The 19th Sunday after Pentecost, OCTOBER 23, 2011
MATTHEW 22:34-46; LEVITICUS 19:1-2,15-18
The Rev. Doug Hale
In your mind, what is the one most important thing about the Christian faith? If someone asked you to explain the Christian faith, what is the one thing that you would want to make certain that you told them?
What is the most important thing in your faith? What theme seems to come up for you over and over again when you are thinking about the implications of your faith? Some people might say: the forgiveness of sins, love, living a good life. What would you say?
The question asked of Jesus in our Gospel passage this morning is a similar question. “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” What is core? What is your focus? Never mind that the question is asked to test Jesus, to try to trip him up. Jesus treats it as a legitimate question.
Jesus begins with quoting what is called the “Shema.” He refers to words that would have been on the lips of Jews every day, repeated as part of their daily prayer:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:4-5)
The beginning for Jesus is the core of our spiritual life. It is our relationship with God.
Jesus doesn't stop with this. He has a second part to his answer. This part of his answer comes directly from our reading from Leviticus. (Lev. 19:9-18) There are a series of commands about how to treat other people that end with, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
In this day in which we live, where some advocate that enlightened self-interest is the way that will guide our economy forward, it is important to hear these words of scripture in another way. Love your neighbor, NOT JUST yourself. When we are making decisions about actions we will take, we need to take into account how our decisions will effect other people.
The flip side of this command is that we love others AS WE LOVE OURSELVES. Many people have been told from the beginning of their lives that they are worthless, but we are told here that not only are other people worth loving, but that we too are worth loving. God wants us to come to know that we are indeed worth much, that we are loved. It is from our love of God and for ourselves
that we find the ability to love others.
It is important to note that in our Leviticus text, the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” ends with “I am the Lord.” In fact, all of the commands in this section end with “I am the Lord.” “Do this BECAUSE I am your God.” Our desire to love God is to be the motivation for loving ourselves and others. The moral life is not just a system of values, it is rooted in our relationship with God. It is rooted in the person of God. If we are to lead moral lives then we need to cultivate our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is to lead us into loving ourselves and our neighbors.
Jesus has a third part to his answer. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Today, there is a lot of talk about the ethic of love, that we should love one another. But often times it gets spoken about in such general terms that we don’t get around to talking about specific ways to love or to talking about specific actions, to talking about what love requires of us.
But Jesus tells us that we need to hang some specific commandments upon these greatest but general commandments. For instance, the 10 Commandments begin with “I am the Lord your God.” Sound familiar? And then we are given 10 specific ways to show our love for God and for our
neighbors.
The passage from Leviticus is a collection of fairly concrete and practical commands. They include such things as specific ways to care for the poor and direction on how to treat the disabled fairly. The reality is that in Scripture we are given a lot of specific direction about how we are to live our lives. Ancient Rabbis came up with 1226 commandments, prohibitions and precepts in scripture
that are there to guide our lives. That should be enough to keep us busy in applying them for years to come.
They are there for us if we are willing to open the Scriptures and read them and take them to heart. Some will be easy because we are already doing them. Some will be challenging and cause us to change our lives. Some will be clear and directly apply to our lives. Some will take some thought about how they apply to the different circumstances in our lives.
Jesus' answers point us in the direction we need to be going with our lives. It must begin with our devotion to God. Our lives need to be centered in God.
It then takes into account how God views us as valuable and then directs that outward to help us see the value of the people around us.
And finally, we are given a lot of direction in Scripture about how to love God, love ourselves and love one another. If we limit ourselves to what we might hear from sermons on Sunday morning, then we will miss out on a lot of what Scripture has to offer us in guidance. It is there for us to read for ourselves. Considering how it might be applied might be a good source of conversation during Coffee Hour rather than talking about the weather.
Fr. Doug Hale
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
October 16, 2011, 18th Sunday after Pentecost
OCTOBER 16, 2011, 18TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, Year A
ISAIAH 45:1-7; MATTHEW 22:15-22
THE REV. DOUG HALE
So... How many of you were stunned by the reading from Isaiah?
