Who Needs Good News?

 

December 10, 2023 – The 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year B

Isaiah 40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

In 1864, the Radical Democracy Party nominated John C. Frémont as their candidate for the highest office in the land. Frustrated by Abraham Lincoln’s promise to reconcile with the southern states once the Civil War was over, the hardline abolitionists’ choice of Frémont was as incendiary as it was strategic. Frémont had previously been appointed by Lincoln as commander of the Department of the West—a prestigious military post, which Frémont then squandered by overplaying his anti-slavery tactics. After declaring martial law in all of Missouri, promising to arrest and execute any civilian found to have secessionist sympathies, and declaring the emancipation of all enslaved persons within the state two years before Lincoln himself issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Frémont was relieved of his command. 

When President Lincoln got word that his irascible former general had been nominated by a convention attended by only four hundred delegates, Lincoln responded by appealing to the Good Book. Quoting a passage about David running from King Saul in 1 Samuel 22, the President said, “And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred men.”  It was a clever way to disparage not only Frémont but also the ragtag group of disaffected Republicans that supported him, but one wonders whether likening Frémont to David, who later defeated Saul and became Israel’s greatest king, was a wise choice for a biblical allusion.

At the very beginning of Mark’s gospel account, the gospel writer quotes Isaiah 40: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” In fact, all four gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—use these words from the prophet Isaiah to define the theological content of John the Baptist’s prophecy. He was, in their understanding, the one who prepared the way of the Lord and made his paths straight. But I wonder, two thousand years later, whether we rightly remember what those words meant to Jesus and his contemporaries. To really understand the original biblical allusion, we have to go back even further, about five hundred forty years before Jesus’ birth, and not to Israel but to Babylon, where God’s people lived in exile.

At that time, God’s people were desperate for some good news. For sixty years, they had suffered under the tyranny of the Babylonian king. Jerusalem had been ransacked by invaders. The holy temple had been destroyed. The people had been carted off in captivity. Their leaders had been executed. The calamity that befell them was not only political and economic but also theological. How could they continue to believe in the God of their ancestors if that God had failed them so completely? Who could make sense of what had happened without abandoning the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel?

Into that theological void, the prophets had spoken. Prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, and Obadiah, had helped God’s people recognize that it was not God who had abandoned them but their leaders who had given up on God and God’s ways generations earlier. The only language the prophets could find to explain how their God had allowed such a disaster to occur was language of judgment and condemnation. God’s people had gone astray, so God punished them severely. But, after sixty years of total humiliation, God’s people had heard enough of that. They were tired of the children’s teeth being set on edge because their parents had eaten sour grapes. Something had to change. A new theology was needed.

Like a gentle breeze blowing across their face after a summer storm had passed, the prophet Isaiah brought words of consolation to God’s people: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” At last, God’s word to God’s people was, “Comfort.” The debt of their sins had been paid, including the interest that was due. God was prepared to do a new thing, and that meant salvation for God’s people.

Now the time had come for God’s people to make a highway through the wilderness—a wide and impressive boulevard like those they had seen in Babylon, but this highway would stretch through the desert places so that it might reach God’s people in their distress. For decades, they had seen their captors parade their gods up and down the city’s streets in festal processions designed to celebrate the enthronement of their deities, but now the God of their ancestors would come and reveal God’s glory—God’s magnificence and might—so that all people would see it together—so that no one would mistake which God was really in charge.

A voice said to the prophet, “Cry out!” And the prophet said, “What shall I cry? What words could I possibly say to help my people believe again—to help them have hope again?” And the voice replied, “Say that all people are grass. Remind them that, though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of our God will stand forever. Help them see that the empire which surrounds them is here today but gone tomorrow. Tell them that their God is coming to save them and that God will lead them like a shepherd, feeding his flock with justice and gathering the lambs in his bosom and leading them so gently that even a nursing ewe can keep up.” 

A half of a millennium later—after about as much time as has passed since European settlers came to this continent—God’s people were again surrounded by imperial oppressors, and the good news of Jesus Christ began to unfold with the proclamation of John the Baptist. This was God’s consolation for God’s people. Again, they were desperate for some good news, and this time it sounded like this: “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

John went out into the wilderness, clothed in the prophet’s garments of camel skins and a leather belt, eating the uncivilized food of locusts and wild honey, in order to prepare a highway on which God’s people would encounter their savior. John knew that it was in the desert places, apart from the structures and institutions of the empire, out where the wounded and brokenhearted people had gathered, where God would again come to God’s people. That’s because, whenever God saves us, it is always an act of disruption—an unsettling of the status quo that has imprisoned us. And that means that the highway we must travel in order to find our savior is always the road of repentance. 

Two thousand years later, we must be sure that we are hearing the biblical allusion in the right way. We must hear the invitation to repent with the same spirit of comfort and hopefulness that John the Baptist invoked two thousand years ago. It is no accident that all four gospel accounts link Isaiah’s message of comfort with John’s baptism of repentance. Repentance doesn’t mean enduring the harsh words of judgment and condemnation. It means turning away from them because they no longer have any authority in our lives. 

