Sermon, "Kingdom Stories: Woes," Matthew 23:1-15, 23-24

Sermon 10/27/13

Matthew 23:1-15, 23-24

Kingdom Stories: Woes

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending time with my brother Todd’s girlfriend, who was home visiting from Indiana. Todd and Andrea moved to Indiana this summer so Todd could pursue his Master of Fine Arts in Acting at Purdue. Todd’s first production is coming up in a few weeks – he’s playing Santiago, a Cuban man, in Anna in the Tropics, which means he has to sport this lovely mustache for the next couple of months. I told Andrea at least she doesn’t have to worry about other women flirting with Todd – not with that mustache! Todd and I have long teased each other about our respective career paths. When I was in college, my major was pre-theology, a seminary prep curriculum. Todd always teased me about me majoring in-pre-the-study-of-God, theology’s literal translation. What’s pre-God, Todd would ask? But as an acting major, I told Todd he was just studying pretending and dress-up at the college level. Since Todd specializes in Shakespeare, you’re more likely to see him in tights than me in tights! We have an agreement though, since I’ve done some theatre and Todd’s done a little preaching – if Todd ever leaves acting to become a pastor, I have to leave ministry to become an actress, and vice versa – to keep things balanced.  

The word hypocrite is from two Greek words that mean “under” and “decide or judge” – so a hypocrite was a person who was subpar, below the radar, so to speak, when they were talking. In other words, someone who was presenting themselves falsely. Actually, the word hypocrite in Ancient Greece referred to stage actors! Stage actors were supposed to be hypocrites. The people who can dress up and play let’s pretend in order, actually, to reflect the sometimes unspoken truths of a society. Hypocrites in the best way. The word hypocrite gained a negative connotation when it was applied to people who weren’t stage actors, but who were behaving like actors, that is, presenting themselves falsely, pretending to be something they weren’t. Claiming to be one thing, and doing another. Hypocrisy.

About five years ago, a book called unChristian hit the circuits, being read and discussed by many pastors and churches. Unchristian shared the results of a study of perceptions held by 16-29 year olds of the church. The results were not flattering. A broad spectrum of young people described their encounter with Christianity as judgmental, only interested in converting people, homophobic, out of touch with reality, sheltered, boring, and, number one, hypocritical. Young people tolerate a lot – they’re so much more comfortable with diversity of all kinds than adults are – their world is and has always been multicultural and multiracial and multi-religious. But one thing that young people really grate against is hypocrisy. Lack of authenticity. I try to share this with people who want to work with youth ministries, or with people who assume that young people only respond to and connect with young adults, young leaders, young pastors. Young people aren’t looking for faith leaders who are cool, although kudos to you if you happen to be cool. They’re looking for real. Aren’t we all? Last week I attended the Drew Alumni Lecture Series, where one of my colleagues, Drew Dyson, said that in his research he’s found that it isn’t that young people find church so repulsive or distasteful. It’s that they just don’t find it to be anything at all. A declining institution that still doesn’t want to let just anyone be part of the community, young people find the church too hypocritical to even get stressed about.

Today, in our last week of our theme, Kingdom Stories, we read a selection from Matthew that is usually referred to as the Seven Woes. This passage from Matthew comes fairly close to the end of Jesus’ teachings. His parables have been increasingly pointed, and his interaction with the Pharisees have been frequent. In the chapter before this one, we read that the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus, and they, along with other religious leaders keep trying to tangle him up with questions they think he can’t answer. After a series of these interactions, Jesus unleashes on the Pharisees. He warns the crowds and his disciples against them. He tells them, “the scribes and Pharisees are in the line of Moses, and they know the commandments, so listen to them, and follow as they teach, but don’t do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” Jesus then continues on to accuse the scribes and Pharisees of several hypocritical behaviors in his words to the crowds. He accuses them of not practicing their own teachings. He accuses them of laying burdens onto others that are hard to bear, without offering to “lift a finger” to help ease the load. He accuses them of making a show of their faith. He says that they “make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.” Phylacteries were boxes that were tied to the arm and forehead that contained words of scripture in them, and fringes were part of a garment worn by Jewish men. The long fringes and phylacteries would be worn not by common people, but by the Pharisees, as a show of their devotion, and some of them made sure to have the largest phylacteries and the longest fringes, as if that made them more devout. Jesus insisted that it was actually a show of pride in their own piety, rather than an act of devotion to God’s word. And Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being obsessed with titles and positions and places of honor. Jesus warns the crowds and disciples that they need only one father and instructor and rabbi – Jesus. That’s just the beginning.  

Jesus next says “Woe to you” with seven statements, seven reasons, to the scribes and Pharisees – one of which we read in our text today – but one gives the sense of all of them – because each of the seven woes Jesus pronounces relates to hypocrisy:

1) The scribes and Pharisees taught about God, but didn’t love God, evidenced by their keeping others from entering the kingdom.

2) They preached about God, but converted people to a dead religion, making people “twice as fit for hell as they themselves were.”

3) They taught that oaths were binding if they were made on special, lavish, expensive parts of the temple, not the temple itself.

4) They neglected the most important parts of the law – practices of mercy, faithfulness, and justice, but obeyed – and insisted on everyone else obeying – minute details of the law – like tithing spices, but not being so concerned about poverty, health, welfare of women, children, orphan, foreigner, widow, etc.

5) They presented themselves as clean on the outside, but were dirty and corrupt inside.

6) They presented themselves as holy, but were full of wickedness and unholy thoughts, like beautiful tombs that cover decaying bodies.

7) They claimed regard for the prophets, insisting they would have received the messages and teachings of the prophets, and yet, they have murderous intents toward Jesus. (1)

Jesus says “woe” to you when you’re pretending to be something before God and one another that you’re not. Woe to you, hypocrites and blind guides. Notice, Jesus doesn’t say “woe to you” if you are “sinful” – if you’re a tax collector or prostitute or woman caught in adultery or Zacchaeus or a Roman centurion or a woman with many husbands or diseased person or a possessed person – all of the things that society would have named as woeful situations. No, Jesus reserves his scathing “woes” for the Pharisees and scribes – the most ostensibly religious people of the day – because their pretending to be holy while still failing to seek after God with their hearts is much more offensive to Jesus than never claiming to be holy to begin with.

What can we take from this? The easiest take-away is to think: Man, those Pharisees were really ba-ad. Jesus really told them! But as I’ve said before, one of our best strategies for reading the scripture is to remember that when Jesus is talking, he is talking to you, to me, about you, about me. What if you replaced “scribes and Pharisees” with your own name in this passage? Or filled in Jesus’ comments with words about your own life? Woe to you, Beth, you hypocrite, for you say this, but you actually do this. What woes would Jesus call out in your life?

