hands in response.  Have you ever been badly hurt by someone you really care about?  And by the same token: Have you ever badly hurt someone you really care about?  Now, if we had raised our hands, what do you suppose we would have seen?  If we were honest, I think everybody in the room, and everyone at home, would have had their hands up twice.

And that’s why Jesus has a lot to say about forgiveness.  What he says today flows from his teaching last week about resolving conflicts among people of faith.  His best practice would go like this:  First, confront the offender directly and individually.  If that doesn’t work, confront the offender with the concurring testimony of one or two others.  If that doesn’t work, take the conflict to the whole church community.  And why?  The desired outcome is not a confrontation to throw someone out but a reconciliation to bring someone back.  The point is repentance and return to community.  

So, today, Peter asks Jesus, how often do we have to do this?  Is it three strikes and you’re out?  Or seven strikes and you’re out?  No, Jesus says, it’s seventy-seven strikes; and if you’re still counting by that point, you’ve lost the game anyway.  Forgiveness, Jesus says, is to be boundless.  Just as the Father has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Can we handle that?  The simple answer is, no.  I mean, if this came naturally to us, Jesus wouldn’t have bothered to include it in our daily prayer:  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (BCP 364).  I think the reason we don’t forgive easily is because we misunderstand what Jesus is asking for.  When someone harms us and we’re called to forgive, I think we hear that as a feeling – that we supposed to return to the emotional place we were before we got hurt and feel the way we used to feel about the person who hurt us.  If you’ve ever been really hurt, you know that doesn’t happen.  And if we wait for that loving feeling to come back before we return to relationship with someone who’s hurt us, we’ll be waiting a very long time.  

The problem is that we get the order backwards.  Forgiveness doesn’t flow from a mended and gentle heart; a mended and gentle heart grows from forgiveness.  It’s like love: Forgiveness is an act that becomes a feeling, not a feeling that spurs us to act.  My hunch is that this is where Jesus’ words to Peter are coming from.  “How many times must I forgive someone who’s hurt me?” Peter asks.  “As many times as it takes,” Jesus says.  That number isn’t about setting the parameters of justice for the offender.  It’s about healing our own wounded hearts.

And speaking of justice … our desire for justice can be another roadblock to forgiveness.  We think, “I can’t forgive this person who’s hurt me unless and until that person gets what’s coming to him.  Once the scales are balanced, there might be room for relationship – but not until then.”  Well, there are a couple of problems with that.  One is remembering that God is God and we are not; and as we heard from Romans a couple of weeks ago: “Vengeance is mine,” God says; “I will repay!” – not you.  But the more personal problem with demanding justice before forgiving someone is that we’d have to be willing to face the same standard ourselves.  If we want the grace that God offers – love freely given, especially when we fail – if we want that grace for ourselves when we fail, we can’t deny it when others fail us.

And then there’s the question of consequences.  Look at the parable Jesus offers today about the unforgiving servant.  The servant owes his boss an unimaginable sum, ten thousand talents.  For a laborer in Jesus’ time, it took 15 years to earn a single talent, so this servant owes thousands of lifetimes of pay.  Well, the demands of justice require the servant to make whatever restitution is possible.  But the boss releases the servant and forgives him the debt. 

Then the servant, freshly blessed by grace, turns around and withholds that grace when he finds himself injured by a fellow servant’s failure.  So, having demanded justice, the first servant receives it.  And the boss drives the point home: “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow [servant], as I had mercy on you?” (Matt 18:33).  So, the first servant finds himself being tortured, and we hear that the same experience will come our way if we don’t forgive those who hurt us.

The parable says the consequences of holding a grudge will be much worse, and far longer lasting, for the grudge-holder than for the person who committed the offense in the first place.  I think that’s true in our lived experience, too – not directly from God but from the cancer of bitterness that grows within us when we don’t forgive. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to let our grudges go.  You release the anger, but before long you find there’s still more that you’re carrying.  That’s because the anger isn’t a single burden on our backs that we can toss off a cliff when we finally choose.  Instead, the anger is a backpack full of small rocks that weigh us down, and we have to toss them off the cliff one by one.  Again, it’s not seven times but seventy-seven times….

