Monday, August 15, 2016

Not Good News?

No wonder neither A.J. nor Carolyn wanted to preach today! Here we are on a lazy summer day, about to enjoy a lovely picnic, and we’ve just heard some of the hardest lessons of the liturgical year. Honestly, what were the crafters of the lectionary thinking when they set these lessons for the summer? Winter maybe, but not warm, lazy summer, and especially when our groaning potluck table beckons!

But we are part of a tradition that respects Scripture and has given us a broad three-year system of Scripture readings to be heard in public worship. And hear these lessons we must, for our spiritual health, and for our growth as followers of Jesus.

Unquestionably, the lesson from the prophet Isaiah is hard to hear. Through the prophet’s voice we first hear a love song, in which God describes all the tender care that God has lavished on Israel. The prophet then lets us hear God’s profound disappointment when Israel does not live up to God’s expectations. Did you hear the poignancy, the infinite sadness, in God’s “Why did it yield wild grapes?” Did you hear the grief in God’s decision to abandon Israel to her own ways? Our psalm echoes the same themes, but it ends with a promise both we and the psalmist know that Israel will never be able to keep: “And so will we never turn away from you….”

Our lesson from the Letter to the Hebrews isn’t a lot better. The writer gives us examples of people who were faithful to God’s call. But what did many of them get for their faithfulness? Torture, mocking, and imprisonment. And the writer’s counsel? Look to Jesus – who endured all that and more! Really God?

Our gospel lesson is perhaps the hardest of all to hear. We’re in the middle of the gospel of Luke. As we heard in chapter 9, Jesus has “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” While Jesus is no doubt already focused on the events that will happen in Jerusalem, in the narrative we are on a road trip with Jesus and his friends. This and the following chapters, approximately through chapter 17, are only loosely structured in terms of story, time, and place. They seem to be more a collection of Jesus’ sayings, as the earliest community of Jesus’ followers remembered them. It’s as if the writer wanted to make sure that everything the community remembered was included. So these chapters have a cobbled-together feeling, with some sayings addressed to closer disciples, and some to wider crowds. Thus in today’s reading, the saying about conflicts within families is addressed to the disciples, while the saying about interpreting changes to come is addressed to a wider audience, perhaps curious villagers who gathered around Jesus as he passed through their area.

Even so, it’s important for us to hear Jesus’ words here. First, it’s important to hear the passion and sense of urgency in Jesus’ voice, as he wishes for his work in Jerusalem to be finished. It’s also important for us to hear what those who take his message seriously may face, those who seek to follow his example of loving self-giving, those who seek to welcome all, especially the poor and those on the social margins, and those who seek to produce good fruit and work for the justice and righteousness that God so clearly expects.

Jesus’ warning is clear: those who take the gospel seriously and seek diligently to follow him will inevitably face conflict with those around them. Certainly, Jesus’ followers will face conflict with the powers that be: the rich and powerful never want to hear that God loves the entire cosmos, all of creation, and that God especially has a preference for the poor and marginalized. And more: Jesus’ followers will also face conflict within their own families. It is not that Jesus desires that family members be at odds over following him. It is more that Jesus is realistic – and wants his followers to be realistic – about the real costs of taking the gospel seriously. So consider yourself warned!

And why should his followers face such conflict? Here and elsewhere in Luke’s gospel we hear Jesus’ reminder that he is calling together a new kind of community, not one based on blood ties and the unequal social structures sustained by traditional patriarchal family roles. Rather, Jesus is calling together a new kind of community, a community that is united not by devotion to clan or tribe, but a community that finds its identity solely in Jesus, a community where everybody matters, a community that looks “to Jesus” as it pursues its commitment to follow him and work for the coming of God’s reign.

We know only too well that our commitment to Jesus’ way and our attempt to work for God’s justice and righteousness lead to conflict, even conflict with beloved family members. We also know that when we commit ourselves to a particular faith community, we may have to leave behind our families and all that was once comforting and familiar to us.

