Year B, Advent 1 November 27, 2011
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Sometimes things are not what they seem.
The end of the Church year, lectionary wise, is kind of brutal. Weeping and gnashing of teeth in the parable of the talents; the goats cast into eternal hell fires… and now this week, Advent 1, the first Sunday of the church calendar, the re-creation of the endless cycle of time we live in begins with Mark’s Apocalyptic discourse. “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light…” Rough. It reminds us that Christianity, or at least Christian scripture, is not for the faint of heart.
What does the word apocalypse mean? Total destruction. Yes. Mark was written in some ugly times, somewhere between 64 (the persecution of Christians by Nero because of the burning of Rome) and 70 (the desolating sacrilege of the temple). What else does it mean? Revelation of the future, hence the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine is more commonly referred to as The Book of Revelation.
“Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down….” Thus says the Prophet Isaiah apocalyptically. So here is another Bible quiz. The heavens were torn open in the Biblical record when? Clue, it happened twice, both times apocalyptically; one representing the total destruction meaning of apocalypse, the other referring to the revelation of the future nature of the world. The first was in the beginning, in Genesis. The dome of the heavens was torn apart and what poured into the world? Water. The flood. When was the second time? The Baptism of our Lord. “And the heavens were torn open and the Spirit of the LORD descended like a dove upon Him.” “Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down….” Sometimes things are not what they seem.
We are just starting Advent. This is my favorite season of the Church year. It is the season of creation, of waiting for the new creation in the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Holiday wise, it does not get any better than this. Let’s put Advent, the season of creation in perspective with the larger Christian story, even the largest Christian story, our cosmology, our understanding of the universe.
To do this, we have to go back, way, way back to the rivers of Babylon where we sat down and remembered Zion. Israel was taken in bondage to Babylon in the 6th century BCE. As fate would have it, Hebrew writing and scholarship was coming of age in the time of the Babylonian captivity. It was the Axial Age, the couple hundred-year span of human history when the consciousness of our species collectively increased exponentially. Plato and Aristotle were running around in Greece. Confucious in China, Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) in South Asia, and it was the time when the books of Moses were first put to papyrus. The priestly scholars who began to write down the developing Jewish mythology of creation were scholarly enough to have become familiar with the Babylonian mythology of creation. This came in the form of an epic poem called the Enuma Elish. The Babylonians were going through an evolution too, and their creation narrative reflects this. Since Pre-history, we were all in the Goddess culture, worshipping the divine Earth Mother in Her curvaceous gorgeousness. Cycles of stars and moon and seasons reflected the dark watery mysteries of maternal fertility.
The Enuma Elish describes the “evolution” of Babylonian cosmology, from the centrality of an amorphous watery, maternal goddess Tiamat, in whose immense body was contained the universe, to the dominance of a young, angry storm God Marduke. Marduke got into a fight with Tiamat’s consort and killed him. Tiamat was enraged and the two fought. Marduke raised his sword and cleaved Tiamat in two. He separated the two halves and made them like a dome, and inside that dome, a more understandable life happened, one sheltered from the Chaos of Mystery. It was a decidedly feminine Mystery. “God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, separating the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.” That is our story; that the world we know is a contained by a dome cleaved from the Body of the Goddess to hold back the soup of infinite Mystery and Chaos. That is our story and it is Babylonian. Sometimes things are not what they seem.
The dome of heaven was torn apart by God first as a redux, to reboot. Things got off to a bad start and the destructive apocalyptic nature of reality was released and the Earth was purified with the Mystery of Water of Great Depth. The dome of the heavens, this thing constructed to keep the true nature of things walled out was torn open a second time when God revealed God’s self to us in the form of Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, God from God, light from light, True God from True God. And he was here, walking around, being human. Being our salvation.
What I am saying is that this dome of the heavens is a myth, a powerful and pervasive myth, but one not true. This is what Christ reveals. There was the old covenant, then there was version 2.0. 2.0, Jesus Christ, shows us that there is no dome; that the heavens and earth are not separate, that dualities are not real. The Incarnation of Jesus shows us that being can be understood in terms much broader than what we can see and feel and hear, that all equations do not have to balance in a way we rationally expect them to. Look with eyes wide open into the eyes of a baby or the eyes of anyone you deeply love… nothing computes there. Nothing adds up, but it is the most real and truthful thing I have ever experienced, looking into the windows of someone’s soul.
Thinking inside the dome we dread the unknown. Thinking inside the dome we value only the seen, not the unseen; but God created that, too. Thinking inside the dome we fear the greatest gift God gave in the Creation act: Mystery. Mystery this is the true nature of things and we cannot continue to live with the mystery of God and the world walled off behind bad religious mythology. We need to say to the myth of the dome what Glinda said when the Wicked Witch threatened her and Dorothy, “Rubbish, you have no power here.” O! that we were in Munchinland with Glinda. The constraints of the dome are powerful enemies, but only if we let them be.
