Ordinary Time

Proper 28, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Before I begin, I must say that the research and many of the images from today’s sermon are the result of the work of the Thursday night bible study group this month.  I’d like to thank Steve Bragaw, Emily Bardeen, Sherry Hauff, and Elizabeth and Bruce Guss for their insightful contributions.

“Ozymandias”

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.                       

In this poem, by Shelley, the reader is invited to picture a looming sculpture, vast in its scale and imposing in its grandeur.  Over time, the sculpture has been worn away and all that is left are two legs and a disembodied head, surrounded by desert sand.  On the pedestal of the sculpture lie the words, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works, ye mighty and despair”!  This statue has once represented a great King, a great society and yet now nothing is left but ruin.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus overhears some people oohing and ahhing over the temple, which is beautifully decorated with stones and gifts.  The temple was the center of religious life in Jerusalem.  Since the time of David and Solomon, the ark of the covenant, which held the very presence of God, was kept inside a beautifully built temple in Jerusalem.  This temple had been destroyed and rebuilt 581 BCE, and the temple remained a sacred place. 

After he overhears these persons admiring the temple, Jesus acts as a prophet, warning his listeners that this very temple they are worshiping will be destroyed, and sure enough in the year 70 CE, the temple was destroyed by the Romans. 

The destruction of the temple was a symbol of the end of an era.  Since the time of David, controlling Jerusalem had been a fundamental part of the Jewish identity.  When the temple was destroyed, an entire way of framing the Jewish faith was destroyed.  So, it is strange that, when Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple to his listeners, he does not seem dismayed by the news. 

Jesus does not seem dismayed because he knows that  yes, a new era is coming, an era in which a temple to contain God would be wholly irrelevant.

This incident in the temple happens toward the end of Jesus’ ministry.  He is days away from being betrayed and arrested.   He knows that after his death will come his resurrection and that resurrection will change everything.  His resurrection will transform faith.  No longer will believers need to visit God in a static temple.  Instead God will be found in the hearts of all believers. 

And this message of hope is communicated on another level in our passage today, as well.  Many modern scholars believe the Gospel of Luke was written after the year 70 CE.  So, Luke knew about the destruction of the temple when he was writing the Gospel.  He also knew that Christian, during the time he was writing his Gospel, were being arrested, tortured and killed because of their faith by authorities of the Roman Empire.

Jesus words about the destruction of the temple and of an apocalyptic future were relevant to those who received Luke’s gospel.  They were the ones being brought before kings and governors because of Jesus’ name.  They were hated.  They were terrified. 

In this Gospel, Luke reminds the persecuted Christians that Jesus cares for them and that the Holy Spirit will be with them, even as they are interrogated and threatened.  This passage gives them direct advice:  not to try to create their own defense, but to trust the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will give the persecuted the words they need to speak, when they need them. 

Luke also reminds them, through the prediction about the destruction of the temple, that no earthly authority, whether instituted by religious or civil law, lasts forever.  The power that oppressed them would not oppress them forever.  In fact, the Roman Empire would  not even be a power forever.

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The Jewish temple did not stand, and neither did the Roman Empire that destroyed it.  The British Empire dissolved, and our capitalist empire will too, eventually.  The world around us is in constant change, constant flux.  Political power, physical structures, even social norms and behaviors-none of these remain constant forever.

Even our own Greenwood has seen enormous changes over the last hundred years.  In this month’s Crozet Gazette there is an article about Greenwood in the early part of the century.  Greenwood had a train station, shops, a highschool, even a hotel!  When the Langhornes moved into Mirador, Greenwood even had an early form of. . .paparazzi, believe it or not!

And while Greenwood may no longer have the population to start a high school or enough visitors to need a hotel, God’s faithfulness to those who live in Greenwood has never dwindled.  God’s love and affection for his people is not rooted in their structures or political systems or earthly power.  God’s love is the love of the creator for his creation.  God’s love is a parent’s love for his children.  And God continues his relationship with each of us regardless of our external circumstances.

As Christians, we don’t need political or religious structures for our lives to have meaning.  We don’t need to live in the most booming town or go to the most ornate church or be ruled by the biggest empire for God to love us, pursue us, and use us toward his ends.  God’s kingdom is about behavior and belief, not about power and wealth.

God’s kingdom is an active, living, breathing place.  Because it has no temples or structures or giant statues in the desert, it can never decay or be overthrown.  When we participate in God’s kingdom, even our temporal lives become connected to the eternal.  We may not be able to see or feel God’s kingdom, yet it will last longer than any kingdom that has ever been established on this earth.

Thanks be to God!

Proper 23, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today we celebrate the baptism of Sally Beights-we could not baptize her on a better day in the lectionary.  Today, in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we read about life with God through Christ. 

We read the image of dying with Christ in order to live with Christ-this is the central image of baptism.  Baptism is just not a chance to get an adorable baby all dressed up in white to show her off.  Baptism is not an empty ritual to make parents feel better about the fate of their children.  Baptism is the central rite of Christianity. 

In the early church, and in many churches today, Baptisms are done by fully immersing the person.  Their heads are dunked fully under water three times, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  This full immersion was meant to simulate drowning.  This image of being held under the water, nearly drowning, makes the air you breathe when your head breaks through the water even more powerful. 

This week, I had the pleasure of receiving a surprise email from one of my best friends in the world.  We haven’t kept in touch much over the last decade, just an email here or there, but this week we’ve been emailing back and forth frantically, telling each other our stories.  The latest part of her story goes something like this. 

She has been living in New Orleans for a few years, and was there when the hurricane hit.  She, her boyfriend, and a friend carpooled out the city, expecting to return in a few days.  They did not.  In the matter of a day’s time, her life was irrevocably changed.  Her home was gone, car was gone, and most of her material possessions were gone.  Friends were missing.  Over the last two years the emotional toll grew heavy upon her shoulders and in her heart.  In a sense, you could say she felt like she was drowning.

Last weekend she realized she was trying to deal with all of this pain and sorrow with her own energy.  She realized she did not have the resources to do so.  And so she prayed.  She prayed for forgiveness and direction and guidance.  And God answered her.  She heard him say that he loved her and that he had everything she needed. And for the first time in a long time, she was able to breathe freely. 

That is baptism.  The baptism we perform today is an outward and visible sign of an experience that profoundly changes us. Today we are trusting that as we baptize Sally, she too, will experience the love, healing and guidance of God.  We are committing ourselves to telling her about God and how much God loves her. She may internalize this from the time she is a small child.  Or, she may not deeply experience God’s love until later in her life.  But as we baptize her, we entrust her to a God who will always remain faithful to her, no matter where life brings her.

Each of us can trust that God loves us and will remain faithful to us, even if we are not faithful to God. 

Thanks be to God.

Proper 22, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

I’d like all of you to turn your faces to the window and concentrate on the large tree between the church and the Marston La Rue House.

