(Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:36-44)
Some of us may remember the Carly Simon song “Anticipation”….”anticipation, anticipation is making me waiting, is keeping me way-ay-ay-ay-ayting….” My memories of that song are associated with…..the old Heinz ketchup commercial, which used the song to dramatize how thick Heinz ketchup purported to be, and therefore how long it took to come out of the bottle. The message was that Heinz ketchup was so thick and rich with flavor that it was worth the wait.
This Sunday marks the first Sunday of Advent, the start of a new church year. As I’d noted last week, this is a season in which the church calendar and the secular calendar are out of sync: on one hand, we’re celebrating a new church year while the secular calendar will not do so for a bit more than a month, while at the same time, the wider culture is already deep into the mall-version of a Christmas celebration, while we in the church are waiting, still anticipating the coming of the Christ child. Anticipation is keeping us waiting….
As the lectionary often does for the first Sunday of Advent, our Gospel reading discusses, not Christ’s coming as a baby, but the second coming. The point is to give us, who know the Christmas story so well, a sense of the uncertainty and confusion experienced by those who surrounded Jesus when Jesus was born. For just as many look to Christ’s second coming as described in our Gospel, so there were those in Jesus’ day who looked to the coming of the Messiah, who likewise lived in anticipation – but for what? For whom did they seek? How would they recognize the Messiah? And as we know, the sought-for Messiah came – but many who sought for a Messiah didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah when Jesus was right in front of them. They were looking for a political Messiah who would march into Jerusalem and break the stranglehold of the hated Romans and restore Judah’s as a sovereign nation, under the leadership of a king from the line of David, as per God’s promise to David that there would never fail that a descendent of David would lead the chosen people. They weren’t looking for a baby of uncertain parentage born in out of the way Bethlehem.
Our reading from the 24th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is Matthew’s version of the Luke account we read two weeks ago. You remember the setup: Jesus and his disciples have entered Jerusalem. The disciples, having traveled with Jesus from the Galilean countryside to the big city, were in awe of the size and beauty of the Temple complex. Jesus brings them up short by saying that the time would come when not one stone would be left upon another, all would be thrown down. Now that Jesus has their attention, the disciples later come to him privately, while Jesus is on the Mount of Olives, saying, “tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age.” Today’s Gospel reading is part of Jesus’ lengthy response, which comprises the 24th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus words include graphic imagery: kingdom rising against kingdom, the rise of false prophets, persecution of the disciples of Christ, a man of lawlessness offering desolating sacrifices in the Temple, the sun and moon being darkened and the stars falling from the sky, and the powers of heaven being shaken. Jesus leads into today’s Gospel with the words, “From the fig tree learn its lesson; when the branches become tender and put forth leaves, you know summer is near. So when you see these things, you will know he is near, at the very gate. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” And then he, having created a “standing on tiptoes” anticipation among the disciples, he changes course and tamps down their excitement by saying, “But about that day and hour, no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, not the Son, but only the Father.” He says that on that day, people will be going about their normal business, eating, drinking, marrying, as the people of Noah’s time did just before the flood. There’s language about two men together in a field, two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and one left. He compares the second coming to the coming of a thief in the night.
What are we to make of this? We know from Paul’s writings, such as our Epistle reading from Romans, and even from sayings of Jesus, such as “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” that the believers who were alive in Jesus day and during the spread of the early church expected the second coming of Jesus at any time. As the apostles were executed and the first generation of Christians died, the faith of many was shaken. But Jesus said, about the day and hour no one knows…for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
How does Jesus say we are to respond to his words? He does not tell his disciples to work out elaborate timelines to anticipate his coming, but rather to be faithful every day. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, who his master has put in charge of his household….Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. But if the wicked slave says, “My master is delayed” and begins to abuse his fellow servants and carouse with drunkards, he will be caught unprepared, and will be put with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Jesus goes into the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids – remember, the wise bridesmaids had enough oil in their lamps to go the distances – and the parable of the talents – where the wise servants used their talents, while the foolish servant buried his. Again, Jesus does not tell his disciples to indulge in guessing games and calendar calculations about his second coming, but tells them to be faithful every day.
We live in a day when many proclaim that the second coming of Jesus is imminent. Our friend brother Camping says it’ll be May 21 of next year. Hal Lindsay, writer of the Late Great Planet Earth and subsequent books, is more circumspect – he writes more carefully to leave himself loopholes for the passage of time, but clearly, since his writing of Late Great in the 1970’s, he has expected the second coming to come very soon. There’s a website called “Rapture Ready” which has a daily index that purports on a daily basis to predict the likelihood of Jesus’ second coming on that day. You can go home from this sermon and check out today’s Rapture Index online, if you like. Timothy LaHaye and his followers have created books, movies, even video games – violent video games – depicting the timeline of the last days. But the time of Jesus had its share of Brother Campings and Hal Lindsays and Tim LaHayes, those who expected the Messiah to come at any time. There were many apocalyptic writings, many teachers speculating about the coming of the one who would liberate Jerusalem and God’s chosen from Roman rule. And for all their expectations, they missed the salvation right in front of them. They had constructed timelines and scenarios in their heads, with as much Roman blood running in the streets as anything Tim LaHaye and company can conjure up – which accomplished exactly nothing. Their writings are unknown today except to scholars of obscure ancient manuscripts – they’re not in our Bible. And there are excellent reasons for that. And – I’m going a bit further out on a limb than I normally do – but I’m confident that the speculations of Brother Camping and Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye and all such will be every bit as unhelpful in preparing for the second coming, as the apocalyptic speculation of Jesus’ day was in preparing for the coming of the Christ child. Those in New Testament times who thought they had God’s plans all figured out in advance, were blindsided by the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Those of our day who think they have God’s plans all figured out, will be caught equally flatfooted, misled by the imaginings of their own minds.
