Ordinary Time

Proper 9, Year B, 2012

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

What is on your resumé?

You list your successes, right?  You tell your future employers that you are an incredibly competent individual with a great track record of success!  You tell them you have managed projects and people, that you have delivered deliverables, and of course, that you are competent in the use of Microsoft Office and some basic HTML.

When you write your college essays, you try to horn in every sport you played and every drama production in which you performed.  You make sure to tell universities about your community service and your summer jobs.  If your SAT scores were great, you make sure that information is front and center!  And if they were lousy, you work extra hard to play up your other wonderful qualities.

And on a first date, you don’t lead with stories of how you completely ruined your last relationship.  You don’t admit that you spend most nights on your couch watching Law and Order re-runs.  No!  You make yourself sound extremely personable and interesting.  You talk about your travels, the exotic food you like to cook, what complex novel you’ve been reading.

Knowing and being confident about your strengths is part of surviving in our world.  Even in the church we do spiritual gifts inventories and think about our vocations in terms of our strengths meeting the needs of the world.

But do we rely so much on our strengths we forget to rely on God?  By having a culture in which people are valued for their contributions and accolades, where does that leave people who are unable to contribute?  Where does that leave people who have won no prizes?

The Apostle Paul is the founder of Christianity.  His writings were the first writings we had about Jesus.  His epistles were written years before the Gospels were written.  He traveled constantly, spreading the good news about Jesus.

His ministry was difficult, because he was ministering to places that were far away. He would help set up church communities and then keep up with them by letter, and in his absence, things would often fall apart.  Corinth was one of these places.

When Paul left Corinth, a group of other people claiming to be Jesus’ apostles came into town.  They tried to undermine Paul’s authority by arguing that if God was really pleased with Paul, Paul would not suffer.  But, since Paul has been beaten, arrested, even shipwrecked, God must not be in his corner.

This news gets to Paul and he writes the Corinthians this letter.  Paul is not ashamed of the things that have happened to him.  He claims each of them as part of his unique experience, and even as badges of honor.

Paul is confident in his faith.  In our reading today, he reveals this incredible spiritual experience he’s had.  However, he also reveals that he has some sort of “thorn in the flesh” that keeps him from getting too elated.  No one knows what this thorn is.  Could it be a physical ailment, sexual temptation, a disfigurement?  The ailment itself does not matter.  What matters is how Paul interprets the thorn.  Paul reveals that through prayer God has told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul clears up two things for the Corinthians.  First, Paul’s beatings, imprisonments, and shipwrecks are not punishments from God.  Second, the struggles that Paul has endured can be windows through which Paul and the world can see God’s power.

Paul knows that his value comes not from what he does, but from the Cross.  Paul knows that he is not the center of the universe.  Jesus’ death and resurrection are.  Paul’s thorn can be a window through which other people can experience the power of the Cross.

God is not impressed by our resumés.  If we are getting straight As and huge bonuses and are in perfect physical health and in incredibly happy relationships, we can get seduced into thinking we don’t need God, that the cross has no relevance to our lives.  We can start to believe that we earned our happiness, that our hard work and good character has brought us blessings.  And if we think we are so wonderful because of our hard work, we start to think that people who don’t share our blessings must not have worked so hard.  We perpetuate this sick theology that people who are poor, or disabled, or unintelligent have somehow displeased God.

Did you hear Michael Lewis’s speech to Princeton’s graduating class this year?  He warned Princeton students of just this phenomenon.

Lewis claims success is largely luck and that Princeton students are incredibly lucky to be born with intelligence and the schooling and the money to be able to attend the institution.  After sharing how his experience as a Princeton student got him a job at Salomon Brothers for which he was no way qualified, he stated:

“My case illustrates how success is always rationalized. People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don’t want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world does not want to acknowledge it either. “

He went on to tell the students about an experiment performed at CalTech in which groups of three students were tasked to solve puzzles.  One student was arbitrarily appointed the leader of the group.  A plate of four cookies was brought to the students.   Inevitably, the randomly appointed leader would eat the extra cookie.

Lewis ended his speech by saying, “All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you’ll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don’t.”

While Lewis’s speech was not intended to be a theological one, it resonates with the ideas Paul is wrestling with here.

Whether we use the framework of success or blessing, we must be careful in how we think about God’s blessing and punishment.

God is not a Kindergarten teacher who rewards for good behaviors and punishes for bad behaviors.  When wonderful things happen to us, it is not because God thinks we are wonderful.  When bad things happen to us, it is not because God is mad at us.  Life is incredibly complicated and we make a hundred choices each day that ripple out and have consequences we never could have dreamed.  And often, the best and worst parts of life are completely random.  On any given day we could meet our life partner or get hit by a bus.  The thorns in our sides may be a result of some behavior on our part, but more often are just part of the chaotic soup of what it means to be human.  The one constant, the one thing we can always rely on is that God loved us so much that Jesus lived and died for us, whether we are successes or failures.

And whether our thorn is a bad hip, or dyslexia, or being chronically unlucky in love, God can show himself in powerful ways in the midst of our difficulties.  When our ego is stripped away, we can begin a spiritual life.  We can begin to acknowledge that we are not the center of the Universe, that we need help, that we need God.

Our thorns bring us up short, stop us in our tracks, make us face our biggest fears.  But our thorns also bring us face to face with the living God, with the deep knowledge that even though we are in pain and afraid, we are not alone.  God is with us.

Do you remember the story of Jacob from the book of Genesis? Jacob and a mysterious man wrestle all night and the physical struggle results in a life long limp.  At the end of the wrestling match, the opponent tells Jacob that he will be called Israel from now on, and Jacob asks the man to bless him.  Jacob knows he is encountering the living God.  For Jacob to be prepared to be the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, he must first realize his own limitations and yield to the living God.

Our thorns force us to face God.  When we face God, we learn to trust him.  When we trust God, he asks us to follow him.  When we follow him, the adventure begins.

Are you willing to be defined by God’s love for you rather than your strengths? Are you willing to share your cookies?  Are you willing to face your thorns?  Are you willing to go on a great adventure?

 

The entire Michael Lewis speech can be read here:  http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-lewis-princeton-commencement-remarks-2012-6#ixzz1zmV6nc8r

 

Proper 6, Year B, 2012

/ Sarah / 1 Comment

A shrub?

The Kingdom of God is like a shrub?

Shouldn’t the Kingdom of God be a little more. . .majestic?  Maybe the Kingdom of God is like a cedar tree? Or if not majestic, what about beautiful?  Maybe the Kingdom of God is like a lovely rose.

No, we are stuck with the image of the mustard plant, which is, at least, a very large shrub.

What does Jesus want us to learn about the Kingdom of God in this parable?

The mustard plant might not be the most elegant of plants, but it is powerful in its own way.  When a tiny seed is dropped on the ground, the roots start digging in, and stalks shoot forth and flowers bloom and the plant grows bigger and bigger and bigger.  The mustard plant will crowd out other plants, elbowing its way into every nook and cranny it can find.  And all of this happens whether its gardener is tending to it or not.

