Multiplying our talents

Proper 28 Year A

November 19, 2017

    Three years ago, when I preached on these texts I said that I was uninspired by them and that I really didn’t like the parable of the talents.   Well, in three years, guess what?   I still don’t like that parable.

    What I comfort myself with when I have trouble with scripture, and especially with parables, is that at least in a case like today, Jesus has a gift for going overboard with language so that he can make a point.  I am sure that some of his hearers might have not gotten the point or at least A point if he didn’t engage in a bit of exaggeration.  

    As I think about the parable this year, I find myself thinking about gifts and maybe even the Holy Spirit.  If we take the baptismal covenant seriously, and we truly believe that the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ gift to us to help us to continue his work in the world, then I think it makes sense to say that our gifts are meant to be used.  And, while the parable is talking about money, I think it can mean any gift.

    Realizing that we have gifts to give back to God can sometimes be a tough sell.  For some of us, the daily grind of work or just life in general can feel like it saps us of anything we might have had left to give, and if there is something, it’s likely that someone else is going to demand it from us, whether it’s our time, our skills or our money.

    And yet, look what happens to the servants in the parable who take what the master has given them and actually use it… the money multiplies.  The servants who use the money seem to do so without fear and without second guessing what they are doing.   They appear to trust that the money will somehow grow and become even more useful.  As I think about the servant that buried the money obviously didn’t do so well.  He seemed to forget or at least be afraid to take a risk; he was given a responsibility to use the money to make more and he chose not to.  As I contemplate his response to the master, I wonder if the servant somehow took credit for the sowing and scattering, and then criticizes the master who collects the fruits of the work that others have done.  What the servant is forgetting, is that the master is in charge; the servant scatters seed and does all of this work so that the master can benefit; that’s what it means to be the master; and, as we see with the other servants, when the master prospers by their work, they too prosper.  Those that brought back more than they were originally given, were trusted with even more responsibility because they had the master’s best interests in mind.  They realized, that they were not separate from the master, and that the money wasn’t theirs to waste.

    Maybe there are some good lessons here for us too.  It’s important for us to realize that we aren’t doing all this Christian stuff alone.  The kingdom doesn’t belong only to us and while we have been given all the freedoms that are possible, kingdom work is God’s work.  It’s work that isn’t self centered or self promoting, but rather has God’s ideals and intentions at heart.  For us, it also means that no gift is too small or unimportant.  Recently, some of my franciscan friends have been trying to engage our older community members, our “Older Saints” if you will.  The message that we are trying to get to them is that just because they are older, and for some of them not even living independently, doesn’t mean, that they cannot be contributing members of our community.  One member gathers and sends out a list of prayer requests each week; others are writing articles on aging for our newsletter; others are involved in telephone ministries of reaching out to others, some have taken the ministry of contemplative prayer seriously; and we are hoping not only to hear about more ministries, but also to encourage those who may have thought they didn’t matter to the community anymore, to find their rightful place as an older saint in our community.  The lesson here, is that it ALL matters.  No gift given in love is too small or insignificant because if WE all matter, then all that we DO matters, and not only does it matter, but it is needed.  God never refuses a gift that we give to God in love… because here’s a secret… the gift is God’s anyway.  It came from God and was given to us.  Each of us has the responsibility to use whatever God has given to us is such a way that we not only give the gift back, but we give it back in abundance without fear and without reservation.

    I think one of the things we learn from the parable of the talents, is that the servant who buried the master’s money was afraid, and he didn’t want to change or grow, he wanted things to be safe and stay the same.  The kingdom isn’t safe; it is full of risk, just like trying to make more money from what the master has given;  using the gifts we have been given, whether they are gifts of time, money or talent, are only ours to borrow, they are not ours to hide or to keep to ourselves, they are meant to be shared, they are meant to be used; they are meant to be used for the master’s pleasure and purposes… and that means we need to be open to the master, open to God’s desires for how our gifts are used… We are created by God, the master of all there is.  Everything, our time, talent and money belongs to God.  He is asking you to multiply your gifts;  what will you choose to do?

   

   

To whom do we belong?