For Jesus commanded his disciples, not to tinker with timelines and speculate about scenarios – but rather, to be live every day as faithful disciples. The Bible is a collection of many books, and contains many different types or genres of literature – national history, poetry, proverbs, parables, prophetic discourse. We believe all the books of the Bible are divinely inspired, all inspired by God, but the various genres are divinely inspired in a variety of contexts, written under divine inspiration to accomplish a variety of purposes – though the ultimate goal is the salvation of humankind. We know from our own experience that in our day, writing for one purpose is very different from writing for another – for example, a love letter will look very different from a piece of business correspondence. If you don’t believe me, try drawing hearts and flowers and “xoxo” hugs and kisses around the margins of your next letter to the IRS, start it out with the words, “My dearest huggiebear,” and see what response you get. Or try sending a Valentine's Day Card to a spouse or loved one that begins with these words, “Dear Sir or Madam: I have received no response to my letter of November 15. Unless your reply is received by November 29, I will have no choice but to allow our marriage/relationship to go into receivership.” Different types of writing sound….different.
The name of one of the genres of writing in the Bible, the type in our Gospel today, is called apocalyptic writing. The word “apocalypse” means “unveiling of something that is hidden.” The purpose of apocalyptic discourse is to sustain believers in hard times, by saying that, while our daily lives, the reality right in front of us is difficult, God is working behind the scenes – working behind the veil, in a hidden way - to bring about our salvation. Apocalyptic discourse gives the readers inside information on what God is doing so we don’t give up on our faith when God’s salvation is so near. And so we read of wars and rumors of wars, spectacular events in the heavens, persecution and betrayal of believers – but apocalyptic discourse leads its readers to interpret these horrors, not as a sign that they are abandoned by God, but rather as a sign that God’s rescue of the faithful – God’s salvation - is very near, on the way. The message is something like what we see in Western movies: don’t give up the fort, the cavalry is about to come riding over the hill to rescue us. In the Bible, other major examples of apocalyptic discourse are the book of Daniel – written during the exile in Babylon - and, of course, the book of Revelation, which was written during the horrors of Roman persecution of Christians. And there are passages of apocalyptic writing in the Gospels, such as today’s reading, and in some of Paul’s letters. They often contain graphic, direly threatening imagery, but they are written with the intent to produce, not horror, but, as odd as it seems to us..…..hope. Because God’s salvation is on its way. Don’t give up the fort; the cavalry is on the way, just over the hill. Don’t be caught sleeping; look up; for your salvation draws nigh.
The Talmud tells its readers that one is to repent one day before you die. The point of that saying is, we don’t know in advance on what day we will die – and so we are to repent each day, to live each day as if tomorrow were our last day, with joy and excitement, making every moment count, or, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, “making the most of the time, for the days are evil”. And writings such as today’s Gospel reading and today’s reading from Romans come from a slightly different direction to make the same point – we don’t know the day or the hour, the Messiah could come at any time – could come tomorrow or next week, for all we know – so the disciples and the early church are to live each day as if tomorrow were their last day, to make the most of every moment, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and working for the good of their neighbors. Because no matter how difficult or depressing our daily lives may be, God is busily working behind the scenes – and sometimes in right in front of us - for our salvation.
Indeed, all the speculation and guesswork about the day and hour on which Jesus will come again, misses the point that Jesus is right here, right now, in our midst. It’s like people standing around looking up at the sky awaiting a sign, while Jesus is right in front of them shouting and waving – hello! - and trying to get their attention. For one example, we remember that Jesus said that wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he’ll be in their midst – words that keep me going on some of our low-attendance Sundays here at Emanuel. In the context of today’s reading, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse is followed, not by a Rapture Index website address or an advertisement for a Left Behind video game, but by parables about wise and foolish bridesmaids, about faithful and wicked servants. And these parables, in turn, are followed by Jesus’ words that, when he comes in his glory and all the angels with him, all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, with the sheep on his right hand and the goats at his left. You know the parable: Jesus will tell those at his right hand, come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a stranger, and you welcomed me, naked, and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you visited me….for just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” So, if you’d like to meet Jesus, hang out some Tuesday at the food cupboard. After all, in Matthew 25 he said he’d be there. Just saying….
The point of the “anticipation” in that long-ago Heinz ketchup commercial was that because Heinz ketchup was so thick and rich with flavor, it was worth the wait, worth waiting for with anticipation. In the same way, we are to live in daily anticipation of Christ’s return, to live each day as if Jesus will return tomorrow. The reward will be worth the long wait. That’s God’s promise. Amen.
