Speaking Truth to Power: The Prophets Advent 3A

Speaking Truth to Power: The Prophets

Stir up Sunday - Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen. 

Every Third Sunday in Advent we pray for God to stir things up, and with great might to come among us; BECAUSE we are sorely hindered by our sins. And look who is featured as Exhibit #1 among our texts for today: John. John the baptizer. John who was sent by God to prepare the way of the lord. The Way of the Lord. God’s Way. Jesus’s Way. John knows how to stir it up! 

And where do we find John? In prison. Why? Because he was not a polite dinner guest. He rebuked Caesar’s appointed King of the Jews, Herod Antipas. Herod was fascinated by John until John had the temerity to point out that Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias, was unlawful and sinful in the eyes of God. Talk about stirring things up! John had the prophetic courage and strength to speak truth to power. For that he was put to death. 

There was Moses who confronted Pharaoh demanding that he “Let my people go!” Thus, the prophetic tradition in Biblical Religion was born. It did not stop with Moses. Elijah famously rebuked King Ahab of Israel, confronting him for his wickedness, especially for promoting Baal worship with his wife, Queen Jezebel, and for unjustly seizing Naboth's vineyard, leading to prophecies of judgment and famine. Nathan rebuked David for stealing another man’s wife and arranging for her husband to be killed at the battle front. Jeremiah referred to the kings, priests, and prophets of Judah as "bad shepherds" (Jeremiah 23:1-2) who failed God and His people by scattering, destroying, dividing, and neglecting the flock, and then led them into sin and exile instead of guiding them with God's truth. God condemned these leaders for their self-serving, unfaithful guidance, promising punishment and a future "Good Shepherd." Daniel rebuked King Belshazzar of Babylon for his arrogance, idolatry, and disrespect towards God. This is just a small sampling of those chosen and direct by God to stir things up; to speak truth to power! 

From prison, John wants to know if and how Jesus whom he baptized was continuing in the Bible’s prophetic tradition of Speaking Truth to Power. And we are those people who know that that is just what Jesus did. He walked among the weak, the poor, and the oppressed. Like God, Jesus loved “the righteous; cared for the stranger, sustained the orphan and widow, and routinely frustrated the ways of the wicked – be they the priests in the Temple, or Herod’s appointed lackey in Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate, not to mention his challenges to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. Read the four gospels and one sees Jesus speaking truth to power, challenging all the political parties and powers of his day on almost every page. He routinely named the demons before casting them out! 

That is, the Bible records a long and honored history of God appointing ordinary people to confront the political leadership as well as the religious leadership, not just of Israel, but of other countries as well. John and Jesus were two more in the long line of prophets whose writings and actions dominate long sections of our Biblical tradition. It is through the lives, actions, and writings of these prophets that our God routinely throughout history has stirred things up with great might to urge us to stand against all leadership that is damaging and sinful to the people of God. 

It was not long ago that the young German theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer was teaching at Union Seminary in New York City. As the Nationalistic fascist dictatorship of Adolf Hitler was condemning more and more groups of people to concentration and death camps, Bonhoeffer made the decision to return to join those seeking to put an end to the Nazi regime, against the pleadings of his fellow faculty to stay in the relative safety of New York City. Arrested for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler, he was imprisoned, and condemned to death by hanging on April 9, 1945. His final words to a fellow prisoner were, "This is the end—for me, the beginning of life". He also reportedly told someone to relay a message to Bishop George Bell, an Anglican theologian, Dean of Canterbury, Bishop of Chichester, member of the House of Lords and a pioneer of the ecumenical movement, and ally of The Confessing Church: "Tell the Bishop that I believe with him in the principle of our universal Christian brotherhood, which rises above all national interests, and that our victory is certain." I am quite sure Bonhoeffer did not view his actions as in any way heroic, but rather a matter of Chrisitan duty, consistent with the words and actions of Jesus and the long tradition of prophetic witness that runs from the beginning to the end of The Bible. 

A protestant pastor contemporary of Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, at first a supporter of Hitler and the Nazi National Socialist regime, became an outspoken critic of the regime. Like a modern- day Jeremiah or Daniel, he preached against the abuses of the Nazi regime, and in May of 1934 formed The Confessing Church, an association of German churches who spoke out against the Nazi abuses. Eventually he was arrested, put on trial, and sent to several concentration camps, ending up in Dachau from where he was liberated by US Forces. Niemöller famously said: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. 

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…” This is our prayer. And in our Baptismal Covenant we promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” What, then, are we to do when we hear the President of the United States call Africa and Haiti “shithole countries;” who calls Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who migrated to the United States from Somalia as a refugee, "garbage;" calls all refugees from Somalia “garbage;” calls the African nation of Somalia “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime”? Who calls female journalists “obnoxious, stupid, piggy, ugly, incapable, terrible,” in public? Similar abuses occur on an almost daily basis. Begging the question: What is the real cost of silence? What is the real cost to our society? To our country? What is the damage being done to young boys and young men who will think such behavior toward people of other nations and women is not only all right, but to be the sanctioned prerogative of “real men” in today’s world? 

What would Jesus do and say? What would John the baptizer do and say?  What would Jeremiah do and say? What would Daniel, and Elijah, and yes, what would Moses do and say? Do we really want to pray for God to stir up his power among us? We witness on an almost weekly basis that God appoints people just like us to be those people who stir things up on God’s behalf. We promise in our baptism that all that we do and all that we say will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. We partake of the Body and Blood of Christ every Sunday, but do we dare to follow in him in all that we do and say? Does God really want us to remain silent as women and people of color are regularly demeaned and publicly stripped of all dignity? Ask Martin Niemöller. Ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ask almost any woman what it is like to see professional, competent women being publicly abused every day. 

May the Lord’s bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us from our daily sins of omission, and give us the courage to stand with all those who in the Biblical tradition have mustered the strength to Speak Truth to Power, just as Pastor Neimoeller and The Confessing Church finally did in May of 1934. May the Lord have mercy upon us all. Amen. 

PS Few if any of us can be like Jesus. We can all be like John and the prophets. 

Time For The New King Advent 2A

Time For The New King

Barbara Hall was one of our New Testament teachers in Seminary, and she often urged us to ask one simple, but important, question of the texts we are looking at: What time is it? Our Advent lessons in general all point us in one direction: It is time for something new, and God is already at work bringing God’s newness into being. More specifically, the lessons for this Second Sunday of Advent are all saying, one way or another: It is time for the new King. Or, as the prophet Jeremiah recently framed it: We have suffered under a series of bad shepherds. It is time for a new shepherd aligned with God’s purpose and intentions for us and for all of creation – creation which has also suffered under the policies of the bad shepherds. 

Isaiah 11:1-10, for instance, describes the political reality of the dynasty of David, and thus Israel, as having been reduced to a stump – the stump of Jesse. Jesse, of course is the father of the shepherd boy with the ruddy hair and complexion: David. His ancestral tree has been felled, Humiliated by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE, and by the Exile to Babylon in the sixth century BCE. The poetry of Isaiah envisions a new shoot sprouting from the stump. Seemingly insignificant, easily missed or overlooked, and later perhaps, represented in this poem by the “nursing child” playing over the potentially dangerous “hole of the poisonous adder.” This child represents the new king, a new “good shepherd.” It is easy to imagine how it is the followers of Jesus some six hundred years later might latch onto this text and associate it with the man from Galilee. Jesus, a most unlikely king, who “shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.” 

That is, the new king of God’s reign cannot be bought by bribes, nor manipulated by propaganda, and does not rule from a place apart from the people, but rather walks among the poor and the weak, those who are socially powerless, administering justice, healing, and feeding those who have been overlooked for so long by the powerful elites in Jerusalem. Righteousness and faithfulness to God’s purposes are the hallmarks of the new Good Shepherd. 

