Striving for justice and peace means never giving up on anyone

Sermon delivered Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017 (Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA, as part 4 of a 7-week preaching series on baptism and the Baptismal Covenant.

Sermon Text(s): Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12, Baptismal Covenant Question #5

The themes emerging from our collect and the lectionary readings today are related to peace and justice – we heard the Beatitudes in the Gospel reading, and our Hebrew scripture was a passage from Micah 6 often quoted in social justice work by both Christians and Jews:

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

So this week, as we continue our preaching series on baptism, we’ll consider the fifth and last question of our Baptismal Covenant:

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

It is interesting to note that this is the only question in our Baptismal Covenant that does not say anything about God, Jesus, or the Christian faith. It is a question that people of all faiths and none could answer affirmatively:

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

Yes, they will, and yes they do: Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists and Baha’is and Hindus and indigenous people and agnostics and atheists – I know people who identify with all of those theological perspectives who “strive for justice and peace among all people” and “respect the dignity of every human being” in their daily lives, people for whom these values are the bedrock of their activism and their advocacy for vulnerable and marginalized communities.

But as part of our Baptismal Covenant, this question is asked of us in the context of a ceremony that marks our commitment to following in the way of Jesus. Even though the question doesn’t specifically mention God or Jesus or say anything about being a Christian, it is, in a sense, the culmination of all the questions that came before it. It is a summary of our church’s understanding of what it means to follow Jesus: to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

We come to this understanding from the example and teachings of Jesus in the scriptures. Jesus consistently advocated for a peaceful ethic in the form of nonviolence, teaching his followers “not [to] resist an evildoer” (Matthew 5:39), to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39), and to “love [their] enemies” (Luke 6:28). He said, as we heard in the Beatitudes today, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

But as the phrasing of this question in the Baptismal Covenant makes clear, the kind of peace Jesus advocated was not one that allowed the continuance of injustice. It was not a peace that stood back quietly and did nothing while God’s children and God’s creation were abused and misused, denigrated and destroyed.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is famous for saying, “There can be no justice without peace, and there can be no peace without justice.” In doing so, he was articulating a deeply biblical truth: that peace and justice are inextricably connected. You can’t have one without the other. And that’s why our Baptismal Covenant words the question this way: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people” – it doesn’t allow us to squirm out of the hard work of justice by saying we’re advocating for peace in not stirring things up, not rocking the boat.

Last week, Mark and Tom performed a hymn during communion about the calling of the first disciples. The text is a poem by William Alexander Percy, and it describes how God called Peter, Andrew, James and John from the “peaceful” lives they had known as fishermen to a life where they knew a different kind of peace, “the peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too,” [1]  recounting the suffering they experienced as a result, even unto death. The final verse is a powerful summary of the cost of discipleship and the type of peace to which God calls us and offers us:

“The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife cast in the sod.
Yet let us pray for but one thing: the marvelous peace of God.”

When we vow to work for “justice and peace,” we acknowledge that one does not come without the other, and that working for peace sometimes brings no peace, but “strife cast in the sod.” We will encounter conflict and sometimes even violence directed at us as we strive for justice for all God’s creation.

The second part of the question asks,
“Will you respect the dignity of every human being?”

Including this question along with the question of striving for justice and peace again reminds us that the peace we seek is a peace that comes with justice. If peace comes at the cost of the dignity of our brothers and sisters, it is not a peace we can accept as Christians.

This week, our new President signed executive orders banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for the next 90 days and suspending the admission of all refugees for the next 120 days. He did this in the name of peace, in the name of making America safer. But these actions and the chaos that have resulted from them over the last several days have not brought true peace, nor will they, because they do not respect the dignity of every human being. The peace President Trump seeks comes at the cost of the dignity of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and the dignity of citizens of those countries or refugees who aren’t Muslim, but will also be denied entrance to our country by the so-called “Muslim ban.”

For me, this vow of our Baptismal Covenant is why I signed a petition against this ban and while I plan to continue to be a vocal critic of it. It’s why the Bishop’s Committee voted to accept John and Milene Rawlinson’s donation of a large banner that states, “Refugees and immigrants welcome,” with a depiction of the Holy Family fleeing into Egypt, which I’d love some help hanging up on the front of the church after the service today.