There are so many stories of the cost involved in our faith commitments. In many stories from the early church, we encounter those who faced martyrdom. Perhaps no such story is more heart-rending than that of Perpetua and her maid Felicity. Perpetua was a high-born Roman matron in third-century Carthage whose family begged her to turn her back on the strange new religion of Jesus and return to them. Instead, Perpetua left behind her newborn infant and, with Felicity at her side, bravely faced death. A thousand years later, Clare of Assisi, whose family traced its lineage all the way back to the Roman republic, heard St. Francis preach. Although she was probably betrothed, she defied her family, left behind her riches, and joined Francis’s mission, later founding her own order, now known as the Poor Clares. During the English Reformation, family members were also deeply divided. Some, like Thomas More, refused to break with the Catholic Church in England, and was the only one of his family to be put to death. Others, to the dismay of their families, eagerly embraced the new church. And there are so many others. Here are just a few more. Elizabeth Seton, who left behind her proper Episcopalian family to join the Roman Catholic Church, eventually founded both the first Catholic girls school in the US and the Sisters of Charity. Samuel Isaac Joseph Scherechewsky was a Russian Jew, whose family expected him to become a rabbi. Instead, he found the Church of England, eventually became Anglican bishop of Shanghai, and translated the Bible into Chinese. Alice Paul, a champion of women’s suffrage, endured force-feeding in prison when she attempted hunger strikes. As we know only too well, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a martyr to the cause of civil rights, while his followers endured unspeakable hatred and violence in their segregated communities.

And with all that, we also know that sincere Christians – or members of any faith community – can wind up on different sides of religious, social, and political issues. Witness the many families in this area who wound up on different sides of our Civil War. I have just finished a book about Americans who joined the Spanish Civil War. There too, families were deeply divided. Today Republicans and Democrats – uneasily perhaps – coexist in the same family.

And so then, what are we to do? As people who profess to follow Jesus, who are willing to hear the hard words of today’s Scripture readings, how are we know how to produce the good grapes that God calls us to produce? How are we know whether to continue on course, despite conflict with family members and the wider community, or whether to heed the words of those who would pull us back? In effect, how are we to discern whether it is truly God who is leading us, and the path that God calls us to follow?

The answer to those questions is the one given by the writer of Hebrews: look “to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith….” In practice, that means regularly engaging in worship and prayer, letting ourselves be nourished in Word and Sacrament. It means intelligently reading Scripture, with both some understanding of the history and context of any particular book or passage, and openness to letting Scripture address us where we are. It means thoughtfully and prayerfully engaging with the issues of the day, knowing that even reasonable people can disagree. And it means admitting that, in order to remain true to the call we hear from God, we may have to disagree with those we love, over the way we express our faith, and over the way we seek to bring in God’s reign.

Yes, today’s Scriptures are not easy to hear. God often challenges us to hear what we don’t want to hear. As followers of the one who gave his life as a ransom for many, we stay open to new ideas, even as we pursue our visions of justice and righteousness. We seek the truth in ideas with which we disagree, recognizing that none of us has a corner on truth. And still, with Jesus, we continue on our journey, trusting God’s transformative work in our lives, and knowing that, despite our own imperfections and limitations our futures are always in God’s hands.

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

What is Faith?

What is faith? Is faith agreeing with a set of intellectual statements? Do you have faith if you can recite – and understand – all the statements of the Apostles and Nicene creeds? Is faith conscientious observance of all the traditional spiritual disciplines and practices? Do you demonstrate great faith if you receive communion every Sunday, fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, or dress up in fancy vestments? I think our reading from the prophet Isaiah this morning had something to say about that! Is faith being able to quote Scripture? Do you show great faith if you can win an argument by proof-texting your opponents by referring to verses in the Bible – or the Torah, or the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad Gita?

If you were listening to the reading this morning from the Letter to the Hebrews, you already know the answers to those questions. You already know that the answer to each one is “No.” Actually, all four of our readings have something to say about what faith is. Our reading from Isaiah, from whom we will hear again next week, and our psalm warn us about relying on religious rituals alone, especially when our rituals don’t connect with how we live our lives outside the temple – or on the other side of the red doors. In our reading from the gospel of Luke, we hear Jesus encouraging us to hang in there, stay alert, and keep on doing what we discern God has called us to do – words that strengthened Luke’s community and still comfort us.