(Squeeze eyes)

Did it move?  Well, let me try again.

(Squeeze eyes, grip podium)

Oh, well.  I have to confess that every time I hear this passage, every time, I try to move a tree with the power of my mind.  This plan has yet to work.  Not one branch has wavered, not one root has become unhinged from the dirt that surrounds it.  I find this all very frustrating.

When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, they were frustrated, too.  They did not ask Jesus to increase their faith out of some selfless piety.  They asked Jesus to increase their faith because they had just heard Jesus say, “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.  “And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

This teaching was too much for them, as most days it is too much for us!  They did not want to have to forgive people who had hurt them, especially people who had hurt them a lot.

So, they ask Jesus to increase their faith-as if faith was a something that could be measured-as if faith could be used up and then replenished like gasoline in an automobile.

But Jesus reminds the disciples that faith cannot be measured in quantities. To have a gallon faith is not better than having a pint of faith.  Faith, in fact, is not about us at all.  Faith is about God, not about our capacity to believe.  Jesus tells the disciples that if they had the faith of a mustard seed, they would be able to uproot a local mulberry tree and toss it in the sea.  Obviously, none of us have the capacity to move a tree just by thinking about it.  God, however, can move a tree.

How many of you were around for Hurricane Isabel?  I was living at the seminary in Alexandria at the time.  When I awoke the morning after the hurricane I was shocked to see that giant trees, trees whose roots had stretched deeply, were knocked over as easily as playing cards.  In Richmond, the damage was even more intense.  In the lush Maymont Park, the carcasses of dozens of overturned trees littered the grass for almost a year. 

For God, moving a tree is as simple as creating a big wind.  For us, not so easy.

So, faith is not about us willing God do so something through the power of our own piety, but realizing that God can do things greater than we can even imagine.  God can even uproot us in places we are stuck and fling us into a new life of freedom and joy.  This part of the passage is about expanding our horizons, opening our minds, coming to terms with a limitless, powerful God.

And then, before we can get too excited about all this, Jesus turns a corner.

In the second part of our gospel reading today, Jesus tells a parable about a slave and a slave owner.  This parable is extremely, nail bitingly, glance around at your neighbor uncomfortable for us.  First of all, it addresses slavery, which in our country was the most shameful part of our past.  Secondly, Jesus encourages rude behavior!  We are in the South.  We thank people.  I sometimes write thank you notes for an event before I actually go to the event.  The idea of not thanking someone who has worked all day for you and then cooked is shocking!

When we think about this passage, it is helpful to remember the context of the time.  In Jesus’ time, slavery was not a race issue-it was a political and financial issue.  A person could be placed in slavery when his country was conquered by another country.  A person could also sell himself into slavery if he was deeply in debt and needed to buy his way out of the debt.  None of this makes slavery acceptable, but in Jesus’ time, it was a part of the system that was taken for granted.  So, when Jesus uses a parable about slavery, he is not endorsing slavery, simply acknowledging that it exists and using slavery as a metaphor his listeners will understand.

So what does this metaphor mean?  To Jesus’ listeners, the idea of thanking a slave would have been laughable.  Slaves had jobs to do-their whole purpose in live was to do these jobs, so to commend them would be silly.  I do not think that self-esteem was a big issue in Jesus’ time. 

Jesus is reminding his disciples that, as followers of Jesus, they have jobs to do, too.  Yes, their God is a mighty God who can uproot trees and transform lives, but that same God also calls us to responsibility.  When it comes to forgiveness, Jesus is telling his disciples to “just do it.”  He’s telling them not to expect to be coddled by God or thanked for doing what they are supposed to be doing. 

While these images of faith and slavery seem radically different, they are two parts of the same point.

God is God.  We are not God.

God can do amazing, nature defying, life changing things.  If we step back and let God do these things, all we have to worry about is doing what we’re supposed to do. We are not responsible for controlling the universe, or making miracles happen.  We are not responsible for changing the lives of others.  We are responsible for our own lives and how we live them-living with integrity, kindness, honesty, forgiveness, love.

If we acknowledge that we already have a mustard seed of faith within us, then all we have to do when we are worried about something or someone is to pray.  We are called to pray and wait for God and do the work God has given us to do without complaint.

When we do manage to do what God has called us to do, we don’t wait around to be praised, but we go on with our lives, knowing we have done the least we can do  to live lives worthy of God. 

So, we live in the tension of faith-of trusting in an endless God, while still navigating our own small lives.  We live in the tension of dreaming big dreams and praying big prayers, while still taking out the garbage every day.  The life of faith is both incredibly expansive and freeing, and limiting-as it provides us boundaries to live healthy and holy lives.

This tension is also a kind of freedom.  By trusting in God, rather than ourselves, an enormous weight is lifted off our shoulders.  By responding to God’s call when we hear it, we always know we are doing what God wants us to do.  Living out this tension offers us a life without anxiety-knowing that we are each fulfilling our own small role and that God is taking care of everything else. 

Proper 20, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Have you ever seen the Monty Python movie, Life of Brian?  The movie is a very funny satire about a man named Brian who lived during the time of Jesus and gets mistaken as the Messiah.  Though Jesus is not directly involved in the plot, there is a hilarious scene that takes place during the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus is preaching, but the crowd is so large that those on the edges cannot quite make out what Jesus is saying. 

When someone asks what Jesus just said, a man says,

MAN #1:

    I think it was ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.

and a woman replies:

MRS. GREGORY:

    Ahh, what’s so special about the cheesemakers?

Her husband clarifies:

GREGORY:

Well, obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.

Later another man, instead of hearing Blessed are the meek says,

MAN #2:

    You hear that? Blessed are the Greek.

GREGORY:

    The Greek?

MAN #2:

    Mmm. Well, apparently, he’s going to inherit the earth.

GREGORY:

    Did anyone catch his name?

You get the idea.  The joke is funny because we do wonder if those who wrote the Gospels got everything Jesus said right.  Today’s gospel reading, frankly, is a prime example of a time when we preachers look at a text and wonder, perhaps, if Jesus was a little off his game when he said these things.  Or maybe his followers just flat out misheard him.  Even the great theologian St. Augustine said about this passage, “I can’t believe that this story came from the lips of our Lord.”  We’ll never know exactly what Jesus said, but just because a passage of Scripture is confusing is no reason to abandon it, so let’s dig in.

This is another one of these congregation participation sermons, so let’s all open our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16.

You’ll see the passage has three parts-a long story about a dishonest manager, then verse nine which obscurely reflects on the story, and then verses ten and on, which try to neatly wrap up some aphorisms about money that really have very little to do with the above passage.

These last verses are so neat and tidy; they seem incongruous with the rest of the passage.  Remember that the Gospels were oral stories handed down, and then edited into a coherent text.  So, it is entirely possible, that Luke or one of Luke’s editors had two separate Jesus stories they combined for our passage today.  For now, we will treat them just as that-and focus our attention on the first part of the passage, which presents enough problems as it is!

