Sermon for Thanksgiving Sunday, "Enough: Defined by Generosity," 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Sermon 11/18/12

1 Timothy 6:17-19

Enough: Defined by Generosity

(The structure/content of this sermon is shaped by the book Enough (Stewardship Guide), by Adam Hamilton, and adapted for use in the context of Liverpool First UMC)

            A couple of weeks ago we celebrated All Saints Sunday, and I asked you to share the names of the saints in your life. I was deeply touched by all the names that you brought forward, by this great cloud of witnesses that you lifted up. How truly blessed we are to be so shaped by the people that God has put into our lives for different seasons. I have two saints in my life that I particularly carry in my heart with me. First is my Grandpa, Millard Mudge. Grandpa died fourteen years ago, which seems impossible, so vivid is his memory in my mind. And you’ll hear about him a lot over time, I suspect. But today I particularly want to share with you a bit about my Great Aunt Clara. She died in January after a struggle with lung cancer that caught us all off guard, because she was just a vibrant, full-of-life kind of person, and it was hard to believe she’d really gotten sick. My Aunt Clara lived a pretty colorful life, and at different times over the years she was either what I (as a child, at least) considered quite wealthy (something I measured as a child by the fact that she had an in-ground pool complete with a cabana for changing), and also quite broke, living in questionable apartments in questionable neighborhoods. But no matter what her situation was, Aunt Clara was always incredibly generous. There was just no way you could leave her house empty handed. She wouldn’t have it. If you came to her home, she had to give you gifts. It was hard to express your like of any of her possessions, because you would be afraid she would just give it to you, from the shirt she was wearing, to the sheets on her bed, or the curtain in her windows. When it seemed like she had everything, and when it seemed like she had nothing, Aunt Clara always had enough to give something to you, and it was clear that giving to you gave her incredible joy. Refusing her gifts would be the quickest way to hurt her feelings. Aunt Clara was defined by her generosity, a trait others could easily see and recognize in her. What a way to be remembered! How about you – what do you hope to be remembered for? What are your defining characteristics?   

Today, as we wrestle with this theme of “Enough” for the last week in our series, we are looking again at 1 Timothy, picking up where we left off on our first week with this theme. The text reminds us that our security does not come from our things, from riches, from accumulating stuff. Instead, our hope rests on God, who fulfills promises even beyond our hopefulness. We’re called to “do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,” so that we might store up the kind of treasure that is eternal, and take hold, the author says, “of the life that really is life,” rather than the cheap imitations of real life we are too often willing to accept. Are you living the life that really is life? What characteristics define who you are? Are you marked by the good that you do? Are you rich in good works? Are you always ready to share? Are you defined by generosity?  

            God has created us not only with a willingness to give, both back to God and to others, but with a need to give. We’re meant to give, to be generous. When we do give, the joy we experience is transformative. How many of you have had more fun, been more full of anticipation about a gift you planned to give, rather than a gift you were hoping to receive? And yet, we find, every day, that voices in our life tempt us, war within us, leading us to selfishness, greed, holding on tightly to what we have. There’s the voice of fear: we fear what might happen to us, and want to feel secure, and we think that accumulating money and things will make us secure, and so we fail to be generous. But our things, our money – none of that offers us any real security. None of it is guaranteed forever.  

There’s also the voice of self-gratification. Our culture tells us that our lives consist of our stuff and pleasurable experiences, and so we find ourselves thinking, “if I give, there won’t be enough left for me.” I’m reminded of a story I learned first as a camper at Aldersgate as a child – the story of warm fuzzies and cold pricklies. People had bags with warm fuzzies that they could give out – an endless supply of them. And you would never keep a warm fuzzy – you would always give it away – always share it. But eventually, someone convinced them that that they would run out of fuzzies, and so people started hording them, turning their warm fuzzies into cold pricklies. Of course, being a camp story, people eventually realized in this village that you had to give fuzzies away for them to stay warm fuzzies, and that you would never run out of them. But even though it’s a children’s story, I’ve always felt it has a message we need to keep hearing. We let our fears about not having enough for ourselves keep us from giving to God and one another – and then, everyone loses.  

            So how do we defeat these voices? How do we stop letting fear and insecurity overtake our call to be generous? Of course, we ground ourselves in Christ, seek to follow his example, and search the scriptures, which are full of guidance on these very issues. I find it interesting that we hone in on all sorts of controversial issues that the scriptures may address for a handful of verses, but we tend to overlook some of the major topics. Did you know that almost 40% of what Jesus talks about in the gospels is related to money and stuff and how we use it? It must be pretty important, don’t you think? Jesus speaks repeatedly about the way we are called to live, a way that flies in the face of the messages we find most anywhere else. The first will be last. The humble will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled. If you want to save your life, you have to lose it. You lead by being servant of all, not master of all. To be a disciple, you have to take up the cross, the symbol of the ultimate sacrifice, and follow Jesus.

            There’s a theme, isn’t there? In losing ourselves to God, we find life. Because our very lives are gifts – everything belongs to God. Very early in the Bible, we encounter people giving back to God. You’ve heard Pastor Aaron use the phrase “first and best tenth” when he is talking about the offering – that’s a tithe – giving our first and best tenth to God. It’s a practice we find in the Old Testament, when people would offer their first fruits to God – the first and best tenth of their flocks or crops or income. Not the last, and not what’s leftover. As followers of Jesus, living together under the new covenant, we’re not bound by the rule of the law any longer. But tithing is a pretty good guideline for us when we are thinking about giving.

            Do you remember a children’s sermon I gave back in the summer about putting God first, where I showed how rice, representing all the things in our life, could fit in the jar with a big rock, as long as you put the rock in first, and everything else after that? The point was that our lives could be full like we want them, as long as we keep God first, not try to shove God into our lives last. That’s what my own experience with tithing is like. When I first started in ministry, I made a pledge to tithe, but found that every month, I would need to spend more than I expected, and I would end up only giving a very small portion of what I had planned – whatever I had left over. So, instead, I started having my tithe directly withheld from my paycheck. And suddenly, because it came first, I no longer had an issue making my tithe again, giving to God what I meant to give to God. Let me show you this video from Adam Hamilton, and see if it resonates with you. *VIDEO*

            Tithing can be challenging. But it is a good biblical goal for us as we seek to be defined by our generosity. If you aren’t able to tithe right now, God understand where you are at, what you are facing, and perhaps you can take a step in that direction, a step towards deeper generosity. If you are already tithing, ask yourself if God is calling you to grow beyond a tithe, to offer your gifts to other projects in the community and beyond that are important to your faith.

            We are created by God to be generous, and our giving affects not just us, but our giving affects God, too. Adam Hamilton shares this story: Eight or nine years ago, our family took a camping trip to the Grand Tetons. We arrived on my birthday and set up our little pop-up camper. After we were settled, we told each of our daughters that they could have $20 spending money for the three days we would be in and around Jackson Hole. We then went to the gift shop before heading out on a walk around a small lake. We had no sooner walked into the gift shop than Rebecca started looking at ball caps. She found one, tried it on, and said, “Dad, what do you think of this hat?” I said, “Becca, it’s really cool. But all you have is $20, and that hat will take all of your money. Why don’t you wait and make your money last for the next few days.” But she said, “Dad, you told me it was my money and I could get whatever I want. And I really want this hat!” As hard as I tried to talk her out of it, and to convince her that she would have other opportunities to buy a cap in town, she would have no part of waiting. Finally, exasperated, I said, “Okay, Becca – but this is it. You’re not getting any more money the next three days.” I gave her her $20, and she bought the hat.

            We went for a walk around the lake, and then came back to watch the sun set from a park bench. That’s when Becca handed me the hat and said, “Daddy, I bought this for you. I love you. Happy birthday.” I sat on the bench, took her in my arms, and started to cry. That hat is among my most treasured possessions, my most often worn hat to this day because every time I wear it, I think of Becca’s sacrifice for me. All these years later it still touches me to think about how my little girl gave up all her spending money because she wanted to tell her daddy that she loved him.

            That’s how God looks at your offerings. They are not financial transactions or business deals. Your offerings are a way of saying, “God, I’m returning to you a portion of what I have and what I’ve earned to say thank you and I love you. I hope you’ll use this somehow to make a difference in the world.” When we give, we don’t give because God needs what we have. We give out of love, and God who loves us, loves our gifts because of what they tell God about how we feel, because of what they say about our desire to be in relationship with God, because of what they say about how we want to care for the other beloved creations of God in this world.