Well, if you were a Jew during the exile in Babylon, you probably would have been stunned. Isaiah was presenting a radical proposal. He presents a foreign king, Cyrus, with the title used only for Jewish kings up to that time: Messiah, God's anointed, God's chosen one. Then they are told that Cyrus will be God's instrument for good for the people of Israel.
This would be like Jerry Falwell saying that God has chosen and empowered President Obama as an instrument for the good of Republicans, or for Jesse Jackson to proclaim that President Bush did the work of God for the Democrats.
Isaiah's message was a radically different view of God from most of his contemporaries. In his day, the common perspective was that each nation state or group of people had their own god. Marduk was the god of the Babylonians. Yahweh was the god of the Israelites.
But at the end of our passage, God declares, “I am Yahweh, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I Yahweh do all these things.”
It is this God of all creation that is not limited to using Israelite kings to do the good that needs to be done for the people of Israel.
Now, if we skip forward to Jesus' day, we see that Isaiah's message has not gotten through yet. The Pharisees seek to entrap Jesus with a question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” The question is presented by representatives of the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees were probably sympathetic to the Zealots who wanted to throw off the Roman occupation of their country. The Herodians were comfortable with the arrangement of local Jewish leaders under the wider Roman rule.
If Jesus said “Yes, pay the tax,” the Herodians would have given him a thumbs-up and the Pharisees would have given him a thumbs-down. If he had said, “No, don't pay the tax,” the responses would have been the reverse. He could not please both.
But Jesus asks to see the specific coin used for the payment of the tax to the Roman emperor. “Whose head and whose title is this?” he asked. The answer was obvious. The image of Tiberius was on the coin along with the inscription, “of Tiberius Caesar.” The coin belongs to Caesar, so give it back to him. The Herodians were ready with the thumbs-up.
But then Jesus said, “Give to God the things that are God's.” Well, doesn't everything belong to God? Suddenly, no one knew what to do with their hands. The question was who do we owe the money to, Caesar or God? Jesus' answer was “Yes.”
The question to Jesus reflected the same issue that Isaiah had addressed centuries before. Isaiah's prophecy recognized that their were no easy answers to this issue.
Cyrus might be an instrument of God, but he doesn't know it. In fact, on an inscription we still have today, he credited his successes to Marduk. But, God says to Cyrus that he has been given these successes “so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.” Cyrus is a work in progress for God, but a work nonetheless.
Isaiah helps us see that what Jesus was getting at is that whether or not Tiberius knows it, he belongs to the one God and so does his coin.
People may not perceive Tiberius or Cyrus as instruments of God, but that does not mean that God is not at work through them.
In the early centuries of the Church, Church leaders encouraged people to pray for the leaders of the Roman Empire. They recognized with Isaiah that the Emperor could be used by God, so they prayed that he indeed would be used by God and that one day he would come to know God. It was not until the fourth century that an Emperor, Constantine, became a follower of Christ.
We may pat ourselves on the back, “Oh, we understand that there is only one God,” but it is not easy to apply the perspective to the specifics of our lives.
As the presidential political season heats up, we may have a hard time seeing certain politicians as being the instruments of God's good work in our lives. Some of the rhetoric I hear makes it sound like people think their least favorite President was an instrument of the devil, not of God.
There was a saying in Jesus' day, “Can anything good come from Galilee?” Today there seems to be plenty of rhetoric that is based upon the question, “Can anything good come from the other political party?”
But God is in the habit of using unlikely people: Galileans, Gentiles, Roman Centurions. They all belong to God. Right now God may be using some unlikely person in our minds whether or not they know it or we recognize it?
I have been a part of precious little conversation across opinions about the issues of our day there seems to be very little civil conversation that recognizes that the other may actually have something worth listening to
Yet, I believe that is what God is saying to us today:
“Those other people are my instruments for good.
“Give them your respect; Listen to them.
“They may have something to say that is truly worth listening to and you will miss it if you don't let down your guard.”
Look for the work of God for your benefit in those unlikely people. Take time to listen. Ask real questions, not rhetorical questions. Most of all, pray for them, that God will truly use them for good.