The theologian Paul Santmire writes that the church happens under a hole in the heavens. It is like right above us, it happens each time we gather. The heavens are torn apart and the power and the glory of God is revealed in the people, in us gathered around this table in the actions we are about to take together. Church happens under a hole in the heavens where Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior is revealed to us. In Advent we are again practicing waiting for His arrival, cloaked in flesh, an infant child born in poverty, into a world of empire and violence and despair and the indelible knowledge and hope that God loves us absolutely, unconditionally and eternally, time and time again no matter what. That is the story we as Christians hold up for the sake of the world. Sometimes things are not what they seem. And sometimes that is great. AMEN.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Christ the King, November 20, 2011
Christ the King, November 20, 2011
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Windy and I lived in Portland nine years ago. I was interning in a church up there. Every one remembers what happened in March/April 2003, right? Right. Remember the mess up to Portland? It was really living up to George HW’s moniker “Little Beruit.” It was my first introduction to Eugene as I heard at one protest, “The Eugene anarchists are here, they’re the worst! (meaning best)” It was pretty exciting.
Folks from the church I was working in were quite active in protesting the downward spiral towards war, and one nasty, cold, rainy night, like only nights down by the waterfront in Portland can be, we were part of a big candle light vigil. We were somewhat huddled against each other, backs to the wind, trying to keep warm and keep our candles lit. From a far I bet we looked like a glowing cluster of yaks. We were standing there in silence, praying, and a presumably homeless, decidedly drunk man pushed his way into the circle. He sat down, looking around. “What is everyone doing?” He had a loud, disagreeable voice. “Why does everyone have candles? I don’t have a candle.” And he started singing, kind of. I have never seen that many church folks look so mortified at once. Well, a young pastor there walked over to this man, handed him a candle, and helped him light it. The man said thanks and sat there quietly for the remaining 20 minutes of the vigil. I do not know if he had any idea what we were doing there, but he sat quietly and kept that beautiful, warm little flame safe a top his candle. As we walked away, he kept sitting there, doing a better job of keeping his candle lit that we all did.
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.”
Does anyone recognize the term “preferential option for the poor”? What does it mean? It means that God prefers the poor, God is on the side of the poor. Does anyone know where it comes from? It comes from the world of liberation theology. It means that God, that Jesus Christ is most potently and palpably present with the weakest, the most at risk, the most broken and poverty stricken. The face of our savior is most clearly witnessed in the faces of the most beaten down by our world, by our community, lets face it, if not locally then certainly globally, by us. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me.”
Gustavo Gutiérrez was a Dominican priest who grew up in the slums of Lima, Peru, as difficult a city as there is in South America. And Gutiérrez grew up in the middle of it. He wrote A Theology of Liberation in 1971. The term “Preferential option for the poor” arises in this groundbreaking book. He lived in the world that most humans throughout history have known as a reality: a world of squalor, of sickness, of violence, of cold nights and dirty water and of really not knowing if you can feed your children today. That was certainly the condition of Jesus’ Galilee. And this little mestizo priest wrote, “I desire that the hunger for God may remain, that the hunger for bread may be satisfied… Hunger for God, yes; hunger for bread, no.” Of course tidings of great joy have also coursed through humans engaged in suffering and survival; it is not all terrible all of the time. This is what Gutiérrez and his contemporaries saw in the slums of Lima and San Salvador, and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. In the midst of body, mind and spirit bending poverty, joy happens. Love happens. Life happens. Christ happens. In fact, Christ happens most in the places of deepest suffering. That is one of the paradoxes, the great mysteries of our faith. Can you imagine anything more liberating? The more miserable you are, the sicker you are, the more depressed you are the more our God is there with you.
This follows in Christ’s teaching that he came not for the righteous, but the sinners, not the well, but the sick. God goes where God is most needed. And where is that? Where there is the most need. Where there is the most brokenness. Where there is the most pain and heartbreak. In the darkest nights, in the hardest places, in the most desolate lives, we will find our Savior and our salvation.
So if you haven’t noticed, I am male. I am awfully white. I happen to be straight, and married and with healthy children. I grew up loved and safe, and have kept up the habit of being well fed. I was afforded the privilege of way too much elite education. In short, I have to be careful about being too self-righteous because when we are talking about the least of these, I am pretty sure what side of the equation I am on. I am in the 99%, which I am certain God prefers, but I, many of us maybe in this place, are not among the least in the kingdom.