Proper 24 Year A

October 22, 2017

There are so many ways that we identify ourselves, aren’t there?  I can remember as a kid being really impressed with labels.  You could always tell whose family was wealthy and whose family was not based on the clothing they wore.  Labels told us who was in and who was out.  I remember when Gloria Vanderbuilt  and Jordache jeans were popular.  There were not my father’s work clothes… and if you weren’t wearing them, at least where I lived, you certainly heard about it.  Junior high and high school were often places where a kid was either in or out; I spent most, if not all of my time, “out”.  Bet you couldn’t tell that… my taste in clothes hasn’t changed much either.  I can remember wanting to fit in, wanting desperately to belong and to wear the symbols and signs of other kids my age, but it wasn’t going to happen.  We were a blue collar family, and once my dad died, money was even tighter.  So, no fancy, in crowd jeans for me…

But even as adults, we like to have symbols that identify us in some way.  Tattoos have become quite mainstream in the last several years; if you’ve never had a chance to look at Bill’s arms, he has quite a few, and they are beautifully done, all by the same artist.  You can tell by his tattoos that he is a religious man who listens to punk rock, at least if you get the reference of one of his… I have one, and am contemplating 2 more; the reason I had this one done first was because it was simple; the other 2 are going to require some thinking; but this symbol, a monogram for the Virgin Mary means a great deal to me; it means, “Auspice Maria”, that is, “under the protection of Mary”.  As someone who has had difficult relationship with their own mother, and who has had a love and devotion to the Mother of Jesus, it seemed like a natural thing to do.  

We are inundated with symbols every day of our lives.  Even my son can recognize the Braums logo when we are driving and pipes up about his favorite dairy treat from there when he sees it.

Symbols are incredibly powerful, and in our gospel today, Jesus is well aware of their power.  The Pharasees are trying to trap him once again so that they can turn him in for insurrection or some other crime against the emperor.  And so, they ask him about paying taxes to the emperor.  They knew that Jesus was no fan of the emperor Tiberius, or of the Roman empire, not to mention not a huge fan of laws that kept people poor under the thumbs of those in power.  And so, they ask him about paying taxes.   Once again, he outsmarts them by asking them whose face and title was on the coin used for taxes, and of course, they respond, “the emperor’s” .  Then Jesus answers them, rather brilliantly, I think, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”   Basically, if it has his face on it, it belongs to him… who cares?  The coin they show Jesus will become worthless when there’s a new emperor… so it’s worth is temporary.  Jesus is hoping to claim God’s people, not the emperor’s money.  The branding of God’s people is not something that loses value or goes away…. It’s permanent.  In Jesus, God has made the ultimate covenant with God’s people; only those in power don’t quite understand that yet, if they ever do.

You and I have a marking, don’t we?  When we are baptized, we are “Sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own, forever”.  When the priest says those words, we are marked with a cross on our forehead, a cross of oil that symbolizes the grace that we receive in baptism; a grace that says, above all things, we belong to Jesus… no matter what else may happen in our lives, that can never change because we are “marked as Christ’s own forever”.  That, dear ones, is how much “God so loved the world”.  God loves the world so much that we can never be separated from the love that is ours through the Holy Trinity.  And here’s something else… no matter where we have never belonged before, we belong to God… we belong here in God’s church and in God’s kingdom.  That cross of oil is the most important mark we have… more important than expensive jeans, more enduring even than tattoos, as cool as those are.  Our cross of oil is a cross that cannot be seen… and yet it is the most important mark we wear... it is a mark, a branding, that identifies who we are and to whom we belong; we might even say, it is a mark of Jesus’ likeness on us, so that like the coin that bears the emperor’s likeness, we might bear Jesus likeness, and so, if it is his likeness that we bear, it is to him we belong.

The more I tried to belong when I was a teenager, the worse my sense of not belonging  got… it was only through the mark of baptism that I was able to find the sense of belonging that my heart and my soul desired.  “Marked as Christ’s own forever” have been words that have been the most amazing words ever said to me,  as well as the most frightening words in my life; when I needed a community, a place to belong, it was the church that showed me that I could be loved no matter what I was wearing, or  what job I held or didn’t hold at some points; but the church has been for me more than just a place to feel good and belong; the church has been the place where I have learned what it means to be a disciple; and I will say, being a disciple is not something I do very well; it requires me to act; it requires me to risk; it requires me to be confronted by my own complacency and by others who are much better at this whole disciple thing than I am; being marked as Christ’s own forever might also mean that even though people might not see the cross of oil on my head, they might know to whom I belong; at least I hope that I bear Jesus’  likeness enough that others may know to whom I belong…

