Waiting for the Return

Advent 2

Year B

St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

“Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” In the name of…

Imagine if you will that you are ten years old, and you are waiting for Christmas day.  

Now, imagine that instead of Christmas morning being one morning, Christmas could come for every different family on a different morning over the course of the month of December.  So, imagine going to school and having your classmates wear their new clothes or talk about their new bike, but Christmas could be for you as late as December 31^st.  Imagine how much harder that would make the wait!

For Laura and I, this is what it felt like 15 months ago as we were waiting for Colin to be born. We had a lot of friends who were expecting around the same time, and we knew that babies have their own schedule, but the two weeks before Colin’s due date really sharpened our sense of expectation. And we waited, and watched our friends have their babies, sometimes on time, sometimes early, but each time we saw a birth announcement, it increased our own sense of impatience.  So, for us, we had a month of acute waiting. We waited the two weeks before the due date, and then for two weeks after the due date.  Waiting for the really hard experience of giving birth that neither of us had gone through. Waiting as we had to live with the tension of making plans for those weeks but hold enough flexibility that we would be able to drop everything at a moment’s notice. 

Waiting for how our life would change in ways we could not yet comprehend.  And the preparations to be made.  Finishing a nursery.  Figuring out the carseat. 

It was hard to wait.  But we didn’t have much choice. 

We were living on a schedule not under our own power or control.

It is one thing to wait for something that has an appointed day of arrival, known in advance and easy to count down to. It is another to wait for something with more uncertain timing—more surprise, and less in our control. It’s like walking across a dark room and wondering when you might hit the far wall. It is even more so to wait for something that seems to tarry for generations. For centuries. 

So here we are, in another season of Advent. Advent is the time that the church remembers Christ’s promise of a second coming as we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of his first coming. As such, Advent is a time of expectation and waiting, but also of repentance and purification. 

Recall our collect for the day, in which we pray that God give us the grace to heed the warnings of the prophets and repent of our sins. Think about John the Baptist and his proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Think about his heralding of a coming baptism by fire. While this sounds rather like a bummer of a message, the purpose of such preparation is so that we may greet Christmas with joy in celebrating Jesus’ birth and earthy work yet remain in hope for the time in which perfect peace, justice, and mercy will hold sway over all.

Another season of Advent. Another season of waiting in a long series of seasons and years of waiting. Why bother waiting? Why not just be surprised when or if Christ comes back? Why do we even bother putting much stock into such an idea as Christ’s return?

Our generation is not unique in facing the question of what it means that we are still waiting for Christ’s second coming. 

In the epistle of 2^nd Peter which we read from today, we find the author addressing just this issue. What do we make of our wait for Christ? This was no mere theological exercise; the author is challenging a very particular group of people.  A few verses earlier than what we read today, the author names his opponents, saying:

³First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts ⁴and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? (2Peter 3:3-4)

The scoffers ask why Christians so foolishly wait for Jesus’ return.  “Why not instead indulge themselves and live for the day?”[1] For the scoffers, “not only is Jesus’ return in glory

not a legitimate expectation, but such a return would interrupt their worldly lifestyle.”  

Still, it is easy to at least see the scoffers’ point and the questions that come up. 

The second coming hasn’t happened. 

Has God forgotten us? 

Does God not care about the suffering in the world? 

Is God powerless after all? 

Is there even a God? 

If not, why bother with being good?[2]

“In the face of these questions, the author objects by pointing out that the scoffers have failed to take three things into account: The power of God’s word to both create and destroy (vv.5-7), the difference between the reckoning of God’s time and human time (v. 8), and the character of God (v. 9). In other words, there is at once a power, a patience, and a graciousness that characterize this God.”[3]

Unlike some images present in our society that see God as vengeful, as perfectly willing to condemn billions to eternal torment—unlike some Christians who write about the end of time

as an elaborate revenge fantasy with what can only be described as a sense of glee at the prospect of watching the slaughter of the unfaithful—there is instead the words from this epistle.

Hear the words again:  “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all (*all*) to come to repentance… [therefore] regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” 

Instead of a God who shuts down the world in a fit of exasperation, who destroys the creation in a rage; we serve a God who in love approaches us and the end of time with patience

and proclaims purification as though through the refiner’s fire.  This is the picture of a God who remains faithful to us and to all of creation, even when we find our patience tried and at its end.

The question remains, then as now:  what disposition will our waiting take? 

For the author of 2nd Peter, the proper response to God’s gracious patience is a life turned toward repentance and growing in greater and greater holiness. And this holiness goes beyond our relationship to God, but expands outward to all whom we meet.

