God-Given Human Value

 

September 24, 2023 – The 17th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 20A

Exodus 16:2-15; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Video of this sermon can be found here.

What does heaven look like? Do you ever think about that? As I get older, I spend less time thinking about it than I used to. I suppose I might reach a point in the future where that trend will start to reverse itself. Whether you think about it a lot or not, take a moment or two to let your imagination roam around the kingdom of God for a little bit. What does it look like? What does it feel like? Smell like? It is a familiar place? Somewhere you’ve been before? Or something completely new? Maybe it’s being held in your grandmother’s arms. Or sitting at a dinner table with all your heroes. Or walking through a grassy meadow with your best friend.

I always imagined heaven would be like sitting on the pier out on Mobile Bay down the hill from where I grew up. We didn’t go there often when I was a child, but every time we went I felt like I had come back to the place where I most belonged. I’ve never been one to sit still for very long, but I could let hours go by in that place, just watching the waves come in on the murky brackish water with a friendly breeze blowing in my face. I always knew it had been too long since I’d been back home when I could feel that ache in my soul that only the coast could soothe. I used to think that was what heaven must be like until someone told me that there is no sea in heaven.

In the Book of Revelation, John, the mystic seer, is given a glimpse at what awaits us, and he writes, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (21:1). When someone first told me that, I felt like everything good had just been drained out of the Bible. We were in a class, sharing our dreams about what heaven would be like, and, when I described a sunset over that pier, another student took the opportunity to burst my eschatological bubble.

It's not the pretty sunset over the water that’s the problem, of course. The reason that first-century author envisioned a paradise in which there was no seashore was because, to a first-century dreamer, the sea was a place where only nightmares came from. Imagine living on the coast but not knowing when the next storm would roll in. Imagine being out on the water when your boat was swallowed up by the sort of chaotic, primeval energy that only God could tame. Of course the ancient imagination of a world in which God’s reign was complete didn’t leave any room for the sea! Because a piece of my heart will always belong on the coast, it’s hard for me to accept that the vision of Revelation 21 is an authoritative depiction of the literal heaven that awaits us, but the exercise of having my earth-bound expectations of what will be stripped away is a pretty important step in getting ready to take part in the coming reign of God.

The kingdom of God, Jesus tells us, is like a landowner who doesn’t know the first thing about running a business. Actually, that’s not what Jesus says, but the parable he tells us isn’t like any economic situation I’ve ever seen. “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard,” Jesus says. “After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.” So far, nothing strange. But then, three hours later, he went out and hired additional workers. And then, at noon and three and five, he did the same thing again, each time promising to pay the laborers whatever was right. But, when it was time to pay everyone, he gave them all the same amount—the usual day’s wage. 

When the workers who toiled all day long—twelve hours in the hot sun—realized that they had been paid the same amount as the ones who only worked one hour, they were angry. Of course they were angry! Who wouldn’t be angry? And why? Is there anything that hits home with us as clearly or forcefully as what they said to the landowner: “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us.” You have made them equal to us—to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. If you think that anyone is going to show up at 6:00 in the morning the next time you’re looking for laborers, you’d better think again. 

This parable flies in the face of first-century expectations just as fully as it slaps us in our twenty-first-century faces. We are no better than Jesus’ disciples at imagining a world in which a business owner would voluntarily pay their workers not in proportion to the work that they do but just because they showed up. But that’s exactly what the world looks like when God is in charge. That’s how the value of a human being is assessed in God’s economy—in the heaven that awaits us. And it’s no surprise that it’s hard to imagine that from here.

In this parable, Jesus gives us a glimpse into how people are received and valued and rewarded in God’s reign. In heaven, we matter to God not because of what we do or how long we’ve worked or how much we’ve produced. We matter to God because God is generous. “Take what belongs to you and go,” the landowner says. “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 

Our expectations of how God will receive us when we get to heaven are conditioned by our experience in this life. We expect that people who have been faithful their whole lives will stand ahead of us in line at the pearly gates. We expect that the best seats at God’s banquet table are reserved for the saints who gave up the most for the sake of others. We expect that the golden, jewel-encrusted crowns worn by those who follow Jesus for decades will outshine the cheap, tin replicas worn by those who only forsake their wicked ways right before they take their last breath. But that’s not how the reign of God works. Our way of making sense of things doesn’t make sense in that place where all people are valued by their Creator not because of who they are or what they do or how good they’ve been but simply because God is the one who loves all of us with limitless generosity.