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Please join us on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Held Together
(Scriptures: Jeremiah 23:1-6
Colossians 1:11-20 Luke 23:33-43)
Today, liturgical churches such as our own celebrate Christ the King Sunday, or in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. This designation is made for the final Sunday of the church year. As often happens, the church calendar and the secular calendar are out of sync: while the rest of the world celebrates a long Thanksgiving weekend, the church begins a new liturgical year. At the same time, while the rest of the world will already start celebrating Christmas on black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving which is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, we will be celebrating four Sundays of Advent, four Sundays of waiting and preparation. For myself, I find the disconnects between the church calendar and the secular calendar a small, but helpful reminder that we, as church, are not called to just go along with whatever the world is doing. Rather we are called to give voice to a different way of living, to model an alternative way of being in the world. And this includes a different way of experiencing time.
On this Christ the King Sunday, we are given several different ways to look at Christ’s reign. Our reading from Jeremiah contrasts the unfaithful religious leaders of the time, whom Jeremiah compares to bad shepherds who neglect their sheep and leave them to their own devices, with the one whom Jeremiah says is coming, the righteous Branch whom God will raise up from David’s line, who will be king and govern faithfully, and gather together the sheep who have been scattered.
In the letter to the Colossians, Paul gives us a cosmic view of Christ: the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for whom and through whom all things in heaven and on earth, all things visible and invisible have been created, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers. Paul tells us that Christ is the one who holds all of creation together, as well as the one through whom we are reconciled to God.
And then we have our Gospel reading. Could two pictures of Jesus look more different, be at more of a contrast? In Colossians, Paul tells us that Christ holds everything in heaven and earth together. In our Gospel reading, we’re at the mountain of crucifixion, and seemingly everything is falling apart, coming undone. Jesus, this one whom Paul calls the firstborn of creation, is nailed to a cross, seemingly unable to rescue himself, let alone anyone else. Of course, we read the account from the vantage point of our faith, but consider how it would look if we were there as onlookers. Who’s running this show?- Seemingly anyone but Jesus The religious leaders mock Jesus – he saved others – or so he represented – why will he not save himself, if he’s able? The Roman soldiers offer sour wine and, taking their cue from the inscription over Jesus’ head, mock him – “If you’re king of the Jews, save yourself!” And the people stand by powerless and silent. The religious establishment had its agenda, and Rome had its agenda – and maintenance of the status quo was the goal of both agendas. Jesus seemed to threaten the status quo, and so he had to be gotten out of the way.
But Luke’s Gospel gives us subtle reminders of who’s really in charge. Jesus asked for God’s forgiveness of those who had just crucified him – “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus offered forgiveness to the penitent thief – “today you will be with me in Paradise.” Even on the cross, Jesus is reaching out to offer salvation to those around him. Even on the cross, Jesus is acting as the good shepherd, gathering together and holding together anyone who will listen – even if it’s only the criminal on the cross next to him.
Appearances can be deceiving. In a moment when it appears Jesus is a helpless victim of others’ agendas, we find that He is very much in control. What appears to be the unraveling of Jesus’ hopes in reality becomes Jesus’ greatest triumph. And as I consider the chaos in my own life and how so much in our society appears to be unraveling, as I consider the challenges faced by our neighborhood and the struggles of our congregation, I take immense comfort in knowing that, despite all appearances to the contrary, Jesus is in control.
Remember that, as I began this sermon, I contrasted the world’s calendar with the church’s calendar, saying that the world and the church experience time differently. The same can be said of the way the world exercises power, and how God exercises power; how the world tries to bring about peace, and how God brings about peace. When the world wants to impose power, it gives orders, sets up people to enforce those orders and establishes punishments when those orders are disobeyed. But the power of God is made perfect in human weakness – rather than coming down from above like a hammer, it springs up from below, like wheat growing from seed. When the world wants to bring about peace, it sends an army. When God wants to bring about peace, God sends a baby.
The world worships power that acts quickly through force. But God offers power that works slowly, through love.
You don’t need me to tell you that we live in difficult days. We live amid global political and economic uncertainty, amid division about the future direction of our own country, amid widespread unemployment and poverty. Along with these “big” global and national issues, we struggle with the more ordinary challenges and tragedies that life offers – the illness or death of a loved one, loss of a job, the breakup of a family or relationship. It’s only human to wonder where God is in all of this, to wonder if anyone is in charge. But our Gospel reading reminds us that we serve a King who has experienced the worst that human life has to offer, and came out on the other side triumphant. Where is God in our suffering? – standing right beside us.
From Paul’s letter to the Colossians:
11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. May we at Emanuel Church be strong to endure whatever lies ahead. Amen.
*************
Please join us on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Colossians 1:11-20 Luke 23:33-43)
Today, liturgical churches such as our own celebrate Christ the King Sunday, or in inclusive language, Reign of Christ Sunday. This designation is made for the final Sunday of the church year. As often happens, the church calendar and the secular calendar are out of sync: while the rest of the world celebrates a long Thanksgiving weekend, the church begins a new liturgical year. At the same time, while the rest of the world will already start celebrating Christmas on black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving which is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, we will be celebrating four Sundays of Advent, four Sundays of waiting and preparation. For myself, I find the disconnects between the church calendar and the secular calendar a small, but helpful reminder that we, as church, are not called to just go along with whatever the world is doing. Rather we are called to give voice to a different way of living, to model an alternative way of being in the world. And this includes a different way of experiencing time.