            We do not give because we think God will give us back what we gave with interest. Our giving to God is not a loan program to God, where we’ll get a good financial return on our investment. That’s an abuse of what it means to give with a generous heart! And frankly, it goes back to that issue of safety and security. God doesn’t guarantee that giving – tithing or beyond even – will mean that you will never lose your job in the future, or have struggles. But when we live lives that are defined by generosity, the “unmistakable blessings of God” of all kinds flow into our lives. When we give generously, our hearts are filled with joy. They grow larger through the very act of giving. And in turn, we are yet more generous! It’s a cycle that keeps us growing in faith and love, a cycle that leads us to taking hold of the life that really is life.

      Let us pray: Oh God, we thank you that you have given us life, that you sustain us by the power of your Holy Spirit and that you gave Jesus the Christ who showed us how we are to live in relationship with you and with our neighbor. We thank you for the abundance that we have in our lives. And we pray that you would help us. Help us, oh Lord, to honor you with our tithes. Help us to care for the poor and those who are in need. Help us to recognize that it is more blessed to give than to receive. We offer ourselves to you. Help us, oh Lord, to do your will. Lead us, we pray. In your holy name. Amen. (prayer adapted from Enough Stewardship Guide)

Sermon for All Saints Sunday, "Enough: Wisdom and Finance," Luke 15:11-24

Sermon 11/4/12

Luke 15:11-24, Proverbs 21:5 & 20

(Much of the structure for this sermon is suggested in Adam Hamilton's Enough Stewardship Guide, and adapted for use at Liverpool First UMC.) 

Enough: Wisdom and Finance

            The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most-loved of the parables of Jesus. I’m not sure exactly why that is, except that maybe we all pictures ourselves to be a bit like the prodigal, wandering away from God, making foolish choices, and hoping, and finding that God welcomes us back with joy no matter how foolish we’ve been. Personally, I would admit I am much more like the older brother in the parable than the younger son, and I suspect that is true for a good many of us, especially in the life of the church, but I’ll save all that for another sermon! Today, we’re really only focusing on the first part of the parable, and this younger, prodigal son. Prodigal is one of those words that we use incorrectly so often that most people are starting to understand a different meaning for it than originally intended. We often hear or use prodigal to mean wandering, or lost. A prodigal is one who has wandered away, gone off life’s intended course. But actually, the word prodigal means extravagant and wasteful, one who spends recklessly and without control. The parable’s title refers not to the son leaving home, but to the son squandering his inheritance. With the correct understanding of this key word, our focus on the parable might change. It isn’t primarily, perhaps, a parable about wandering away from God, but a parable about being wasteful with the gifts God gives us. With this reading in mind, perhaps we are all more like the prodigal son after all. What are you doing with the good things that God has put into your hands to have care over, to be stewards of?

            Last week we talked about Affluenza and Credit-itis – which I think we can sum up into wanting more, and wanting it now. And somehow, even we attain close to the degree of financial security we’re looking for, we are still not careful with our money, and actually waste it here and there and everywhere until we’ve lost the bit of security we thought we had. I don’t know about you, but I find that paying with debit cards instead of with cash sometimes makes me shockingly mindless of what I’m spending. Just a quick, easy swipe of the card. I know, I know, you’re supposed to be careful, save all your receipts, budget, balance, and so on. But, frankly, well, let’s just say those kind of details are not my strong suit. Not too long ago, though, my bank unrolled a feature online where I can look at a lovely pie chart that shows me what categories I’m spending my money in. It includes categories like utilities, gasoline, groceries, a new rather large category for me: mortgage payments, and then categories like restaurants, general merchandise, entertainment, and “other.” This month we’re working through Adam Hamilton’s book called Enough, and he suggests that the two primary ways we waste money are on impulse buying and eating out. He’s got me pegged, certainly. If I added up all the money I spent on eating out in a year, well, I shudder to think of the total. Do you find yourself wondering what happened to the money you had? Are you making wise decisions with what you’ve got? What would your pie chart look like? How much are you wasting of what you’ve been given? How much of a prodigal are you?

            Creating new patterns for ourselves when it comes to our money and resources starts with clarifying our purpose, our priorities, and our relationships. Why do we exist? What are we here for? Despite all the messages society shouts at us, we are more than consumers! Our purpose is not to consume and accumulate and spend. We were created by God, who loves us, to care for God’s creation, to love God, and to love one another, to care for those in need, to glorify God, to seek justice, and do mercy. That’s our purpose. And that means that everything that we do, everything that we have, is meant to help us fulfill our purpose. Our money, our gifts, our possessions – all this is meant to be used to help us fulfill our calling – “to serve Christ and the world through the church, missions, and everyday opportunities.” (1)

            What are your goals? Hamilton suggests that if we have a sense of what God is calling us to do, then we need to start planning to respond to that call. What is your purpose? What do you want to do for God? And how are you going to start doing it? If you are really compelled by these questions, Hamilton has some resources for seriously asking and answering these questions for ourselves, and I would love to see where God is leading us. I think we also need to ask these questions to ourselves as a congregation. What is our purpose? What is God calling us to do? And then what’s our plan? Are we using our resources in the best ways we can to serve God’s purpose for us?

            “Barbara Glanz is a motivational speaker who conducts workshops for large companies. One day she was speaking at an event for the employees of a grocery store chain. She talked to them about how they saw their life purpose, suggesting that their work was more than stocking shelves or ringing up customers' food purchases or delivering supplies. She told them that every person they met was an opportunity to bless someone, to live out a higher calling or mission.

The employees were inspired by her words, including one nineteen-year-old grocery bagger named Johnny. Johnny, who has Down syndrome, took her words to heart. He went home and tried to think of ways he could be a blessing to others. Finally, he came up with a plan. Each night he would search the Internet for a positive saying that would encourage people. Then he would print out 300 copies and carefully cut the sayings into individual strips. The next day, he would put one of the sayings in the grocery bag of each of his customers while saying, "I put a saying in your bag. I hope it helps you have a good day. Thanks for coming here."

A month later, the manager noticed that Johnny's line was much longer than the others. Even when he announced that there was no waiting in lines 2 and 3, no one budged. People wanted Johnny to be their bag boy. He touched them and filled them with hope. Johnny got it. He was pursuing a mission that was bigger than his personal satisfaction.” (2)

Can we say the same for ourselves? Are we pursuing a mission that is bigger than our personal satisfaction? Can we articulate our mission? Do we use all that we have been given to support what we’ve said we’d set out do? 

            Today, we are celebrating All Saints Sunday, a day when we remember members of our congregation, as well as the loved ones we carry in our hearts, who have died during the last year. It may seem like a strange combination – All Saints, with a conversation about how we use our resources. But maybe it’s not such a stretch at all. When I think of the saints in my life, I think of people who were remarkably content, regardless of how much they had stored up for themselves. I think of people whose lives were marked by giving of themselves freely for the sake of others. I think of people who were pursuing a mission in life that went beyond their own satisfaction.

            Today, our Chancel Choir sang an anthem, which is also a favorite hymn of mine in our hymnals, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” Listen again to the last verse: “They lived not only in ages past; there are hundreds of thousands still. The world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus' will. You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, in church, by the sea, in the house next door; they are saints of God, whether rich or poor, and I mean to be one too.” Saints of God, loving to do Jesus’ will. God helping, let us mean to be Saints too, sure of our purpose, and striving, every day, to live in ways which let us carry out our mission of service in God’s kingdom.

Amen.

(1)   Hamilton, Enough Stewardship Guide, 73.

(2)   Hamilton, Enough, 48-49. 

Sermon for October 28th, 2012, "Enough: When Dreams Become Nightmares," 1 Timothy 6

Sermon 10/28/2012

1 Timothy 6:6-10

(The “Enough” Sermon Series is based on Adam Hamilton’s book Enough:  Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity. I use Hamilton’s suggested structure and major themes,  adapted for use at Liverpool First UMC.)