Repentance is that great and hopeful disruption of our lives which our souls crave. Repentance is the food of the anxious spirit, the balm of the grieving countenance, the light of the wayward conscience. Repentance is daring to believe that God can and will come to save us even though the world wants us to think that God’s salvation has passed us by. Repentance means turning aside to find the one who comes to rescue us. It means believing that God’s words of comfort and reassurance are meant for each one of us. Surely that is good news that we, too, are desperate to hear.

Liturgies of Thanksgiving

 

November 23, 2023 – Thanksgiving Day, Year A

Deuteronomy 8:7-18; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15; Luke 17:11-19

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

Dear God, we thank you for the food that we will eat this day and the hands that have prepared it. We thank you for the farmers that tended the fields and cared for the flocks. We thank you for the laborers who harvested the produce and packaged it for transport. We thank you for the truck drivers who delivered it and the shelve stockers who made it available to us. We thank you for the cashiers who may or may not have helped us purchase it and the marketing teams who showed us where to shop for it. 

We thank you for the oil workers and power plant laborers who make it possible for those trucks to run and stores to stay open. We thank you for the road crews and first responders who make safe and efficient transportation possible. We thank you for the financial professionals and software engineers who enable us to use a debit card or a smartphone to move money from one account to another whenever we buy something.

We thank you for the support staff who helped us do our jobs and the managers who trained us for them. We thank you for the HR professionals who hired us and the teachers and professors who taught us. We thank you for the investment managers who safeguard our resources and the government officials who protect our markets. We thank you for the labor organizers and creative geniuses and venture capitalists and bond issuers who keep our economy going.

We thank you for every sacrifice that was made in order for us to feast on the bounty that will be on our tables today, and we pray that you would make us mindful of the innumerable multitude that has contributed to our celebration this Thanksgiving. Amen.

It takes a lot of work to make a Thanksgiving meal happen. How much are you responsible for? Moses has an answer.

“When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God…Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.”

When Moses spoke those words to the people of Israel, they were nearing the end of their journey through the wilderness from Egypt to the land of Canaan. The snakes and scorpions they had encountered in that arid wasteland were memories that had not yet begun to fade. Everyone who heard Moses’ voice had a story of struggle and triumph that they could tell. They all knew where they had been and that it was God alone who had brought them safely to that point. But Moses knew that it would not be long before the people forgot—before the stories of struggle lost some of their historical precision and became mere legendary tales of the ancestors passed down through their families.

“Remember the LORD your God, for it is God who gives you power to get wealth,” Moses urged the people. That’s easier said than done. That kind of remembering takes considerable effort, especially when our tables are full of food and those moments of hardship have passed beyond our personal experience. To remember the way that God invites us to—in a way that brings the covenant between us back to life—is more than a conscious recollection. It means to reembody something—to reconstitute in our lives a truth that is more than the stories we tell. But how can we make real for ourselves something that none of us remembers?

We use liturgies to help us with that. Some of our liturgies are formal and religious. Think of the truths we bring to life each time we gather for Holy Communion or Ash Wednesday, for a baptism or a funeral. Other liturgies are personal and familial. Think about how you open presents at Christmas or what you do to celebrate a birthday. Think about what you communicate to the members of your family when you fall almost effortlessly back into the pattern of doing things the way that they have been done for years and years. Our liturgies are what tie us to the past and help us reencounter that part of our story that we can’t afford to lose.

Thanksgiving is a holiday full of liturgy, and I don’t just mean what we do in church today. Think about the hand-shaped turkey you drew in grade school and how you learned from childhood to name the things for which you are thankful. Think about the way each member of the family is invited to say a word of gratitude before the Thanksgiving blessing is said. Think about the people whose recipes you will enjoy today—a great-grandmother’s cranberry relish or a housekeeper’s famous rolls. Allow your sense of gratitude to spring forth from the child within you and fill those lives that stretch back even to before you were born. 

The kind of thankfulness that we are invited into this day is normally controversial. On almost any other day of the year, it is a hard thing to convince someone that every ounce of their success has been a gift. Whether it’s the college we got into or the business loan we received or the real estate holdings that were passed down to us or the property taxes that funded our education, we did not get where we are by ourselves. We had help along the way. Many of us had a lot of help. And even that bit of progress that we scratched out through our own sweat and toil is still a gift of God. It is all a gift. And we depend upon rituals of thanksgiving to help us remember that.

Moses did not tell the people of God to remember where their success had come from because God is expecting a thank you note. Neither do we come to church this day because we think that God will bless those who say the Litany of Thanksgiving once a year. We come because we cannot have a relationship with the giver of all good gifts if we have forgotten where those gifts come from. We cannot turn to God for help if we have forgotten that it is God who has helped us in every generation. Today we rekindle the spirit of gratitude that binds us to the God whose blessings have no limit. May the remembrances we offer to God this day strengthen our faith and sustain us in times of plenty and in times of want.

Celebrating All God's Gifts

 

November 19, 2023 – The 25th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 28A

Judges 4:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

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

In November 1558, when Queen Mary died, the Church of England was in crisis. Thirty-five years earlier, Henry VIII, Mary’s father, had refused to accept the authority of the Pope, and Parliament had passed legislation making it clear that the English monarch alone was supreme head of the Church in his realm. When Henry died and his nine-year-old son Edward took the throne, Protestant leaders carried out further reforms in the boy-king’s name, stripping the church of many of the catholic practices that Henry had maintained. But, six years later, Edward became ill and died, clearing the way for his older and faithfully Catholic half-sister Mary to become queen. She undid virtually all the reforms put in place by her father and half-brother, including the act of Parliament that had made the monarch the supreme head of the Church.