However, it is the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews that provides us the most compelling description of the nature of faith. Actually, we don’t often hear from the Letter to the Hebrews in worship – and probably less in preaching! Most of us would rather preach about Jesus! Hebrews was probably written sometime after the fall of the temple in Jerusalem, i.e., after 70 AD. Although its author is anonymous, we are virtually certain that it was not written by Paul – its language and subject matter are very different from those of the rest of Paul’s letters. Actually, it’s not really a letter. Rather, it’s an extended sermon – and far longer than most Episcopal priests would dare to preach! And despite its traditional title, it was probably addressed to a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, not to an exclusively Jewish Christian community. Even so, clearly its author expected that his hearers knew about the details of temple worship, and that they were well acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures.

One thing we can surmise from reading this sermon is that it was addressed to a community facing hostility and conflict with the wider culture around them, and that its members were ridiculed and shamed for professing to be followers of an itinerant rabbi who had been executed as a common criminal. These early followers were not subject to martyrdom yet, but they were possibly also wondering when Jesus’ promise to return would be fulfilled. So this sermon was written to console and encourage them and to bolster their commitment to Jesus. The writer sought to reassure them that, despite their hardships, they had made the right decision to follow him.

Much of the early part of this sermon deals with various aspects of temple worship. The writer argues that Jesus is the fulfillment of all sacrifices, the final sacrifice, and that sacrificial worship is now no longer needed. At the end of chapter 10, just before today’s reading begins, he gives his hearers a charge: “Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (10:35-36). Chapter 11, some of which we have just heard, is his attempt to flesh out that endurance, by offering a definition of faith and examples from the Hebrew Scriptures of faithful people.

Our passage opens with that definition a faith – actually a definition that is often quoted but not well understood, since the Greek uses words that are extremely difficult to translate accurately. Essentially, what the writer is telling us is that faith is absolute assurance that God is real, that there is a spiritual dimension to the ground of life, that there is a deeper reality to life than we can see on the surface of things. Faith is the conviction that all that we see and know, the cosmos, all creation, has been brought into being by God and is sustained by God. Faith is the deepest possible trust that God has made promises to us, that God has fulfilled God’s promises to us in the past, and most especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that God will continue to fulfill God’s promise to renew all things. Most important of all, the writer is certain that faith is a dynamic force that leads us to answer God’s call to us, even when we are not certain where God might be leading us.

The writer then provides examples from Scripture to illustrate his definition and encourage his hearers. In the verses omitted from today’s reading, the writer mentions Abel, Enoch, and Noah, who especially displayed trust in God by heeding God’s warning and building the ark – even under cloudless skies. However, for this writer, Abraham is the primary example of faithful response to God’s call. The early chapters of the book of Genesis tell us in detail how God called Abraham and Sarah to leave their ancestral home in Ur and to journey to a completely new land. God also promised that Abraham and Sarah would have thousands of descendants, even though they had reached old age without any children. For new followers of Jesus, who were hearing this sermon, Abraham and Sarah must have been truly encouraging and apt examples of faith in their willingness to follow God’s leading and trust God’s promises, even when they could see the end of their journey only in the distance.

And so they are for us too. We too trust in God’s leading, even when we are not sure where we are going. Certainly anyone who has agreed to go back to school, take a new job, have another child, retire, or discern for ordained ministry, has faced that moment when we say, “Are you sure, God? Is this right?” Even Thomas Merton, a deeply contemplative Trappist monk, knew such moments, when he said, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end…. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Like Merton, who in his last years also developed a profound respect for Buddhist contemplation, we too are called to continue our spiritual journey. We know that the font was just the beginning of the journey. We acknowledge that we are called to not stop permanently at any stage of spiritual practice or understanding, but to “live in tents,” to continue to grow in wisdom and compassion. We too understand that we are called to put our faith into action, to embrace others, and to work to make God’s promises real in our own time.

And do we too have examples of faith in action? Certainly, like the hearers of the sermon to the Hebrews, we can find models of faith in the Bible, in Isaiah and Jeremiah, who struggled with the political movements of their own days, and in Jesus’ friends and followers, who sought him out for healing, and who witnessed his death and resurrection. The Apostles creed reminds us that we believe in a “communion of saints.” Open a copy of Holy Women, Holy Men. Examples of faith in action, both of people traditionally on the calendar of saints, and those closer to us in time, will leap off the pages for you.