The call to repentance and the admonition to be found blameless is a serious matter even though God’s patience stretches so far over humanity’s experience of time.  While the scoffers claim God’s supposed absence or tardiness frees us from consequence, we are not at liberty to say that God offers a blind eye or unqualified affirmation to everything humanity does.  The same loving-kindness that God shows to us is shown to all of creation. For if God offers an unqualified patience and affirmation to everything we do—even those things which harm others—then the Gospel holds no good news for the many who suffer for the sake of the comfort of a few. 

The prophets’ call to repentance is the reminder that we are not individually God’s sole project on this earth. The call to repentance is misunderstood if it is seen only as a project of personal improvement.  That is too small a glory for the Kingdom of God we proclaim as “on the way”—a Kingdom proclaimed by building communities that practice love in spite of our fears and our lusts for power and control over others.

As we work toward this kingdom, we wait.  

And in this season we are invited to cultivate a patience markedly different from simply keeping ourselves occupied until the End. 

And Lord knows we are so very occupied this time of year. 

Soon, very soon,

we will commemorate a very special birth even as we await for Christ’s return.

Will you slow down? 

Will you wait? 

Will you hold yourself to a schedule not under your own power/control, but one that promises a world better than we can ask or imagine?  

Will you watch for new heavens and a new earth? 

Will you proclaim a Kingdom to come? 

---

[1] This sentence and the following rely heavily on the work of Lee W. Bowman, Found in Bartlett, David L., and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Year B, Volume 1). Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.  40).

[2] Disclaimer:  I believe that non-Christians can be ethical people.

[3] Bowman, 40.

The Currency of the Kingdom of God

Year A Proper 24 St. Matthew's, Chandler

Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 99
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

In the fall of 2007, as I began my student teaching, I was also deciding that I wanted to go to graduate school. I had taken a history class on holy war, and the subject fascinated me. I’ve always been interested in why people do the things that they do, and the class ignited within me a desire to study how religion can be used to make people violent. That’s how I ended up at ASU from 2008-2010, studying for my master’s degree. I was in the Religious Studies department studying the things that interested me:  politics, religion, war, the use of torture, the relationship between the religious and the secular, and the role religion plays in conversations about sex and gender.

Perhaps you have noticed—none of these topics are considered polite dinner conversation.

And there are reasons for this.  Politics and religion are difficult to talk about.  The political climate in our country is incredibly polarized and often reduced to talking points being hurled back and forth.
And so I come to find out that thanks to the preaching rotation, the Gospel reading from the lectionary that I am preaching on is one of the Bible’s most explicitly political passages.

What do you do with that?

Contemporary American thought tends to support keeping religion and politics separate. We do not often want to hear politics preached from pulpits. We tend to think that religion and our faith is above politics—or at least that it should be. We tend to think that religion should remain unstained by political processes.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Maybe religion stains politics. We’ve seen through history and in current events that mixing religion and politics can yield deadly results and oppressive policies. Maybe, we think, it’s better to see religion as purely the realm of the spiritual, and politics the realm of the physical and material—what we experience in the real world, outside of the church. And so we separate Church and state in our own lives and minds.

Still, the Gospel reading shows Jesus in the thick of a political situation, and reminding those around him of their responsibilities to God.

I beg your indulgence, because in a time when many of us tend to live dualistic lives in between the secular and the religious, I believe it makes a difference if one’s faith leads one to allow constraints and divisions and oppressions that are already present in the world (and in the church), or leads one to participate in a faith that seeks to reconcile all to one another.

I’ll come to that in a moment, but let’s begin at the beginning. What’s going on in this story? What is so political about it? Jesus has come into Jerusalem just days before his death. He and his large crowd of disciples and followers are in the temple. He has been telling parables in which the Pharisees appear in a bad light. Jesus makes them appear to be hypocritical and unbending religious purists.
The Pharisees have had enough. So the Pharisees think about ways to embarrass and discredit Jesus. Maybe, they think, we can get him to say something embarrassing or treasonous. The Pharisees send some of their own to Jesus with a question, along with some folks named in the gospel as Herodians.

Some background may be helpful here, because this is an odd part of the story. And it reminds me of a novel full of political intrigue. You see, the Pharisees and the Herodians would not have liked each other. ‘Herodian’ means a supporter of Herod Antipas, who was not a very nice guy. He’s the guy who had John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, beheaded.

Now, imagine, if you will, that you live in a country in which a close family member was executed. Imagine this family member was executed on the whim of a state official. Now imagine that this official’s flunkies come up to you to question you about patriotism and taxes. You will have some idea of how Jesus felt when confronted by the Herodians.

Herodians were folks who supported the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. Pharisees did not like the Herodians because the Pharisees were not fans of the occupation; the Pharisees thought the Herodians were sell-outs to Rome. But a mutual hate can make for strange friends, and Jesus made both the Pharisees and the Herodians nervous. Jesus threatened the power they had fought to keep. For the Pharisees’— it was their bid for the people’s religious lives. For the Herodians— control of the occupational government. This meant that both groups had the most access to power; and someone like Jesus, who called their use of power into question, was a problem to be ‘resolved.’