But this vow is also why I carried a sign in the Women’s March with quotes from Jesus and the Buddha about loving your enemies, and why I continue to use the lovingkindness meditation techniques I’ve learned from Buddhism to try to direct kindness and goodwill toward our new President, toward the members of ISIS, and toward any person or groups of people I have begun to nurture ill-will or hatred toward. Because respecting the dignity of every human being means EVERY human being, not just the ones I find it easy to respect. It means respecting the dignity of the oppressors as much as I respect the dignity of the oppressed.

And for me, that’s where it gets really hard. That’s where I’m reminded that it’s called “spiritual practice” for a reason – because in order to live it out, we need practice. We need training.

This week, Krista Tippet’s show On Being on NPR aired a repeat of an interview she did with Congressman John Lewis in 2013 where he talks about the training he got in nonviolent resistance during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s:

“It’s just not something that is natural,” Lewis said. “You have to be taught the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence… We, from time to time, would discuss - if you see someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person — years ago, that person was an innocent child, innocent little baby. And so what happened? Did something go wrong? Was it the environment? Did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? So you try to appeal to the goodness of every human being. And you don’t give up. You NEVER give up - on anyone.” [2]

That’s what it means to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being” – to never give up, on anyone. And as with all our baptismal vows, we can commit to keep them only “with God’s help.” When we find ourselves starting to give up on someone, starting to hate, starting to hold a grudge, starting to think that peace for some is ok because peace for all is impossible, we must call out for help from God – from the God who calls us to never give up on anyone because he never gives up on us.

[1] Hymn #661 from The Hymnal 1982, Words: William Alexander Percy (1885-1942), alt. Music: Georgetown, David McKinley Williams (1887-1978)

[2] Congressman John Lewis, “Love in Action,” On Being with Krista Tippet, NPR, Jan. 26, 2017, http://onbeing.org/programs/john-lewis-love-action/ Accessed Jan. 28, 2017.

The Prodigal Son: The transforming power of love and forgiveness

Sermon delivered Sunday, March 6, 2016 (4th Sunday in Lent, Year C) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA, where I am serving as long-term supply priest. Audio only (not video) available below.

(2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32)



Jesus is at it again in today’s Gospel reading: answering those self-righteous Pharisees with a parable that gets ‘em right in the gut. “So you’re worried about the fact that I’m eating with ‘sinners,’ are you? Well chew on THIS one for a while!” – and out comes the Prodigal Son, a story that has spoken deeply to the human soul throughout the centuries.

At face value, the message of the parable of the Prodigal Son seems simple, and completely appropriate for the season of Lent: The son repents, the father forgives him. Voila! The God-human relationship illustrated. As the son has sinned and left the father, so we have sinned and left God. As the son realizes the error of his ways and returns to his father, so should we repent and return to God in order to be forgiven of our sins.

But wait just a minute. If we look carefully at the story, it’s not actually that simple. Does the son actually repent? The story tells us that the son “came to himself.” But it’s not entirely clear what that means; whether he actually had a change of heart, or whether the “coming to himself” was him having an “ah ha” moment realizing another way he could continue to continue to make sure he was taken care of at his father’s expense. “How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!” he thinks. “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” Is this expression of humility genuine, or is he just trying to figure out a way to get himself back in the door in a place where he assumes he will be unwelcome? It’s not like he becomes successful and wealthy and goes home to share the bounty with his father – as is so often the case with children and their parents (and with human beings and God!), he only turns back to the father when he needs something, when he seeks to gain from reestablishing the relationship.

So, we’ve got the problem of whether the son’s repentance is genuine or not, and then the story gets further complicated when the son returns home. The parable tells us that “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” The father runs to him while he was still far off. The son doesn’t even have a chance to make his confession, to grovel before his father and ask for forgiveness, before the father sweeps him into his arms with hugs and kisses. The son hasn’t said a word yet that would indicate that he is repentant, that he is sorry for what he’s done. For all the father knows, the son could be returning home to ask for more money – which, in fact, is sort of what he is doing, since he’s asking for his father to again provide for his needs in the form of food and shelter. But the father still runs toward him and embraces him. He doesn’t stand back, eyeing his son skeptically and asking him a bunch of questions about what he’s done and where he’s been and what has happened to all the money he gave him. He doesn’t lecture him on respect for one’s elders or demand an apology before he extends his hand in peace. His love for his son overtakes any feelings of resentment or being wronged. His love is unconditional, offered without any action required on the part of the son outside of just showing up.

“Now hold on there,” our inner sense of justice cries out. “That’s now how the story’s supposed to go! The sinner is supposed to show sufficient remorse and contrition before forgiveness is granted! God forgives the repentant, but the unrepentant he will burn with unquenchable fire… or something like that, right? I mean, there has to be some consequences for this guy’s actions! How can the father throw a party for this guy after what he’s done? Isn’t that like condoning his actions?”