In this ambiguous passage, a dishonest manager gets fired for cooking the books, and then as his final exit, works some shady deals, possibly cheating his boss-and then is rewarded for this deception!

So, to understand this more deeply, let’s relocate the parable-imagine there was someone, probably Corin Capshaw, who owned all of Old Trail.  He owned the land, the houses, and the shops in the Village at Old Trail.  Every one who lived and worked in Old Trail rented their property from Mr. Capshaw, but because he is a busy man, he can not manage all the property himself, so he hires a manager. 

Keep in mind, this is all imaginary and the Beights family runs Old Trail with the greatest of competence and decency.

In this system, the manager has the authority to rent out not only the property, but also objects to the tenants at a very high commission.  So, say you wanted to clean your new coffee shop and you needed a power washer.  You could borrow a power washer from the manager, and when you were done with it, you would return the power washer and also give the manager a fee-say a hundred jugs of olive oil.  The owner gets some of this fee, but the manager also takes a commission. 

So, in this imaginary story, the manager is not only pocketing these fees, but he’s doing something actually bad, too-some sort of “squandering the property”.  Perhaps he’s lending things he’s not supposed to lend or skimming money from the rent.  We’ll never know.

Mr. Capshaw has it within his rights to have the guy arrested, but instead, he shows mercy and merely fires the manager.  The manager is desperate because he doesn’t really have any other skills and does not want to do manual labor or become a beggar so he comes up with a scheme. 

He needs other people to really like him, and he needs it to happen stat.  If people like him, perhaps they can find him a job or let him live with them.  In any case, he gathers all the people that owe him debts from borrowing powerwashers and the like and he goes through the list systematically and slashes their debt.  He makes some friends, his boss gets his portion of the money and his property back, and they get a great deal.  Everybody wins.

The manager notes this and is very impressed.

And then the passage gets really weird.  Jesus says, “And I tell you, make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”  Huh?

Is Jesus saying if we’re going to make gains from dishonest wealth we should at least make friends out of the deal? So when we’re caught we have some place to go? Whaaa?

Who knows?  This passage is messy, the manager is messy, the editing is messy.  It’s all very messy.

Now, I want you to keep your bibles open and find the parable that occurs directly before this parable.  What is it?

(Parable of the Lost Son)

If you’ll notice, our parable today has a very similar arc to the parable of the prodigal son.  A young man acts in a disgraceful way in each, and also experiences some degree of redemption.  BUT, where the parable of the prodigal son is all extremes-the complete depravity of the son, the complete forgiveness of the father, our parable today is much more murky.

We’re left not knowing exactly what is going to happen to the manager-or even exactly what he did wrong.  We’re not even entirely clear how the owner feels about the manager-is he really angry, does he feel forgiveness or even pride by the end of the story? 

While the Prodigal Son is a beautiful and perfect parable, its story of sin and redemption is so extreme, I think not all of us can relate to it very well.  Most of us, when we sin, when we hurt ourselves or other people, we do it in small ways.  Most of us don’t have the chance to get our inheritance early, turn our backs on our families, and go wild in the big city. 

However, even those of us who are “good”, who are more like the older brother in the prodigal son story, screw up.  When we screw up, it’s usually saying something before we think, or making a really bad, but not malicious, judgment call.  We may be a little greedy, a little unethical.  In short, I think most of us are much more like the manager, than the prodigal son.  We do our best to support ourselves, and if our livelihoods get threatened, we’re not above engaging in a little creativity to save our necks.

And redemption in our lives is not always as dramatic as the father’s loving embrace in the prodigal son story, either.  When we’re being forgiven, we do not often have a huge emotional experience of deep reconciliation with our loved ones or with God.  We may just feel the small satisfaction that comes with knowing that a relationship has been repaired and that we are safe in the affections of another.

Yes, the story of the manager and the landowner is messy, but our lives are messy, too.  Life is not a fairy tale or a movie-problems don’t get resolved in dramatic sweeps with violins singing in the background.  More often than not, we don’t see the easy solution, we don’t understand what God is doing or what God wants from us.

And maybe this frustrating, confusing, messy passage is a gift to us-a reminder that not everything needs to be tied up neatly for life to have meaning.  A reminder that grace comes even in the midst of confusion and misunderstanding.  A reminder that even our stupid, petty, daily sins are greeted with grace.

And yes, perhaps even the cheesemakers and the Greeks are blessed, for God’s grace encompasses all of us, even when, especially when we don’t understand how.

Proper 18, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Sometimes in the Old Testament, God can seem far off and remote.  We have a hard time connecting with such an impersonal God.  Then, every once in awhile, we read something that shocks us into remembering that God loves us personally and passionately.  Both of today’s readings from the Old Testament wake us up to God’s relationship with us.

Our Psalm today is one of the most beautiful Psalms in the Psalter.  The Psalmist marvels at God’s knowledge and care for us from the time we are in our mother’s wombs, to the end of our days.  The Psalmist has come to understand that no matter where we go in our lives, or how far we may try to run from our experiences, God is always with us, caring for us and shaping us.

This idea of God shaping us takes even further form in our passage from Jeremiah.  In this prophetic piece of writing, God is describing to Jeremiah how God can shape the fortunes of Israel like a potter shapes a piece of clay.  This metaphor is really powerful-God as a potter means that God is hands on with us, that God molds and shapes us in an intimate way.

I don’t know much about pottery-my most formative mental image of pottery is as a 13 year old watching agog as Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze steamed up the pottery wheel in the movie Ghost.  So, I asked some questions of those who do know something about pottery and this is what I learned.

Pottery has five main steps.  First, the potter kneads the clay.  This prepares the clay to be shaped later.  Next, the potter throws the clay-this is the image crystallized so clearly in Ghost-when the potter places the clay on a wheel and begins to shape the clay as the wheel moves.  Third, the potter fires the clay, in order for the pot to hold its shape.  Fourth, the potter glazes the pot to add color and finally, the potter fires the pot again.

Being kneaded, thrown, and fired.  These are not universally pleasant images, but they certainly resonate with human experience.  How does God knead, throw and fire us?

Think of kneading as a time of preparation.  A potter must knead the clay before she throws the clay, because the clay must be pliable and homogenous.  Kneading gets out rough patches and soft spots.  Kneading makes clay flexible and useable. 

In our Christian journeys, let’s think of the time of kneading as the time when we gain the tools, flexibility and knowledge we need to deal with the world.  We are kneaded by God when we come to church, when we read the bible, when we pray.  We are kneaded by our parents as they teach us to share and play nicely with others.  We are kneaded as we go to school and learn to read, write, think, do math, conduct experiments.  We are kneaded as we learn to dance, play a sport, pick up a musical instrument.  God uses all these things in our youth and our adulthood to prepare us to be the fully formed people he created in our mother’s wombs.

