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Dadgie and I used to watch Colombo. Those episodes were great. You always knew “whodunit” from the very beginning. The thrill was in seeing how the rumpled detective managed to figure it out, and seeing the perpetrator get his due at the end of the story. With a wrinkled forehead and the hint of a wry smile, Colombo rendered his judgment. It always came at the end. Our forebears in the faith told us that judgment is what happens at the end – after you die. It’s the final verdict on your life.
But in the New Testament the Greek word for judgment is krisis. This word krisis does not necessarily mean the end, or what happens when the “Great Detective in the Sky” finally figures it out and nails you; it’s about separation. A krisis is a point of division between good and evil, between carelessness and justice, between “back then” and “from now on”. It’s obviously the etymological source of our English word crisis. And our word carries the same sense of a division. A crisis as what happens when a life takes a major turn in the road.
Our gospel story this morning is about ten bridesmaids who were getting ready for a wedding. I’ve done a lot of weddings, but I don’t think I’ve ever done one with ten bridesmaids – must have been a pretty big deal wedding. But for such a grand affair, they don’t seem to have planned very well. All these girls are sent out to wait for the bridegroom who must have gotten so caught up in his bachelor’s party that he lost track of the time, or had to sleep off the booze, or something. So the girls are sitting up all night waiting for this guy to show – already you can tell this affair is off to a clumsy start. Well, you know the story. When the groom finally appears (about midnight) five of the girls’ lamps had gone out and they were off trying to buy more oil. But the bridegroom is a hard man. When the girls finally show up he renders his judgment and doesn’t let them into the wedding feast. Jesus calls those five “foolish” because they weren’t prepared.
This is a story about judgment – the judgment that proceeds from a moment of crisis. And, ironically enough in our twenty-first century, it’s a story about oil. The foolish five brought on the crisis of judgment because they hadn’t considered the possibility of running out of oil.
We may be very close to midnight – to that critical point where humanity starts running out of oil, but maybe not. It could be twenty five or thirty years off. So, many of our industrialists tells us to relax. There’s plenty of time. As soon as the bridegroom shows up we’ll all have a party. What could possibly go wrong? That opinion notwithstanding, you and I know that an awful lot is going wrong, and there’s more to come. We don’t have twenty-five years to stop burning fossil fuels and avert global chaos. We are already seeing climate change impacts on our weather, on coastal communities, on food and water resources, and global conflicts. And the changes in our climate are absolutely connected to the hundreds of billions of metric tons of carbon we have been spewing into the atmosphere. There is no longer any serious debate about this. Ninety seven percent of the world’s geophysicists, meteorologists, geologist, and other climatologists agree that global warming is happening and that human activity is the major cause. “But why should we worry? The party is going to start any minute now and we’ve got plenty of oil for our lamps.” That attitude is holding more sway in the marketplace and the halls of Congress than is sustainable. Humanity in our time will face the bridesmaids’ judgment: whether we planned ahead and were prepared to deal with the looming oil crisis or were more interested in having a party.
Judgment is not the scorecard tally that confronts us at the pearly gates, judgment is the natural result of the decisions we make. This is the kind of Judgment that Jesus spoke of so often in the Gospels. He consistently set before his disciples, his listeners, and us the importance of any moment of krisis – any turning point in our lives that hinges on a decision to give one’s self to greed, narrow self-interest, and carelessness, or to live for love, and grace, and abundant life.But you and I are frequently unprepared for that krisis. Speaking about Jesus’s imagery in these closing pages of Matthew’s Gospel, Richard Lischer, the Duke University scholar and writer, says that “the crisis comes like a thief in the night, when you are sleeping. The thief pries open a window and climbs in. Like that. Judgment comes when you least expect it.” The Prophet Amos said, “[It’s] as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake.” This is not only true for warring peoples caught in the grip of bloodlust, and legislatures dealing with a fossil fuels crisis, it is true in your life and in mine.
Most of us can recall moments in our lives when the check came for all that we had put on our plate, so to speak. Sometimes those moments come in dramatic shocks. That was the case for a young seminarian named Wes Seegler. He had been assigned to write a personal statement of faith, drawing on all he had learned in three years of theological education. He had completed a lengthy section of the paper displaying his knowledge of standard theological categories and theses. Pleased with himself and his excellent work, he took a stroll across campus before diving into the second section of his treatise. He writes about his trip back to the room where he had been writing: “Humming the ‘Triumphal March’ from Aida, I strode confidently over the sidewalk leading to the class building. Near the sidewalk was a small tree. Suddenly, a mother mockingbird flew off her nest to challenge me. It was the biggest damn mockingbird I’d ever seen, and she dived at my head like a Kamikaze. Zoom. I ducked. Zoom, another pass. Zoom. Zoom.
“I backed away from the tree. She perched in the top and glared at me. I glared back. I decided to try again. She took to the air and thrashed around over my head. Again I backed off. The situation called for strategy. What would Kierkegaard do?
“The solution was simple. I would walk all the way around the chapel. This way, I would avoid the enraged bag of feathers. No, that would be defeat. I became angry. How dare a bird defy a man soon to be an ordained priest in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church!
“I prepared for war. Texas state bird or no, my adversary was going to get clobbered with Tillich’s Systematic Theology, Vol. II. I advanced. Vol. II was cocked like a baseball bat. She flew way up in the air. “Ah, she’s retreating,” I thought. Then she plummeted. My God! She’s going to dive on me from two hundred yards! I ducked behind a hedge. So much for open warfare.
“Alas, there was only one thing to do – capitulate and walk around the chapel. Grudgingly I began my journey. A seminarian who had just written a brilliant summary of “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” had been backed down by a damn mockingbird. I was a broken man.”
Seegler goes on to acknowledge how the judgment of the mockingbird softened and humbled him, and actually made his paper a bit more genuine and heartfelt. He added, “Christian symbolism depicts the Holy Spirit as a bird coming down out of heaven. The gospels say it was a dove. I wonder.”
Seegler’s story is fun, but it’s also telling. If, as John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” then judgment is what happens to you while you’re busy getting carried away with yourself.
Here’s the good news: falling under the judgment of the Almighty does not mean some final score on a pass/fail test. Judgment happens all the time. It erupts out of the crisis that flies down on us seemingly out of nowhere. But it is not out of nowhere; it is intimately connected to our histories. It is the logical result of the choices and decisions we make. Jesus says, “Watch, therefore. For you know neither the day nor the hour.” It’s another way of saying: Think, therefore. Consider, therefore. You may not know what you think you know. You may not really know what you are doing. Sound advice for peoples and nations. . . for you, and for me.
Every decision we make marks a turning point, an opportunity to take another path, sing a different tune. And whether that path is lobbying, voting, and networking to press for the care of all creation and sensible energy policies, or simply a decision to soften up a little and find a gentler, more humble self, none of us is alone in the task. That’s the beautiful thing. When we seize the opportunity that rides on the heels of judgment we can seize also one another’s hands. The very strength of the Spirit is alive in our combined efforts, and grace, as the hymn says, will lead us home. Let’s sing it together.
I have chosen to depart from the lectionary today because I wanted to say something particular to this communion Sunday, as well as a day on which we remember those who have gone before us, and coming just a few days after the three days on the Christian calendar that speak of “saints” (All Saints, or Hallows, Eve – or Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day).
So today I will speak of “communion” and “saints.” The title of my sermon comes from an ancient creed with which at least some of you are familiar. It’s from the Apostles’ Creed, drafted many centuries ago, and repeated by believers over the generations as a concise statement of their faith. The last portion of that ancient creed goes like this: “I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church (meaning the Church in all its forms around the world); the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.” In this creed, “the communion of saints” is right up there with the Holy Spirit and forgiveness of sins as central expressions of what defined those followers of Christ.
Even though we, as members of the United Church of Christ, don’t rely on such creeds as litmus tests for inclusion in the church, we do still recognize their role in helping us to sort out the great questions of faith. But for many of us, the language has become an almost insurmountable barrier. It’s about as hard to comprehend what “the communion of saints” means in 2023, as it is for me to understand “tweeting” on “X.”
I believe in the communion of saints.
The word communion we most often use to refer to the Lord’s Supper, this memorial meal that we partake of here once a month. And saints – well, we all know what saints are. They’re folks who were so nearly perfect that they became martyrs and worked miracles and got holidays named after them and have statues and stained glass windows. Thinking of the communion of saints, we might have a vision of Saint Augustus, Saint Francis, Saint Nicholas, and all the others sitting around a heavenly table sharing the bread and cup. Truth is, at least in the language of this ancient creed, neither of these words means what we think it does.
Communion refers to something far broader than what we do with bread and grape juice. It’s the coming together of all of us in the spirit of Love that involves fellowship, struggle, growth, inclusion. It’s what people have done for generations, for millennia, when they have rubbed elbows and stepped on toes while trying to pursue that which is of the deepest and most profound meaning in life. To be in communion with one another is to be living together in the household of faith. Sometimes that’s not easy.