Our understanding of how things are supposed to work doesn’t often fit within the reign of God. That’s why Jesus uses parables to teach us what heaven is like—because straightforward thinking that doesn’t challenge our earthly assumptions rarely produces a dream worthy of God’s reign. But is the reverse is also true? If the way things work here on the earth can’t be used as a model for how things are when God is in charge, is it also true that how things are when God is in charge makes a poor blueprint for how life could be here on the earth? 

The kingdom of God is like a landowner who hired laborers all throughout the day but paid them all the same amount—a denarius, a day’s wage, enough money for them and their families to live on. That’s no way to run a business when you’re trying to cut costs and maximize profits. Admittedly, Jesus wasn’t giving out business advice. He wasn’t teaching MBA students how to run a commercial enterprise. He was teaching us how to imagine ourselves in the reign of God. Surely, the stock market would be in a lot of trouble if preachers like Jesus were in charge of setting corporate policy, but what would the world look like if CEOs and corporate board members and hedge fund managers and day traders and casual investors like you and me woke up and suddenly realized that the value of a human being in this life is no different than their value in the next? Could we figure out how to live together in this world if we all agreed that the real, true, eternal value of a person isn’t tied to their output or the value they add to an economic model but simply to the basic humanity and personhood that all of us share?

I freely admit that I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to get from where we are into the radical reign of God and back again. But I do know that you are loved by God not because of what you’ve accomplished but because our God is generous and loving. I know that your place in the reign of God is secure because of who God is and not because of who you are. I know that you are important to God because God made you and not because of anything you have made. And I believe that that starting point has the power to change this world not only in the next life but also in the one we live here and now because, once we realize that God’s generosity has already made us equal in God’s eyes, the illusion that some people are worth more than others disappears completely.

Reconciled in Love

September 10, 2023 – The 15th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 18A

Exodus 12:1-14; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video of the entire service can be seen here.

Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” What do you think he meant by that? What do you think he had in mind? Pretty often, I hear people invoke those words to emphasize the validity and significance of a comparatively small gathering: on a workday when only a handful of volunteers show up or at a Bible study or a midweek service when it’s only the leader and a single participant. We say those words—when only two or three are gathered—to remind ourselves that God shows up even when most of us don’t. But I don’t think Jesus meant these words as encouragement to disappointingly small groups. I think he wanted us to realize that his presence is powerfully manifest anytime two or more of us can set aside our differences and come together in unity.

There is an independent Jewish teaching that was recorded about the same time as Jesus’ earthly ministry that helps us know what Jesus may have had in mind when he spoke those words. In the Mishnah known as “Pirkei Avot” or “Chapters of the Fathers,” Rabbi Hananiah taught, “If two sit together and there are no words of Torah [spoken] between them, then this is a session of scorners…but if two sit together and there are words of Torah [spoken] between them, then the Shekhinah abides among them.” [1]  The Shekhinah is the divine presence—the dwelling or settling of God that was experienced in the burning bush and in the cloud that covered Mount Sinai and was said to rest in the Jerusalem temple, and yet the Mishnah teaches us that it is also found at a shared table at which the Word of God is spoken. 

Later in that same writing, Rabbi Shimon taught, “If three have eaten at one table and have not spoken there words of Torah, [it is] as if they had eaten sacrifices [offered] to the dead, as it is said, ‘for all tables are full of filthy vomit, when the All-Present is absent’ (Isaiah 28:8). But, if three have eaten at one table, and have spoken there words of Torah, [it is] as if they had eaten at the table of the All-Present, blessed be He, as it is said, ‘And He said unto me, ‘this is the table before the Lord’ (Ezekiel 41:22).” [2] Where two or three are gathered at a table and the Word of God is invoked among them, the very presence of the Almighty dwells. Their ordinary table becomes the Table of the Lord, at which God himself is seated. Doesn’t that sound a lot like what we do here this morning?

We come together at this table in Jesus’ name to share God’s Word in order that the fullness of the divine presence might dwell here with us. This is holy ground. The Communion of Christ’s body and blood that we share is more than a symbolic memorial. It is more than a formative weekly experience. It is even more than a sacramental encounter by which we receive the grace of forgiveness and unity with God and each other. This gathering is the very embodiment of Jesus Christ. It is here, together, that we meet Almighty God, the one who created heaven and earth, the ruler of all the universe. Just as Jesus Christ is present here with us, so, too, in this Eucharist, do we ascend into the heavenly places to be in the very presence of God. This is not only our foretaste of the heavenly banquet but our living participation in it, and, because we know that Jesus is here, how we gather together with one another really matters.