The throwing stage can be a little more challenging.  Being pulled and pushed and shaped by God can be exhausting.  We’re constantly being shaped in order that we may live out more closely the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

My best friend, L., who often comes up in my sermons, is going through a period of being thrown by God at the moment.  For many years, she has consciously sought out jobs in which she did not have to be responsible for other people.  She is a hard worker, but the stress of managing others was just not worth the benefits for her.  She has been an administrator and personal assistant in a variety of capacities, but finally after getting the bill from the company that replaced the roof of her house this winter, she finally had the motivation she needed to seek a job with more responsibility (and a higher paycheck!)

She began work a few months ago in an office with a bunch of Ph.Ds and a lot of administrative assistants as their first office manager. Every day she is being stretched-though she is an incredibly intelligent woman, the PhDs use words every day she’s never heard of.  Some administrative assistants resent her presence and the IT girl has commenced a war against her.  L’s intelligence is being stretched, her people skills are being pulled and prodded, her patience is tried every day, and her sheer physical endurance is growing as she works her tail off.  She knows God brought her to this job, but she also feels like she is reaching to the very edges of her ability for the first time in a long time. 

Being thrown on God’s potting wheel can be dizzying!  Having to grow as a person when we are already fully fledged adults can be really painful. But as Christians, as people in relationship with our Creator, we are never done growing, and God is never done with us. 

While being shaped on the potter’s wheel may be tiring, no experience quite matches that of then being placed in the potter’s fire.

At some point in our Christian journey, we will each find ourselves in the potter’s fire.  This may be prompted by an event in our lives, or it may simply be a spiritual experience.  This week, early reviews of Mother Theresa’s book of personal letters have been published.  What has shocked many people is that Mother Theresa spent much of her life-and all 50 years of her ministry as a nun–in deep spiritual turmoil.  She often felt as if God were far from her and went through periods where she doubted his existence entirely.  Instead of leaving the convent and her ministry, though, she stayed in the spiritual struggle.  She continued to pray, and read, and consult her own spiritual mentors.  She also continued serving those she was called to serve.  And though she would deny she was one, this faithfulness, this fight, is what formed her into a saint.  The fire of her doubt, ironically, is the fire that sanctified her, that showed forth her true self. 

The potter’s fire has also been described as the refining fire-it is the fire that burns away the parts of ourselves that are not true, and brings to light the parts of ourselves that God has created and shaped.  The potter’s fire may not come a purely spiritual struggle.  The potter’s fire may come as grief at the death of a loved one.  The fire may come during a painful divorce, or an illness, or after a dream has died.

As you know, though, not everyone who has been through a difficult period of their lives emerges from it enlightened and more themselves. People often leave the fire bitter and occasionally even broken. A potter’s fire is a dangerous place.  It is in the fire when glaze turns the wrong color, or even worse, when a piece of pottery shatters.

When we are in the fire, or when we know someone who is in the fire, we need to be extra gentle.  This is the time for extra prayer and rest and meditation.  This is the time for loving friends and trips to the spa.  We do not run away from our lives, but we do take deep breaths and more naps. 

The fire is not something inherently destructive-the fire is intended to shape and refine us.  God is not interested in our destruction, God is interested in our holiness, in our relationship with him and with each other.  Those fruits of the spirit that are formed when we are on the wheel are shined and honed in the fire. 

Pottery is known for being beautiful, but fundamentally pottery is known for being useful.  As Christians, God shapes us to be useful, too.  Useful to our families, useful to our churches and workplaces, useful to the poor and those who need extra help.  Today, at our Festival of Ministries, you will have the opportunity to think about how God has formed you for usefulness.  What experiences have you had that have made you better and more yourself?  What might God be preparing for you to do?  There is much work to be done here at Emmanuel, even if that work usually means having quite a bit of fun and spending time with really remarkable people.  You have a place-or several places!-here at Emmanuel, and today is your day to explore them!  So, whether you are a vase or a bowl; a plate or a coffee mug-we welcome to spend time with us after church today deciding what kind of piece of pottery you are!

Proper 15, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is too hot for today’s lectionary readings.  In the weather we’ve had the last few weeks, we should be reading about green pastures or cool streams.  Jesus should be telling us something soothing and refreshing, the spiritual equivalent of lemonade. Today’s readings are more like steaming hot coffee: if you’re not careful, they’ll burn you.

In our reading from Isaiah, God is describing his people as a vineyard that he planted and tended, but who turned out to have wild grapes, rather than cultivated, edible ones.  If you look closely, though, you’ll see this passage is not just about gardening.  The first verse of the passage uses both the words “beloved” and “love song”.  This gives us a clue that the following passage is passionate.  After all, a love song’s lyrics never go, “Oh, I sort of liked you, but now it is over, and that’s okay, I guess.”  Love songs are filled with passion and longing and heart break. 

Occasionally, a love song will have a happy ending, but more often than not love songs are songs of mourning-mourning the end of a relationship, mourning betrayal, mourning unrequited love.  Our love song from Isaiah this morning does exactly that.  It is a song from God to Israel.  God is heartbroken that Israel has betrayed him and become a society marked by bloodshed and injustice.  Israel has broken God’s heart over and over again, and God has always come back for more. He is sad and angry and so he shares today’s song with the prophet Isaiah.

If you replace the word vineyard with the word sweetheart, parts of the song sound like modern love songs.

Judge between me
and my sweetheart.
What more was there to do for my sweetheart
that I have not done in it?

This is a common theme in love songs, right?  “What more could I do baby?  I’d do anything to get you back, darlin’.  I’ve worked so hard, but still you don’t respect me.  What more can I do?  I buy you flowers, I make you dinner, but you just won’t stay around.”  We all know that feeling of working and working at a relationship with little pay off.

At the end of the song, God gets good and angry and sings,

And now I will tell you
what I will do to my sweetheart.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns.

This is the break up song!  Have you all every seen the movie Better off Dead?  It’s a John Hughes movie from the 80s about a boy who gets his heart broken when his girlfriend leaves him for a burly blonde prep school guy.  In one scene, our hero is driving down the street, totally morose, listening the radio.  He realizes he’s listening to a sad break up song, so he changes the channel, but every channel he turns to is just another tragic song about heart break.  He finally rips his radio out and throws it into the street. 

We don’t think about God being heart broken, or singing break up songs, but here we have one!  We think about God as lofty and somehow above emotion, but the image of God as humanity’s lover abounds throughout the Old and New Testaments.  Whenever Israel begins worshiping golden calves and that sort of nonsense, God gets flaming mad–the same kind of angry a husband would get at a straying wife.  God was passionate about Israel and is passionate about us.

That passion does not cease when Jesus comes to earth.

We think of Jesus as sweet, maybe even a little passive, not unlike this Jesus action figure-he’s attractive, but essentially mild.  But Jesus wasn’t mild.  Jesus was passion personified. 