The worst behavior, in Jesus’ mind, is when, by your actions, and not just your actions but your actions done in the name of God, you actually push others away from knowing God, make it harder for them to get to know God. It is one thing to choose for yourself to put distance between you and God, to put on a show for others and to pretend with God that you’re holier than you really are – as if God will buy that – but it is another thing entirely when our behaviors, our actions, don’t just fail to live up to Jesus’ description of discipleship but rather masquerade as discipleship that never touches our hearts or changes our lives - all while proclaiming to be Jesus-followers – it is another thing entirely when our putting on a good show of Christianity causes others to miss hearing the good news.

We’ve been talking about justice, about righteousness and getting “set right” with God, lining up our lives, our actions, our behaviors, our values, with those of God, so that others can see in us God-in-our-midst. We’ve talked about the good news that God’s kingdom, God’s reign is right here, right now, for us to live into with God. Our mission is to announce this good news and to help work for the continual unfolding of God’s realm in our midst. I think another way we can think of that good news – the coming of the kingdom – is that we experience God’s righteousness when we are real with God, and so in turn we are able to experience the reality of God. The kingdom of God is experiencing God’s reality for us right now. But you can’t experience God’s reality by being fake. Being sinful, Jesus can work with. Making mistakes, messing up, getting it wrong – God can transform that mess. But if you won’t stop pretending you’ve already got it all right all on your own, if you won’t stop faking having it together, if you won’t stop pretending, well: Woe to us, hypocrites. How can God show us the real thing if we insist our fake stuff is the real thing already?

Just following these “woes,” Jesus laments over Jerusalem with words of longing: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem – how often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gather her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus is longing, like a mother hen, scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites though we may be, to gather us in, gather us up. Jesus is longing to be real with us. That’s what Jesus wants – the real us. The real you. The real me. Because that’s the way we can experience the real living God, the real life Jesus promises, the real reign of God in our midst. Let’s stop pretending. Jesus already knows who you really are. And he’ll take you anyway! Thanks be to God. Amen.        

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woes_of_the_Pharisees

Sermon, "Kingdom Stories: Laborers in the Vineyard," Matthew 20:1-18

Sermon 10/20/13

Matthew 20:1-18

Kingdom Stories: Laborers in the Vineyard

I’ve been blessed to always have enough of the essentials – food, shelter, clothing: My mother, working as a nurse, always had a job, if not two, and by the time I was say, in high school, my family had a fairly stable middle class financial situation. But it took us a long time to get there. My early years were spent in the small village of Westernville, north of Rome, and my father was out of work off and on from the time I was two until I was in close to junior high age. That is another story to tell, but the point is, we were a poor family. We used food stamps, we received help from my grandparents, and we received one of the food baskets we helped put together at church. Westernville was too small for its own schools – we were bused to Rome for school, and as geography would have it, relatively poor Westernville kids went to school with kids from some of the wealthier parts of Rome.

            Somehow, it doesn’t take many years of life to learn the difference between rich and poor and to assign value judgments – and poor is definitely not cool. The most popular girl in school, Kelly, child of a former professional baseball player and one of the teachers at school, who lived in a house that had more floors than I could count – well, she made my life pretty miserable sometimes. I remember most vividly that for my sixth grade birthday, my brother Jim took me to the mall and let me spend $100 of his hard earned money. It was a huge gift to me. In addition to Mariah Carey and Wilson Phillips single cassette tapes, my major purchase was a new outfit – a Skidz brand t-shirt and shorts. Anyone remember those? They were all the rage, and I knew, for once, I would be at school with the right clothes. When I arrived at school the next day, Kelly immediately made fun of me – because even though I had the right brand, I had purchased them from JCPenney, and not Tops N Bottoms, the cool store. I just couldn’t seem to win. I was trying to be something I wasn’t, and Kelly was sure to point it out to everyone.

            The worst thing though, was that I was a kid who attended church every week, and I read my bible, and knew it pretty well, and I knew about this parable, and I had a bad feeling I pretty much knew what it meant. I knew this parable meant that Kelly, as mean as she was, as bad as she made me and other people feel – I knew Kelly was just as loved by God as I was, and that Kelly could live her life as she was and still get God's grace and all the benefits of our generous God if she wanted them. I actually thought about that a lot. And I knew that it was just. not. fair.

This parable, sometimes known as the Parable of the Laborers or the Workers in the Vineyard, is taught by Jesus following another familiar scene. A rich young man had approached Jesus and asked about getting into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus told him to sell all his stuff and give it to the poor, and the man went away disappointed. Jesus then said to the disciples that it was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But, Jesus said, with God, anything is possible. Then Peter says, in reply, the scriptures tell us, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ Peter wants to know what exactly the disciples are in for. Jesus tells them they will receive eternal life, but that the first are last and the last are first. And then he tells this parable.

A landowner goes out in the morning to hire laborers for the vineyard. He offers them “whatever is right” for a day of labor. He goes out again at noon and at 3 and at 5, and hires more and more laborers. At the end of the day, the landowner pays them all a day’s wage. All of them. That means that the workers who have worked 10 hours, 8 hours, 5 hours, and 2 hours all get the same paycheck at the end of the day. Naturally, this upsets some of the workers. The workers who worked all day were suddenly less happy with the wage they had received, because those who worked only one hour also received the same salary. But the landowner won’t hear it: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” Jesus concludes, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” And it is just. not. fair. Is it?

            Of course, we all know the adage: Life isn’t fair. No one ever said life was fair. But I think we believe that God is fair right. Isn’t God supposed to be fair? Doesn’t God want fairness? Here’s the bad news that’s really good news. God isn’t fair, and doesn’t value fairness. And we should be thankful for that! We’ve been talking for the last couple weeks about our mission and justice – what it means to be people seeking after getting set right with God’s values. Fairness isn’t really one of God’s values. I find it fascinating to figure out how frequently words occur in the scriptures. The sheer number of times a word is – or isn’t – mentioned gives us a clue about how important something in. The word just or justice occurs at least 1000 times in the scriptures in some variation. But fair and fairness? Less than 100 times, and most of them are talking about fair-faced men and women, not about equality. God is interested in justice, not fairness.