Enough: When Dreams Become Nightmares

In a quiet Mexican fishing village, an American who was on vacation saw a local fisherman unloading his catch. He decided to approach him. The American asked the fisherman, “why are you finishing your day so early?” The Mexican replied “Oh Senor, I have caught enough to feed my family and a little extra to sell for today. It is now time to go for lunch with my family and have a siesta. In the afternoon, I can play with my kids. In the evening, I will go to the cantina, drink a little tequila and play the guitar.” The business professor was horrified at the fisherman’s lack of motivation to succeed. He answered, “If you stay out at sea until late afternoon, you will easily catch twice as much fish. You can sell the extra, save up the money and in six months, maybe nine, you will be able to buy a bigger and better boat, and hire some crew.”

He continued, “In another year or two, you will have the capital to buy a second fishing boat and hire another crew. If you follow this business plan, in six or seven years, you will be the proud owner of a large fishing fleet.” “Just imagine that! Then you can move your head office to Mexico city, or even to L.A. After only three or four years in LA, you float your company on the stock market giving yourself, as CEO, a generous salary package with substantial share options. In a few more years  - “ listen to this!“ you initiate a company share buy-back scheme, which will make you a multi-millionaire! Guaranteed!”

The American got very excited at the prospect himself. He said, “I definitely know these things. I’m a well-known professor at a US Business School.”

The Mexican fisherman listened intently at what the animated American had to say. When the professor had finished, the Mexican asked him, “But, Senor Professor, what can a person do after getting millions of dollars?” Now, the American professor hadn’t thought that far. He was taken aback by the question. So he quickly figured out an answer “Amigo! With all that dough, you can retire. Yeah! Retire for life! You can buy a little villa with a picturesque fishing village like this one, and purchase a small boat for going fishing in the morning, You can have lunch with your wife every day, and a siesta in the afternoon, with nothing to worry you. In the afternoon, you can spend quality time with your kids, and after dinner in the evening, play guitar with your friends in the cantina, drinking tequila. Yeah, with all the money, my friend, you can retire and take it easy.”

Puzzled with the American’s suggestion, the Mexican fisherman replied, “but, Senor Professor, I do that already!” (1)

***

Even if we don’t mean to, most of us have a hard time not getting caught up in what we might call the American Dream, this concept that we work hard, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and eventually we will become successful, and have good things, maybe even be well-off. Comfortable. Not rich – I’ve met people of so many different economic backgrounds, and yet no matter what they earn, I’ve rarely met a person that will admit to being rich – but well-off. And we want our children to be more successful than we have been. To have a little bit more. Pastor Aaron has said the same thing in a slightly different way, but I’ve read somewhere that most people say they would be happy if they had just 20% more income than they do now. The trouble, of course, is that people say that no matter what income they are at. It is always 20% more.

A little more. It seems so safe, so innocuous, wanting a little more. But if the American Dream is to always have a little more, when are we satisfied? When are we content? When do we have enough? I preached my first sermon when I was a teenager, at my childhood church in Rome, NY, under, as I’ve told you, the guidance of my then-pastor Bruce Webster. The text was the parable of the Rich Fool. Jesus tells it in response to a man who wants Jesus to settle an inheritance dispute between him and his brother. He tells about a rich man who had so much grain stored up in his barns that he was running out of room. What should he do? Well, he tore down his barns and built bigger ones, and told himself he could be ready to eat, drink, and be merry. Only, God says to this man: “You fool, your life is required of you tonight. And all these things you’ve prepared – whose will they be?” Jesus says, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” All these things you’ve prepared – whose will they be? These words have stayed with me throughout my ministry. When I started my first pastoral appointment, after struggling as a broke seminarian, and for the first time was employed full-time, I felt rich beyond imagining. I could not fathom how I would ever need more money than I earned there. And yet, my salary has grown as I've added years of experience and changed appointments, and somehow, I seem to find ways to use it up. To feel, even, that I need it. Just a little more. I watched myself change from a person who moved into my first parsonage with stuff I could mostly load up in cars and a small U-haul, to a person who actually had to get rid of some furniture when I moved to Liverpool because I just had too much stuff to fit nicely into my new house. Am I living the American Dream, or am I just building bigger barns?

Rev. Adam Hamilton, who is pastor of a large United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Church of the Resurrection, wrote a series called Enough that is the basis of the sermon series Pastor Aaron and I will share with you in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and our Ingathering in late November. Rev. Hamilton writes that in actuality, the American Dream has become a nightmare, both because people can’t live up to the expectations of the American Dream, and the process of getting there, or even managing to “achieve” the dream doesn’t actually bring people the happiness they’ve been seeking.

Hamilton says the nightmare is the result of two illnesses we have: Affluenza and credit-itis. Affluenza is our “constant need for more and bigger and better stuff – as well as the effect that this need has on us.” Consider this: In 1973, the average new home size was 1660 square feet. In 2011, it was over 2400 square feet. And there is estimated to be above 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space in the US. Credit-itis, says Hamilton, “is an illness that is brought on by the opportunity to buy now and pay later, and it feeds on our desire for instant gratification. Our economy today is built on the concept of credit-itis.” Today, for Americans who carry credit card debt, the average amount of that debt is in excess of $15,000 per person. But credit-itis isn’t just about credit cards. The length of car loans, student loans, and home mortgage loans are continuing to increase, and the savings of the average American is continuing to decrease.

But the problem is deeper than bank accounts and credit card balances. The problem is a spiritual problem. We have lost sight of our identity. We’re created in God’s image, and we’re meant to desire God, to put God first, above all else. Instead, we find ourselves desiring stuff. Pastor Aaron talked about commercials last Sunday, and suddenly feeling like he needed what he saw advertised. I went to pick up groceries at Wegman’s this week, and lost count of the number of things that caught my eye and caused me to say, “Maybe I should get that.” I didn’t, usually, make the purchase. But the desire, the want, was there. We’re supposed to find our security in God, but instead we find it in the accumulation of wealth. We’re called to be generous, but we find ourselves worrying about, obsessed with having enough for ourselves. All of this works to separate us from God, and that separation is sin, because we are led to make other things more important in our lives than God. And that is idolatry, and that is the sin that is mentioned most often throughout the scripture, beginning to end. What gets in between us and God? All the stuff we put there. As we read in 1 Timothy, “if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. ⁹But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”

So what do we do? How do we move beyond the dream-become-nightmare that we’ve been living with? We start with a change of heart. All through the gospels, Jesus calls people to repent. We don’t use the word repent very much these days, and if we hear it, outside of church, we might most likely picture someone with a cardboard sign yelling on a street corner about the end of the world coming. But repent is just a more formal word that simply means a change of mind. Or, to get at it better, a change of heart. Adam Hamilton suggests that each day we start with the prayer, “Lord, help me to be the person you want me to be today. Take away the desires that shouldn’t be there, and help me be single-minded in my focus and my pursuit of you.” Clear, simple, and powerful.

And, we allow Jesus to be at work within us. Jesus calls us to prepare for the kingdom of God, which is here, waiting for us to embrace, when we daily seek to do God’s will in the world. We are called to simplicity, faithfulness, and generosity, and with Christ at work in us, we can make a real impact with our time, talents, and resources. When we set ourselves free from chasing after the American Dream, we find that we can live God’s dream for us, as we live and act in mission.

God invites us to have a change of heart, to allow Christ to work within us, and to remember that we are people in need of God who offers us simple gifts, that we might live in joy and generosity. (2)

As we close, I invited you to put your hands in your lap, with your palms facing up, and I invite you to repeat this prayer after me, line by line: 

Change my heart, O God. 
Clean me out inside. 
Make me new. 
Heal my desires. 
Help me to hold my possessions loosely. 
Help me to love you. 
Teach me simplicity.
Teach me generosity and help me have joy.
I offer my life to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 


 (1, 2) Rev. Jan Wiley, www.cumchb.org/sermons/2010/101010_sermon.doc

Sermon for World Communion Sunday, "Room at the Table: The Table Is Set," 1 Corinthians 11:17-26

Sermon 10/7/12

1 Corinthians 11:17-26, (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)

Room at the Table: The Table Is Set

            Since the beginning of September, we’ve been exploring this theme of Room at the Table. We’ve heard about the feeding of the 5000, and manna from heaven, the parable of the great banquet, and about Peter’s vision of food declared clean by God. And through our music and liturgy and visuals and anthems we’ve been hearing about God’s table. I’ve had some of you mention that you felt like we should be celebrating Holy Communion – that’s what everything has been pointing to. And I hope that you feel that way, that today, you find yourself ready, longing to celebrate this Holy Meal, like everything has been pointing us in this direction.