    The church is where we learn to be more like Jesus; it is the place where we come to bear his likeness by embracing the stories that others have told about him and by realizing where our own stories begin to look like his story; church is supposed to be the place where we experience our own transformation as we take Jesus into ourselves in the Eucharist; it is the place where we see him in each other…

    My hope for all of us, is that we are for each other, a community that bears a resemblance to Jesus whom we profess to follow; I pray that our actions are the actions of disciples; I pray that when others look at us, they might begin to know something about Jesus; I pray, that we all find ourselves being comforted and being accepted for who we really are…Beloved… here is where we belong, no matter where we have been excluded from before.   When we are marked as Christ’s own forever, that love and acceptance flows from us to others who need to belong somewhere, because all people, everywhere, belong in God’s kingdom…

    So… what are the marks that we bear?  Whose likeness is in our minds and hearts?  Can others really see to whom we belong?

Dangerous hearts

Proper 21 Year A 2017

October 1, 2017

    A little bit of context for today’s reading from Matthew; Jesus has entered Jerusalem on a donkey to shouts of “hosanna to the son of David!”.. And after he entered Jerusalem, he went into the temple and turned over tables, and drove out the money changers.  To say that Jesus was making an entrance, would be understating it.  He was ready for a fight with the authorities, and they were angry enough for one.  Jesus was causing all sorts of chaos, and people were questioning what they had always done; they were questioning their leaders and they were questioning what it actually meant to be part of the kingdom of God.

    In that time and place, those who had power made the rules, and they were the ones who believed that they were closest to God.  They did everything right; they followed the purity codes and the law; they gave what they were supposed to to support the temple and their mission; they observed all the fasts, all the festivals… if they were questioned the could point to the law and claim themselves to be righteous.  And, typically, they weren’t questioned all that often, and there was some sort of peace that agreed on people’s status and where they fit into the grand scheme…

    That is, until Jesus showed up.  He was everything they were not;  he had relationships with prostitutes, beggars and thieves; he didn’t always follow the law, and if fact, sometimes downright disregarded it for what he believed was a greater good; he wasn’t wealthy; he didn’t care about aligning himself with the empire; he was always questioning authority; he was always telling people that they were loved by God, something that many of them had never heard before; he healed people and restored them to community;  in short, Jesus was trouble, and once he showed up in Jerusalem, with shouts of joy that might have alluded that he was the true king of Jerusalem, well, it was game on.

    And, Jesus only makes his own situation worse by continuing to take digs at the chief priests and elders.  They wanted to know who had given him authority to do and say these things, and Jesus knew he had them… John’s life was already given because he was the herald and prophet that paved the way… nothing that the elders could’ve said about John’s baptism would’ve helped them… either they were going to show themselves to be the hypocrites they truly were, or the crowd was going to be enraged by their disbelief in John’s baptism.  They were stuck; and they knew it, and Jesus certainly knew it.  And so, while they are weakened, he tells yet another parable about the kingdom of God that shows just how merciful God is; just like last week’s lesson about the vineyard and the workers who come at the last hour, God has more than enough mercy for everyone and, the added dig is of course, that those who believe themselves to be righteous in their own eyes, may not be in God’s eyes.  Ouch.  Nothing about Jesus’ message that day is subtle or soft peddled, and it made him dangerous, at least as far as the current leadership was concerned.  If this donkey riding rabble rouser wasn’t silenced, everything they had built, all of their power, would be gone.  So, now, not only was Jesus dangerous, but now he was in deep, deep danger, and he knew exactly what he was doing.  He didn’t really care about their power games; he wasn’t interested in serving the empire… he was interested in serving God… and some days Ceasar and God were confused in the eyes of some… and certainly in Rome, Ceasar was a god… Jesus had no such confusions, and he was more than willing to point out those who did.