This image of the social and political responsibilities of national leadership is further supported by Psalm 72, in which the psalmist asks God to give the new king/good shepherd God’s own righteousness and justice, so that “he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice…He shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.  He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another. He shall come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth.” The office of the king is to equalize by a powerful intervention a social situation of enormous inequity: Caesar’s Rome is bleeding the people of crops, fish, and endless taxes, while offering business deals to the affluent despots who also are stealing family farms and vineyards to monopolize tremendous wealth. The new king makes a new world possible. Early Christians believe Jesus, humble unto death on a Roman Cross, is that new king Isaiah and Psalm 72 imagine! 

That is, the emerging early church repurposes the ancient scriptures to fit the current circumstances in the first century. Indeed, Paul writes to the believers in Rome, the church in the very heart of darkness, and who are already just a few decades after the resurrection divided and polarized among themselves: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Paul is encouraging a new practice in the church of the ways that the strong and the weak, the haves and have-nots, relate to each other in new faithfulness. For this has been God’s intention from the very beginning of time. Paul writes that it is time that we follow in the footsteps of the man from Galilee who worked outside the halls of power to unite all divisions within society, division that only allow the powerful elites to profit from the sufferings of a divided people. [Romans 15:4-13] 

Enter John the baptizer. [Matthew 3:1-12] Matthew also repurposes the poetry of Isaiah: ‘A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ Applying Isaiah’s text to the mission of John who says, in effect, “People, we are in the wilderness once again. It is time to repent of how we ignore the ways of the Lord. It is time to begin again as we did after the Exile!” Some Pharisees and Sadducees come down to the river to see what John and the people are up to. This is indeed and odd pairing, as these two political groups rarely come together at all. Yet, both are secure in believing that their respective approaches to life is the right way because they are faithful descendants of Abraham. John is inscrutable, and is on to them, and doubts that they are truly committed to a new way since they work tirelessly to preserve the old ways, hoping against hope that to do so will somehow free them from the iron rod of the Empire. They represent the gospel of what some have called Episcopal Whine: “We’ve always done it this way!” or, “We’ve never done it that way before!” John will have none of it. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 

Then John lays it out in no uncertain terms: There is a new king, a good shepherd, coming who is mightier than I am. I baptize with water; he will baptize with water and fire! Either you are on the bus or off the bus! As those who know the rest of the story, Jesus the Good Shepherd embodied the visions of Isaiah and Psalm 72, standing in the breach between the haves and have nots, seeking justice for the poor, the weak, and all whose existence was irrelevant to those who walked in the halls of the powerful. Jesus even tried to reason with those who wanted to return to the past, uneasy to move forward into the new future God intends for all people. The powerful guardians of the past, the monopolists of wealth, and the leaders of both the Empire and the Temple tried to put the Good Shepherd out of the picture for good. 

But it did not work. There were those who saw him again after the crucifixion. Those who embodied his example. Some in every generation succeeded, while others were martyred for their efforts to unite rather than divide. Advent beckons us to look forward, not back. Advent means to be that season in which we try, once again like John and Jesus, to get our daily lives in sync with God’s rule, and invite others to do the same. It is the energy and power of God that may authorize and enable us to receive the new king and rejoice in a new obedience which attends to the neighbor. When we are so energized, we become dazzled by the fact that the whole of creation can begin again, healed, restored, forgiven. 

The news of God’s newness is indeed very good news. We can embrace it, receive it, and act upon it! But, can we? Are we tenured to the old ways? Comfortable with the lack of justice and the ever-widening gap of inequalities? The gates of God’s forgiveness and mercy are opened to one and all. Are we ready to enter those gates and embody the life of the Good Shepherd? And if not now, when? For Advent is more than four weeks once a year. The season of Advent is always here, now, every moment of every day, calling us to walk in The Way of the Lord. We are meant to ask ourselves, “What time is it?” What time is it? It’s time for the new king. Amen. 

The Three W's of Advent Advent 1A

 

The Three W’s of Advent

Wake up! Watch! Wait! It comes as a surprise each year to remember just what Advent anticipates. It is not the birth of a Christ child. It is not the coming of Christmas. It is not even about how to prepare for Christmas. It is much larger than all of this. It is about the primary Hope of Faith: Christ will come again! Or, what some call his Second Coming. For many of us, it feels embarrassing to admit it. But his coming again is to initiate, support, and stabilize a world of God’s Shalom, true justice and peace for all people.

 

Christmas has been so secularized, removed from its rightful place in God’s Salvation History. It is now mostly about how much can we purchase in the weeks leading up to Christ’s feast of the Incarnation – God come down to dwell among us – literally, as the text really says, God came down to tent among us. Which is important to remember, for tents provide shelter, but it is impermanent shelter. It is portable shelter. Tents do not rely on owning a plot of land – a piece of this fragile Earth our island home in an otherwise hostile universe. We are urged, beginning now way before Black Friday, to set a new national record of sales – sales that often are necessary to secure the businesses that sell to us for another year of selling even more stuff.

 

It is in this world of secularized Christmas that Jesus urges us to Wake Up! Wake up and Stay Awake! In the 24^th chapter of Matthew, the disciples marvel at the updates, improvements and redecorating King Herod has done to the Jerusalem Temple. The Temple that had already been destroyed and rebuilt twice. Jesus can see what’s really going on. The Romans had taken control of the Temple and those who were in charge of the sacrifices and collecting the tithes. Despite Herod’s efforts, it is already falling apart, and will soon be destroyed again. And that’s only symbolic of the disintegration of society and its institutions. The Temple which represented the stability of the nation was now surrounded outside the city gates by Roman crosses with the remains of those who dared to resist the Empire; those who tried desperately to hold on to the old traditions and institutions of stability.

 

Don’t be fooled, says Jesus. Wake up and see what’s going on. Despite the things that are falling apart, the old norms that are being replaced by deadly, life-taking practices, watch and notice instead where God even now is doing justice and peace and well-being. Wherever and whenever that happens, God’s promises are on the move toward newness. This is what the church in Advent is to Wake Up and Watch for with eagerness and joy, and to pitch in wherever and whenever we can as we Wait for the Christ to return.

 

That is the promise, as of old. In the midst of the violence of the Empire, of military interventions, sweeping the streets for those who do not comply with the Emperor’s demands, with crucifixions on the side of all roads that lead to Jerusalem, the Poet-Prophet Isaish declares God’s promises: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” [Isaiah 2:1-5] As we wait for Christ’s return, we are to lean into any and all opportunities and actions which will lead to such  lasting and real peace, not the so-called Pax Romana, or Pax Americana`, but the Peace of the Lord which passes and is beyond all human understanding, but nevertheless, is more real than the machinations of an Empire based on greed and human consumption.

 

Of course, Jesus’s companions, and let’s face it so do we today, want to know when the Christ will return? Again, Jesus counsels, Do not be fooled. Many will come, pseudo-messiahs, pseudo-prophets, and they will try to lead you astray from the life of my Father’s kingdom, his Shalom for all the world. Of that day and time, no one knows. Not angels. Not people. Not even the Son, Only the Father knows for sure. It will be like the days of Noah when everyone was eating and drinking and marrying, not watching, no longer seeking God’s justice, God’s peace, Gods’ Shalom, and just like that they were swept away by the flood. Stay awake, Watch as you Wait, for you do not know in what hour of what day he will come.

 

Or, like the oiko-despot, the house despot who, if he knew when the thief would come would have stayed awake; he would not have allowed his house to be broken into! Stay awake! Be prepared! Do not presume to know the day and the hour the Son of Man will arrive. As you wait, participate in the promise that lies ahead; the promise of justice and peace and forgiveness and love abounding. It won’t be what we say. It won’t be what we believe. It will be what we do as active participants in God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness for all people.