If you had a chance to read my article in our newsletter this month, you read some of my personal reflections about Holy Communion, like about how my grandmother’s homemade bread was the communion bread at my childhood church, and how I could never separate the smell of her bread baking from the act of receiving the sacrament. But I left out one of my less compelling communion reflections from my teenage years. I used to get really excited for Communion Sundays when I was a teenager . . . because it usually meant that my pastor would preach either a very brief or no sermon at all! Oh yes, I would flip open the bulletin, scan the outline of worship, and be filled with delight when I saw that there was no sermon because of communion, or when the bulletin read “Communion Meditation.” I knew that Meditation was a code-word for a short sermon!

I knew that some faith traditions practiced weekly communion, though, and I couldn’t imagine that. I was sure that doing something every week like that would take away the meaning, the special quality of celebrating communion. Years later, though, when I was in seminary, I experienced living in the midst of a community of faith 24/7 in a way that I hadn’t before. And we had chapel services offered three times a week, with the biggest service, the best-attended, being the weekly celebration of Holy Communion. And I found that I loved it. I found that it was moving in a way I didn’t expect. It was a bond that tied us together as a community. It was a sacrament that drew me closer to God. It was a ritual that made the words that were preached just before make more sense. Over my years of ministry, I have found that celebrating the sacraments – baptism and communion – is one of the greatest blessings of ministry. There is nothing that compares with the blessing of baptizing someone, and there is such intimacy in saying, “this is the body of Christ broken for you. This is the cup of Christ, poured out for you.”  

Last week, we looked at Peter and some of his spiritual journey as the early church was developing. Today, we turn our attention to the teachings of Paul, and the instruction he was giving to one of the new faith communities – the church at Corinth – a community mostly made up of Gentiles who had become followers of Jesus. New Christians in the early church – they had to work everything out. Everything was new. Everything was a learning process of living out the faith of Jesus Christ. How would they be community together? What of their old ways of living had to be left behind, and what would they keep? Paul, the planter of so many of these communities, writes in detail to address concerns he has, teachings he feels each place needs, conflicts that already arise in the young churches. That’s the content of most of Paul’s letters in the New Testament.

            In our text from 1 Corinthians, Paul writes in particular about the celebration of Holy Communion. Churches – just a fancy word for the gathered faith community – met in the homes of church members. For practical reasons, they met in the homes of the richest members, because they had the largest houses and the most resources, and could provide the best setting for getting together. The church at Corinth met at the home of a rich man named Gaius. We can glean some knowledge from verses of scripture about worship and communion practices. They probably met weekly, on Sundays. They did many of the things that we do still – they prayed, both spontaneously and with ritual prayers. They sang. They read scripture. They shared testimony – their own experiences of God at work in their lives. They celebrated the sacrament. And all of this happened over the course of a meal. Worship was a feast – a full meal shared together. The bread, the Body of Christ, was broken early on. The cup was given after the supper. But the meal, the feast, and the sacrament intricately tied to it, were the primary, central acts of worship.

            Paul is writing to address concerns he has about disturbing practices that have come up in worship and especially in sharing the sacrament. In Paul’s day, like ours, people came from many different economic backgrounds. But proper roles for people according to their classes were more structured. We still have plenty of class differences. But in Paul’s day, when people of all different backgrounds came together to feast and worship – things got complicated. In an early Christian household of a wealthy person, like at the home of Gaius, the host of the Corinthian church, a home would have an open air center atrium, and a room called the Triclinium – a dining room with three-sided couches, and an open side for servants to bring in food. There were places for about a dozen people to sit – to recline actually. Imagine meals taking place while everyone stretched out on lounge chairs. But worship feasts would bring in many more than a dozen people. So everyone who couldn’t sit at one of the dozen seats had to be served their food in the atrium. Guess who got the dozen seats on the couch?

Of course Gaius, the wealthy host, and his wealthy friends. Not only that, but Paul indicates that he’s discovered that those seated in the Triclinium were either arriving before the working poor or slaves who were members of the church, to start their meal early, or actually eating in front of them, first, while the others looked on. And further, food of different quality and quantity was served to the wealthy church members. So Paul says that some members are getting drunk on good wine, while others are going home from a worship feast hungry. Can you imagine, at worship, if we sat according to economic status, and served better communion bread to those of a higher status. Outrageous, right? What a horrible distortion of the beautiful meal left to us by Jesus! But we can’t blame the people of the Corinthian church too much. They were only replicating in their brand new faith community exactly what happened in the rest of the social lives. In the other clubs, organizations, and associations they were a part of, this pattern was exactly how things functioned. You might all be part of the same group, but the societal divisions were still firmly in place.

Paul writes to remind the community what it means to be the one Body of Christ. He is passionate about this. He can’t say enough about how important understanding what it means to be the Body of Christ is. He says that if the Corinthians continue practicing the Lord’s Supper as they have been – well, it isn’t actually the Lord’s Supper at all. You can’t call the practices they’ve engaged in the Lords’ Supper. Paul says, repeatedly in his writings, that when we are in Christ, we are new creations. They are baptism words – in Christ, there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul means this with a sincerity, with an urgency that I find it hard to even convey to you. In Christ, we are new creations, and we are part of One Body. People were used enough to participating in religious ceremonies that had symbolic meanings. But Paul – he understood that the power of belonging to Christ was real change in your life and in the world. Real change. Real transformation. For Paul, that meant that your identity, so entrenched in societal standards – your gender, your ethnicity, your status – it was nothing, nothing anymore, because of Christ.

Paul wanted the community at Corinth to know that being a Jesus follower meant real, actual, concrete changes in the way you would live in the world and treat other people. If you come to the table together, if you feast together, if you share in the One Body of Christ together, you better expect some real changes in how you live. And so when Paul writes in the very next chapter, chapter 12, about us all being different parts of the body, hear the import placed by Paul’s repeated emphasis: we are one body, one body, one body in Christ Jesus. He doesn’t say it lightly. He doesn’t say it to sound pretty of poetic. He means it. We are part of each other if we are part of Jesus. And we can’t be part of Jesus if we won’t be part of one another, part of every other person in the body of Christ.

We still struggle to get Paul’s message. But on this World Communion Sunday, I want us to think about what it would mean if every time we celebrated the sacrament, we remembered that if we want to be part of Jesus, we’re part of each other too. Not symbolically. Not to be forgotten as soon as we leave this building, or even just this time of worship. Not to be forgotten when we’re stuck in traffic, or in classes, or at work, or at the store, or confronted with racism or poverty or bullying or divisions, not to be forgotten when we want to put up walls between ourselves and those who are Other. Because of Christ, because we are One Body, there is no one who is Other. There’s only all of us. What if we remembered?

Friends, beloved of God, the table is set. There’s so much room here. Come, come to the table.  Amen. 

Sermon for September 30th, 2012, "Room at the Table: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Acts 11:1-18

Sermon 9/30/12

Acts 11:1-18

Room at the Table: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

            My older brother Jim is six years older than me, and when I was little, I idolized him, and wanted to be around him constantly. I wanted to dress like him, play with the toys he played with, and do what he did. But naturally, a 12 year old boy does not always want his 6 year old sister following him around everywhere, and sometimes there would be a bit of conflict between me and Jim. Sometimes, I might do something, like follow Jim around when I was instructed to leave him alone for a while, that would result in Jim taking the dreaded action: he would tell on me. “I’m telling!” Powerful words between siblings, aren’t they? Apparently, I started trying my own version of a preemptive strike, by running to my parents and saying, “Jim is gonna tell on me!” I guess I figured Jim would get in trouble if I could somehow tell on him first. But I couldn’t foresee the logical conclusion of my action, which would be for my parents to ask, “And why is Jim going to tell on you?” “Um…”

            My nephew Sam is an only child, so maybe you would think he would be exempt from this whole “telling on” phenomenon. No such luck. I remember when Sam was maybe three at the most, and my mom was babysitting him, somehow, she broke one of the blinds on the front window. Sam asked her, “What do you think Mom’s gonna say to you when she gets home?” And no sooner had my sister-in-law Jen arrived at home than Sam ratted out my mom: “Grandma broke the blinds!” When Sam started pre-K last fall, he started telling on his classmates rather a lot. His teachers cleverly instructed Sam that when he felt like he needed to tell on a classmate, he had to go speak to the giant toy frog in their classroom, and tell on his peers to the frog. That way, his teachers didn’t have to hear Sam’s complaints anymore. Jim and Jen tell me Sam spent a lot of time talking to that frog.