And we also have examples of faith right in the world around us. Twice a week, volunteers from All Saints Episcopal Church near Brussels, Belgium travel twenty miles to the central Brussels trains station. There they serve a meal and deliver much-needed clothing, toiletries, and sleeping gear to the refugees flooding into Belgium, people often arriving with only the bare minimum: the clothes they are wearing, and their only link to home – a cell phone. In support of this ministry, members of All Saints donate some of the food supplies to serve approximately 100 people at each meal, supplemented with additional food purchased with parish funds and special fundraising efforts. Like the volunteers, who have ventured forth trusting that God would bless their efforts, the refugees, most of whom have come from Syria and other war-torn areas, have also been people of faith, who have left everything in search of a better life. For the refugees, “The Episcopal community in Europe has been inspiring in its compassionate effort to bring safety, comfort and fellowship to those who are displaced,” said a program officer for Episcopal Relief & Development, which helps support this ministry. “The people of All Saints’ Church in Waterloo especially have taken initiative, continuing to increase their activities and motivating the wider community to get involved in outreach efforts as well.”

We have not been refugees. We have not been tortured or murdered for our faith. Most of us have not been ridiculed for our faith. Even so, as we continue to commit ourselves to following God’s leading, we too are called to faith. We too are called to live our lives knowing that the ground of all is love, that Jesus has shown us the nature of that love, and that there is a divine spark within each of us that helps us to trust the promises of Scripture and work to bring nearer the reign of God.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

All Things Come of Thee

“How much Land Does a Man Need?” That is the title of a story by the nineteenth-century writer Leo Tolstoy. In the story a peasant makes a deal. He can buy all the land he can circle on foot in one day for only 1,000 rubles. However, if he doesn’t return to his starting place by sunset, he gets no land – and he loses his money. The greedy peasant frantically races the sun as he tries to cover as wide a circle as he can. Just short of his starting point, he drops dead of exhaustion. He is buried in an ordinary grave, only six feet long. In his death, Tolstoy thus gives us the ironic answer to the question posed in the title of the story.

How much is enough? What do we, as Jesus’ followers, truly need? What do we, as people called to seek the “things that are above,” truly require? Be warned: I am about to cross a great taboo. No, I’m not about to preach about sex or politics! I am about to talk about money, in the church – and maybe more than once between now and All Saints Day. We in the church are so reluctant to talk about money! Like most Americans, we think of our use of money as strictly our own affair – not something a preacher should be addressing. Many of us might even secretly agree with Gordon Gekko, the corporate raider in Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street,” who told a group of stockholders that greed is good. Alan Greenspan, the billionaire Koch brothers, and other influential business and political leaders openly follow the philosophy of author Ayn Rand, who titled one of her books The Virtue of Selfishness. You may not be a follower of Rand. Even so, Jesus’ talk about money might still make you uncomfortable, especially his decided preference for the poor in Luke’s Gospel. But we’d better listen to Jesus, because our use of our money is at least as much an expression of our faith as anything else we do. Show me your checkbook, and I’ll know what you really believe!

Indeed, our lessons today offer sobering perspectives on wealth and possessions. In our gospel reading, Jesus minces no words as he explicitly inveighs against greed and the stockpiling of possessions. “Be on your guard,” he thunders, “against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he tells the neat parable of the rich fool. Does the rich man in the parable remind you of anyone you know? Make no mistake: Jesus reminds us that, because death strips us of all our possessions, we must instead be “rich toward God.”

The writer of the letter to the Christians at Colossae couldn’t agree more. Here too we hear a caution against greed – as well as other behaviors that attach us to this world. I wonder. As you heard the catalogue of sins, did you also hear that greed is idolatry? And did you remember that idolatry – worship of false gods – is just what the Israelites were doing to anger God in our reading from Hosea? What is more important, the writer to the Colossians reminds us that, as Jesus’ disciples, as people who have been dressed in the new clothes of baptism, we are to live a new and different kind of life from that which we lived previously. We are to direct our lives toward God, and we are to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is….”