I know of a family for whom living together was mostly a burden. The mother was anxious, nervous, always worried that things were going to go terribly wrong. The father was domineering and controlling, always imposing his authority on everyone. The children learned to compete for their parent’s attention and became combative. In order to hold things together the whole family took on a facade of closeness and caring, while hostility and fear boiled beneath the surface. Many would describe that family as dysfunctional, and in many respects it was, but in the end, there was something about just being “family” – being in communion with one another – that pulled them through. It simply took time. In time they found ways to compensate for their difficulties with one another, and to give each other the space to be different. The earlier issues of competition and anxiety eventually crumbled in the face of nothing more extraordinary than the calendar. That’s the power of communion.
Being in a committed relationship – one that transcends the issues and differences of the day – is an incredible force. It can, given enough time, refashion human beings, institutions, nations, even history itself. That’s communion.
I believe in the communion of saints.
Saints – now there’s a loaded word. We all think of saints as being those people who were, at some time in history, something grand, something we’re not. In truth, the way the word is used in the Bible, it doesn’t mean that at all. Did you ever notice that the word is almost always plural in the Bible? You rarely hear about “a saint,” but you often hear about “the saints.” Apparently, sainthood is only something you can do in communion. “Saint,” in other words, is simply another name for a sinner. A saint is a person who is a member of a communion. And the people who make up a communion like a church, are just folks like you and me. “Saints” drop the ball, they step on each other’s toes, they behave inappropriately, they fail each other.
Many of you know the burden of trying to live under extraordinary expectations. In our society, school teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, not to mention factory workers, supervisors and administrators, and even spouses and parents, are expected to meet impossible standards. Any failure can be a terrible mistake, and sometimes even grounds for a law-suit.
This church stands as a refuge – a sanctuary – for all who are bruised and battered by the outrageous demands of a society caught in the myth of perfection and bent on blame and punishment. It is a place for sinners: for all who fall short of the mark but keep trying, for all whose faith is shaky and spotty but still discernable somewhere deep inside, for all who sometimes forget how to communicate but remain in communion. In other words, a place for saints.
I believe in the communion of saints.
I suppose the term, communion of saints is outdated. It’s hard in 2023 to know just what that is. Maybe it’d be more clear if we called it a fellowship of sinners. It would mean the same thing. But there’s something I like about the phrase. Maybe it’s that the common meanings we have for those words aren’t really so far off.
Communion, after all, has everything to do with this monthly meal, this bread and cup. It’s here, perhaps more than anywhere else, that we attempt to see and touch the one tie that truly does bind us together: the presence of Christ. And especially on this communion Sunday – this time that is hallowed by remembering in love those who have blazed the trail before us, perhaps today we discover more than at any other time the power of communion.
And saints? Well, there is, in fact, something extraordinary that happens to each of us as we partake of this communion. As part of each other, and part of Christ, we become far more than we are. That’s what I believe the author of this letter to the Hebrews was trying to get across. He didn’t seem to have a very firm grasp of scripture, but he made some good points, nonetheless. He says, “someone has testified somewhere, ‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.’” Well, the one who said that somewhere is the Psalmist who authored Psalm 8 (our other scripture reading this morning). Then, a little later, he ties that reading to what he calls the words of Jesus: “Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, ‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’” Actually, those words aren’t from Jesus, they’re from Psalm 22. But the point is a good one anyway.
I think he’s telling the Hebrews (and us) that because we are brothers and sisters of Jesus, part of the divine family, if you will, embraced in the mind of the Eternal, we can claim that bold title of being “a little lower than the angels,” and “crowned with glory and honor.” Now, I know most of us don’t usually feel like angels, or like we’re wearing crowns of any kind (let alone of glory and honor). But when we enter into communion with one another, and communion with Christ, the power of our union remakes us.
I knew a man who was on the verge of throwing his life away. He was an alcoholic, not much involved in the life of the church – his wife was a member. He showed up drunk at a church function and created an awful scene. In time, he developed cirrhosis of the liver and barely survived. But through it all, the church never gave up on him. That blessed communion of saints just surrounded him with love and understanding. And he never forgot that. When he finally got into AA, started recovery, and began to put his life back together, he decided to join the church. He went on to become chair of the board of deacons. Through his leadership, energy, and dedication he contributed mightily to that church’s ministry.
I believe in the communion of saints.
Our communion of love transforms us, even with all our warts and blemishes, into more than we are, perhaps even “lights” for the world, “salt” for the earth, “saints” even (without the halos).
Most of you “old-timers” like me remember the old television game show, Truth or Consequences. With host, Bob Barker, the show was a combination trivia game and stunt show. Contestants were asked silly questions and had to answer correctly before “Beulah the Buzzer” sounded. If they failed to give the “Truth,” they had to face the “Consequences” – usually some embarrassing stunt. The show was so popular, they named a town after it. No foolin’. It’s called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
If only truth were as popular. The man who wrote this morning’s opening hymn about 500 years ago was something of a crusader for truth. Martin Luther was supposed to be a quiet, well-mannered monk, keeping his head in the books and his mouth shut. But he heard the Pope, who was supposed to be infallible, issuing decrees for the collection of money from peasants who thought they were buying souls out of purgatory, and it rang in his ears as a giant lie. He couldn’t be a good boy and stay silent. He asked for an airing of grievances, for his sincere questions to be answered, for an open debate on matters of faith within the church. For his commitment to truth, he was hauled before the inquisition, punished, and excommunicated.
On this “Reformation Sunday” when we recall and celebrate those who launched this great Protestant adventure, I would like to, in the spirit of Martin Luther, open with you this Bible that, thanks to those reformers, is now available to each of us in our own language, and unearth a treasure – a pearl of Biblical wisdom to carry with us on the journey.
We find it first here in this story from Matthew. It’s one of the most interesting encounters that Jesus has. A lawyer asks him to say which commandment in the law is the greatest, and Jesus, after answering his question, fires one right back at him. He asks whose son the Messiah is. The guy, along with the Pharisees, falls into his trap by giving the traditional answer: “the son of David.” Then Jesus makes a rather obscure reference to the first verse of Psalm 110: “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’” His point being that since David was regarded as the author of the Psalms, and this psalm was interpreted to be addressed to the Messiah, how can David call the Messiah Lord, if the Messiah is his son? We’re told that after that, “No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
I’d like to raise with you the question of why Jesus did that. Personally, I don’t think it had anything to do with whose son the Messiah was. I think the point was the trap Jesus set for this lawyer and the Pharisees. Jesus was being extraordinarily clever. He played this guy and his friends like a pawn gambit in a chess game: set them up, and artfully lowered the boom. And why did he do it? I think because he knew that this learned man’s question about the law was a kind of a trap too. It was a test. He was going to see just what sort of intellectual fiber this Jesus guy was really made of. So he asked him a difficult question and stood back, scratching his chin waiting for the answer.
I’ve found myself in that situation before. You know what I mean: when a question is not really a question; it’s more of a game – a game of “one-upmanship” like, “So, what are you reading these days?” or a game of “catch-me-kiss-me” like, “I bet you don’t even know why I didn’t call you,” or not so much a question as a disguised zinger like, “That was your expert opinion?” You’ve heard them; they’re little question games that really get under your skin. I think the reason they get to us so readily is that they’re basically dishonest. We can always sense the lie hiding just under the surface. It’s a lie about how the questioner is feeling, or about what they really want of you. Those are the kinds of questions that I always wish I had a great comeback for.
Well, Jesus had a great comeback. This lawyer, no doubt, had a wry smile on his face as he put Jesus to the test. By coming back with his little piece of entrapment, I think Jesus is saying, in essence, “If you want to play question games with me, you’re going to lose.” By extension, I think he’s saying, “Don’t play games with lies.”
Here’s a compass that can keep you on course through the stormiest seas. If you deal in truth, love truth, pursue truth – truth with intention, truth with passion, unwavering truth – you will never lose your bearings.
The Apostle Paul carried that compass, and it served him well over a lot of miles. He writes to the Christians in Thessalonica, “. . . we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition.
“For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery . . . As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others . . .” Maybe he’s bragging just a little, but he’s also making a point. He’s saying that truth has been his compass, and it has caused him to live a life to take pride in.
The lie comes so easily. When you’re caught doing or saying something you shouldn’t, it’s practically instinctive to try to cover your tracks, to bend the facts, to put a better light on things. It’s so difficult to simply say, “You’re right. I really blew it. I’m sorry.” When there’s a gain to be made, or a loss to avoid, it’s so easy to rationalize a little lie on a tax form, or in a business deal. It’s so much more difficult to stand on principle against those who would pressure you to tinker with the numbers. When you’re hurting inside, it’s so easy to play little word games with other people, and hide your feelings behind questions that conceal darts, or challenges, or tricks. It’s harder to simply be honest about your pain, or your anger, and speak the truth in love.
We watch TV commercials about drugs that are supposed to make us live totally happy lives romping through fields of daisies, or listen to politicians bending the truth or speaking outright lies and knowing how many people are soaking it up uncritically. There have to be many people asking in these unsettling days if there are any islands of decency left in this sea of self-interest and deception in which we live.