    And, I am sure, that as certain as Jesus was of his need to point out the discrepancies he saw in what following God ought to look like, I bet there were moments of fear for him… but it wasn’t the fear that the elders had; their fear was about losing status; his was about his life and the life of the people he loved; he knew his actions were also putting them in danger.  Soon enough, he would learn just how afraid they were, and how their fear would cause them to deny him… but for now, Jesus was focused on bringing good news to prostitutes, tax collectors and all who lived on the outer margins of society… and the more he focused on good news the more dangerous he became.

    Beloved, Jesus didn’t die because he was a nice guy… he died because he was willing to confront injustice when he saw it, he was willing to love those no one else loves, no matter what the institutions around him said.  Often those confrontations meant that things didn’t look the way others had assumed… he meant all that last shall be first stuff… gold and fine robes and adherence to the purity codes were not what were going to get you a place in the kingdom; loving God and loving your neighbor, now that might be the golden ticket that got you in…   the elders didn’t really seem to care about their neighbors… they only cared about what was in it for them…

    Our calling as disciples is not primarily to be nice,,, that’s a good thing as far as it goes, but sometimes we have to overturn some tables and point out the grave injustices around us.  Christianity has lost its sense of danger… most of us have forgotten that we need to challenge the empire, and that living in the kingdom means that we might have to hang out with some folks that don’t look like we do.  Our society needs to be challenged now just as much as it did then.  Loving God by loving our neighbor is the mandate… loving even when we are afraid, loving those no one else loves, loving instead of grasping power… and all of us in this room have more power than the people who come here in search of a meal or a bus pass… how can we turn away from that power and extend a hand of love?  How deep is our discipleship, is it the kind where we attend church and do all the right things, or is it the kind that we live even when we aren’t here, so that our words and deeds are good news to the poor and hungry?

    I suspect for most of us it’s a little of both… May we love, and learn and grow to be the children who do God’s will, even if we haven’t done a great job of it so far.  There is always time… What danger might God be calling us into today?

Abundant grace

Proper 20 Year A

September 24, 2017

    We have heard several parables over the last weeks that point to God’s less than perfect farming skills.  Seeds are scattered with little or no regard to what kind of soil they are scattered on;  or letting weeds grow with the good wheat, letting the weeds be weeds, and even letting the weeds take nourishment meant for the wheat.  None of these are particularly wise farming skills.  Today, it seems that God is also a foolish boss as well.

    Who in their right mind pays the day wage for the last only  hour of work?  The laborers who have endured the heat of the day are furious, and who can blame them?  It doesn’t seem fair or just… it doesn’t make sense… not to mention, it’s not good business sense.  

    But obviously the parable, like the story of Jonah from the Old Testament is trying to tell us that God doesn’t think about these things the way that the rest of us do.  We should view these stories as good news… but sometimes that’s hard to do…

    One of the lessons we get to learn today is that God’s sense of justice isn’t quite what we would have in mind… we tend to think about justice in terms of equal resources and getting paid for our work in ways that make sense…. in today’s parable, the wealthy land owner seems more concerned with the day laborers earning enough rather than how long they have worked… a pretty good deal if you came in later in the day…

    The thing is, our God is always extending a pretty good deal.  There is always enough love to spare no matter when we arrive; always more than enough for us and for anyone else who shows up… always… and so the anger that the laborer feel while it seems justified by our standards, isn’t justified by God’s standards…Grace is God’s gift to scatter as God sees fit… parables of grace are hard to hear and to understand because we don’t usually love and extend grace the same way that God does.  and we may never understand just how loving and incredible an action it really is, until WE are the ones arriving at the last minutes of the work day and are surprised to find that our share equals everyone else’s.

    The question that strikes me here, is why do the laborers act the way they do?  Perhaps a more important question, is why do WE act the way we do in the face such love and generosity?  

    We certainly see this theme repeated over and over again in scripture… from the story of Adam and Eve, to our own stories, it seems that we are always trying to get more, trying to get God to give us even more than God already has…  It seems to be part of our nature to be overly concerned with what others are given rather than doing the best we can with what we’ve been given…  What God does with God’s grace and love is really God’s business, not ours.  Whomever God decides to lavish grace upon, does not affect our share, not ever.  Why do we care so much?

    One of the best definitions I have heard of what the church is, is that the church is the place and the people, who bring hope to the hopeless…  What if, in response to God’s blessings and love, we turned around and gave hope to the hopeless?  