Jesus said, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” If the word “church” sounds funny on the lips of Jesus, it is. Matthew’s gospel account is the only one that uses that word. It’s found frequently in the Acts of the Apostles and in the letters of the New Testament, but it only occurs twice in the gospel—here and back in Matthew 16, when Jesus tells Peter that he is the rock on which he will build his church. The word “church” comes from ekklesia, which literally means “the called-out ones.” Within a generation, Jesus’ disciples began to use that word to define themselves as those called out by Jesus—called to a peculiar way of life that is defined by the one in whose name they gathered. Those who met together in Jesus’ name understood that they were called not only to recite his teachings but to live out his example.

Like shepherds in search of lost sheep, those who knew that someone within the community had gone astray were called to go out and find them: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” Notice how the method Jesus taught confronts the transgression while minimizing the shame. It starts small, alone, in secret. The goal is always restoration to the community. “But if you are not listened to,” Jesus continued, “take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.” At each step, the desire for reconciliation expands in the hope that more people can bring the lost sibling back. 

That isn’t easy work for anyone. It is the one who was offended that initiates the attempt at reconciliation. Jesus does not simply call us to welcome back those who return on their own but to seek them out even when it costs us to do so. There are limits to this, of course, when someone’s physical or emotional safety is at risk. But, even when it’s only our egos that are vulnerable, it is still hard to confront someone who has hurt us and do so not with the desire for further estrangement but in a genuine attempt at reconciliation and renewal.

But sometimes there is no amount of persuading that can convince someone to repent and return. “If the offender refuses to listen even to the church,” Jesus said, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” I have hope that, just as Matthew the tax collector found a seat at Jesus’ table, there is no sinner beyond God’s grace and mercy, but I don’t think Jesus intended this warning as a backdoor opportunity for recalcitrant sinners to come in unchanged. We must always leave the door open for anyone who is ready to return, but the challenging consequence of being a community defined by the one who reconciles the world to himself is that we must take reconciliation seriously. This cannot be an experience of God’s presence—a gathering of two or three in which Jesus is here among us—if we are not committed to the hard work of being reconciled to each other and to God. Otherwise, this is merely a “session of scorners,” a gathering that undermines the very principles we claim to define us.

The connection between what happens here in this place and what is true in the eternal sense is stronger than we realize. Whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, Jesus tells us, and whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. That isn’t some magic power that Jesus gave to Peter and the apostles and their successors. It’s a powerful insight to the way God works. It’s a reminder that how we practice repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation here on earth is a manifestation of how we live together in heaven. Those are not separate realities, divided by the veil between this life and the next, but two glimpses at the same truth. 

We might wonder whether that is that asking too much. By calling us into the hard work of reconciliation and showing us that that work has eternal consequences, is Jesus asking too much of us? How will we ever be up to the task? The good news of our faith is that, in the cross of Jesus Christ, God has set us free from the power of sin and death, of ego and pride, of fear and stubbornness. The connection between reconciliation in heaven and reconciliation on earth does not flow only in one direction. In Christ, God has already made us whole. God has fully reconciled us to Godself. We are restored. And the truth of our restoration pours down upon us in limitless abundance.

All of our frailty, our self-doubt, our weakness, our vanity—all of those things that make us want to clamp down and say “No!” when asked to forgive or to accept forgiveness—have been nailed to the cross and put to death. All that is left in the eyes of God is a restored, renewed, reconciled child, unconditionally loved and universally accepted. You are loved just like that. Nothing can ever take that away from you. It is who you are because it is what God has given you. Only because we are loved like that can we love others in the same way.

[1] “Pirkei Avot,” 3.2, https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.3.2?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en.

[2] Ibid., 3.3.

The Hard Road to Salvation

 

September 3, 2023 – The 14th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 17A

Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon is available here. Video of the entire service can be seen here with the sermon beginning around 19:00

I can’t decide whether the authors of the lectionary did us a favor or a disservice by splitting this chapter in Matthew’s gospel account into two separate weeks. It can’t really be split up. Peter’s recognition of who Jesus really is, which we heard last Sunday, and Jesus’ teaching that, as the Messiah, he must suffer and be killed and on the third day be raised, which we hear today, must go together. You can’t have one without the other. But I also think it does us some good to hear the first part and then have a week to think about it before we come back and get slapped in the face with the harsh reality of what we heard.

What a difference a week makes! Last Sunday, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?” referring to himself, and they responded, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” In other words, we hear from Jesus’ closest followers that the crowds were likening him to some of the greatest prophetic leaders in their people’s history. And then, as if out of nowhere, when asked who they thought Jesus really was, Peter proclaimed, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” That insight was so remarkable that Jesus responded, saying, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” In other words, the truth of Jesus’ identity was so profound that only a divinely granted insight could explain Peter’s confession.