Fr. Doug Hale
ISAIAH 45:1-7; MATTHEW 22:15-22
THE REV. DOUG HALE
So... How many of you were stunned by the reading from Isaiah?
Well, if you were a Jew during the exile in Babylon, you probably would have been stunned. Isaiah was presenting a radical proposal. He presents a foreign king, Cyrus, with the title used only for Jewish kings up to that time: Messiah, God's anointed, God's chosen one. Then they are told that Cyrus will be God's instrument for good for the people of Israel.
This would be like Jerry Falwell saying that God has chosen and empowered President Obama as an instrument for the good of Republicans, or for Jesse Jackson to proclaim that President Bush did the work of God for the Democrats.
Isaiah's message was a radically different view of God from most of his contemporaries. In his day, the common perspective was that each nation state or group of people had their own god. Marduk was the god of the Babylonians. Yahweh was the god of the Israelites.
But at the end of our passage, God declares, “I am Yahweh, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I Yahweh do all these things.”
It is this God of all creation that is not limited to using Israelite kings to do the good that needs to be done for the people of Israel.
Now, if we skip forward to Jesus' day, we see that Isaiah's message has not gotten through yet. The Pharisees seek to entrap Jesus with a question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” The question is presented by representatives of the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees were probably sympathetic to the Zealots who wanted to throw off the Roman occupation of their country. The Herodians were comfortable with the arrangement of local Jewish leaders under the wider Roman rule.
If Jesus said “Yes, pay the tax,” the Herodians would have given him a thumbs-up and the Pharisees would have given him a thumbs-down. If he had said, “No, don't pay the tax,” the responses would have been the reverse. He could not please both.
But Jesus asks to see the specific coin used for the payment of the tax to the Roman emperor. “Whose head and whose title is this?” he asked. The answer was obvious. The image of Tiberius was on the coin along with the inscription, “of Tiberius Caesar.” The coin belongs to Caesar, so give it back to him. The Herodians were ready with the thumbs-up.
But then Jesus said, “Give to God the things that are God's.” Well, doesn't everything belong to God? Suddenly, no one knew what to do with their hands. The question was who do we owe the money to, Caesar or God? Jesus' answer was “Yes.”
The question to Jesus reflected the same issue that Isaiah had addressed centuries before. Isaiah's prophecy recognized that their were no easy answers to this issue.
Cyrus might be an instrument of God, but he doesn't know it. In fact, on an inscription we still have today, he credited his successes to Marduk. But, God says to Cyrus that he has been given these successes “so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.” Cyrus is a work in progress for God, but a work nonetheless.
Isaiah helps us see that what Jesus was getting at is that whether or not Tiberius knows it, he belongs to the one God and so does his coin.
People may not perceive Tiberius or Cyrus as instruments of God, but that does not mean that God is not at work through them.
In the early centuries of the Church, Church leaders encouraged people to pray for the leaders of the Roman Empire. They recognized with Isaiah that the Emperor could be used by God, so they prayed that he indeed would be used by God and that one day he would come to know God. It was not until the fourth century that an Emperor, Constantine, became a follower of Christ.
We may pat ourselves on the back, “Oh, we understand that there is only one God,” but it is not easy to apply the perspective to the specifics of our lives.
As the presidential political season heats up, we may have a hard time seeing certain politicians as being the instruments of God's good work in our lives. Some of the rhetoric I hear makes it sound like people think their least favorite President was an instrument of the devil, not of God.
There was a saying in Jesus' day, “Can anything good come from Galilee?” Today there seems to be plenty of rhetoric that is based upon the question, “Can anything good come from the other political party?”
But God is in the habit of using unlikely people: Galileans, Gentiles, Roman Centurions. They all belong to God. Right now God may be using some unlikely person in our minds whether or not they know it or we recognize it?
I have been a part of precious little conversation across opinions about the issues of our day there seems to be very little civil conversation that recognizes that the other may actually have something worth listening to
Yet, I believe that is what God is saying to us today:
“Those other people are my instruments for good.
“Give them your respect; Listen to them.
“They may have something to say that is truly worth listening to and you will miss it if you don't let down your guard.”