Does this mean that God is not with me, is not with us in our relative comfort and wealth and privilege? No. God so loved the world that not only were we given the only begotten Son, but we each were also, each of us given life. Full, loved, blessed life. This is a sign that you are loved by God unconditionally. You are. But the preferential option for the poor, the idea that God in Christ gravitates to the places of most suffering teaches us that God is most present not in our shiny, happy places, the places we like to lead with, that we bring out on first dates, but God is most present in our hurt. Our broken bits. In the sores we carry on our bodies and in our hearts. God is sort of like a holy T-cell, rushing to the broken part because that is where God is most needed.
By this rule it would mean that God is most present in me when I am feeling most cranky. So, let’s say at 5:00 most mornings I am most bursting with God? Well, sort of. How does this work? Some years back I knew someone who was going through a really hard time. Her marriage was complicated. She had young children. She was depressed and everything was stressful. She felt incompetent, she felt like a lousy mom. That must be a terrible feeling. I don’t think I would have known how bad things were going for her, or how badly she felt, but she told me some of the things she had been feeling, and doing and not doing with her kids, quite literally to the least of these, you know what, it was like she was held in the arms of a host of angels. Telling me some pretty ugly things, opening herself up to God and the world made what conventional wisdom says to be an ugly thing, a lousy mom, it turned it, it turned her into a beautiful thing, a child of God as hurt and broken as can be, AND who needs, and wants the light of Christ to shine in her. And it did. Brilliantly.
There is an old rabbinic teaching that tells us that God sits atop our hearts and it is not until they are broken that the Word trickles in. This is the heart of liberation theology. God is most present where God is most needed. When we accept our brokenness, our ugliness, our distance from God not as some punishment or mark of the evil one but as another opening for God to enter; the kingdom is that much closer to us. With the eyes of our hearts enlightened, may we know the hope to which we are called. AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Windy and I lived in Portland nine years ago. I was interning in a church up there. Every one remembers what happened in March/April 2003, right? Right. Remember the mess up to Portland? It was really living up to George HW’s moniker “Little Beruit.” It was my first introduction to Eugene as I heard at one protest, “The Eugene anarchists are here, they’re the worst! (meaning best)” It was pretty exciting.
Folks from the church I was working in were quite active in protesting the downward spiral towards war, and one nasty, cold, rainy night, like only nights down by the waterfront in Portland can be, we were part of a big candle light vigil. We were somewhat huddled against each other, backs to the wind, trying to keep warm and keep our candles lit. From a far I bet we looked like a glowing cluster of yaks. We were standing there in silence, praying, and a presumably homeless, decidedly drunk man pushed his way into the circle. He sat down, looking around. “What is everyone doing?” He had a loud, disagreeable voice. “Why does everyone have candles? I don’t have a candle.” And he started singing, kind of. I have never seen that many church folks look so mortified at once. Well, a young pastor there walked over to this man, handed him a candle, and helped him light it. The man said thanks and sat there quietly for the remaining 20 minutes of the vigil. I do not know if he had any idea what we were doing there, but he sat quietly and kept that beautiful, warm little flame safe a top his candle. As we walked away, he kept sitting there, doing a better job of keeping his candle lit that we all did.
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.”
Does anyone recognize the term “preferential option for the poor”? What does it mean? It means that God prefers the poor, God is on the side of the poor. Does anyone know where it comes from? It comes from the world of liberation theology. It means that God, that Jesus Christ is most potently and palpably present with the weakest, the most at risk, the most broken and poverty stricken. The face of our savior is most clearly witnessed in the faces of the most beaten down by our world, by our community, lets face it, if not locally then certainly globally, by us. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me.”
Gustavo Gutiérrez was a Dominican priest who grew up in the slums of Lima, Peru, as difficult a city as there is in South America. And Gutiérrez grew up in the middle of it. He wrote A Theology of Liberation in 1971. The term “Preferential option for the poor” arises in this groundbreaking book. He lived in the world that most humans throughout history have known as a reality: a world of squalor, of sickness, of violence, of cold nights and dirty water and of really not knowing if you can feed your children today. That was certainly the condition of Jesus’ Galilee. And this little mestizo priest wrote, “I desire that the hunger for God may remain, that the hunger for bread may be satisfied… Hunger for God, yes; hunger for bread, no.” Of course tidings of great joy have also coursed through humans engaged in suffering and survival; it is not all terrible all of the time. This is what Gutiérrez and his contemporaries saw in the slums of Lima and San Salvador, and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. In the midst of body, mind and spirit bending poverty, joy happens. Love happens. Life happens. Christ happens. In fact, Christ happens most in the places of deepest suffering. That is one of the paradoxes, the great mysteries of our faith. Can you imagine anything more liberating? The more miserable you are, the sicker you are, the more depressed you are the more our God is there with you.