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is always aware that he is headed to Jerusalem, and that by heading to Jerusalem, he is heading to his death.  He knows he has a limited time to communicate his messages to his followers, and he seems particularly stressed by that in our passage today.  Jesus knows he is going to die soon and he passionately wants his listeners to hear the words he is saying to them.

The part of his discourse we overhear in today’s reading is full of the violent images of fire and division, but Jesus is not using destructive language for the sake of being destructive.  Jesus is using this intent, violent language in order to convey his passion and the sober and serious reality of being a Christian.

Jesus says he has come to bring fire to the earth.  What a terrifying image!  We think of house fires, forest fires, the images of burning oil wells in Iraq.  We think of fire as utterly destructive.  Does Jesus want to destroy us?  Fire can be destructive, but fire can also warm on a cold night, and bring light where there was only darkness.  Even destructive fires, like a forest fire, can clear out dead brush and create a path for new life to flourish. 

But in this passage, fire is the least of our problems!  

Despite the Christian Coalition’s claims that Jesus was really concerned about white American middle class values, in this passage, Jesus rips the idea of the nuclear family apart.  Why would he do this?  Does he hate children and grandparents, family dinners and game nights? 

Probably not, but Jesus does want to make it very clear that following him has consequences.  Following Jesus is not like having a job; following Jesus is like being in a passionate relationship.  And if you’re in a passionate relationship, for better or worse, you’re going to mow down your relatives if they are standing between you and your lover.  Jesus wants all of our time and energy-not just the occasional prayer or Sunday morning church attendance.  Jesus wants our entire heart and soul; our mind and body.   Jesus realizes that not all of the families of his listeners are going to be thrilled if they become his followers.  Their mothers and wives; fathers and husbands may freak out if all of a sudden they left their jobs, left their homes, in order to follow Jesus.  Jesus wants his listeners to know there is a cost to following him, and that cost may be in the form of relationships.

We make a huge mistake if we think we can be part-time Christians, or be a Christian without radically changing the way we live.  Being a Christian is a life altering, full bodied, relational experience.  Being a Christian is like being married or being a son or daughter-it changes and defines who we are as we are in relationship.  God pursues us with intensity, passion and jealousy.  If we begin worshiping money, status, a job, or even our families, God will chase after us and try to win us back. 

We are God’s beloved.  God has created us and invested in us and he loves us deeply.  We have the capacity to betray God.  We have the capacity to break God’s heart.  Thankfully for us, one thing God will not do is give up on us.  We are his and he loves us.  

Amen.

Proper 13, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

Matt was in Baltimore last weekend, for a weekend of watching Orioles’ baseball with his dad, in celebration of his father’s 60th birthday.  On Matt’s way home Sunday, stuck in traffic on the beltway, he saw a bumper sticker he had never seen before.  The first time he saw it, the bumper sticker was on a small, sleek, Porche sportscar.  The second time the bumper sticker was on an imposing Mercedes sedan.  The bumper sticker read:

“Don’t be fooled by the car, my treasure’s in heaven.”

Few bumper stickers I’ve seen say as much in as few words.  The owners of the bumper stickers are making SURE you notice that their cars are really, really expensive and fantastic, while simultaneously implying that they have a deep spiritual life, and know better than placing too much value on their fancy cars.

The bumper stickers tell us a lot more about them than even they realize, I think!  The false piety in the bumper sticker’s message is enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!  While I’m a firm believer in talking openly about many taboos in our society, I think perhaps these kind of people are the reason our mothers told us it was tacky to talk about money.

The man in our Gospel passage today has a similar kind of insensitivity.  He has come to hear Jesus deliver a discourse, and man, what a discourse he overhears!  In one lecture, Jesus teaches his listeners the Lord’s Prayer, then goes on to talk about the nature of demons and evil and divinity.  This lecture is very heady and profound.  The Pharisees invite Jesus for lunch in the middle of this discourse and true to form, Jesus manages to insult and alienate them.  After lunch, Jesus comes back to teach more and he find that the crowd outside has multiplied.  Now thousands of people are waiting to listen to him.  There are so many people there, they are stepping on each other!

Jesus does not disappoint, either- He comes out with two guns blazing.  His first sentence after lunch warns people to beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  This is an inflammatory, shocking statement. 

At this point, the man in our story interrupts Jesus.  Like so many followers we’ve been hearing about on Sundays lately, the man seems not to connect with Jesus’ words at all.  Instead of asking a follow up question about the Lord’s Prayer, or asking Jesus if he was implying that he was GOD, or asking what Jesus’ beef with the Pharisees was all about, the man instead asks Jesus to arbitrate a dispute between his brother and him.  His brother has inherited the entirety of his family’s estate and the man does not think it is fair.  He wants Jesus to make his brother give him half the money.

Can you imagine?  You’re at the downtown Pavilion, PACKED with people, listening to the Son of God speak and you have the gall to interrupt and ask Jesus to settle a matter of an inheritance?

Money makes people really, really stupid.  Or, rather, greed makes people really, really stupid. 

This man’s passion about his own problems and his own desires, put blinders on him.  They blinded him to the spiritual reality that was right in front of him and all around him.  Jesus was giving him a view into eternity, a view into the spiritual realm-a view that could have changed his whole life.  If the man had really listened closely to the Lord’s prayer, he would know that God provides his daily bread, that God provides everything he could possibly need. 

But because this man had blinders of greed on, he misses the wonder of the reality of God in his midst.

Jesus tells him, to remember to “be on guard against all kind of greed, for life does not consist of an abundance of possessions.”

As wealthy Americans, we should put a copy of this verse on our flat screen TVs, iPods, Jimmy Choo shoes, Ethan Allen furniture, and IRA bank statements.  As a culture our relationship with money is just as screwed up as the man who wanted Jesus to settle the matter of our inheritance.  We tend to either get in denial about money and spend wildly until we’re deeply in debt, or become so obsessed with our savings, we become misers who cannot appreciate the deep richness of the life around us. 

For many, money makes us afraid.  We do not understand how much we should pay in rent, what we should save for retirement or our children’s education, whether we should buy or rent a house, how much we should tithe and what in the world we should do with our money when we die.  We buy “stuff” because we feel anxious, or competitive, or because we feel a deep yearning for the object.  We don’t always feel in control of what we buy.  More than once, when I open my American Express bill, I have gasped and said, “How did that HAPPEN?” 

And when we hear Jesus’ words about greed and possessions we feel condemned.  We feel we have failed in our Christian duty and that makes us feel sad, so we go out and buy something that makes us feel better.  Or, if we’re feeling really guilty, maybe we donate some money to a good cause. 

The good news is that Jesus’ words are not meant to condemn, but to redirect. 