The Kingdom of God is like an annoying, invasive weed.  The Kingdom of God is out of our control.  The Kingdom of God will not be held back.  The Kingdom of God sprouts up in the most unexpected places.

In the 1480s, Portugal had a new King, John the Second.  This King wanted to explore newer ways of making money, and thought forming new trade routes to the spices of Asia, might do the trick.  He hired the explorer, Vasco da Gama, who led a great exploration from his native Portugal, all the way around South Africa, finally landing on the Western tip of India.

Now, as we all know, with Western commerce came Western religion and values, and soon enough, priests were dispatched to India to convert the local population.

These priests, however, were quite surprised to find Christianity flourishing in the Keralan coast of India.  How did these Indians become Christians if they had never encountered the Roman Catholic Church?

As you know, the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.

Legend has it that the apostle Thomas (You know, the doubting one) traveled to India twenty years after Jesus’ death and planted the seed of the Gospel. That seed was planted and grew deep and wide roots.  For hundreds of years the church in Kerala grew and grew.  It maintained links to the Middle Eastern church and used the Syrian rite of worship.  Their own traditions emerged—priests in cassocks and hats, long Good Friday services, Easter breakfasts. Instead of exchanging rings, a bridegroom ties a tail around his bride’s neck.  The same mustard seed that led to our traditions, in the context of Kerala, led to an entirely different plant.

Now, wouldn’t you love to see the faces of these Roman Catholic priests, who came upon this flourishing church?  Can you imagine the combination of excitement and confusion that a Christianity so different from theirs was alive and well in Kerala.

The Portugese Catholics, of course, could not leave well enough alone and tried to get these Christians to comply with Roman Catholic liturgies, traditions, and power structures.  Some did, but others maintained their ancient traditions.  The Syrian Christian Church of Kerala survived many other groups of explorers as well, including the British, who attempted to bring our lovely Anglican tradition in the 1800s.  The Keralan church went through divisions, like any church does, but there are still families there that trace their heritage and their worship back to those original families that received the Gospel from St. Thomas.

In fact, I have met two families here at Trinity, Princeton, who trace their heritage back to that mustard seed of a beginning.  That mustard plant stretches all the way across an ocean, across two thousand years, and still flourishes.

How about that shrub?

We live in an anxious time for the Episcopal Church.  We see numbers declining, budgets decreasing and we wonder about the health of our future.   But we are part of the Kingdom of God.  And the Kingdom of God is really hard to destroy.  The Kingdom of God is like a pesky weed that not even Round-Up can kill.

Our origin story isn’t nearly as cool as being founded by Doubting Thomas, but it is such a strange story in its own right, the terrible King Henry the VIII trying to find a way to be able to marry once again, so taking England out of the Roman Catholic Church and then Queen Elizabeth I using the resulting structure to create a church both Protestants and Catholics could love, or at least one over which they could stop warring.  And then no English Bishop would allow the United States to consecrate a bishop of our own, but the ornery Scottish church did it for us anyway!  Out of those strange and controversial seeds has grown a church that has become a vital source of liturgy, music, and thought for the entire Christian Church.  We have grown into being the sort of weedy church where all are welcomed and the Gospel is still preached, even if we are not the establishment church we once were.  The Episcopal Church is moving towards interesting, creative places while staying rooted in our powerful framework of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.

And we in the Episcopal Church are just one tiny branch of the amazing plant that is modern Christianity.  The Kingdom of God is coming to fruition in all kinds of ways, with all kinds of traditions, in all parts of the world.  We cannot fully understand the Kingdom of God, just as we cannot fully understand Jesus’ parables.  Parts of the Christian tradition may make us extremely uncomfortable.  Like the Portuguese priests, we may look at another denomination’s traditions and think to ourselves, “What are they doing?”  We may look at our own denomination and ask the same question!

But the Kingdom of God is wilder than we could ever imagine and there is room for everyone in it.  Earlier in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus uses another parable about seeds and he describes the birds of the air snatching the seed from the ground before the seed can take root.  In that parable, the birds are an enemy, but in our parable today, the birds take shelter in the shade of the mustard plant!  Even those who were once enemies of the Kingdom of God can end up enfolded in its branches.

And those of us on earth can only see a tiny glimpse of this Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom is stranger and more mysterious than even our weirdest denomination.  When the Kingdom of God is fulfilled, we will be so surprised at how it looks, and how we spend our time, and who else is invited.  All we have are these little images Jesus gives us—mustard seeds, seeds left unattended, seeds planted in rich soil.  The other Gospels give us other images.  The Kingdom of God is like yeast.  The Kingdom of God is like a merchant in search of a pearl.  The Kingdom of God is like a net.  The Kingdom of God is like a child.   These parables can only hint at a world where everything in the Universe and in our hearts is aligned with God.

And there is nothing we can do to hurry up the coming of the Kingdom.  We just live our lives, trying to be faithful to our baptismal promises, trusting in the love and grace of Christ, tending the bit of garden we’ve been given.  The best news about the Kingdom of God is that it is the Kingdom of GOD.  The reason the mustard plant blooms, and the church in Kerala flourishes, and the Episcopal Church endures, is because of God’s grace.

We expect God’s work to look like Cedar trees and rosebushes.  We expect God’s work to look like thriving parishes with growing numbers and successful ministry,.  We expect God’s work to look like gorgeous stained glass windows and sound like a Bach cantatas, but Jesus reminds us that God works with shrubs.  Ordinary, boring shrubs.  Shrubs like us.

Thanks be to God.

Proper 25, Year A, 2011

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Listen to the sermon here.

Unless you were living under a rock this summer, you have probably heard of the movie and book The Help.  Kathryn Stockett spun this tale of African American women in the 1960s and the families they served. The Help is a compelling story as it examines the sometimes loving and sometimes strained relationships between society women of Jackson, Mississippi and their household staffs. The story generated quite a bit of controversy. The inequality between the two classes of women still stings and the way in which Kathryn Stockett portrayed the African American characters in her book rankled many people.

The most heart breaking and fascinating part of the book was the relationship between white children and their African American caretakers.  As portrayed in the book, those relationships were often extremely tender and formative.  I believe a large part of the wild success of the book and movie was because of how powerful the relationship is between a hired caretaker and a child and how many people have strong, if complicated feelings, about those relationships.

This type of caretaker or nursemaid relationship was not new to the American South of the 1960s.  Nursemaids and even wet nurses have been used to look after children for thousands of years.  We have different names for them now.  We call them nannies, au pairs, day care centers, but the relationship remains.  Those of us who have the income, or those of us who need to work, hire another person, usually a woman, to look after our children in our absence.  We hope the woman or women we choose are tender and kind.  We hope our children will love them and feel safe with them, but not love them more than us, of course.

During the time the Apostle Paul was writing his letter to the Thessalonians, the nurse was a common figure.  Wet nurses were used not only for wealthy women who did not want to nurse their own children, but were used for slave women as well if their owners did not want them to stop working after the birth of their children.  At times mothers and children would be separated entirely, so nurses would be the only loving caretaker a child would know.  Infants, mothers, and nurses would have been an integral part of the house churches of early Christianity, so the imagery of the nurse would be very familiar to the community.