 

So it was that Paul wrote to the sisters and brothers in Christ living in the very heart of darkness; living in Rome, home-base for the Empire: You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires [Romans 13:11-14]

 

Wake up. Stay awake, Watch, and Wait. Watch for where God is already at work for justice and peace. And actively Wait while leaning into the Lord’s intention of justice and peace for all people, while respecting the dignity of every human being. Do not be drawn into the Empire’s works of darkness, denigrating and dividing people against one another. Put on the armor of light, the light of Christ, which no darkness has nor can overcome! Christ is the morning star that knows no setting! May God the Father, his Son Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit lead us into a Holy Advent looking forward, not backwards, into a future in which we truly study war no more!

 

Two footnotes: 1) The fact that even Jesus and the angels are not privy to the time of the Second Advent provides a sharp warning against speculation and an overeagerness to read the signs of the times. In fact, any claim to special insight about the future merely exposes human arrogance and pretense. And 2) Readers of these texts are reminded that they live not as speculators

guessing about the future, nor as prospectors hunting for gold nuggets, but as those to whom a promise has been given. It may (and in fact the text says that it will) come as a surprise, something one cannot calculate. Nevertheless, those of us who have received the promise are bound to the future. We are oriented toward the outstanding fulfillment, and thus we are to always Wake up, Watch, and Wait for that day to come, knowing that our waiting is to be actively engaged in God’s intention of Justice and Peace for all people; not some people, not most people, not just a few people, but all people, everywhere, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

The Three W's of Advent Advent 1A

 

The Three W’s of Advent

Wake up! Watch! Wait! It comes as a surprise each year to remember just what Advent anticipates. It is not the birth of a Christ child. It is not the coming of Christmas. It is not even about how to prepare for Christmas. It is much larger than all of this. It is about the primary Hope of Faith: Christ will come again! Or, what some call his Second Coming. For many of us, it feels embarrassing to admit it. But his coming again is to initiate, support, and stabilize a world of God’s Shalom, true justice and peace for all people.

 

Christmas has been so secularized, removed from its rightful place in God’s Salvation History. It is now mostly about how much can we purchase in the weeks leading up to Christ’s feast of the Incarnation – God come down to dwell among us – literally, as the text really says, God came down to tent among us. Which is important to remember, for tents provide shelter, but it is impermanent shelter. It is portable shelter. Tents do not rely on owning a plot of land – a piece of this fragile Earth our island home in an otherwise hostile universe. We are urged, beginning now way before Black Friday, to set a new national record of sales – sales that often are necessary to secure the businesses that sell to us for another year of selling even more stuff.

 

It is in this world of secularized Christmas that Jesus urges us to Wake Up! Wake up and Stay Awake! In the 24^th chapter of Matthew, the disciples marvel at the updates, improvements and redecorating King Herod has done to the Jerusalem Temple. The Temple that had already been destroyed and rebuilt twice. Jesus can see what’s really going on. The Romans had taken control of the Temple and those who were in charge of the sacrifices and collecting the tithes. Despite Herod’s efforts, it is already falling apart, and will soon be destroyed again. And that’s only symbolic of the disintegration of society and its institutions. The Temple which represented the stability of the nation was now surrounded outside the city gates by Roman crosses with the remains of those who dared to resist the Empire; those who tried desperately to hold on to the old traditions and institutions of stability.

 

Don’t be fooled, says Jesus. Wake up and see what’s going on. Despite the things that are falling apart, the old norms that are being replaced by deadly, life-taking practices, watch and notice instead where God even now is doing justice and peace and well-being. Wherever and whenever that happens, God’s promises are on the move toward newness. This is what the church in Advent is to Wake Up and Watch for with eagerness and joy, and to pitch in wherever and whenever we can as we Wait for the Christ to return.

 

That is the promise, as of old. In the midst of the violence of the Empire, of military interventions, sweeping the streets for those who do not comply with the Emperor’s demands, with crucifixions on the side of all roads that lead to Jerusalem, the Poet-Prophet Isaish declares God’s promises: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” [Isaiah 2:1-5] As we wait for Christ’s return, we are to lean into any and all opportunities and actions which will lead to such  lasting and real peace, not the so-called Pax Romana, or Pax Americana`, but the Peace of the Lord which passes and is beyond all human understanding, but nevertheless, is more real than the machinations of an Empire based on greed and human consumption.

 

Of course, Jesus’s companions, and let’s face it so do we today, want to know when the Christ will return? Again, Jesus counsels, Do not be fooled. Many will come, pseudo-messiahs, pseudo-prophets, and they will try to lead you astray from the life of my Father’s kingdom, his Shalom for all the world. Of that day and time, no one knows. Not angels. Not people. Not even the Son, Only the Father knows for sure. It will be like the days of Noah when everyone was eating and drinking and marrying, not watching, no longer seeking God’s justice, God’s peace, Gods’ Shalom, and just like that they were swept away by the flood. Stay awake, Watch as you Wait, for you do not know in what hour of what day he will come.

 

Or, like the oiko-despot, the house despot who, if he knew when the thief would come would have stayed awake; he would not have allowed his house to be broken into! Stay awake! Be prepared! Do not presume to know the day and the hour the Son of Man will arrive. As you wait, participate in the promise that lies ahead; the promise of justice and peace and forgiveness and love abounding. It won’t be what we say. It won’t be what we believe. It will be what we do as active participants in God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness for all people.

 

So it was that Paul wrote to the sisters and brothers in Christ living in the very heart of darkness; living in Rome, home-base for the Empire: You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires [Romans 13:11-14]

 

Wake up. Stay awake, Watch, and Wait. Watch for where God is already at work for justice and peace. And actively Wait while leaning into the Lord’s intention of justice and peace for all people, while respecting the dignity of every human being. Do not be drawn into the Empire’s works of darkness, denigrating and dividing people against one another. Put on the armor of light, the light of Christ, which no darkness has nor can overcome! Christ is the morning star that knows no setting! May God the Father, his Son Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit lead us into a Holy Advent looking forward, not backwards, into a future in which we truly study war no more!

 

Two footnotes: 1) The fact that even Jesus and the angels are not privy to the time of the Second Advent provides a sharp warning against speculation and an overeagerness to read the signs of the times. In fact, any claim to special insight about the future merely exposes human arrogance and pretense. And 2) Readers of these texts are reminded that they live not as speculators

guessing about the future, nor as prospectors hunting for gold nuggets, but as those to whom a promise has been given. It may (and in fact the text says that it will) come as a surprise, something one cannot calculate. Nevertheless, those of us who have received the promise are bound to the future. We are oriented toward the outstanding fulfillment, and thus we are to always Wake up, Watch, and Wait for that day to come, knowing that our waiting is to be actively engaged in God’s intention of Justice and Peace for all people; not some people, not most people, not just a few people, but all people, everywhere, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

Christ the King vs Fascism

 

Christ the King vs Fascism

It may strike us as odd that, as we celebrate Christ the King, we focus on Christ on the cross. To add to the oddness of this feast of our Lord is our second reading from Luke 1:68-79, the Song of Zechariah, the old priest in the Temple explaining to his wife and others why he will name his and Elizabeth’s child John. These two passages from Luke’s Gospel may strike one, at first glance, not the most obvious way to celebrate what Pope Paul VI in 1969 named this day, the Last Sunday before Advent, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe; often shortened to Christ the King Sunday, or The Reign of Christ.