On this Christ the King Sunday, we are given several different ways to look at Christ’s reign. Our reading from Jeremiah contrasts the unfaithful religious leaders of the time, whom Jeremiah compares to bad shepherds who neglect their sheep and leave them to their own devices, with the one whom Jeremiah says is coming, the righteous Branch whom God will raise up from David’s line, who will be king and govern faithfully, and gather together the sheep who have been scattered.
In the letter to the Colossians, Paul gives us a cosmic view of Christ: the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for whom and through whom all things in heaven and on earth, all things visible and invisible have been created, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers. Paul tells us that Christ is the one who holds all of creation together, as well as the one through whom we are reconciled to God.
And then we have our Gospel reading. Could two pictures of Jesus look more different, be at more of a contrast? In Colossians, Paul tells us that Christ holds everything in heaven and earth together. In our Gospel reading, we’re at the mountain of crucifixion, and seemingly everything is falling apart, coming undone. Jesus, this one whom Paul calls the firstborn of creation, is nailed to a cross, seemingly unable to rescue himself, let alone anyone else. Of course, we read the account from the vantage point of our faith, but consider how it would look if we were there as onlookers. Who’s running this show?- Seemingly anyone but Jesus The religious leaders mock Jesus – he saved others – or so he represented – why will he not save himself, if he’s able? The Roman soldiers offer sour wine and, taking their cue from the inscription over Jesus’ head, mock him – “If you’re king of the Jews, save yourself!” And the people stand by powerless and silent. The religious establishment had its agenda, and Rome had its agenda – and maintenance of the status quo was the goal of both agendas. Jesus seemed to threaten the status quo, and so he had to be gotten out of the way.
But Luke’s Gospel gives us subtle reminders of who’s really in charge. Jesus asked for God’s forgiveness of those who had just crucified him – “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus offered forgiveness to the penitent thief – “today you will be with me in Paradise.” Even on the cross, Jesus is reaching out to offer salvation to those around him. Even on the cross, Jesus is acting as the good shepherd, gathering together and holding together anyone who will listen – even if it’s only the criminal on the cross next to him.
Appearances can be deceiving. In a moment when it appears Jesus is a helpless victim of others’ agendas, we find that He is very much in control. What appears to be the unraveling of Jesus’ hopes in reality becomes Jesus’ greatest triumph. And as I consider the chaos in my own life and how so much in our society appears to be unraveling, as I consider the challenges faced by our neighborhood and the struggles of our congregation, I take immense comfort in knowing that, despite all appearances to the contrary, Jesus is in control.
Remember that, as I began this sermon, I contrasted the world’s calendar with the church’s calendar, saying that the world and the church experience time differently. The same can be said of the way the world exercises power, and how God exercises power; how the world tries to bring about peace, and how God brings about peace. When the world wants to impose power, it gives orders, sets up people to enforce those orders and establishes punishments when those orders are disobeyed. But the power of God is made perfect in human weakness – rather than coming down from above like a hammer, it springs up from below, like wheat growing from seed. When the world wants to bring about peace, it sends an army. When God wants to bring about peace, God sends a baby.
The world worships power that acts quickly through force. But God offers power that works slowly, through love.
You don’t need me to tell you that we live in difficult days. We live amid global political and economic uncertainty, amid division about the future direction of our own country, amid widespread unemployment and poverty. Along with these “big” global and national issues, we struggle with the more ordinary challenges and tragedies that life offers – the illness or death of a loved one, loss of a job, the breakup of a family or relationship. It’s only human to wonder where God is in all of this, to wonder if anyone is in charge. But our Gospel reading reminds us that we serve a King who has experienced the worst that human life has to offer, and came out on the other side triumphant. Where is God in our suffering? – standing right beside us.
From Paul’s letter to the Colossians:
11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. May we at Emanuel Church be strong to endure whatever lies ahead. Amen.
*************
Please join us on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Give Thanks
(Scriptures: Isaiah 65:17-25, 2 Corinthians 9:6-12
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:1-19)
This morning I’m doing something I think I only did once before at Emanuel, two years ago or so around this time of the year – to lift up the Biblical concept of stewardship. Generally when pastors mention stewardship, the folks in the pews roll their eyes and sigh and mutter to themselves, “it’s the money sermon.” In fact, I’d invite you to look at the Calendar of Prayer from the national UCC – there’s a quiz on stewardship that’s actually pretty funny. But this morning, I invite us to look at the Biblical concept of stewardship in a broader sense, in terms of being thankful for all that God has given us, and considering how we make use of what God has given us.