Anyone who walks through these doors and takes a seat here with us, anyone who contemplates becoming part of this congregation is, at one level, asking a similar question: “Is this ‘church thing’ another scam in a world of sinister motives, or is this a place of integrity, a place I can encounter the Holy and find support as I struggle with faith?”
Let me say without reservation that if this church should stand for one thing it is the quest for truth. Not truth stamped from a cookie cutter and neatly packaged for mass consumption, but a deeper kind of truth. The truth that speaks to you from these pages of scripture, the Truth that encounters you in a time of prayer and helps you to feel a connection with the eternal, a truth and encourages you to raise questions, challenge authority, and never, ever settle – never, ever settle for easy answers, warmed over platitudes, or someone else’s beliefs.
To live for such truth takes courage. But the courage that is mustered in the process builds character, and enriches life. In 1845, James Russell Lowell wrote a poem. It was a time when war seemed to be brewing on the horizon. There was a large movement for engaging in a war with Mexico. Lowell, in the face of stern opposition, made a courageous call for the nation to enter into reasoned deliberation before rushing into war, and consider carefully the choices that lay before us. His opposition was grounded in the fact that the American plan was to annex Texas as a state and allow slavery there. Lowell was an ardent abolitionist. His poem was titled “The Present Crisis.” It is eighteen stanzas long. One of which goes like this:
Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops,
fellest of the giant brood,
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness,
who have drenched the earth with blood,
Famished in his self-made desert,
blinded by our purer day,
Gropes in yet unblasted regions
for his miserable prey;—
Shall we guide his gory fingers
where our helpless children play?
He wrote, with the courage of his convictions these words:
Once to every man and nation
comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of Truth with Falsehood,
for the good or evil side.
Though the cause of Evil prosper,
yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
keeping watch above his own.
And, indeed, on the scaffold that held a rope around the neck of the truth – the truth that slavery must be abolished did indeed sway the future. And his poem, “The Present Crisis” later became the inspiration for the title of The Crisis, the magazine published by the NAACP.
So, “Truth or Consequences” was a fun TV show, but it’s title was profound. And what are the “consequences” of failing to live for and by the “truth?” I think Lowell had it right. It may seem that truth always has its head in the noose. But, in fact, that hangman’s rope holds the future, and the consequence of refusing the courage to live for truth may well be the demise our participation in that future. And all the while, as Lowell said, in the shadows, the Lord of Life is standing, keeping watch above his own.
Almost a half century after Lowell wrote that courageous poem, Thomas Williams set portions of it to music. It’s on our insert. Let’s sing it together.
I hope no one has already bolted out the door after seeing my sermon title. I realize that, with the disarray in the House of Representatives and another potential government shut-down looming, we are all about eyeball deep in politics right now, and the last thing you want to hear from the pulpit is more of what you are already sick of (or sick from, perhaps). But I assure this is not a “political” sermon. In fact, it’s perhaps an explanation of why “political” sermons should not be heard from this pulpit. Allow me to elaborate.
Let’s begin with the jolting question: Would Jesus be a Democrat or a Republican? Well, here’s some evidence to consider: Jesus clearly chose not to affiliate himself with any of the political parties of his day. He had a member of the Zealots among his disciples (the one referred to as Simon the Zealot) but Jesus did not join the party. He seemed to have equal contempt for both the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and couldn’t be placed in either camp. He was clearly not among the Essenes. He was not a Herodian and he showed allegiance to neither the Roman authorities nor the rulers of the Sanhedrin.
In our reading from Matthew this morning, Jesus famously responds to the trap set for him by the Pharisees and the Herodians by asking for a coin and, noting that Caesar’s image appeared on it, he said, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” I don’t think this necessarily meant that he was siding with them and advocating that Jews in Judea should pay the Roman poll tax rather than revolt against foreign rule. He wasn’t aligning himself with either the Herodians or the Zealots. He was offering a bit of perspective, and, as I read it, minimizing the value of the currency (and therefore, perhaps, belittling the intensity of the argument to begin with). In essence, he was saying: “This is a trinket with Caesar’s picture on it; let him have it; the Lord of Life reigns over all that truly matters in this world.”
But to say that Jesus was not a member of the Zealot party does not mean that he was without zeal. He was clearly a man of passion who pursued the causes of his life and his world with a fiery spirit. He demonstrated his zeal for justice in many ways. The first thing Jesus did after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem was to turn over the tables of the profiteering money-changers who were taking advantage of those of meager means. Then he drove them out of the temple with a whip. And he revealed that passion for justice by the shocking company he kept: he moved among the outcasts, healed the lepers, spoke with women, lifted up the racial minorities of his day as examples of virtue; and yet he dined with Pharisees, and conversed compassionately with the despised tax collector. He was a man who enjoyed having a good time with friends, as is evidenced by his grand showing at the wedding feast at Cana and by the charges made by some that he was a “glutton and a drunkard.” But when it came to calling a spade a spade, he did not mince words. Accusing the scribes and Pharisees of murdering innocents and laying heavy burdens on the backs of those too weak to bear them, he called them a “brood of vipers” because, in his words, “you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” Jesus may not have been a card-carrying member of the party of the Zealots, but he was most certainly a man of great zeal for justice and mercy.
What does this have to say to us in the year 2023? Well, if Caesar’s image was stamped on the Roman coin and thus it belonged to him, whose image is stamped on the coinage of our lives? In Tennyson’s Idylls of the King the monk Ambrosius is speaking to Percivale about the knights of the Round Table and says:
“For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, Some true, some light, but every one of you Stamp’d with the image of the King . . .”
It is our place – the place of the church – to be the coinage stamped with the image of Christ. And if the church is to model itself on the ministry of Jesus – if we are to be the coins stamped with his image – the church would be well advised to pay attention to both his shunning of political allegiance and his passion for issues of faithfulness and justice. So there is a far greater reason for the church to avoid supporting political parties or candidates than wishing to maintain our 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. Our reason for doing so is based on the example of Jesus who pointed to the supremacy of allegiance to the Great Author of Truth that he figuratively referred to as his Father. And that makes all other human institutions, systems, and mediums pale in significance. And that is why you should never hear a “political” sermon from this pulpit; never a political party favored, a political candidate endorsed, or a political platform advocated.
Does that mean that we should avoid all issues that become part of our national political discussion? Absolutely not. Because to do so would also be to flee from the example set for us by Jesus.
Would Jesus endorse either Joe Biden or Donald Trump? I think not. But I think he would have something to say about the treatment of women. Even in his day, when women were clearly regarded by the culture in which he lived as subservient to men, advised to not speak to men in public arenas, and cordoned off in the back of the Temple, Jesus healed women, including a foreigner; he lifted up a poor woman of the street as an example for the Pharisees, and he spoke to and offered the blessing of new life to a woman who was one of the despised Samaritans. He also had some rather strict notions of fidelity and propriety for men dealing with women. He said, “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That’s a bit higher standard of conduct than most of us can profess to adhere to. I’m reminded of Jimmy Carter famously saying in a interview, “I have committed adultery many times in my heart.” (I recall the joke that went around at the time that My Heart was the name of a hotel outside Plains, Georgia). But even though Jesus’ standards are beyond most of us, they do call us to a higher level of respect for gender equality. No, I don’t think Jesus would tell us for whom to vote, but I think he would have quite a bit to say about the treatment of women.
I don’t think Jesus would endorse either of the Democratic or the Republican parties, but I think he would have quite a bit to say about economic justice. In fact, he did have quite a bit to say: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Quoting the prophet Isaiah, he described his ministry in these terms: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. He said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. . . . But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”
I don’t think Jesus would tell us for whom to vote, but I think he would have something to say about honesty and truthfulness. I think he would have something to say about militarism. I think he would have something to say about the use and abuse of power. I think he would have something to say about racial justice and ethnic or even religious discrimination.
I think people frequently conflate politics and issues. They are not the same. I can’t tell you how many times in the course of my ministry someone has made some remark to me about there being “too much politics in church”, by which they mean they are hearing about issues of social justice from the pulpit. I have never apologized for addressing economic disparity, racial justice, gender equality, justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered folks, or a host of other issues, and I never will. The Church needs to be apolitical; it needs to refuse to endorse or promote specific political parties and candidates. But it must stand for issues and values that are central to the themes and currents of the gospel. And for preaching to be relevant, it must address those issues and values that are alive and under debate in the broader culture.
I confess that this all means that there is, on occasion, a difficult line to be drawn. I am very aware that justice issues can often rub up against party platform planks. That leaves every preacher with the preparatory task that my mentor, Gene Bartlett, set for all of us when he advised that when writing a sermon every pastor must ask him or her self: “Am I being prophetic, or do I have an axe to grind?” I assure you that I ask myself that question every time I sit down at the computer to prepare a sermon. I make no claim to perfection in my response to that question, but you can be confident that I grapple with it honestly.