This follows in Christ’s teaching that he came not for the righteous, but the sinners, not the well, but the sick. God goes where God is most needed. And where is that? Where there is the most need. Where there is the most brokenness. Where there is the most pain and heartbreak. In the darkest nights, in the hardest places, in the most desolate lives, we will find our Savior and our salvation.
So if you haven’t noticed, I am male. I am awfully white. I happen to be straight, and married and with healthy children. I grew up loved and safe, and have kept up the habit of being well fed. I was afforded the privilege of way too much elite education. In short, I have to be careful about being too self-righteous because when we are talking about the least of these, I am pretty sure what side of the equation I am on. I am in the 99%, which I am certain God prefers, but I, many of us maybe in this place, are not among the least in the kingdom.
Does this mean that God is not with me, is not with us in our relative comfort and wealth and privilege? No. God so loved the world that not only were we given the only begotten Son, but we each were also, each of us given life. Full, loved, blessed life. This is a sign that you are loved by God unconditionally. You are. But the preferential option for the poor, the idea that God in Christ gravitates to the places of most suffering teaches us that God is most present not in our shiny, happy places, the places we like to lead with, that we bring out on first dates, but God is most present in our hurt. Our broken bits. In the sores we carry on our bodies and in our hearts. God is sort of like a holy T-cell, rushing to the broken part because that is where God is most needed.
By this rule it would mean that God is most present in me when I am feeling most cranky. So, let’s say at 5:00 most mornings I am most bursting with God? Well, sort of. How does this work? Some years back I knew someone who was going through a really hard time. Her marriage was complicated. She had young children. She was depressed and everything was stressful. She felt incompetent, she felt like a lousy mom. That must be a terrible feeling. I don’t think I would have known how bad things were going for her, or how badly she felt, but she told me some of the things she had been feeling, and doing and not doing with her kids, quite literally to the least of these, you know what, it was like she was held in the arms of a host of angels. Telling me some pretty ugly things, opening herself up to God and the world made what conventional wisdom says to be an ugly thing, a lousy mom, it turned it, it turned her into a beautiful thing, a child of God as hurt and broken as can be, AND who needs, and wants the light of Christ to shine in her. And it did. Brilliantly.
There is an old rabbinic teaching that tells us that God sits atop our hearts and it is not until they are broken that the Word trickles in. This is the heart of liberation theology. God is most present where God is most needed. When we accept our brokenness, our ugliness, our distance from God not as some punishment or mark of the evil one but as another opening for God to enter; the kingdom is that much closer to us. With the eyes of our hearts enlightened, may we know the hope to which we are called. AMEN
November 13, 2011, 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
November 13, 2011, 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
The parable of the talents. This is a hard scripture to hold on to. It was hard to write on. Sometimes a sermon just flows. Sometimes it feels like the Holy Spirit is just dancing with my finger tips on the keyboard. Sometimes it feels more like I keep stepping on them like so many toes.
It is a hard story to hear. To the two who did well, who invested wisely and brought their master 100% returns, they were welcomed into the master’s joy. Who does not want to be welcomed into someone’s joy? But the one who was scared, “you reap where you did not sow, gathered where you did not scatter”, who buried the talent in the field, he was to be thrown into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A preacher I knew used to have a good way to talk to someone who said “I do not believe in God.” The preacher would say, “Describe the God you don’t believe in and I’ll bet, I do not believe in that God either.” To be clear, I do not believe in, nor have I experienced in my life a God that casts anyone into any kind of outer darkness. I have, though, known more than a few people who have been cast out by their fellow humans, and those who cast themselves into some pretty horrible places all by them selves.
This is a hard scripture because there is noting neat or tidy about it. It is not pretty. And worse yet, it describes a lot of people’s experience of the world. Fearfulness. Enslavement to all sorts of things. The arbitrary nature of good fortune. I mean why did one slave have five talents, another two and the last one to begin with? Sometimes there are clear answers for why some have and some have-not: structural racism; cycles of generational poverty; the insidiousness of domestic violence and sexual abuse; the heavy burden of mental and physical illness. Addiction. And then sometimes… not so much, we do not have clear answers. We do not have a theological category for bad luck. Nothing tidy in this parable.
Here is the context. Matthew was writing not too long after 70 CE. Who knows what happed in 70 in Matthew’s neighborhood? Right, the destruction of the Temple by the Roman imperial legions. It would be like Wall Street, Washington DC and every major religious group’s national headquarters were simultaneously destroyed by an occupying army. It was a desolating sacrilege.