Our hymns this morning link the themes of harvest and thanksgiving. It may seem a tad bit early to think of Thanksgiving Day, but it’ll be here before we know it. Next Sunday we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the church year. And the Sunday after that – the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend – is also the first Sunday in Advent. So as we consider one church year ending and another beginning, Christ as King and Christ coming in the form of a little babe, it seems appropriate to pause for a moment to give thanks for God’s blessings over the past year. I don’t know whether Emanuel Church once had a tradition of celebrating Harvest Home, but years ago it was a widespread tradition in the country church where I grew up, and in many of the surrounding churches. The altar guild would arrange at the front of the church a cornucopia of pumpkins and gourds and potatoes and yams and corn and wheat and all manner of other fruits and vegetables and grain representing the harvest from the surrounding farms. And we’d sing the hymn we sang this morning – “Come, ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home.” I remember how the sopranos used to wail away on the descant on the last verse, nearly drowning out the rest of the congregation. Whether it had been a good harvest or a poor one, we were grateful to God for giving us food to get through the coming harsh winter months. And there was also a theme of – at least symbolically, through the display of the altar guild – bringing a portion of the harvest into church and dedicating it to God.
Here in Bridesburg we’re far removed from the rural surroundings of my childhood – the closest I come these days is the occasional roadside stand or farmer’s market – but I think we can all point to ways in which God has blessed us. In today’s economy, if we have a job, even one we may not always be in love with, we can give thanks for the opportunity to earn a living. Our members have a variety of family configurations, but whatever our families look like, or whether we count our circle of friends as a “family of choice” to compensate for estrangement from family of origin, we can give thanks to God for putting people in our lives who care for us and love us. And if nothing else, each one of us is given the same 24 hours each day – 24 hours over which we are stewards each and every day of our lives. We can spend those 24 hours working, or worshipping, or loving, or hating, or helping or abusing those around us, or sitting on the sofa and eating chocolate-covered cherries, or sleeping, or any combination of the above. And for the gift of time, for the gift of another day of life, we can all give thanks.
In the time of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and the entry into the promised land, God commanded that a tithe – one tenth – of everything be given to the Lord. For example, Leviticus 27:32 “all tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord.” Of course, then as now, while it’s more blessed to give, it’s a whole lot easier to keep, and so prophets through the ages lifted up the importance of giving to the work of God. Haggai, from whose writings we read last week, chastised those who returned from exile in Babylon for being eager to rebuild their own homes, while the site of the Temple in Jerusalem lay in ruins. He told them that the drought and poor harvests they experienced were God’s response to their neglect of the Lord’s house, and that prosperity would return when the people made rebuilding the Temple their top priority. The prophet Malachi sounds a similar note of warning: “Will a man rob God?” Malachi writes. He goes on: “But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” Earlier in his writings, Malachi reproached the people for bringing lame or maimed animals to sacrifice, even animals that had died – road kill, we’d say – rather than the best of their flocks. (Many TV preachers have enriched themselves by twisting and misusing Haggai’s and Malachi’s words, but that doesn’t make their words any less true.)
The New Testament isn’t as specific, but it still underscores the need for giving. Our reading from 2 Corinthians 9 was Paul’s writings, in the context of taking up a collection from the Gentile churches to help the struggling Christian church in Jerusalem. He frames it in terms of sowing and reaping – those who sow sparingly will reap sparingly; those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully. He’s very careful not to try to guilt trip the believers into giving, but rather to encourage them to give in joy. Which again leads back to why churches use the word “stewardship” – it’s a recognition that we are not owners, but rather stewards or managers, of what we have – that our time, talent, and treasure - are not our own, but rather gifts on loan to us from a gracious God – gifts that we are to manage wisely, to use wisely to help others, not to hoard all to ourselves or squander recklessly. Our giving is to be part of the fabric of our whole lives, lives of love for God and neighbor – and Jesus famously chastised those who were careful to tithe one tenth of every little vegetable in their garden on the Sabbath, while oppressing and bullying everyone around them the other six days of the week. And, of course, in our Gospel reading for this morning we have Jesus’ words about the poor widow who gave more than everyone else, for everyone else gave out of their abundance – gave God what was left over – while the widow gave all she had. She knew that all she had, little as it was, was a gift from God, and she trusted God enough to be willing to return that gift to God to help others.
Our reading from 2 Thessalonians and latter part of our reading from Luke’s gospel point to something that may affect our giving, for good or for ill. Both have to do with anticipation of the final coming of the Reign of God. In 2 Thessalonians, some of the believers mistakenly believe that God’s reign had already come, that they were already in Paradise – and in Paradise, there’s no need to work. They could just hang out and take it easy. And apparently some of them were running around in a misguided way, trying to convince others to do the same. Paul pulls them up short, telling them to get back to work, to get back to living lives that contributed to the good of those around them. Again, Paul’s words have been misused: Paul did not say, “if a man or woman cannot work, neither shall they eat” or “if a man or woman cannot find work, neither shall they eat.” He wasn’t referring to those who by reason of disability or misfortune could not work, but only to those who were perfectly able of body and mind, but would not work, who refused to work. These are the people he calls to be good stewards of the gifts God gave them, to return to working and contributing to the greater good.