But the principle applies to our entire experience as a congregation. I know there are times when, in coffee hour or other groups, folks inevitably veer off into political discussions. I think it behooves us all to think carefully about the tenor, the direction, and the intent of such conversations, and to keep asking ourselves the preacher’s question. I think it is on the agenda for all of us to focus as clearly as possible on the themes of the gospel and to reflect on the words and witness of Jesus. And it is important for us to act upon our convictions, in the footsteps of the passionate Christ, to support initiatives that are promoting the causes and issues that we believe are most grounded in gospel values. I’m not suggesting that everyone should register as an independent, but we should be supporting those causes and individuals who speak and act for those things we value as followers of Christ. The church doesn’t have a vote, but you do.
This has been a long way around of responding to the question, “Would Jesus be a Democrat or a Republican?” I suggest that he would be neither. But I bet he would have a lot to say about what’s going on in America and in the world right now, and how it touches our lives and calls us to respond.
There are days full of sunshine and hopefulness, and there are those times when everything seems clouded or even covered with a dark blanket. And if we are truly honest, both are present to a degree in every moment. We are never totally without hope, and we are never entirely free of the veil of uncertainty. Life, even in its finest moments, remains a deep mystery. And we are like those theater goers who sit in the dark, unsure of what is to come, waiting for the curtain to go up. I suppose that’s why these words from Isaiah jumped out at me: “And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations . . . .” I’m in a rather reflective mood these days, so, if you don’t mind, I’d like to just play with Isaiah’s “shroud” image for a while.
The first thing that strikes me about these wonderful and cryptic words from the prophet is that they don’t fit. They spring up in the midst of this passage and stand out like a big, yellow hat at a funeral. The first words we hear from Isaiah are the familiar strains of gloating and self-congratulation that we have grown accustomed to hearing from warrior nations: “O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for . . . you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt. Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. . . . When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.” This is nothing more than an ancient cry of victory in battle. There’s no telling who the enemy was – the “ruthless nation” that was overthrown, the “fortified city” that was laid to ruin – it may have been Babylon or Nineveh. But clearly this is an exultation by those who saw themselves as divinely chosen to be victorious over others – always a dangerous notion.
It is right on top of this hymn to the glory of military victory that Isaiah drops in these astounding words: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth. . . .”
God will make a feast “for all peoples,” and he will lift the shroud that is cast over “all peoples,” and “all nations.” And instead of lauding Israel as a leader of nations, Isaiah looks forward to a time when “the disgrace of his people . . . from all the earth” will be taken away. That’s a remarkable statement of humility – the kind of gaff that might cost any presidential candidate an election. And here’s the stunner: all of these great things for all the people of the earth will happen, in the prophet’s words, “on this mountain,” by which he means Mount Zion, by which he means Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be the site for reconciliation among all the peoples and all the nations, and the place where in Isaiah’s words “ the disgrace of his people” will be removed. I could not help being struck by the irony of that.
We all know what’s happening in that city and in that nation today. Jerusalem today is covered in a shroud of war, of violence, pride, and animosity. Jurisdiction over the ancient holy sites there is at the center of much of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. This mountain, this Zion, this Jerusalem is today the volcano from which an enormous cloud of misunderstanding, animosity, and violence among Arabs and Israelis has spread. And this is the very place, Isaiah says, where the shroud of global hate and violence will be lifted. Is it possible that millennia of bloodshed and venom will be put away, that generations of conflict and dispute will be resolved, that one of the hottest hot-spots on the globe will be the birthplace of world peace? It’s hard to believe.
Hundreds of years after Isaiah delivered these words, Jesus stood up in the very cross-hairs of the epicenter of that mountain of contention, the Jerusalem Temple, and offered a rather cloudy parable, cloaked, as far as I can see, in mystery. He spoke of a “a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet,” but they wouldn’t come, and they killed the messengers. The king sent troops to ruthlessly wipe them out and burn their city. Then he sent his slaves out again into the streets to bring in whomever they could find to his wedding feast. One poor slob walked in off the street at the king’s invitation and presently found himself bound hand and foot, to be thrown “into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” all because he had the audacity to walk in off the street without the proper clothes. Now, I generally wear a white shirt and jacket to church, and I guess I’m glad I do, because, frankly, I don’t think I’d want any part of that “outer darkness,” or the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” thing. Does this parable make any sense to you at all? I must confess, it confounds me. It seems to be saying that the Lord of Hosts is fickle, and prone to entrapping people so they can be punished. I can’t imagine that’s really what Jesus was getting at, but I’ll be darned if I can be sure what he was saying. So, there’s another veil that cloaks our lives. It is the shroud of unknowing. Who can discern what the great Mind of Being at the heart of existence is up to in this universe? Every time I think I get a bit closer to comprehension of the divine mystery, it seems to slap me in the face and remind me that it’s all too huge for my predilections, presumptions and prejudices. Is it possible that one day this shroud will be removed as well? Will we one day understand the arbitrariness of loss, the unfairness of life, the fickle nature of the one who holds the wedding feast? Will the veil be lifted to reveal that it all does make some kind of wondrous sense after all? I find it hard to believe.
And then there’s the shroud of all shrouds – the cerement of our mortality. At the loss of a dear friend, gone too soon, I have found myself staggered by the reality of death. I kept seeing his face; kept expecting to encounter him walking through the door, finding it hard to believe that he is truly gone. The curtain that stands between life and death is impenetrable. It is the ultimate loss that faces each of us, the ultimate end to all our beginnings and endings. It looms over our plans and presumptions like an uninvited guest who refuses to leave, and almost seems to mock us as we go about our busy lives flitting from one supposedly “urgent” task to another. And yet, Isaiah says, “. . . he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces.” Is it possible that death is not the last word? Can it be that even that cold, dark sheet will be lifted, that life will prevail, that tears will be dried? It’s hard to believe.
Well, thinking about those shrouds strangely led me to toss around in my head the image of some other coverings. I was covered with a kind of shroud this past Tuesday. I went to the hospital to have a cardiac monitor placed under the skin in my chest. They put what they call “drapes” around the insertion area (which are simply those big blue sheets of paper with tape along one side to stick to your body). The top drape went clear over my head so I was kind of buried beneath it and couldn’t see anything that was going on. Then the cardiologist who I knew but could not see started doing things to my chest with a scalpel. The experience under that drape could have been very frightening. But when that shroud was removed, I went home to a miracle. I now have a tiny device in my chest that conducts a non-stop EKG on my heart, stores all the information from each day, which is then automatically downloaded to a device by my bedside that automatically transmits the information to my doctor’s office. I have no idea how all of that works. The technology is staggering, but it is wondrous.
Then, I thought of the shrouds that are the sheets and blankets of my bed. Every night I enter into a different world. I climb between those sheets and drift off into another state of consciousness, a kind of deep soul awareness in which my mind speaks to itself and transports me to diverse places. And in each new setting, I am instructed, in some ways; I see the events of my life reflected in a sort-of fun-house mirror, and the issues that have been left dangling through the jumble of my waking days are often worked through and sometimes resolved. I don’t know how this happens. I don’t know who the self is who is instructing me – or who the “me” is that is being taught, for that matter. It’s all cloaked in a kind of darkness that lies just beyond the range of conscious perception. And in the morning I awake and stumble through my usual routines. Eventually, I see the sunlight streaming through the windows. The places I have been in my dreams and the things I have learned vanish, and I am left wondering in awe at the realm of existence I just tasted but cannot comprehend in the dark beneath those bed sheets. Then I remove the shroud of the night and sit down to breakfast. The dog comes to the table looking for handouts which Dadgie happily provides. I pick up my cell phone and read that the universe, which is infinite in scope, embracing distances that are staggering beyond all comprehension, is nonetheless expanding in every place, in every minute, and nobody really knows why. The dog, Charlie, pokes his head up on my lap from beneath the table, and I swear I could see him smile. Moments like these are simple and routine, but their cumulative effect is profound. And in the end I’m left with a sense that life is more than it seems to be, and beyond that, something, some profound reality, some pervasive awareness residing in the central core of being is, in a way that’s beyond my comprehension, aware of me. And it’s as though a curtain is removed that has covered all my hopes, and I realize that even on the mount of Zion, peace is worth working for and believing in, that even with a tiny mind incapable of grasping the reality of divinity, knowledge and faith are worth pursuing, and that even in the presence of heartbreaking loss, death may not, indeed, have the last word. And all of that I can see just in the eyes of our dog.
So who am I to argue with the prophet Isaiah?
True to form, this morning I plan to take personal exception to over a dozen centuries of biblical interpretation. I may sound a little flip about it, but in truth, I don’t go about this lightly. It’s simply that every so often, when I read scripture, something jumps out at me and takes hold of my imagination.
Anyway, what grabbed me in this morning’s passage from Matthew is this old phrase you’ve heard a dozen times about “the stone that the builders rejected,” and how it “has become the cornerstone.” I’m not convinced Jesus was talking about what everyone seems to think he was.
It has been assumed for generations that he was referring to himself. Jesus was the “cornerstone” rejected by the “builders” (i.e. the scribes and the Pharisees), and that same stone (Jesus) is the “stone of stumbling” over which the non-believers would fall. And, according to scripture, “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” According to this interpretation, we’re all supposed to believe in Jesus in order to avoid tripping over the rejected cornerstone. Well, I believe in Jesus. I believe that the Jesus we encounter in scripture is normative for our lives. But if that is so, it’s not enough to say “I believe in Jesus;” the Jesus we encounter should transform us and cause us to live and act according to divine principles and purposes.