So what’s the difference? I saw a picture being posted a lot on facebook at one point that shows these two images, pointing out the difference between “equality” and “equity.” If every person receives one box to stand on, things are “equal.” But since one person doesn’t really need the box, and one person really needs two, for everyone to see the field, equal isn’t very helpful. They need things to be equitable – two boxes for one person, no boxes for another, means everyone can see. We could re-label this picture fair and just. Fair is when everyone gets the same number of boxes. Just is when everyone can watch the game, even if someone got two boxes and another person got none. God isn’t into fair. God is into just. “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you,” we hear in the parable. Again and again in the scriptures, God chooses justice, not fairness, inviting us into a kingdom where everyone gets to play, even if it means God has to show preference for the most marginalized, outcast, on the fringes, un-included, everyone-else-deemed-not-worth-saving types. Not fairness, but justice.

But we should be thankful, not irritated, that God doesn’t play fair. Instead, we labor for a God of justice and grace. I think we would say that we know what grace is. Goodness knows I talk about it enough, and talk about what it is, and our hymns are about grace, and our liturgies and our prayers and our sacraments – all about grace. In our baptism liturgies today we talk about grace being God’s gift “offered to us without price.” Grace is God's gift to us, it is free, without price, God's unconditional – that is without conditions!  – love, which is poured out on everyone. That is grace. I hope that sounds familiar! We believe in grace as a concept, a theory. But in practice? I am not convinced we really believe in grace. We are really trying, still, to earn grace, to make sure we are doing what is good enough to be loved by God. When we hear about laboring in the vineyard, we imagine working hard enough to get God’s blessings. Still, we know from our own human experience that love is inexplicable – who can explain why we love who we love? Can it be that God truly offers love to all of us? Do we believe in grace?

Not when our first reaction to this parable is still: It’s not fair! We’re still not getting it. If we are finally convinced, at last, that God is gonna give the made-elementary-school-rotten-for-everyone-Kellys of the world as much love and grace as the awesomely well-behaved, life-long, faithful, didn’t even have delinquent college years Beths of the world, which, as we have established, is so unfair, then I think we start to have this second question that show we still don’t “get” grace: Why do we bother trying so hard to be good and to live a good life? Why do we struggle so much to follow God's plans for us, God's commands for us, when other people seem to do what they want, and end up with the same reward as we do? If we get God's grace either way, why not live a little? Party a little? Go a little crazy? Why this struggle for following God, if God will ultimately find us and lavish us with grace anyway?

Again, our response reveals what we really believe: that we see grace as a reward for good behavior and not an outright gift. Grace is not a prize that we get, but sometimes it seems that the only reason we are following God is because of the reward! But there’s a big difference between reward and gift. Grace is a gift, not a reward. When Jesus talks about abundant life, living water, bread of life, all that he offers, he is talking about what we can claim, the life we can live not in some distant future, but right now if we will walk with God who loves us. But don’t we sometimes treat these offers like chores we must complete to get to the end of the game and win the prize? We’ve got the order all wrong. We aren’t laborers in the vineyard because grace is the payment, the prize that we receive at the end. Because of grace, because we have received and can trust in, can count on God’s grace and unconditional love, we are freed up to labor in God’s vineyard, to work in God’s fields, to help bring God’s reign, God’s kingdom to others! Laboring longer in God's vineyard is not a punishment, but in itself a blessing, being part of God's kingdom now, right here, today, on this earth, in this time. Laboring in the vineyard is the reward, not the work. We aren’t supposed to work hard enough so that God will love us. Instead, we’re supposed to be inspired by our trust in God’s love and grace to work for the kingdom – so that others will know and experience the kingdom too. The payment is just the icing on the cake, and God wants everyone to get all the icing the want!      

            What is the kingdom of God like? It’s like a field of workers, all of whom have accepted the gift of grace, and who keep working to make the field more and more like master intends – getting the field to be just like the master imagines and dreams it to be. In fact, more and more people are invited to come and work in the field – we’re all working together. And thank goodness it isn’t fair. Instead, it is full of love, and grace, and justice, because we’re all invited, and God will do whatever it takes to get us there. And God continues to bless us, and bless us, and bless us. No, God is not at all interested in being fair. God is interested in justice. God is interested in mercy and compassion. God is interested in our abundant lives. God is interested in loving each and every single precious person in creation. But God definitely does not play fair. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sermon, "Kingdom Stories: The Unforgiving Servant," Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon 10/13/13

Matthew 18:21-35

Kingdom Stories: The Unforgiving Servant

            As I continue to work on my Doctor of Ministry research and project, I have to admit that I’ve been doing a lot of checking on the exact requirements the school has for every step of the project. For example, I recently had to submit my project proposal and portfolio, and before I sent in my work, I read the student handbook carefully to make sure that my work complied to every standard. There was a required length – my proposal had to be a certain number of pages long. There were required sections that the proposal had to have. Each section had to answer certain required questions. I was required to have an annotated bibliography with a certain number of sources. My footnotes had to be formatted in a certain required way. I want my research project to be compelling, interesting, worth my time. I’m not required to complete this degree program – I’m doing it because I want to learn more, not because I’m required to learn more. But there are parts of it that I will tell you bluntly that I’m only doing because I’m required to do them. I could have gotten the point of my proposal across in a lot fewer pages, but because a certain length was required, I made sure I kept writing until I had enough content to get my work approved. We all have to deal with that, don’t we? Times and situations when there are things that we are doing only because we are required to do them. Sometimes there are laws that we follow only because we’ll get in trouble otherwise. There are rules or procedures in our workplaces that we must follow because someone else has told us we must – someone who has some form of power in our lives. Sometimes, of course, rules and laws tell us to do or not do things we’d want to do or not do anyway. We might want to support our public schools, most of us want to live peacefully with one another – it’s more than a law that keeps us from stealing or lying or hurting each other. But often, the law tells us what is required, and we do no more than that. Not many people elect to pay more income tax than they have to, for example.

            This month we’re focusing on kingdom stories in the gospel of Matthew – Jesus’ teaching that tells us about what the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is like. And usually, what Jesus says has some surprising element to it. Often, when Jesus tells a parable, he tells it in response to some situation we encounter in the gospels, and in particular, he often tells them in response to a question someone has asked him. The funny thing about the questions that people ask Jesus is that most of them have a common theme running through them, even though that theme might not be obvious at first. The theme of many of the questions, besides that basic, “Huh? What do you mean? I don’t get it” question is: What’s required? What do I have to do to still be ok, “in,” doing “enough” to please God? Which commandment is most important? What must I do to inherit eternal life? Is it right to pay taxes? Who is my neighbor? What reasons are ok for a man to give to divorce his wife? Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Why don’t you and your disciples follow the rules? How often do I have to forgive – is this enough? And Jesus’ answers to these questions comes to us in parables about the kingdom.