Five years later, when Mary died, her half-sister Elizabeth ascended to the throne, and she and her Protestant allies began the work of reestablishing a Church of England that was separate from the Church in Rome. This time, however, the reformers had to act more gently in part because the nation was tired of flipping back and forth between Catholic and Protestant rulers but also because Elizabeth was a woman. One of the first acts passed by her Parliament was a new Act of Supremacy, modeled after the one her father had pushed through and which her half-sister had repealed. But, in this version, instead of calling Elizabeth the “supreme head” of the church—a title that upset both Pope-supporting Catholics and woman-skeptical Protestants—they identified the monarch as the “supreme governor” of the Church of England, and it has been the same ever since. 

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but how can a woman fulfill her destiny as the leader of her people if they refuse to call her by her proper title? Deborah, whose leadership we hear about in today’s reading from Judges, would like a word. This short passage is the only selection from the Book of Judges that we encounter in our three-year lectionary, so we had better make the best of it. 

You might have noticed that Deborah is identified first as a prophetess and then as the wife of Lappidoth. Some more recent translations of the Bible take out the gender-exclusive suffix and identify Deborah as the full prophet that she was, but almost all translations continue to label her as Lappidoth’s wife. Several scholars, however, including recent Tippy speaker Wil Gafney, suggest that the Hebrew, which literally means “woman of Lappidoth” or “woman of torches,” just as likely means “fiery woman” as “Lappidoth’s wife” and that, since prophets were rarely married, the attempt to define Deborah by a husband’s name is probably an overreach by those who were not accustomed to strong, independent women exercising authority. [1]

Even more remarkable is how the author of Judges goes out of his way to describe how Deborah judged Israel without actually calling her a judge. At this time in their history, as the name of this book of the Bible implies, God’s people were ruled by judges, a pre-monarchical title that obscures the fact that these leaders were less likely to rule on matters of law and more likely to lead an army into battle. In fact, among all the judges mentioned in the book, Deborah is the only one who is said to have settled disputes among her people. As Robert Alter notes, a better title for these leaders would be “chieftains,” though “Book of Chieftans” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. [2] Perhaps the reason the author of Judges withholds that official title from Deborah is because, as a woman, she was less likely to ride out into battle with her people. But, if we expand today’s reading by only a few verses, we discover that that wasn’t the case either.

At the end of today’s reading, we hear Deborah order her general Barak to lead ten thousand troops to Mount Tabor, where they would fight against Sisera and Jabin’s army. In the very next verse, we hear Barak’s uncertain response. “If you will go with me,” he said to Deborah, “I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” To him, this mission against 900 iron chariots might have sounded like suicide. Or maybe he was simply unable to trust a woman commander. Regardless, Deborah would not allow his cowardice to thwart God’s plan, so she replied, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”

After they had reached Mount Tabor, when Deborah perceived that the time to attack was right, she ordered Barak to lead his troops into the Wadi Kishon: “Up! For this is the day on which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand.” Her military insights proved effective. In the ensuing battle, God’s people routed their enemies. Amidst the chaotic fighting, Sisera got down from his chariot and ran away on foot, and Barak chased him. But, as Sisera approached the tent of one of his allies, a woman named Jael saw him and encouraged him to seek refuge inside. 

Parched from the fighting, Sisera asked her for some water, but Jael went a step further, mothering the fugitive general by giving him milk to drink. “Stand at the entrance of the tent,” Sisera told his host, “and if a man comes and asks you if a man is [hiding] here, tell him no.” Then Jael, after having wrapped him up in a rug, snuck up to the great warrior, and, taking a tent peg and a hammer in her hands, she drove the tent peg through his temple and into the ground, killing him where he lay. When Barak finally showed up, Jael said to him with no small dose of irony, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” No glory came to Barak that day. It belonged to the women whom God had used to deliver God’s people, just as Deborah had prophesied.

Sometimes God gives us gifts that God’s people don’t want us to use. Sometimes God bestows talents upon individuals whom society will not allow to use them. Sometimes people who have been given the authority to speak for God will tell you that you had better bury your gifts in the ground or else you will be rejected for daring to show them off. But they are the ones whom God has rejected because God will never give you a gift that you are not supposed to use for God’s glory.

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus tells us. “A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket; rather, they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.”

You are the light of the world. In every generation, God uses those who have been overlooked by the powerful and mighty as vessels for God’s work in the world. It is always those who work outside the power structures of society who bring victory to God’s people. And, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that there is no force strong enough to defeat us or hold us back. Nothing can overshadow God’s glory shining through us. 