When I read this story from Matthew, I get the very clear impression that Jesus was not talking about words or beliefs at all! I get the idea that Jesus didn’t give a hoot what we say about what we believe in our heads! The story he told was not about what people thought, or what they said. It was about what some people did, and what they didn’t do! The story is about some tenants who were working in a vineyard they had leased. What they didn’t do was to pay their dues at harvest time! What they did was to kill the messengers who told them it was time to pay up! At the end of the story, the owner pointedly does not come on the scene and require of the laborers that they sign a pledge of allegiance, or that they offer words of regret, or promises, or affirmations. The owner is, instead, inclined to throw their sorry rear-ends out of the vineyard and give it over to (please note) “a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”
So, the “cornerstone” that Jesus speaks of is, I believe, that critical piece of personal architecture that is a life truly committed to the way of Jesus. I don’t think we’re in danger of stumbling over the “cornerstone” by failing to profess our belief in Jesus, I think we’re more likely to fall on our faces when we stop producing the “fruits of the kingdom.” So, in the face of all those centuries of Biblical interpretation in which Jesus is said to be that “cornerstone” and our task is to believe in him, I raise an objection. I think Jesus was trying to point us to the message more than to the messenger. And the message is: “What have you done for me lately?”
How much of our energy is put into creating rumors? At its worst, the church can be likened to a giant rumor mill, where we are all sharing rumors of the Divine realm. We show pictures to our children and tell them stories about things we want them to believe. I get up here in front of all of you and tell you things that I glean from scripture about Divine intentions. From time to time, we have interesting discussions about life and death and after-life, and morality, and social ethics, and things about our belief system that interest us. It’s like we’re all running around here gossiping about Divinity, but how much of our lives are spent producing those fruits, and turning the harvest over to the Landlord? Do we just talk about it, or do we live it, do it, share it?
We speak here of social justice. We look forward to a day when all people will be free from the ugliness of racial and religious hatred and prejudice. Our denomination issues proclamations against violence, and we read newspaper articles extolling the virtues of tolerance. We talk about justice and equality. But, my friends, unless we are participating with or supporting those who are engaged in the dismantling of racial, cultural, religious barriers in our nation and world, or putting forth the effort to learn about the history and the lives of brothers and sisters with different backgrounds, or supporting those who fight the political battles for affordable housing, equal opportunity, or quality public education, then all of our words are just “rumors” about the realm of Divine Love.
We use the word “love” quite freely around here. We speak of the value of forgiveness, and the beauty of the church’s close fellowship. We tell people in our church brochure and on our website that we are an open and affirming community. But unless we go out of our way to meet new people, learn about their lives, and befriend them, unless we pick up the phone to make contact with the person we know is suffering in silence, unless we offer an olive branch of good-will to the one we have been alienated from, then all of our words are just “rumors” of that holy realm. Paul said it bluntly to the Church in Corinth: “the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.”
I have to confess, just like last week (in fact every week), this sermon is preached to myself as much as to anyone. I live from day to day in a virtual sea of words. I write words for the church website and weekly email, I write words to put in the bulletin, I write words to speak in a sermon. In fact, I love words. I actually learned to say all the days of the week in thirteen different languages. (Why would I do that? you ask. . . parties). So, I’m not down on words per se. Communication is terribly important. But we could put ourselves to sleep with all of our words.
I’m reminded of the story of two American students in a German university who were listening to a famous German philosopher speak. Finally, one turned to the other and said, “Let’s leave. This is too dull.” The friend replied, “Well, I admit it’s dull, but let’s at least wait until he gets to the verb.” The Divine realm is about verbs! It’s about actions, not simply the piling up of words. A Christian isn’t just someone who believes the right things, it’s someone who’s life is transformed. A church isn’t just a place where the right words are spoken, it’s a place that’s supposed to turn the world upside down.
Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” said it best: “Words! Words! I’m so sick of words! I get words all day through. . . . Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme! Don’t waste my time, Show me! Don’t talk of June, Don’t talk of fall! Don’t talk at all! Show me!”
That’s exactly what I think Jesus was saying. When he spoke of the tenants in the vineyard, he was making a point that we ignore at our peril. If we get so caught up in our words that we fail to produce results with our lives and with our world, we might find ourselves left behind as others are busy remaking the world.
I was reminded of that when I came across the story of a young man named Sam Vaghar who never waited around to hear the right words. Vaghar, whose father is from Iran, and whose mother is British, grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and graduated from Brandeis. When he was fifteen years old, he was on a trip to Cuba with his parents and was mugged by a group of kids who took his wallet. Rather than making him enraged, it made him reflective. He wondered about the level of poverty there, and about all the inequities in the world. He resolved to try to make a difference. Vaghar, in his mid-twenties, founded an organization called the Millennium Campus Network or MCN. It motivates students to get involved in making a difference in global poverty. They are using social media to organize, enlist students, engage in projects, and raise money which goes to hunger, poverty, and disease alleviation projects (like buying anti-malaria bed nets for African villagers). “Since MCN’s inception in a university dorm room about a decade ago, over 10,000 undergraduates from 450 universities worldwide have participated in one or more MCN programs. MCN alumni have gone on to work at the United Nations, USAID, and launched their own social enterprises.” Vaghar appealed to a group of 1200 students at a Millennium Campus Conference, saying, “Don’t just think about why you care, but how do we actually have an impact?” What Vaghar cares about is results.
You and I aren’t necessarily going to start some global organization for social justice, but we can write the check, pull the voting lever, make the phone call. We can volunteer some time. We can reach out to a family member, a friend, a neighbor, or even a total stranger with compassion, understanding, assistance and support. And we are doing some good things through our church. Our mission and ministry are of real value. But we should always make sure we are keeping our “eyes on the prize,” as they say. And we might be asking, “Is the church of Jesus Christ, in all its expressions and forms, being all it can be and doing all it can do to be the hands and feet of Divine intention in this world?” There are some blessed people who are taking to heart the challenge to feed the hungry, heal the broken, and bring good news to the poor. Maybe they are the ones to whom the landlord will turn over the vineyard Instead of those who fail to bring forth “the produce at the harvest time.”
That’s enough words.
What if I asked if you were afraid of God? Any of you might laugh. But I should tell you that, to begin with, I’m a little afraid of even using the word “God.” That’s because it’s been so abused over the centuries and so burdened down with mental images of an old man who sits up on top of the clouds, and it’s very hard for any of us to shake those images of our childhood — images that circumscribe and make somehow manageable the unfathomable power and breadth of divinity. You might recall images from Bible-thumping preachers of generations gone by who spoke of God’s wrath meted out upon the evil-doers and who tried to frighten people into declaring their faith. You might say, “Hey preacher, those notions of a scary, frightening God went out with horse-drawn carriages.” What if I said to you that you’d better be afraid of God? Would the smile retreat from your face? Would you consider turning me off and deciding I wasn’t worth listening to anymore? In fear and trembling (to pick up today’s theme) I hope to convince you this morning that there is very good reason to be afraid of God.
Let’s begin with the Apostle Paul and his admonition in this letter to the church at Philippi that people of faith should indeed be afraid. He wrote, “. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” And then he said why this task should be so scary. He concluded, “ . . . for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” I want to tell you this morning that I find the notion of Divinity at work within me shaping my will and my work for the Almighty’s own pleasure extremely frightening. My will and my work are shaped by my own inclinations, prejudices, beliefs, and desires. I find that very comfortable. And I find a god who fits neatly into my hip pocket while I’m engaged I my own will and work to be very satisfying. There’s absolutely nothing scary about the bumper sticker: “Jesus is my copilot” – nice to know he’s hanging around to back me up, isn’t it? But a Transformational Power who gets inside me and redirects my will and my work according to Divine priorities instead of my own – that’s way too scary to imagine really happening. Heaven knows what might become of me if I allowed such a thing to happen. In fact, that’s exactly the problem: heaven may know what would become of me, but I sure don’t.
Let me begin to unpack all of this by first letting you in on some of my own theology. Specifically, I want to share a bit of my Christology (which simply means what I believe about Jesus as the Christ). In doing this I am picking up on a very old tradition inspired by some of the verses you heard read this morning from Philippians. When Paul writes that Jesus was, “in the form of God [but] . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a slave . . . . And being found in human form . . .” those words practically leapt off the page at the early church fathers. They wanted to know what was this “form of God” that described Jesus, and how did it relate to his “form of a slave” and his “human form”? The debates that grew out of these few words of scripture ended up branding certain notions about Christ as heresy, and establishing an orthodox Christology for the church. So, my own notions about Christ also relate to these verses, but I suspect those learned early church fathers would have declared me a heretic along with the Arianists and Docetists. At any rate, when Paul writes that “it is God who is at work within you,” in my mind this echoes his magnificent words about Christ being “in the form of God” and in “human form”. I happen to think that the difference between Jesus and you and me is simply one of degree. I think we are all divine, to a point, that we are all sons and daughters of The Most High, that Schiller’s Götterfunken – the “God-spark” of joy – is the imago dei – the image of God – that Genesis says resides in all of us from the moment of creation. The difference, in my belief, between Jesus and us is that Jesus just happened to be much more deeply in touch with, or got a larger dose of, or gave himself over more fully to that divinity within.