Before our text for today, the disciples have asked Jesus some questions, and he has responded, teaching about not being stumbling blocks for one another, talking about it being better to enter God's kingdom without a foot or hand rather than to stumble and stray because of it. He speaks about conflict in the community, recommending a course of action if someone has sinned against you. And then, perhaps in response to this teaching, Peter asks Jesus: ʺLord, if another member of the faith community sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?ʺ Now, the way Peter asks his question gives you an idea that he thinks he is being pretty broad in his suggested response. As many as seven times? Peter asks and lets Jesus know he thinks seven times is a lot. See, Peter is learning, even though he stumbles. He is learning from Jesus and has learned that Jesus is pretty extravagant sometimes – not when it comes to having things and possessions and money. But extravagant about his relationships with others. Jesus is pretty extravagant with his compassion, justice, and mercy. Always going farther than anyone else was prepared to go. Peter, I suspect, thinks he will impress Jesus, by saying he suspects you might need to forgive someone up to seven times if they sin against you! Seven times!

             Jesus replies, “Nice try, Peter. Try seventy seven times. Seventy seven.” Not because Jesus actually wants us to count up to 77 in the number of times we forgive. But because Jesus wants us to stop counting. Because we’re asking the wrong question. Jesus tells a parable, about the kingdom of heaven, saying, “It’s like this. A king wanted to settle his debts. He called forward a slave who owed him 10,000 talents. The slave could not pay, so the king prepared to sell the slave, his family, and his possessions to make the payment. But the slave begged for mercy and patience, promising to pay. The king had mercy and cancelled the entire debt and released the slave, beyond what the slave asked for. But later, the same slave encounters a peer who owes him a small sum of money, a hundred denarii. He violently demands payment, and when his peer can’t pay, and begs for mercy, the slave denies him mercy, and has him thrown in prison. When the king finds out about it, he calls the slave before him. ‘How could you not show mercy to your fellow slave, as I showed you mercy?’ Finally, the king hands the slave over and requires payment for the debt.” Jesus concludes, saying that this is how it will be with us if we do not forgive one another.

             

            I have a small group of people working with me as research participants for my project, and we’re spending a lot of time talking about mission, charity, and justice. In our Bible Study last week, I talked about justice and righteousness – they’re almost use synonymously in the Bible, and I understand their meaning when I think about how you can justify text on word document on a computer. You can make the margins all line up evenly – that’s justified text – or you can let the lines end in a jagged sort of way, all out of line – that’s unjustified. I always like both of my margins justified. When we talk about justice and righteousness, we’re talking about getting things set right, set in line with God’s vision for us. Justice is when God’s will is fully carried out here on earth.

We talked in our study about how charity is optional – we can choose to give or not give to others as we will. But justice is what God requires. Sure, we can fail to achieve it, fail to participate in it, but justice is God’s aim and intention for our world. Justice is a requirement of God’s world when it is set right. We talked about Micah 6:8, where God answers the question of what is required of us. God says what is required is to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” So, justice is a requirement. But God doesn’t stop there. It is justice, accompanied by love and humility. Justice isn’t when we seek out the minimum we can do and still get by. It is when, with humility, and full of love for God and one another, we seek after justice as a way to have the world, and our hearts, set right in line with God.

This parable focuses on forgiving debts. And when the gospels talk about forgiving debts, the financial kind, we find the same words in Greek that are frequently used for forgiving sins – released from debt, released from sin – the language of forgiveness is the same in both contexts. In the United Methodist tradition, we say “trespasses and trespassers” in the Lord’s prayer, but in other traditions, people pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” With our financial debts – when you borrow, you owe the money until you repay it – or, rarely, until someone else decides to cancel your debt! So it is with sin. Sin is when you find yourself in debt to God, neighbor, or self, because of the harm you’ve caused. You are in someone’s debt when you’ve sinned against them. Their forgiveness releases you. 

To experience justice when it comes to debt or sin and forgiveness, what needs to get “set right,” in line with God is as much, maybe more about the hearts of those who feel that forgiveness is theirs to extend or withhold as it is about those who feel they have debt that needs cancelling, forgiving. Do you want to know how much to forgive? Tell me at what point you’d like God to stop forgiving you, loving you, offering grace to you – and you’ll touch on the answer. If God ever stopped forgiving us, no matter how high the count of our sins, if God ever stopped loving us, or extending grace to us, we are beyond lost. And when we stop forgiving each other, when we stop releasing each other from real or perceived debts we are owed, when we cannot stop counting the wrongs others have done – then we have lost each other and tried our best to lose God. How much should we forgive? How much should we let go? How high should we count when it comes to forgiveness? God says we’re just asking all the wrong questions. Instead, how much can we love? How transformed by grace can our lives be? What miracles will forgiveness work in the world? The possibilities are limitless.

How much should we forgive? Who is our neighbor? What’s required? We’re already asking the wrong questions! As soon as we wonder first about the requirement instead of the love and grace that motivates forgiveness, that motives our relationships, that motivates our following Jesus, we’re asking the wrong question, and we’ll never find the answer that satisfies. What is the kingdom of God like? What would it be like to experience the kingdom of heaven on earth? Those are the questions that will keep our lives in an endlessly unfolding conversation with Jesus, as we experience the kingdom that is already at hand. Amen.

             

Sermon, "Kingdom Stories: Wheat and Weeds," Matthew

Sermon 10/6/13

Matthew 13:24-30

Kingdom Stories: Wheat and Weeds

            This month we’re starting a new focus in worship, as we look at some of Jesus’ teachings in the gospel of Matthew that focus on the Kingdom of God. When Jesus teaches in parables, they often begin with him saying, “The kingdom of God” or “the kingdom of heaven is like.” The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It’s like a woman who lost a coin. It’s like a king who decided to settle accounts. It’s like a pearl of great value. It’s like a field where a someone sowed good wheat, but then someone else sowed weed in that same field. Jesus spends so much time describing what that kingdom is like because announcing the immediate presence of God’s kingdom is the very good news Jesus came to share. “The kingdom of God is at hand” is the short summary of Jesus’ preaching and teaching. Repent, change the direction of your life, because the realm of God is right in our midst, not far off and inaccessible.

            If Jesus’ primary message is about the presence of the kingdom of God, and if he spends all this time teaching about this kingdom of God that operates in a way that surprises us, flips our expectations upside down, values the very opposite of what the world tells us is valuable, then our mission, as the church, is to keep announcing that good news too, and to be a place where people – individually and together – can start bringing their lives into line with this upside-down transformed set of values that Jesus offers as an alternative to the values of power, money, and position that the world claims as true. Jesus announces that God’s kingdom is here and God’s kingdom has a different set of values than we’ve been sold on all our lives. And our mission is to keep making the announcement, keep changing our lives so that our values are God’s values. What would it look like, then, if when we talked about “mission” in the church, we were talking about the work we do to invite others to come alongside us and reorder our lives so that what’s most important to God is also most important to us?