Jesus wants to redirect him, and us, from believing that our value and our future are rooted in what we have.  He tells this really unusual parable-unusual in that it is really simple and straightforward.  A rich man’s fields are incredibly abundant and he stores up their riches until his barns are bursting!  God finds him and yells at him-God tells the rich man that he is going to die and all these stored goods will be useless.

(Maybe Warren Buffet was meditating on this parable when he decided to give 85% of his billions to charity!  I bet his children would have loved to get ahold of Jesus and complain about that particular inheritance!)

Those of us who do not deal with the problem of what to do with a multi-billion dollar fortune still need to be redirected.  We need the Holy Spirit to nudge us, to guide our attention away from our stuff and the process of acquiring more stuff and direct that attention towards the one who created us and created all the stuff in the first place. 

Money and things will never satisfy our deepest longings.  We long to be loved.  We long to be safe.  We long to be understood.  We long for an end to our anxiety.  We long for health.  We long for reconnection with those from whom we are estranged.  We long for justice.  We long for forgiveness.

And of course money and objects give us some measure of comfort and can greatly ease our lives, but they can never fill our deepest longings.  Money and resources cannot give us the deep assurance that we have been made for a purpose and out of deep love.  Money and resources cannot know us.

No one knows this better than babies.  You could give little Carter all the toys in the world, and not one of them will give him even an iota of the comfort of being held in his parents’ arms. 

God loves us deeply, better than the best parent out there.  God knows us intimately.  God accepts us wherever we are and longs to be in relationship with us. 

And when we consent to the reality of God’s presence around us, when we consent to the relationship God wants to have with us, we become filled with the peace that comes with that kind of deep relationship. 

And when we become filled with peace, we become free to deal with questions of money and possessions out of a deeply rooted place.  We come to understand that life is abundant with love and relationship and even resources.  We begin to treat money less as the enemy and more as a tool God gives us to use as we seek holy lives.  We see money as a resource rather than as an end.  We see possessions as gift, rather than as entitlements. 

We come to understand that our  life does not consist in the abundance of possessions, but in an abundance of relationship with God.

Thanks be to God!

Proper 11, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

I have a secret.

I have a very long term, very intense, shameful love/hate relationship with housework.  I love the idea of housework.  Years ago I bought the Cheryl Mendelson’s book Home Comforts.  Mendelson is a lawyer, who grew up in a farm in Pennsylvania and her passion is housekeeping.  She loves to sort and clean and cook. Her book is so beautifully written that it seduces you into the idea that housekeeping is an art.  She writes,

What really does work to increase the feeling of having a home and its comforts is housekeeping.  Housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, the conditions for health and safety, and a good place to do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your home.  Whether you live alone or with a spouse, parents and ten children, it is your housekeeping that makes your home alive, that turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else.

(Sigh)  Isn’t that lovely?  I’ll read that paragraph and swear to myself that I will become a capital H housekeeper.  My house will be airy and light, dust free, with clutter put into its rightful place.  The sink will sparkle. No crumb will mar my hygienic kitchen counters.  My home will be a place of peace and beauty. 

Yeah, right. 

I come from a long line of people unable to deal with clutter.  Both my grandmothers had decade’s worth of bills and papers piled on their useless dining room tables.  My father’s favorite home video is a really boring one he took when I was about eleven.  The video is an inventory of the house he did for insurance purposes-the camera slowly sweeps across our home recording our few valuables.  My dad loves this video because as the camera recorded our life together, it also recorded the fact that every flat surface was covered with clutter.  If a ledge dared to just out more than an inch and a half, we would put something on it.  This clutter drove my father crazy, but he participated in its creation as much as we did.

So, I live in the tension of deeply desiring a clean home, but a seeming inability to maintain one.  Housekeeping has alternated between feeling virtuous and oppressive throughout my life, but now that I’m married it takes on a whole other component.  Poor, poor Matt.  Three Fridays ago, I decided while he was at work, I would clean the house.  My intensions started out as true.  Out of my love for him, I would create a welcoming, clean home.  After about four hours and six loads of laundry, though, resentment began creeping in like the insidious beast that it is.  And when I called him about six and learned he was having a beer with co-workers, I lost it.  When he came home, he found a sniveling, weepy, housewife.  When he asked what he could do, I whimpered, “I need to leave the house.  Take me out to dinner.”  And he did, and all ended well. 

So, all this to say: I get Martha.  Martha and I would have been pals.  When she told me her story, I would have shaken my head at Mary’s abandonment of her and felt her deep pain at Jesus’ rebuke.  I would have taken Martha out for a drink, and shaken my head and said, “Men. They just don’t get it.”

Imagine the scene.  Luke tells us that Martha was the one who welcomed Jesus into her home. She probably loved to entertain and was so excited about hosting this special person.  She had probably scrubbed the floor, dusted the furniture, cut some flowers and put them in a vase. . .but anyone who has entertained knows that is not the end of the story.  When your guest is in your house, you’re cooking and refilling his glass, and doing everything you can to make sure he’s comfortable.  When Martha extended the offer to Jesus, she was being hospitable.  She also probably thought she could count on her sister’s help.  But instead, Martha works her tail off, while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to him teach.  When Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to get up off her butt, he is NOT receptive.

Jesus may have rebuked Martha here, but he has certainly been the recipient of housekeeping throughout his ministry.  The New Testament is filled with stories of him going to other people’s houses to eat.  At one point in the 12th chapter of Luke he tells his followers, And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things.  And that’s all well and good, but SOMEONE was going to be preparing all these mysteriously provided meals. 

At least Jesus knows a bit of what he speaks-he did, after all, provide food for 5000 with only a few loaves and fishes.  You think having to throw that kind of dinner party, he’d have a little sympathy for Martha’s dilemma.

We know from the Gospel of John that Mary, Martha, their brother Lazarus, and Jesus were all really good friends.  Not only disciples-but friends.  That helps me when I read this passage.  Jesus’ rebuke is somehow easier to hear if it comes from a frustrated friend rather than Jesus as an authority figure.  I wish we knew what happened next.  I really hope that Martha said, “Well, fine.  I’ll just sit and listen, too.  You can make your own darn sandwiches.  For that matter, you can clean the dishes, too.” 

Now, this is the point in most sermons about Mary and Martha, where the preacher would do a reversal and talk about how sometimes our ministry is to sit still and “be” and bask in Jesus’ presence, etc. etc.  And all of that is true, but for this sermon, I’m going to continue to support Martha.  And here’s why. 

In our translation, we read that Martha was distracted by her many tasks.  Tasks is also sometimes translated as preparations.  But the Greek word that is translated as tasks is actually diakonia-a word that everywhere else in the New Testament is described as service or ministry.  So if a man in the New Testament is  participating in diakonia, he is participating in ministry.  When Martha is participating in diakonia, it is “distracting tasks”.  That doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Martha was not just a fussbudget, she was a woman who ministered through her housekeeping. Her conflict with Mary and Jesus was about different ways of ministering to Jesus, not about housework versus ministry. 