Even in this time of utter fragmentation of a society, there were those who clung to the temple cult. The Judiasm of Deuteronomy, where YHWH demanded blood offerings in a specific place, the Temple in Jerusalem. It was folly. The Temple was not going to be rebuilt. This was the beginning of the Diaspora. It had been a precious thing, this cult, but its leaders were fearfully protecting their tradition, hiding it under a bushel; burying it in a field.
At the same time, in that season of desolating sacrilege, even in that dark time there was a tiny sect of people who followed the Way. It was the Way of a messianic peasant dissident who had been executed by the Romans at the behest of the collaborators who led the Temple and the government. Their Way was an immanently optimistic way. Their leader, Jesus, martyred 40 years prior, had risen from the dead and was expected to return. Expected any day. Any day. For 40 years, the followers of this way, a way not even calling itself Christian yet, expected His return any day. And they knew that they had something really good. Really, really Good. Good news about a God that was available, freely offered to everyone, not just Jews like themselves, but to everyone, starting with the Greek speaking peoples Paul carried the Word to. And the folks Matthew was writing for worked hard, really, really hard to spread this word and build the lives they knew they had to live and they fully expected that any day now, any day now Jesus the Annointed One of God would return and the age would come to an end. And, not but, and, they kept on working and living and praying and having families, and telling everyone they could that God loved them and that to truly experience the love of God required us to love God fully and love our neighbor as our self.
The slave with five talents and the one with two, they knew they had something of value and they did with it what the master expected. The exploitive nature of these relationships, all the great Marxist critique of the nature of capital that this story seems to beg for is not the point. Do not get me wrong, Marxist critiques of the nature of capital are generally complimentary to a Christian worldview. The point, however, is that the slave who had one talent, one nugget of great value, he squandered the gift he had been given. If he had truly valued that which he had been entrusted with, he would have done something with it. He didn’t. His fear guided him. He wasted the opportunity he had been given and then the master is back and then came the whole outer darkness thing… bad choice.
So what does this mean for us? Well, in a way it means for us the same it meant for Matthew’s people. Of course, the Great Recession and the slow motion collapse of European economies we are not at the level of desolating sacrilege. But the Church is in decline. The way we have understood and practiced our faith and how we have lived as a religious community, like assuming a time when most folks went to church on Sundays, that we have enough money to do what we want, that churches grow… that time is over. We are entering the post-Christian century, and to my mind, this is a very good thing, the best thing that could happen to the church. Our anscestors left us a beautiful church of great value, but for too long, for the past fifty years probably, we have been hiding this beautiful thing in a hole, fearful of fate, of not succeeding, of losing something we are incredibly attached to. And the bugaboo looming on the fringes of our perception, that cruel master with the power to banish into the outer darkness, that is not a vengeful God, it is the cold hard drumbeat of progress, of evolution, of change… so many of us have been fearful of the church’s decline that we have hunkered down. Faced inboard. Steadied ourselves against the onslaught. Buried our talent in the ground.
What Jesus Christ demands of us and with loving kindness empowers us to do is to let that light we hold shine in the darkness. Our own inner light of God needs to shine in the world in the face of adversity. In the face of lay offs and sickness and heart break and death, when we can remember that God abides in us, always and everywhere no matter how dark the night seems, our light shines brighter even bright enough for others to find there way by.
And together, in the face of an institution in decline, when we together witness into the world the light of Christ, practicing living in the Kingdom of God by living like we are in the Kingdom of God… you know, being kind, sharing, taking care of each other and the world around us, living with eyes wide open AND not being cowered by fear… this is The Way; it needs to be Our Way. That is our pearl of great price sowed widely, and watch it will return 30 and 60 and even 100 fold. Those kind of returns would make the most greedy capitalist happy; imagine how happy our humble Lord Jesus Christ will be with our diligence? A light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
The parable of the talents. This is a hard scripture to hold on to. It was hard to write on. Sometimes a sermon just flows. Sometimes it feels like the Holy Spirit is just dancing with my finger tips on the keyboard. Sometimes it feels more like I keep stepping on them like so many toes.
It is a hard story to hear. To the two who did well, who invested wisely and brought their master 100% returns, they were welcomed into the master’s joy. Who does not want to be welcomed into someone’s joy? But the one who was scared, “you reap where you did not sow, gathered where you did not scatter”, who buried the talent in the field, he was to be thrown into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A preacher I knew used to have a good way to talk to someone who said “I do not believe in God.” The preacher would say, “Describe the God you don’t believe in and I’ll bet, I do not believe in that God either.” To be clear, I do not believe in, nor have I experienced in my life a God that casts anyone into any kind of outer darkness. I have, though, known more than a few people who have been cast out by their fellow humans, and those who cast themselves into some pretty horrible places all by them selves.