            If we want to repent, to redirect our lives so that our values are the same as God’s values, we have to be sure we are clear about what those values are. And that’s what the parables of Jesus are all about. And often, what we find there is surprising. Take today’s lesson: The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. This is a parable we have to try to listen to with fresh attention, listening for things that our 21^st century ears might miss. With a simple reading of this text, we might say that this is the message for us: there are good people in the world, represented by the good seed. And then there are the not-so-good people - they are the weeds in the world. We are instructed not to put them in their places ourselves, but to wait for the harvest - the Judgment Day. Then we, the wheat, will be taken to heaven, and they, the weeds, will be thrown into the fire. That’s the surface reading, what we get if we only take away our first impressions.

        But looking more carefully at the text, we can find several questions to ask, actually, and find several things that might surprise us. First, we hear that the owner has sown the wheat and the ‘enemy’ has sown the weeds. Why didn’t the owner have his slaves sow the seed, a normal duty they would usually perform? Why does an enemy need to plant weeds? Anyone with gardening experience knows that weeds grow quite easily without being intentionally planted. What other kind of seed would a gardener sow besides “good” seed? The adjective seems unnecessary, unless it bears some greater significance. And why shouldn’t the slaves tear up the weeds right away? Normally, gardens are weeded not just once, but several times during a season, with a variety of techniques. A few good plants might be pulled up accidentally, but in the end the seeds produce stronger and healthier plants after a good weeding. Not only that, but Jesus’ Jewish audience would know that a field with two kinds of plants intentionally sown in it, including a combination of wheat and weeds, would make the field ritually unclean. The householder, though, implies that the wheat and weeds are too similar, growing too closely together, too intertwined to be separated without mistaking wheat for weed and weed for wheat.             Over the summer, a group of us studied the life and teachings of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement. Class participants had the option of reading through some of the sermons of John Wesley, a challenging assignment, since his sermons were lengthy and in language that sounds very formal and outdated to our 21^st century ears. One of the sermons assigned was Wesley’s sermon called the Almost Christian. Wesley starts by describing the “almost Christian” as a person who adopts the basic human behavior of decency that most everyone subscribes to: Not stealing, not lying, helping those in need when possible. He says an almost Christian “does nothing which the gospel forbids” and has the outer form of godliness, the outer attitude of a Christian. The almost Christian does good, too, and not just easy acts of goodwill, but works hard so that by all means, some might be helped. The almost Christian attends church regularly, prays regularly, and has a real desire to serve God. This, Wesley says, is the almost Christian.

            After hearing this description, Wesley rightly guesses that his audience will wonder: how can such a person be only an almost Christian rather than an altogether Christian? Well, Wesley also describes the altogether Christian. The altogether Christian first loves God. This love of God “engrosses the whole heart … rakes up all the affections … fills the entire capacity of the soul.” I love that description. Do you love God like that? Second, the altogether Christian loves the neighbor. And who is our neighbor? Every [one] in the world, Wesley says, even our enemies, even enemies of God, even enemies of one’s soul. And this love of our neighbors is to be the kind of love that Christ shows for us, the kind of love that the apostle Paul describes to the Corinthians, love that bears and endures all things. And the altogether Christian is grounded in faith in God. “Do good designs and good desires make a Christian?” asked Wesley. “By no means, unless they are brought to good effect.”

            The almost Christian and the altogether Christian might appear to be quite similar at first glance. Almost like wheat and weeds in a field. Jesus’ parables frequently have surprises – we’re surprised by who is praised and who is chided in Jesus’ teachings. We’re so sure that we are wheat! But Jesus says sometimes wheat and weeds look so similar you can’t tell them apart. What does that say about our lives as Christ-follower? Jesus says his disciples will be known by their love, but clearly, Jesus knows that sometimes we get tangled up in this world and Christ-followers are more distinguishable for being judgmental and hurtful than loving. We’re so sure that we are wheat, and we’re so sure, like the slaves, that we should pull out the weeds. So maybe we think we’re the slaves too, ready to claim the title of servant to God as master. But another surprise: whichever role we think is “ours” in this story – whether we’re wheat, weed, or slaves to the householder, there is no role we can play where we are given the responsibility of distinguishing wheat from weed and tearing the weed up. Nowhere are we given the task of identifying and pulling weeds. Whoever we are, once sown, wheat and weeds must grow together until the harvest, or in uprooting the weeds, the wheat will be torn up too. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools.” We don’t get to separate ourselves from each other quite so easily.

            What is the kingdom of God like? It’s like a place where even when weeds are sown where we intended to plant only wheat, where sometimes we’re more almost Christians than altogether Christians, where sometimes we’re intent on rooting out the bad only to find that we look an awful lot like a weed to pulled, even when all that happens, God wants to wait for the harvest, when what is gathered in will be and abundance beyond our imagining. Our mission, as Jesus-followers, is to make sure others know, just as we remind ourselves of this, that no one is getting weeded out. We’re in this field together, and thankfully, God and God’s kingdoms, God’s surprising-upside-down-values are right in our midst.

Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday. We celebrate Jesus taking bread and wine and making them holy, consecrating them, into a gift of his body, his life poured out for us. Jesus takes bread and wine and makes them and us into the Body of Christ. As we celebrate this gift, this transformation of ordinary into holy, of one thing into something completely new, I believe that we follow a God who can transform weeds into wheat. If Jesus can change water into wine, if Jesus can transform bread and juice into a meal where we meet God’s grace in the flesh, so then can God transform our outer-shells of a life into the real deal that makes for a plentiful harvest. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

Sermon, "Reconnect: I Have Come So That..." John 10:1-18

Sermon 9/29/13

John 10:1-18

Reconnect: I Have Come So That…

            As most of you know, in my journey to be healthier, I’ve been attending Weight Watchers for a little over a year. I tried the online membership in the past, but I’ve found that unless I have to go and weigh in in front of a real live person, and unless I stay for the 30 minute meeting each week, I just don’t do as well. I find it easier to stray off course. The meetings – well, they aren’t always deep and profound. Sometimes members spend a lot of time talking about how many calories are in different alcoholic beverages, or we spend a meeting focused on meat-based recipes that this vegetarian doesn’t find particularly helpful. But I enjoy the sense of community, and occasionally, people share stories and comments that really stick with me. One week, a woman talked about joining Weight Watchers, years previously, with one of her friends. They both lost weight – but in very small amounts at a time. .2lbs one week. .4lbs another week. It was very slow. And so she, the speaker, quit – she decided to try some other weight loss programs instead, where she could lose weight faster. Her results were mixed – she’d lose, but gain everything back. But her friend, who stayed at Weight Watchers, continued to lose, slowly, but consistently, and eventually, she lost all the weight she wanted, while the speaker was still struggling, back to Weight Watchers, and determined to stick with it this time, noting that her friend lost slowly, but doing it the right way, and had more success than her own erratic up and down progress. That’s the thing about weight loss. Unless you have some other medical issue that complicates things for you, the way to lose weight is pretty basic: take in fewer calories than you burn each day, and you’ll lose weight. It certainly isn’t easy to do, but shortcuts, paths to weight loss that seem easier usually end up making your journey to health much longer in actual practice.

