Christmas Day

A sermon given for Christmas Day 2011 at United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH.

Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1:1-12
Luke 2:1-20


The first Noel looked quite a bit differently from today’s celebrations.

I know it may surprise people to find this out, but the response of Mary and Joseph to Jesus’ birth was not to set up a Christmas tree.

The shepherds didn’t go out and buy lights to decorate their sheep or lawn ornaments for their fields.

The first Christmas was not full of toys and wreaths and mistletoes.

“Well that doesn’t sound like any fun.”

I think we all can agree that the Christmases that we celebrate for all of their activities and decorations and music and gift-exchange and food are fun and worth continuing.

But I think we can all equally agree that the Christmases that we celebrate, for all of their activities and decorations and music and gift-exchange and food are exhausting and we should just quit making such a fuss.

Some hate Christmas others love it. Some hate it some days and some hours and love it other days and other hours.

And perhaps there are some, bless their souls, who love it all the time and can’t stop smiling when they hear the first Christmas song in the beginning of November.

I don’t know all of the history of how we came to celebrate the day in the way that we do. And I don’t jump on the bandwagon of Christmas-haters who want all of it to cease and desist.

I like cinnamon buns and stockings and trees and presents and santas and eggnog and all those things.

But I do think that every Christmas needs a Linus-moment.

Frustrated with Christmas as he sees it, Charlie Brown yells, “Isn’t there someone who knows what Christmas is all about?!”

And Linus says very confidently, blanket in hand, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”

Linus proceeds to quote Luke 2:8-14.

“In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah,* the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,* praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’”

He turns to Charlie Brown and says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Every Christmas needs a Linus-moment. Otherwise the carols can become empty words. Celebration can lose its heart.

We respond to Christmas in a variety of ways, singing, eating, decorating, gift-giving, welcoming family, fighting with family, did I mention eating?

I want to look at how those who are part of the story respond to the first Noel.

So Luke 2 is where it all happens.

In verse seven the nativity happens: “And [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

The verses that Linus tells speak of two main groups: angels and shepherds.

Angels announcing, and shepherds hearing good news.

Two responses to the first Noel. When the one angel finishes telling about Jesus’ birth, the rest of the angels burst out singing: “GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO! ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’”

The angels MUST sing. They are witnessing a great thing that God is doing in history. God is going to deliver humanity from sin and death and all of the evil consequences of sin and Peace will begin to be manifest among human beings wherever they experience God’s salvation.

The angels so full of wonder at God’s goodness and grace, sing boldly and excitedly and triumphantly the new song of God’s salvation.

The angels respond with praise and joyous song.

And so the shepherds hear the news and their initial fear at being confronted by celestial aliens turns into hopeful curiosity as they believe that what they just heard was not a hallucination but a revelation of God’s action.

They decide to go check it out.

When they arrive at the stable they “found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child.”

When they went and saw that there really was a stable with a manger with a child wrapped in swaddling cloth they were amazed and just started blurting out all they had seen with the angels and to their astonishment Mary and Joseph were not freaked out! They were amazed and Mary treasured their words.

Something was happening and the shepherds had somehow been allowed to witness it.

The shepherds went out “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

The shepherds were so full of excitement and amazement at all they had seen and heard from angels, from Mary, from Joseph. They could not BUT got out praising God, amazed at this new hope.

The shepherds respond with glorifying and praising God.

And this is THE Christmas response: worship and praise.

C.S. Lewis says this about praise:

“all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise -- lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game -- praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars…I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” (Reflections on the Psalms, pp. 93-95)

And so with the shepherds and angels we might respond this Christmas in praise of God not because we are told to or feel like we have to give our dues to the “reason for the season.” But maybe because we recognize in the nativity something special, something world-changing, something full of possibility and full of goodness, the goodness of God’s love made known to a world in need of that kind of knowledge.

“O sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvellous things.”

The songs of the angels and the shouts of the shepherds are shouts and songs of praise for God’s new marvelous work in the world.

The new song is the change from advent expectation to Christmas celebration.

The good news of great joy for all the people” has come
“for us and for our salvation” “is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

The Messiah, the light in darkness, the one who will break the curse and reign of sin and death and usher in light and life and love. That one has been born. Gloria In Excelsis Deo.

Let us ponder these things with Mary and let us enjoy all that it means: God’s life-giving gift, God’s entrance into our world, God with us.

And perhaps, with the angels and the shepherds we’ll respond to this event with a new song of hope, of joy, and of praise for God’s peace to us in Jesus. Amen.

Christmas Eve

A meditation given on Christmas Eve 2011 at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH.

scripture: John 1:1-14, Isaiah 9:2

My favorite image in the scriptures is the contrast of light and dark. It is a very powerful image. Ever present with us, a very real experience for all of humanity.

Now in this time of winter we experience more darkness on a daily basis than we do light. Many leave home for work in darkness and return in darkness. We look forward to the time when light will be the prevailing experience and darkness will retreat.

The words from the prophet Isaiah speak of people who have “walked in darkness” and people who have “lived in a land of deep darkness.”

We walk in darkness. Often wondering what the point is for all that we do – unable to see meaning in all of the particulars of our life story, of our various activities. We feel caught in cycles of anger or depression, we feel lonely or afraid. We find ourselves caught in inconstant ways of living. Now giving selflessly, now hoarding selfishly. Now loving everyone, now hating everyone. Now feeling happy, now feeling depressed. Now feeling hope but more often feeling despair.
We walk in darkness.

We live in darkness. All around us people are suffering, wars are being fought, nations are fighting against nation, politician against politician, all accusing one another of wrong and firing back and forth words of accusation and angry insult. We live in the confusing darkness of pride and selfishness. And that darkness is causing many to suffer.
We live in darkness.

“The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.”

We “have seen a great light.”
On US “light has shined.”

The story of humanity is story of hope in deliverance from darkness. This is the story that we’ve been singing and speaking this evening.

From the beginning when humanity first broke its relationship with the God who is love (and the results of that brokenness we still feel deeply in our world today) to God’s promise to Abraham that “by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves” to the prophet Isaiah’s words of promise and hope to Israel in the darkness of their exile from their homeland, in the oppressive society of Babylon, to the foretelling of the birth of a Savior to Mary, to the angels’ great announcement to shepherds watching their sheep. All of this, all of these events are part of the great story of hope we find in the scriptures. 

The scriptures look to a day when those who walk in darkness will see a great light. And today, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we celebrate the light coming to darkness, the hope being made manifest in our world.

“The light shines in the darkness,”
“The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.”

What is this light? It certainly didn’t fix the world of darkness. It certainly didn’t dispel all fear and hate and pride and selfishness. What is this light?

The light that is revealed is the light of God’s love for humanity.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…”
It is God’s love that we see in the birth of Christ. God reveals himself and not only shows us the way of life that God had always intended for humanity, but makes it possible by Christ’s death and resurrection for us to die to darkness and become alive to the light of God’s love.

The light that comes into the world is God’s love, God’s outstretched arm to prodigal humanity to come out of the darkness of hate, of selfishness, of pride and to follow the way of Christ, the way of love. To receive God’s love, God’s light, and to let that light penetrate the darkness of our own souls and allow us to reflect that light to others who, walking in darkness, need to see the great light.