This is a paradox. To say that we are both human and divine is nonsense. It is as nonsensical to say it about us as to say it about Jesus. And yet our entire religion is built on paradox, the paradox of the trinity (the one God in three persons), the paradox of the virgin birth, the paradox of God’s all-powerful and all-loving nature that seems to make no room for the existence of evil and suffering. If our religion made sense, it would be boring – worse than that, it would inconsequential.
In asserting all this, at least I’m in good company. Soren Kierkegaard picked up on Paul’s phrase and wrote an entire one hundred and twenty page treatise titled Fear and Trembling. In that magnificent work of theology he referred to faith itself as a paradox, the same paradox that Abraham faced when confronted with the horrific choice between killing his son and being disobedient to God. And in another place, he saw this paradox in the human experience of what he refers to as “unutterable joy.” He supposed that “. . . the unutterable joy is based upon the contradiction that an existing human being is composed of the infinite and the finite, is situated in time, so that the joy of the eternal in him becomes unutterable . . . .”
So, what, you might ask, has all this got to do with being afraid of God? It all comes down to this great paradox of our religion, the notion that the infinite power of Love, the force that pervades and sustains the universe, can reside in a single human heart. In other words, in the language of earlier religious formulations, Jesus is constantly knocking on the door of our hearts, and it’s up to us to open that door and, as Paul McCartney suggested, let ’m in. But that door opens on a frightening prospect. Jesus himself opened the door and allowed the Divine Spark within to flare up into a raging flame, and it consumed him, and ultimately destroyed him. In the Garden of Gethsemane he sweated great drops of blood wishing that there were some way to close that door again and douse that fire, but he was too far gone, he was totally committed.
Carl Jung is quoted as saying, “Religion is a defense against the experience of God.” Those words are often taken as an indictment of religion for swamping people in a haze of orthodoxies and theological constructs. I think there may be a deeper truth. I read somewhere – I can’t remember now where – that it was the role of the ancient shaman (and subsequently, the priest) to stand in that place between the people and God not merely as a translator, but as a buffer. This is because the Divine Power of the Universe is all-consuming, and to move too close is to risk be drawn into an overwhelming force that so transforms one’s life that, in essence, the self is finally lost. It is comparable to the Black Hole that resides at the center of a galaxy holding it together and powering its artful motion. Any matter that wanders too close to that source of energy is inescapably drawn into its oblivion. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Divine Power is a Black Hole or simply a destructive force. But I have read the words of Jesus and absorbed the themes of the Bible, and it is abundantly clear that we are not compelled to regard our faith as a convenient add-on, like an app for our cell phones. Faith is meant to be totally transforming and to require complete commitment from us.
I love the words of Annie Dillard in her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk: “Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?” She asks. “… Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or,” she continues, “as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”
I feel a little hypocritical preaching this sermon. I may sound as if I have made this total commitment and am fully in touch with the TNT we are mixing up here on Sunday mornings. Nothing could be further from the truth. I haven’t been able to give myself completely to that spark of Divinity within. I haven’t mustered the courage to allow that Spark to grow into a consuming fire, to permit it to, as Paul said, be at work in me, enabling me “both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Frankly, it’s just too scary. The problem is, the meaninglessness of a failure to live for love is even scarier.
So this sermon is being preached to me as well as to you, and it comes with a caution to all of us: that a comfortable god who fits into my life-style and is content with an hour of platitudes every Sunday morning is no God at all. But it comes also with a word of comfort that is another of the bizarre paradoxes of our religion. The power of Love is absolutely transforming, the gospel is demanding of total devotion and the way of Christ is one of complete sacrifice of the self. At the same time, we are accepted, just as we are, and saved – saved from ourselves, from our complacency, from meaninglessness by that same pervasive, all-powerful Love that rules the universe. Go figure.
So, we are left with this: “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling.” It’s good advice, because if you or I think instead that it just doesn’t matter how we respond to the gospel, or if we are satisfied with a pleasant, undemanding, comfortable god, we may be well advised to approach the Almighty with some “fear and trembling.”
I remember playing baseball as a boy. Typically, we would find ourselves in the field behind a friend’s house with the sun out on a beautiful day for baseball and having a great time. Then the ball gets hit over the hedge. I, being who I am, of course would feel it necessary to clarify the situation. “Out of bounds!” I announced.
For some reason that I never quite understood, Donny Roscoe used to take it upon himself to question my judgement. “That’s a home run! We never made ‘over-the-hedge’ out of bounds!” he said.
Naturally, I corrected him. “Yes, we did!”
Typical of Donny Roscoe, he differed about my judgement: “No we didn’t!”
I, being who I am, explained the situation clearly, “It’s out of bounds, Donny!”
A spirited debate ensued. “”Tis not!” Tis so!” “Isn’t.” “Is.” “Isn’t.” “Is”.”
Then Donny clarified his position: “It’s not fair!” And the debate continued.
Of course, we never questioned the supremacy of the rule of fairness. We knew — even by that early age — that fairness was everything!
It’s been drummed into my head since I was first able to grab the blue ball away from the little girl in the yellow dress, “Now, Mikey, let’s play fair.”
And many of us extrapolated the principle into all areas of life. We grew up believing that if we brushed our teeth and ate our broccoli, then it would never rain on Saturdays and no one we love would ever die. And when it turned out to not work that way, Donny Roscoe’s plaintive cry became the keynote for an entire generation: “It’s not fair!”
There’s nothing new, however, about believing in fairness, for people or for nations. Since even before the time of the social philosopher John Locke, government in Western civilization has been based on the premise that everyone has a certain catalogue of rights – and certain of our individual rights must be given up to government in order to maintain our collective rights as a society. It’s the fair way to do things.
It happens in labor disputes and baseball games – the most often heard cry of those in contention is, “We only want what’s fair!” Everybody agrees that fairness is the rule, but often times there’s no agreement on what fairness means. A clear example is the Presidential election three years ago. The cry of Donald Trump and his MEGA Republican allies reminded me of Donny Roscoe. If you lose the election, just claim that it was rigged. It wasn’t fair!
It also reminds me of Jonah who left the city of Nineveh and went to sit down and pout by the side of the road because the Lord God was not going to rain destruction on the city after all. Jonah had preached to the Ninevites that they were doomed for their evil ways, but God changed his mind. It wasn’t fair!
And fairness reigns supreme even in churches, although in the House of the Lord I’ve heard people disagree about the rules. If the “Week-end Brunch-bunchers” have been using the 5th grade Sunday school room for their Saturday morning social for 25 years, it’s just not fair to expect them to move to make room for a “New Members Orientation Class” – and woe be unto them that try.
What’s fair is fair! And whether we can agree on what it means or not, fairness is the rule of last appeal on the playground, at the office, in the marketplace, in government, in the home, in the church.
So I hope I don’t scandalize you too much this morning if I say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not fair!
I have proof. It’s right here in this 20th chapter of Matthew. Jesus is trying to explain the “New World Order” (if you will) to a group of disciples. He says that the heavenly system of economics, and hierarchies, and priorities, works like this:
This fella’s got three guys working for him. One has been at it all day in the hot sun, another one has put in a decent half-day’s work, and the third is a newcomer who just showed up and worked for maybe a half-hour. Then he pays them all the same!
It seems like a cute little story with a nice moral. But, let me tell you, if I were that guy who’d been working in the sun for 10 hours with not so much as a coffee break, I’d be steamed!
Since when does a newcomer with no seniority, no on-the-job-training, no experience, no time on his card, and who hasn’t paid his dues, get the same paycheck, the same pension plan, the same number of weeks of vacation, the same health insurance, the same amount of attention, the same clout, the same level of consideration, the same priority in making room assignments, as me!? It’s not fair!
That’s right. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not fair; never has been; never was intended to be.
If somebody cheats me out of my coat, I have a right to get the police, hunt him down, take him to court, get my coat back, and collect for damages suffered because of mental anguish. It’s only fair.
Jesus says, if he takes your coat, give him the shirt off your back too. That’s not fair.
That’s right. If the word and witness of Jesus of Nazareth left us anything to hang our hats on, it’s this: Those who buy into the gospel, and presume to call themselves “Christian,” taking on the very name of Christ, are challenged to take on, also, a higher standard than mere fairness.
It rubs against the grain. Common sense tells us that we should, in a just society, expect fairness for ourselves, and offer fairness in return. The gospel says that we should expect less than our fair share, and go beyond fairness in return.
Is any of us grown up enough to handle this? I don’t think I am. I’m trying. Heaven knows I’m working at it. But there is just about nothing that will get my dander up faster than feeling like someone is taking advantage of me. Maybe it’s because I was always fairly small of stature, and I felt like I had to punch my way through grade school. But, all it takes is some wisenheimer in a gold Lexus to cut me off on the expressway and I’m ready to ‘duke it out’ – “He got in front of me in traffic! That’s not fair!”