 

Christ the King Sunday was the creation of an earlier pope, Pope Pius XI, during a time of gathering darkness throughout Europe, not dissimilar to what Zechariah and his people experienced under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Thus, the old priest sings, “[The Lord] has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David. Through his holy prophets he promised of old, that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us” (Luke 1:68-79). This mighty savior, of course, is Jesus, of whom many had hoped would rescue the Israelites from the severe darkness of Roman rule. And this entire song, ostensibly to be about John, defines John’s role in just a few words as the one who is to announce the coming reign of Christ and what he often calls the kingdom of God as an alternative to life in the empire.

 

In 1925, as the world was being gripped by nationalist, secularist, anti-Semitic, and authoritarian-fascist dictators like in the old Roman Empire, Pope Pius XI instituted Christ the King Sunday to refocus the Church, the Body of Christ on Earth, on why we are here at all – to be icons of God’s love in this world. As Christ’s disciples, we are to serve the world as Christ did: loving God his Father, and loving all people as neighbors – even to the extent of admonishing us to pray for and love our enemies. This would be a hallmark of a Christlike life: to love others as Christ loved all others, and as our Risen Lord and King loves us today. No doubt, Pius XI would recognize the signs of a similar gathering darkness once again, throughout the world today: so-called “strong men,” dictators, and fascist governments are once again promising peace and prosperity, but delivering nothing close to the promise Zechariah sings of: “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

It is our God’s tender compassion, which one sees at work even as Jesus is already nailed to a Roman cross. The scene, as Luke describes it, is dark. They are at the Place of the Skull, a hillside outside the city gates of Jerusalem, where the Romans have crucified countless others considered, like Jesus, a threat to the empire (Luke 23:33-43). As Jesus is crucified alongside two other criminals, he forgives the soldiers doing the empire’s dirty work, “for they do not know what they are doing.” People in the crowd and leaders of the community are mocking Jesus. If indeed he is the Christ, the Savior of God’s people, why does he not save himself? Why doesn’t he order his followers, who are many, to revolt? The disciples and the reader all know, however, that is not the way of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness.

 

Then, one of the criminals also crucified joins in the jeering: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other says, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” He continued, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” We hear Luke’s Passion every three years on Palm Sunday. Perhaps, however, we miss the greater meaning. Jesus does not say, “Someday in the distant future you will be with me in paradise – in my Father’s kingdom, living with me under the reign of Christ.” That is, we can all be with Christ, whom Pope Paul VI calls “the King of the Universe.”

 

As the author of Colossians reminds us, in agreement with the opening words of John’s Gospel, this Jesus, the Christ, the Word, was with God before Creation itself, and is “the very image of God, the first born of all creation” (Colossians 1:11-20). This is the Universal Christ and King of the Universe itself, which we know to have been set in motion nearly 14 billion years ago and is still expanding, still growing, still evolving! The Good News for all humankind is that the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness, is open to all today, here and now. For the cross was not the end of the story. It was just the beginning of the reign of the resurrected Christ, whose Spirit is with us and in us at all times. For those of us who know the rest of the story, the prophecy of the old priest Zechariah is true: “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:68-79).

 

The Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio, in her book The Primacy of Love, reminds us of the power of this moment with Christ on the cross. The reign of Christ, this Paradise he promises us here today, means that “each person is a divine creative work of love.” We are all created in the image of God and represent God’s special and distinct love for each person. She goes on to speak of that powerful and early follower of St. Francis, Clare of Assisi. Clare, in correspondence with Agnes of Prague (the sister of King Wenceslas!), urges us to meditate on the image, the icon, of Christ on the cross every day, for it is a mirror of our hearts: “Study your face within it, so that you may be adorned with virtues within and without.” Delio then asks the reader, “Does your face reflect what is in your heart? When the image of who we are reflects what we are; when our face reflects what fills the heart, then we image Christ, the image of love incarnate, God’s agape.”

 

The prophet Jeremiah, the old Priest Zechariah, and Jesus were all familiar with a world of “bad shepherds” dividing, misleading, scattering God’s people, God’s flock, in darkness and fear. Such bad shepherds are at work throughout the world today. It is on the cross that Jesus promises to gather a remnant of those of us who look upon the crucified Christ and see just who we are and whose we are. Christ the King Sunday is meant to be a day, a moment in time for us to be freed from all darkness, freed from the clutches of bad shepherds everywhere. In Christ, through Christ, and with Christ, we can learn to let go of any and all attachments to empire, and let all fears, worries, and obsessions fade into the background. As Albert Nolan, a Dominican priest from South Africa, writes in his book, Jesus Today, “For some, the greatest relief of all is the experience of freedom from guilt. Our wrongdoing will never be held against us. We are forgiven. We are free.” We are freed to be with Jesus in paradise today.

 

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” This is Jesus’ final declaration from the cross. This is what the “mirror saint” Clare wants all of us to see as we gaze at Christ on the cross. May God forgive us, may Christ renew us, and may the Spirit enable us to grow in Christ’s love, mercy, and compassion for all persons, and all creation itself. Amen.

 

[RCL] Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 1: 68-79; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

Apocalypse Now Proper 28C

 

Apocalypse Now

Go back for a moment to September 11, 2001. Where were you when you heard that two passenger jets had crashed into the World Trade Towers? What was your immediate feeling? What feelings did you have as the day wore on as we all waited for some sort of “All Clear” signal? Where were you and what did it feel like when you heard that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated? Or, if you are old enough to remember, the attack on Pearl Harbor?

 

Any one of these events, and all three together, cannot match the feelings of those who first heard Luke’s version of Jesus discussing the destruction of not just The Temple, but all of Jerusalem as the Roman Empire squashed an attempted insurrection to drive them out of Israel. [Luke 21: 5-36] For Caesar, it was like a gnat attempting to bring down Tyrannosaurus Rex! It was no contest. And destroying The Temple and all of Jerusalem was in effect to drive a stake through the very heart of the People Israel. In good times and bad times, in times of Exile, and in diaspora, The Temple has stood as a reminder of better days ahead when, as Isaiah’s soaring poetry makes the case that they would return, and once again the appointed offerings would be made in a new Temple to the God of the Exodus. [Isaiah 65:17-25] Its absence is heart breaking. 

By the time Luke reports Jesus’s apocalyptic discourse, there was no longer a city or a Temple. It all lay in ashes. The people spread out into centuries of diaspora. The “new heavens and a new earth” that had been a promise such that “the former bad times shall not be remembered.or come to mind,” did not, and has not happened. From the perspective of the infant Church, the promise of God’s reign, God’s kingdom, still had not and has not materialized. Unlike our Jewish sisters and brothers who still hold on to a time when the Temple shall be restored, all memory of The Temple has long been replaced in the Church by Constantine’s establishment of Christendom – a distinctively un-holy Holy Roman Empire – and a Church that for the most part has not been anything like the “kingdom of God” that was central to the Good News Jesus preached, taught, and lived every day of his earthly existence. The heart of his apocalyptic discourse as his disciples look admiringly at the grandeur of the of the Temple, is that “Yes” one day the Son of Man will return, and the glory of the Lord restored. A promise of “Yes – but not yet!” Meanwhile, says Jesus, we are to endure: “By your endurance you will gain your souls." 

We learn from the letters to the church in Thessaloniki that things for the young church were going badly before the insurrection and destruction of The Temple. The church, as a vanguard movement that might be characterized as Making Israel Great Again, had already turned against one another, some refusing to adhere to the core principle to “love one another as I, Jesus, have loved you.” [2 Thessalonians 3:6-13] The Greek suggests that these people were not idle or lazy, but rather were “insubordinate,” or “irresponsible,” shirking their duties to Tot make sure that everyone has enough to eat - a core value in the Bible all the way back to the days of manna in the wilderness: where everyone got enough, no one could take too much, and if you hoard it, it rots. Perhaps these insubordinates took Jesus’s apocalyptic words literally, believing that if he were to return soon, why should we work hard to meet the needs of others? 