The light did not fix darkness. But the light provides a way in the darkness, a way forward, a way of healing and being healed. All our broken relationships, our cycles of hatred and resentment, our bouts of hopelessness and grief, do not go away overnight, are not fixed. But we find the power to be children of God, children of the light of God’s love in the midst of a world of darkness.

In the dark streets of Bethlehem shines the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not (and will not) overcome it.”

And we with John go out to testify to the light, so that all might find new life and hope through the everlasting light shining in Bethlehem’s manger. John himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

This is how God heals the world. We, like the moon to the sun, reflect God’s light and shine hope and love to a dark world. And we look forward in this time of winter when darkness seems dominant, for the time when God’s love will bring light to all the corners of this world by the power of God’s healing love. Amen.

Possibility where there is no possibility

A sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent, given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on December 18, 2011.

2 Sam. 7:1-11,16
Ps. 89:1-4,19-26
Rom. 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38


As we enter into today’s scripture from the gospel of Luke, we join Mary in the amazement and hope of the announcement of her conceiving of her son our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

This birth of all births has received the most attention.
What is happening here? Why so much excitement?

All throughout the Bible, God is bringing a way where there was no way.
Possibility where there was no possibility. This is the substance of hope.

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

We can become so full of fear when we think of all that can happen to ourselves, all that can happen in the world, all that can happen to our loved ones. Mary was afraid when she was confronted by the powerful presence of such a majestic messenger as the angel Gabriel.
He said “do not be afraid.” Stilling her momentary fears and preparing her for his announcement of great hope which will banish fear: the coming of Jesus Emmanuel.

“And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.”

Jesus is the greek way of saying the Hebrew “Joshua” – Joshua was the great hero of Israel who fulfilled the hope of bringing the people of Israel into the promised land after they were brought out of slavery in Egypt by God’s prophet Moses. The name Joshua (and the name Jesus ) literally mean God delivers – God saves – God brings liberty from to the captives, and homecoming to the exiled.

Jesus will be a new kind of liberator, a new kind of salvation.

“Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. “
“For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Nothing will be impossible with God.
All throughout the scriptures we have stories of nothingness in which God creates something new.
Sarah conceived her son Isaac after nearly a century of infertility.
Moses leads the people of Israel out of slavery into the desert where blossomed a new hope, a new community, worshiping the God who delivered them.
When exiled from their homeland for 150 years, God brought back the people of Israel through the decree of the Persian King Cyrus.

Now in the context of poverty and oppression in the Roman Empire, God promises to Mary that she will give birth to a new Joshua – a new salvation of God.

And Matthew’s version of the story adds, “and he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21)

The great deliverer is promised who will not just bring people to a new community where love is the rule and justice is the goal, working to abolish all systems of hate and oppression, but the deliverer promised will also save people from their greatest adversary – their own bent way of life, their own selfishnessness and hate – this internal deliverance from the greatest of slaveries God will accomplish through Jesus’s death and resurrection, freeing humanity from their bondage to sin and by the power of the Holy Spirit enabling a new life, a rebirth to a life of love.

It may seem impossible for this kind of newness, for this kind of deliverance to come,
It may seem impossible for this kind of change, this kind of rebirth to break into our world.
It may seem like utopia to imagine a community so full of God’s love by the power of the Holy Spirit that differences of race, class, or gender no longer remain walls preventing community.
It may seem unreal to imagine being released from a past of guilt, a present of bondage, and a future of fear.
But this is the deliverance conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary. This is God’s salvation, Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Nothing will be impossible with God.
As we long for God’s presence, for new life, for new hope, let us remember that it starts with us – let us turn to God from our own bent way of life and receive God’s full forgiveness and love shown to us in the coming of this baby in Mary’s womb – let us catch the train of deliverance on the railroad to freedom. Let us say with Mary, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

A Liberating Love

A sermon for the third Sunday of Advent preached at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on December 11, 2011.

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Luke 1:47-55
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

Exile is not the end

Upon returning to their homeland after 150 years of displacement, the people of Israel were confronted with a picture of hopeless desolation.

Here is a land that does not look at all like the stories that were told and passed on through the generations in Babylon.

Here is a land of ruins. A land of devastation.

But the prophet sees beyond this.
“What is” is not “what must be”

We are tempted at times when looking at devastations and difficulties in our midst to become resigned to the necessity and inevitability of painful destruction and tragedy.

The prophet looks at the world and grieves what it is – but receives new vision of the hope of God’s love:

“They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.” (Isaiah 61:4)

God will do this. God who is faithful to continue the work of redeeming and transforming what everyone else may call a “lost cause.”

This is the shape of God’s love.

In Advent we take part in the expectant waiting for God’s coming to us.

We sing with longing – O come O come Emmanuel.

Emmanuel. God with us.

Light in the midst of our darkness.

Hope in the midst of our despair.

Rest in the midst of our anxious toil.

God with us. Emmanuel.

Our lives, our communities at times become unrecognizable to us.
They become ruins which faintly point to what once was.

Perhaps they’ve been weather-worn – years of economic or personal difficulties, family tragedies, family feuds.

Perhaps they’ve become disfigured by hatred or anger that never sought resolution.

Perhaps they’ve become enslaved to fear: fear of becoming an object of hate or anger by saying or doing the “wrong thing” and receiving public reaction.

We look around at our own lives and the life of this community and see so many good people with so many good things to contribute to the future of this place.

But we also see a shadow that hangs over these people. The shadow of fear, the shadow of entrenched hatred – resentment bitterness complaint after complaint.

This shadow of fear and hatred clouds our vision as members of this community. This darkness needs to be revealed and chased away by the light of truthful and loving action.

We must be in this place, in this community, in this nation, in this world – we must be in this place, the light of God’s love.

The church has a role in the community. The church is to be God’s love to the community. To remind the community that there is a better way.

In our text today from the prophet Isaiah we read the prophet’s declaration of what God is calling him to do through the power of the Holy Spirit:

It is a mission of love.

“he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,”
to those who have felt the oppression of fear and anger and hate in themselves or from others – God is giving good news: love will triumph over hate – perfect love drives away fear –

“to bind up the brokenhearted,”
those who have been hurt or insulted or been beat down by circumstances of loss or tragedy – God calls us to comfort – to be God’s comfort to them just as we have received comfort from God
as we read in 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

“to proclaim liberty to the captives,”
those who feel enslaved to fear of people, fear of the uncertainty of the future
those who are enslaved to sins or addictions or literally enslaved to the will of another – God calls us to proclaim liberty, the new possibilities, the new road in the desert that God’s Spirit of grace can make. The liberty of love to free us from the bondage to our guilt, our hatreds and bitterness.

“and release to the prisoners;”
those who are weighed down by circumstances, imprisoned by debts that they cannot repay social, economic, or otherwise – God calls us to proclaim release, to be the love of God in the world is to consider the needs of the “least of these my brethren” and to seek their release from the imprisonment of circumstance and the imprisonment of their own fear or shame.

There are many around us and many of us who grieve and mourn the ruins we see around us and it does no good to ignore the presence of darkness in the world and it does no good to be silent in the midst of it. Let us join with the prophet in proclaiming good news.

But before we can proclaim God’s words of liberation and be God’s love to others, we must in a new way be reminded of that love and feel afresh that liberation.