We think of many images when we think of the Apostle Paul.  We think of the murderous Saul, persecuting Christians.  We think of the powerful leader, developing churches throughout the Middle East.  We think of the strong man who survived shipwrecks and imprisonment.  Have you ever imagined the Apostle Paul walking a screaming baby back and forth all night or changing a stinky diaper?

In the second chapter of First Thessalonians, Paul describes himself and the other Apostles as someone who would do just that.  Not only that, he also mixes his metaphors and describes himself as the infant. While the NRSV translates the Greek as “gentle”, many New Testament scholars, including my mother-in-law, believe that use of the word gentle is an error caused by similar spelling of the original Greek word for infant. The original sentence should read “we were infants among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children”.

Paul claims two images for himself that the Thessalonians would never expect.  Paul tries to sell them on this new Christianity and instructs them in how to live their lives, so maybe they expect him to come and lord over them, acting like a king or military commander.  Instead, he packages himself in the helpless image of a baby and the incredibly nurturing image of the nurse.  He is not a threat to the Thessalonians.  He wants to take care of them.  In fact, in the metaphor, he is not a nurse taking care of someone else’s children.  He is a nurse taking care of her own children.  The level of affection and warmth is as high as it can get.

What do these images tell us about our own ministry?  What does it mean for us to strike a balance between being as vulnerable as an infant and as careful as a nurse?

Based on six months of research in my own home, I can tell you that to an infant everything is brand new.  For the first few weeks of Charlie’s life, he did not understand that he had hands.  His flailed around and hit himself.  When he saw his hands he cried because he did not know what they were.  Six months later, I still catch him staring at his hands as if they were the most fascinating object he has ever seen.

And anyone who has spent more than an hour with an infant knows that taking care of a baby requires more than snuggles and coos. The caretaking of an infant is an ongoing wrestling match in which a tiny person manages to dominate an adult over and over again.  A baby’s nurse must be prepared for long bouts of inconsolable screaming, projectile bodily fluids, and insatiable hunger.  And the nurse is expected to deal with all these challenges with warmth and affection.  Sounds like ministry to me!

Paul lived in the tension of these two images.  For Paul and his fellow believers everything about being a Christian was new.  Paul had not attended Christian theology classes.  He took no leadership courses.  He was figuring out what it meant to guide the Christian communities at Thessalonica, Rome, and Philippi as he went along.  He said his prayers and studied the Scriptures, but every day was a brand new day of understanding what Jesus meant to the world.  Paul and all the Christians of their time were infants in understanding of their new faith.

However, at the same time, Paul and fellow leaders in the church were called on to be caretakers of these new Christians.  And Paul loved the members of these communities.  When you read his letters, they are filled with affection, even when he is clearly frustrated with the churches’ antics.  But like a nurse, Paul sets clear boundaries about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior for the church.  He is kind, yet firm.

This model of ministry has powerful implications for us.  First, what if we viewed the world through the eyes of an infant?  What if every Sunday, the liturgy felt brand new to us?  What if we encountered theological ideas with fresh minds?  What if we really felt the wonder of Advent and the sorrow of Lent this year as if we had never heard the old stories?

What if we approached the world with curiosity, rather than judgment?  What if we were able to marvel at the sound of leaves crunching under our feet and be as trusting of God as infants are of their caretakers?  What if we allowed ourselves to fuss and whine honestly in our prayers, sharing our true heart with God?

The world is filled with wonder.  From the slow moving glaciers of New Zealand, to the improbable structures of Stonehenge, to the majestic national parks of Utah even our rocks are breathtaking.  Think of the millions of different plants and bugs and animals that you’ve never seen.  Think of the all the muscles and neurons that have to fire for you to look to your left.  We live in a miraculous world, but we’ve lost the eyes to see it.   We can regain the wonder by putting on the eyes of an infant.  And that wonder continues on to our understanding of the Gospel.  The Creator God, who created us in the first place, chooses to become the created himself—to come experience the limitations of our rocks and plants and muscles and bones.  He dies so that we can live for eternity. That is an amazing, wonderful gift!

If we combined a sense of wonder with the patience, warmth, and fun of our favorite nanny or babysitter, church would be the most popular place in Princeton!  I have said it before and I will say it again.  We are called to treat one another with kindness and patience.  Even when the Apostle Paul was frustrated with a community, he treated the community with care and respect.  He was patient and loving.  When we are frustrated with each other, let’s just remember that we all used to be infants.  We all deserve to be treated with the care and tenderness we give our youngest members.

Wonder and kindness.  Maybe these are not the first qualities one thinks of when considering the Apostle Paul, but he claims them for himself, and we could do much worse than to embody them ourselves.

Amen.

For more about feminine imagery in Paul’s letters, read Our Mother, Saint Paul by Beverly Gaventa.

Proper 21, Year A, 2011

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Listen to the sermon here.

Do you remember being a little kid in the middle of a stupid argument over a tea set or a football game?  Do you remember how frustrating it was when your friends would fight over something and ruin your time together?  Do you remember thinking to yourself, I cannot wait to grow up.  When I grow up, my friends will be grown ups and we will act like grown ups.

Then do you remember the crushing disappointment when you realized adults don’t really deal with conflict any better than children do?   Do you remember the first time you witnessed or were involved in a conflict at church?  Church conflicts are the worst!  Church is where you expect to feel safe and welcomed.  You give of your time and energy to serve God and your community and then all of a sudden someone is yelling at you!

When I was a new Christian, I assumed church conflicts would be rooted in theology.  Surely people would argue about  Jesus’ sinlessness or how to discern what the Holy Spirit was doing in a community.  Instead, as it turns out, church conflicts tend to be about flower pots. The first church conflict I ever witnessed was about a flower pot in the entry way of a church office. That flower pot contained a plant.  Someone in the parish decided that plant was not quite decorative enough, and placed some holiday themed decorations in the flower pot next to the plant.  Somehow, this led to an incredibly virulent series of shouting matches, with members of the congregation lining up on one side or the other of the great flower pot decoration debate.

As far as I know, the flower pots of Trinity have not caused any great consternation.   But I bet those of you who have been here awhile or have ever served on a committee can think of several inanimate objects that have provoked outrage. Of course, the objects themselves have done nothing to offend. A table cloth or lamp cannot insult a person.  However, because people invest so much of their soul into church life, when someone else messes with their tablecloth, lamp, or flower pot, a person’s feelings can get hurt pretty quickly.  Those feelings of hurt can lead to lashing out, which hurts the other person’s feelings and a major church conflict is born.

In today’s Letter to the Philippians the Apostle Paul offers the Phillipians an  invitation to help them deal with their own conflict. The Philippians have been through the wringer.  While visiting, the Apostle Paul healed a demon possessed slave whose owners had paraded her around as a fortune teller to make money.  Once she was healed, she was useless to them and they were furious.  The owners had Paul arrested and thrown in jail.  Paul writes the letter to the Philippians from jail.  He implies that the church has had some blowback from the community after the event and he is writing to encourage them.  However, he is also writing to help them work through an inner conflict.  This conflict is not identified in the letter, but in chapter 4, verse 2, Paul does call out two women in the parish.  He writes:  “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.”