    The only response to what we have been given by God, is to give to others.  It’s the only way to really love God in return.  God has not just given enough; God has given more than enough… to quote a much overused phrase, our cup runneth over, and in response, we must reach toward others and give them the hope that life in the kingdom offers…not just in the next world but in this one as well.

    What stood out for me as I read the story this time, is that the land owner tells the laborers to go into the vineyard and he will pay them whatever is right…  and of course, by the end of the story, whatever is right, is much different than we or the workers expect…no matter who the worker is, not matter when they get to the vineyard, they get what they need…

    Abundance is the status quo in God’s kingdom.  There is enough for everyone… it seems that no one has more than anyone else, and no one has to want for anything… it’s a radical equality based on kingdom values, rather than on human values.

    The hope for us and for others, is that God always has more than enough grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness…. for all of us, no matter who we are; even when we live our lives as non believers, or live our lives without giving God a thought; over and over again, grace is offered, whether we accept it or not…

    So… hope, mercy, love,  are all gifts that we can give, because there’s plenty of them to go around… doesn’t always seem like it when we look around, but we are the church, the people responsible for bringing hope… in God’s kingdom, hope multiplies; grace, mercy and love, all multiply… and the more we give, the more there is… isn’t that part of the miracle of living in the kingdom?

    As workers in the vineyard, workers in God’s kingdom of abundance, we need to get the message of God’s unimaginable generosity out there… and part of getting the message out there, is living as though we know the message is true.

    I pray that we can live in the overwhelming joy that God’s grace brings into our lives; I pray that we can each treat our fellow children of God in ways that aren’t based in the fear and jealousy that lives inside us when we live in a culture of scarcity.  The kingdom has no scarcity; only abundance.  It’s an abundance that knows no limits or boundaries.  May we all be the kind of vineyard keepers that God is.

Jesus forgives...so should we

Proper 19 Year A

September 17, 2017

    Today’s readings all point to one of those ideals of the spiritual life that makes at least some of us squirm in discomfort at the mere mention of it… of course, I am talking about forgiveness.

    Forgiving another is really, really hard work.  Sometimes, the act of forgiving takes our whole life to accomplish, if we are lucky… sometimes there are things that we carry that are so painful, we might never get there…

    I have told you this story from my own spiritual life before, but I am going to tell it again, because for me, what happened was a lesson, and an experience that has helped me in know something about Jesus that I hadn’t realized before… That knowledge has helped me many times since the experience happened.

    I was in my early 20’s, and I was a part time college student at San Diego State.  I was involved in the college and young adult ministry of the diocese, and was a relatively new Episcopalian.  I’m sure I must have been in therapy, and if I wasn’t, I probably should have been.  I was working through some difficult stuff that was both spiritually and emotionally difficult, and it had a lot to do with my anger at my parents for a whole variety of things, none of which is terribly important right now, but it was serious business that day.  The young adult ministry was at worship together, and we were at a point in the service where we were in quiet prayer.  I remember being quite upset, and in my prayers, said something like, “Jesus, how can you forgive me, when I can’t forgive them? “  I heard the answer as if Jesus was sitting there right next to me…  “because” he said, “My forgiveness comes first.”

    I cannot tell you the times I have thought about that moment, and prayed that moment over in my heart and mind… “My forgiveness comes first…”  Now, mind you, this amazing declaration of love did not let me off the hook in any way, but it did help me to not rush into something I wasn’t ready for.  In my experience, forgiving before we are ready, is kind of like cheap grace; it doesn’t go very deep, and it doesn’t mean very much.  Anything that has worth in the spiritual life is going to take some work; not that Jesus loves us any more or less, but like any relationship, our relationship with Jesus takes time, energy and work… and, like other relationships, it isn’t always pleasant or fun…

    In our gospel, Jesus tells Peter that he is to forgive not as many as seven times, but seventy seven times.  And as Tex reminded us last week, it’s not like we stop forgiving on time 78… Jesus is using a large number, a number with mystical significance to a Jewish audience to say that forgiving another is a holy task, and one that overflows with God’s mercy and love, so much so that its value cannot be measured.