So, despite my own love-hate relationship with housework, today I preach for housework as ministry.  Today we commiserate and celebrate with Martha and all women (and maybe in 2007 a healthy number of men, too!) who lug a vacuum, wash endless piles of laundry, haul recycling, wash off the mud, empty the dishwasher, make the bed, feed the dog, and cook dinner. 

Our culture tells us we are not whole human beings unless we are working hard outside the home.  I cannot tell you how many women I have heard tell me that they don’t do anything important-they just work at home and raise children.  That belief could not be farther from the truth!

This work, this drudgery is not just a never ending cycle of chores the gods have invented to torture us, this work is ministry-the ministry of hospitality.  And I would argue that hospitality is one of the most important ministries of the church-Hospitality is what draws people to church and to Jesus.  When we open our church or our homes to others we tell them they are valuable and precious to us.  When we clean and cook for our families or guests we are helping them to be in, as Cheryl Mendleson says, “the place where [they]can be more [themselves] than they can be anywhere else”.  In this kind of home they can experience their full humanity and also experience the love of Christ for them.

And yes, there are times we need to lay down the broom to attend to something Christ may have to teach us.  Frankly, I would happily lay down my broom.  Sometimes in the middle of mopping I put my hand to my ear and say, “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’d have me do, Jesus?”  But in the meantime, until we get that other call, when we are getting out grass stains and polishing the silver, we can know we are doing holy work-the work of ministry.

Proper 10, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

What is the answer to the meaning of life? 

Throughout the centuries, philosophers have debated this question.  Perhaps Douglas Adams says it best, in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when he tells us the answer is. . . 42.  In this comedic, satirical piece of science fiction, a group of travelers go on a long adventure after the earth is destroyed. Along the way, after a fearsome journey, the travelers ask a sage what the answer to life, the universe and everything is.  The sage tells them, “42” and when they complain he says what they really should have asked is what the question is.  The never do find a satisfying answer.

Adams reminds us that the meaning of life is not something that can be condensed into a sentence or even a paragraph, though many have tried.

One of the many who has tried to pin down an answer to the meaning of life is a young lawyer in Jesus’ time.  This particular lawyer wanted to see how Jesus would respond to another phrasing of the meaning of life question.  That is, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  For that’s really it, isn’t it?  When we ask about the meaning of life, we’re asking about our own mortality.  We’re asking what is the point of giving of ourselves, if we’re all just going to die anyway?  We’re wondering if there is anything after this?

Jesus must have interacted with lawyers before this one, because he simply deflects the question back to the man and asks him, “What is written in the law?”  The lawyer replies with the Schema from the Hebrew Scriptures which is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus then affirms that this is the way to live.

But what doesn’t Jesus say?  Jesus does not say, “This is what you do to get into heaven.”  Jesus does not say, “This is what you do so that God won’t get mad at you.”  Jesus tells the man that loving God and loving neighbor is the way to live. 

What a profound statement.  Jesus answers the man, but in doing so, demonstrates that the man’s motivations are all wrong.  God does not want us worrying about what might happen, but what is happening right now.  Loving God and loving our neighbor will lead us to glimpses of understanding the meaning of life.  When we are in relationship with God and reach out to our neighbors, we get a glimpse of eternal life.  Wow. Deep. 

And Jesus wasn’t kidding.  According to this week’s Christian Century, Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist right here at UVA has done loads of research with those who have had near death experiences.  In his research he has found nearly every person who has survived these experiences comes back, and changes their life to suit the “Golden Rule”, because through their experience they have come to understand that the Golden Rule is like gravity-it’s just how the universe works.

The Shema is not just a set of instructions, like, “Be nice to your brother!” The Shema is a description about the state of humanity, and our relationship with God and each other.  We become our deepest, best selves when we are in relationship with the divine.  We become our most compassionate and wise when we connect with the people around us.  When we follow the schema we truly live. 

So, does the lawyer run home and journal about this profound insight? 

Nah, instead he asks, “So, um, who exactly is my neighbor?”

The lawyer just doesn’t quite get it, does he?  Perhaps not all of his neighbors were the borrowing-a-cup-of-sugar, having-cookouts-on-the-fourth-of-July kind of neighbors.  Maybe some of his neighbors drove their sports cars too quickly through the neighborhood while their music blared.  Maybe these same neighbors let their kids set off firecrackers every night the week of July 4th.  Maybe these neighbors let their dog run around and poop anywhere it pleased.  (These are just hypothetical neighbors, of course.  They don’t live in my neighborhood.)

In any case, the lawyer wants Jesus to define the word neighbor.  And Jesus, being Jesus does not say, “Well, lawyer, a neighbor is anyone living in a half mile radius of you.  However, if one stretches the definition of a neighbor to include people with whom you engage on a daily basis, neighbors also include parents of your children’s friends, members of the country club, co-workers, and those of the same political party.”

I think this definition would have greatly pleased the lawyer.  However, Jesus much prefers telling a story than telling you an answer straight. So, he tells the lawyer the story of the Good Samaritan. 

We all know the story.  A guy was traveling from Richmond to Charlottesville and got beat up by those guys in white t-shirts we’ve been reading about in the newspaper.  They beat him up really badly and leave him for dead.  Three people pass the poor guy. The first person is me, a priest, but I’m on my way to a really important pastoral call and just don’t have time to deal with it, so keep walking.  Secondly, one of Jerry Falwell’s assistants sees the guy, but he’s busy going to make a speech about how great Falwell was, so he keeps going, too.  Finally, Paris Hilton is in town for some reason.  Instead of ignoring the poor guy, she actually stops, takes him to the Omni, calls Martha Jefferson Hospital to get a doctor to come over, and makes sure the Omni will let him stay as long as he needs to recover. 

Seriously?  Paris Hilton?  She of the DUI, suspended license, jail time, all night partying, “special” videotapes, and boyfriend stealing?  Yep, it was Paris who ultimately had more compassion and more guts to help the poor guy than any of the religious figures that walked by and ignored him.  In this story, Paris is the true neighbor, defying all expectations and social norms. 

When he hears this story, the lawyer realizes that this whole question of “Who is my neighbor?” is far broader than he realized-the idea of neighbor is not just the people in your circle-but everyone from the most down and out beat up guy on the sidewalk, to the person who runs around in circles for whom you have nothing but derision and disrespect.

This is inconvenient for the lawyer. This truth is inconvenient for us!  To truly live the Schema, to truly have the depth of human and divine experience, to live as we are meant to live, we are intended to be in relationship with all kinds of people, all kinds of neighbors-even if we would never choose to live next door to them.

For in the end, we are all beings created in the image of God, no matter our station in life.  In the end, the invitation to love God with our totality, with our whole being, is open to all of us. 

For to live, to really live, is not living for the future or regretting the past, but living in the fullness of God’s love here and now.