As disciples of Jesus, we are called not only to devote our gifts to God’s transformation of the world, but we are also called to celebrate those among us whose gifts might be buried out of fear. We must encourage those who have been told that their gifts are not welcome to let their lights shine until the world sees how God is showing up around us. We must tell them that they have no reason to fear because God’s gifts always belong where everyone can see them. Jesus teaches us to watch for the coming reign of God wherever it may be hiding and give all that we’ve got to be sure that that reign comes. Surely God’s reign comes when all of God’s children are able to use what God has given them for the glory of God.

_________________________

1. Gafney, Wilda C. Womanish Midrash. Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville: 2017, 97f10.

2. Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible Vol. 2: Prophets. W. W. Norton & Co.; New York: 2019, 77.

Challenge to Faithfulness

 

November 12, 2023 – The 24th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 27A

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

We all have a story of salvation to tell. What does your version sound like? When you tell the story of your people’s faithfulness—of the relationship with God that spans the generations and that has brought you to this moment—what story do you tell? Where does the story start? Who are its main characters? What are the plot twists and turns that reveal a covenant relationship built on God’s love and mercy and lived out in the lives of your spiritual ancestors? What are the themes that emerge again and again as your people have fallen in and out of love with the God whose love has never abated?

The Book of Joshua records a part of salvation history that we don’t tell very often. It’s the story of what happened after the twelve tribes of Israel entered the land of Canaan. It’s the story of Joshua’s leadership after Moses’ death. It’s the story of God’s people crossing the River Jordan, encountering the resident tribes, and destroying them through military conquest. It’s the story of Israel carving up the Canaanites’ land and redistributing it among their own ancestral tribes. It contains a few episodes of remarkable faithfulness that we teach to our children, like that of Rahab the Canaanite woman who gave shelter to two of Israel’s spies, but mostly the book is a blood-thirsty campaign of genocide that results in Israel’s occupation of the land promised to Abraham.

Like I said, it’s a part we usually skip over. But our spiritual ancestors did not record this part of our story because they wanted future generations to celebrate the violence carried out in God’s name. They recorded it because they wanted us to remember that we belong to a God whose identity is distinct—unequivocally distinct from all the other deities that are celebrated and worshipped throughout history, distinct in a way that doesn’t allow mixing or merging with other religions. And they wanted us to remember that, because we belong to that particular God, we must live in a particular way. The Book of Joshua isn’t written to be an historical account of how God’s people came to possess the land of Canaan. It’s a spiritual account of what happens when God’s people come face to face with the challenge of remaining faithful to God when that faithfulness is hardest to maintain. And that’s a story worth telling.

“Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua demands of the people of Israel, “…but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” If only faithfulness came as easily as the people’s response to Joshua’s words.

This is Joshua’s farewell speech to the people of Israel. These are his final instructions. Like any gifted leader, Joshua has a realistic understanding of the challenges that his people will face after he is gone. He knows that saying you will be faithful to God and being faithful to God are two different things, and he anticipates that Israel will have a hard time embodying the distinct identity of their God as the years go by.

“Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua said to the people, putting to them the decision of faithfulness. And what did they say in response? “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight.” In their reply, the people rehearse for Joshua a brief summary of all that their God had done for them, including enabling their conquest of the Canaanites. Given God’s unwavering provision, how could they choose any deity but the God who had brough them thus far?

Yet, in a moment of remarkable leadership, Joshua refused to accept the people’s declaration of faith. “You cannot serve the LORD,” he said to them incredulously, “for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good.” As if he had the power to see the future, Joshua knew that the God who had saved his people when they were slaves in Egypt and who had provided for them in the wilderness and who had brought them safely into a new land was not the same God to whom the people would turn in the years ahead.

But how did he know that? How was Joshua so sure that the people were making a promise they couldn’t keep? For starters, it helps that the Book of Joshua was revised into its current form generations later—after the people of God had experienced the hardship of attack, defeat, and exile. Those who retold this moment of decision already knew that the people of Israel would suffer great loss, and they identified the people’s faithlessness as the cause of their downfall. But you didn’t have to be a fortune teller or a revisionist historian to know that remaining faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wouldn’t be easy. That’s because our God isn’t the God of the prosperous and the powerful but the God of the weak and the vulnerable, the poor and the oppressed, the destitute and the brokenhearted. And building a nation around a relationship with that particular God isn’t easy at all.

Have you ever had a favorite restaurant go out of business because it grew too fast and lost touch with what made it special? Have you ever felt the spark that drew you to a challenging job fade when lean times at the company gave way to sustained success? Have you ever thought that a church which once embodied God’s mission in the community seemed to lose its way when it got so big that its leaders forgot what it means to be faithful?

Joshua knew that, as the nation grew in prosperity, God’s people would have a hard time staying true to their humble roots and to the God that had blessed them in their humility. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the people began to associate their success not with the God of the poor but with the gods whose carved images are overlayed with precious metal—the so-called gods of the Canaanites whose worship was never really removed from the land. And Joshua knew that, once you turn to a god who promises wealth and strength and success, only a path of pain and hardship can lead you back to the God who is found amidst the outcast and the downtrodden. How did he know? Because that unchangeable truth is written into our human nature. 

We believe in a God who saves us not by giving us the power to avoid hardship but by promising to accompany us into it. That is the theme of salvation history. That is the truth that is lived out in every generation that belongs to our God. But it’s a truth that many people would rather forget. 