I am dying to know the source of Euodia and Syntyche’s argument—were they fighting over who got to host the next church meeting?  Were they arguing over how to keep the congregation safe?  Were they at odds because they had different ideas about how to fund the work of the church?  Ultimately, not knowing the source of the argument doesn’t matter.  Paul’s response would be the same regardless.

Instead of rebuking them, Paul invites the community to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” and then shares this beautiful hymn about Jesus.  The hymn celebrates the humility of Christ,  “who, though he was in the form of God, did hot regard equality with God as something to be exploited”.  Jesus could have used his power to bring himself fame and fortune.  He could have used his power to have a battle with his Father.  Instead, he emptied himself to become human, and then humbled himself and died on the cross.  In return, his Father lifted him up, exalted him.  Their relationship was one of respect and mutuality.  They celebrated each other rather than competed with each other.

Paul reminds the Philippians that as Christians, they share the mind of Christ.  He invites them to live into that reality.  He invites them to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility [to] regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you not look to your own interests, but to the interest of others.”

I extend this same invitation to you. You share the mind of Christ.  Inside you, you have the same ability to humble yourself and exalt the other.  All you have to do is get out of your own way, and let the mind of Christ operate freely.

There is a lot of territory in this church over which we can be possessive.  We have traditions, events, and spaces that all have meaning to us.  What if this year, we behave differently when we see someone encroaching on our territory?  What if this year we gave each other the benefit of the doubt, rather than accusing each other of perceived slights?  What if this year we speak in love to those who have offended us, instead of gossiping about them at the receptionist’s desk?  What if this year we thought first and foremost about how to make others feel loved and welcomed rather than worrying about an event being perfect?

The deck is stacked against us.  Our country is experiencing an incredible amount of national anxiety right now as we worry about money and resources.  Everyone seems to be ducking for cover and trying to protect themselves as best they can, no matter what the consequences for others.  And that kind of anxiety is catching.  All of us are a little on edge, so living into the mind of Christ and treating each other with kindness is going to take work, hard work, for all of us.

Thankfully, we are not in the struggle alone!  Remember, the mind of Christ is in us.  We follow Jesus’ example from the Gospels, but our connection with him is deeper than that of a role model.  Every time we share communion, we become spiritually one with Christ.  Something shifts in the universe and we become united with him.

Our nature leads us to be selfish and defensive, but the Spirit of Christ in us fights against those impulses and gives us the courage to be open and generous.

And if we are able to be open and generous with one another, our community will grow and deepen.  This community already does so much for the world around us.  Just imagine how God could work if we added additional layers of trust and respect in our relationships with each other.

Remember, the Christian life is not only about outcomes.  To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13,

And if we have the most beautiful grounds and the most majestic music, but do not have love, we are nothing.
If we give away all our possessions to Rummage, and if we raise $30,000 at St. Nick’s and if we have 200 people come to One Table Cafe, but do not have love, we gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

We are no longer children on the playground.  We can do better than grabbing our ball and going home.  We can be the adults we wished adults were.  We can be the loving, Christian community that Paul hoped for the Philippians.  We can share the mind of Christ.

May it be so.

Amen.

Proper 25, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / 4 Comments

Listen to the sermon here.

Last fall, when we first moved to Princeton, my husband and I attended a couple of parties one weekend.  Now, having lived in Virginia, we were used to a certain kind of party chatter.  My favorite party story to share was about the time I accidentally locked myself in a trash corral while wearing an entirely pink outfit, including pink galoshes.  I was 28 at the time.  Other friends had their own stories of times they had embarrassed themselves or crazy things their co-workers had said.  So, we were prepared with our funny party stories when we moved to Princeton.  We realized there was a problem with our plan, when at the first party we attended in Princeton, we got into a long conversation with a young man who had just returned from his Fulbright year in Spain.  In fact, everyone seemed to have a story about either their fabulous year in a foreign country or their doctorate or their first book or how they were developing some new economic theory.  So our stories about that time our dog rolled around in goose poop suddenly did not seem that scintillating.

We started to realize that Princeton is a different kind of town.  Princeton is made up of high achievers. You can’t throw a stone in Princeton without hitting someone who is an expert in their field.  And if you threw enough stones you would be bound to hit a Nobel prize winner or two.  About twice a week I hear some expert from Princeton pontificating on issues on NPR.  The brain power in this town is amazing!

And so, as I have been following the Tyler Clementi case in the news, I’ve been really saddened to see that the two students, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, accused of leaking the video that led to his suicide, were West Windsor kids, our kids. Some of our parishioners went to high school with them.  I started to wonder whether our culture of excellence somehow backfired and contributed to their behavior.

Because it turns out there is a danger in living in one of the smartest towns in America.  I would not call Princetonians intellectual Pharisees, but there is a drive toward perfection in this town.  We may not stand in the center of town bragging about how amazing we are, like the Pharisee in our reading today, but there is a constant push towards excellence.  There are at least six private schools on Great Road alone, each promising to help your child to be the smartest, most responsible child he can be.  And our public schools are filled with incredible teachers and bright students all pushing, pushing, pushing to be the best.  And adults are jockeying for tenure, and promotions, and seats on the quiet car on the train, all while trying to pay for the incredibly high cost of living here.

But what happens when you’re not the best?  What happens when you’re not an A student?  What happens if you’re just an average student?  I have had several parents come up to me in the last year who were just devastated by how their beautiful children were left behind in their schools because they weren’t the best.  These kids dealt with feelings of failure well into their adult years.

And our excellent students may not be getting what they need, either.  News reports about Molly Wei and Dharun Ravi indicate they were really bright students.  Ravi had almost perfect SAT scores, ran track, was captain of an ultimate Frisbee team.  Wei was an honors student who took many AP classes.

Being smart is a wonderful thing.  Smart people contribute greatly to the world.  Educated people help us solve many of the world’s problems.  But being smart and being educated is not enough.

Our scripture reading for today is not about intelligence, but it is about attitude.  God does not raise up the person who has done everything right.  This Pharisee tithes, prays, does not sin, but his heart is cold and proud.  The tax collector on the other hand sees himself clearly, knows he is broken, and bows before God, humbly.

God honors the broken man, rather than the perfect man.

And this is true throughout Scripture.  Jesus does not choose the head of rabbinical schools to be his followers, he chooses fishermen.  God does not call the smartest of Jesse’s children to be King, he chooses David  the smallest, the musician, the guy who will later do all kinds of dumb things.  God does not call a sinless man to lead Israel out of Egypt, he chooses Moses, an abandoned baby who grows up to be an anxious, whiny leader, not to mention a murderer.

God chooses real, complex people to do his work.  Being fully human in God’s eyes is not about how many accomplishments we rack up, it’s about having a heart that is open to God.  Being fully human is about being able to see and love the other.  Being fully human is about being humble and seeing ourselves clearly, and admitting our weaknesses when we have them.  Being fully human is about letting go of seeking our own accomplishments and asking God what he would have us do.