There’s a problem when we read “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” We hear echoes of talk about welfare mothers cheating the system, using Food Stamps and SNAP benefits to illegally obtain drugs and alcohol, but that is not what is going on. As Luke describes in the opening chapters of Acts, the early church was a mutual aid society: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Those not participating in this mutual aid society, it is suggested, ought not to benefit from it. Note: This addresses a church problem only. This is not talking about people in the general public. Note as well, when the church operated as a mutual aid society, the church grew by leaps and bounds! Their faithfulness endured through persecutions and the brutality of the Empire. 

Indeed, in good times and in bad, there have always been those in the church who have endured and who faithfully fulfill the vision as declared some five centuries before the time of Christ. A vision declared in Isaiah 12:2-6:

Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid.

For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.

Therefore, you shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation.

And on that day, you shall say, give thanks to the Lord and call upon his Name;

Make his deeds known among the peoples; see that they remember

that his Name is exalted.

Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things,

and this is known in all the world.

Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, *

for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.

We can endure for the great one is in the midst of us. We gather each Sunday to remind ourselves, that it is Christ who was raised from the dead who is present in our Eucharist. There is no need to wait for him to appear – it is his Spirit that sustains us through whatever wilderness, hard times, and times of darkness and destruction surround us. Christ, the Morning Star that knows no setting is here, day and night, whose laser-like light directs us to live life as those Christians of old did: a mutual aid society, in which we all work together to be sure that everyone has enough, and no one has too much. We must remember that we are those people who pool our resources to meet the needs of one another, and as Jesus tells us, all others, even the strangers, foreigners and resident aliens who flee lands of terror, warfare, and famine. 

Immediately following Jesus’s apocalyptic discourse, the Temple authorities and collaborators with the Roman occupation enlist Judas in their attempt to remove Jesus once and for all from meddling in their monopoly of the resources meant for the whole community. They forgot that the “great one in the midst of us is the Holy One of Israel!” They forget that it is God who shall save us and not we ourselves. And therein, lies the mischievousness that has plagued Christendom since Constantine changed the church from a mutual aid society into a mechanism of the Empire. Thus, the importance that we remain a prophetic voice, a community who remembers the vision of a just society articulated in our sacred scriptures, despite whatever destruction seems to surround us on all sides. Our endurance will save our souls! Christ is with us to remind us that all that we do and all that we say is meant demonstrate our love one another, and for all others, as he loves us.

Resurrection and Transformation Proper 27C

 

Resurrection and Transformation

In a chapter in which Jesus is tested by the Sadducees, Priests and Scribes three times while teaching in The Temple, the third test is this question about a poor widow who, after her first husband dies, marries one brother after another of his seven brothers. Each one dies. After each marriage she is left childless. [Luke 20 27-40] Which one, ask the Sadducees, will be her husband in the resurrection? Now admittedly, the whole thing sounds weird to us unless we understand that this was a thing in ancient Israel. It’s called levirate marriage. Levirate marriage was designed to help widows who otherwise would have no one to support them marry a brother of her deceased husband. Of course, it was also designed so that she could go on to have children to perpetuate the dead husband’s family line. That she would marry all seven brothers is absurd. And that all eight marriages would end up childless seems far-fetched as well, but possible. Most absurd of all is the idea that the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection, would ask a question about marriage in the age of the resurrection of the dead. So, what gives? 

No doubt Jesus asks himself the same question. What gives? Nevertheless, he handles the situation masterfully! First, he asserts that people are married and given in marriage in this life, but there is no need for marriage in the resurrection of the dead – no need for children, no need for support, no need to extend a family line. Everyone is still dead. “Because,” he says, “they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” Angels and children do not procreate; thus, widows in the resurrection age will have no need for a husband anymore.

Then he gets to the really substantive issue, for he knows the Sadducees are just messing with him. Remember, they do not believe in the resurrection. That’s why they are so sad, you see? But resurrection is the issue. Speaking like true Pharisee or Rabbi, he appeals to Torah, and that moment when Moses is speaking to a bush that is on fire, but is not consumed. I don’t know what is more remarkable: that the bush is not consumed? Or, the fact that it is talking directly to Moses? At any rate, Jesus asserts that it is Moses himself who finds out that the dead are raised to new life. After the bush instructs Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, Moses wants to know who the bush is? Who should I say has told me to prepare the people to leave and to tell Pharaoh to let our people go? The bush replies, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Jesus scores the final knock out: “Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.” And that is why we Pharisees, he seems to say, believe there is a resurrection of the dead! Point, Set, and Match! Unless you want to challenge Moses. In which case, sure, go ahead! 

That he has survived this third round of testing is evidenced by the conclusion of the story, which the lectionary, for some reason leaves out: “Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.” Touche! Thus, proving once and for all that Jesus is a shrewdie! 

What are we to make of all this? Luke, writing after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70 CE, places this just before the final conflict with the Priests, who are aligned with Pilate, who is the appointed authority of Caeser, Emperor of the Empire, and styles himself as a rival God to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Nevertheless, the Sadducees, Scribes, and Pharisees, I believe, sincerely wanted to know if Jesus really was The One sent by God to turn their world right-side-up again. Such testing is part of the culture. When I considered converting to Judaism, Rabbi Stanley Kessler made clear that it was customary for him to test my intention three times before beginning a process of conversion. Something similar was going on with Jesus among the various sub-sects of Israel, some sincerely hoping he might be The One, the New Moses, to lead them back to a life of freedom from the brutal authoritarian dictatorship of Rome.

 

Then there is the primary issue. If the end of the gospel story is to make any sense at all, a case must be made that there is, in fact, a resurrection of the dead. Jesus offers such an argument from Torah, which was the respected group of texts for all the groups testing him. Some of the Sadducees and the Priests, however, were conflicted, since they were effectively on Rome’s payroll and therefore granted some degree of power and freedom. We humans often allow ourselves to be morally compromised to maintain whatever power and freedom we may have been given. This was true for those who collaborated with the Empire. 

Then there are questions about the resurrection. There’s a story that goes something like this: A man on his death-bed, nearing the end of this life, calls his priest to come. “I have listened to everything you have said for years, and I know that you have said that we can’t take it with us when we die. But I really do want to take my vast wealth with me. What can I do?” The priest suggests, “Why not convert your wealth to gold bricks, put them in a suitcase under your bed and see what happens.” The man does this, Sure enough, when he dies, he finds himself, suitcase in hand, facing St. Peter at Heaven’s Gate. “Wow!” he says, “It worked!” He walks over to St. Peter who is looking at him with a puzzled look on his face. “What do you have in the suitcase?” asks Peter. The man opens it up, and proudly displays all of his gold. But Peter looks on with even greater puzzlement on his face? “What’s the matter?” asks the man. “Well,” says Peter, “we’ve never had anyone show up with a suitcase filled with pavement before!”

 

This reflects Jesus’s initial argument that resurrection life will likely not to be at all as we experience life in this age, in our earthly life. All expectations that the life after this life will be familiar ought to be suspended. The question about the eight-time married widow is absurd and irrelevant. In resurrection there will be a radical discontinuity with life in this age. The one reliable continuity, however, is God – the One who transcends death. As New Testament Scholar Charles B. Cousar concludes, “Jesus’ point is simply that God’s future cannot be understood as an extension of our present existence. It is not the case that we can take what we like out of our current life, raise it to the nth power, and call it heaven. Resurrection entails transformation.” 

As we say in our Burial Office, “life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for a dwelling place eternal n the heavens.” (BCP 382) Scribes, Pharisees, Priests and Sadducees all try to test Jesus to see if he truly is the Son of God. They try to pin him down on when the Day of the Lord will come and what life in the age of the resurrection of the dead will be like. Jesus steadfastly responds that only God knows, only his Father, and our heavenly Father, knows any of this and all of this. The one thing we can rely upon, the one continuity in the age to come, is that which is expressed by the prophet Haggai to a people who return from exile to find Jerusalem and the Temple an utter shamble. It is not like they remembered. The Lord God says to them, and to us, “I am with you…my Spirit abides among you. Do not fear!” 