If you ask a rich person which god they prefer to belong to, what do you expect them to say? It’s a whole lot more fun to belong to a deity who blesses the rich and rewards the powerful. Even though we know that those gods cannot promise anything but fleeting happiness and false security, we turn to them again and again because they are the gods that we have made in our own image—the idols of our success. This might not be our favorite part of our people’s story, but Joshua’s words are important for us to hear.

The Book of Joshua uses the language of violence and total destruction not because our God calls on us to commit genocide but because of our propensity to abandon the distinct ways of our God for the ways of the world around us. Joshua’s warning to the people is a warning to us—that, no matter how hard we try to get rid of those false gods, their allure is never-fading. It is a dangerous and evil myth, of course, that ethnic homogeneity could ever produce religious purity. Remember that caring for the stranger in our midst is a fundamental imperative in our religious tradition. The Book of Joshua’s portrayal of the Canaanite religions as self-serving is overly simplistic, just as its depiction of ethnic cleansing isn’t historically accurate either. But one aspect of the story is as true today as it was for the people who gathered around Joshua and heard his challenge.

When we replace the God of our ancestors with the god of our accomplishments, we bring ourselves face to face with God’s judgment. When we worship the idol of progress instead of the God who cares for the poor, we call God’s wrath down upon us. When we forget which God we belong to, we rob ourselves of the beautiful and life-giving truth that our God saves us. We are saved not because we have the power to make the world a better place but precisely because we don’t. We are rescued not because we can invent our way out of a crisis but specifically because we can’t. Choose this day whom you will serve, Joshua says to us—the gods of your greatest accomplishments or the God who rescues you, saves, you, and redeems you. To the only true God be all glory, honor, and praise, now and forever. Amen.

It's All About Love

 

October 29, 2023 – The 22nd Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 25A

Deuteronomy 34:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

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

If you were to ask a Roman Catholic priest what is the most important thing about being a Christian, what do you think he would say? If you were to ask a Southern Baptist preacher or an elder in the Church of Christ the same question, what answer would you expect to get? If you asked a Unitarian Universalist minister which of the Seven Principles that unite the diverse members of their denomination is most important, do you think they could name just one? If you asked an atheist what is the key to living a good life, do you think you could accept their answer for yourself? What about you—what do you think is the most important thing for you to do to be faithful to God, to your family and friends, to the world, and to the life you have been given?

In today’s gospel lesson, a religious leader, one of the experts in the Jewish law, came to Jesus and asked him that same question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Matthew records this event as one of a series of challenges to Jesus’ authority—tests by the religious authorities who were trying to trap Jesus with his own words. Matthew presents this episode as if it were yet another attempt to catch Jesus in a mistake, but I think the gospel writer might be overplaying his hand. In Mark’s version of the same story, the man who asks this question does so genuinely, and, if you think about it, there’s no real way for Jesus to give an answer that would alienate his followers. 

Instead, I like to think that this lawyer really wanted to know what Jesus thought. I like to hear in his voice a tone of respect when he calls Jesus, “Teacher.” After all, don’t we learn more from other people—especially our opponents—when we give them the benefit of the doubt? Whatever his motive, this man asks a good question, and I want to hear the answer. I want to know what Jesus really thinks is most important—not because he might say something controversial but because, in a world in which so many people have different opinions about what really matters, I think Jesus’ opinion is worth listening to.

And what is Jesus’ response? “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” We’re familiar with that answer. If you’ve been to the 7:30 service, you’ve heard those words. We say them every Sunday near the beginning of the liturgy. That’s how central they are to our understanding of what matters most. But I wonder whether we hear those words the way that Jesus intended them.

All my life, I’ve heard Jesus’ reply as if it comes in two distinct packets—first the part about loving God and then the bit about loving our neighbor. And I’ve always heard a qualitative distinction between the two. That’s a product of the English words “greatest” and “first.” Those words imply a singular object. They anticipate an answer with unique and unrivaled priority. Because of that, I’ve always understood Jesus to say something like, “The absolute most important commandment is to love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind. And a close second—not quite as important as the first but almost—is to love your neighbor as yourself.” 

I think many Christians feel that way—that loving God comes first and then what’s left over goes to loving our neighbors. And I suspect that there are plenty of atheists (and Episcopalians) who would say that that’s what’s wrong with contemporary Christianity—that people who call themselves Christians spend too much time and energy getting people to believe what they believe and not enough helping those in need. But I don’t think that either of those perspectives is what Jesus had in mind.

As is often the case, some of the nuance gets lost in translation. Most English versions, including the one we use in worship, give weight to Semitic influences and use the superlative “greatest” in both the lawyer’s question and in Jesus’ response even though there is no superlative in the original text. That’s why we hear, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” But other versions prefer a simpler reading of the text and, instead, translate it without adding the superlative: “Which is the great commandment in the law?” Some scholars go a step further and note that, because the definite article is also missing, it might be better to hear the lawyer’s question as something like, “What sort of commandment in the law is really important?”