            Really, though, I didn’t come here to share weight loss advice with you all – so let me tell you another story. One of the family vacations that will forever live in infamy is a time when we were taking several short trips to various locations around New York State. We’d gone to visit my grandparents in Kingston, NY, and from there, we were headed to Old Forge to spend the night so we could spend the next day at Enchanted Forest. My father was driving, and he decided to take a short cut. You already know where this is going, don’t you? He was sure that he could cut down our travel time by taking this gravel road that would bring us right to Old Forge. Of course, after hours of travel, we ended up in the completely wrong place at a dead end, with no options but to turn around and go back the way we came. It took so much longer than planned that instead of going to Old Forge, we just went home, and drove there the next day. What seemed like a shortcut ended up being an extra long, extra wrong way to go.

            One more story. I’ve told you that theologian C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia are some of my very favorite books. In the sixth book in the series, The Magician’s Nephew, you learn about the creation of the land of Narnia by Aslan, the lion, the Christ-figure in the books. He sends a little boy named Diggory on a mission to retrieve a fruit from a special tree in a gated garden. But an evil witch is also in the new land of Narnia. When Diggory arrives at the garden, he sees the witch climbing over the walls of the garden to steal and eat fruit. Only, the gate to the garden isn’t locked – Diggory can walk right in. And he sees a sign at the garden that reads,      

“Come in by the gold gates or not at all,

Take of my fruit for others or forebear,

For those who steal or those who climb my wall

Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair.”

Diggory can take fruit because he came in through the gate, and the fruit is not for himself, but to bring back to Aslan. The witch doesn’t drop dead or become physically ill, or anything like that. But her greed and longing for power corrupts her life until she destroys it entirely. If she had just gone in through the gate…

            I don’t know if you remember, but this passage from John 10 contains the text that I preached on in my first Sunday here at Liverpool First. I told you that my favorite verse in the whole Bible is this: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.” It comes as part of John’s gospel, where Jesus shares two of several “I am” statements: I am the good shepherd, and I am the gate for the sheep. Jesus talks about those who try to enter the sheepfold by climbing in – thieves. He talks about sheep recognizing the voice of the shepherd, the voice of the gatekeeper. When Jesus calls himself the good shepherd, he says that a good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, unlike the hired hand who would run and save his own life in a dangerous situation, rather than protect the sheep. He says he has other sheep too – other sheep in other flocks who will eventually become one fold. And again, he closes by emphasizing that he chooses to give his life. “I lay down my life in order to take it up again,” he says. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.”

            “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” “I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” Jesus models with his own life how we claim this abundance he talks about. We, by our own choosing, under our own power, lay down our life. Maybe we don’t have to sacrifice our physical life. But we lay it down so that we can carry a cross. We lay it down so that we are free to serve others. We lay it down before God, as an act of obedience. God never forces our obedience. Jesus never forces us to follow. But if we want to follow Jesus, if we mean to obey God, if we want this abundant life, we have to stop trying to climb over the walls into the sheepfold of God’s blessings, when the gate is already open for us. We have to stop grabbing as much fruit as we can for ourselves. We have to stop taking shortcuts that are really just dead end roads. We have to stop trying every crazy magic diet trick and wondering why we are both stuffed full and completely unsatisfied, and further away from where we want to be all the time. Lay down your life to take it up again. But what we take back up will be this abundance that strangely comes from giving it all away, pouring out our lives to be filled by God.

            Pastor Aaron told me recently that he’d had a few folks who wanted to chat with him about his September newsletter article. Now, about a month ago in worship I asked you all if you’d read my newsletter column, and a few folks raised their hands, but then even more of you came to me after worship to say that yes, you’d read the column – it just took a little reminder from me in my sermon to remember what the column had been about. Well, I believe you. I believe you because when Pastor Aaron mentioned his column, which I had read, I had to pull it back out again to remind myself of the content. Pastor Aaron talked about the difference between the religion of Christianity and knowing about God and the life of discipleship that comes from having an active relationship with Jesus. If the difference is unclear, think about your favorite actress or sports figure. If you’re a big fan, you might know a million facts about the person – what movies they’ve been in or every award and trophy they’ve received. But sadly, that still doesn’t make you friends with your favorite celeb. There’s a difference between being a fan and being a friend.

            We’ve spent this month talking about our purpose. Why are we here? Why are we doing this thing called church, in this place, in this time, in this way? Our purpose is about making a space in our lives, and inviting others to do the same, where relationships can be built – with God, with the Way of Jesus, with one another. Not fans, but friends, followers of Jesus. How do we foster that work of relationship building at Liverpool First? Jesus didn’t say that he came so that…we could get into heaven when we died. So that we could have it easy. So that we could be safe. So that we’d have all the answers. So that we could tell others what to do and how to live. Jesus said he came so that we might have life that is abundant. Life that is really life. And so when our choir sings, they sing not so that they can dazzle us with their musical expertise, although having that is nice – but so that they can glorify God and help us do the same. And when our Sunday School children go to classes they go not to memorize facts and Bible verses – although those are good tools to have – but so that they can come to know Jesus as their friend who they can trust and love and serve. And when the Trustees meet they gather not because we need the fanciest facilities with the newest equipment here, although we’ve got a beautiful place to worship and work in God’s name, but because our space here is a way we invite others to connect with God and we want a team of people who are working hard to make sure our space is warm and open and usable and full of life in every corner of the building on as many days of the week as possible. And when our Member Care folks are working hard to update records and directories, they do it not because we want our statistical reports each year to be 100% perfect, although that’d be a nice side result, but because each address and phone number and email represents a relationship that we cherish and want to nurture so that we can reach every person with the message of God’s love.