Conventional religious thinking, in the Judaism of Jesus’s time and in many other religions in various times and contexts, tends to think of God as a just judge, concerned with impartially enforcing the law. In this way of thinking, God is ultimately concerned with “fairness,” with making sure that each person gets what they “deserve.” If they are good, they deserve a reward. If they are bad, they deserve punishment. Our relationship with God becomes some kind of balancing scale where we hope that, at the end, our good deeds outweigh our bad and we get in to heaven by virtue of how the accounting works out in some kind of divine judgment book. The elder son in the parable represents this kind of conventional religious thinking, as do the Pharisees who are so concerned about who Jesus is eating with and spending time with.

But Jesus constantly challenged the notion of God as an impartial calculator, crunching the numbers to determine our fate. Jesus emphasized the image of God as a loving parent, like the father in today’s parable, who is overcome with love for his or her children. That love guides his response to them, that love colors and influences her judgment, that love makes allowances for her children’s shortcomings.

When this kind of love expresses itself, it may not look “fair” to those who are keeping the great accounting sheet of rights and wrongs. It may mean that some people get celebrations and parties and forgiveness and acceptance that they don’t seem to deserve. But Jesus’s message is that God’s love and mercy is not something we can earn by doing or saying or believing the right things. None of us “deserve” God’s love or forgiveness based on our actions, however “good” we might think we have been! God’s acceptance and forgiveness of us is a gift freely given – out of a relationship based in unconditional love, a love that will not leave us if we screw up or disappoint or “squander our inheritance in dissolute living.”

This kind of love is more concerned with transformation than with fairness. This kind of love is willing to break all the rules if it means helping one soul to know they are loved and valued.

Can this kind of love be taken advantage of? Could the forgiven and loved prodigal son, after enjoying the fatted calf at his reunion party, have ripped his father off, stolen his valuables, and pawned them for money? Of course he could have. This kind of love is risky. It makes us vulnerable. It opens us to the possibility of being deeply wronged, or even physically harmed, in certain circumstances. But it also has the power to transform.

The main character of Les Misérables, that great novel by Victor Hugo that has been cinematized numerous times and made into a stage musical, is an example of a kind of “prodigal son” who is transformed by this kind of love.

Jean Valjean is released from prison after serving 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. He has become cynical, hardened, and trusts no one. He has nothing to his name and is let out on the streets with no resources and nowhere to turn for help. As he goes door to door begging, he happens to knock on the local bishop’s door. The bishop takes him in and feeds him and gives him a place to stay. That night, Valjean sneaks out in the middle of the night, stealing the silver place settings from the table. When he is caught and the police drag him to the bishop’s door, they tell the bishop that Valjean has told them that the bishop gave him the silver. The bishop surprises everyone, Valjean most of all, when he confirms Valjean’s story. “That is right,” he tells the police. In the poetic wording of the stage play, he responds, “But my friend, you left so early / surely something slipped your mind / You forgot I gave these also / Would you leave the best behind?” – and proceeds to give Valjean the two silver candlesticks from his fireplace mantle.

According to the law, the right and “fair” thing for the bishop to do would have been to press charges, and for Valjean to go back to prison. But the bishop was more concerned with the transformative power of love than the fair application of the law.

The bishop took a risk by following Jesus’s teachings in Matthew 5:39-40: “Do not resist an evildoer… if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.” Valjean could have betrayed his trust once again after this incident, or gone on to do harm to others as well. The bishop had no way of knowing what the outcome would be, but he chose trust over fear. He chose forgiveness over retribution. And it changed a man’s life. This risky act of generosity and forgiveness by the bishop transforms Valjean. His hardened shell falls away and reveals a kind, tender man with a heart of compassion, who goes about doing good for the rest of the story. The bishop responded to Valjean’s behavior not by “giving him what he deserved,” but by giving him a second chance.

As much as Lent gets a bad rep as a depressing season where we are told how bad we are, Lent is actually the season of second chances. It’s the season where we are reminded not just of our sins, but of God’s mercy. The joy of the father in the parable of the prodigal son at seeing his son return home is a metaphor for the joy God feels every time we return to him, no matter what we’ve done and no matter what is in our hearts when we do. God welcomes us home not for a stern scolding, but for a great celebration.