How are we to do this? What does it mean to be “rich toward God,” or to set our minds on “things that are above?” The reading from Hosea reminds us of God’s great love and compassion for us, but offers us no alternative to a life of idolatry and fleeting pursuits. Jesus, in our Gospel reading, implicitly condemns the rich man for his self-centered intent to build bigger barns and live a life of ease. However, Jesus does not tell us what the rich man should have done instead, nor does he tell us what being “rich toward God” means. The writer to the Colossians lists the bad habits we need to give up. However, other than suggesting that Christ has overcome all ethnic divisions, he does not tell us what habits and virtues we need to cultivate. How shall we give up our attachment to earthly things and seek the “things that are above?”

Beginning in the fourth century, women and men sought to follow Jesus’ teachings about possessions by withdrawing from society and living in isolated communities. In Egypt and North Africa, communities sprang up in the desert, dedicated to the simple life. In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia wrote his famous Rule for monastic communities that stressed living the simple life in common, forsaking most pleasures of the flesh, respecting the needs of others, and committing oneself to remaining in community. Benedict’s Rule proved to be so influential that it still provides the template for the rule of almost every Roman Catholic and Anglican vowed community. Most of us are not prepared to join monastic communities. Even so, there are ways to create a “monastery of the heart,” to use the phrase of Benedictine sister Joan Chittister. And as her commentary on Benedict’s Rule so insightfully suggests, it is possible for Benedict to guide even us secular twenty-first century followers of Jesus.

What are some ways we might begin becoming “rich toward God” and seeking “things that are above?” For starters, we can be honest about the source of our wealth. The rich man in Jesus’ parable behaved as if he alone were responsible for the abundant produce of the land. In truth, it was the fertile soil, good weather, hard work of his farmhands, and domestic support of his womenfolk that produced the abundance. The same is true for us – all of us. None of us is self-made. If you are sitting here, you have been gifted – even if you received no inheritance from your parents, even if you struggled to finish school with scholarships and loans, even if you’ve worked hard every day of your life. Many of us were fortunate to have had supportive families, enough food, and an education provided by other people’s taxes. Our parents took us to the doctor and dentist. We’ve had roads, and street lights, police and fire protection, hospitals and churches. We’ve been fortunate to live in a web – a village if you will – that has helped make us what we are and enabled us to enjoy much good fortune and comparative wealth. None of us lives on the streets, and all of us have a good idea of where our next meal is coming from. Understanding that it is by good fortune that we have our houses, clothing, food, Kindles, Ipads, and whatever, and that we are alive and able to do God’s work, is the first step towards being “rich towards God.”

Second, we can look at our checkbook. Where are we actually using our resources? Do we have a balanced life? Or are we tied down by possessions? Can we simplify our lives? In her commentary on the Benedictine Rule, Chittister reminds us that our possessions tie us to the earth. “They clutter our space; they crimp our hearts; they sour our souls. Benedict says that the answer is that we not allow ourselves to have anything beyond life’s simple staples….” What areas of our lives can we declutter and simplify? What are we no longer using that we can give to others?

And then we need to actively consider how we might share our wealth with others. In the first half of life, that may mean especially providing for the needs of our own families. However, in the second half of life, sharing our wealth should mean considering the needs of others outside our families. In both halves of life, we need to be intentional in our use of our resources. We need to be intentional in our gifts to the church, as well as to other institutions that we support. John Wesley is reported to have admonished his followers, “Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?” Ultimately, being “rich toward God” and using our wealth to seek the “things that are above” mean using our resources to benefit others. If we want to leave a lasting legacy, if we want to ensure that our lives are more than “vanity,” then we must have a plan for how that is to be done – a will. The Book of Common explicitly directs me to instruct you to make wills, younger people to ensure that their dependents are properly provided for, and older people to ensure that their legacy honors God.

Finally, we need to remember that concern for possessions – of any kind – makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, to be open to God. Ultimately, we are all naked and empty-handed before God. We begin our lives naked and empty-handed, and we end them that way. In between our birth and death we thank God for God’s great love and compassion. We seek to learn how we can become rich toward God. We ask God to help us to travel light, to help us to let go of all that gets in between ourselves and God. Then we pray to know how to intentionally use our possessions to further God’s agenda in the world. Truly blessed are those who can say, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”