If we believe God created each of us, then we believe there is something good at the core of each of us.  Whether we are A students or C students, God can use us for good in this world. When we talk about our children to one another, we have a habit of talking about how they are doing in school or in sports or in extra-curricular activities.

We list their accomplishments, brag about their grades. What if, instead, we talked about their character, not their accomplishments?  What if we praised the way they stuck up for a bullied kid at school?  What if we talked about how quickly they accept responsibilities for mistakes?  What if we talked about how forgave a sibling after a misunderstanding?

Our children are so much more than their accomplishments; they are spiritual and moral beings who need love and guidance about what it means to be a child of God.  Children need to learn that showing others love and respect is even more important than being at the top of their class.  Children need to learn how to respectfully disagree with a friend, how to ask forgiveness when they have made a mistake. Children need to learn how to pick themselves up after a setback. Children need to learn that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, no matter their skin color or sexual orientation.  Children need to see all these things modeled in us.

But even more than a moral education, we, like the tax collector in today’s reading, need to show our kids how to actively and humbly draw towards the holy.  The primary influence in a child’s spiritual life is not Sunday School teachers or youth ministers or clergy.  The primary influence in a child’s spiritual life is her parents.  If children see parents praying, reading scripture, making decisions based on spiritual rather than financial or practical reasons, they learn crucial skills.  Paul and I are reading Kenda Creasy Dean’s Almost Christians as part of our local clergy group.  Dean reminds us that the skills of the Christian life:  prayer, scripture reading, being in community, are skills that must be learned and practiced, just like the skills that come into play when a child is learning a sport or an instrument.

There are many different ways to start integrating these practices into your family life.  My favorite recent example is the practice of my friend MaryAnn McKibben Dana and her family.  MaryAnn is a Presbyterian pastor and writer who has three young children.  Over the dinner table, they practice the Ignatian practice of the examen.  The examen is a spiritual practice in which at the end of the day you ask yourself a series of questions about the day, you explore the gifts of the day, the reasons behind the decisions you made, where you saw God move in the day, where you saw your own brokenness interfere with the day and so on.  What is brilliant about what MaryAnn and her husband are doing is that the kids have no idea.  MaryAnn does not sit down and say, “OK kids, it’s examen time!”  Instead, she weaves these questions into ordinary conversation.  She is helping her kids learn to think theologically about their day, to take responsibility for their choices, to see God at work in the ordinary stuff of pre-school, playground fights, and homework assignments.

We owe it to our children to take our own spiritual development, and their spiritual development as seriously as we take their SAT scores.  Their SAT scores will get them into college, but their spiritual development will make them loving human beings who contribute to the world.

And for those of us who do not have children, we are not off the hook.  If you have ever been to a baptism here, you have promised to help uphold the baptized child’s life in the church.  Adults in the church can be crucial conveyers of God’s grace to children and youth.  And the children and youth in this parish are amazing.  They are funny, complicated, loving, honest, shy, outgoing and all made in God’s image.  We, as a congregation, have the opportunity to offer them kindness, express interest in their lives, pray for them and demonstrate God’s grace in the way we treat each other.

The pressure of developing our own, not to mention our children’s, spiritual life can seem really overwhelming!  When it seems like too much responsibility, just remember the words Angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Be not afraid!”  Our God is a powerful, loving God who is always in the business of drawing us near.  If you take one teensy step, he will take a giant cosmic step.  God is waiting for you with open, loving arms and will never turn you or our children away.

Proper 23, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click here.

I had this habit as a kid that drove my sister crazy.  During the ritual opening of Christmas presents I would over emote about each gift.  “An etch-a-sketch!  That’s so great!”, “A cabbage patch doll!  I’ve always WANTED a cabbage patch doll!”, “Blue socks?  They’ll go great with my blue shoes!”, We found an old video recently from when I’m about eight years old, and my reactions are incredibly cloying.  I actually profusely thanked Santa, who because of his busy Christmas morning schedule, was not in the room.   And while I’m sure part of my enthusiasm was about me being a first born suck-up, I would argue that there was a core of genuine, spontaneous thanksgiving in my little performance.

Real gratitude is tricky when you live in a society where you are used to getting exactly what you want.  As adults, my immediate family gives each other lists of Christmas presents we would like and then we receive those presents.  It’s fantastic, and we’re grateful to each other, but the spontaneous joy of gratitude is missing.

That spontaneous thanksgiving is missing from much of my life.  I don’t enthusiastically thank you all twice a month when I receive my paycheck.  I don’t thank God every day for my amazing husband or my sweet dog.  I don’t thank my parents weekly for the hard work that went in raising me or my sister for putting up with my annoying first-born habits.

Our gospel lesson today really challenges us and our attitudes about thanksgiving.  In the story, Jesus heals ten lepers.  He tells them to show themselves to the priest and off they go, getting cleansed from their leprosy in the meantime.  Now, they are all obedient to Jesus.  They all do exactly what he asks them to do.  Well, all but one.  One of the lepers is a Samaritan.  He is an outsider.  He’s unclean.  He’s different.  But that Samaritan is so excited he is cleansed, he runs back to Jesus, praises God and throws himself at Jesus’ feet thanking him.  What a reaction!  The other nine lepers were obedient, but the Samaritan leper had a genuine moment of intense gratitude that he can’t help but express.

We are a guarded, cautious people here at Trinity Church..  We aren’t prone to big emotional outbursts.  We don’t clap when we sing.  We don’t raise our arms and shout when Paul makes a good point in a sermon.  We don’t stand up during announcements to praise God and share what God has done in our lives.  But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t reach out to us and heal us and work in our lives in such a way that we should be thankful.  We don’t have to be loud to be thankful.

When I was a parishioner at St. James’, Richmond, during stewardship season they had a tradition of parishioners speaking each week about what stewardship meant to them.  One Sunday, a young couple with small children stood up.  They told us that during the previous year, as they got more involved with church and developed a closer relationship with God, they had a transformative moment together. They decided that since God had given them so many gifts, they wanted to give him a big gift in return.  They decided that their pledge check to the church should be the biggest check they wrote every month.  Bigger than their mortgage, bigger than car payments, bigger than tuition payments.

I remember my jaw dropping.  The freedom and joy they felt was so manifest.  Their money did not control them.  Fear did not control them.  They made a decision based purely out of the kind of wild-eyed gratitude that the tenth leper showed Jesus.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not there yet.  Our monthly pledge payments to the two churches we support are about a third of our monthly rent.  And our rent is cheap!  But whenever I think about stewardship, I think about that couple.  I think about what it would mean to have such deep gratitude for God’s work in my life and deep confidence that God will provide for me, that I could just throw caution to the wind and give away a giant chunk of money every month.

Giving money to the church is a financial decision.  You’ll sit down with Quicken or your budget and figure out just how much you’ll give.  You’ll come to a rational choice.   But the decision to give money to the church is also a spiritual one.  Giving money back to God is an act of thanksgiving.  As a person who is paid because of your generosity, of course I want you to give to the church!  But what I really pray for is that God might grant you a tenth leper experience.