Look for the work of God for your benefit in those unlikely people. Take time to listen. Ask real questions, not rhetorical questions. Most of all, pray for them, that God will truly use them for good.
Fr. Doug Hale
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
October 2, 2011, 16th Sunday after Pentecost
October 2, 2011, 16th Sunday After Pentecost
The Rev. Doug Hale
Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-46
Isaiah sang a song for his beloved's vineyard and Jesus told a parable about those who tended a vineyard. While I don't think I'll try to sing you a song today, let me tell you about my new yard.
Our new house has an amazing garden. There are blackberry vines, apple trees, peach trees and cherry trees. You would expect that it would yield a variety of fruits, but other than the very productive blackberries, the apples were inedible and the peaches and cherries bore nothing.
Clearly, those who tended this garden in the past were not concerned that it bear fruit. The trees have gone without pruning. It is as if it had been allowed to go wild and fallow. On the other hand, I am sure it has received plenty of Oregon rain.
So judge with me. What should be done? This garden needs a new tenant who will help it bear fruit. In the many places I have lived, I have always tried to work with what the yard already has in place, trying to help it look it's best.
This yard is the most challenging I have ever faced. It is the only one that ever had fruit trees, and I don't know if I know enough to judge what are the right steps to take for the path to fruitfulness.
I know it will take some drastic pruning in some cases and some dormant spray. And then I will have to wait and see if they will bear worthy fruit or not.
Unfortunately, I already know that a peach tree and an apple tree will have to be dug up and cast out, for I judge that they are already dead.
In time, I hope to see a restored yard that is pleasant in appearance, and keeps me busy during the summer gathering in it's fruits.
Being the recipient of the gardener's pruning saw may not be a pleasant experience. At the time that it happens, do the trees really know the difference between the branches cut off by a gardener's judicious cuts and branches snapped off in a storm? The shock to the tree is one thing when yearly pruning removes small amounts of the tree is one thing. But what is it like for a tree to have half of its branches removed because it has gone out of control and it is not producing worthy fruit?
What is it like for us when difficulties come in our lives and large portions of who we are are torn away from us? It can be deeply painful. And how do we understand it? Is it simply the vicissitudes of life? Is it God's punishment? Is it the judicious discipline of our Lord? Whatever it is, it hurts all the same.
How shall we respond to what has happened to us whatever the cause or reason? Shall we be angry? Depressed? Shall reject the idea of God's judgment? Or what?
Let me tell you about what else is in my yard that I do know something about. There are five rose bushes of varying conditions. None of them had been cared for recently. The aphids where having a hay-day, when we moved in. Four of them seemed fairly healthy with a lot of growth, but they had not been properly pruned and they had very few if any blooms.
By the driveway is an old rose. It looked like it had been through a war. There were very few branches and fewer leaves. And yet, when we moved in, it had two large beautiful white with red blooms. I was amazed that it could actually bloom at all.
I did a bit of judicious pruning and applied systemic fertilizer and insecticide. Then I waited to see what would happen.
One has produced amazing clusters of small pink blooms. This rose will do well. But three of the healthiest looking roses have yet to bloom again, but they have put a lot of energy into more branches and leaves. This winter, I will need to do some drastic pruning and then wait and see if they will respond.
Then there is the old rose by the driveway. It began to put out new growth. On closer inspection I realized that in that new growth were five new buds...amazing! One of them began to open yesterday. Clearly, this rose knows that it's purpose in life is to produce flowers.
The purpose of life is what really matters. What was the purpose that Isaiah's beloved gave to the vineyard? To produce fruit! What purpose did Jesus' landowner give the tenants? To produce fruit!
God gave to the fruit trees the purpose in life to produce fruit for eating and for the roses to produce blooms of beauty.
God has given purpose to our lives as well. Jesus speaks of people producing the fruits of the kingdom. Isaiah tells us that God wants our lives to be ones of justice and righteousness. God wants our lives to produce to satisfy the hungry hearts and care for those who suffer. God has planted us for this purpose.
God has applied to our lives a myriad of blessings to help us grow. God has pruned us so that we might be better focused upon what we are here to do.