God’s good news to our own oppression, God’s binding up to our own brokenheartedness, God’s liberty to our own captivity, and God’s release to our own imprisonment.

As we hear God’s liberation, let us rejoice in God’s love.
The new possibilities, the freedom to change ourselves and the world in which we live.

Hear and receive God’s love today. For the first time or hear it and let it renew your spirit.

It is only as we have been comforted that we can be a comfort to others. It is only as we learn the radical nature of God’s all-forgiving, all-renewing love that we can teach that love by the example of our lives.

Just as God has come to our mourning, our frustration, our despair and given us the comfort of God’s hope and the new possibilities through God’s love poured into our hearts, so let us proclaim God’s comfort to others “who mourn…to give them” in the words of the prophet, “a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. “

May all of us here, as we receive God’s radical love and breathe afresh God’s grace toward all of our sins and past failings and God’s promise of hope in the midst of ruins,
May all of us here become “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.” – the glory of God’s new life, of God’s transforming love.

In this season of Advent let us see the full character of Emmanuel, God with us.

God is not distant. God is here in our midst, pouring God’s love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Let us not ignore God or resist God’s love.

And then let us take up the prophet’s call to announce this good news in word and deed to one another and to this community.

Love can give new life to us, love can give new life to our relationships with others, love can give new life to this community.

Let God’s love give us a new vision of who we are and who we can be as individuals and as a community.

“For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”

Come, Emmanuel, Come.

Amen.

Exile is not the end.

A sermon for the second Sunday of Advent, given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on December 4, 2011.

Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

These words, these promises, are given in the midst of suffering.

Today’s scripture in Isaiah speaks to a the people of Israel in a dark time in their story as a community. They have experienced great loss—

The homeland was destroyed along with their place of worship and they were forced to move themselves and what little belongings they could take with them to a distant foreign land, Babylon.

We hear the mourning of the exiled in Psalm 137.

By the rivers of Babylon—

there we sat down and there we wept

when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

we hung up our harps.

For there our captors

asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

How could we sing the Lord’s song

in a foreign land?

We catch further glimpses of the misery and emptiness felt by the captive Israel in the book of Lamentations.

She weeps bitterly in the night,

with tears on her cheeks;

among all her lovers

she has no one to comfort her;

her downfall was appalling,

with none to comfort her.

Zion stretches out her hands,

but there is no one to comfort her;

They heard how I was groaning,

with no one to comfort me. (Lamentations 1:2, 9, 17, 21)

Loneliness, estrangement, disillusionment, meaninglessness, hopelessness.

The pain of discouragement, the shadow of fear and uncertainty.

These feelings are not foreign to us.

There are those among us today are living with pain, discouragement, guilt, sorrow.

There are those among us who “weep bitterly in the night” with no one to comfort them.

We live in a culture where all of these difficult emotions and experiences must be kept inside – don’t reveal yourself to others – put on a strong face.

We experience the feelings of exile.

We walk through shadowy valleys which remind us of death – of emptiness, of hopelessness.

And it is in this darkness that the light of God’s promise comes to shine.

Comfort, O comfort my people,

says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that she has served her term,

that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2)

“The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness—

on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2)

Exile is not the end.

The story of Israel goes on that under the reign of King Cyrus, 150 years after they were exiled and the city destroyed, the people of Israel were able to return to their land and rebuild Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Today’s scripture from Isaiah anticipates that return. It speaks to the people in exile, promising the coming of God’s deliverance.

After years of exile, there was a joyous homecoming.

‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

and all people shall see it together,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ (Isaiah 40:5)

Prepare the way for the great work of God the deliverer, the God of hope!

The desert, a place of wandering aimlessly, a place of going nowhere – the desert will have a highway for God. There will be purpose where there once was aimless wandering.

The glory of the Lord in bringing deliverance and hope to a people who lived in bondage and despair. That glory—the glory of redemption – shall be revealed – and all people shall see it together.

Exile is not the end.

Discouragement and helplessness, fear and anxiety wither the grass of our faith and fade the flower of our hope.

The grass withers, the flower fades;

but the word of our God will stand for ever.

God speaks to us in these dark times with words of deliverance and the hope of overcoming our exile.

Exile is not the end.

Be filled with the hope of God’s coming. In today’s gospel reading John points us to the coming of “The one who is more powerful” –

God the deliverer – Jesus our Emmanuel who frees us from sin and all of its consequences – restoring our relationship with God through forgiveness and the presence of the Holy Spirit, healing our broken relationships by giving us the courage to give and receive God’s unconditional love, building a new community formed by God’s love within which exile becomes homecoming.

Exile is not the end.

And so we’re called in the scriptures to announce the coming of such good news.

Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good tidings;

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,

lift it up, do not fear;

Good news! We can come home to our true place as those whom God loves, as those whom God has rescued from the darkness of meaningless, hopeless, lonely, despair and guilt. We were once exiles but now we are citizens of God’s kingdom – children of a new family founded in God’s healing and love.

God “will feed his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead the mother sheep.”

Exile is not the end.

The darkness of fear and loneliness is not the end. Hear from the mountain the good tidings of God – salvation is here – homecoming is here.

Jesus has restored our relationship with God and by the power of the Holy Spirit brings us into fellowship with God, pouring his love into our hearts and giving us courage to share that love, to share the good tidings.

Breathe deep the hope of God’s salvation.

Exile is not the end.

While we may feel like the fading flower, the withering grass – let us remember that in our desert, God is building a highway – God’s word endures and will endure. Our dark times will come and go. Like the grass, like the flowers we will experience the pain of sorrow, fear, and brokenness – the darkness of exile. But hope in God’s deliverance. The pain that is felt, the loneliness, the hopelessness, God will heal.

Put your hope in God and trust him, only in God will we find true comfort. Only in God will we find our way back home.

Amen.

Magnificat

And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

Luke 1:46-55

On the Beatitudes (Part 2): The Wordle

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Keeping Awake: The Candle of Hope

A sermon given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on Sunday, Nov 27, 1st Sunday of Advent

Is. 64:1-9.

Ps. 80:1-7,17-19.

1 Cor. 1:3-9.

Mark 13:24-37.

Today we light the candle of hope. Candles have always been used as lights in dark places. And Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.”

We don’t live in a world where hope makes much sense. Rather we live in a world where the two main responses to news we hear are despair and denial.

Either we are paralyzed by news of violence and injustice or we hear about it – consider it to be elsewhere – and ignore it, live as if it doesn’t exist.

But the truth is that this world is full of hatred, of violence, of greed, of oppression. Darkness is all around us but also within us.

Today we light a candle in the midst of it. The candle of hope.

Those who follow Jesus live as lights in a dark world just as Christ has shown the light of his grace in our hearts, forgiving our sins and assuring us of God’s love. The source of our light is the hope in God that we grasp with faith giving us the courage to love.

Candles also remind us of staying awake.

I suppose a more modern equivalent might be the light of a television screen, a computer screen, or a bedside lamp.

The candle is lit and by it we continue to see, continue to watch. By it we keep awake.

We keep awake. The refrain from today’s gospel reading.

Jesus our Emmanuel, which means God with us, came and inaugurated a new time, a new reign of God, but peace on earth is far from the reality that we see around us.