    No question, forgiving another can be really hard work; harder certainly than offending, don’t you think?  And before I say anything else, I want to say 2 things; the first is, if you have been wronged by another in a death dealing kind of way, please know that you don’t have to forgive until you are ready; the other piece of that, is that forgiving is about us, the ones who are doing the forgiving, not the offender.  We forgive because is sets us free, not because it helps the offender.  When we hold on to our anger, or to our desire for revenge, we are damaging our own souls.  I think that was part of what happened in my answer to my prayer that day; the kind of anger I was holding inside of me, was likely going to hurt me in some way; I was newly sober, and having unresolved anger is not a good way to stay sober.  Having said that, all of those feelings, all of the anger and sadness had to have it’s time to be expressed; all of us, no matter who we are, have a deep desire to be heard, especially when it comes to the really deep stuff.  The good news, is that Jesus does hear us.  All of those prayers that come unbidden in dark and lonely places, or the ones that come as tears…. Jesus hears those, even if we don’t speak them.  Jesus’ love for us is deeply connected to his ability to have mercy on us…  His love, his mercy has no limits; we all know that ours does have limits most days.  I believe that is at least part of the point of the parable that Jesus tells about the slave and the king.  Let’s remember, that the amount of money that the slave owed the king was an astronomical amount of money; so much so, that no king in their right mind would loan a slave that much money.    What the slave was owed by his fellow slaves, was no where near that amount that he owed;.  The king forgave the overwhelming debt… so, in a sense the king showed mercy twice; by loaning the money in the first place and then by forgiving the debt.  The one who was now free from his debt, would not extend the same mercy to his fellow slaves.  His own greed, his own self centeredness, got him in a heap of trouble.  How on earth, was he going to repay the king, who because of his awful behavior, now demanded his money?  He was in prison; and wasn’t going to be allowed out of prison until he paid.  He was now in a situation that he could not possibly get out of alive.  He would die in prison, not really because of the money he owed, but because he withheld mercy from those who genuinely needed it, even though he himself was afforded the gift of even more mercy.

    How much does our own inability to forgive others keep us in prison?  There is so much going on today in our society that would have us be selfish with our mercy, our forgiveness and our love.  The empire is only interested in its own well being; and if we fight among ourselves and refuse to see Jesus in everyone else, then we can be used for the empire’s advantage… our anger, our hurt, our fear… all of it becomes weapons against another; and we know that when we are divided, we cannot help each other… all we can see are our own needs and no one else’s matter.  That, my friends, sounds like a prison to me; a prison that it is going to be very difficult to be released from if we don’t start to love and forgive as Jesus has forgiven every one of us.  There is more than enough to go around.  Our soul’s freedom depends on our ability to let go of the chains that we sometimes let bind us.  

    I know that day at worship with my friends was life changing for me.  I began to see the depth of Jesus’ love for me, and the depth of his love for those who had harmed me.  LIke the king in the parable,  Jesus let me know that I was loved enough to be forgiven.   I can’t say that I have gotten it right, even now, but that day I became willing to believe in the possibility of my own transformation, from someone who was frozen in their anger, to someone who could at least believe I wouldn’t be angry forever.  

    Sometimes the first step is to pray for the willingness to be open to the possibility.  It’s not easy… it doesn’t come without risk; but we can live in the certainty that Jesus has already forgiven us and THEM.  We can grow into that place and take as long as we need to, so long as we don’t get lazy and use it as an excuse.  We love because Jesus has first loved… We forgive, because Jesus has first forgiven.  I pray that we can all be set free, knowing that his forgiveness comes first.

Be a living gift to God

Proper 16 Year A

August 27, 2017

    It is a fairly well known fact among my family members that I am a fan of receiving presents.  They don’t even have to be expensive or flashy presents either; what I really enjoy is seeing what people think I might like.  I also really enjoy getting gifts for the people in my life because I like seeing how they react to what I believe will bring them joy; there have certainly been a few times when I completely messed it up, and a few family stories that seem to get told every so often with my missteps seeming to get bigger every time the tales are told…

    Gift giving is a way for us to tell each other that they matter to us; when we give someone a gift that brings them joy, we are saying that they matter to us; that we want to do something nice for them; that we care about our relationship… which is why some of the best gifts aren’t the ones we purchase, but the ones we make, ones that have some of us in them to give to the people we love, gifts that can create memories.