            Of course, you can get a pretty bad reputation for telling on people all the time. Tattle-tale is a name my brothers and I would call each other, in an effort to not get in trouble, hoping the bad name would make the tattler think twice before turning us in to our parents. We’d like to think that we’ve all grown up since our days of telling on one another, but I suspect we all find ourselves engaging in the time-honored tradition of tattle-taleing now and then. Sometimes I joke with friends and family that if everyone would just do what I told them to, their lives would be so much better. I like to tease with these words, wishing they would follow my good advice for them. But I also realize there is some truth to my words, in that they express a feeling I think many of us have at one time or another. We can look at other people’s lives and it is so clear to us what they should be doing that they aren’t, or what they shouldn’t be doing that they are. It is so easy to know what would be best for someone else, isn’t it? Hold that thought for a bit.

            Today, we turn to the Acts of the Apostles, a book of the Bible that recounts the actions of the disciples and other followers of Jesus when Jesus returned to God’s home after the resurrection. For those of you in Pastor Aaron’s Bible Study on Acts, you get a little sneak peak today of Chapter 11. As I’ve mentioned before, Jesus and his disciples were often at odds with the religious leaders of the day over appropriate rules about who to eat with, but in the early church, the apostles were actually at odds with each other over rules about sharing meals. Our text for today is part of this ongoing conflict.

The whole passage is sort of a flashback, and you can read about the events Peter describes here in the previous chapter, chapter 10. Peter, apparently, has eaten with some Gentiles – and the food the Gentiles ate was forbidden to Peter by Jewish law, laws that had very detailed dietary restrictions, laws that centered on purity and impurity, cleanliness and uncleanliness. So some of the circumcised believers, the ones who are following Jewish purity codes, want to know why Peter has eaten with these people. And so Peter must explain himself, “step by step,” we read, and that is where he flashes back to describe what has caused this strange behavior in him. He’s had a vision, he says. A large sheet, maybe like a giant tablecloth, was lowered from heaven by its corners. On the cloth were various kinds of animals, representing animals that Peter would not be allowed to eat according to Jewish laws, kosher laws. Surprising to him, he hears God’s voice telling him to get up and eat these forbidden foods. Peter refuses, insisting he would not eat anything unclean. But God responds, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This sequence Peter saw repeated in his vision a total of three times, which tells us and Peter’s audience that there was no mistake – he heard God in the vision correctly.

Right after this happens, three men appear who are Gentiles, and Peter feels the Spirit telling him “not to make a distinction” between himself and these men. So he goes with them and fellowships with them, eats with them. In his heart, Peter finally understands his vision. He tells the questioning apostles, “I remembered the word of God . . . ‘John baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in . . . Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” And the apostles get it too, finally, after hearing Peter’s story: They praise God and say, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life!”

What, you might be asking, is it that they all seem to understand now from Peter’s strange vision? Well, as we encounter in this text and other texts in Acts and the epistles of Paul, Peter and the rest of the ‘original’ disciples and Paul and Barnabbas and the apostles working with them approached their ministry very differently. Paul, certainly a devout Jew, spent most of his ministry reaching out to those who were not Jewish – reaching out to the Gentiles. Paul had a complete conversion on the road to Damascus, and he was ready and willing to let go of all the old things in his life – so he felt free to tell others becoming Christians that they didn’t need to adopt all the commandments of Jewish life – they were new creations in Christ. But Peter and company didn’t see things Paul’s way: Peter and the rest of the Twelve focused their outreach and evangelism primarily on those who were already Jews, viewing God’s message in Jesus as directed only or at least mostly for the chosen people of Israel. He thought that those who were not Jews who wanted to follow Christ should at least convert first to the Jewish faith, and then become Christians. The two sides spent a lot of time disagreeing over this topic, and ultimately agreed that each would focus on their own special area of ministry. But here, here is Peter’s own conversion experience. Peter has already converted his life to be a follower of Jesus Christ – here he has a conversion of a different nature, when his mind is opened and he sees the radically inclusive and all-reaching nature of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ. In his vision, he’s told essentially that only God decides what is clean and unclean, and that what God has made clean, we humans have no right to reject.

            Last week, we talked about the kingdom of God being God’s party, and we reminded ourselves that it is God, not us, who creates the guest list. I think this scripture passage in Acts builds on those themes. Somewhere, Peter crossed the line from trying to be faithful to the laws of Judaism that had guided is whole life, to actually withholding the good news about Jesus – the very news that had changed his whole life – withholding that from others so that he didn’t have to break rules about who to eat with. And suddenly, Peter is acting in the same way as the Pharisees Jesus was always criticizing. Peter was deciding who should and shouldn’t get to hear the good news, and deciding that only people who agreed to follow the rules he followed would be able to hear about Jesus. How quickly Peter messed up one of the main things Jesus taught and lived – God’s love is for everyone – and how quickly he started behaving in ways that added qualifiers to who got to hear the good news.

            And how quickly do we do the same thing as Peter! We started today by talking about telling on each other, being tattle-tales. Sometimes I think that our favorite person to tattle-tale to is God. If we are truly honest with ourselves, how much time do we spend tattling to God in our minds and hearts about what others are doing? What rules of ours we think they are breaking or ignoring altogether? Now we can dress up our tattling to God in fancy packages. We can pretend we are only looking out for one another, making sure someone isn’t going “astray.” But just like my parents almost always knew what was happening with us kids without the aid of any tattling on our parts, so our God certainly knows the hearts of each precious person made in God’s very image. When Jesus gave the Great Commission, sending his disciples out in mission and ministry, he didn’t say, “Go out and make sure everyone is behaving in the right way.” No, Jesus sent us out to share good news – God is with us always, and loves us always, so come, and follow.

            The rest, friends, just isn’t our responsibility. It just isn’t. Whether someone believes exactly the same thing as you do, or has the right understanding of a passage, or is acting in the right way: God does not ask us to monitor one another. We can help each other. We can work together to grow in faith, when we mutually try to live as disciples, certainly. But we can free ourselves of worrying about being the judge of right and wrong. God’s got it covered. It’s a task we can cross right off our list. Because when we, faulty as we are, try to decide what’s best for others, we end up building dividing walls, creating strife and hostility, and worse, like Peter almost did, holding back on sharing the good news of God because we never let ourselves build enough of a relationship with someone to do so.

Peter had a vision, one that God made sure Peter got, showing it to him again and again, that Peter was trying to be so right that he was actually getting in God’s way. And the last thing we want to do is become an obstacle between someone and God. Peter summed it up with a perfect line: “Who was I, that I could hinder God?” Who are we, to get in the way of God’s work, God’s mission, God’s love, God’s party? We’re God’s children. We’re beloved. And God is breaking down walls and boundaries left and right in our world, so that we will sit down together, all of us, at God’s table.

Your homework this week? Easy, and hard. Don’t hinder God. Serve God. Listen to God. Love like God loves. And praise God – for God has offered to all of us the way that leads to life. Amen. 

Sermon for 9/23/12, "Room at the Table: RSVP," Luke 14:12-24

Sermon 9/23/12

Luke 14:12-24

Room at the Table: RSVP

            This past week I got a text from my younger brother Tim. “Are you going to Elise and Kevin’s wedding?” Elise is a family friend, who went to school with my younger brothers. I responded that Yes, I was. We’ve all been planning to attend this wedding for practically a year. I’ve had it on my calendar for a long time. “Are Todd and Andrea going?” he asked. My brother and his girlfriend. “Yes, I think so,” I said. “Did you send in your RSVP?” “Yes.” “Did Todd send in his?” “I think yes.” “Well, Elise hasn’t received them yet, and she’s freaking out.” Apparently, the RSVP deadline for the wedding was approaching, and the bride was getting a bit anxious. She was anxious because although she had sent invitations months before the event, many people had not yet responded. If you’ve ever been part of planning a wedding, you know that having a pretty accurate idea of the number of guests is important, because you need to know how many people you will have at the reception, how much seating to have, how much food to have, how many favors to have, and so on. At even the most casual weddings, people like to know how many people to prepare for.