That fourteenth century female mystic, Julian of Norwich, sums it up this way, “All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.” Resurrection entails transformation. God is with us; God’s Spirit abides among us. Fear not. All shall be well! It may not be the same, it may not be familiar, but if we let ourselves live into the transformation God has in mind, then all shall be well, for God’s Spirit does abide among us. Now, and forever. Amen.

Blessed be God, for you have created me! All Saints 2025C

 

Blessed be God, for you have created me!

Some have likened Jesus to a Lighthouse, a beam of light that cuts through the darkness to lead us like ships to safety on the dry land of the kingdom of God. Jesus, the light that shines through the darkness, and which the darkness has not overcome the life that is the light of the world. Jesus, like navigators, also relies on lower lights upon the shore, which in relation to the Lighthouse provides a more precise picture of how to land in life eternal in God’s kingdom. 

All Saints is an annual feast of the Body of Christ, his Church. In the earliest days, all those baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jeus the Christ were referred to as saints, lower case. Lower case, but all-important amplifiers of the Light of Christ, that morning star that knows no setting. Over time, however, this festival of All Saints celebrated the lives of those Saints, upper case, who answered the bell to step up in their generation as those who follow Christ in all that that do and all that they say. Often these Saints were peacemakers in a world of force and violence. Most of all, they were men and women in all generations who one way or another lived lives that reflected a deep understanding of what many consider Jesus’s Magna Charta for Christians: The Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), and the parallel Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:20-31. It is a sign of our own time of the need always to remind ourselves of these Saints who represent those core teachings of what it means to follow Christ, for there are American Christians now complaining that the Sermons on the Mount and the Plain are “too woke” and no longer express values relevant to our world. 

There is a list of individuals in our Book of Common Prayer (1979) listed on their feast days beginning on page 19.  Clare, August 11, came from a wealthy family in the often-overlooked town of Assisi in thirteenth century Italy. She was inspired by Francesco Giovanni, or Francis, who had left his wealthy merchant family to “repair” the church, as the voice of Christ on the cross had called him as he prayed in the chapel at San Damiano, outside of Assisi. Francis renounced his wealth and his patrimony, and wandered from town to town gathering stones to rebuild the San Damiano chapel. But then he was inspired to go further: to repair the Whole Church. He gathered companions to found an order of mendicant Friars Minor. They dressed in brown, woolen peasant robes with a knotted rope belt and devoted themselves to Christ and serving the poor and the mortally ill. Clare was moved to join Francis and went on to found a women’s order of Franciscans later called the Poor Sisters. 

Francis helped Clare write a Rule of Life similar to that he had written for the Friars Minor. When Francis died, the Friars had begun to abandon the Rule of Life until Clare held their feet to the fire of the Rule and refocused them on their work of spreading the gospel through service to others, especially to those most in need, thus saving the order of Franciscans for the ages. 

Clare was not the only thirteenth century woman to abandon a life of marriage and wealth, as communities of women living together began to appear throughout Europe. Many of them had heard of Clare and the Poor Sisters. They would write to her for advice on how to order their communities. Some of her letters have survived, and anyone interested in how one might become a peacemaker, live a life of poverty, and withstand being reviled and misunderstood for not living a life characterized by eating, drinking, over self-indulgence, and merriment, can find much to learn from Clare’s letters. It took courage on behalf of Francis, Clare and others, to abandon what most would consider the good life for a life of poverty and service to others in the name of Christ. To become one of those lesser lights that amplify and extend the True Light that still cuts through whatever darkness attempts to prevail against it. 

One such woman was Ermentrude of Bruges, daughter of the mayor of Cologne. She took a pilgrimage in 1240, and ended up living as a hermit in Bruges. She heard of Clare and as a result of their correspondence, she made a pilgrimage to Assisi to meet her, only to arrive two weeks after Clare had died. After meeting with the sisters, however, on returning to Bruges she turned her hermitage into a house of Poor Sisters. In one letter that survives, Clare wrote to Ermentrude, and really to all of us:

Be faithful, dearest, to the one to whom you are promised until death. By Him you will be crowned with the laurels of life. For our labor is short but the reward eternal. Do not be confounded by the clamor of a world as fleeting as shadows. Let not the empty specters of a deceitful world torment you; close your ears to the whispers of hell and strongly resist its assaults…Freely support adversity and be not elated when things go well for the former challenges faith and the latter demands it. Faithfully return to God what you have promised and he will reward you. O dearest, look to heaven which summons us, and take up your cross and follow Christ who goes before us, then, after various and numerous troubles we shall enter through Him into His glory. With your whole being, love God and Jesus his Son, crucified for us sinners, never let the memory of Him slip from your mind… Watch and pray always. The work which you have well begun, swiftly complete, and the ministry which you have undertaken in holy poverty, and sincere humility, fulfil it…Let us pray to God for each other, then in this way we will each hear the burdens of the other in love, easily fulfilling the law of Christ. Amen.

 

“With your whole being, love God, and Jesus his son.” “Faithfully return to God what you have promised and he will reward you.” For All the Saints. Those lesser lights that amplify the True Light and Life of the world. Faithful women and men in every generation who hear the voice of Christ in prayer. As the popular hymns say, “And there’s not any reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.” For the truth of the matter is that we pray for those who have gone before because they have always been praying for us. And the Saints of the Church are people just like every one of us. We celebrate All Saints to remind us who we have been created to be. Saints. 

 “We all have the inborn wisdom to create a wholesome, uplifted existence for ourselves and others. We can think beyond our own little cocoon and try to help this troubled world. Not only will our friends and family benefit, but even our enemies will reap the blessings of peace,” writes Pema Chodron. By virtue of our Baptism, we all have the inborn wisdom of Christ. We have all been created to be the Saints of the Body of Christ, His Church, to help this troubled world. 

No one knew this more than a young woman from Assisi. On her death bed, the Poor Sisters gathered around her, and Clare said to them, and to us, “Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he that created you has sanctified you, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother.”  Then came her final words, “Blessed be God, for you have created me.” May each of us start each day with Saint Clare’s final words to remind ourselves who we are, and whose we are: Blessed be God, for you have created me! 

May we share the Life and Light of the world with others this day. Amen.

 

It's About Justice For All Proper 25C

 

It’s About Justice For All

Another parable. We read in Luke 18:9-14 that this parable is for those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” Sounds as if there were other people at the time of Jesus, and later Luke, who were like the judge in the previous story who holds God and all other people in contempt believing that only he is righteous. That is, there are those who trust only in themselves and demean all others who are not like themselves.   

Righteous is Bible-lingo that denotes living in accordance with the vision of the covenant as outlined in the first five books of the bible: as Jesus summarized it, a life based in the love of God and love of neighbor. To understand righteousness, one must study the covenant and the prophets to learn that God desires justice and peace for all people, and that we are to respect the dignity of all people. As to being “justified,” we might note that the word comes from the same root as justice: which from the beginning of the wilderness sojourn after leaving Egypt means that everyone has enough, no one has too much, and if you hoard resources from the good of the community, it rots. Justification may also denote the acceptance one has, or hopes to have, in the eyes of God and Jesus, on the basis of what one does to secure justice for all people and respect for every human being. This is the Bible’s understanding of love of neighbor, which of course Jesus extends to loving and praying for our enemies. 