But this week feels like a bit of a “gotcha!”—one that leaves us wondering whether last week’s celebration might have been a mistake. Building on Peter’s insight, Jesus begins to expand our understanding of what it means for him to be the heaven-sent, God-anointed Messiah by teaching us that he must suffer greatly at the hands of the leaders of the people and be killed before being raised from the dead on the third day. “Now that you know who I really am,” Jesus seems to be telling the disciples, “I can tell you how the story will end. This is how I will fulfill God’s purposes. It is through my suffering and death that I will set our people free from the yoke, from the burden, that is upon them.”

Peter wants none of it. “God forbid it, Lord!” he said, so unnerved that the disciple would dare to rebuke the master. “This must never happen to you.” But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting you mind not on divine things but on human things.” How quickly things had changed! The unassailable rock on which, only a few verses earlier, Jesus had promised to build his church was now standing on the side of Satan and had become a stumbling block—a tripping stone—that was standing in Jesus’ way. And it’s this moment—this turn—that I want to focus on today because I think the same thing happens to us all the time. 

We have found Jesus. We have recognized who he is. We have committed ourselves to following him. We go to church. We say our prayers. We try to live by the Golden Rule. But, when we look around, it often feels more like we’re wandering through the valley of the shadow of death than making our way on the glorious road to heaven. If Jesus really is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, the one who came to set us free from the power of evil and sin and death, why is life so hard so much of the time? Why does it seem like things are getting worse and not better? Why do good, faithful, loving people face so much adversity? Is this really what it means to follow Jesus?

To those who are looking for comfort, Jesus’ words can feel like a splash of cold water: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” That’s a pretty high bar for discipleship. I haven’t been to a lot of congregations that list martyrdom in their literature for how to join the church. But, if that’s not something you’re ready to sign on for, don’t worry. I’ve got good news. Peter wasn’t ready for that brand of discipleship either. But that didn’t stop Jesus from choosing him to be the rock on which the church is built. 

Jesus didn’t pick Peter because he had it all figured out. Instead, Jesus chose him because, when he looked at Peter, he saw someone whom God could use to do amazing things. And I think that’s what Jesus sees when he looks at each one of us. That’s what it means to be a Christian—that’s what it means to belong to Jesus. It means being someone whom God can use to do amazing things. But no one, least of all Jesus, said that it would be easy.

Just as Peter’s potential is our potential, so, too, is Peter’s problem our problem. When Jesus presents us with the reality of discipleship, we have a tendency to set our minds on human things instead of divine things. When Jesus tells us that things are going to be hard, we want to run in the other direction. And who can blame us? It’s a lot easier to navigate this life when we play by the world’s rules and seek the world’s comforts, but there is nothing fulfilling about a life that belongs only to this world. We don’t have a hard time recognizing Jesus, but, when we do, we want him to fit into this life, into this world, but he doesn’t. Being a Christian isn’t about getting ahead in this life. It’s about losing this life and everything in it because the life that Jesus yearns to give us is better than anything we have ever known. Jesus did not come to earth in order to be conformed to this world but to transform it, and the only way that transformation is possible is through his suffering and death and resurrection.

Why must it be that way? Our God is the God who hears the cries of those in need and answers them. Our God is the God whose heart belongs to the poor and the oppressed. Are we surprised that it is amidst the struggles of this life that God’s redemption is to be found? How else could the Son of God come and redeem this world except by embracing our suffering and experiencing our death? This is the faith to which we cling—that God saves us from suffering and death by becoming our suffering and death—and this faith gives us a hope that sustains us. If God were only to be found in lives immune from struggle or loss, even the smallest setback would be a sign of our abandonment. If Jesus’ victory were achieved through power and might, then only the powerful would have a reason to rejoice. But we know that that cannot be so because our God, in every generation, has always stood on the side of the weak and vulnerable, the wayward and the lost.

To belong to Jesus is not to forsake suffering in this world but to recognize that it is through suffering that God’s transformation takes place. We cannot accept that truth if our minds are set on the ways of this world and not on the ways of God. We grow in our understanding of God’s ways as Jesus Christ grows in us. As we are conformed to the mind of Christ, we begin to see that the places of deepest struggle within us are the places where God’s transformation is ready to break through. As we follow Jesus, we learn to celebrate not the ease that this world can provide but the redemption that only God can give us. When we offer ourselves to Jesus, we do so not as perfected saints prepared for martyrdom but as eager disciples who want to learn how to follow him. And, as we follow, we find that in him the losses we experience are the moments when he is closest to us and the parts of our journey when he has brought us closest to God.