             I don’t know about you, but I’m not always good at RSVPing to events when I’m supposed to. I was impressed with myself that I’d sent out my RSVP to Elise’s wedding ahead of the deadline. I’m usually ok with email RSVPs or facebook invitations, but I’m especially bad at calling people, if that’s the only option, to let them know whether or not I will attend. I should be better at it, if only because I understand how hard it is to try to plan an event without knowing how many to be ready for! For example, I am the coordinator of our conference young clergy group, and we hold retreats twice a year. I find it is like pulling teeth to get my colleagues to respond – yes OR no – to my emails about the retreat. I find myself sending increasingly frantic and emphatic emails, practically begging for an answer. Then, when it comes to the actual event, I can almost guarantee that at least a third of the pastors who said they would come actually don’t show up when it comes down to it. Which is worse, do you think: when people don’t RSVP at all, RSVP no, but then show up anyway, or RSVP yes, but then don’t show up when the time comes?  

            It seems like good party etiquette is at the center of our text today, from the gospel of Luke. Just before our text begins, Jesus has traveled to the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees for a meal on the Sabbath. When a diseased man presents himself, Jesus heals him, and a debate about healing on the Sabbath ensues. And then Jesus begins to notice how the guests for the meal all try to sit in the places of highest honor. He speaks against their behavior, telling them that the exalted will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted. That’s where our passage for today picks up.

Jesus starts by telling those gathered for the meal that when they’re having a dinner, they shouldn’t invite friends, or relatives, or rich neighbors, because all of those could invite you in return, and you’d be repaid. Instead, Jesus says, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then you’ll be blessed in the kingdom of God, because you couldn’t be repaid on earth. In Jewish thought, doing acts of kindness that can’t be repaid still is considered one of the highest mitzvot, or commandments. One of the guests at the meal hears Jesus and seems to catch some understanding. “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God,” he says. And then Jesus responds with the parable. Someone gives a great banquet and invites many people. But when he calls them to come for the big event, they all give their excuses – they have land to inspect, oxen to test, weddings to celebrate. The party-thrower becomes angry, and sends his servant out into the streets, telling him to bring in the crippled, blind, and lame. The slave does so, but there is still room for more. So the master sends him out yet again, sending him farther out of town. He instructs the slave to compel people to come, so that the house is filled. And he concludes with the promise: “I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”

At first read, it seems like this is a great parable that teaches us about how to be welcoming and hospitable. We’re to invite and invite and invite to God’s banquet table. And if at first we don’t succeed, Jesus reminds us to also invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Surely, we’re not great at that – inviting outside of our comfort zones. But we get the point, right? The trouble is, such an interpretation of this text skips over some important details of the parable.

Let’s look again. Jesus, in telling the parable, mentions that the slave goes out to call the guests when the banquet is ready. But this isn’t the first time they’re getting the invitation. In Jesus’ day, the invitation would have happened in two parts. “(1) the initial invitation some time ahead [of the event], and (2) the actual summons to the meal when it is ready.” You can think of it as the invite to dinner, and then the host actually telling you, “Dinner’s ready,” so that you come sit at the table. The guests the slave summons would have already been invited and RSVPed ‘yes’ to this banquet some time before the summons that takes place in our passage. So their excuses now represent a sudden, last minute change in plans. And their behavior, then, as now, would be considered impolite. “Not to come to a banquet where one had previously indicated acceptance was a grave breach of social etiquette. It was an insult to the host. [And] in a society where one's social standing was determined by peer approval -who is invited to whose dinners - this was an act of social insult as well." (2) For all those people to not show up would result in bringing shame on the host.

The excuses the guests give aren’t very sound, either. The tract of land purchased already would have been examined before this time. The oxen would have been tested. The new groom would have known about the wedding when he was first invited and could have refused then. The guests, one after the other, give excuses, and their excuses, coming at the last minute, after they’d already said they were coming, represent a great insult to the host, and a very weak attempt on the part of the guests to cover their own rude, neglectful behavior.

So the master sends the slave out to invite more guests – the same group of ‘unwanted’ community members that Jesus mentions before he begins telling this parable – the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And then he sends them out even of the town limits to bring people in. “Inside the town would be the poor, the beggars, the indigent. But outside the town would be the vagabonds and sojourners, those who were shunned and unwelcome in the towns.” These people would be considered ritually unclean, socially unacceptable. These people, the master invites into his home, and the parable closes with a sentence that certainly has a sense of threat and warning: “I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”

            The kingdom of God is God’s party. God is the party-thrower, the inviter, the one inviting us to the feast. You’ve heard us say that before: it’s God’s table. We’re guests. We’re invited. But we’re guests at God’s party. It’s not our party. Not our guest list. When we come together as this body called Liverpool First United Methodist, we offer ourselves as one (of many) locations for God’s party to be held – not limited to this building, of course, but in this community of faith. But as soon as we try to take over as hosts, I tell you, God will find a different way to throw the party.

            So we’re guests, invited by God. What does that mean for us? You’ll notice, in the life of the congregation, when we are trying to do something new, we give you a million ways to respond. You can call the office.  You can email the office. You can call or email a pastor. You can send us a message on facebook. You can text us. You can sign up on the bulletin board. In case you didn’t get it, we’re saying Respond, respond, please respond! We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate in the mission and ministry of the church.

            God is doing the same thing with us, inviting us into the kingdom. I think God is giving us a million ways to respond. Giving us good things we don’t expect or deserve in our lives. Putting special people in our path. Offering us opportunities that are just what we’ve been thinking about doing. All these invitations, in all these different forms, all ways of God saying to us:  Respond, respond, please respond!

             Why don’t we? Why don’t we respond to God? Or, like those in the parable, have we said yes to God, but not really been showing up at God’s party? I was curious whether it was just my perception that we are, culturally, are less likely to RSVP these days, or whether things really have changed. And so I googled “the Lost Art of the RSVP” – and found over a million results. Here’s a snippet from a one:  

1) I followed up [on my invitation] after a few days with gentle reminder emails, as the event was less than a week away. The responses I received varied from “I have some other options that same day” to “I’m waiting to hear about something else” to “I’m so busy with other parties that day.” It seems as though the standard regretting due to a previous engagement has also been left by the wayside, probably dumped in the same trash bin as the original R.S.V.P. . . . Now, hosts get to hear from their potential guests that their event is part of a pecking order of importance when compared to others that might be going on at that same time. (2)

Is this what we’re doing with our invitation to serve God? To follow Jesus? Are we waiting for a better offer? Maybe one that doesn’t involve this whole humbling-ourselves thing? One that doesn’t involve that cross to take up and carry? Are we letting our lips RSVP yes to God’s kingdom, while meaning for our actions, our lives, to remain unchanged? Do we think that if we are not ready to come, or if we don’t like the guest list, God’s party gets rescheduled? Cancelled? If we can’t be the host, do we just not want to come at all? In the parable, the “second-tier” guests, and “third-tier” guests, those who get invited on the day of the party, they get what an awesome invitation they’ve received! Do you get it?

Friends, we need to RSVP. And then, we need to show up! Because God’s party is taking place no matter what. No matter what! Don’t miss the party. Don’t miss the opportunity to invite friends. Don’t miss the opportunity as a church for this to be a location of the party! Because if we won’t make room for God’s party here, God will make church wherever God takes the party. Please, RSVP. And then, show up! Show up to God’s kingdom. It’s right here, right now, and it’s the best party in town.

This week, friends, my homework assignment for you is fairly simple: I want you to respond – yes, or no – to all the invitations you receive this week, via text, facebook, email, or old fashioned pen and paper. And then, of course, if you say yes, I want you to actually show up! And in so doing, in being aware of how and when and by whom you are invited, I hope you will also be thinking about the many invitations God extends to you. And maybe, maybe, you can start carrying some of the invitations God sends, delivering them to those you know, and to those in the town, and to those in the streets. And when you show up to God’s party, you can show up with friends new and old.

You’re invited. Respond, if you please. Amen.