The group comes up to Jesus, and they ask their trick question; a yes or no question which should have embarrassed Jesus no matter which way he answered it. If Jesus said to pay the tax, He would appear to be a sympathizer of the oppressive government and lose credibility with many of his followers; in that case the Pharisees win.

If Jesus said not to pay the tax, he would be guilty of treason. An agitator. The Herodians would not let someone who openly protested their rule live. Rome does not like rebels. If Jesus says not to pay the tax, the Herodians could have him killed, and the Pharisees still win.

Pretty brilliant, right? Politics as usual in occupied territories.

Jesus throws them a curve ball by asking for the coin. The coin was a denarius. And it looked a lot like coins we would see today, but with a major difference. Our quarter doesn’t name George Washington as God; the denarius did name the emperor as God. For a Jew to be carrying a coin that called anyone but the God of Israel divine—in the temple of all places!— would have been embarrassing. That the Pharisees and Herodians could produce the coin probably made them a bit sheepish.

Jesus then asks who is on the coin. They answer ‘the emperor,’ and Jesus famously replies “Give to the emperor that which belongs to the emperor, and to God what belongs to God.”

With this response the Pharisees and the Herodians are humiliated. They walk away amazed; surprised that they did not see that response coming. Jesus managed to take their yes or no question about taxes and turn even that to God.  What Jesus did was take the limiting question posed by those who ruled a worldly kingdom and he expanded the vision upward.

I want to suggest that the gospel reading for today is more than Matthew bragging on Jesus’ rhetorical skills, more than a tale showing Jesus’ political prowess, more than a scriptural permission for Christians to pay taxes, and more than a handy reading to pull out and read for church pledge drives.

The gospel reading today is a challenge to us because we are all called to ask a few questions:

If we owe something to God, how do we tell what it is?
Just as the denarius bears Caesar’s image— what bears the image of God?

What is the currency of the Kingdom of God?
Does this have bearing on our politics today?
In asking these questions we are called to a process of formation; a process of sifting through our lives to find out what bears the image of what would want to rule over us in this world; and what bears the image of God. It is a matter of discerning what is from the kingdoms of this world, and what is part of the Kingdom of God.

This is an act of discernment that we engage on our own and in community.

What makes this task difficult is that we are not just in the world or just in sync with God. We are both of God and in the world.

We look at both the best and the worst of what we carry within us—our actions, our thoughts, our reactions—and like coins in our pockets, we prayerfully examine these things closely to see whose image we find on them.

In allowing God to do this work inside us, we learn something about God and God’s desire for the world we see before us.

Then we begin to see the world according to the economy of the Kingdom of God—that every person bears the inscription of God. Remember the line from the Book of Genesis (1:27):

So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

This is the point of departure about who we as people of faith say we all are. And it was so important that it was repeated three times in the same breath. All humankind—all—bear the image that God created, the image shared by Christ when he walked the earth as God incarnate, and the image which the Spirit enlivens daily.


But sometimes that image of God in other people is hard to see. The world and other people try to stamp other inscriptions on us all. Inscriptions of race, gender, nationality, ability, wealth, and many others.

How do these inscriptions influence us to act?

To take a look around our country:

Inscriptions of race can determine whether one’s death is considered a tragedy or an event to be written off and ignored because the media reports that the person “was no angel.”

Inscriptions of gender can determine what positions one can hold in business, government, the church—if not on paper, at least in practice.

Inscriptions of nationality can determine whether or not one can be treated as a person by the government-- Whether or not one is known as an ‘illegal’ or subject to enhanced interrogation techniques, otherwise known as torture.

Inscriptions of ability can determine whether you are seen as a child of God or a cross to bear for family and friends.

Inscriptions of wealth can determine whether or not you are respected, or considered a human being of worth.

These inscriptions are powerful. They still have a hold on me: on how I see others and on how I see myself. It takes a daily effort not to see the person in front of us as the sum of what marks society inscribes on us, but as Children of God, bearing God’s image, and of precious worth.

Then we are called to act on our discernment. To act as though our recognition of what is God’s and what is the world’s has meaning that is more than a theological proposition, but a compass to guide our actions in life. This may have political consequences.

The effort is to see what God sees; to acknowledge the different set of standards of God’s Economy— an economy based on life, and redemption, and warmth, and love—instead of an economy of cold metal, and paper, and scarcity, and apathy.

Then we give to God what is God’s by recognizing the image of Christ in the stranger and the friend, the sick and the well, the hungry and the filled, the imprisoned and the powerful, the rich and especially the poor.