And we are called to do the same. If we are truly transformed by the love and forgiveness God has shown to us, we will offer forgiveness as freely as the father in the parable and the bishop in Les Misérables. As Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians, God has “entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. We are ambassadors for Christ.” We are the ones carrying God’s message to the world, the message that God is ready to throw you a party if you would but show up: no questions asked, no explanations needed. Just come, join us, and feast at that banquet prepared before the foundation of the world. If we are doing our job as Christians, it will also be said of us, “Those folks welcome sinners and eat with them!” Amen.

"Spiritual but not religious?" Let's be the kind of "religious" Jesus was

Sermon delivered Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016 (4th Sunday After the Epiphany, Year C), at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Fremont, CA (where I was filling in as a supply priest). Audio (but no video) posted below on Vimeo.

(1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30)

Our Gospel passage from Luke today describes Jesus’s return to his hometown of Nazareth after beginning his ministry in other parts of Galilee. The homecoming does not end well: while the people are initially impressed with his preaching, the story ends with them running him out of town and trying to throw him off a cliff! Jesus observes, in a now oft-quoted statement: “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

But it’s not just in his hometown that Jesus is rejected; he offends lots of people and almost gets attacked in several different stories throughout the Gospels, and of course, ultimately ends up crucified. It was not just his childhood friends and neighbors who found Jesus’s teachings hard to accept or threatening, it was many, many people – and most of them highly religious people.

In reading commentaries on today’s Gospel text, I came across an article titled, “Why Religious People Reject Christ.” Why Religious People Reject Christ. The author points to the fact that today, as in the time of Jesus, “most opposition [to the work of God] comes from the religious crowd, not from those outside.”[1] It’s always the people who are the most passionate about and devoted to their faith who are the most threatened by any criticism of it, even when that criticism is well-deserved.

“Religious people” don’t fare too well in the Gospel texts. It’s the religious leaders and the highly devout who reject Jesus, and ultimately come to call for his execution. Most of the prophets throughout the Hebrew Bible are rejected and scorned by “religious people” as well. Prophets come to remind the faithful of what it truly means to follow God, but they are met with resistance from those who think they already have it all figured out. In today’s particular example, the people of Nazareth are so offended by Jesus reminding them – with stories from their own scriptures, by the way – that God can and does work outside of the people of Israel that they almost kill him. They are so sure that they alone are deserving of God’s favor that the very idea that God would neglect lepers and widows in need in Israel while blessing and healing people who would normally be considered enemies of Israel – a leper who is a commander of the Syrian army and a widow who is a Canaanite, one of the people the Israelites had been commanded to drive out of the land so they could possess it – sends them into a rage. How dare God show mercy on anyone other than us? And how dare you suggest that somehow that has something to do with the fulfillment of God’s purpose?

This kind of thinking is alive and well today, as we all know. There’s a modern “parable” that says that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. So he takes his case to God in protest: ‘They won’t let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner,’ he says. ‘What are you complaining about?’ God responds. ‘They won’t let me in either.’[2]

It’s likely because of those kinds of “religious people” that an increasing number of Americans are rejecting organized religion – the latest surveys show that up to 20% of the population now does not claim any particular religious affiliation. [3] When asked, many of them will tell you they are “spiritual but not religious.” Perhaps you’ve heard that line before; perhaps you’ve even said it yourself at some point. Because being “religious” has gotten a bad rep because the “religious” people are the ones who are so often uptight about things, the ones who draw lines around who’s in and who’s out, the ones who manage to take the fun out of everything.

People who say they are “spiritual but not religious” often point out the hypocrisy within organized religion and the ways in which it is used to control or exploit people. They take issue with any group of people thinking that God chooses or prefers them over others, and point out that when people think they have all the answers, not only do they shut out God, but they shut out other people, in the most extreme cases leading to dehumanization and violence.

This critique of religion is really nothing new – in an interesting twist, these modern religiously unaffiliated people are echoing the words of the biblical prophets!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” Jesus says to the “religious people” of his day. “For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:13-15)

Before Jesus, John the Baptist called out any within the Jewish faith who might have felt that their lineage as “sons and daughters of Abraham” entitled them to a kind of “free pass” at the last judgment, who might have thought that they were worthy just by virtue of the fact that they were part of God’s “chosen people.” He says to them (you might remember this from a few Sundays ago during Advent):

“Do not begin 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.” (Luke 3:8-9)

John calls them to “bear fruits worthy of repentance,” to live an authentic life of faith that bears visible fruit in their actions. Being a son or daughter of Abraham means nothing, John says, if your life does not bear witness to God’s justice and love.