Meanwhile, in Luke’s gospel, the disciples are admiring the beauty of the temple – to which the poor widow had just contributed – when Jesus pull them up short by telling them that the time would soon be coming when it would all be gone, not one stone left upon another. The disciples, understandably shaken, ask Jesus when this would be. Jesus begins his response by telling them not to be led astray by those who falsely claim to be the Messiah and falsely claim that “the end is near.” He tells them of coming wars and insurrections, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, of great earthquakes and strange things in the sky. But at the same time, he tells them, “do not be terrified.” He tells them of the cost of discipleship, the potential for betrayal by family and friends, of arrest. But at the same time, Jesus tells them to use these trials as an opportunity to witness to the faith. What others intend for evil, Jesus urges them to use for good, for the sake of the gospel. He closes by saying, “by your endurance you will gain your souls.” Again, the message from Jesus is not to panic, not to run after every religious crank and pious fraud who promises salvation and a short-cut to paradise – but rather to endure, to keep on keeping on, to keep on being faithful stewards of the time, talent, and treasure that God has given us.
Politicians during the last election cycle, as during every election cycle, told us all sorts of things about what they supposedly stand for: God, country, freedom, mother, apple pie, Chevrolet, whatever. We’ll soon find out what they really stand for after they take office and begin making decisions about how our city, our state, our national government spend our tax dollars. For example, it’s easy to for a politician to say that he or she supports the troops and cares about veterans’ issues, but if he or she is content to send underpaid soldiers into battle with shoddy, cut-rate equipment and to let VA hospitals fall into disrepair and other veterans services go begging, we may have cause to question that politician’s sincerity, no matter how many stickers and magnets saying “support our troops” are on the politician’s car. But the same holds true for us: we can tell ourselves, and those around us, all sorts of things about what matters to us. But as Jesus told his listeners: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Your household budget, and mine, tell a lot about what really matters to us. Your calendar, and my calendar, tell a lot about what really matters to us. As Christians, we say that Jesus is Lord, not just of Sunday mornings between 10 a.m. and noon, but of our lives – all of our lives, including what we do on Sunday afternoon and evening and on the other six days of the week. If Jesus gets first dibs on our paycheck and top billing on our calendar, our budgets and our calendars and our lives will reflect that. If we’re content to give Jesus table scraps – what’s left of our time and money after we’ve done everything else we wanted to do, our lives will reflect that as well.
I began this morning by referring to the holiday rapidly coming up, Thanksgiving. While our national Thanksgiving holiday comes only once a year, we can give thanks to God every day by being faithful stewards of what God has given us. To borrow the title of a sermon a few years ago from the pastor of our neighboring Bridesburg Presbyterian church, faithful stewardship is not only thanksgiving, but thanks-living – living a life of thanks to God.
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. May we at Emanuel Church share in God’s abundance, and may we share that abundance with our neighbors here in Bridesburg. Amen.
************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:1-19)
This morning I’m doing something I think I only did once before at Emanuel, two years ago or so around this time of the year – to lift up the Biblical concept of stewardship. Generally when pastors mention stewardship, the folks in the pews roll their eyes and sigh and mutter to themselves, “it’s the money sermon.” In fact, I’d invite you to look at the Calendar of Prayer from the national UCC – there’s a quiz on stewardship that’s actually pretty funny. But this morning, I invite us to look at the Biblical concept of stewardship in a broader sense, in terms of being thankful for all that God has given us, and considering how we make use of what God has given us.
Our hymns this morning link the themes of harvest and thanksgiving. It may seem a tad bit early to think of Thanksgiving Day, but it’ll be here before we know it. Next Sunday we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the church year. And the Sunday after that – the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend – is also the first Sunday in Advent. So as we consider one church year ending and another beginning, Christ as King and Christ coming in the form of a little babe, it seems appropriate to pause for a moment to give thanks for God’s blessings over the past year. I don’t know whether Emanuel Church once had a tradition of celebrating Harvest Home, but years ago it was a widespread tradition in the country church where I grew up, and in many of the surrounding churches. The altar guild would arrange at the front of the church a cornucopia of pumpkins and gourds and potatoes and yams and corn and wheat and all manner of other fruits and vegetables and grain representing the harvest from the surrounding farms. And we’d sing the hymn we sang this morning – “Come, ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home.” I remember how the sopranos used to wail away on the descant on the last verse, nearly drowning out the rest of the congregation. Whether it had been a good harvest or a poor one, we were grateful to God for giving us food to get through the coming harsh winter months. And there was also a theme of – at least symbolically, through the display of the altar guild – bringing a portion of the harvest into church and dedicating it to God.
Here in Bridesburg we’re far removed from the rural surroundings of my childhood – the closest I come these days is the occasional roadside stand or farmer’s market – but I think we can all point to ways in which God has blessed us. In today’s economy, if we have a job, even one we may not always be in love with, we can give thanks for the opportunity to earn a living. Our members have a variety of family configurations, but whatever our families look like, or whether we count our circle of friends as a “family of choice” to compensate for estrangement from family of origin, we can give thanks to God for putting people in our lives who care for us and love us. And if nothing else, each one of us is given the same 24 hours each day – 24 hours over which we are stewards each and every day of our lives. We can spend those 24 hours working, or worshipping, or loving, or hating, or helping or abusing those around us, or sitting on the sofa and eating chocolate-covered cherries, or sleeping, or any combination of the above. And for the gift of time, for the gift of another day of life, we can all give thanks.