Proper 8, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

What a year of transitions!

Perhaps over time I will learn that every year is full of change, that we don’t really stand on solid ground, but on sediment that is constantly shifting.  However, this year has seemed particularly full of transition.  We elected, and then greeted, a new bishop.  The presidential race is in full swing, with dozens of men and at least one woman gunning for the most powerful office in America. 

And personally, for us at Emmanuel, we have lost many of the Saints that led this church for the last fifty years:  Kate LaRue, Peggy Flannagan, Ned Morris, Mildred Lapsley, Zan McGuire, Kitty Shirley, David Smith, Louise Ellinger, and Theo Earp.  I have listened to one interview conducted by the Heritage committee for their oral history project, and I was so moved to hear stories of the men and women who served this place twenty to thirty years ago on the vestry, through altar guild, singing in the choir, teaching.  Their service was a continuation of the service of those before them, and we carry their work on now. 

The work of the church is never ending, and though we don’t often take time to reflect on it, the work we do is always a direct result of someone else’s hard work.  Our Sunday School and nursery would not be functional if not for the years of service of the Christian Education committee before I came.  Chuck would not be here if Mr. Marston and Mr. LaRue had not poured their hearts into this place. 

In the Christian story, generations are always passing the torch, one to another.  Sometimes that goes smoothly. . . and sometimes there are some bumps in the road!

Today, we’ll look at three such stories-the transition of leadership from King Saul to King David, the transition of leadership from Elijah to Elisha, and finally the transition of leadership from Jesus to the Church.

The transition of leadership from Saul to David is a worst-case scenario.  If you’ll remember from reading the 1st and 2nd books of Samuel, Saul was the first king of Israel.  God did not want the people of Israel to have a king, but they whined because they wanted to be like all the other countries around them.  The whining finally got to God, and he granted them a king.  Saul was a great king.  He was tall and handsome, very smart and had innate leadership skills.  The problem was, he was such a good king, he forgot to rely on God.  He ignored the prophet Nathan’s instructions once and that was IT.  God wanted him out.  For God’s second try as king, he chose David.  David was not anyone’s first choice for king.  He was scrawny, a shepherd, and. . .a musician.  But God knew that David loved God with all his heart. God wanted him as king..

But you know, it’s hard to let go of power.  History books tell us it took years for Nixon to fully understand that he was no longer president.  For a long time, he would sit in his office at home and command his staff as if he were still the leader of the free world.  While some find it easy to retire, others, especially if forced out, have a really difficult time letting someone else take over.  Saul was one of these guys.  He knew David was next in line to be king, but he was not going to go down without a fight.  He fought the transition so hard, it ended up killing him-he died on the battlefield.  Saul did not need to die that way.  He and David did not start out as enemies-in fact, Saul’s son Jonathan, was David’s best friend.  Saul could have resigned his post and then acted as an advisor to David, or taken up gardening, or some form of ancient golf.  Instead, he gripped on to his power, his authority, and it ruined him.

Do we ever cling to power?  Letting go of a position of authority can be very painful.  My father retired two summers ago after being principal of a particular school for five years.  Watching his successor undo much of the good foundation he had laid at the school, was terribly frustrating to my dad.  He had to consciously let go and distance himself so he wouldn’t go crazy worrying about the students and teachers under this new administration.  We cling to power, not just for power’s sake, but because we think we can do a good job, a better job than the next guy, but sometimes God is calling us to let go and to move forward in our own lives. 

The transition of power from Elijah to Elisha is a very different story.  If the story of Saul and David is on the very human and very sad end of the spectrum, the story of Elijah and Elisha is over here on the over the top, almost ridiculously spiritual side of the spectrum.  Elijah was a stormy old prophet.  He ushered in a drought to punish the nation for idolatry.  And he was constantly shouting prophecies of dooooooom.  Nevertheless, Elisha thought Elijah was the bees knees.  In our story today, he is following Elijah around like Elijah’s biggest fan.  Even when Elijah tells him to get lost, that he’s going to be taken up into heaven, Elisha won’t leave.  He admires Elijah so much, that he wants to inherit a doubleshare of his spirit-he wants to be able to carry on Elijah’s prophetic ministry with the same energy and vigor as his mentor.  When Elijah is finally taken up into heaven, Elisha tore his clothes into two pieces and placed Elijah’s fallen mantle on himself-symbolizing the transition of leadership.

Taking over leadership from a successful leader is scary stuff.  It can be tempting to hero worship our predecessor and lose ourselves in their style. And while we can certainly learn from other leaders, it is important to retain a sense of our own identity.  While Elisha did inherit Elijah’s spirit, Elisha was a very different kind of prophet.  Instead of heralding doom, Elisha showed people God’s power by being a wonder worker.  He worked miracles for his nation and for individuals.  (He also killed two kids who made fun of him for being bald-but that is a whole other story.)   Elisha was able to inherit Elijah’s spirit, while remaining true to himself and the gifts God had given him.

Finally, the transition of leadership between Jesus and the church is most like what we experience today in the Church.  Jesus had spent three years leading and teaching his disciples.  He knew his death was going to come, and come soon.  He had changed Simon’s name from Simon to Peter because Jesus knew that Peter-which means rock-would become the rock of the new church.  You and I know how that transition went.  Before Peter could become Peter of the book of Acts, in which he is a wise leader and administrator, he first had to be Peter the impetuous screw up.  Before he could become the Peter who would guide the church, he had to be Peter who would betray Jesus three times.

Peter, James, Paul and the other leaders of the early church had to deal with all sorts of problems as people figured out what it meant to follow Jesus, and they did not handle every situation perfectly.  Like us, sometimes they fought, or hurt each others feelings, or spoke without thinking.  Also like us, they knew they could solve these problems by remembering how Jesus handled situations and by asking the Holy Spirit for guidance. 

I know it is hard to believe, but I have made some SPECTACULARLY stupid decisions as I have ministered here.  You are not so lucky as to get to hear these stories in this sermon, but it is sufficient to say I can relate to Peter’s moment of “Ooooh.  I’ve really screwed up.”  Like Peter, I have had to take a deep breath, ask for forgiveness, and then move on, hoping I have learned something!  I’m sure none of you can relate! 

When we are baptized, we each become a leader in the church.  We each become a minister.  We all will face times in our life when we have to let go of our power to let someone else step up.  We will also face times when we realize that WE are who God wants to step up, no matter how underqualified we think we are!  We will also all make mistakes as we attempt to lead and need to be forgiven.

The good news, is that God will also bless our leadership.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit we will be able to accomplish more than we ever would on our own steam.  The trick is to remember Saul and not be tempted to do everything on our own!

Our great leaders at Emmanuel whom we have lost this year had their leadership blessed by God and all of here in this room enjoy the benefits of their hard work.  As we take over their responsibilities, their areas of leadership, may be also be blessed.

Amen.