And ultimately, we may find that recognizing what belongs to God is more rewarding than to bow to the inscriptions the world fosters, or bow in homage to systems that betray or deny the inherent worth of others. In so doing, we give back to God— and give to neighbor— that which bears God’s inscription: love, hope, light, pardon, faith, and help.

To recognize the dignity of others in spite of what the world has set as important is a step toward acknowledging a part of the reign of God; and acting on that reality. The acknowledgement sets our sights higher than the powers and principalities and rulers and authorities of this world.

…and that may have political consequences.

May your discernment of what bears God’s image in your life be fruitful.

Amen.

Disciplinary Schemes

Sermon 9/7/14

Proper 18, Year A RCL

Track 1

Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm 149

Romans 13:8-14

Matthew 18:15-20

I have been reflecting recently on the ritual of the courtroom.  Have you ever thought about how scripted and prescribed the actions are?  Think of how often you have seen the courtroom scenes play out in media—TV shows like Matlock, Law and Order, Boston Legal, and movies like 12 Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Time to Kill, A Few Good Men, Legally Blonde.

The ritual of the court comes from centuries’ worth of tradition, legal interpretation, standards of order, policy, hierarchy, and practice.  The system may look different depending on what culture you may be in.  For instance, our court system practices according to an adversarial model in which parties square off to plead the case in front of a (hopefully) impartial judge and/or jury.  Other systems operate under an inquisitorial model in which judges act as investigators and examiners.  In any case, we are familiar with a lot of the rituals that have developed.  The practice of standing when the judge enters the court room in something of a procession.  The swearing in of witnesses.  The requirement that the defendant must stand for the reading of the verdict.  The emphasis on maintaining order, decorum, and dignity, or else risk showing contempt of court.   These are common fixtures of the popular image of the court system, the parts we see in media.

And there is a reason for treating this system with gravitas.  The court system is the institution we have invested with the authority to judge us, to imprison us, to possibly even kill us in the name of each other.  Such power should carry a solemnity. And regardless of whether or not the pageantry—the liturgy—of the courtroom is intentional, it serves the purpose of marking liminal spaces in the lives of those whose future is decided in the courtroom.

I would suggest we would lose some confidence in the system if the power with which the court acts were to be treated in a trivial manner by the people who wield that power.  In essence, the court has a reputation to maintain, and ritual mystifies and legitimates its practice.

I have also been thinking about the power of the ritual, and its effect on the people who go through the system.  If one is found guilty within the court system, they are found guilty within this highly ritualized system that then pronounces judgment; a judgment which may often include separation from society—prison.  In extreme cases—separation from society by death. 

The court in our name pronounces sentence according to a proscribed form that has as its goal to pronounce with finality the reality we will recognize.  The individual is guilty, as punishment, and possibly for our safety, the person is to be separated and grouped with others who had transgressed our laws.

Highly ritualized and choreographed acts.  The person is given a new status.  Criminal.  Guilty.  Convict. 

We see these images on the news, even if the trial is not in our own sphere of friends, cases are often reported as at least local news.  We are frequently treated to national stories of court cases.  The person led away in handcuffs, perhaps even shackles on the ankles, in jumpsuits marking their new status in our society.

But the ritual of the trial and conviction is only half the story.  What I’m interested in is the ritual that does not happen.

Have you ever noticed that the person convicted does not return to court to be ritually restored to the community?  The release of a prisoner has a script, absolutely.  But it does not have anywhere near the same level of ceremony.

As I think about the stigma that ex-convicts live with, I wonder if our practice of putting them in prison with ceremony and finality and publicity without the same level of ceremony and publicity in welcoming them back into society means that the status the court confers upon prisoners is never actually lifted.

I wonder if things would be different if we as a society gathered to acknowledge the debt as paid and to welcome the formerly imprisoned back among us with as much decorum as when we imprison them. 

These are musings I have had for years; thoughts that recur somewhat frequently especially as I follow the uneven justice that our institutions administer.  No system is perfect, right?  All human institutions carry the capacity for sin, right?

The reflections came back as I was thinking about our gospel reading for the day.  The reading is given as Christ’s own institution of church discipline.   And anytime we talk about discipline within the communities we inhabit, it would be pretty natural to read the Bible with our cultural context informing our vision of the text, perhaps without our knowing that this is what we are doing. 

One way that may look is this:  When we read this passage through the lens of our notions of discipline conditioned by our society’s conception of justice, it’s possible to see this passage as answering the question of when we are permitted to break contact with someone who wrongs us.  In that lens the passage reads like three strikes and the person is out.

In the Christian context, the passage is saying something different.  The passage is telling us the lengths to which Christians must go to stay in community.

It is our judicial context that leads many to think that the separation of one who does wrong from the rest of society is for our own protection and that person’s penalty.