    In our readings for today,  I found myself struck by the words from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Paul is asking us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable to God.  Sacrifice is definitely the language of worship, and it is also the language of gift.  In the Old Testament, there are numerous passages especially in the book of Leviticus that discuss animal sacrifices being given to God; animals, either first born or the most perfect of the flock were ritually slaughtered upon the altar, and blood was poured or used to mark specific places on the altar.  There were all kinds of rules about what parts of the animals could be eaten and by whom; and then of course, rules about which parts would be burned up for God, so that the smoke from burning the animal would rise to God and cause an “odor pleasing to God’s sight.”  Whenever I read those parts of the bible, I always give thanks that I am a priest now, and not then.

    When you and I come together to celebrate the Eucharist, we are coming together to give thanks; that’s what Eucharist means;  to give thanks to God for all that God has done in creating, and loving us and the world.

    Part of giving thanks, is giving back to God, gifts that God has given us from God’s creation; we place fine linen, silks, silver, brass, candles, our money, and of course bread and wine and water, on the altar, much as priests used to place animals to be given to God.  We don’t place these gifts here as a way to erase our sinfulness because only God can do that; but we give these gifts to God as a way of showing our gratitude and our love for God; we give these gifts so that we can celebrate our relationship to God; we create memories with each other, we become part of the great cloud of witnesses that has come before, all of us celebrating our love for God and each other.

    Sometimes I forget that the most important thing that you and I bring to this altar as an offering, as a sacrifice, is ourselves.  All the fine linen, silver, and money aren’t going to really mean anything, if our bodies, our hearts and our minds aren’t also offered up to God as gift.   We offer ourselves as gift because God desires to be in relationship with us and desires us to be in relationship with each other.  And unlike the perfect offerings from the flock, we know that we are far from perfect; our blemishes may not show on the outside, but we know and God knows what is on our hearts.  Rather than come to offer ourselves thinking we are spotless, perhaps for us, coming forward fully aware of our shortcomings, is what God desires;  I have spoken a lot about truth telling lately and I believe that when we come to this table with our hands outstretched, asking for Jesus to enter into our bodies and souls, that might be as truthful as we can ever be; when we acknowledge that is it only God who can heal us from ourselves, then maybe we can be ready to receive the healing and wholeness God wants us to have.  Unlike other gifts we might give, the gifts of ourselves is one that is risky for us to give, because it means that we have to be willing to be vulnerable; we have to be willing to change, we have to be willing to actually be the image of God in the world; we give ourselves to God.. and then we are given back to the world as changed people; not conformed to the world, as Paul says, but transformed because we have taken the holiest of gifts from God, and have been changed by the gift…

    What gifts are you bringing to the altar today?  Are you bringing your best, your most vulnerable, your true self most needing to be changed and loved by God?  I urge us all to pay attention; to truly offer ourselves upon God’s altar with hearts longing for love and longing to be changed into hearts that desire what God desires.  Be a living gift, always.

Lies defile our hearts

Proper 15 Year A 2017

August 20, 2017

    My mom used to say that only drunks tell the truth; I’m pretty sure she meant that if someone were drunk, then they were more likely to tell the truth.  Not really sure why she believed that because I didn’t really know her as much of a truth teller whether she was drunk or sober; the level of alcohol in her body didn’t really seem to correlate to her ability to tell the truth, and if anything, it may have made bad things worse.  Many years later when I had to deal with my own relationship to alcohol and it’s affect on my relationship to truth, I decided a couple of things.  First,  I was going to change my relationship to alcohol, and, I was going to, as much as I could, live my life in truth and integrity.  There were so many lies that were part of my family’s being, that I’m pretty sure that the lies were believed, at least by those that told them.  What I am certain of, is that the lies hurt people who certainly deserved better.

The truth is, don’t we all deserve better?  It took me a while to figure out that I deserved better; when you live with people who don’t tell the truth, especially when it comes to what they say about you, it can become difficult to believe the truth about who you are.  