Now that’s a question I find helpful for my own faith—not an attempt to narrow it down to one or even two commandments but a question about the nature of the law itself. What really matters? And, if we allow ourselves to hear the lawyer’s question in that way, Jesus’ response becomes much more significant. Instead of a providing two separate answers—Commandments 1A and 1B—Jesus names a unifying principle that undergirds all that is important in the law. One part of what matters most is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the second part is just like the first—without any distinction—and that’s to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, which together function like a single peg, hang all the law and the teaching of the prophets. 

In one sense, that isn’t all that surprising. We know from reading the gospel that you can’t love God and forget about your neighbor. Earlier in Matthew, when the rich man came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus told him to keep the commandments, including loving his neighbor as himself. When the man acknowledged that he had kept them all since his youth but still felt like something was missing, Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor. Why? Because Jesus knew that a rich man who ignores the needs of his neighbors isn’t really keeping the commandments at all. How can we claim to love God if we do not love the ones whom God has made?

But, if these two commandments are actually two sides of the same coin—two halves of the same principle—can we recognize that the opposite claim is also true? Just as we acknowledge that you can’t love God without loving your neighbor, can we also say that it is impossible to love our neighbor without also loving God? I think so.

To love our neighbor is to love God because our neighbor is made in the image of God. Whether we acknowledge it or not, when we love another human being, we are loving the one in whose image they have been made. And, when that becomes the motivation for our love, when we learn to love others simply because they, too, share in the divine image, we learn to love others as God loves them. And that, in turn, teaches us about the nature of God’s love.

The desert mystic Evagrius Ponticus wrote that the work of love is to recognize that all people are made in God’s image and to love them as nearly as we love God regardless of how much they may seem to be unlike God (Praktikos 89). We don’t love our neighbors as ourselves because we like them or agree with them but because they are as precious to God as we are. And who teaches us how to love others like that? Jesus. Remember who it is that Jesus identifies as our neighbor? Not the member of our own clan or tribe or family. Not the one who deserves our love or who loves us first. But the person with whom we have nothing in common except our human nature—the very nature that God has taken upon Godself in order to redeem us all.

This is a place where that kind of love is put into action. At St. Paul’s, we not only recognize that we can’t love God without loving our neighbors, but this is also a place where we believe that loving other people teaches us how to love God. That is why I am proud to be the Rector of this church. Everything we do inside these walls equips us for the work we do beyond these walls, and our commitment to loving others in the community inevitably teaches us about God and God’s love. One doesn’t come before the other because they always go hand in hand. 

When you make a financial commitment to this church, that is what you are giving yourself to—to a church that believes you don’t have to pick one or the other—loving God or loving your neighbor. At St. Paul’s, we believe that those two commandments are inseparable sides of the same truth. We love God by loving our neighbors, and we love our neighbors by loving God. When we make that love the first priority in our lives, we not only support a congregation that does a lot of good in the world, but we teach ourselves what it means to belong to a God who loves us and the whole world without limit. Nothing is more important than that.

Leaning Into the World

 

October 22, 2023 – The 21st Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 24A

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

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

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

Should we pay taxes to the government or not? Should conscientious objectors be allowed to shield their tax payments from military spending? Should committed pro-life Christians be able to withhold some or all of their taxes as long as the Defense Department reimburses the travel expenses of servicemembers who go across state lines to get access to an abortion? Should the pro-choice residents of states that have restricted access to reproductive healthcare get a deduction on their taxes because of the lack of services being provided in their state? Should churches whose pastors receive a six- or seven-figure salary be exempt from corporate income taxes and property taxes just like the ones whose clergy have taken a vow of poverty? 

When the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him about paying taxes, the answer isn’t as obvious as we might assume. Like most issues that lie at the collision of politics and religion, it’s complicated. And, like Jesus, how we sort it out requires some careful, faithful thinking.

At the beginning of this gospel lesson, Matthew makes it clear that the religious leaders were out to get Jesus. He tells us that they met together and hatched a plot designed to ensnare him. After heaping upon Jesus the sort of empty flattery that only sets him up to disappoint his audience, they spring their trap: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not,” by which they mean, “Can a Torah-observant, sacred-law-abiding Jew pay taxes to the unholy Roman Empire, or should they refuse as a matter of conscience?”

It was a question that no rabbi wanted to answer, at least not on the record. If Jesus were to say, “Yes, faithful Jews are allowed to pay the tax,” he would alienate those who believed that no earthly kingdom could take the place of God’s reign. In fact, when the tax was first instituted in A.D. 6, another Galilean named Judas led a revolt, which, despite being put down quickly, remained a cause célèbre for Jewish patriots.[1]  How could anyone pay tribute to a deified Caesar and remain loyal to God? As Jesus himself had already declared, “No one can serve two masters.”

But, on the other hand, if Jesus were to say, “No, a faithful Jew should not support the empire,” he would give his opponents all the evidence they needed to turn him over to the Roman authorities, who would surely execute him as a yet another failed Jewish rebel. No matter what he said, Jesus couldn’t win—or so they thought.

“Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” he said to them. “Show me the coin used for the tax.” In an instant, Jesus set for them his own double-trap. For starters, the coin in question was an unholy symbol, which contained the graven image and blasphemous title of the emperor. To have such a coin in one’s pocket was itself an act of deep faithlessness, and to bring it into the sacred courts of the Jerusalem temple was an absolute no-no, kind of like trying to hide a cell phone in your pocket when the national emergency alert goes off. By getting the Pharisees to produce the coin, Jesus had already shown that these so-called religious leaders weren’t all that committed to their religion after all. 