Reaching back into the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Amos brought this word of God to the people: “Because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain… you… afflict the righteous, … take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate… I hate… I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them” (Amos 5:11a, 12b, 21-22a).

Prophets always remind religious people that the correct observance of rituals means nothing if their hearts are not in the right place. You can say all your prayers and go to services every week, but if you do that while people are suffering from injustice and hunger all around you and do nothing to help, you’ve entirely missed the point. And that’s pretty much what the “spiritual but not religious” people are saying as well.

What’s frustrating to me is when people reject religion entirely when they encounter religious hypocrisy and abuses of power, when they see all the things that are wrong with “religious people.” Because what they’re rejecting isn’t actually an authentic representation of religion. It’s a twisted version, filtered through the lens of sinful humanity. The prophets rejected that kind of religion, too, and yet they were all deeply “religious!”

There’s a common misperception among many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, that Jesus’s message carried with it a rejection of “religion.” They see in Jesus’s critiques of Jewish ritual practice and his scathing rebukes of the religious leaders of his day a rejection of religion altogether. I've heard folks say, "Christianity isn't a religion -- it's a relationship." But Jesus didn’t reject religion; Jesus was a devout Jew. He followed all the rituals and traditions of his faith. As we read in last week’s Gospel, “he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom” (Luke 4:16). He knew the scriptures of his tradition well enough to quote them from memory on a regular basis. He observed the Passover. He did all the things that a “good Jewish boy” of his day would have done. He just didn’t let the observance of those rituals blind him to the meaning behind why they were set up in the first place.

Jesus didn’t reject religion, he rejected a certain kind of religiosity, one that puts ritual observance above love of neighbor, one that puts the letter of the law above the spirit of the law. He rejected the kind of religiosity that would allow someone to die on the Sabbath because it is forbidden to do “work” on the Sabbath and healing them would be considered “work.” He rejected the kind of religiosity that makes people think God owes them something, instead of acknowledging that everything is a gift from God, the kind of religiosity that talks about “birthrights” instead of gifts, about righteousness instead of grace. He rejected the same kind of religiosity that “spiritual but not religious” people reject today.

What Jesus and the prophets came to remind us is that that kind of religiosity is not really being “religious,” it’s being self-righteous. It’s not worshipping God, it’s worshipping self. And it’s condemned in all the major world religions.

“This is the fast that I choose,” God says to the people through the prophet Isaiah; this is what he tells them it means to be “religious”:

“to loose the bonds of injustice…

to let the oppressed go free…

to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house” (Isaiah 58:6-7).

I get the critique of the “spiritual but not religious” folks. I do. It’s easy to want to walk away when you encounter hypocrisy and corruption in any institution. But let’s not let that define what it means to be “religious.” Instead of rejecting religion, let’s be the kind of religious Jesus was. The kind of religious that comes to “bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” – that passage from Isaiah that Jesus quoted in the synagogue in his hometown and said he came to fulfill (Isaiah 61:1-2, quoted in Luke 4). Let's be the kind of religious that reminds us that God can and does work through Canaanites and Syrians as well as Israelites. The kind of religious that acknowledges that “we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9), that only God knows the full truth. The kind of religious that cultivates humility, not pride, and remembers Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians, that “if I do not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).

Perhaps if we were all that kind of “religious,” people would be drawn to religion instead of repelled by it. Religion could be a part of the solution instead of part of the problem. In our collect for today, we pray for God to “hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace” – but we have to play a part in making peace as well. Perhaps God might respond to our prayer with a prayer of his own, that might go something like this:

“O finite and limited human beings, you are indebted to me for all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of my prophets, so that in your time I may use you to bring peace.” Amen.

---

[1] Steven J. Cole, “Why Religious People Reject Christ.” From the series “Luke,” on Bible.org. Published 6 June 2013 https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-16-why-religious-people-reject-christ-luke-414-30 Accessed Jan 28 2016.

[2] Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel.

[3] As cited by the 2014 Pew Research Forum survey of religion in American life. Article on the results of that story here: "America's Changing Religious Landscape," published May 12, 2015. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ Accessed Jan 28 2016.

Overcoming Adversity

Sermon delivered Sunday, June 21, 2015, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN at The Gathering Eucharist (alternative service), 10 a.m., held outside the side courtyard (usually in Otey Hall). 4 Pentecost, Proper 7, Year B (1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 2 Cor. 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41)

The loose offering from this service was designated for the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund, to provide support to the families of the victims of the shootings in Charleston, SC.





Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.

Paul’s list in today’s passage from 2 Corinthians of all he has endured for the sake of the Gospel is not exactly a great selling point for following Jesus. “Come join us, and you too can experience afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger!” Oh goodie, where do I sign up?

Many of us often think that if we are following God and doing all the right things, no harm will come to us, and perhaps it’s not surprising we think this way, since there are many parts of the scriptures that affirm this correlation between good behavior or righteousness and prosperity and safety. Countless times throughout the “wisdom literature” of the Bible, which includes the books of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the psalms, we hear some version of the idea that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will perish, that those who follow God will be rewarded and those who do not will be punished. That certainly sounds like an appealing system, one where our experiences are predictable and directly related to our actions, where people “get what they deserve,” so to speak, where the world is just.

But the reality of life is often quite different. It is easy to claim from an abstract philosophical perspective that we will be rewarded if we do good and punished if we do bad, but often our experiences don’t line up with those beliefs. A pillar of the community who has supported countless people and changed lives receives a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and is dead within six months. A tornado drops out of nowhere and destroys the home of a young, struggling family who had just managed to purchase their first house. A young man from my hometown in South Carolina walks into a church in Charleston and kills nine people while they are gathered for prayer and Bible study.

Our reaction when we encounter such tragedies is often, “Why me?” or “Why them?”– especially if we think we or they were good people who didn’t “deserve” this. We can see this reaction from the disciples in today’s Gospel passage. Despite the fact that they have done everything “right” by following Jesus and doing what he asked in getting into the boat to cross to the other side of the lake, they are indignant with him when they encounter calamity along the way. When a storm threatens to capsize their boat, they wake up Jesus with the accusing statement, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” This is often our reaction to what we see as undeserved suffering. “What did I ever do to you, God? Do you not CARE that we are suffering? Why don’t you do something to stop it?” But our passage from 2 Corinthians offers another approach.

The suffering Paul and his companions experienced is not insignificant. We’re not talking about so-called “first world problems” like getting pickles on their sandwiches when they asked for no pickles, or their houses being so big they had to get two wireless routers. We’re talking some pretty horrific things -- afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger – and yet, he nonetheless proclaims that even in the midst of such suffering, they are truly blessed. No matter how awful their circumstances may appear from the outside, they are able to continue to praise God because they know the paradoxical truth of the Gospel, that through suffering can come new life, that there can be blessings even in the most unspeakable suffering. Although they are punished, they are not killed; although they are sorrowful, they always rejoice even in the midst of it; although they are poor, they are making many rich – maybe not literally, but in the truest sense of the word, through spiritual transformation; although they have nothing by physical standards, they actually possess everything that matters by spiritual standards through their faith in Jesus Christ and the assurance of new life that they have through him. No matter what people may say about them or what suffering they might encounter, their faith is not shaken.

Our passage from the Hebrew Bible today also gives us an example of keeping the faith in the midst of adversity. In the classic story of David and Goliath, David does not cower before a seemingly unconquerable obstacle. Though he is young and small and by all external standards seems a poor match for the giant warrior Goliath, he steps forward and agrees to meet Goliath’s challenge, trusting that God is with him despite his youth and lack of experience in battle.

Paul’s inspiring proclamation of faith and David’s heroism stand in direct contrast to the disciples in the Gospel passage, who panic in the face of the storm, who expect Jesus to keep them from ever suffering, who cannot trust that they will come through the storm with God’s help.

Where are you in these stories? Are you cowering with the disciples in the boat or proclaiming faith boldly in the midst of adversity with Paul? Are you like the disciples indignant that trouble has come their way, or like David striding confidently forward with only a few stones to defend himself?

Those of us who have had the good fortune of not experiencing much pain and suffering in this life are more likely to find ourselves cowering and indignant with the disciples in the boat when trouble comes our way. But those of us who have been people of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3) are likely to know something about what it takes to muster up courage and faith in the midst of adversity.

This weekend, the world is watching and mourning with our brothers and sisters in the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, after the horrific shootings there on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in the black church are no strangers to suffering and grief. Their list of all they have endured over the years in terms of violence and intimidation could rival Paul’s list from 2 Corinthians, especially during the years of slavery and the civil rights movement: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. This list, foreign to so many of us in predominantly white churches, is all too familiar to many of our brothers and sisters in the black churches. And yet, somehow, many of them have managed to draw upon a deep reserve of faith that has seen them through these adversities and kept their hearts from being hardened by resentment and hate. On Friday, at the court hearing of shooter Dylann Roof, family members of those killed gathered to speak to him and told him they forgave him. What kind of faith gives you the strength to look your mother or son’s killer in the eyes and say, “I forgive you, may God have mercy on your soul?” Faith that has been refined through hardship; faith that knows that hate will never drive out hate, only love can do that; faith that knows that God can make a way where there is no way, as the saying goes.