In the time of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and the entry into the promised land, God commanded that a tithe – one tenth – of everything be given to the Lord. For example, Leviticus 27:32 “all tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord.” Of course, then as now, while it’s more blessed to give, it’s a whole lot easier to keep, and so prophets through the ages lifted up the importance of giving to the work of God. Haggai, from whose writings we read last week, chastised those who returned from exile in Babylon for being eager to rebuild their own homes, while the site of the Temple in Jerusalem lay in ruins. He told them that the drought and poor harvests they experienced were God’s response to their neglect of the Lord’s house, and that prosperity would return when the people made rebuilding the Temple their top priority. The prophet Malachi sounds a similar note of warning: “Will a man rob God?” Malachi writes. He goes on: “But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” Earlier in his writings, Malachi reproached the people for bringing lame or maimed animals to sacrifice, even animals that had died – road kill, we’d say – rather than the best of their flocks. (Many TV preachers have enriched themselves by twisting and misusing Haggai’s and Malachi’s words, but that doesn’t make their words any less true.)
The New Testament isn’t as specific, but it still underscores the need for giving. Our reading from 2 Corinthians 9 was Paul’s writings, in the context of taking up a collection from the Gentile churches to help the struggling Christian church in Jerusalem. He frames it in terms of sowing and reaping – those who sow sparingly will reap sparingly; those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully. He’s very careful not to try to guilt trip the believers into giving, but rather to encourage them to give in joy. Which again leads back to why churches use the word “stewardship” – it’s a recognition that we are not owners, but rather stewards or managers, of what we have – that our time, talent, and treasure - are not our own, but rather gifts on loan to us from a gracious God – gifts that we are to manage wisely, to use wisely to help others, not to hoard all to ourselves or squander recklessly. Our giving is to be part of the fabric of our whole lives, lives of love for God and neighbor – and Jesus famously chastised those who were careful to tithe one tenth of every little vegetable in their garden on the Sabbath, while oppressing and bullying everyone around them the other six days of the week. And, of course, in our Gospel reading for this morning we have Jesus’ words about the poor widow who gave more than everyone else, for everyone else gave out of their abundance – gave God what was left over – while the widow gave all she had. She knew that all she had, little as it was, was a gift from God, and she trusted God enough to be willing to return that gift to God to help others.
Our reading from 2 Thessalonians and latter part of our reading from Luke’s gospel point to something that may affect our giving, for good or for ill. Both have to do with anticipation of the final coming of the Reign of God. In 2 Thessalonians, some of the believers mistakenly believe that God’s reign had already come, that they were already in Paradise – and in Paradise, there’s no need to work. They could just hang out and take it easy. And apparently some of them were running around in a misguided way, trying to convince others to do the same. Paul pulls them up short, telling them to get back to work, to get back to living lives that contributed to the good of those around them. Again, Paul’s words have been misused: Paul did not say, “if a man or woman cannot work, neither shall they eat” or “if a man or woman cannot find work, neither shall they eat.” He wasn’t referring to those who by reason of disability or misfortune could not work, but only to those who were perfectly able of body and mind, but would not work, who refused to work. These are the people he calls to be good stewards of the gifts God gave them, to return to working and contributing to the greater good.
Meanwhile, in Luke’s gospel, the disciples are admiring the beauty of the temple – to which the poor widow had just contributed – when Jesus pull them up short by telling them that the time would soon be coming when it would all be gone, not one stone left upon another. The disciples, understandably shaken, ask Jesus when this would be. Jesus begins his response by telling them not to be led astray by those who falsely claim to be the Messiah and falsely claim that “the end is near.” He tells them of coming wars and insurrections, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, of great earthquakes and strange things in the sky. But at the same time, he tells them, “do not be terrified.” He tells them of the cost of discipleship, the potential for betrayal by family and friends, of arrest. But at the same time, Jesus tells them to use these trials as an opportunity to witness to the faith. What others intend for evil, Jesus urges them to use for good, for the sake of the gospel. He closes by saying, “by your endurance you will gain your souls.” Again, the message from Jesus is not to panic, not to run after every religious crank and pious fraud who promises salvation and a short-cut to paradise – but rather to endure, to keep on keeping on, to keep on being faithful stewards of the time, talent, and treasure that God has given us.
Politicians during the last election cycle, as during every election cycle, told us all sorts of things about what they supposedly stand for: God, country, freedom, mother, apple pie, Chevrolet, whatever. We’ll soon find out what they really stand for after they take office and begin making decisions about how our city, our state, our national government spend our tax dollars. For example, it’s easy to for a politician to say that he or she supports the troops and cares about veterans’ issues, but if he or she is content to send underpaid soldiers into battle with shoddy, cut-rate equipment and to let VA hospitals fall into disrepair and other veterans services go begging, we may have cause to question that politician’s sincerity, no matter how many stickers and magnets saying “support our troops” are on the politician’s car. But the same holds true for us: we can tell ourselves, and those around us, all sorts of things about what matters to us. But as Jesus told his listeners: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Your household budget, and mine, tell a lot about what really matters to us. Your calendar, and my calendar, tell a lot about what really matters to us. As Christians, we say that Jesus is Lord, not just of Sunday mornings between 10 a.m. and noon, but of our lives – all of our lives, including what we do on Sunday afternoon and evening and on the other six days of the week. If Jesus gets first dibs on our paycheck and top billing on our calendar, our budgets and our calendars and our lives will reflect that. If we’re content to give Jesus table scraps – what’s left of our time and money after we’ve done everything else we wanted to do, our lives will reflect that as well.