By contrast, what this passages intends is for us to recognize that once a wrong is committed, the person who did the act is spiritually in danger, and at risk of alienation by her or his own choosing, and so the community has responsibility to act to keep them in relationship.

These differences between our judicial system and the church point to a set of assumptions about who we are when we gather that are at odds with each other.  Our culture has us as bound together by social contract, which we are free to accept or deny.  But as long as we live within the political bounds, we are governed by the rules of the realm.  The church is different, even as the church is treated in culture and in practice as a voluntary association of like-minded individuals.   The Church at its best and most reflective of Christ is the acknowledgment that we are the Body of Christ despite the differences we see or learn in our society.  As the body of Christ, we cannot say that we have no need of each other (1Corinthians 12).  No, Paul says in our readings from Romans today:  Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.  This is not the teaching of our culture, which as a whole seems to emphasize our right to be free of each other.  Our faith, instead, calls us to tangible relationship and care for those around us.

These differences point to another way in which Christians can exist within our culture.  But it is also harder; so much harder.  Especially if you are as judgmental a person as I am.

I’d like to highlight 4 practical implications from this passage

1)      It’s not uncommon to hear that we may have conflict in every other area of our lives but somehow the church and its members are supposed to be immune to this.  After all, we’re Christians!  “In this passage, Jesus seems to assume that there will be conflict among his followers.  What makes us Christian is not whether or not we fight, disagree, or wound one another, but how we go about addressing and resolving these conflicts.”[1]  These guidelines may be directed to those within the church, but they offer an example of the way Christians can show Christ to others who know little more about us than that nationally Christians have a reputation for judgmentalism and hypocrisy.

2)      It is not in keeping with this passage to refuse to exercise forgiveness when it is genuinely sought. After all, the passage seeks to keep all in community.  In the verses just after this passage, Peter asks the question:  How many times must we forgive?  Jesus’ answer?  Essentially:  Always forgive.

3)      It is not in keeping with the passage to ignore the harm done to another person for the sake of maintaining niceties.  After all, this passage assumes that sin exists, and that the harming of another is never to be overlooked.  For the church to preach the demands of forgiveness without thorough attention to the demanding need and careful attention to repentance would risk passive, if not outright, violence to the injured.[2] 

4)      It is so normal in a situation in which we have been wronged to absorb that hurt and take it to others to talk about.  It’s actually comforting, isn’t it?  Without the input of the person who hurt us, we can tell the story our way (The way it *really* happened, according to us) and receive our support, and have people affirm that, yes, the person who harmed us is a scoundrel.  This passage counsels that the first thing we do is fight that natural tendency, and address the harm with the person.  Directly.  The potential benefit is enormous:  regain a member of the community without having to deal with the distortion that comes through hearsay and rumor—or the festering that comes through inaction and stasis. In the passages just before this one in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the story of leaving the 99 sheep for the one. It is hard not to then see a connection to this discourse on discipline. To retrieve the one who by sin alienates herself or himself from others is more important than sitting in smug satisfaction with those who have never strayed.

Beloved of God, there is a difference between justice as it is practiced in our world, and that which Christians are called to enact in communities in which we find ourselves.  It is a harder task, to owe all nothing but love.  It is a harder task to seek a reconciling justice with which to replace punitive retribution.  But it is our task to be the leaven wherever we go, to make true the statement that justice is love when love enters the public realm, and to seek justice that builds community instead  of writes off others’ lives.  Practice a love that rebuilds and reconciles in the wake of sin both great and small, both in private and in public.  And may doing so inside and outside of the Church show that a different way is possible in an unforgiving world. 

---

[1] Jin Kim, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-reign of Christ). (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011,) 46.

[2] Closely following Dale P Andrews, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-reign of Christ). (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011,) 49.

Hope and Optimism

Proper 14 Year A RCL

Track 1

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Psalm 105, 1-6, 16-22, 45b

Romans 10:5-15

Matthew 14:22-33

I want to begin by wrapping up a thought I introduced last week.

Last week, I mentioned in my sermon that the narrative we hear in the gospel lessons for last week and this week take place within a day of Jesus’ life.  Not only that, it is the day on which Jesus hears about the death of his cousin John the Baptist at the hands of a cruel man seeking to preserve his own reputation—Herod.

Last week we heard about the feeding of the five thousand men, besides women and children.  But recall how it began:  We are told that upon hearing the news of John’s death, Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw the crowd and went about the work of healing and feeding.

Jesus finds his time interrupted, and while he was gracious, this week, Jesus is more forceful:  Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

We all know that moment, or at least we have retrospectively recognized those moments, when we are dismissed by someone.  Sometimes it happens graciously; sometimes not. Still Jesus does so, and for the second time in 24 hours, Jesus is making it clear that he needs to be alone. 