But each time we let that resentment go, we make space for God to create something new.  I got a glimpse of this on my pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine this summer when our group heard two men tell their stories of forgiveness in a setting where conflict and hatred are baked into the culture as hard as any ancient stone. 

One of the men is named Rami.  Rami is an Israeli Jew who fought in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  From that experience, watching friends die at the hands of Arab enemies, he turned inward and grew bitter.  But 10 years later, Rami got married; and they had a daughter, his “princess,” he said – a little girl named Smadar.  With his wife and daughter, Rami lived in a what he called a “beautiful bubble” … until, at 14, she was killed at school by a Palestinian suicide bomber.  Rami saw no way to recover, no way out of his grief and rage.

The other man who spoke to our group is named Bassam.  He’s a Palestinian.  When he was 12, his family’s community became occupied by Israeli soldiers.  Little boys taunting soldiers grew into teenagers throwing grenades; and by 17, he was in prison for seven years, where, he said, “they tried to kill our humanity.”  But after his release, Bassam married, and he and his wife had six children … until, in 2007, border police killed their 10-year-old daughter at school.

The two long stories short: Rami and Bassam found each other in their grief.  Initially, they wanted to kill each other as representatives of the evil that had killed their daughters.  But instead, they chose to work toward peace through a group called The Parents Circle.¹  It’s brought together more than 600 Israeli and Palestinian families who’ve lost immediate-family members to the violence there.  The group gathers families to heal, and it tells their stories of forgiveness to advocate for reconciliation among Israelis and Palestinians generally. 

For Rami and Bassam, who sat at the same table to tell their stories, the conflict between Israel and Palestine will be resolved only when individuals come together as partners for peace and, eventually, as friends.  As Bassam said, “We kill each other for Jerusalem.  What’s more important?  Our lives, or holy stones?  Any political solution comes from this,” he said: “knowing each other’s narrative, history, and pain.  Respect is the key.”

For us, the stakes may not be as high.  The people we need to forgive may not have harmed our family members or sent us to prison.  Or maybe they have.  But either way, there’s a reason Jesus taught us, “When you pray, say … ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’”  It is about following Jesus faithfully and finding healing, but it’s also about more than that.  Forgiveness isn’t just about being good.  It’s not even just about being made whole.  It’s about making space for God to bring new life to a world filled with hearts of stone.

1.     https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/pcff-home-page-en/

Weaponizing Good

Sermon for Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023
Matthew 16:21-28; Romans 12:9-21

Following Jesus is no walk in the park.  That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that his path included public execution.  But well before Good Friday, if we’re listening, we hear Jesus being pretty clear that the path ahead of him is rocky – and that he’s inviting us to come along.

Today’s gospel reading flows from where we left off last Sunday.  Jesus and his friends have been at Caesarea Phillipi, standing in the midst of Roman religion and the imperial power that had coopted it.  As Mtr. Jean said last week, there was a deep cave at Caesarea Phillipi that had been a worship site for centuries.  A temple to the god Pan stood there, and people sacrificed sheep and goats by tossing them off the cliff into a cave called the gates of Hades.  Later, the local client king Herod the Great built a temple there to the Emperor Augustus, who saw himself as divine.  Standing next to these symbols of idolatry, Jesus asks his friends who they think he is; and Peter names him as God’s anointed king – the true emperor who will take on Caesar and all the other pretenders to God’s throne.

We remember Peter’s words as a bold proclamation of faith, and they were.  But they were also sedition, and the Romans didn’t take kindly to traveling miracle workers proclaiming themselves to be king.