But Jesus didn’t stop there. “Whose head is this, and whose title?” he asked, twisting the rhetorical knife a little deeper. And when they acknowledged, probably reluctantly, that they belonged to the emperor, Jesus replied, “Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Game, set, match. When the religious leaders heard this, they were amazed. He had slipped through their trap and tripped them up in one of his own. It was a clever answer, which clearly bested his opponents, but I don’t know how satisfying it is, at least on the surface. When it comes to navigating the blurry border between belonging to God and belonging to the world, I think we yearn for more than clever.

After all, what kind of answer did Jesus give? In the end, is it lawful to pay the tax or not? If God is the source of all things and the ruler of heaven and earth, what actually belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? And, if everything does belong to God, as I think we are supposed to believe, then why is the emperor’s graven image still stamped on the coin? Is God really in charge, or is the emperor? 

Ultimately, those who would separate the kingdoms of this world from the kingdom of God are trapped by their own desire to avoid the messiness of how God works and where God’s reign is to be found. God doesn’t always show up in neat and clean ways that give us simple answers to hard problems. Sometimes faithfulness isn’t as clear as an up or down vote, and those who say otherwise aren’t being faithful. If we want to belong more fully to God’s kingdom, we shouldn’t try to escape this world or the powers that rule it but lean into the places and channels through which God’s reign is breaking into this life. And, at its core, that is what Jesus’ clever response is inviting us to do.

Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s. That is not an invitation to live a bifurcated life, with allegiances split between heaven and earth, but an invitation to trust that God’s reign is not divorced from the politics of this world but somehow revealed through them. As such, it is possible to use a Roman coin to pay a Roman tax without forgetting that the entire empire is contained within the kingdom of God. Jesus isn’t asking us to confuse the emperor’s ungodly ways with the will of God but to trust that God’s authority cannot be thwarted by the affairs of the state, no matter how irreligious it is. And if that’s true—if we believe that God is still in charge even when our leaders show no sign of godliness—it means that how we participate in earthly affairs has heavenly implications.

The real question we must ask ourselves is what it means to be faithful to the will and ways of God while living in a world in which those ways are often hidden. Jesus shows us that it doesn’t mean burying our head in the sand or hiding our light under a basket but pursuing God’s reign through our public lives. We know that God is at work in this world. We believe that God’s salvation is accomplished not by abandoning this world but by becoming enmeshed in it, through the Word-become-Flesh. God did not take our human nature upon Godself in order to forsake the earth but to transform it. And, if God is at work in this world, saving and redeeming that which God has made, then we, too, are called to lean into that work of transformation.

We are a part of this world, but we belong to the reign that is above—a reign that is not of this world yet one that cannot be confined to the heavens. When we see those moments of God’s power and presence breaking through into this world, giving us a glimpse of what is to come, we must devote ourselves to them fully. Whether it’s paying our taxes or casting our votes or donating to worthwhile causes or marching in the streets, our participation in the kingdoms of this world is not a rejection of God’s reign but an opportunity for that reign to become manifest through our actions. 

Give to God the things that are God’s as you give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s. Don’t expect God to show up in that mythical place that is immune to the influences of this world. Ask God to help you influence the world in ways that allow God’s reign to show up more clearly. We are not faithful to God by withdrawing from the kingdoms of the earth but by allowing God to use us to bring God’s reign to the earth through them. “Thy kingdom come,” we say together. “Thy will be done,” we pray to God. And every time we say those words we offer ourselves into the service of God—not by pulling back but by leaning more deeply and faithfully into the world God has made.

________

1. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 19-28: Volume 3; International Critical Commentary; T & T Clark; Edinburgh: 2004, 465.

How God Measures Success

 

October 8, 2023 – The 19th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 22A

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

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

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells another parable about the kingdom of God. This time, God’s reign is depicted as a vineyard, painstakingly prepared by the landowner and then leased to some less than honorable tenants. Sometimes Jesus’ parables are hard to understand. This isn’t one of those parables.

Tenant farming was common back in Jesus’ day. Landowners would lease their property to resident farmers and then send someone to collect their share of the produce at harvest time. Occasionally, a dispute would arise over how much produce the landowner was due, but the law was pretty clear in those situations. And, in situations like the one that Jesus describes in his parable, there was no doubt how things would turn out.

When it was time for the harvest, the landowner sent his slaves to collect what was due, but the tenants refused to pay up. In a brazen sign of rebellion, they beat, killed, and stoned the landowner’s slaves. So the landowner tried again, sending more slaves, perhaps unaware why the first group had failed. The second group fared no better than the first, and they, too, were beaten, killed, and stoned to death. Something else had to be done, so the landowner sent his son—the heir, his legal agent—who, unlike a slave, would be in a position to contact the authorities and declare his father’s arrangement with the tenants in abeyance. He would have the authority to boot the tenants off the land and have them arrested and punished and then lease the land out to someone else.