He was trying to get time to himself.  I believe that, in his humanity, he was trying to come to terms with grief. 

The experience of grief, and its own way of overwhelming us, is universal to the human experience, even as it is expressed in a myriad of different ways.  One way in which we experience grief is to sometimes sense within ourselves a constriction of our empathy toward others.  It is almost a sense of pulling back from identifying with the plight of others, as though we do not have the emotional and relational reserves to handle the chances and changes of another’s life in addition to our own.  Another way we experience grief—which I think may be more common because of the way in which we order modern society—is to find ourselves having to act as though grief is not a large part our life, and we seem to go through the weeks and months following a loss as the walking wounded.  Sometimes it shows to others, sometimes it does not.  We go to work, we spend time with friends, we perform any number of tasks, as we also try to put our lives back together.  The work of grief takes a significant amount of labor on our part, even with God’s help, work that might be invisible to the rest of the world. 

And if I am honest, I relate with Jesus more in this story than in many others.  In a recent experience of grief, I found it necessary to take significant time to be alone.  I felt as though my mental capabilities were cut in half and clouded.  It took longer to do tasks.  I cut social engagements when I felt like I needed to.  It took time to discover what the new normal would look like.

Jesus still manages to do great things for people, but it seems to me that the fatigue he might be feeling propels him to be alone with God in prayer. 

It does not take long before our attention is brought again to the works of power that Jesus performs in his ministry, but I suggest it is equally important to note these pauses Jesus had to take.  In Jesus’ own times of need and solitude, we see what full divinity looks like when it is dwelling in full humanity.  And, at least to me, Jesus’ experience seems utterly familiar.  Perhaps it does to you, too.

Yesterday, actually, was personally a day of such pauses in grief.  This sermon came in fits and false starts even up to a few hours ago.

I have been watching the increasingly terrible situation in Iraq for the past few weeks, which this week truly took a turn for the worst as Islamic militants with the group known as ISIS began the systematic slaughter of Christians, other religious minorities, and Muslims who do not agree with them.  ISIS has posted videos of the executions to the web, as well as some pictures, which are truly horrifying.  You know which of the victims are Christian because, after their execution, the bodies were hung on makeshift crosses.  Families who fled the cities after being given the ultimatum to convert, pay a special tax, or be executed, are stranded in the wilderness and dying of thirst and hunger.  Some families are reported to have thrown their children off a mountain to their deaths to save them from either dying slowly of dehydration or from being beheaded.  The Anglican Vicar of Baghdad, Andrew White, reports that a child he baptized was cut in half by members of ISIS. 

[This article addresses the question of “what can we do?” The article contains links for donations to relief organizations, to which I’d add the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.]

Add to Iraq the long list of tragic or frightening world events that occupy our thoughts and news feeds.  Israel and Gaza.  Refugee children at our border—not to forget the children who did not escape the violence in their homeland.  Ukraine and Russia.  South Sudan.  There are others.  All of these take a toll, and are then added to our own list of private tragedies and hardships.

It is no wonder that so many of us experience a type of burnout on compassion.  It is no wonder that we sometimes find apathy a preferable option.

And when I speak to people it seems like I’m hearing that faith can be kept—at least in terms of believing—but where is hope?

It seems like it’s one thing to have enough faith to get out of the boat and walk on water—but what do we do when we do not know how long we have to walk before we meet Jesus’ hand in a way we will recognize?

And it’s one thing to want to talk about Peter walking on water, but what do we do when one’s view of the world seems more attuned to the plight of Joseph at the bottom of a pit.

It is somewhat difficult to tease apart hope and faith. 

And yet while hope seems to be talked about less often, Hope does something, the same way that faith and love do.

And over this week I have been thinking about the difference between hope in the Christian sense and optimism.  It seems paradoxical, but I find myself hopeful even though I will not call myself an optimist.

Optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.  So far that could match the Christian hope in a very broad sense.  But there is also the optimistic principle that we live in the best of all possible worlds. To my ears, optimism seems to remain focused on the conduct of this fallen world, which will often disappoint us. 

Christian hope is something different.

The catechism in the Book of Common Prayer notes that the Christian hope “is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God's purpose for the world.”

Hope in this sense takes a longer view, beyond this world, and fixes our hope in the consummation of God’s purpose and the reckoning that comes with it, instead of seating hope in the here and now, where both justice and love seem so easily thwarted.

It is a common criticism of Christianity that says that believers are led to care too much about the afterlife at the expense of the work Christ has given us to do in caring for others.  I agree with this critique.  As MLK said "Any religion that purports to care about the souls of men but doesn't care about the social conditions that damn him or the economic conditions that strangle him is a moribund religion awaiting burial."  In talking about hope in such a final sense—attuned to the notion that we are heading to a decisive End that we do not yet see—I do not mean that Christians should return to a state of simply waiting on God to fix things on our behalf.