Thus, enter a Pharisee at prayer in the Temple. And like most all Pharisees, he has been fastidious in accepting the responsibilities and vision of covenant living, and yet at the same time his prayer oddly seems to be all about himself, saying “I” four times: “I thank,” “I am not like other people,” “I fast twice a week,” I give a tenth of all my income.” Then glancing at the Tax Collector he says, “I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” The Tax Collector is in the corner by himself, hoping not to be noticed by anyone, because his job is to collaborate with the evil enemy Empire of Rome, taking money from people that could be used to care for widows, orphans and resident aliens, and instead sends it off to Caesar, who styles himself as a God more powerful than the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Caesar uses said “taxes,” more like protection money, to continue the military occupation of Israel, as well as to eat, drink, and be merry while building himself palaces and monuments that honor himself, and himself only, with no regard for God or people. The Tax Collector confesses his unrighteous behavior, and simply asks God for mercy. 

The first trap: The righteousness of the Pharisee is betrayed by his contempt for others. Which amounts to saying something we all say at one time or another, "There but for the grace of God go I." It is a phrase that might express empathy for the misfortune of others, and might acknowledge that it is only God who has spared us, not we ourselves. But often it is a way to separate ourselves from those who are unfortunate. I recall on day being at Paul’s Place, our diocesan soup kitchen in the Pig Town neighborhood of Baltimore. Someone nearby, looking at the poor and homeless who were eating their one hot meal of the day and remarked, "There but for the grace of God go I." The Reverend William Rich turned to me and said, “Really what we need to say is, ‘There by the grace of God am I.’” Meaning, if we truly are the Body of Christ in this world, and in the 25^th chapter of Matthew Jesus self-identifies with those who are poor, sick, hungry, thirsty, in prison, without clothing, and resident aliens, and we truly believe Christ shares a presence with those who are unfortunate, Fr. Rich is right, “There by the grace of God am I.” For it is Christ who seeks to unite us, not divide us. When we self-identify with the unfortunate, we will truly understand what it means to follow Christ in all that we say and do. 

The second trap: we do well not to conclude that the kind of judgmental behavior of this Pharisee as typical of Pharisees in general, let alone of Judaism as a religion. Such judgmentalism may be found among some in all religions, especially throughout the history of the Christian Church right down to this very day. Such conclusions result in ongoing anti-Semitism, surely an offense to a God of mercy, forgiveness, and steadfast love. And there is much evidence to suggest Jesus himself was a Pharisee with his profound understanding of righteousness as covenant living. 

We note that Jesus exaggerates the characters in this parable. The Pharisee is made to be an extremist for there is no requirement to fast twice a week. Like all extremists, he represents those who can only bolster their own self-image by putting down other people – which is not at all a part of covenant life. Prayer, however, is at the heart of covenant life. And the Tax Collector/Collaborator prays simply for mercy for his failure to love God and neighbor, gathering taxes even from widows, orphans, and resident aliens, further compromising their precarious station in life. To continue to support his family, he must go back to work on behalf of Caesar, there being no other source of employment. Jesus, to the surprise of one and all, declares the one who comes in as a self-confessed sinner goes home “justified,” while the one who was so self-sure of his virtue does not: “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The last will be first. The first will be last.   

Which is the main theme of Luke’s version of the good news of Jesus: reversal. For those who follow Jesus the Christ, God will one day move to align us all to serve God as God truly is – not as the Pharisee sees God to be, but a God of the Beatitudes in which there is justice for all people, and dignity for every single human being. This was and is good news for all those who suffered under the brutality of the Empire, as well as all today who suffer judgmentalism on the basis of race, gender, economic status, human sexuality, and political affiliation. 

At the end of this day of prayer, there really is no winner, and no loser. For as one goes home to live as faithfully as the covenant demands, and the other to life as a collaborator and tax collector, both leave as sinners. Both fall short of the mark to faithfully love God and neighbor. Whether personally in how they think of and treat others. Or, in how what they do day by day that fails to support a just society for all people. There is room for both men, and for us all, to persevere in seeking justice and peace for all persons, loving our neighbors and our enemies as Jesus demands as the mark that identifies us as followers, as Christians. 

The biggest challenge for us all is that we all have blind-spots when it comes to respecting the dignity of all persons. At the time of Jesus, it was the Empire, secular, and religious leaders, who sought to divide the population against one another as seen in the Pharisee’s prayer: “I am not like other people…” Well, yes, he is. It was Abraham Lincoln, quoting Matthew 12:22-28, who once said, a house, (and we might say a church, a community, a society,) divided, cannot stand. For it is in dividing us against one another that the Empire maintains power and control, and extracts the wealth and resources that could be used to bring about a more just and prosperous society for all people for itself. This is what it means when we pray the prayer Jesus taught his disciples: that God’s will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Pray Always - Do Not Lose Heart Proper 24C

 

Pray Always – Do Not Lose Heart

The I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Wisdom, frequently counsels, “Perseverance furthers.” 

Jesus’s disciples and the Pharisees were anxious for something to end the nightmare that was the Roman Empire. They ask him when the kingdom of God was coming. He tells them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” [Luke 17:20b-21] He then tells us all a story about our need “to pray always and not to lose heart.” [Luke 18:1-8] There is a judge, who neither fears God nor has respect for people. That is, he has no use for faith-based anything, and pays no attention to opinion polls. For better or for worse he does his job as he sees fit. There is a widow who keeps coming to him looking for justice against an unnamed, undescribed opponent. From the very beginning in Torah, the first five books of our Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus make clear that those who are without family and without resources deserve our special care: widows, orphans, and resident aliens. The Prophets and Jesus continually remind those in both secular and religious leadership that this a foundational dimension of community life and is not to be ignored. 

Nevertheless, the judge ignores the widow’s plea for justice. Then, thinking it through, he says to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Which one might argue is a kind of prayer. It is also a rather tame translation of the story from the Greek. The word translated ‘wear me out’ comes from the Greek pugilistic lexicon and means to give someone a “black eye.” She keeps coming at him at work, in the marketplace, and perhaps even demonstrates outside his home. It is unlikely she will punch him in the eye. Yet, her perseverance has the possibility to shame him in eyes of the rest of the community. He is more concerned with his own reputation than granting her justice. To preserve his standing in the community, he grants her justice, scoring a TKO for the widow in the Tenth Round! 

Never missing the teachable moment, Jesus reminds everyone that unlike the judge, God is merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and responds quickly to the people he loves, a people of covenant and prayer. We are to see the contrast: if we meditate on our covenant relationship with God and one another, and if even this unjust judge is capable of doing God’s will, how much more will our God of mercy, who abounds in forgiveness and steadfast love, be likely to be responsive to our needs for justice in times of great danger and unfair chaos from the Empire? 

The story means to remind us of the character of God – just, holy, merciful, and responsive. Prayer that is persistent, like that of the widow, is consistent with God’s character: who seeks and demands justice for all people, especially the most vulnerable among us. The story does not promise that God will give us whatever we ask for unless our persistent prayer is consistent with God’s character and concerns – which is based on love of neighbor. All neighbors. 

Then comes the zinger: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That is, will we be committed to justice, mercy, love of neighbor, and concern for the most vulnerable among us: widows, orphans, and resident aliens. Curiously, despite being primarily concerned about his own reputation, the fact of the matter is that the judge does what God and Jesus want him to do. As he grants the widow justice, the answer would be, yes, there is faith on earth. 

And Jesus’s question points back to the previous concerns about the coming of the Son of Man before he tells this parable. After saying there will be no signs, no warning, Jesus then says, “For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” The ‘you’ is plural. The kingdom of God is among y’all. All y’all! This is perhaps the most astonishing assertion of all. 