And that’s exactly the kind of faith Paul and David had in our readings for today. They put their trust in God and drew upon the resources they had to find a way when many would have said there was no way.

In the story of David and Goliath, there is one small detail I have always overlooked that I’d like to lift up as a metaphor for our own abilities to overcome adversity. After rejecting Saul’s heavy armor because he wasn’t used to it, David goes to the river and picks out five smooth stones that he carries with them as his only weapons as he goes out to meet Goliath. Rather than putting his trust in the sword and spear and javelin, as his enemies did, David put his trust in God, and walks out completely unprotected, holding only a few stones. But those seemingly ineffective weapons actually give him victory over the giant.

The question in our walk of faith is not if we will suffer, but when. It’s not, “What can we do to avoid suffering?”, but, “How will we deal with suffering when it comes?” What resources will we draw upon to enable us to be able to say with the members of Emmanuel AME and the apostle Paul, “we are punished, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything”? Those resources might be our faith, the scriptures, our friends and families, a good counselor or spiritual director, spiritual practices that ground and center us, a special place we can go that brings us peace and comfort, or any number of other things. Those resources are the “stones” in our arsenal, or in our “toolkit,” if you prefer a less violent metaphor, that we put in our shepherd’s bag to take with us as we walk boldly toward the obstacles and the adversities that come our way.

What are your five smooth stones that you take with you to confront the adversities in your life? What resources help you to defeat the giant enemies in your spiritual walk?

In your bulletins you may have noticed a yellow piece of paper labeled, “My Five Smooth Stones.” If you noticed it, you probably had no idea what that was about, but now it should all be becoming clear to you. I’d like to invite you all to take a few moments to reflect on what your five smooth stones are (it doesn’t have to be exactly five; it could be more or less) that equip you to face adversity with faith and courage. And as you do that, I’ll be passing around this bowl full of candy stones, and ask you to each take a few to remind you of those resources in your lives that keep you strong. And if you’re missing any resources or think of ones you don’t have, make a commitment to reaching out and establishing those support systems for yourselves so you will be ready for the next giant or storm that comes your way.

Complaining: a sign of lack of trust in God

Sermon delivered Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014 (15th Sunday After Pentecost, Year A, Proper 20), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN.

(Exodus 16:2-15, Matthew 20:1-16)

There’s a lot of complaining going on in today’s readings. The Israelites complain to Moses, saying that it would have been better to have stayed in slavery in Egypt than to come out into the desert to die of hunger. The workers in the parable complain against the landowner for paying the same wage to those who have worked all day as to those who have worked only an hour. In both cases the people complain because they feel that something that has happened is not right, that things are not as they should be.

It’s easy to relate to that sentiment, isn’t it? For many of us, complaining is not exactly a foreign concept. There is plenty in the world to complain about, plenty of things that don’t seem to be as they should be, whether big or small. As a child, one of the first phrases we learn to protest the way things are is the age-old complaint, “That’s not FAIR!” Whether it’s the fact that our sister or brother got to do something we weren’t allowed to do, or the fact that our piece of cake wasn’t quite as big as everyone else’s, our innate sense of justice cries out in protest, “That’s not FAIR!”

And in some ways, that’s what we keep saying throughout our lives. Although the complaints may be over larger and more complex issues, ultimately what we continue to express is that same visceral pushback that we feel when something just isn’t right. Whether it’s the fact that some people in the world grow up with far more access to education, clean water, and healthcare than others, or the fact that some of us, not just in parables but in real life, are paid less than our colleagues for the same or more work, all our work for social justice in the world is in some sense an expression of that earliest protest: “That’s not FAIR!”

You can hear it in both of these stories from today’s readings, that age-old protest and complaint. It’s not FAIR that we’re now hungry in the desert while the Egyptians are still eating their fill around the fleshpots. It’s not FAIR that those who were hired last and worked only one hour were paid the same as those who were hired first and worked all day. That’s not right. It’s not FAIR!

But in both cases, the message of the passage is that things actually are as they should be, even if people do not realize it, because God is in control. We are asked to trust that God will provide and that God is just, even when all the evidence around us seems to suggest the contrary.