But it’s not just other people who are supposed to treat us fairly, it’s the world in general – life – the cosmos. Haven’t you noticed that we Americans have come up with a whole new twist on life? We’re a piece of work. We are the first civilization in history to believe that life owes us good looks, a nice job, 80 or 90 years of relatively trauma-free existence, and a BMW. Young people expect to start out in life with everything. And we become sullen and bitter when it doesn’t work out that way. When things don’t go the way they do on the TV commercials, we feel like life has cheated us.
I have met some precious folks who don’t seem to be caught up in all this. You probably have too. Did you ever notice that they tend to be the ones in nursing homes, and apartments for the elderly, and Senior Centers, and sometimes you even bump into a few of them in church. They tend to be the ones with both arthritis and a sense of humor. They’re the ones who’ve lost their spouses, and their homes, and half their friends, but not their spirits. They’re the ones who, by the world’s standards, seem to have nothing left to live for, but somehow, mysteriously, every time you’re around them, you come away with traces of a gift in your heart that you don’t want to let go of.
And this is the gift: to know the blessedness of a spirit that’s finally free from the tyranny of fairness. It’s the sort of spirit that Jesus referred to as “poor” – that is, unencumbered by greed and need (You remember the “poor in spirit” don’t you? They’re the ones who possess the Kingdom of Heaven).
It’s not just old people who have this gift, but it does seem to favor the elderly. Maybe that’s because those of us who demand fairness from life burn out at early ages from pounding our fists on steering wheels.
The most wonderful thing about this gift is that it’s yours for the taking. You don’t have to fight anybody, or demand your rights, or even pay your dues.
Dr. William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, knew how readily available such treasures are. He once told a group of students, “The world, as we live in it, is like a shop window in which some mischievous person has got in overnight and shifted all the price labels around, so that the cheap things have the high-price labels on them and the really precious things are priced low.”
Jesus tried to tell us how the realm of Divine Love works. It’s a kind of economy that seems backwards, where the rule is to appreciate whatever you receive, and give to others more than they deserve. It’s a realm unlike our own families and institutions – an ideal sort of place where newcomers have equal status with old-timers, and no one fights over turf. It’s a remarkable vision, not yet fully realized in which “what’s right is right” and “what’s fair is…” not nearly enough.
When we were playing baseball in the back field, if some knowing soul had come along and tired to explain to us that 40 or 50 years later, it wouldn’t really be significant whether “over the hedge” had been declared out of bounds or not, we would’ve just given him the raspberries.
And when Jesus says that, in eternal terms, the things that seem “only fair” to us are not of real consequence, we are tempted to ignore him as well. But we ignore him at the cost of a very dear treasure – a treasure of spirit – a spirit that is
-not expensive
-not fashionable
-and not fair.
It is so much more.
I watched an interview this week with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and I found myself secretly cheering, thinking how great it would be if someone put a bullet in Vladimir Putin’s head so he would stop killing people indiscriminately with rockets and bombs. The fact that I was thinking about taking a life didn’t seem to matter in the moment. All I could think was: if only someone could get that S.O.B and change the course of human events. With some time to consider, I wondered about my sudden lust for blood. I’ve spent a little time reflecting on that inner dialogue.
Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, that inner dialogue is very similar to the one I was engaged in not long ago about football. For some time I really struggled with whether to continue watching and following the Patriots. I loved football. I played football in high school. But the revelations not only about head injuries, but about violent acts by NFL players off the field got me wondering about my support for the game. It’s a brutal, violent game. I know, I got knocked around enough when I played. And why should any of us be surprised that men who pump themselves up and charge up their aggressive tendencies in order to excel at the sport end up carrying those aggressive tendencies into the rest of their lives? My inner dialogue went like this: Is it possible that one reason I love this sport so much is that it touches some of those same aggressive tendencies in my own spirit? And by watching and rooting, am I not only encouraging all that in myself, but am I supporting a mega-industry that profits from preying on the worst in us?
Now, Vladimir Putin and missile attacks may seem to be a far cry from football players beating up their girlfriends, but there is a common thread that runs through both stories. It has to do not with those “bloodthirsty Russians” or those brutal football players. It has to do with me. And it has to do with you.
When I think about actually shooting Putin in the head or beating up a woman like some football players have done, I couldn’t quite picture myself under any circumstances doing those things, but, with a little imagination I did get disturbingly close. I thought about what might happen if a sadistic totalitarian regime took over the government of our nation – a military/corporate coup that resulted in a dictatorship, throwing out the Constitution and Bill of Rights, taking away all our liberties, herding us like cattle, controlling our minds and dehumanizing people. I imagined myself becoming part of an underground resistance movement of American patriots, doing whatever we could to try to bring down this sham government. I even imagined myself planting bombs. I don’t think even under such extreme circumstances I could bring myself to target centers of innocent civilians, but I think I could be driven to some pretty extreme behaviors.
So what’s the point of this little excursion into the strange workings of Mikey’s mind – to suggest that the violent acts of Putin or an abusive football player are in any way defensible? By no means! But it is helpful to consider how any of us, given the right set of circumstances, might be caught up in behaviors that we would otherwise consider “horrible,” or “crazy.” At least I can envision a circumstance in which I could become a “guerilla fighter,” bordering, one might say, on being a terrorist.
To imagine this may be a little unsettling, but it’s also rather illuminating. It doesn’t get us any farther in comprehending the insane bombing of civilians, but at least it helps to understand some of the anti-American sentiment that we keep hearing from the other side of the globe. Indeed, there are many people on this planet who view our government as the heart of a military/industrial complex that goes around the world trampling on the rights of others and trying to conquer the world. I don’t happen to think they see the complete or accurate picture, but then there may be something for us to learn even from their view of us.
All of this is not a particularly comfortable exercise. But, uncomfortable as it may be, I believe it is one example of the only thing that may, in the end, save us all from destroying each other.
You see, the easy and more comfortable thing to do is to label those you don’t understand as “inhuman,” or “insane,” or “weird,” or “a fool” and leave it at that. It’s what Israelis do with Palestinians and visa versa. It’s what many straight people do with gay people, or some “White” folks do with African American or Hispanic folks. It’s what we do to each other when we bump up against one another about politics or values in conflict. We tend to dismiss one another, because it’s easier – easier than going through the uncomfortable exercise of trying to comprehend another person’s world from the inside out. It’s a habit that leads us into withdrawal and confrontation, carelessness and violence. It’s a pattern of behavior that threatens to tear our entire world apart.
If we, as a Christian church, can’t find ways to practice and model a new way of being, then I fear all hope may be lost. I tend to think that we might be the last best hope for saving humanity from itself. My vision of the church at its best is that of a laboratory, where people find the safety to experiment in new ways of learning how to love one another. In the special environment of this laboratory we call the church we have an opportunity to set aside our usual fears and revulsion, to do things like imagining what it would be like to be someone else – maybe even our most dreaded rival, to mix a little understanding with a little temperance, or compassion, or humility and see what comes of it.
That’s the course that the Apostle Paul was trying to set the Roman church on. He knew firsthand the human tendency to line up and take pot shots at each other over intensely held differences. He had spent plenty of time doing it himself. Some believed it was a betrayal of the faith to eat meat that had been sacrificed to pagan gods, and since that included just about all the meat in the marketplace, they were driven to vegetarianism as an act of social and moral conscience. Others in the same church saw this as excessive behavior and most likely branded the non-meat-eaters as extremist flakes (or whatever the appropriate pejorative would have been for that day).
Paul, in a true spirit of behavioral experimentation, offers several ways for these opposing sides to look at it. First, he suggests to the meat-eaters that the vegetarians are “weak,” and therefore need their understanding and support. He says, “Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.” Then he suggests that God is on both sides, so they must not judge one another. He says, “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.” He then offers the possibility of considering each other to be more similar than different, perhaps as a way of getting folks to look at life from the other’s point of view. He says, “those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.” He then suggests that we’re all in this life-boat together, so why not enjoy the ride, and keep track of what really matters. Paul writes, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Finally, he removes from each of them the responsibility for judgment. He says, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”
That’s five different ways of trying to forestall the tendency to demonize and attack each other, or shun and exclude each other. Obviously, Paul is setting out a series of ways of looking at our human differences, and suggesting that we try them on to see which one fits.
It’s sound advice. And it calls us to take part in nothing less than the refinement of humanity. It’s a grand and noble undertaking, and it’s extraordinarily difficult and fraught with hazards. But it may just be that if you and I can get it right, there’s hope for Israel and Palestine; if we can figure out a new way of being here at the corner of Elm and Memorial, maybe the Western capitalists and the Islamic fundamentalists can learn to understand one another; if you can comprehend your wife’s pressures and problems, or grasp the motivations behind your daughter-in-law’s angry outbursts, or if I can find a way to stop shaking my fist at drivers who get in my way, there just might be hope for the world.