Yet to undercut any conversation about the purpose to which we are moving does not serve us well.  We lose the long view God has given us as the hope for our world.  If we lose that, we lose one of the grandest proclamations we have that undergirds much of the optimism we find in this world.

There will be times when our optimism will line up with the Christian hope.  And there will be times when our optimism is dashed because it does not hold a view as expansive as the hope we have in Christ—and the world will thwart our best expectations.  I suggest that we would be well-served to learn how to discern the difference and hold fast to hope and faith in God instead of a lesser vision and short-term goal—still always acting in accordance to our hope in Christ and seeking the Good that God puts before us to enact. 

In that way, perhaps waves and strong winds of this world may appear less frightening, and our grief and frustration find expression through a God who understands our own need for comfort.  And so we too can walk these stormy waters, seeking the hand of Christ who beckons us forward.

Amen.

Telling Stories of Scarcity and Abundance

8/3/14

Sermon at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church

Proper 13 Year A

Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 17: 1-7, 16
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21

I have recently been reading a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that explicitly looks at the Gospel from a storyteller and actor’s point of view.  The author’s project was to get a troupe of actors together to really bring the stories to life by staging and acting out the stories.  They read the Gospel as actors, seeking to understand how backstory matters as the text progresses. 

The project leader—a fellow named Richard Swanson—and the actors realized something quite interesting.   The way we sometimes think of Jesus as a placid teacher speaking warmly of comfort and fully in command of emotion does not make much sense when acted out and embodied by human beings.  Occasionally, we arrive at uncomfortable parts of Matthew in which trying to read the words of Jesus calmly exposes the lie of an unemotional, unflappable Jesus, unless one wants to deny Jesus his full humanity. 

Think of Jesus calling the Gentile mother a dog (Mt 15:26), casting Capernaum down to hell (Matthew 11:23), and denying his mother and brothers (Mt 12:48), the numerous people consigned to weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 8:11-12, et al).

Swanson says that, in essence, “performance puts words into bodies, and audiences can always tell when something is amiss on stage, an actor embodying the harsh lines that Jesus speaks in Matthew’s story must find a way to play those lines for true in front of an audience.  At the very least, the harsh lines must distort the face of Jesus.  If they do not, the actor creates the kind of disjunction that audiences and police interrogators read as lying.”[1] 

And when actors try to read those harsh lines calmly, “audiences either conclude he is lying or that he is quite insane.  Neither is a comforting conclusion.”[2]

Does this remind anyone of movies of Jesus? 

Swanson continues:  “Embodied performance confronts an interpreter with another reality in Matthew’s story.  …Jesus emerges out of the chaos and blood of Herod’s genocidal attempt to slaughter all of the children of Bethlehem.  Ask an actor. Such a backstory is going to shape the way the character can be played.  Ask a counselor.  Such a disastrous beginning will damage a human being.  Life leaves marks, and actors have to explore those marks in order to embody the characters they have to play.  Even when that character is Jesus.”[3]

It is easy to imagine almost anything when we are sitting alone reading the Bible; it is easy to imagine a perpetually dignified Jesus when our liturgical reading of the text calls for dignity and solemnity.  It is a different matter to see the story enacted in reality.  And this knowledge influences how I read the Bible in general and how I prepare to preach.  

Now, as I’ve read the passages for this week and next, I’ve noticed something missing.  Something that colors the actions of Jesus. Indeed the missing thing provided the motivation for Jesus to seek solitude.

If you’ll recall, last week’s Gospel lesson was a series of quick-fire parables.  Today, we have the lovely story of the feeding of the five thousand men—besides women and children.

But there is something missing between last week and this week.  The lectionary has skipped 13 verses to bring us here.

While one can preach on this text without those missing verses, I believe something precious and valuable in understanding Jesus comes to light when they are remembered.

The missing verses are the beheading of John the Baptist by Rome’s stooge Herod. 

In this week’s lesson, and next week, we will hear about a single day in Jesus’ life, both lessons are introduced in our worship by Jesus’ desire to be alone and to pray.

Unfortunately, the way we read texts in worship obscures the connections in the text from one week to the next.  And what might get lost between this week and the next is the shock of the loss of Jesus’ own kin, and the grief that follows. 

I would ask that you keep this death in mind as you hear the rest of the gospel of Matthew in worship for the next few months, especially when Herod’s flunkies ask Jesus about whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar.  Imagine being asked a question about patriotism by people who support the regime that killed your cousin.