Today, we pick up the story with Jesus telling his friends just what all that means – for him and for them.  Their challenge to the culture around them will be costly.  Their own religious leaders, collaborating with the empire, will arrest him, torture him, and kill him; but then God will raise him from the dead.  Peter, the new lieutenant, takes Jesus aside and says, “Hey, wait a minute; that can’t be the path for God’s anointed king.” 

So, Jesus draws a stark contrast between the culture’s definition of power and the power of God.  Remember, he began his ministry spending weeks alone in the desert.  With Jesus weak and hungry, Satan appeared and offered him a shortcut, saying, “Look, just worship me, and I’ll give you an easy path to power.”  So, in Peter’s attempt to be supportive, Jesus hears Satan’s call again.  And he has to turn away decisively because he knows the lure of easy power will dangle before his friends’ eyes, too.  He tells them this road they’re taking, bringing in God’s empire to replace Caesar’s – it’ll take everything they’ve got.  “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus says, “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.” (Matt 16:24-25)  And this isn’t just a recommended best practice; this is the king’s decree.  If you follow me, Jesus says, these are your marching orders, and your choice whether to follow has very long-term consequences:  “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done” (Matt 16:27) – or not.

Well, that’s a lot to take in on a pleasant holiday weekend.  What are we supposed to do with this very tough assignment?  I mean, at least for me, it’s easier to imagine following Jesus in the context of ancient occupied Palestine.  One of the real strengths of the series The Chosen, which we’re watching and discussing at Trailside on Thursdays, is the way it shows the people’s everyday oppression by Roman imperial officials.  The empire was very present, even in a backwater fishing village like Capernaum, where officials would shake you down for their cut of your catch.  Being faithful to God, and being faithful to your oppressed community, overlapped in very practical ways, like whether you chose to keep Shabbat or go to work fishing after sundown on the Sabbath.  Getting along with the empire was a way of life … and Jesus was inviting them not to, despite the cost.

For the people of first-century Palestine, just keeping their culture was an act of resistance.  For us, we’re so immersed in our culture that we’re fish who can’t see the water they’re swimming in, and we’ve got to jump out of that water to see the reality above.  We’ve been taught to value the individual so highly that we can’t see forces that give some individuals a much rougher road than others.  But when we do start to see those individuals, and serve them as Jesus directed, and begin to know their stories, then we glimpse the world that the empire of individualism creates for them.  And we begin to say and do things that align with a different worldview, the land we’ve glimpsed when we jump like flying fish out of our culture’s water.  That land, that “better country” (Hebrews 11:16), is the kingdom of God.  And when we identify with God’s reign and rule first, we begin to set aside our own advantage, choosing not to save our lives but to lose them sometimes.  As one commentator puts it, to save “one’s life means not confronting the injustice of the present, but settling for safe self-interest.  To lose one’s life is to embrace the alternative practices and community that embody God’s empire” instead.¹

Well, as if Jesus’ words weren’t challenging enough, then we get the reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  If Jesus is calling his followers to commit themselves to God’s reign and rule, Paul takes the cue and tells us what that transformed life looks like.  “Love one another with mutual affection,” he says; “outdo one another in showing honor” (12:10).  Rejoice in hope; be patient in suffering; persevere in prayer; contribute to each other’s needs; extend hospitality to strangers.  

OK; good enough.  I mean, all that’s really hard, but it’s not surprising:  Serve God; love the members of your community; welcome strangers.  That sounds familiar.  Oh, but wait, Paul says; there’s more:  “Bless those who persecute you” (12:14).  “Live peaceably with all” (12:18).  “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink” (12:20) – not because Christians are supposed to be holy wimps but because this is the way to defeat your enemies, and enemies of the way of love deserve defeat.  Here’s how to do it, Paul says:  “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (12:21).

What on earth might that look like?  Well, it turns out, there’s at least one place on earth where it’s happening.  It’s a farm in the Holy Land, about six miles southwest of Bethlehem, in the occupied territory of Palestine.  The place is called Tent of Nations²; and on my pilgrimage this spring, we were blessed to talk with a member of the family who owns the farm, a man named Daoud Nassar. 