This is a hard scripture because there is noting neat or tidy about it. It is not pretty. And worse yet, it describes a lot of people’s experience of the world. Fearfulness. Enslavement to all sorts of things. The arbitrary nature of good fortune. I mean why did one slave have five talents, another two and the last one to begin with? Sometimes there are clear answers for why some have and some have-not: structural racism; cycles of generational poverty; the insidiousness of domestic violence and sexual abuse; the heavy burden of mental and physical illness. Addiction. And then sometimes… not so much, we do not have clear answers. We do not have a theological category for bad luck. Nothing tidy in this parable.
Here is the context. Matthew was writing not too long after 70 CE. Who knows what happed in 70 in Matthew’s neighborhood? Right, the destruction of the Temple by the Roman imperial legions. It would be like Wall Street, Washington DC and every major religious group’s national headquarters were simultaneously destroyed by an occupying army. It was a desolating sacrilege.
Even in this time of utter fragmentation of a society, there were those who clung to the temple cult. The Judiasm of Deuteronomy, where YHWH demanded blood offerings in a specific place, the Temple in Jerusalem. It was folly. The Temple was not going to be rebuilt. This was the beginning of the Diaspora. It had been a precious thing, this cult, but its leaders were fearfully protecting their tradition, hiding it under a bushel; burying it in a field.
At the same time, in that season of desolating sacrilege, even in that dark time there was a tiny sect of people who followed the Way. It was the Way of a messianic peasant dissident who had been executed by the Romans at the behest of the collaborators who led the Temple and the government. Their Way was an immanently optimistic way. Their leader, Jesus, martyred 40 years prior, had risen from the dead and was expected to return. Expected any day. Any day. For 40 years, the followers of this way, a way not even calling itself Christian yet, expected His return any day. And they knew that they had something really good. Really, really Good. Good news about a God that was available, freely offered to everyone, not just Jews like themselves, but to everyone, starting with the Greek speaking peoples Paul carried the Word to. And the folks Matthew was writing for worked hard, really, really hard to spread this word and build the lives they knew they had to live and they fully expected that any day now, any day now Jesus the Annointed One of God would return and the age would come to an end. And, not but, and, they kept on working and living and praying and having families, and telling everyone they could that God loved them and that to truly experience the love of God required us to love God fully and love our neighbor as our self.
The slave with five talents and the one with two, they knew they had something of value and they did with it what the master expected. The exploitive nature of these relationships, all the great Marxist critique of the nature of capital that this story seems to beg for is not the point. Do not get me wrong, Marxist critiques of the nature of capital are generally complimentary to a Christian worldview. The point, however, is that the slave who had one talent, one nugget of great value, he squandered the gift he had been given. If he had truly valued that which he had been entrusted with, he would have done something with it. He didn’t. His fear guided him. He wasted the opportunity he had been given and then the master is back and then came the whole outer darkness thing… bad choice.
So what does this mean for us? Well, in a way it means for us the same it meant for Matthew’s people. Of course, the Great Recession and the slow motion collapse of European economies we are not at the level of desolating sacrilege. But the Church is in decline. The way we have understood and practiced our faith and how we have lived as a religious community, like assuming a time when most folks went to church on Sundays, that we have enough money to do what we want, that churches grow… that time is over. We are entering the post-Christian century, and to my mind, this is a very good thing, the best thing that could happen to the church. Our anscestors left us a beautiful church of great value, but for too long, for the past fifty years probably, we have been hiding this beautiful thing in a hole, fearful of fate, of not succeeding, of losing something we are incredibly attached to. And the bugaboo looming on the fringes of our perception, that cruel master with the power to banish into the outer darkness, that is not a vengeful God, it is the cold hard drumbeat of progress, of evolution, of change… so many of us have been fearful of the church’s decline that we have hunkered down. Faced inboard. Steadied ourselves against the onslaught. Buried our talent in the ground.
What Jesus Christ demands of us and with loving kindness empowers us to do is to let that light we hold shine in the darkness. Our own inner light of God needs to shine in the world in the face of adversity. In the face of lay offs and sickness and heart break and death, when we can remember that God abides in us, always and everywhere no matter how dark the night seems, our light shines brighter even bright enough for others to find there way by.