And so we exist in hope of the full realization of God’s shalom on earth as in heaven – 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' – and that hope is the candle which gives us sight in dark places.

The hope keeps us awake.

Jesus says, “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.”

We have been given good news in Christ and entrusted with the care of God’s kingdom on earth, “to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

We have a job to do: keep awake. Let not the master find us asleep when he comes.

Keep awake!

So much in this world works to extinguish the candle of our hope.

But we return to God’s promise – God’s hope of peace, of justice, of salvation – and we find our strength in the remembrance of God’s great love for us, God’s great grace and we are spurred on again to be that love, to be that grace to others – to manifest a new kind of life, a new kind of politics, a new kind exchange – not based on selfishness, but based on love, not based on dominance, but based on service.

And this way of Jesus is the kingdom which is already/not yet – it is coming to be now but will be fully manifest in that day when 'the Son of Man comes in clouds'.

And so we hold a candle of hope in a world of sin, of violence, of loneliness, of despair, of oppression – and we hear the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 13:11:

“you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.”

Let us then press on with our candle of hope – keeping awake even when others around us give up and fall asleep–

Let us hear and embrace the gospel of God’s love within our hearts – rejoicing in the liberty of God’s forgiveness and the wonder of God’s generosity!

and let us therefore go out into God’s world – to the people that God loves: the poor, the oppressed, the blind, the least of these our brothers and sisters – and proclaim the gospel of love in word AND deed – the salvation which is already… but not yet – but nearer now than when we first believed.

For what Christ said to his disciples then, he says to us now: Keep awake! Amen.

Thanksgiving

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have

done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole

creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life,

and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for

the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best

efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy

and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures

that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the

truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast

obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying,

through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life

again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and

make him known; and through him, at all times and in all

places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.

From Book of Common Prayer, 1979

On the Beatitudes (Part 2)

A sermon given on the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, November 13, 2011 at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH.

Judg. 4:1-7.

Ps. 123.

1 Thes. 5:1-11.

Matt. 25:14-30. (Matt. 5:1-10 used for sermon)

We can think of God’s kingdom as a reality which can only be brought into existence as we respond to God’s call to us.

God’s kingdom is a way of being towards God, towards one another, towards the earth around us that only ever comes into existence when people become reconciled with God and embrace the way of faith in God’s love for the world and seek to embody that love in their lives.

All over the scripture we see God’s desire for humanity.

The perfect society has been called heaven.

So has the perfect chocolate dessert. I had that chocolate lava cake – it was heaven.

Heaven is a perfection -- a place of utter bliss.

The picture of heaven in the Bible is a little different than eating a slice of chocolate dessert.

Heaven is God’s lasting way which outlasts humanity’s way.

Heaven is our true citizenship (Phil. 3:20).

Heaven is God’s building, the house not made by hands, unseen, and eternal (2 Cor 5:20).

Heaven is a great mystery – a future reality in which we put our hope but a reality which is so foreign to our present experience that we are forced by our skeptical and cynical training to concede: “too good to be true”

Karl Barth wrote that whereas earth is the creation that is conceivable to human beings; heaven is the creation that is inconceivable. (McClendon 1994, 87)

Heaven is not yet. We are promised a life everlasting after this one. The promise is of God’s rule and humanity’s enjoyment of peace, justice, and blessedness in fellowship with one another and with God – where there are no longer divisions of race and class and there is no longer shame from sin or fear from death or loneliness from brokenness in our relationships. Heaven is the not yet reality of Christian hope – where, resurrected, we will live as citizens of one King in the only society where peace and justice are possible.

Heaven is therefore unseen, invisible – nowhere on earth do we find this reality. But we find it in the pictures of scripture. God has given us the hope of a reality, a not yet reality, where we will live in God’s shalom, in God’s love and grace and death and sorrow and fear will be no more.

Heaven is not yet. It is held out as our hope. The hope of those who believe God’s grace is the final word. God’s love triumphs over humanity’s hate. That nothing can separate us from God’s love. “What is mortal will be swallowed up by life.” (2 Cor 5:4)

But heaven is a picture which floods the imagination of the one who loves God. Heaven is the reality which the Christian grasps onto by faith. Heaven is the land toward which we make our journey.

This eternal place floods our hearts with a vision of what is true and good.

We delight in the vision of God’s way of life and pray, “Thy kingdom come on earth as in heaven.”

We look with great hope toward heaven, but we realize that we are here on earth and we long for the not yet to be present in our midst.

And this longing is the Holy Spirit among us and in us filling our hearts with love for God and our neighbor and filling us with a desire for light to be manifest in the darkness of human brokenness, of love to be realized in systems of violence and abuse.

And so the Christian existence and the Christian imagination is shaped by the words of our Lord: “the kingdom of God is near.” (Mark 4:17).

The kingdom of heaven’s nearness shapes our living now.

‘God’s future is God’s call to the present, and the present is the time of decision in the light of God’s future’ (Bornkamm in Howell 2011, 130)

And so we hear the African American spiritual when it sings:

“I got a robe, you got a robe, All God’s chillun got a robe, When I get to Heav’n, goin’ put on my robe, Goin’ to shout all over God’s heav’n.”

And clearly this is a community which hopes in the promises of a better life – but this vision shapes the what community seeks here and now.

Liberation in America and Apartheid South Africa was sought by those who had not submitted to the reality of the present system in which they lived but hoped in a land that was not yet. A place where people of all races were equally created by God and equally loved by God. The heaven of the spiritual was a place where these black South Africans would be able to shout “all over” and not just in the officially designated boundaries of the apartheid government.

Heaven gave them a sense that they truly were equal and that God’s justice was not the justice of the present government. Their not yet shaped their living in the now. (McClendon 1994, 90).

Jesus brings us into the project of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We ARE citizens of that other land and therefore “strangers and foreigners” on this earth (Heb 11:13).

But this does not mean that we are “so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.”

Precisely because our imagination is so shaped by God’s reality of peace and justice in the not-yet heaven we live it into existence now in our relationships with one another.

Christians protested unjust government, Christians protested injustices like slavery because they had a vision of a community where there is no longer divisions of race and class – no longer violence and abuse of some against others but all exist in loving communion with God and other human beings.

So the kingdom is near but not yet. It is already becoming, but not yet become.

And we in the inbetween are blessed because we have been claimed by a reality which is greater and higher than the realities which exist in the world. Precisely because we believe in heaven we can see through the injustices and lies of this present age and live in defiance of it – speaking out against instances of hatred and abuse, of deceit or inequality.

I think this is what the beatitudes speak to. We are blessed – not in the common understanding of blessing – but blessed because we are participating in the journey of those who hope in a better land, a land characterized by reconciliation and love, justice and peace.

Jesus’ hearers believed in that hope too. That promise was their pursuit just as it is ours. And so Jesus called them blessed because the Roman empire certainly wasn’t giving them that message. The Romans all around Jesus’ hearers were seeking their version of blessedness which was a blessedness at the expense of the exploited lower classes, a blessedness dependent on injustice, a peace dependent on violence.

Jesus called blessed those who are poor in spirit – because theirs is the kingdom of heaven – that higher reality –that truer goal, that unseen and eternal vision. They are poor in spirit because they do not delight in the present experience but put their hope in God’s future – God’s way breaking into their present.