The Nassar family has owned this land since 1916, when it was part of the Ottoman Empire; and they have a deed from 1924 under the British.  But for the last 32 years, the Israeli government has been trying to confiscate the farm, arguing the family’s legal documentation is insufficient. Meanwhile, the Nassars have been surrounded by five illegal Israeli settlements, and the farm’s water and electricity have been cut off.  Settlers and soldiers have destroyed their orchards and threatened Daoud’s family members.  It doesn’t take a political scientist to see that the settlers and the government are trying to push the Nassars off their fertile land to make way for more Israeli settlements. 

As Daoud told us, over the decades of his family’s struggle, they had to make a choice about how to respond to all this.  They could have pulled up stakes and left their land.  They could have returned the violence they’ve endured.  But what they’ve chosen instead is constructive nonviolent resistance, turning their farm into this organization called Tent of Nations. Its mission is to build bridges among people, and between people and the land.  Tent of Nations runs educational programs and kids’ summer camps about organic farming, and through the years they’ve welcomed thousands of people from more than 40 countries. The farm is becoming self-sufficient in terms of water and electricity.  But more important, it’s become a center where people from vastly different places come together to learn, to share, and to build understanding. 

Now, as I’ve told this story, you might have pictured Daoud Nassar and his family as Muslims, but it turns out they’re not.  The family has been Christian for longer than anyone can remember.  They’re part of the 1 percent of Palestinians who are Christian.  And it’s from their countercultural faith that the Nassar’s strategy comes.  Faced with violence from their neighbors, obstruction by the courts, and land seizures by the government, the Nassar family looked to the apostle Paul’s words in Romans this morning and said, “We will not be overcome by evil.  We will overcome evil with good.”  As Daoud told us, “We refuse to be enemies. Instead, we live in hope for a better future.” 

Here at home, we get a lot of input about what it should look like to follow Jesus.  Our political parties are more than happy to tell you what to do.  It’s a messy thing, teasing out their interest in people from their interest in power.  But I actually believe following Jesus is a political act, in the sense that, on this side of eternity, following him can only happen in the lived experience of our world.  And especially in a democracy, political processes have a lot to do with how we choose to manage this world God gives us.  But we might gain some clarity by looking beyond the boxed-in options our political culture gives us, instead rising above like flying fish and glimpsing a reality beyond the muddy waters in which we swim.  My hunch is that, anytime we’re faced with the question of what’s the right thing to do, we’d be representing God’s kingdom well by asking two questions in response:  One is the classic, “What would Jesus do?”  But even before that comes the question I think Jesus was challenging his friends to ask themselves: What empire am I representing? 

I believe the only way out of the intractable conflicts that beset us, the knots of priority and policy that only tighten as we fight to untangle them – the only way out is a path in contrast to the culture.  We must love, and love hard.  “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good,” Paul said.  Because good, in fact, is love’s weapon; and with it, God will complete evil’s defeat.  And our call from Jesus is to join in that fight.  Evil is not to be tolerated or endured; it is to be resisted by the choice to rise above, in love.  After all, the words of the old spiritual do not say, “We shall tolerate.”  They say, “We shall overcome.”

1.      New Interpreter’s Study Bible.  Nashville: Abingdon, 2003. 1776-1777 (note).

2.      Tent of Nations website, https://tentofnations.com/. Accessed Sept. 1, 2023.

 

How Not to Know What We Know

Sermon for Aug. 20, 2023
Isaiah 56:1,6-8; Matthew 15:21-28

It is good to see you!  I have to say – having a sabbatical is one of the greatest blessings I’ve ever experienced, and I thank you so much for the opportunity.  I’ve been back a grand total of six days now, which is almost nothing; but I do know this much about what happened while I was gone.  The staff and clergy, led by Mtr. Jean, did an amazing job continuing God’s holy and life-giving work in this place, so please give them a hand.  Similarly, I came back to a Vestry meeting at the end of my first day in the office, so I know the Vestry members, led by Paul Wurth and Susan Paynter, have also done an amazing job working on the ministry priorities we set in February and March.  So please give your Vestry members a hand, too.