Teresa of Avila is one of my favorite saints;  she died in 1582 and was a major figure in the counter reformation in the Catholic church.  One of the things I admire about her, is that she was always in trouble.  She taught that people could have a personal even mystical relationship with God, and could pray to God without an intermediary, such as a priest.  The common teaching at the time was that people needed their priest to pray and to communicate with God on their behalf; even when people went to church, the mass was celebrated in a language that wasn’t the language of the people.  So, you would sit in church, and if you were lucky you would respond with the customary responses, and you might not understand what was being said.  Certainly, if you weren’t educated, you might be even further removed from understanding.  So, imagine that the church tells you that basically you can’t communicate directly with God because you weren’t educated enough, or important enough; and it’s probably more complicated that that, but that’s the basic premise… then suddenly, someone comes along and tells you that what you have been made to  believe about yourself is wrong; that you matter to God just the way you are, and that God desires a personal, intimate relationship with you, and that you don’t need someone else to talk to God for you?  It changes everthing, right?  Suddenly, you see begin to see yourself as a much beloved child of God who has been freed to pray and worship God in ways that you were kept from for really, no good reason.  When we see ourselves as children of God, when we see the truth about who we really are, we can begin to question and change the systems around us that have been used in false, oppressive ways.   In the gospel of John, we are told that the truth shall set us free; and it is indeed so.  Knowing that we are all created in God’s holy image, indeed sets all of us free from the oppression that others try to force upon us.

“Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”  He later on explains that what comes out of the mouth originates in the heart, which is why it defiles.  When things come from the heart, they are more permanent, and are also capable of inflicting great pain upon others.

    When truth comes from our hearts and out our mouths, it may not always be pretty, but it is good, and honest; it teaches us things we need to know, and can help move us toward spiritual and emotional health.  Truth is a gift that is given when there is mutual respect between people.  When we say that we are Christian people, we are making the statement that we believe that Jesus is the embodiment of truth and love; Jesus reveals God the Father to us; in Jesus we are set free to be God’s children, equals in God’s kingdom.  As Christians, we believe in respecting the dignity of others because we believe that all of humanity is created in God’s image, and to speak about another with lies and hatred is a sin against the image of God…

    At least I hope we believe that; I hope I believe it.   There have been so many photographs and stories on the news over the last week that are disturbing, not to mention the deaths and injuries that have also occurred.  It can be easy for us to sit at our kitchen tables, coffee in hand, and think, “well, I would never do anything like that; I’m not a member of ISIS”, or, “I’m not a member of the KKK; I would never kill anyone…” Ok, fair enough.  I am certain that we are all good people who try to do the right things; except when we don’t.  If you and I continue to say that we “aren’t like those people”, without truly examining what is in our hearts and minds, we are part of the problem.  Maybe, we aren’t marching with torches or burning crosses, but maybe we tell racist jokes to our friends; maybe, we have been heard to use language that degrades another person’s being; maybe, we have perpetuated the stereotypes that cause people pain and suffering… maybe we believe some of those stereotypes… anytime we use language that degrades another, we are telling lies; things like using derogatory language for parts of a woman’s body to insult someone is never ok, and in my opinion, further demeans women; the color of someone’s skin doesn’t dictate their intelligence, their abilities or their worth; all people, and I do mean ALL people, are of infinite and equal worth in the eyes of God… that, is the truth; that is the truth that the kingdom of God is built upon, and it is what should be filling our hearts and falling out of our mouths… not to mention, it should be the truth that guides our actions… if we have drunk the poison of the empire, and all of us have to some degree, then we are at least a little drunk with the empire’s lies and distortions of the truth.  The more attached we are to the values of society and empire, the more we think we need to defend ourselves against others, the more distorted our relationship to the truth becomes.  Sometimes, we get so distracted by stuff and what we think our rightful place is, we start to lose sight of who Jesus is, and what we are called to do as members of the kingdom.

Beloved, what we say and what we do, matters.  We cannot continue to believe that what’s going on isn’t our problem; if one of God’s children is being hurt, or oppressed, it affects all of us.  All of us must look inside ourselves and honestly assess what is defiling us by making our hearts act in ways that are contrary to love.  Jesus is the very embodiment of God’s love; as heirs to his kingdom, we are called to breathe, speak, and do God’s love, to continue Jesus’ work in the world.  Anything less, anything that degrades another defiles us, defiles creation, and can encourage all sorts of hate.

As a Franciscan friend of mine said earlier this week, “Let’s love the hate out of each other,”  I pray that we can.  God so loved the world; now it’s our turn.