Stranger things have happened: “In April 1995, Bud Welch’s 23-year-old daughter, Julie Marie, was killed in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City along with 167 others. In the months after her death, Bud changed from supporting the death penalty for Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to taking a public stand against it. In 2001 Timothy McVeigh was executed for his part in the bombing.” Bud Welch says that, “Three days after the bombing, as I watched Tim McVeigh being led out of the courthouse, I hoped someone in a high building with a rifle would shoot him dead. I wanted him to fry. In fact, I’d have killed him myself if I’d had the chance.” But after spiraling down the rabbit hole of grief and hatred that made him turn to the bottle, Bud finally came to the realization that what he was doing wasn’t working. He had to do something different. He looked up Timothy McVeigh’s family and went to visit. As he stood speaking to the bomber’s father, Bill, and sister, Jennifer, he happened to see some photos on the wall and saw a picture of Timothy at his high school graduation. Looking at the old picture of his son, Bill McVeigh allowed a tear to roll down his face. And in that instant Bud Welch was transformed. He recognized the same love of a father for his son that he had known for his daughter. Bud writes, ‘When I got ready to leave I shook Bill’s hand, then extended it to Jennifer, but she just grabbed me and threw her arms around me. She was the same sort of age as Julie but felt so much taller. I don’t know which one of us started crying first. Then I held her face in my hands and said, “look, honey, the three of us are in this for the rest of our lives. I don’t want your brother to die and I’ll do everything I can to prevent it”’.”
Sometimes, extraordinary differences can be resolved; monumental barriers can be knocked down; life-long biases can be overcome. But it starts with simple things like resolving to walk a mile in the other person’s shoes before branding him a lunatic, or simply recognizing that this world is made to be full of many different kinds of people, so who are we to question the Creator’s judgment?
In 1969 Sly Stone set the words, “different strokes for different folks” to music in the song, “Everyday People.” It was a song about acceptance written in the heady days of “flower power,” when most of the members of my own generation thought the world was about to learn from all the bloodshed and violence and emerge into a new day of peace and love. It may have been youthful idealism, and certainly more than a bit off target, but there was a spark of wisdom beneath it all. Indeed, unless we can get down to the business of learning from our differences and overcoming our instinctive judgment and hostility, we will condemn the world to the fate of endlessly repeating its mistakes until there is no one left to care.
It all begins right here in this place. I hope you will join me in seizing the opportunity to experiment in this “laboratory of love” that we call the church.
Reading today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans got me thinking about the old Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Frog Prince.” You know how it goes. The young princess sat down by a cool spring playing with a golden ball, which rolled into the water. A frog appeared and struck a bargain with her: if she would love him and let him live with her, he would get the ball. Of course, she thought he would never be able to get out of the spring anyway, so she agreed. The frog got the ball, the princess went home, and the next day, he showed up at the door, expecting to move in. She slammed the door on him, but her father, the king, heard her story and told her she had to keep her end of the bargain. The frog came in and ate at the table, and stayed for three nights, whereupon he miraculously turned into a handsome prince. He explained to the princess that he had been enchanted by a malicious fairy who turned him in to a frog until some princess should take him out of the spring and into her home for three nights. The two were married and lived (as in all fairy tales) “happily ever after.”
It’s the same old story: girl meets frog, frog turns into prince, frog gets girl.
I once thought I was a frog. It’s true. I spent most of my adolescence sitting on the equivalent of a lily pad in my home room class; and when the beautiful princesses of the high school walked by, alas, I could do little more than croak.
But I came up with a great solution to my problem. By my third year in college, I had become a prince! I had the upper-classman tilt of the head. I had learned how to smoke a pipe and wear sweaters. I was cool. And the only problem was that, all along, I knew, deep down inside, that I was still a frog. I knew I might fool everyone but myself.
Isn’t it amazing what we put ourselves through just because we haven’t figured out who we are yet? And I have to confess, it doesn’t all entirely end at age twenty five. There are still moments when I can feel a little like that insecure little boy who always knew he was just one sentence away from saying the wrong thing. There are still times when I feel tough as nails – nothing matters – I can handle anything. And sometimes, that’s a good way to keep from being an insecure little boy.
If you and I look into our own hearts, we can almost surely find some traces of these feelings. We’re trying to escape from our lily pond, and we would so love to be princes and princesses. I suppose that’s why fairy tales are so timeless; they touch very deep and profound chords within each one of us.
Well, I do have some good news. For one thing, you’re not alone. All those other folks around you, including the ones who really seem like princes (or frogs), are asking the same questions deep inside. We’ve got a mutual “self-image” problem.
And what has the church got to say about it? I have to begin by saying that I think it’s high time the church started saying something different than it has for the last several centuries. The medieval Christian church told people they were frogs. They wore folks into the ground trying to make sure that every unacceptable thought and act was covered by the appropriate penance – that proper atonement was made for their sins. Their only hope, miserable wart toads that they were, was, through the magic of ecclesiastical mumbo jumbo, to be again transmogrified into royal lords and ladies. It was from this merry-go-round – acts of grace chasing acts of sin like a dog after its tail – that Martin Luther finally fell off. It was just too doggone much work trying to turn yourself into a prince when the church kept saying you were a frog.
But we haven’t done much better in American Protestantism. The early American revivalist church spent so much time telling people what awful sinners they were and what terrible consequences they would suffer for their sinfulness, that we developed something of a national deep-seated guilt-complex. And now, how many children grow up hearing little more from their parents than how wrong they are: “Johnny, don’t touch that. What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why can’t you learn to behave?” And the church has all too often only reinforced negative self-images by continuing to remind people of all their sins, but rarely lifting up their gifts and potentials.
Then, of course, the church has, as usual, overcompensated. I refer to the incredible wealth of churches these days (both electronic and otherwise) who preach little else than the “power of positive thinking,” and appeal to all those frustrated princes and princesses out there with the ingeniously popular message, “All you have to do is say ‘praise Jesus,’ send in your money, and you will experience a royal metamorphosis the likes of which would make Franz Kafka gasp” – or something to that effect.
For too many years, the church has been waving an impotent magic wand trying to turn princes into frogs, or frogs into princes. It’s high time we stopped.
The Apostle Paul says we’re not frogs. We’re not nothings. We are no less than very temples of Divinity. And Paul appeals to us, “by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” What’s the phrase that made the rounds a few years back: “God don’t make junk?”
Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” There’s no room here to be valueless. As a child of Divine Goodness, you don’t need to sit on a stump in a muddy creek and fall prey to the first royal snob who comes along expecting you to fetch a stupid ball. You’re not a frog.
But Paul puts the breaks on the other side of our distorted self-image as well. In verse three he says, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” You’re also no prince.
In the world of the brothers Grimm, there are only frogs and princes and princesses. I’m very disturbed by the way this “fairy tale mentality” is not only alive in our personal lives, but also in our nation and world. After the 60’s, in which we in America turned over the rock that hid our collective racism, and the 70’s, in which we discovered our capacity for injustice in war and corruption in government, we got tired of being American “frogs.” So, especially in the aftermath of 9-11, and the brutality and destruction perpetrated by despots and dictators (like Vladimir Putin), we have now decided that we are the righteous, moral, good and powerful “princes” of the new world order. In the world of fairy tales, as often in the world of adolescence, the only way to vanquish the frog within is to replace him with a prince. Enough of fairy tales!
The truth about human nature is that for most of us, our self-image is so micro-thin that all it takes is a good breeze to nudge us into either self-abasement or self-aggrandizement. And whether one spends life with no sense of worth, or driven by a thirst for success, we all seem to be searching for the same thing: an identity.
Well, Paul refuses to let us take up residence in either the pond or the palace, but he doesn’t leave us without an identity. It’s here in verse four: “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”
Being members of one another has its advantages over sitting on a rock and croaking, or dashing off on a white charger with robes flowing. For one thing, you can drop the act! What a relief – to not have to be anybody but yourself. That’s what the church has to offer. A place where you can drop the act and be yourself. It is a place of relationships. And in those relationships we are each defined.
We are defined by how we treat one another. We are defined by how we care for and strive to understand one another. And in our so doing, we are defined by our relationship to the body – this body – the body of Christ.
I am so privileged to know all of you. I have come to appreciate the genuineness of your compassion, and the simple gift of your real selves to one another, and to me. This body of Christ is a great model for the world around. If people in our community, our nation, and our world could drop the self-defeating behaviors and the apathetic sense of powerlessness, if all of us around the world could let go of the pomposity, pride and greed, and all simply “be” together in relationship, and if we could all mold that relationship among us after the image of Christ, we might find our lives and our world touched by a grace we could barely imagine, and we might find ourselves, though earthen vessels, to be bearers of a treasure beyond comprehension.
Many of you know the story of how our next hymn came to be written. John Newton was the captain of a slave ship in the eighteenth century. After several years of running slaves from the west coast of Africa to the profitable slave market in the United States, he underwent a conversion. This hymn was the result of his awakening, and has become beloved by people around the world. I’d like to suggest to you, however, that Newton’s words could use a tiny bit of touch-up. The opening phrase, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” is reflective of the frog and prince dualism of the church in his day. I’d to invite you to sing it with me a little differently. Let’s put the emphasis where it belongs: on the saving act of divine grace, not on our own state of worthlessness. Join me in singing these words: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved and set me free!”
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