This sabbatical was all about pilgrimage – in explicit and implicit terms.  I went to the Holy Land in May; and then in June, Ann and I took a pilgrimage to places in Britain that members of our families had left to come to the United States.  I’ll resist the temptation now to go into these trips in detail, but I will say this:  At a deep level, I think pilgrimage is great lens for seeing the Christian life.  At least for me, being a pilgrim is all about going somewhere outside your normal experience, inviting Jesus to come along, seeing what God does with that encounter – and knowing, for sure, that you’ll be surprised.

As it turns out, Jesus is on the move in today’s Gospel reading, intentionally heading into foreign territory – to “the district of Tyre and Sidon” (Matt 15:21), which today is in Lebanon just north of Israel.  We aren’t told why.  Maybe he’s off to connect with a Jewish minority population living there.  Or maybe he needs a break from Israel’s religious leaders, who’ve been criticizing him for failing to observe the “tradition of the elders” (Matt 15:2). Just before today’s reading, Jesus has been arguing with the Pharisees, who want him to follow strictly the ritual practices of Jewish life.  They can’t see past the boundaries of their tradition, their own received truth.  You might say the religious authorities know what they know, and they know it very well.  So Jesus tells them, look – what you eat or when you wash your hands – that’s not what separates you from God.  What separates you from God is what comes from your heart – a focus on yourself, a disregard for the needs and interests of the people around you.  That’s what defiles you, Jesus says.  So, don’t worry about the particulars of religious practice; worry about whether your own practice reflects a right relationship with God.

Anyway, Jesus has this confrontation with the Jewish authorities and then takes off for a place where their closed-mindedness carries no weight.  Maybe he’s going to Tyre and Sidon to clear his head.  Maybe he wants to see beyond the constraints of his own culture, beyond the presumptions and expectations of his tribe.  Maybe it’s a little pilgrimage – a chance for Jesus to go somewhere outside his normal experience and see what God does with it.

So, in this foreign territory, a woman comes alongside Jesus and his friends.  Matthew’s Gospel describes her as “a Canaanite” woman (15:22) – in other words, about as “other” as it gets for a bunch of good Jews.  Calling her a “Canaanite” categorizes this woman along with Israel’s ancient enemies, the folks who were in the Promised Land first and against whom Israel battled for centuries.  These are the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even today.  Of course, Jesus has nothing against this specific Canaanite woman.  Instead, he treats her with benign neglect, ignoring her so he can keep to his mission.  He understands that the kingdom is coming for God’s people first, not for Israel’s historic enemies.  So, that means Jesus sees what this woman is, not who this woman is.  In truth, he really doesn’t see her at all.  The disciples take this othering one step further, asking Jesus to get rid of the annoying outsider.  And, surprisingly to us, Jesus agrees with them, saying, Right; “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:24). That’s my mission, after all.

Well, the woman is coming from a very different place.  She’s not thinking about categories or ethnicities; she just wants her daughter healed.  So, when Jesus ignores her cries, she comes and gets in his face, kneeling and asking for the healing that she trusts he can provide.

In that awkward moment, Jesus tries to explain why he’s been ignoring her, but he frames his explanation in fairly insulting terms.  He says, Listen, I’ve got nothing against you; it just “isn’t fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matt 15:26).  Now, it’s an endearing term for “dog” that he uses – the Greek word means “small dogs” or “puppies.”  But here’s what she’s thinking: In this scenario, you all are God’s children, and I’m God’s puppy?  Thanks so much.  Of course, Jesus doesn’t mean to hurt her, but his language does hurt because it comes from a place of superiority and implicit judgment.  