Jesus called blessed those who mourn – because they will be comforted. The comfort is already here in the promise of God’s comfort, but it is a not yet reality that we look to in our mourning. Death and loss is not the final reality – God’s life, God’s restoration in our future is the last word.

Jesus called blessed those who are meek – because they will inherit the land. They don’t seek to dominate their life circumstances, the ones around them, because they trust in God’s provision for them, they are secure in their identity as loved by God and can love the neighbor who makes himself the enemy– meekness is the strength of love in the face of hate. They will inherit the land – they are co-inheritors of the kingdom, of God’s heaven in which they place their hope.

Jesus called blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled. The Greek word for righteousness also means justice. Both senses are implied. Those who long for justice in this world, in the nation, and in their community and who long for their own soul to be changed by grace and love and result in a life of love for neighbor and devotion to God. Those are blessed because the will be filled in the ESCHATON. They will be filled now in part and THEN in full.

Jesus called blessed those who are merciful, because they will receive mercy. Those who are merciful are those who are shaped by the vision of God’s great mercy – God’s heaven where mercy triumphs over judgment. They are blessed in the reality of God’s great love for them – the love that they receive in faith and shapes their life and turns into love for others.

Jesus called blessed those who are pure in heart because they will see God. Those who love God more than money, those who love God more than success or power, they are blessed because of their sight is not clouded by darkness of selfish ambition but are able to clearly see the God who is love in the person of Jesus Christ and because they will see God in the not yet heavenly reality which shapes their life in the present world.

Jesus called blessed those who make peace because they will be called God’s children. They will be called this in the not yet of God’s heaven but they will also manifest that life in the now of their present existence. Those who pursue peace are those who have been changed by their acceptance into God’s family by God’s reconciling initiative, forgiving them of their sins and violence. They now forgive others’ sins and violence and seek peace living out the reality of their relationship as child of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Those who are blessed by their participation in the unseen, eternal kingdom will be those who will meet resistance from those who find their blessing in the visible kingdoms of this earth and who depend for their livelihood and contentment on unjust or violent or deceitful systems. They will defend their injustice against the one who testifies to God’s reality of justice and they will defend their lies against the one who testifies to God’s truth. And so the ones who find their citizenship in heaven will meet persecution because darkness cannot stand light. And the response of the insecure to the exposing of their insecurity is to seek by any violent means possible to regain their false perception of their security.

And so we see in the Beatitudes our blessedness as a people called out of the world’s systems to a promised land of God’s design. Our blessedness is not the blessedness promised in advertisements and Hollywood films. It is a blessedness of God’s love which changes our lives and redirects the gaze of our souls.

It is a blessedness shaped by God’s future – breaking into our present. And this is the Christian existence of hope. A hope which refuses the limiting hopes of the society and seeks the hope of God on earth as it is in heaven.

On the Beatitudes (Part 1)

A sermon given on All Saints Sunday at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on November 6, 2011.

Rev. 7:9-17.

Ps. 34:1-10,22.

1 John 3:1-3.

Matt. 5:1-12

Eschatology – From the Greek word eschaton, meaning “last things”

As some have put it, eschatology is “the discussion of what LASTS and what COMES LAST” (McClendon 1994, 75)

The Bible does not give us a detailed point by point, calculated description of exactly what happens at the end of time. Though many have tried to make it say that kind of thing for various agendas with good and bad intentions. Most recently our friend Harold Camping and his calculation in May 2011.

What the Bible DOES give us are pictures that shape our imagination – pictures that sustain our hope. Pictures that give us a new frame for our lives.

The picture of Christ’s one day reigning as ruler over heaven and earth is the ultimate Christian hope (so beautifully sung in Handel’s Messiah). It is then that Christians believe true peace and true justice will become a reality.

What ruler in this world has not been at least in part corrupt? What ruler or government has established justice and peace for ALL? But the Christian hopes in the picture of Christ as king, humble, merciful, and just – the perfect recipe for peace and wholeness in a land.

The view of the eschaton as a final time of peace and justice IS the background picture of hope of not only much of Jewish scriptures (our Old Testament), but of the teaching of Jesus and Paul (our NT).

This is the picture that gives us hope, this is the picture that drives us to act.

A recent Baptist theologian, James McClendon writes,

“For the believer in the [the Christian hope], ‘Whenever he does anything [that picture] is before his mind”…such a picture, once it is grasped, is ‘enough to make me change my whole life’”

The Christian imagination becomes so captivated by the picture of Christ’s rule of truth, of peace, and justice – that it is enough to make us change our whole life.

So when Jesus preaches that the kingdom of God is near: repent!

We can understand this as saying – remember that God’s rule is the ultimate reality and stop living as if other things, success, substances, self are the ultimate reality. Repent – turn around, reshape your thinking, let your imagination be molded by God’s reality.

Our present activity as a church, our present actions as individuals are actions of purpose – we are all working towards certain purposes.

All of those purposes have good aspects to them. We want to take care of our family, we want to do well in our work to be able to provide for ourselves and others, to stay warm and well fed.

What Jesus’ call to the kingdom does is call us to place our purposes in the bigger purpose of God’s plan for the universe.

Repenting then means that allow our purposes to be shaped, broadened, changed by the greater purpose we find in Jesus.

So Jesus says, the kingdom of God has come near. (Matt 4)

The kingdom of God is not here. But the kingdom of God IS here.

The Christian lives in the time in between Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom’s nearness and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom – when Jesus will reign on earth with justice and peace.

This inbetween existence is fuelled by the picture of the hope of God’s kingdom’s nearness – that one day we will participate in its fulfillment when we are resurrected in the ESCHATON.

And so we understand that the kingdom of God is already begun, but not yet fulfilled.

The kingdom of God is an ALREADY/NOT YET phenomenon.

This is what it means to be a saint.

None of us would go about saying that we are saints – but neither would any of us go about saying that the kingdom of God has come here on earth.

Both are ALREADY/NOT YET realities.

When we think of saints we think of people like Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa, who gave themselves completely for others, living lives of complete poverty, rich only in love and hope.

And yes, in the categories of the Roman Catholic church, these are saints on account of their meeting the requirements for canonization as saints.

But the biblical understanding is that all those who follow Jesus’ way, all who repent and turn their lives in trust over to Jesus are saints. (scripture cite)

So today is ALL SAINTS day. We could spend our Sunday talking about all the different people who we consider saints (as opposed to ourselves, who are pitiful wannabes in comparison). But I’d rather think of Saint as an already/not yet reality just as the kingdom of God is an already/not yet reality.

So when we read the beatitudes in Matthew 5, we must not think of all of those who are not us who do make peace, all of those who are not us who are poor in spirit, meek, merciful, all of those who are not us who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after justice. We must rather realize that we are those saints – those who are blessed – because we are the disciples that God has called through Jesus. We have become partakers of the hope of God’s eschaton and we are therefore saints.

We are saints by the very fact that we have followed Jesus.