The Israelites are asked to trust that God will provide food, even when they see no way that they will be able to find food in the desert. God does indeed provide food, in the form of manna, the “bread from heaven” that falls upon the camp each night. God specifically instructs them only to collect what they can eat for one day – asking them to go against every instinct for self-preservation and not to store up extra for the future, but trust that God will provide them each day with their “daily bread,” with enough to sustain them until the next day. This part of the story is not in our passage for today, but I’m sure it’s no surprise that the Israelites don’t do very well following the instructions. They do attempt to collect more than they can eat so they can guarantee that they will have enough for the next day – but all the extra they gather spoils and rots overnight. The experience of receiving the manna was designed to teach them that they were utterly dependent on God for their sustenance, that they could not guarantee their survival by “taking matters into their own hands,” but only by leaving them in God’s.

That’s a hard enough lesson to learn, but we have yet another lesson about trust in the Gospel reading. The workers are asked to trust God’s wisdom and judgment in paying those hired last the same as those hired first. But it’s important to remember that this parable is not really about workers in a field and the wages they are paid. Jesus says this story is a metaphor for the “kingdom of heaven” – so this is not a story about fairness in wages on earth, but about fairness in God’s judgment about who will be rewarded in heaven. According to this parable, all who have worked in God’s vineyard will receive the same reward, no matter what amount of “good work” we have done in this life. Despite our initial protests at this story being “not fair,” this parable is actually the ultimate expression of fairness, in that everyone receives exactly the same thing.

This is a common theme in Jesus’s parables about what the kingdom of heaven will be like – there will be an equality among all people that we do not see in our earthly interactions with one another. In order to achieve that equality, in many cases there will need to be a reversal of the earthly circumstances, so that “the last will be first and the first will be last” – to level the playing field, so to speak. The very fact that this upsets us, that we are worried about being cheated out of what is “owed” to us shows that we haven’t yet understood the meaning of God’s grace. None of us is “owed” anything; it is all purely a gift of grace. And God doesn’t play favorites in heaven. Jesus did not say, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms – but some of you will get bigger and better rooms than the others!” No, he simply said that there are many rooms, and he goes to prepare a place for us – for each one of us – no preferential treatment for anyone. It is said that death is the great equalizer, and according to Jesus, so is the kingdom of heaven.

In both these stories, the people’s complaining is evidence of their inability to trust God’s sovereignty, to trust that maybe, just maybe, God knows how to run the world better than they do. As Moses tells the people, “Your complaining is not against us, but against the Lord.”

All too often we fall into the mistaken view that we can and should run the world ourselves – that we know what is best for us and for those around us. But the scriptures are constantly reminding us that we are actually not great judges of what is best for us, and we’re not the best at running the world, either. We’re too focused on measuring and assessing who is “deserving” of a reward or punishment, too focused on our own sense of entitlement and pride to be able to see what Jesus is trying to show us about God’s mercy and grace. In Jesus’s parables, it is often those we think are the least likely to make it into the kingdom who are there – showing us what poor judges we can be about who’s in and who’s out. There is a saying that “you know you have made God in your own image when God hates all the same people you do.” Jesus’s teachings on the kingdom of heaven challenge our assumptions and push us to acknowledge that God’s mercy is often wider than we’d like. “Are you jealous because I am generous?” the landowner asks the workers in the parable, and we must constantly ask ourselves that question as we consider God’s generosity toward others.

Of course, we can hope that once we actually make it to the kingdom of heaven, we won’t be concerned about earthly things like who “deserves” to be there and who really “earned” it and who didn’t, but instead will be overcome with love in the presence of God. Hopefully, the kingdom of heaven will take us to an entirely different plane of existence, where those things that once mattered to us in the earthly realm will fall away.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned with fairness and justice here on this earth. But given what a large and seemingly insurmountable task it is to pursue those goals in this broken world, it is important to remember where our hope lies – not in the promises of justice or fairness in this world, but in the promise of God’s grace and love for us, both in this world and in the next.

Our collect for today reminds us “not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly,” and to “hold fast to those things that shall endure.” If we can let go of “earthly things” like our constant measuring and comparing ourselves to each other, if we can let go of the earthly concern with “getting what we deserve,” or even helping others get what they deserve, we can open ourselves to see the things that will endure: like the eternal love of God that is equally available to each one of us. When we place our focus there, the anxiety about earthly things begins to fade away and we are more at peace – more able to trust God’s guidance, and less likely to complain.