Well, the woman still wants her child healed, so she sets aside her frustration with the demeaning language.  She says, Yessir, but “even the dogs eat the crumbs from their masters’ table” (Matt 15:27).  In other words: Are you really so wrapped up in your own culture’s priorities that you can’t bother to share a little healing love with me?  

Well, her deep trust in his power to heal and her willingness to speak the truth make Jesus do a spiritual double-take – and make him see his own mission more clearly.  Ironically, the messiah who critiques the Pharisees for getting hung up on tradition comes to see how his tradition, and his own expectations, might limit even his revealing of God’s love.  Even Jesus grows in his understanding of how God might ask him to see the people around him.  Even Jesus grows in his understanding of who might come faithfully knocking on God’s door.  It’s not just the people whom our tribes tell us are good and blessed – conveniently, other people like us.  Even Jesus gets surprised by what he learns about his tribe, and about himself, and about God’s purposes.  It’s amazing what God shows you when you journey somewhere as a pilgrim.

I believe we are similarly afflicted today with the spiritual malady of knowing what we know and knowing it way too well.  And the certainty that “my way is right” grows all the more virulent when we’re afraid.  If we think “the other” isn’t just different from us but a threat, then “we know what we know” with a vengeance.  

On my pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May, I saw this vividly in an otherwise lovely woman giving an otherwise lovely tour. Our group was visiting Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem to see the beautiful Marc Chagall stained-glass windows in the hospital’s synagogue.  But before taking us there, the guide took us to the hospital’s visitor center to tell us about Hadassah’s healing work.  People travel there from many other countries just to seek treatment.  And the guide proudly told us about Hadassah’s mission even to Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.  The hospital has arrangements with health-care providers in the occupied territories who transport patients to Hadassah clinics.  She was saying Palestinians are the people many Israelis see as their worst enemies, but even they can come to Hadassah for world-class treatment.

That’s a great ministry.  And … as I looked at the map on the wall showing where those Hadassah treatment sites are located, that map looked very much like the map of Israel with the occupied territories effectively carved out.  Clearly, there are no Hadassah clinics in Gaza or the West Bank.  So, I asked a question that my status as a stupid, naïve tourist allowed me to ask:  Could Hadassah open clinics in the places where the Palestinians live? After all, it’s a huge ordeal to cross a military checkpoint to get from the West Bank or Gaza into Israeli territory – especially if you’re sick or injured.  

Well, the guide looked at me as if I’d said the sky is green.  She informed me that those areas are under the control of the Palestinian Authority.  I said I knew that, but I wondered whether it would be possible to offer services in those locations.  She looked at me sternly and said, “No. That’s a no-go.”  Clearly, she didn’t want to talk about it further, so I let it go.  But – regardless of whether the hospital can’t offer services there, or won’t offer services there, or has made a business and security decision not to offer services there, it’s a tragedy – and one that undermines the hospital’s work toward God’s mission of healing.

One of the blessings of pilgrimage is that it challenges us to ask ourselves, “What am I missing?”  What do my personal and cultural blinders keep me from seeing?  And more to the point for us as Christians:  Who do my blinders keep me from seeing?  How does my understanding of “neighbor” need to grow?  If someone lives in a different part of town, or comes from a different race or ethnicity, or loves people differently than I do, or believes the political spin from the “wrong” news channel – do I see them as God’s beloved children or as dogs under the table? 

To share God’s healing love, to reach across what divides us, we have to see “the other” as a sibling instead.  And I believe that here at St. Andrew’s, we have a particular calling, in this moment, to be a place where pilgrims can gather with people they might never talk with otherwise.  In the deepening divisions of our once-common life, where else but the church are we invited to cross boundaries and really listen to another point of view – to go outside our normal experience, and invite Jesus to come along, and see what God does with that encounter?  Indeed, we just might find that one of our most powerful pilgrimage sites is right here, this big tent of ours – this “house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7) that stands in contrast to a world where we know what we know and know it way too well.