Jesus seems to say, there is no time or need to look for or to wait for the kingdom of God. What you do today, tomorrow, and the next day can demonstrate to others that the kingdom of God is in our collective attention to the things that most concern God! It has been a long-held understanding among the people of God that if you want to see what people believe, “watch their feet, not their mouths.” People say and confess all manner of things, but it is what we do for others that tells one what we really believe and care about. In the case of the judge, he may not even believe in God, but at the end of the day, granting the widow justice is consistent with God’s will, his character, and therefore is an act of faith, whether he recognizes it as such or not! 

Besides, earlier in Luke [17:1-10] when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, he responds, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” Faith comes in all shapes and sizes. The quantity of faith is not ever as important at the quality of faith. Is what we do as a society, as a community, as a church, helpful for the needs of others, and in accordance with God’s will? This is what Jesus is asking. 

The prophet Jeremiah [31:27-34] has a vision that God plants the covenant, the details of God’s will, in our hearts. And the longest psalm in the Bible, Psalm 119, is one long meditation that asserts that continual attention to prayer and God’s Word is the key to access that which God has planted in our hearts – a love of neighbor, most especially those who are most vulnerable to the whims and injustice of Empire:

97 Oh, how I love your law! *

all the day long it is in my mind.

98 Your commandment has made me wiser than my enemies, *

and it is always with me.

99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, *

for your decrees are my study.

100 I am wiser than the elders, *

because I observe your commandments.

101 I restrain my feet from every evil way, *

that I may keep your word.

102 I do not shrink from your judgments, *

because you yourself have taught me.

103 How sweet are your words to my taste! *

they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.

104 Through your commandments I gain understanding; *

Therefore, I hate every lying way.  [Psalm 119] 

Perseverance furthers. Pray always. Do not lose heart. For all that is necessary for the life of the world has been planted within us. For the kingdom of God is already among us. Amen.

One In Ten Proper 23C

 One In Ten

“Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us,

that we may continually be given to good works.”

Grace, Grateful, and Gratitude all come from the same Latin root: gratus = meaning pleasing, thankful; feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness. I remember sitting in the living room growing up in Oak Park, IL, watching Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans teaching us those two Magic Words: Thank you, and Please. In that order. Instilling young people with gratefulness, gratitude, and grace. 

In a village between Samaria and Judea, ten lepers beg Jesus for mercy. He sends them off to the priests in Jerusalem and on the way, they are healed. One turns back to praise God and Jesus. “And he was a Samaritan.” Samaritans were outsiders. They worshipped in a different temple. One in ten expresses gratitude for being freed from stigma. Freed from isolation. Restored to his community in Samaria. Only one in ten stops to say thank you. Only one in ten fully recognizes the amazing grace that had saved them all. And he was a Samaritan. A quintessential outsider. 

We might notice, he is part of the group of Judeans who were isolated from the rest of the community for having a skin disorder. Considered an outsider, because he shared the same disorder, they welcomed him. As they all head to Jerusalem, he stops and realizes his priests are not in Jerusalem. He likely will not be welcomed there. Samaritans and the Judeans, as a rule, did not fraternize with one another. But the skin condition he shared with the others seems to have transcended all of that. No doubt there is a lesson for us all in that small detail of the story as Luke tells it. Despite a polarized population, the health crisis brings disparate people together. Together looking for the grace and mercy we pray for to “always precede and follow us.” 

This story features gratefulness prominently, and in addition to Captain Kangaroo, I thought of Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., currently 99 years-old! In addition to his Ph.D. in experimental psychology, and a life-long pursuit of Inter-Faith dialogue, Brother David has concluded that gratefulness is at the core of the spiritual life in most, if not all, the world’s religions. We may think that pursuit of the spiritual life is about attaining happiness. After all, the right to the pursuit of happiness is enshrined for all persons in our Declaration of Independence. Brother David says no. It’s gratefulness. 

In his extended writing, teaching, and speaking on Gratefulness, he maintains that, “It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy.” [i]  While exploring the connection between happiness and gratefulness, we tend to think that’s easy: people who are happy are grateful. Yet, we all know people who have everything one could imagine but are not happy. Maybe because they want more of the same, or something different than what they already have. And we know people who suffer every kind of misfortune, misfortune we would not like to have ourselves, but who are deeply happy. People who seem to radiate happiness no matter what. Why? Because they are grateful. Because it is gratefulness that makes us happy. 

So, the question becomes, how might we be grateful all of the time? What is gratefulness anyway? Brother David appeals to our experience. We are grateful for something of value that we have. Something that is given to us. And it is truly given. It is a gift. We did not earn it. We have not bought it. We have not worked for it. It was given. These two things need to come together to make us grateful: it is valuable and it is truly a gift! When these two things come together, then gratefulness arises in our hearts, and happiness arises out of our gratefulness. 

But, he says, it is not enough to only experience gratefulness and happiness once in a while. The question becomes how can I be grateful all of the time?  He believes we can become a people who live gratefully. And we can do this when we become aware that each moment, we are alive is a gift. But it is not just the gift that makes us grateful. For with each moment, every gift-moment, there is an opportunity to enjoy life. Opportunity is the gift-within-the-gift! If every moment is a gift, then every moment is an opportunity to be grateful. We say opportunity knocks but once, but understood in this way, opportunity is there before us every moment of every day! 

Brother David suggests that we can have this experience of gift-moments and opportunity all the time if we remember one thing we were taught as a child when crossing a street: we are taught to Stop. Look. And then Go! This is just what the Samaritan does. As he runs off toward Jerusalem with the nine Judeans, suddenly he stops. He looks at the gift of new life he has experienced. He realizes there is an opportunity of gratitude to give thanks. And so, he turns around, gets down on his knees before Jesus and gives thanks and praises God. He is grateful, profoundly grateful. Jesus, also recognizes that this moment of gratitude and praise is another gift-moment itself. Jesus stops, looks, and then says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well." Which in turn presents the Samaritan with yet another gift-moment. He learns that he has faith, yet he knows not how! We are not told what this new opportunity inspires him to do next, but we can be sure, given that his story made it into the tradition, that he told others what had just happened to him, he who was isolated and made to live outside of the community, has now been changed by a Judean of all people, and was made whole to experience yet more gift-moments, more opportunities to be grateful, and more opportunities to be happy. Stop. Look. Go. Every moment we live and breathe can be another gift-moment for which we are grateful, and gives us the opportunity to share our happiness with others. All others. 

Brother David Steindl-Rast asks, “Does that mean that we can be grateful for everything? Certainly not. We cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation. On the personal level, we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement. But I didn't say we can be grateful for everything. I said we can be grateful in every given moment for the opportunity, and even when we are confronted with something that is terribly difficult, we can rise to this occasion and respond to the opportunity that is given to us. It isn't as bad as it might seem. Actually, when you look at it and experience it, you find that most of the time, what is given to us is the opportunity to enjoy, and we only miss it because we are rushing through life and we are not stopping to see the opportunity.” [ii] 

One final note: the Bible, from Genesis through the New Testament, has a particular understanding of One-in-Ten. In Genesis 28:22, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, has a dream at Bethel, of angels ascending and descending a ladder. He hears the voice of God, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” After which Jacob vows to give a tenth of all he receives from God back to the Lord out of gratefulness.  This would later be codified as “the tithe – ten percent, or one-in-ten – a sign of our gratefulness for each moment we are given to live this life in God’s world. For the Earth is the Lord’s, and everything therein! 

Thank you, and Please. Stop, Look, and Go. Gratefulness. When we stop, look, and go, like the Samaritan, like Jacob, like Jesus, we too can be One-in-Ten. Like Jacob, we can give back to God one-in-ten of all God’s gifts we are given to enjoy, moment by moment, day by day, now and forever. Living this sort of Gratefulness will make us all happier than we have ever known before. If only we will slow down. Stop. Look at the real opportunities before us. And go forward with gratitude. Amen.

---

[i] TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful 

[ii] Ibid, TED Talk