The Beatitudes describe the reality of those who have begun to follow Jesus and who seek the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness (Matt 6:33). All those who follow Jesus follow him in this ALREADY/NOT YET existence between the creation and the ESCHATON. The Beatitudes describe the blessedness that is a different blessedness than what many in the world think. The Beatitudes do not describe the blessedness of a successful life of wealth and power – they describe the blessedness that is an ALREADY/NOT YET blessedness. This blessedness is that of hope in the TRUE blessedness of fulfilled peace and justice. This is why someone poor in spirit, someone persecuted can be said to be blessed – because they are blessed by their participation in God’s ALREADY/NOT YET kingdom – the blessedness of hope, of faith, and love.

When the saints go marching, they march to different beat because they hope for a different hope than so many in the world – the promise of God of peace, reconciliation and justice – on earth as it is in heaven.

In the next two Sundays we’ll look at the beatitudes as teaching about the ALREADY/NOT YET kingdom and as describing those who are ALREADY/NOT YET saints – looking to make known in a real way the kingdom of God which will be fulfilled in the ESCHATON.

This following of Jesus is an inbetween experience – it is an already/not yet reality which gives us a pictured hope of the kingdom of God while calling us to be a part of its coming to be now.

We are ALREADY/NOT YET saints by virtue of our participation in the ALREADY/NOT YET kingdom.

And this is made possible by our conversion to Christ’s hope, Christ’s truth, Christ’s life through our repentance and belief.

To God the Things That Are God's

A sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on Sunday, October 16, 2011.

Exod. 33:12-23

Ps. 99

1 Thes. 1:1-10

Matt. 22:15-22

Jesus has made the Pharisees not a little bit angry at him. In response to their accusation, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you such a right?”, Jesus told them three parables each showing that they are the ones who need to defend their actions. They have participated in the tragic history of the rejection of God’s messengers. They have been a disobedient son full of empty words, they have been tenants who refuse to acknowledge their true place in relation to the landowner and refuse to listen to the landowner’s messengers when sent to remind them of their responsibilities, and they have been those who refuse to join in the celebration of the wedding feast of the son of God. The theme in all of these parables is that the Jewish leaders while outwardly trying to preserve God’s way as they see it, are actually stifling God’s way as it is coming to be around them.

The Pharisees have lost all patience with Jesus and want more than anything to discredit him, to gain back the people’s support to themselves and away from Jesus – to regain their authority and prestige as leaders.

They will eventually go to great lengths to secure that they control the vineyard. But at this point they are still disputing with the landowner’s son.

They go off somewhere and think up a few good questions which they are sure will trap Jesus – force him to say something that will cause someone with power to be offended or insulted – get him in trouble and discredit him.

So the Pharisees send some of their disciples along with members of King Herod’s political party to go and present a this “doozy” of a question to Jesus.

First, some high class flattery:

“Teacher, we know that you tell the truth. You teach the truth about God’s will for man, without worrying about what people think, because you pay no attention to man’s status.”

Jesus you’re an honest guy– you don’t care if what you say offends anyone as long as it’s true, right? (well see how truthful you are in response to this!)

Then their question:

Tell us, then, what do you think? Is it against our Law to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor or not?

Craig Keener, in his commentary on Matthew’s gospel, writes the following about the situation that the group hopes to put Jesus in by this question:

“The coalition hopes to catch Jesus coming or going: either he will support taxes to Rome, undercutting his popular messianic support, or he will challenge taxes, thereby aligning with the views that had sparked a disastrous revolt two decades earlier. In the latter case, the [members of King Herod’s political party] could charge him with being a revolutionary – hence showing that he should be executed, and executed quickly.” (Keener 1997, 326)

This is a CATCH-22, a lose-lose situation. Or so the coalition of inquisitors hopes.

But Jesus is wise to their game. And wise, period.

And the questioners assume that Jesus will tailor his response to please the group of people that he prefers to please – they assume that Jesus will answer in a way that secures his own image, his own perception among the people.

They project their own motives onto Jesus.

But Jesus answers in a way that we read “amazed” his questioners and caused them to leave him alone.

Here is the beauty of Jesus’ answer.

First he calls them out on their evil plan. “hypocrites! Why are you trying to trap me?”

Then he asks for a coin.

The coin they probably gave him would have had on one side, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus” and on the other side “pontifex maximus – high priest” (Keener, 326)

This was the real scandal – not only that the coin represented the oppressive imperial rule of Rome over the Jewish land, but that the coin represented the rival religion of the Roman imperial cult. The Roman emperors would claim divinity and require worship from parts of their empire in order to secure their power. The Jewish resistance to the tax because of this had been the source of problems in Palestine in the first century.

“Whose face and name are these?”

The image stamped on the coin would designate that these coins are ultimately minted and issued from the Roman emperor himself and that paying the tax that is required is a giving back to the empire what was due – a form of required loyalty.

It’s a reminder that Caesar is Lord.

“Whose face and name are these?”

“The Emperor’s”

Well then, give to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor.

But Jesus doesn’t’ stop there.

If Jesus had stopped there, he would have satisfied the members of Herod’s political party. People would have interpreted him as in essence saying, “they’re Caesar’s coins, just give them back to him.”

But Jesus doesn’t just stop there. He goes on: “and pay to God what belongs to God.”

Now if we think about this, there is an interesting observation that can be made.

The Emperor’s coin was considered to be the Emperor’s because it had his face and name on it.

So what belongs to God? If the coins belong to Emperor because it bears his face and name, what bears God’s face and name and would then belong to God?

A Jewish person brought up with the stories and teachings of Torah would know the answer.

Genesis 1:27

“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Humans bear an inscription too, humans bear an image.

While the Emperor may have created pieces of silver for his purposes, God has created humankind for his purposes.

Jesus’ response not only speaks the truth, it satisfies both the members of Herod’s political party because it does not deny that the coins should be given to Emperor. It satisfies the Pharisees because it does not deny that one should obey God’s law.

A deeper understanding would hear the second phrase “give to God what belongs to God” as superseding the first phrase since Jesus would agree with psalmist in saying that all that exists belongs to God. (Witherington, Commentary on Matthew 2001, 413).

Psalm 24:1 says “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;”

Ben Witherington suggests that we can actually hear Jesus’ words as saying this: “give [the Emperor] back these worthless pieces of metal he claims, but know that we are to render to God all things since God alone is divine and to God belong all things.”

We are stamped with God’s image. We are created by God for God’s purposes.

We are a people of dual citizenship. We are citizens of the kingdom of God, but we live in America, and are residents of Acworth.

But Jesus’ words remind us that though we are part of a global community, though we are citizens of America, though we are residents of Acworth – we are in a real and ultimate way citizens of God’s kingdom, the city of God as it has been called.

Ours is a different way of living.

We are only responsible if we join in the conversations at the Town Hall regarding matters of the common good and the town’s future, we are only responsible if we enter into the wider discussion of what is good for America. We are only responsible if we participate in the global conversation – advocating for justice and peace. But let us not forget that our understanding of what is good comes from our understanding of who God has created us to be.

We are Christ’s ambassadors, we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “as though God were making his appeal through us.”

We are necessarily involved in the politics of the world, the nation, the town in which we find ourselves – but we are there as ambassadors to the way of Christ, the way which speaks truthfully, which manifests the love of God for all people.

We are those who have come to know God’s forgiveness of our sins.

God’s forgiveness has transformed us from enemies into friends, and we now, living in response to that reality, love our enemies.