And together, in the face of an institution in decline, when we together witness into the world the light of Christ, practicing living in the Kingdom of God by living like we are in the Kingdom of God… you know, being kind, sharing, taking care of each other and the world around us, living with eyes wide open AND not being cowered by fear… this is The Way; it needs to be Our Way. That is our pearl of great price sowed widely, and watch it will return 30 and 60 and even 100 fold. Those kind of returns would make the most greedy capitalist happy; imagine how happy our humble Lord Jesus Christ will be with our diligence? A light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. AMEN
All Saint's Day, November 6, 2011
All Saint’s Nov 6, 2011
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Ok, so my family and I just moved to Eugene two weeks ago. We moved from North of Boston, not too, too far from where Patti and Doug moved from. Today was my first day as the Priest in Charge at Church of the Resurrection down in South Eugene. So I am very new to town, but I have already figured out enough to know that the way to endear myself to Oregonians is probably not to preach on the wonders of Los Angeles, California. That’s accurate, right? I want to make sure I have the pulse of the community before I get started in my ministry here...
Has anyone here been to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in LA? I do not know anything about architecture; I generally prefer a meadow to a building any day; but some years ago I was at a conference down there and we were introduced to this cathedral. It opened in 2002, and replaced the former cathedral which was destroyed in the ’94 Northridge quake. From day one in the planning of this building, it was going to be different. The building, and all of the major systems and furnishings were to be designed to last for 500 years. I was amazed by that. What do we do now that could possibly last for 500 years? Have you ever thought in that kind of time frame? 500 years… The design of this building apparently pushed the envelope of seismic design, the whole building floats in some way over this 100 foot deep trench. It has passive air circulation that cools it with no moving parts, and instead of stained glass it has windows consisting of the largest amount of alabaster ever used in a construction project. And it is beautiful, it is a post-modern mission style, concrete instead of adobe… it is just fantastic.
It did not go with out controversy, primarily over the $189 million price tag that many said could have been used to feed the poor. (Judas said something like that once, too, no?) It is a fair critique, but then again, 500 years from now, it will be the only building still standing that was intended to still be standing. Who but the church could do this? Who but the church can think in terms of 500 years?
I bring up the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on this All Saint’s Day because of something I saw inside of that church when I visited. All along the side walls, maybe 20 feet tall and as long as the walls (the sanctuary is 333 feet long -1 foot longer that St. Patrick’s in New York) there are these tapestries made by John Nava. It is s cycle of 25 tapestries and is called “The Communion of Saints”. So first off, remember, these tapestries were commissioned to last 500 years. And to describe these tapestries, I need to describe the process, because this piece of art is the epitome of the process and the medium being the message, and the message is All Saints.
The over all effect of the work is that the walls of the church are lined with 200, maybe people, 20 foot tall people lining the walls, all looking directly toward the altar, all this energy in this crowd facing forward in this immense and amazing building in the heart of LA. So that is the effect, how it was arrived at is the magic.
So Nava started by taking photographs of 200ish of his friends’ faces. The weaving happened on these very special digital looms in Beligum, so the images are really from the photographs. Then he asked 200ish people how they prayed. Like, how they held their hands, what posture they were in. Hands folded. Arms out. Lotus position…how they prayed. So he portrayed the bodies in all of those various postures; then he costumed the figures in the dress of the period from an historical saint. Each figure represented an actual saint, and each figure had a label at the bottom. So the head and hands of his friend Bill became St. Thomas Aquinas and was clothed as Thomas would have been clothed. St. Matthew is there, a few of the Johns, I’ll assume that your John was there, folks from Springfield, you don’t leave out the guys that write the Apocalypses, Blood of the Lamb and all. Woe be it on the one who forgets the one who wrote about the Blood of the Lamb and the Beasts. Mary of course is there. And mixed in are some children and something like six anonymous saints. We all have met that kind of person before, the anonymous saints.
The process of making that art, this gorgeous tapestry that will hang for 500 years in a holy place. We are in it together. We are not alone. It takes a crowd to approach God. The message is the process and the medium.
I did not participate in a Mass there. But I sat in the pews for a good long time with the other conference goers, a collection of academics gathered for an annual meeting of the Society of Buddhist – Christian Studies. A pretty interesting group of folks to go to church with. It was not Mass, but I could imagine having Mass there. The effect was so deep. You really were surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, a legion that went before us, that is still with us, that continues to lead us, that we are part of and will become part of…The Communion of Saints. How many times have we said that line, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints…” Everyone says that every morning when you say Morning Prayer, right? I had never gotten the meaning of that line from the Apostles Creed ‘til I sat there, really surrounded by that polyglot of saints from across time and space.