But the tenants had another idea. When they saw the landowner’s son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir! Come, let us kill him, and then we can keep the vineyard for ourselves.” It doesn’t take a legal scholar to know what will happen next. Using a common rabbinical technique, Jesus asked his audience what the owner of the vineyard will do when he comes to town, and their answer invited judgment upon themselves: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” 

They know what the parable means, they know that Jesus is telling it about them. They know that God will not allow the kingdom to be hijacked by those who would keep it to themselves. It’s not hard to figure that part out, but what is hard is figuring out what this parable means for us. To understand that, we need to try to hear this parable not as one of Jesus’ disciples but as if we are the targets of his unveiled criticism. And I don’t think that’s as hard as it sounds.

This whole situation started when the chief priests and Pharisees came to Jesus to ask where he got the authority to challenge their leadership. But let’s back up a little further than that. When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem at the beginning of Matthew 21, he went straight to the temple, where he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. Effectively, Jesus forced the religious apparatus at the center of Judaism to come to a halt. Then, Matthew tells us, with worship interrupted, the blind and the lame came into the temple to find Jesus, who healed them. The buzz about this controversial figure quickly grew to a fevered pitch. Even the children in the temple were spontaneously crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” attributing to Jesus a title with clear messianic implications.

When they heard the children’s cries, the religious authorities became indignant. This was too much. Not only had Jesus asserted himself into the center of his people’s religious life, but he had done so in ways that left the people wondering whether he might be the Lord’s anointed—the messiah, the Christ—who had come to deliver them from the tyranny of the Roman Empire. Sure, he was popular among the crowds, but what had he done to earn the right to disrupt the careful balance of power between the Jewish and Roman authorities? What gave this carpenter’s son from Nazareth the right to displace the recognized religious leaders in favor of a new kingdom of God and install himself upon the throne?

I think we tend to discount the questions and objections of the religious leaders because we know how the story will end—because we know that Jesus will be vindicated in his resurrection on the third day—but, if we were in their place, wouldn’t we ask the same thing? Wouldn’t we insist on some sort of proof before we allowed a renegade stranger to throw away everything we know to be good and right about our church? Think of it this way. Whose criticism of our parish would we take to heart? What sort of outsider, with no connection to the history, tradition, and leadership of this church, would we invite to dress us down and tell us what we’re doing wrong? Whom would we allow to walk down that aisle and bring our Sunday worship to a halt? 

In this tradition, we know where to look for someone with that kind of authority. We are accustomed to listening to the clergy, who are ordained and, thus, set apart for the work of proclaiming God’s word to our congregation. Vestries are elected by the members of the parish and entrusted with the responsibility of setting a budget and taking care of the buildings, so, in a sense, we listen to them every time we put something in the offering plate. Bishops have surprisingly little authority when it comes to the affairs of an individual parish, but, when the woman or man with the pointy hat shows up, we tend to listen, even when they say something controversial.

Some people in our parish have considerable authority even though it comes from unofficial sources. Volunteers like Albert Gray, without whom the church could not operate, are understood by many to be the authority on countless details. Parishioners who have worshipped here for more than fifty years are the ones we ask to help us understand our history. And those who show up and help out every time that help is needed—like the members of St. Spat’s—are the authorities we look to when we need to know how to take care of this place and each other. If any of those authority figures stood up and called us out, we’d at least give them a listen. But what about someone we didn’t recognize—someone who hadn’t put in the time to get to know us and how we do things? 

When the religious leaders asked Jesus to explain where his authority came from, he didn’t waste any time or breath justifying his prophetic actions or tracing his messianic lineage. Instead, he told them some stories—stories about what it means to do the will of God and what happens when we forget that it is God whom we are called to serve: “The kingdom of God is like a landowner who planted a vineyard…[and] leased it to tenants and went to another country.” In this parable, Jesus teaches us that the authority of every religious institution and every religious leader is measured only by the extent to which they bear fruit for God.

In a church as old and beautiful as ours, in a denomination as tradition-rich and pretentious as ours, we must be careful that we do not confuse the fruit we have placed in our storehouses for the fruit we are called to give back to God. We have been tenants in this vineyard for a long, long time—so long that it is easy to forget that the vineyard does not belong to us. We are only leasing it from God. If we want to know whether we are being faithful tenants, we must listen not to the religious elites but to those whom Jesus came to serve. It is the poor, the oppressed, the incarcerated, and the marginalized who will tell us whether we are sharing our produce with God or trying to keep it all for ourselves. 

If a guest at Community Meals stood up to tell us that we have our priorities backwards, would we listen? If one of the people who sleeps at night beside the playground interrupted our worship to show us that we aren’t getting any closer to God’s reign, would we allow them to speak? If Jesus came to the door and asked us by what authority we claim to be the Body of Christ—his hands and feet in the world—what would we say?

I think our parish does a lot of good in this community, and am I proud to be the Rector of St. Paul’s. To the people of Fayetteville, I think we represent hope and love and welcome for all. I think we are known to be a church that doesn’t just talk about helping others but a place where that talk becomes action. Over the years, we have produced a lot of good fruit for the kingdom of God, and we can’t stop now. Going forward, we must remember that the only true measure of our success is whether we bear fruit for God, and we must be willing to let those who operate outside the power structures of this church and our society tell us when we’ve lost our way.