            “I have come so that you might have abundant life!” Jesus claims. What about you? Why are you here? What’s your purpose? Have you come because you’re a big fan? Or because you and God are in a relationship? Because you plan to follow Jesus? Lay down your life to take it up again. Amen. 

Sermon, "Reconnect: Who Do You Say I Am?" Mark 8:27-37

Sermon 9/8/13

Mark 8:27-37

Reconnect: Who Do You Say I Am?

Confession time: how many of you who are on our mailing list got to read my newsletter column yet? In case you didn’t get to it, let me give you a quick summary. I shared with you about a video I saw at a conference some years ago. People in white shirts and black shirts are tossing a ball while moving around in a circle. You’re supposed to count how many times the people in white catch the ball. You watch intently, and get an answer, right or wrong. But then, the narrator asks, “Did you notice the gorilla?” You watch the clip again, and sure enough, a man in a gorilla suit walks through the middle of the group. At least 50% of viewers, including me, don’t notice the gorilla. It’s called “selective attention,” meaning when we are focused on one thing, we can miss other things, even very obvious things, because our attention is elsewhere. It’s why you might walk by someone you know in the supermarket and not even notice them. It’s why texting and driving is so dangerous. When we’re really focused, we don’t always see what else is going on. That’s why it is really important to make sure what we’re focused on is the right thing, the most essential thing. This month, our worship will be focused on helping us reconnect with our purpose. We need to make sure that of all the important things that happen here, we don’t miss the point – we don’t miss the gorilla walking through the middle of picture!

 Today we start thinking about our purpose with a text from Mark that we looked at back in February. At the beginning of our text, we find Jesus travelling with the disciples, and on the way, he asks them about how people see him. Who are they saying he is? The disciples tell him: some are saying he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, or another of the prophets. But then Jesus is more direct. And who do you say that I am? Peter answers boldly, rightly: You are the Messiah. But then Jesus begins to talk about what that means, his being the Messiah. He tells them about the suffering he’s about to go through, his death, and his ultimate resurrection. Somehow, though, Peter, who just called him Messiah, didn’t understand what that title would mean. He rebukes Jesus, and in turn, Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan.” Then Jesus turns to the crowds and says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

            Last week, I spoke to you about what I hear in the words, “I never knew you,” words that Jesus told us in Matthew’s gospel he might say to those pretending to be something they weren’t. “I never knew you.” This week, Jesus seems to be asking, “Do you really know me?” What strikes me in this passage is that it takes place in the eighth chapter of Mark. Mark’s gospel is short, so chapter 8 is actually half way through. By the time we get to today’s passage, Jesus has already called the disciples, cast out several demons, cured the blind, deaf, and sick, raised a girl from the dead, taught many parables, broken laws about fasting and Sabbath, calmed a storm, fed 4000 and 5000, traveled and taught among Gentiles, called out the scribes and elders about loving their traditions more than they love God, grieved over the death of John the Baptist, and sent disciples out to do some preaching, exorcising, and healing themselves. It seems a little late, doesn’t it, to be asking the disciples if they know who he is? If they don’t know who he is, you have to wonder, why on earth are they following him? Why would they go through all that they go through if they didn’t already have an answer worked out to Jesus’ question? “Do you really know who I am?” Would seeing some cool miracles and healings be worth leaving everything normal about their lives behind if they didn’t have a clear picture, or at least a becoming-clearer-each-moment-picture of who Jesus was? I hear, behind Jesus’ question to the disciples, that he wonders if they really know who he is, if they really know why they are following, if they really understand what it is all about. The road ahead is going to be very difficult, Jesus says. He talks about taking up crosses – instruments of execution – and he uses this as an illustration of what life is like when you choose to follow Jesus. It is putting your life on the line. Being willing to risk it all in order to follow. If you want to follow, be ready to carry a cross. Do you really know who I am, Jesus asks us? Do you really know what it means to follow me? Is this your purpose?

            Children are great at asking questions, and most of the time, the core question they ask is: “Why.” Children are curious, they wonder, they imagine, and when they see the stuff that we do without even thinking about it, things that are brand new to them, they want to know why. Why does green mean go and red mean stop? Why is the sky blue? Why does it rain? Why do I have to eat vegetables? Why can’t a lay on the floor during dinner? Why do I have to sleep at night? In fact, children often go through a phase of asking why, why, why, until adults find themselves uttering phrases they swore they would never use: Because! Because I said so! Just because! We know that the answers are complicated sometimes. Or sometimes we know we can’t give a good explanation – like the reason the sky is blue that we learned in science once upon a time but then forgot. And we know that sometimes the answer is not very satisfying: Because somewhere along the way we decided that laying on the floor for dinner would be called “rude,” while other things would be called “polite.”

            One of the unfortunate side effects of becoming an adult is that we often forget to ask why. We’ve stopped being curious, because we’re too busy, or rushed, or tired to wonder why. I think when we stop asking why, it becomes very easy to focus on the wrong things, to focus on the people passing the ball, instead of the gorilla walking by. We start paying attention to the interior decorating instead of the foundation. We start focusing on our plans instead of God’s plans. We start listening only to our own voice instead of God’s words. When we stop asking about our purpose, sometimes, we stop having one.  

            Why are we doing this thing called church? Why are we doing it here, at Liverpool First UMC? Is it because we want to follow Jesus? Why are we following him? One of the books I read for my most recent class suggested that every day, you remind yourself of what your primary purpose or purposes are in life. What’s the major belief that you are trying to live out, the major task you say you are all about? Then, at the end of each day, reflect on this question: What did I do today that helped me carry out our purpose? If your purpose is following Jesus, what did you do today that helped you to follow Jesus more closely? If at the end of each day, you find yourself unable to answer the question, the authors suggest it is time to start living differently, or at least time to admit your purpose isn’t really your purpose.

            I find it interesting that Jesus didn’t wait for each of the disciples to answer his question about who they thought he was. And when Peter demonstrated getting the answer right, but still missing out on true understanding, I’m sure Jesus wasn’t surprised. He didn’t kick the disciples out for getting confused over and over. Instead, he relentlessly tried to call peoples’ attention to the things they were overlooking – the important things. And so Jesus told the Pharisees to stop focusing on the minutia of the law while missing the heart. He told people to stop focusing on the people at the center of social circles, and start looking at the fringes. He told the disciples to stop vying for a place at the front of the line, and start trying to come in last, carrying a cross. Jesus asks us, again and again, to remember who we’re following, why we’re following, and what might happen when we sign up to walk with Christ.

            Why are you here today? Why here and not sleeping in? Why here, and not at the park? For some reason, on this day, at this time, in this place, we’ve all decided to come together, to talk about God, to sing songs about God, to talk about following Jesus. Do we know who we’re following? Do we know why?