And look at us here. Our little slice of the communion of saints in this place at this time are gathered here’ we are from different parishes, from different cities, from different backgrounds, with different futures with different gifts and problems. But we are gathered here together, praying together, being a communion of saints. Now none of us have plans to be here in 500 years; at least not realistic plans of that, but here we are, Maybe this gathering will last 500 years. Not this actual gathering…
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Ok, so my family and I just moved to Eugene two weeks ago. We moved from North of Boston, not too, too far from where Patti and Doug moved from. Today was my first day as the Priest in Charge at Church of the Resurrection down in South Eugene. So I am very new to town, but I have already figured out enough to know that the way to endear myself to Oregonians is probably not to preach on the wonders of Los Angeles, California. That’s accurate, right? I want to make sure I have the pulse of the community before I get started in my ministry here...
Has anyone here been to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in LA? I do not know anything about architecture; I generally prefer a meadow to a building any day; but some years ago I was at a conference down there and we were introduced to this cathedral. It opened in 2002, and replaced the former cathedral which was destroyed in the ’94 Northridge quake. From day one in the planning of this building, it was going to be different. The building, and all of the major systems and furnishings were to be designed to last for 500 years. I was amazed by that. What do we do now that could possibly last for 500 years? Have you ever thought in that kind of time frame? 500 years… The design of this building apparently pushed the envelope of seismic design, the whole building floats in some way over this 100 foot deep trench. It has passive air circulation that cools it with no moving parts, and instead of stained glass it has windows consisting of the largest amount of alabaster ever used in a construction project. And it is beautiful, it is a post-modern mission style, concrete instead of adobe… it is just fantastic.
It did not go with out controversy, primarily over the $189 million price tag that many said could have been used to feed the poor. (Judas said something like that once, too, no?) It is a fair critique, but then again, 500 years from now, it will be the only building still standing that was intended to still be standing. Who but the church could do this? Who but the church can think in terms of 500 years?
I bring up the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on this All Saint’s Day because of something I saw inside of that church when I visited. All along the side walls, maybe 20 feet tall and as long as the walls (the sanctuary is 333 feet long -1 foot longer that St. Patrick’s in New York) there are these tapestries made by John Nava. It is s cycle of 25 tapestries and is called “The Communion of Saints”. So first off, remember, these tapestries were commissioned to last 500 years. And to describe these tapestries, I need to describe the process, because this piece of art is the epitome of the process and the medium being the message, and the message is All Saints.
The over all effect of the work is that the walls of the church are lined with 200, maybe people, 20 foot tall people lining the walls, all looking directly toward the altar, all this energy in this crowd facing forward in this immense and amazing building in the heart of LA. So that is the effect, how it was arrived at is the magic.
So Nava started by taking photographs of 200ish of his friends’ faces. The weaving happened on these very special digital looms in Beligum, so the images are really from the photographs. Then he asked 200ish people how they prayed. Like, how they held their hands, what posture they were in. Hands folded. Arms out. Lotus position…how they prayed. So he portrayed the bodies in all of those various postures; then he costumed the figures in the dress of the period from an historical saint. Each figure represented an actual saint, and each figure had a label at the bottom. So the head and hands of his friend Bill became St. Thomas Aquinas and was clothed as Thomas would have been clothed. St. Matthew is there, a few of the Johns, I’ll assume that your John was there, folks from Springfield, you don’t leave out the guys that write the Apocalypses, Blood of the Lamb and all. Woe be it on the one who forgets the one who wrote about the Blood of the Lamb and the Beasts. Mary of course is there. And mixed in are some children and something like six anonymous saints. We all have met that kind of person before, the anonymous saints.
The process of making that art, this gorgeous tapestry that will hang for 500 years in a holy place. We are in it together. We are not alone. It takes a crowd to approach God. The message is the process and the medium.
I did not participate in a Mass there. But I sat in the pews for a good long time with the other conference goers, a collection of academics gathered for an annual meeting of the Society of Buddhist – Christian Studies. A pretty interesting group of folks to go to church with. It was not Mass, but I could imagine having Mass there. The effect was so deep. You really were surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, a legion that went before us, that is still with us, that continues to lead us, that we are part of and will become part of…The Communion of Saints. How many times have we said that line, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints…” Everyone says that every morning when you say Morning Prayer, right? I had never gotten the meaning of that line from the Apostles Creed ‘til I sat there, really surrounded by that polyglot of saints from across time and space.
And look at us here. Our little slice of the communion of saints in this place at this time are gathered here’ we are from different parishes, from different cities, from different backgrounds, with different futures with different gifts and problems. But we are gathered here together, praying together, being a communion of saints. Now none of us have plans to be here in 500 years; at least not realistic plans of that, but here we are, Maybe this gathering will last 500 years. Not this actual gathering…
Friday, October 28, 2011
October 23, 2011, 19th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
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
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
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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