I pray that you have experiences of healing and God’s intervention in your life.  I pray that you feel cleansed of anything that haunts you.  I pray that God grants you such deep gratitude, that you feel compelled to throw yourself at the feet of Jesus.  I pray that Jesus makes you well.

The text tells us that when the leper came back to Jesus in thanksgiving, that the leper was made well.  The leper was cleansed from leprosy by Jesus’ healing, but something in his thankful response inspired Jesus to give him an even fuller healing.  Jesus says that the leper’s faith made him well.  The leper’s thanksgiving was more than gratitude, it was a statement of faith.  We, too, can make a statement of faith by expressing our thanksgiving to God.

When we give to God through gifts to the Church, we claim the tenth leper’s thanksgiving as our own.  We claim the tenth leper’s faith as our own.  We claim the tenth leper’s healing as our own.

When we stand up for Stewardship, we claim our place in the line of saints who have been blessed by God and want to return the blessing.

Amen.

Proper 21, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click here.

What did you see this morning on your way to church?

Did you see the clothes you picked out to wear, your pets as you fed them, your car as you got into it?

What about on your drive?  Could you tell me who you passed on the way to church?  What did they look like?  How old were they?

How about this, if you came to church with a friend or family member, without looking at them, could you tell me what they were wearing today?

We open our eyes when we wake up in the morning, but we can go through an entire day without seeing anything.  Especially something upsetting.

The rich man in today’s parable had a hard time seeing.  While he was inside his fabulous house, dressed in the finest fabrics he could buy, eating a sumptuous meal; a poor man named Lazarus was sitting outside the gate, covered in sores.

The rich man walked by Lazarus every time he left and entered his home, but he did not see him.  Sure, if you asked him, he could have told you he was there, but Lazarus was not someone he thought much about.  He certainly never considered offering Lazarus something to wear or to eat.

In the culture of the time, abundance was a zero sum game.  There were a limited number of resources, spread between people.  If one person had riches, it means another person did not.  If a person had riches, they were obligated to give alms to the poor, to balance out the distribution.

We don’t know whether the rich man gave alms, but he certainly did not give any to Lazarus.  To him, Lazarus was the lowest of the low.  For heaven’s sake, the text tells us that dogs licked his sores!  You can’t get much more pathetic than that.  Lazarus was not worth the rich man’s time.

Well, imagine the rich man’s surprise when they both die and the rich man finds Lazarus with Abraham in heaven and he in Hades! Even death is not a strong enough force to help the rich man see his situation clearly.  Even though he is in Hades, he still thinks Lazarus is a lower order of creature.  He does not address Lazarus directly, but instead tells Abraham to send Lazarus down to bring him a drop of water to help cool him off.  He sees Lazarus now, but only in terms of how Lazarus can be helpful to him.

When Abraham refuses the rich man’s request, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, so they might not suffer the same fate.  But once, again, the rich man is not seeing the situation clearly.

Abraham tells the rich man that even if Lazarus was sent to his brothers, back from the dead, they would not be impressed.  If they could not see the truth by reading Hebrew Scriptures, they would not see the truth if it was standing in front of their faces in the form of a resurrected Lazarus.

The implication here is devastating.  Abraham implies that by not seeing Lazarus, the rich man also did not really see the scriptures.  Or maybe it is the other way around, because the rich man did not understand the Scriptures, he was not able to see Lazarus.

This story asks us again, what do we see?  What do we understand?

When we read stories like this from Scripture, do we think they are directed as someone else?  Can we see ourselves in these stories?

I just finished a fascinating novel called The City & The City.  It tells the story of two cities, Ul Qoma and Beszel, that are right next to each other.  In fact, large parts of them overlap, so that one side of a street belongs to Ul Qoma and the other side belongs to the Beszel.   Because of past political tensions, the inhabitants of the cities are forbidden to see the city in which they do not live, even if that city is only feet away.  There are terrible penalties if a person breaches, and interacts with the other city.  So, from a young age, residents in each city learn to unsee.  Citizens are taught to look upon the other city without registering its activities, inhabitants or architecture.  The city remains a total mystery, even though it is close enough to touch.

In a lot of ways, I think we learn to unsee in our own cities, as well.  We learn not to make eye contact with beggars.  We learn to not drive through certain parts of town.

We learn to avoid certain bars and restaurants that host people different from us.  Like the rich man, we wear our fancy fabrics—our suede and cashmere.  Like the rich man, we dine on sumptuous food at Eno Terra and Blue Point.  Like the rich man, we read the scriptures, but we don’t always apply them to our lives.

Unlike the rich man, there is still hope for us.  Jesus shows us a new way of interacting with the world.  Jesus saw everyone.  Jesus went up to the weirdest, poorest, smelliest people and looked them in the eye and treated them with respect.  He listened to their problems and offered them healing.

Jesus transformed what it means for people to really see each other.  Jesus stripped away the hierarchy of what it means to be worthy and unworthy.  Jesus gathered people of all walks of life and expected them to dine together, to live together.

We learn to unsee because we are afraid.  We are afraid of getting hurt.  We are afraid of being embarrassed.  We are afraid of saying the wrong thing.

But when we are in relationship with Jesus, when Jesus is looking right at us and seeing us for who we are, we gain courage.  Jesus sees inside our fancy cars, and through our fancy clothing.  Jesus knows who we are underneath all that.  Jesus knows our shallow hopes and big insecurities and he loves us anyway.

And when we realize the kind of love Jesus has for us, we are freed to love others, to look others in the eye, even if they are different from us, even if their poverty makes us feel uncomfortable and threatened.  Because, when Jesus looks at us and really sees us, we understand that there is no us and them.  We are all the same in Jesus’ eyes.  We are all loved.  We are all Lazarus.  We are all seen.

Amen.

Proper 15, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click here.

Today should be called rhetoric Sunday!  In all three of our readings this morning, we have preachers at the top of their game.  It is impossible to read these three snippets of scripture without imagining them preached in booming voices.  Our reading from Hebrews today has a particularly pleasing cadence.  The author is describing the exploits of the heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures and he writes they “through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight”.  Yes!  It makes my day seem very pale in comparison.  “I woke up on time!  Ate some toasted oatmeal!  And dressed myself in matching clothes!”

The writing in the letter to the Hebrews can seem overwrought, but the author’s tone makes sense when we understand his intention.  The author, as far as we can tell from the little information the letter gives us, is writing to a group of second generation Christians.  They love Jesus, but they are running out of energy to be Christians.  They have expected Jesus to come back for years and he has never showed up.  The novelty of this new religion is wearing off and the reality of day to day living has set in.  To top it all off, the authorities are beginning to crack down on Christianity and they are frightened.  The author of the Hebrews is exhorting them to hold on, to keep the faith!  He is their coach and their cheerleader.

The Letter to the Hebrews develops all sorts of theological ideas, but the eleventh chapter of Hebrews is all about faith.  This faith is robust!  This faith has legs!  This faith has teeth!  This is the faith of Gideon, Samson, Rahab—heroes of the faith.  The metaphor the author uses is that of a race.  Like a race, faith takes training and an enormous amount of effort.