(1)   http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/14_12-24.htm

(2)   http://www.womanaroundtown.com/sections/living-around/the-lost-art-of-the-r-s-v-p

Sermon for Fourth Sunday in Lent, non-lectionary - Point of View: Mary, Mary, Mary

Sermon 3/18/12

Luke 7:36-50, 8:1-3, Luke 10:38-42, John 12:1-7, Matthew 27:45-50, 55-61, 28:1

Mary, Mary, Mary

What do we really know about Mary Magdalene? As usual, not much. But in Mary's case, we probably think we know more than we do. We assume an awful lot about poor, misunderstood Mary Magdalene. She is mentioned only rarely in the gospels; in fact, mentioned only one time outside of accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In one passage in Luke, there is mention of the fact that Mary Magdalene had been cured from possession by demons by Jesus, and that she was traveling with him along with some other women and the Twelve as he was teaching and preaching. Other than that, Mary Magdalene is only mentioned in the context of being at the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion, helping the women with burial rites, and then, of course, most significantly, at Jesus’ resurrection, as the first witness, the first teller of the news. She’s mentioned nowhere else, despite popular beliefs. Even now you are probably wondering, but what about this passage, what about that passage? But we have to set the record straight. Mary Magdalene is not the woman caught in adultery. She is not labeled a sinner. She is not a prostitute. She is not the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet. She is not the Mary who is sister to Martha and Lazarus, not the Mary who is praised for simply sitting at Jesus’ feet. All we know for sure is that she was following Jesus, that she witnessed his crucifixion along with other women who were followers.

I’m not exactly sure how or why these several separate women in the scriptures become merged into one. It happened very early in church history, that these several stories began to be folded into one in the Christian narrative. We see evidence that Jesus was inclusive of women in his ministry – radically inclusive for his day – he has women who follow along with the rest of the disciples, he speaks to women in circumstances that were normally considered inappropriate, and he heals women along with men, commending them for their great faith. But after the church was born, when the disciples were leading and growing congregations, women’s roles in the movement began to be suppressed and minimized. By the 6th century, the Pope, Gregory the First, preached a sermon merging the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet, Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, and Mary Magdalene, together as one person – three women, as one woman. And it was not until 1969 that the Catholic Church officially stated that the sinful woman, Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene were actually three separate women. That’s well over a thousand years of assuming Mary Magdalene to be not only a sinful woman, but more particularly, a prostitute, when the scriptures simply tell us no such thing! Centuries of paintings show Mary Magdalene with bright red hair, worn long, rather than covered as would have been appropriate. Films and musicals, even my own beloved Superstar, have portrayed Mary as a prostitute. Mary Magdalene has been seen as the example of a life redeemed, a forgiven woman who turned things around. A nice story, just not based on the truth!

But then, in the last several years, the tide seemed to turn – people started to get interested in Mary Magdalene again. And if I had to point to what sparked the interest, I’d point to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code that was so popular, now almost a decade ago. The book suggested that through DaVinci’s artwork, you could discover the hidden secret – that Jesus really married Mary Magdalene and had a child with her, and that Mary was really the most devoted disciple, whose image had been smeared by those who were jealous of her and her power and bent on telling a certain version of Jesus’ story. Interest in Mary Magdalene exploded, even though Brown’s book was a work of fiction, and people started reading some of the Gnostic Gospels, writings that were not included in our scriptures, which also pictured Mary Magdalene as a prominent disciple, though never as Jesus’ wife.

So who is Mary Magdalene, really? Personally, though I’ve read and enjoyed both The DaVinci Code, and the Gnostic Gospels, I like to focus on what the biblical scriptures tell us, with what is really in the text before us, and understanding that, before adding other sources. So who are these Marys, exactly, and really, who end up so blurred together? Let’s look at what the scriptures actually say.

First, Mary Magdalene. We see her at the tomb on Easter morning. But we’re not ready for Easter yet. The only other place Mary is mentioned is in the other text we read today: “Soon afterwards Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.” This is the only mention of Mary Magdalene other than at the cross, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. From these few verses though, we know that Mary and some other women went with Jesus and the twelve on his preaching and teaching tour. For women in his day, that is a huge and risky commitment. We know that Mary was healed by Jesus, even though we might not understand what it means to be possessed by demons. And we know that these women provided for Jesus and disciples, which suggests that they were women with some wealth and resources at their disposal to use to support Jesus’ ministry. And that is simply all the scriptures say about Mary Magdalene.

Then, there’s Mary of Bethany. We know she’s not Mary Magdalene primarily because Magdala and Bethany are two different places! Mary of Bethany is the sister of Lazarus and Martha. We see her in three significant scenes: We see her sitting and listening at Jesus’ feet while he was at her home, and while Martha prepared a meal. Martha was upset with Mary, but Jesus tells her she’s chosen the better part by listening to him. We see Mary upset with Jesus when Lazarus dies because Jesus did not arrive quickly enough to heal him. This time it is Martha who shines in her understanding of resurrection, and Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. And finally, we see Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet with costly perfume, and Judas, or in other gospels, all the disciples, being upset over her wastefulness. But Jesus commends her for her act of extravagant love.

And finally, the other woman who is often confused with these two Marys is the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus’ feet at the home of Simon the Pharisee. She and Mary of Bethany both anoint Jesus’ feet, and so the two have often been mistaken for one another, but anointing of feet was not a particularly unusual act. It probably happened to Jesus many times that aren’t even recorded. And thinking of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute also probably comes from this passage about an unnamed woman. This unnamed woman is never called a prostitute, just a sinner, but wearing her hair down, and the way Simon speaks of her being known as a sinner suggest that she may have been a prostitute. But there’s no conclusive proof. So this sinful woman anoints Jesus’ feet with ointment and her own tears. Simon is critical of Jesus for letting such a woman perform this act of devotion, but Jesus, with a parable, says that her sins are forgiven, and because her sins are so completely forgiven, the woman reacts with deeply loving behavior.

These are the three woman who have been rolled into one, but their stories are really quite unique. And there are even other Marys in the Bible – a few actually – but just mentioned by their very common name. So with their identities untangled, we then have to ask what we learn for ourselves. I think restoring Mary Magdalene’s reputation is a worthy endeavor on its own – she deserves to be remembered for what the gospels tell us she was – a follower of Jesus and the first witness of the resurrection. But what do we learn from her? As I’ve said, we’re looking, this Lent, at who we say Jesus is, and what that says about us. So who does Mary Magdalene say that he is? And who does Mary of Bethany say that he is? And who, even, does the sinful woman who anointed his feet say that he is? For each, in different ways, Jesus was quite literally their savior. Mary Magdalene is healed from something described as demon-possession. Seven demons, actually. Whatever this meant, it would have made her ritually unclean and shunned from society. Jesus saves her. Jesus forgives the sins of the unnamed woman, and takes a burden of guilt from her, and she responds with such love, such relief, such thankfulness. Mary of Bethany has her brother returned to life, and finds Jesus’ affirming her choices of discipleship in more than one situation. Jesus has saved these women. Who do they say he is? Their savior. And because they see him this way, their lives change dramatically. Their lives after meeting Jesus are almost unrecognizable from the lives they led before they met, knew, and followed him.

Last week, we talked about Pontius Pilate, and his apathy. He recognized Jesus as someone important, but it didn’t matter to him more than his own power and status. Who Pilate was was more important to him than who Jesus was. He isn’t changed by who Jesus is. When we look at Mary Magdalene and these other women, the questions are the same, and Mary, like Pilate, recognizes Jesus. But the difference, the critical difference, is in the response. Who Jesus is changes Mary Magdalene, and the others, because who Jesus is changes how they see themselves. Mary of Bethany is singled out by Jesus more than once for her sincere discipleship, and we hear more about her than most of the twelve, which tells us how significant she was. The ‘sinful’ woman has her sins forgiven and shows Jesus an act of love, ignoring the insults of a prominent Pharisee. Mary Magdalene packs up and literally follows Jesus, even supporting Jesus and the twelve financially, which would enable them to preach and teach without worrying about their resources. They know who Jesus is to them, and because of it, their lives have changed.

The question is still the same for us this week: Who do you say that Jesus is? How does who he is to you change you? Does knowing Jesus change you? Are you changeable? We’re well into our Lenten journey now, a time of preparation for Easter. I believe that Lent is a time to prepare ourselves to be more changeable on Easter morning. On Easter morning, we’ll see Mary Magdalene in her most significant role yet – the very first witness to the resurrection. And on Easter morning, we’ll have to ask ourselves once and for all who Jesus is, and how it changes us.