So when we enter into the conversation of the town, of the nation, of the world, we do so as ambassadors of love, of truth, of reconciliation. We do so representing the one who did not seek to dominate, to lord over others, “to be served but serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

When we enter into the world, into our jobs, the conversations with friends, with enemies, the political sphere, discussion about the political sphere – let us model the one who loved his enemies, let us remember that more than rendering to those in power what is due to those in power, we are to render to God what is due to God.

And God has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19), the message of God’s love.

To Christians in the city of Ephesus, the apostle Paul wrote “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”

Paul must have visited one of the Ephesian town meetings.

He goes on—

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”(Eph 4:31-5:2)

AMEN.

Refusing the Feast

A sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on Sunday, October 9, 2011.

Exodus 32:1-14

Psalm 106:1-6,19-23.

Philippians 4:1-9.

Matthew 22:1-14.

The chief priests and elders brought up the question of authority in chapter 21 – what right do you have to do these things?

Jesus had just rode into Jerusalem, taught in the temple, cleansed the temple, healed blind and lame in the temple, provided for the poor, and begun a children’s choir (Hauerwas, Matthew, 185).

Jesus then likens them to a son who says he will obey his Father and work in the vineyard but doesn’t and then to tenants who refuse to share the harvest with the absentee landowner and mistreat and kill the servants and even the son of the landowner.

The overwhelming theme of these two parables that Jesus tells the chief priests and elders is that the question is about authority but not in the way that they think.

It is not, “what right does Jesus have to do these things?” but “what right do the leaders of the Jewish community have to do the things that they have been doing throughout Israel’s history and even into Jesus’ day?”

Jesus’ story about the tenants associates the chief priests and elders with those who killed the prophets in earlier times in the life of the community of Israel. They, just like many before them, cared more for their own way of being toward God and others, than the way that God was reminding them through the prophetic voice.

The conclusion of the parable is important to understanding the next parable that Jesus tells:

When Jesus asks what the landowner will do to the tenants, the chief priests and elders reply that he will kill them and rent the vineyard out to others who will share the harvest at the right time.

Jesus replies and says “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits.”

IN the parable of the wedding feast we see this reality fleshed out.

But the interesting twist we see in Jesus’ parable is that the reason the original invited don’t end up at the wedding banquet is not because they are rejected, but because THEY reject the invitation to the feast.

The kingdom of God is taken away from the chief priests and elders and given to another people BY their own rejection of the kingdom of God. They don’t recognize God in Jesus because they have forgotten God’s true nature as one of humility, justice, and mercy.

The chief priests and elders are the ones in the parable who refuse the invitation to God’s feast. Seeing Jesus’ compassion and life-giving presence in their midst, they refuse to rejoice – but become defensive of the way things have been and their own authority.

They have no respect for the king’s son and refuse to join in his celebration. We see this throughout the gospel stories as Jesus heals someone and instead of delighting in life and wondering at God’s power displayed through Jesus they criticize him. Or when Jesus shows compassion to someone who is rejected in society, instead of delighting in the mercy of God shown in Jesus’ actions, they bristle with offense at Jesus’ audacity to break social norms.

God is not primarily rejecting them, they are rejecting God’s kingdom as it is being made manifest all around them in the actions and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

Even still, the king sends out the messengers when the food is ready and invite the guests to come and join the celebration.

Many of the guests ignore, but others violently reject, harm and even kill some of the messengers.

We can easily see how this part of the story points to the way Jesus will be treated in less than a week’s time from his telling of this parable.

And so on account of their refusal of the invitation, their refusal to celebrate with the son of the king the joyous event of his marriage, their refusal to delight in the abundant offerings of the king’s feast, they are replaced by any and all people on the streets good and bad alike.

On account of their refusal of the compassion and miraculous life-giving presence of Jesus, the chief priests and elders lose out on the opportunity of participating in the new messianic community begun by Jesus.

the kingdom of God is taken away from them and given to a people who produce the proper fruits, enjoying the presence of the king’s son, delighting in the feast of compassion, justice, and truth.

It’s taken away not against their will, but in accordance with their will since they wanted nothing to do with God’s reign of justice, mercy, and truth.

And so the banquet hall is full –yet there is one there in the room who is not properly attired. I think it’s safe to infer that this person could have worn the proper wedding garments but refused to. It doesn’t seem at all to be in line with the spirit of Jesus for a person to be rejected on account of his inability to afford or obtain the appropriate things. It is rather that this person refused to wear the right attire for the ceremony and in his refusing rejects the invitation of the king even though he showed up at the feast. He followed the letter of the invitation but not the spirit. He is still not delighting in the joy of the feast.

This is a mysterious part of the parable to be sure and I’m not quite sure what to do with it to be honest. But I think this makes the most sense. This person is refusing to fully participate in the feast and therefore in essence rejects the king’s invitation and excludes himself from the feast.

He is bound and thrown out to where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Everywhere else Jesus talks about weeping and gnashing of teeth, it is in reference to those who refused God’s kingdom of justice, truth, and mercy for whatever reason.

I would venture to say that no one is ever excluded who hasn’t already excluded themselves.

God’s offer to us is to participate in the life and light of God’s reconciliation and forgiveness, of God’s love and freedom. When we reject God’s love because we love to hate, when we reject God’s forgiveness because we don’t think we need it, when we reject God’s mercy to our enemies,

when we reject God’s generosity towards the weak, the poor, the despised – we exclude ourselves from fellowship with God and from true fellowship with our neighbors.

It is when we embrace God as we see God in Jesus Christ, in his truthful, justice seeking, merciful LIFE, his self-giving, enemy-forgiving, nonresisting DEATH, and his renewing, death-conquering, life-giving RESURRECTION – it is when we embrace Jesus’s call to follow him, to receive God’s love and participate in God’s love for the world – we find a feast – a joyous feast, delighting in the joyous inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth.

The chief priests and elders could not embrace Jesus’ way because they loved their own way too much. They were unwilling to do the 180 degree turn that true repentance requires. If we as those who have been trained to consider ourselves as most important, our self-advancement and self-preservation as the highest goal, our enemy as undeserving of mercy, our way of seeing the world and our ways of living in it as final and unquestionable, if we are incredibly attached to the self that we have created, we will be unwilling to come to the feast of God’s truth, God’s mercy, and God’s justice. We will not recognize them in Jesus, and we will not experience the incredible joy of the new life that God offers us.

Let us not refuse the offer to become a part of God’s new kingdom life. Let us not harden our hearts to the invitation to God’s feast of reconciliation.

The feast will go on regardless, let’s humble ourselves and take part, lest we miss out on the truth that sets us free.

The Tenants and Us: Refusing the Light

A sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on October 2, 2011.

Exodus 20:1-20

Psalm 19

Philippians 3:4b-14

Matthew 21:33-46

Has anyone ever told you the honest, brutal truth about yourself?

How did you respond?

I’m sure for most of us, we got incredibly defensive at first and then as the initial emotions wore off, we started think about what was said a bit more, and then realized that the person may have been right.

Today’s parable is about a confrontation that went terribly wrong.

Some context.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem created a great stir in the community life of the Jewish people there.

Many began thinking Jesus was a prophet and possibly the promised Messiah who would come to his people and free them from oppression.

Matthew 21:23

“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

The understood accusation in this question is that Jesus does not have the authority he thinks he does.