Now, you all know that our wonderful rector is an accomplished runner.  He runs several times a week and has run several marathons at respectable paces.  Well you may not know that your assistant rector was a runner, too.  More specifically, she was a runner from the fall of 2005 until the spring of 2006.  My brief endeavor as a runner came about because of my next door neighbor and close friend, also named Sarah.  Sarah was the kind of person who did whatever she set her mind to.  Sarah was going to train for the Charlottesville 10 mile race and somehow she talked me into training, too.

Let me tell you, training for a race is no fun.  We ran several times a week, in increasingly large distances.  On Saturdays we woke up when the sun did and met trainers in downtown Charlottesville.  They would yell things like, “Now, run at your fastest pace!  Now, slow down and run at a comfortable pace!  Now, back at the fast pace again!”  The problem was, I only had one pace.  Eleven and half miles a minute.  That was my fast speed and that was my slow speed.  If I did not know Sarah was waiting for me those Saturday mornings, there was no way I would  have gotten out of bed for that torture!

We ran a 10K a few months into our training to get used to a race environment.  Sarah took pity on me and ran at my pace.  We were really slow.  We were so slow that eventually we were the last two runners.  We were so slow that they started pulling up the cones marking the outline of the course before we got to them.  We were so slow that eventually the police car trailing the race pulled alongside of us and said, “Ladies, you can run in the middle of the street if you’d like.  We’ll follow you.”

Humiliating.

But we did not quit.  Thanks to Sarah’s constant encouragement and occasional bullying, I kept training.  I did not get any faster.  My form did not get any more elegant.  My knees and shoulders did not get any less sore. But on April the 1st, 2006, I ran that ten mile race.  The crowds lined up on sidewalks cheered us on and helped me to go that much further. With Sarah’s coaching and the crowd’s encouragement, I hobbled to the finish line.

The metaphor of a race for our faith is apt.  Faith takes a lot of work.  Faith takes encouragement.  Faith takes discipline.  But like training for a race, we are not alone.

In the race metaphor, Jesus is our coach.  Jesus has run the race ahead of us, knows what to expect, and runs by our side telling us when to speed up or slow down.  Jesus encourages us when we are frustrated and gives us a boost when we are ready to give up.   Hebrews says that Jesus is the pioneer and perfector of our faith.  He shows us how to follow God—even if it leads to a cross.  Jesus shows us what it means to be faithful, what it means to have an intimate relationship with God.  When we lose our way, we can read the Bible and be reminded of Jesus’ faithfulness, which will help us to be faithful.  And when we can’t live up to the kind of faith we want to have, Jesus’ grace covers us, helping us to cross the finish line.

The crowd that cheers on the racers is the cloud of witnesses.  The cloud of witnesses are the Saints that surround us—David, Samuel, the Prophets—and the millions of ordinary people of faith who have and who are running the race before and with us.  When we read a biography of Augustine, or Dr. King’s letters, or read the notes in the bibles of our own faithful grandmothers, we are encouraged that people have been living in our complicated world for millennia and have been able to follow God no matter what the circumstances.

We in the church are part of this cloud of witnesses, too.  We are each other’s cheerleaders.  When one of us cannot pray, we pray for her.  When one of us needs to talk through a theological issue, we listen.  When someone is discouraged in his study of the bible, we encourage him.  We need each other to live lives faithful to God.

Where the race metaphor breaks down is that in a physical race, the goal is to win, to beat everyone else, to be first.  The wonderful thing about God, is that even if we are the very last person in the race of faith, hobbling along after everyone else, we still get to cross the finish line and get welcomed into the Kingdom of God.  Faith looks a lot more like a race in the Special Olympics, where participants have no problem stopping to help a runner who has fallen, or linking arms so runners can cross the finish line together.  Faith is a race, but it is not a competition.

Our culture treats religion and spirituality as if they are private, personal, individual activities.  But in the Bible, faith is always a community activity.  God appears to individuals, but only in their roles as representatives of their communities.  One cannot truly be Christian if one is not in Christian community of some kind.  But our community is not limited to the people with whom we attend church.  We are in community with Christians all over the world, and with those who have gone before us.  Every Sunday in the Eucharistic prayer we say, “Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven.”  That company of heaven is all the believers that have gone before us, who have already run the race and have achieved their prize.  When we gather to receive communion, they gather with us.

And it is this image that helped those early Christians hold on.  Those early Christians held on to the faith, they finished the race, even when threatened with imprisonment and death.  And now they are part of that cloud of witnesses that urges us to hold on, to have faith, no matter how difficult that may seem.

Amen.

Proper 13, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Listen to the sermon here.

I am one of two sisters.  My parents, wary of the tensions that can rise between sisters, treated us extremely fairly.  If one of us got a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas, we both got a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas.  When I was ten, I received a portable stereo.  When my sister was ten, she received a portable stereo.  When I graduated from college, they generously gave me a silver Honda Civic.  When my sister graduated from college they gave her a silver Honda Civic.  You get the idea!

Their experiment was a success.  My sister and I have an extremely close, loving, supportive, non-competitive relationship.  But, even in this story of an extremely loving, healthy family, I still felt jealousy.  How you ask?  How could I feel jealous when my sister received the exact same presents that I did?  Well, you see, Marianne is my younger sister.  When I received that stereo, it only had a tape player, because my father thought CDs were just a fad.  My sister, four years younger, got the CD player.  And while our Honda Civics looked identical, my younger sister’s Honda Civic had automatic windows and cruise control.  While I was not caught up in a violent fit of jealousy, I could feel little pinpricks of covetousness for what my sister had.  (In the end, of course, things all work out.  Last year when we moved to New Jersey, I bought my sister’s 8 year old Honda Civic and now I have automatic windows and cruise control and she has the New York subway system!)

Competition between siblings is as old as the relationship between Cain and Abel.  There is something about that first peer relationship that makes us just a little crazy.  Especially if money is involved.

Our passage from the Gospel of Luke today is almost comic.  Right before this brother interrupts Jesus, Jesus has been speaking to the crowd about really lofty, opaque, theological ideas.  He has just said,

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

I picture Jesus saying those words in a booming voice and then looking around at the crowd meaningfully, hoping to see some nods of recognition.  Instead he gets a guy saying, “Hey—make my brother share the family inheritence!”

In retrospect, Jesus’ response is incredibly kind.  I would have been tempted to say, “Are you even listening to me, you jerk?”

Jesus, like a wise mother, does not take sides in the argument.  He does not ask to hear the details.  He does not ask the man to read the text of the will.  He does not cluck his tongue in sympathy.

Instead, Jesus tells a parable about a perfectly nice farmer who had a very good harvest and wanted to build more barns to store the harvest in, so he could just relax and enjoy the rest of his life.