I have shared with you before a question I have heard churches should ask themselves: “if your church disappeared today, who, besides its members, would miss it? Who would notice it was gone?” Who would miss this church, besides us, if it was gone, because of the difference we make? We can ask the same question on a personal level: How would your discipleship be missed if you weren’t around? Would your life be any different than it is now if you weren’t a follower of Jesus, or would it be basically the same? In other words, what changes are visible in your life because of who you say Jesus is and what that means you are called to do? Are you changeable? Are we changeable?

Jesus saved them. And it changed their lives. Amen.

Sermon for Third Sunday in Lent (non-lectionary) - Point of View: Pontius Pilate

Sermon 3/11/12

Point of View: Pontius Pilate

I think it’s strange that while the twelve disciples spent three years of their lives with Jesus, we know so very little about them, while Pontius Pilate, our point-of-view focus this morning, spent just a short time with Jesus on one day, and yet we hear more from Pilate than we do half the disciples. As seems usual for these biblical figures, we don’t know a lot about Pilate’s background – there are some conflicting stories over where he was born and what family he was part of – and we don’t know much about his life before he appears in the gospels. But we know that he was a prefect in Judea, and that prefects had certain duties – mostly military oversight and collecting taxes, but also judicial responsibility in some local affairs. During big religious festivals like the Passover, Pilate would be expected to be in Jerusalem, to make sure things were kept under control. And we know that he served as prefect in Judea from 26-36 AD, recalled to Rome perhaps just a year or two after Jesus’ trial. It seems that Pilate frequently found himself in conflict with the people he governed, and his superiors were not happy with his performance. (1)

In the gospels, Pontius Pilate appears only in the trial of Jesus and surrounding events. His name is occasionally mentioned in Acts and in the writings of Paul, but only in reference to Jesus being tried before him. And in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial, we get the same general story – we see a Pilate who seems to be struggling between a feeling that Jesus is innocent of the crimes he’s accused of, and a Pilate who is concerned about the crowds and potential mob rule, wanting to please the people to keep them under control. Jesus has been arrested, and already been interviewed by the chief priests. But Pilate had authority over certain matters – in fact, even the high priest was named by the Roman government (1) – and the religious leaders wanted Pilate to condemn Jesus. In Matthew’s account, on which we focus today, Pilate interviews Jesus, asking him if he is the King of the Jews, a claim with political overtones that would threaten both the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman authorities. But Jesus keeps silent, despite the questioning.

Pilate then offers to release a prisoner – Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus “who is called the Messiah.” At this point, we read some commentary from Matthew: Pilate thinks Jesus has been handed over to him because the religious leaders are jealous of Jesus' authority and popularity with the people, and also, his wife warned him to have nothing to do with “that innocent man” Jesus, because of a nightmare she had about him. Pilate seems to want to find a way to set Jesus free without having to actually come out and make the decision. The crowds shout for the release of Barabbas and begin to chant for Jesus’ death – “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!” We read that Pilate was overwhelmed by the crowd’s response, feeling he had no choice but to give in: “So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’” Then Pilate releases Barabbas, as the people requested, has Jesus flogged – we’re not even sure why – and hands him over to be crucified.

As with Judas, I have a lot of questions about Pilate. What do we make of Pilate and his actions? Did he just get caught up in something that was out of his control? Is it true what he thought? If he hadn’t allowed Jesus to be put to death, would there really have been a riot that the Roman soldiers could not control? Would Jesus have just been put to death another way by the angry crowds? Can you just decide to wash your hands of a situation and really be free from responsibility? Can Pilate simply declare himself innocent? Who, ultimately, is responsible for Jesus’ death? Could Pilate have taken a stronger stand? Wasn’t he in charge?

We are focusing this Lent on points of view: who people say that Jesus is, and how who they say Jesus is changes who they are themselves, or how who they are changes who they say Jesus is! So if we take these somewhat jumbled questions, and apply them to Pilate, what do we come out with? Who does Pilate say that Jesus is? Surely, we don’t have a lot to go on. But we start to gather a sense even from this scene in Matthew that Pilate catches a glimpse of who Jesus is. He has a feeling that Jesus is something different. He can see that the religious leaders are jealous of Jesus. He knows that his wife has had a strange dream about Jesus and pronounced him innocent. He sees that Jesus is unwilling to argue with him over accusations and frantically defend himself. He is reluctant to condemn Jesus, and anxious not to be held responsible for what will happen to Jesus. When we take all these pieces, these clues, and put them together, it seems that Pilate, if not ready to call Jesus the Messiah exactly, knew that there was something about Jesus . . .

But for Pilate, ultimately, who he is is much more important to him than who Jesus is. Pilate is a prefect of the Roman Empire. What Pilate wants most is to escape blame, from Rome, from the Jews, no matter who Jesus turns out to be. He wants to have no responsibility for the situation before him, which is ironic for someone who wants desperately to keep their role of responsibility and authority. Pilate might believe there’s something more to Jesus – but ultimately, it doesn’t make a difference to him, because who he is, what he wants – his power, his control, his position – all of that is more important to him.

As always, what we learn here, what we learn about Pilate is only meaningful if we can see ourselves in his place. So, I have to ask – are there things that you believe, but your believing doesn’t make a difference to you, make a difference in how you live your life? Let me give you some examples of what I mean. You know I am not a follower of sports, but I would have had to crawl under a rock to miss the story of Joe Paterno, Penn State Football Coach, and the scandal he faced late last year. Paterno was criticized not for abuse himself, but for knowing of abuse that was happening and failing to take sufficient action with what he knew. Many professionals, like teachers, medical personnel, doctors, and in many places, clergy, are mandated reporters, who are required, legally, to report suspected child abuse. The law mandates that with knowledge comes a responsibility to act.

Or think of the current election cycle. In the midst of the Republican primaries, one question I think voters have is: Do what candidates say and what they actually have done or will do in office match up? A common accusation is that candidates flip-flop on positions. Mitt Romney, for example, has been trying to appeal to more conservative Republicans, but has also been criticized then for distancing himself with previous actions and statements when he served as governor. Voters want to know: Is this what he really believes? Or is he just saying what he thinks I want to hear?

One more example. You have probably heard this famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller, written in the wake of Nazism and the Holocaust. First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. We say actions speak louder than words, and if that is true, then inaction is a deafening silence.  

What about our faith journeys? What about discipleship? What I want to know is this: What do you believe about Jesus? Who do you think that he is? And what difference has that made in the way that you live? Or, like Pontius Pilate, are there too many things about who we are and what we want for ourselves for us to actually let what we believe about Jesus change our lives?

One of my colleagues posed a question on his blog: “What is the most destructive force in a congregation?” He listed multiple-choice responses, including unresolved conflict, which had the most votes, followed by power struggles, narrow-mindedness, gossip, and keeping secrets. But I selected the ‘other’ option and added in my own response: apathy. The church is at risk when we don’t translate what we believe into how we live as individuals and as a congregation. To me, what is most destructive to churches is just this dilemma that we see in Pontius Pilate. We believe something, but what we believe doesn’t necessarily change anything. Consider what we believe as a congregation: I trust that generally, we believe in God, believe in Jesus, believe that Jesus set an example for us, believe that we’re meant to be disciples, believe that God loves us, and so on. We might come down differently on exactly what those beliefs mean in detail, but at the core, I think we’re on the same page. Where we need to ask ourselves the hard questions, where we need to do some soul-searching is when we ask ourselves: what difference does what we believe make?

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” What is it we are taking up? Taking up the cross means taking a risk to follow Jesus, and what we must risk is different for each one of us. What is holding us back? What is it that you are afraid to risk? I’m guessing, that with a little introspection, it wouldn’t take you long to answer that question. In our discipleship, in our faith journey, we get into trouble when the cost of following Jesus is always more than we are willing to pay, and when what it costs us is always a bigger concern than acting on what we believe. When we believe, but still fail to act, that’s apathy. When we believe, but still fail to act, that’s of more concern than those who don’t know what they believe yet. For Pontius Pilate, the cost to himself was his primary concern. He knew Jesus shouldn’t be condemned to death. But the cost Pilate would bear was too much. What he was willing to risk, willing to ‘spend’ on what he believed was nothing. What are you willing to spend? What will you risk? What is that task to which God is calling you that nags at the back of your mind, the corners of your heart? What do you believe about God? And so what? How has it changed you? Who do you say that Jesus is? And how will your answer change your life?

Amen.