Remember in those times in your life, when it is so painful, what your purpose is life is. Take a lesson from the old rose. Produce the fruit God has asked of you to produce,no matter your condition at the time.
The Rev. Doug Hale
Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-46
Isaiah sang a song for his beloved's vineyard and Jesus told a parable about those who tended a vineyard. While I don't think I'll try to sing you a song today, let me tell you about my new yard.
Our new house has an amazing garden. There are blackberry vines, apple trees, peach trees and cherry trees. You would expect that it would yield a variety of fruits, but other than the very productive blackberries, the apples were inedible and the peaches and cherries bore nothing.
Clearly, those who tended this garden in the past were not concerned that it bear fruit. The trees have gone without pruning. It is as if it had been allowed to go wild and fallow. On the other hand, I am sure it has received plenty of Oregon rain.
So judge with me. What should be done? This garden needs a new tenant who will help it bear fruit. In the many places I have lived, I have always tried to work with what the yard already has in place, trying to help it look it's best.
This yard is the most challenging I have ever faced. It is the only one that ever had fruit trees, and I don't know if I know enough to judge what are the right steps to take for the path to fruitfulness.
I know it will take some drastic pruning in some cases and some dormant spray. And then I will have to wait and see if they will bear worthy fruit or not.
Unfortunately, I already know that a peach tree and an apple tree will have to be dug up and cast out, for I judge that they are already dead.
In time, I hope to see a restored yard that is pleasant in appearance, and keeps me busy during the summer gathering in it's fruits.
Being the recipient of the gardener's pruning saw may not be a pleasant experience. At the time that it happens, do the trees really know the difference between the branches cut off by a gardener's judicious cuts and branches snapped off in a storm? The shock to the tree is one thing when yearly pruning removes small amounts of the tree is one thing. But what is it like for a tree to have half of its branches removed because it has gone out of control and it is not producing worthy fruit?
What is it like for us when difficulties come in our lives and large portions of who we are are torn away from us? It can be deeply painful. And how do we understand it? Is it simply the vicissitudes of life? Is it God's punishment? Is it the judicious discipline of our Lord? Whatever it is, it hurts all the same.
How shall we respond to what has happened to us whatever the cause or reason? Shall we be angry? Depressed? Shall reject the idea of God's judgment? Or what?
Let me tell you about what else is in my yard that I do know something about. There are five rose bushes of varying conditions. None of them had been cared for recently. The aphids where having a hay-day, when we moved in. Four of them seemed fairly healthy with a lot of growth, but they had not been properly pruned and they had very few if any blooms.
By the driveway is an old rose. It looked like it had been through a war. There were very few branches and fewer leaves. And yet, when we moved in, it had two large beautiful white with red blooms. I was amazed that it could actually bloom at all.
I did a bit of judicious pruning and applied systemic fertilizer and insecticide. Then I waited to see what would happen.
One has produced amazing clusters of small pink blooms. This rose will do well. But three of the healthiest looking roses have yet to bloom again, but they have put a lot of energy into more branches and leaves. This winter, I will need to do some drastic pruning and then wait and see if they will respond.
Then there is the old rose by the driveway. It began to put out new growth. On closer inspection I realized that in that new growth were five new buds...amazing! One of them began to open yesterday. Clearly, this rose knows that it's purpose in life is to produce flowers.
The purpose of life is what really matters. What was the purpose that Isaiah's beloved gave to the vineyard? To produce fruit! What purpose did Jesus' landowner give the tenants? To produce fruit!
God gave to the fruit trees the purpose in life to produce fruit for eating and for the roses to produce blooms of beauty.
God has given purpose to our lives as well. Jesus speaks of people producing the fruits of the kingdom. Isaiah tells us that God wants our lives to be ones of justice and righteousness. God wants our lives to produce to satisfy the hungry hearts and care for those who suffer. God has planted us for this purpose.
God has applied to our lives a myriad of blessings to help us grow. God has pruned us so that we might be better focused upon what we are here to do.
Remember in those times in your life, when it is so painful, what your purpose is life is. Take a lesson from the old rose. Produce the fruit God has asked of you to produce,no matter your condition at the time.
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