That basically sums up our lives, doesn’t it?  We open retirement accounts and emergency savings accounts and 529s to save for our children’s education.  We become priests in the Episcopal Church and think about that nice pension we’re going to get starting in 2035.  Oh, well, maybe that part is just me.  I’ll be honest with you, I already know what retirement community I want to join.  Westminster-Canterbury rests in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  You can start out in a free standing home, then move to an apartment, then to assisted living and end up in the Alzheimer’s unit, if you need to.  They have an art studio, a pool, a gym, a beauty parlor and a pretty tasty cafeteria.  I have it all figured out.  I’ll convince my best friends to move there and we’ll end our lives sitting on porches, telling stories, and playing bridge. My grandchildren, who will adore me and write me letters weekly, will visit three or four times a year.  And then one day, when I feel that I’ve lived a good long life, I will die peacefully in my sleep.  It’s going to be great!

Unfortunately for me, and the farmer, life isn’t that simple.  The farmer is not portrayed as a villain and yet in the parable God yells at him!  God says, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”  God reminds the farmer that all our frantic preparation is really for naught.

I can save all the money I want to, but that won’t stop me from dying in a tragic car accident, or getting MS, or having my husband leave me out of the blue, or suddenly having to take care of a sick parent, or giving birth to a disabled child, or having my grandchildren ignore me for the last twenty years of my life.

Money is fantastic for some things.  It can give us a roof over our head, and good food for every meal.  It can buy us clothes that make us feel good about ourselves and vacations that help us discover the world.  Money can pay for surgery, and special schools and therapy.

But ultimately, money can’t protect us.  Money can’t protect us from illness, broken relationships, disappointments, natural disasters.  Money can’t protect us from being held accountable by God.  And money can’t protect us from death.

No matter how much we acquire, we all end up in the same place.  And in that place, the currency we need is not money.  The currency we need in that place, when we stand in the presence of God, is love.  Love for God and love for our neighbor.

I have seen more than one family fall apart after the death of a rich relative.  There is something about an inheritance that brings out the worst in people.  That part of us that longs for the love and approval of the person who dies and the part of us that experiences greed, crash together in the worst of ways.  The brother that asks Jesus to adjudicate his dispute is missing his father, is feeling slighted, and just wants some justice.

But Jesus knows that is not what the brother needs.  The brother will not suddenly receive his father’s love and approval if the money becomes his.  He will not finally feel equal to his brother.  He will not be satisfied.  What the brother really needs to work on is his own heart and internal life.  The brother needs to get re-centered and focused on God.

Warren Buffet has famously informed his family that his vast fortune will be going to charity, not to them and I’m sure many of them were furious when they heard that news.  But in the end, I think Mr. Buffet is doing them a huge favor.  Without the money they will be forced to look into their own hearts.  They will be forced to figure out what their gifts and talents are.  They will be forced to work and be disciplined.  They will be forced to rely on others.  All these things are what help create a moral life, a life of love and respect for others.

The brother in our story today did not get the answer from Jesus for which he had hoped, but he got the answer he needed.

In the same way, when we ask God why we are unemployed, or why our best friend makes so much more than we do, or why our parent cut us out of their will, we are probably not that likely to get a direct answer from God.  However, if we ask God questions about the God’s currency, I’m guessing we’ll hear a reply pretty soon.  If we ask God how we can better love him.  If we ask God, how we can serve the poor better. If we ask God how we can show our families that we would do anything for them.  If we ask God where he wants us to serve him in this world.  If we start asking these kinds of questions, we’ll be amazed at the answers we receive and the life they bring us.

Amen.

Proper 10, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Listen to the sermon here.

Have you heard the story about Capt. Matt Clauer that has been circulating this week?  Capt. Clauer was serving in Iraq last year when he got a frantic phone call from his wife, Mary.  Together, they owned a $300,000 house, for which they had completely paid.  Mary was calling because she had just learned that their Homeowner’s Association had foreclosed on the house, because Mary had neglected to pay the HOA dues two months in a row, worth a total of $800. By the time he returned from Iraq, the house had been sold at auction for $3,500 and resold again for $135,000.  Mary and Matt are still living in the home, and fighting in the court of law to reclaim it.

If they were here today, they probably would have a thing or two they would like to say about neighbors.   I wonder how many of their Texas neighbors, members of the HOA board, are sitting in churches today, listening to the story of the Good Samaritan.   I wonder if the Clauers are in church this morning, hearing this story and wondering how in the heck they are supposed to love neighbors like theirs.

I wonder if any of you, thinking about your neighbors, are wondering how you’re supposed to love them?

That’s the thing about neighbors—they are just around all the time. In Charlottesville, I had a neighbor who always raced at least ten miles over the speed limit through the neighborhood AND who let his dogs poop wherever they wanted without cleaning it up.  He drove me crazy because there was no way I could get away from him.

And neighbors are problem enough, but what about friends and family?  They are really hard to shake off.

I wonder, if in the story, we hear today, whether the priest or the Levite knew the poor unfortunate soul lying in the ditch.  I wonder if they passed by and said, “Oh Frank.  Always getting into trouble.” and walked on by.  I wonder the intimacy, the neighborliness they might have had with our victim actually prevented them from helping.

As lovely as it was for the Samaritan to help this guy, helping a stranger is sometimes easier than helping someone close to you.  If an out of work alcoholic comes by the church needing a little help, we can graciously point him in the direction of several places that can be useful to him.  If I had an out of work alcoholic relative approach me, I’d probably feel a lot less gracious toward them.

When the person in our lives who is in trouble is close to us, we know that there is danger in our lives being disrupted.  If we enter into another person’s crisis, we run the risk of getting entangled in their lives, creating a web of obligations and favors from which we may not be able to extricate ourselves.

And yet, Jesus calls us to be that kind of neighbor.  He calls us to act like the Samaritan, even when we’re not breezing through a strange town.  Even when the person in the ditch lives next door and you well know you might need to pull him out of the ditch a second, or third time.

The Samaritan does set a good example for us in terms of boundaries to help us with these challenges.  The Samaritan does not take the victim home with him.  The Samaritan takes him to an inn, does what first aid he can, makes sure the innkeeper will check on him, and then leaves town.

The Samaritan does not appoint himself the victim’s social worker for life.  He sees an acute crisis and responds.  And then he goes back to Samaria.

Knowing how to respond to a neighbor, friend, or relative in crisis is really difficult.  But knowing what our role is can be helpful.  First of all, it is important to remember that we are not God.  Now, I know that can be difficult to remember, but just absorb it for a minute.  You are not God. Your role is not that of omniscient being who has the power to solve everything.  All we can do is our loving best.

If the crisis happens to our spouse, child or parent, our role may be to function as that person’s advocate, making sure they get to the doctor, to court, or to rehab when they are scheduled to do so.  If the person in crisis is a friend, our role may be that of listener—giving our friend a safe place to express all her fears.  If the person in crisis is a neighbor, our role may be that of practical help—mowing the lawn, bringing over a meal.  Our response will change depending on who is in trouble and what their circumstances are.  Sometimes our response will be pointing our neighbor in the direction of people who can be more helpful than we can.

Whatever our role is, the Good Samaritan challenges us to live out our faith. He challenges us to pay attention to the world around us.  He challenges us to respond to another’s pain, when it would be just as easy to walk on by.  He challenges us to live the way Jesus taught us to live: We shall love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our strengths, and with all our minds; and our neighbors as ourselves.

Amen.