You see, John was Jesus’ cousin, and the one who baptized Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.  Jesus would have heard that the beheading of the righteous John came because Herod made a rash vow at a dinner party, and Herod killed John to save himself from embarrassment in front of his guests.

Is it any wonder that, upon hearing the news that Herod killed John, Jesus would retreat to the wilderness—

the wilderness into which Jesus had to go to meet John for his baptism? 

The wilderness to which John called the people? 

The wilderness that served as the counterweight to imperial Rome and collaborationist occupied Jerusalem?

In the English language, and particularly in an American context, we tend to think of wilderness as something untamed and unspoiled.  But the Greek word (eremia) has different connotations that resonate with the story of the Jews.  The word ‘wilderness’ implies desolation, devastation, and depopulation.

The word ‘wilderness ‘echoes in the silence of Jerusalem standing empty at the Babylonian exile.  The sense of exile resonated with the community who formed the Gospel of Matthew and witnessed the desolation of Jerusalem in 70AD at the hands of the Romans.  In so many instances, wilderness means coming to grips with loss and desolation. 

Perhaps you have used the word wilderness to speak of a sense of desolation you have known? 

And yet, the wilderness is also a place of God’s action, surprising when it happens. 

Jesus and the crowds meet in the wilderness to mourn a prophet.  And Jesus in his compassion continues the work of the kingdom, the very act of healing being a sign that the ways of this world shall not have the final say, and that God is present even in the midst of desolation.

As the day turns to evening, though the disciples watch all of these signs, scarcity is still all they see.   They ask Jesus to send the crowds away to find food.

Jesus says no, and challenges the disciples to feed the people.  And of what is provided, there is enough.   The feeding of the five thousand men—besides women and children—had the power to call forth depth in memory.  As the bread and fish were passed, there would have been joy and surprise.  Surely nearly all would recall God’s providing manna in a long-ago wilderness.  Some might recall God’s words through the prophet Isaiah, saying:

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost (Is 55:1).”

In feeding the five thousand men—besides women and children—Jesus demonstrates God’s faithfulness, and how that faithfulness culminates in a vision that shows forth abundance as God’s will for all.  While the disciples were willing to send the people to villages to find food—something sensible to our ears—I can’t help but think about the people the disciples might have sent away to starve because they might not have had money. 

God and Christ hold a different vision—and by commanding the disciples, Christ commends that vision to us as an alternative to the ways of this world and the ways empires operate.

The way of empire is the way of violence.  Herod the Great responded to a threat to his reign by slaughtering the innocents of Bethlehem, setting the Gospel of Matthew into motion as a little refugee boy and his family fled to a distant land.  Herod Antipas killed the righteous John to avoid appearing weak in front of his dinner guests.  Christ himself would be crucified as a threat to the empire. 

The way of empire is the way of rationing.  We see this in how scarcity is treated as natural law, and not social arrangement.  We see it as individuals maneuver to greater influence.  We see it as power is hoarded and used to create more power.  We see that power used against others.

God calls us to a different way

—A vision of the wilderness that acknowledges pain and desolation

—and yet a faithful God accompanying us

—making that acknowledgment of pain—and its healing—possible.

—a vision of abundance that sees all fed beyond sufficiency.

—a vision that displays power in the call to serve others before self, as Christ serves the crowd.

—A vision that exposes the moral bankruptcy of ways of being that deny the humanity of others for the benefit of the powerful.

What can be done against the ways of empire, against the ways of this world?  Well, there is much to be done. 

But first things first.

The difficulty with looking past the ways of this world is that we see the pervasive nature of scarcity.  At the root of all of our systems that are lesser than that which God intends is the notion that there is simply not enough.

We all know the tendency to scarcity, don’t we?

I know I do. 

I hear it often.

I feel it often.

Sometimes it is all we see.

But I was reminded of something this week.  This week, young adult ministers and campus chaplains from across the country gathered to talk about our work.  In this conference, we made intentional efforts to find the good in our work and share that abundance with others.  We committed to the idea that the knowledge in the room was enough to spur greater things than what we could do individually or through simply listening to a handful of experts.

In many ways, the conference was a success.  I went with five loaves and two fish.  I came back with baskets full.

I want to commend that same practice to you—a spiritual practice of seeking the abundance that lies within those who are around you.  I wonder if you might be willing to give a bit of intentional time to seeking abundance this week.

All I am asking you to do is this: 

In the midst of a conversation you are having, ask the person what fills them with joy.  Ask them where they are feeling the most alive in their world.  My guess is that in so doing, you will find a place in which God is showing forth abundance worthy of rejoicing.

Here’s the catch:  Be willing to have someone ask you the same question.

Amen.

---

[1] Richard Swanson, Provoking the gospel of Matthew: a storyteller's commentary : year A (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 2007) 9.

[2] Ibid, 9.

[3] Ibid, 9.