Instead of responding directly to their accusation, Jesus begins to speak to them about their own authority.

Jesus first shows that the authority of the religious leaders is really built up on the perception of their authority by the people.

If they deny John’s prophetic identity, they are on the people’s bad side and might lose respect or receive great anger. If they affirm John’s prophetic identity, Jesus will ask them why they didn’t listen to John and respect him.

Their authority is not based on what is true or what is most important, but authority for authority’s sake. They enjoy their position of influence, they enjoy the status and wealth that accompany being in a position of power and importance.

They are willing to protect their power at the expense of truth and therefore use “truth” as a way of manipulating people and circumstances for their own self-interest.

So when they say in response to Jesus’ asking whether John was a human or divine messenger that they don’t know, they don’t really mean that they don’t know, they just mean that they plead the fifth so that they can maintain their image, status, wealth – their power.

As we learn more of who Jesus is and what Jesus stands for, we realize the threat that Jesus’ teaching and his life are to the status quo. They threaten the way things are. They threaten our comfortable routines. Jesus’ life and teachings cause us to reflect on our own lives. Are we more drawn to what is comfortable than to what is true?

After exposing their unwillingness to be truthful, Jesus accuses them through the parable of the two sons of being the son who says one thing and does the opposite.

They are the ones who are full of words and bankrupt of actions.

Jesus further claims that tax collectors and prostitutes – the despised of society – are more fit for the kingdom of God because they at least care more about truth than their comfort – as seen in the fact that when the tax collectors and prostitutes heard John preaching that everyone must repent and be baptized to prepare for the coming king, the coming kingdom, they responded with honesty concerning their need to turn their lives around. Whereas the religious leaders responded with defensiveness and indignation – proving their unwillingness to let truth question their power.

And so we come to today’s parable.

Jesus puts the resistance of the religious leaders to truth in context by telling them a story about a vineyard and its tenants.

The religious leaders’ position is one of serving God’s people Israel. They are responsible for new generations of Jews to understand who they are as worshippers of God and as a people who have the history that they have. The religious leaders are responsible to lead the Jewish community into understanding themselves truthfully in light of the story of the Tanakh (what we call the Old Testament) and by understanding that story to understand how they should live in light of their current circumstances.

This is a role of stewardship, of tending to a community of which they are not the highest authority. The highest authority, the only true authority over Israel has always been God.

Jesus’ parable is a story of two aspects of Israel’s existence as a community. There had always been a tendency of leaders of the Israelite community to think of themselves as the final authority or at least to wish themselves to be. Reading first and second Kings in the Old Testament gives you a good feel for this dynamic. An authority figure (usually a king) starts running the nation however he feels like it should be run (usually for his own best interest) and a prophet comes to him to tell him that he’s not being the steward of God’s people in the way that he should be.

Authority figure misrepresents God, disobeys God and leads the people who are influenced by him astray.

Prophet comes and seeks to point out the error and call the authority to change in light of truth.

Of course, as many of us know, and as all of us can imagine, such confrontations of injustice with truth were never pretty.

This is the story that Jesus tells. It’s not a pretty story.

A landowner does six things:

Plants a vineyard, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press in it, builds a watch-tower, leases it to tenants, and goes to another country.

God is the landowner and the community of Israel is the vineyard. The picture of a vineyard as representing the community of Israel is throughout the Bible.

So God is landowner. The community which God promised to Abraham, and gave form to in the desert under Moses is God’s vineyard. The leaders that God entrusts his community to are the tenants.

When the landowner sends servants to collect produce (possibly because the produce had not been sent and the landowner was beginning to wonder).

The servants are not welcomed but seized and beaten and some killed.

He sends more servants and a greater number than the first group.

These two are treated in the same way.

This back and forth sending/seizing story is the a big part of the later story of the community of Israel that we can read about in the Old Testament.

The community of Israel would be lead astray by the present king or priest or both and a prophet would try to speak to the issue, to remind the leader of their responsibility, and these prophets would be abused and many times killed.

The response of power which is built on lies and injustice to truth is violence.

A beautiful passage in the gospel of John chapter 3 gives words to this experience:

“And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.

And so, having experienced so much resistance from the tenants after sending servants, the landowner determines that he will send his son – they are bound to respect the authority of his son.

But rather than respect the authority of the son, they see it is an opportunity to secure their lasting power, their usurping of the landowner’s ownership. The vineyard will be theirs if they can get rid of the one who will inherit it.

And so when they saw the son, they seized him, they threw him out of the vineyard, and they killed him.

In less than a week from the telling of this parable, Jesus would be seized, thrown out of the Jerusalem city limits, and killed.

The question of authority and the questioning of authority leads to the greatest violence for the sake of preserving the status quo, the power which was built and sustained by manipulation and falsehoods. The darkness could not stand the light and its reaction had to be to try to eliminate it.

The religious leaders in Jesus’ telling of the parable, are being tied in to the history of the persecution of the prophets that they would have heard many times before in their training in the story of the community of Israel.

Now Jesus asks them what should be done to the tenants. The religious leaders respond that they should be put to death and that the vineyard should be leased again to more worthy tenants.

Unable to see themselves truthfully, they cannot recognize that they are participating in the story of the evil tenants by refusing to recognize truth in the person and teaching of John and now in the person and teaching of Jesus.

Jesus concludes that they will have their authority taken from them (not that they will be killed). That the kingdom of God, the vineyard he began will be given to those would serve and represent God’s desire for truth, mercy, and justice.

The religious leaders realize that Jesus was talking about them and they become angry and want to arrest him. But true to form they do nothing out of fear of the crowds who are becoming more and more convinced that Jesus is the true authority.

It all began with the religious leaders’ question: By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?

And Jesus turns the question around on the religious leaders – by what authority are THEY doing these things, and who gave THEM this authority?

Unveiling the fact that the only authority they have been willing to recognize is their own authority and that they fight against any new word, however true, from the one who gave them any authority they have – the landowner whose vineyard they serve.

And so I think we can see a dynamic within ourselves as individuals and our community where on the one side we have our self-interest and on the other we have what is right. On the one side we have our own perceived final authority and on the other we have the authority of God’s truth and love revealed in Jesus’ person and teaching which has the power to deconstruct our habits, our practices, and ways of life which have strayed from God’s way.

We are called as community of followers of Jesus to look at ourselves as individuals and our community in the light of God’s word. In what parts of our lives as individuals and our life in community are we refusing to let in the light?

Is there anything in our lives as individuals or in our life as a community which we would be tempted to act like the tenants in the parable if someone were to challenge it?

We read in the first letter of John chapter 1, verses five through nine:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

To live in the light is to participate in life to the fullest. To be free of lies, is to be free indeed. This is only possible as we continue to listen to how God would have us change and be continually willing to give up the old to make way for the new in our own lives and in the life of our community.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

We are God’s agents of reconciliation in the world. We are the ones bringing the good news – the light in the darkness– that God loves the world. But we must allow our own darkness to be confronted if we are ever going to be able to with any honesty or integrity confront the darkness of the sin and injustice around us in this world.

Therefore, may our eating and drinking together in remembrance of Christ’s reconciliation, be a prayer of repentance and renewal, death and resurrection, for ourselves and our community, that we may die to darkness and rise again to light, truly to be lights to the world as we go out this week.