            Amen.

Sermon, "Sermon on the Mount: Hearers and Doers," Matthew 7:21-29

Sermon 9/1/13

Matthew 7:21-29

Sermon on the Mount: Hearers and Doers

            Today we finish up our series on the Sermon on the Mount, as we examine Jesus’ largest chunk of teaching in the gospel of Matthew. Last week Pastor Aaron talked about fruit – good trees and good fruit, how we’re known by our fruit. Today’s passage continues directly on from there. “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom, Jesus says. “Only the one who does will of God.” He continues, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

            Then Jesus tells a parable about two people who build houses. The wise man builds his house on rock, and the foolish man builds his house on the sand. Storms comes, rain and flood and wind beats on both houses. But the house built on rock stands, while the house built on sand falls, and Jesus says, “great was its fall.” Jesus says that the man who builds on sand is like one who hears Jesus’ words and doesn’t act on them, while the man who builds on rock is like one who hears and acts on what Jesus has said. When he finishes, we hear that the crowds who have gathered during these three chapters of teaching are astounded at his teaching, because of the authority with which he teaches.

            In some ways, this passage seems straightforward. Build our lives on a good foundation of rock, rather than the squishy, unreliable sand foundation. That just makes common sense, right? We might even guess that Jesus himself is the rock, that God is meant to be the foundation of our life, the solid ground. But – what does Jesus mean about acting on “these words of his” – does he mean all of his words? Or the words he just spoke? And what about those people who say, “Lord, Lord,” that won’t enter the kingdom of God. What people are those? Jesus describes them as people who prophesy in the name of Jesus, cast out demons in the name of Jesus, do deeds of power in the name of Jesus. How can those people not be fit for the kingdom? Yet, Jesus says to them he will say, “I never knew you. Go away from me, you evildoers.” Suddenly it seems a bit more confusing, as we try to figure out whether we fall into the category of those who have built our houses on rock, or whether it turns out we accidentally laid our foundation in sand after all.

            I’m drawn back to the phrase, “I never knew you,” the words Jesus speaks to those who say, “Lord, Lord.” At first I read them as angry words, words where Jesus denies that he knows these people at all. But then I thought about where else I’ve heard these words. “I never knew you.” You say these words not when you are trying to disown someone, write them off, but when your heart is breaking with loss and pain because you realize someone you thought you knew well is not actually what they were pretending to be after all. “It turns out, I never really knew you.” That’s what you might say in reaction to the pain of betrayal when someone has failed to keep promises, or someone has been pretending to be something, when someone has claimed to love you but acted in ways that are quite contrary. You say, “I never knew you,” because their current hurtful behavior taints all the good memories from the past, doesn’t it? If one spouse finds out the other spouse was unfaithful to the marriage, it taints the way one looks at all the years of marriage that felt happy. If a leader turns out to be corrupt, has been abusing their power or embezzling money – it taints the years of seemingly good leadership they provided. “I never knew you.”

            I think that’s what Jesus means when he says, “I never knew you.” He’s talking to people who have had the right words perhaps, even the right actions in some ways – doing deeds of power, casting out demons – but really they’re false prophets, producing bad fruit. They’re not who they say they are. They’re fakes. They’re not who they were pretending to be to Jesus after all. William Sloan Coffin Jr. once wrote, “I think disguise is the essence of evil,” and Jesus seems to agree. Suddenly, I find myself wondering how I measure up. Am I just one of the people who is saying “Lord, Lord?” What will Jesus say to me? “Beth, I never really knew you.”

            I remember coming across the term “Imposter Syndrome” when I was taking some psychology classes in college. Listen to this description: “Have you ever had something amazing happen, like a promotion or an invitation to be a part of a coveted group, only to have your excitement give way to fearful thoughts almost immediately? Have you ever thought: They made a mistake and actually confused me with someone else much more qualified? Or had the feeling that even if they meant you, it will only be a matter of time before they realize you are a fraud? If you can relate to this scenario, then you have experienced moments of [the] psychological phenomenon known as the Imposter Syndrome, in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. That is, fearing it has all been a mistake and that someone will wake up soon to the fact that you really know nothing.” (1) In other words, we all feel like fakes sometimes. We feel like people will realize that we really aren’t skilled or smart or capable or likeable or lovable after all. If they knew the real us, they wouldn’t like what they saw.

            But here’s the thing. The jig is up. God already knows you. God already knows who you are. And what God wants is for you to be honest with yourself, and with others, about who that is. We’re not imposters who Jesus will disown when we’re less than perfect. We’re not imposters who are foolishly building on sand when we don’t always act in ways that we’re proud of. We’re imposters when we won’t admit that we’re broken. We’re imposters when we won’t admit that we struggle. We’re imposters when we won’t admit that sometimes we feel like we’re imposters! Because when we act like this, when we build up these false personas, we’re making ourselves, and not even our true selves, but our put-together, best-foot-forward, hope-no-one-looks-too-closely selves, we’re making our imposter selves the foundation of our spiritual houses, and trying to build on that. When we try to hide who we really are from God and each other, we are building our lives on sand. And friends, great will be the fall of our houses.

            I’ve lived in my own home for a little over a year now, and my list of things that I want to fix and improve and repair only seems to get longer, as I add two new things for every task I complete. But I’m happy with my home. I looked at a lot of houses before I bought the one I did. I remember one particular home that was lovely – I really liked it. And it had a lot of work done recently. And the realtor was eager to sell. But, when I walked through the kitchen, over the beautiful new floors, I noticed that occasionally things felt a little squishy under my feet. The outside looked pretty nice. But I had my suspicions about what was really underneath. In my home, I may have some work to do to make things look nicer. But my basement is dry. The foundation is good. I’m on solid ground. A good foundation is so much more important than the most beautiful interior decorating.

            Jesus wants us to hear what he says and act on it, doing the will of God. Sometimes, we’ll screw that up in the worst ways. But better to try and screw up than to pretend that we’ve got it all figured out. God’s not buying that anyway. And when we do that, we’re not building on the solid foundation of Christ whom we follow. We’re putting our own faulty selves down as foundation. When the storms come, and they always do, we’ll never withstand it. 
            Two weeks ago we sang one of my favorite hymns: “My Hope is Built.” The refrain goes, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand; All other ground is sinking sand.” Whatever else you’ve been building on – the ground is surely sinking beneath your feet. Where do you stand? Where are you building? ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’” Amen.

(1) Terri Cole, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terri-cole/fear-fraud_b_1941411.html