I began this morning by referring to the holiday rapidly coming up, Thanksgiving. While our national Thanksgiving holiday comes only once a year, we can give thanks to God every day by being faithful stewards of what God has given us. To borrow the title of a sermon a few years ago from the pastor of our neighboring Bridesburg Presbyterian church, faithful stewardship is not only thanksgiving, but thanks-living – living a life of thanks to God.
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. May we at Emanuel Church share in God’s abundance, and may we share that abundance with our neighbors here in Bridesburg. Amen.
************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
All Saints
(Scriptures: Haggai 1:15b-2:9
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38)
Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday, also known in historically German churches like Emanuel UCC as Tottenfest, or. In the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, there are many days set aside for specific saints – of course, we know St. Patrick’s Day as March 17. For some other examples, St John the Evangelist’s Day is December 27, and St John the Baptist’s Day is June 24. But November 1 is designated as All Saints Day or All Souls Day, when we remember all the unknown saints, all those believers who have gone before us, including departed family members and friends and church members. We give thanks for their lives, give thanks for those whose faith in Jesus Christ has shaped and strengthened our own.
It’s also a day when we ponder those most basic questions of our faith – what happens to those who die? Where do they go? Do they experience joy? Will we see them again? Will they recognize us and remember us?
It was to these questions that Jesus spoke in our Gospel lesson today. Jesus was being challenged by the Sadducees, the wealthy, aristocratic leaders who controlled the Temple priesthood with its system of sacrifices. The Sadducees could be considered the fundamentalists of their time – they considered only the written Torah, especially the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers – as authoritative. The Sadducees rejected the oral “tradition of the elders” that had built up over time to guide Jews in applying the written word to a changing society. Based on their interpretation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, they rejected the idea of an afterlife. Since they thought death was the end of human life, they concentrated their efforts on keeping the peace with Rome so that the Temple system of sacrifices could be continued undisturbed.
And so, in the typical manner of theological argumentation, they presented Jesus with a situation which they supposed made the idea of an afterlife absurd: a woman married a man, who had six brothers – so there were seven brothers in all. Her first husband died without fathering a child. Under the institution of Levirite marriage, under this circumstance, the wife was supposed to marry the late husband’s brother, assuming the brother wasn’t already married. The first child coming out of the wife’s union with the brother would be reckoned as the child of the deceased husband, thereby ensuring that his family line continued. So in the absurd example proposed by the Sadducees, the woman would up marrying all seven of the brothers without producing a child, after which she died. In the resurrection, whose wife was she. The Sadducees asked their question, not in a spirit of seeking fresh understanding, but rather they were trying to trip Jesus up, to put him into a theological box and make him look foolish.
But Jesus does not allow himself to be boxed in by their ridiculous example. The Sadducees proposed their question, assuming that Jesus’ conception of the resurrection was a continuation of life in its present form. But Jesus rejects that assumption. Jesus responds that, while life continues beyond death, our human institutions do not – the people of this age marry and are given in marriage, but it is not so in the resurrection.” But then Jesus goes on to turn the Sadducees’ trick question into a teaching moment: he affirms that since God out of the burning bush told Moses that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that since God is the God of the living, therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to God are….alive – for to God, all are alive. As are our departed family members, friends, church members – our saints.
God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. A dangerous text to preach in a church that’s surrounded on two sides by a cemetery, the maintenance of which has been a primary mission of our congregation in recent years. But nonetheless, the text stands – God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. The memorials of our loved ones are in the cemetery outside our window. But to God our loved ones are not headstones and memorial markers, but are alive, beloved of God, enjoying God’s presence. They are the cloud of witnesses spoken of in the book of Hebrews: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” The language of the text puts me in mind of a racetrack, on which we are all running a race, which represents our earthly life. Up in the stands, cheering us on, are all our departed loved ones who died in the faith – mom and dad and grandma and grandpa, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, all those who have gone on before us, cheering us on in our life’s journey. We feebly struggle; they in glory shine.
God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. So our church is not called to be a funeral parlor, a place weighed down by death. Rather we are called to be a place bursting with life – the new life of the Spirit, abundant life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come. In this world we suffer all the infirmities of the flesh – illness, weakness, temptation, exhaustion. But in the world to come, we will have glorious, resurrection bodies, as different from our own as an oak tree is from an acorn – in the words of our hymn, “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” In this world we miscommunicate; we keep secrets and hold grudges; as a result we suffer loneliness, alienation. But in the world to come we will all be in God’s presence, surrounded and embraced and enfolded in God’s love and the love of those who have gone before us, and God will wipe away every tear. In this world we see through a glass, dimly; in the world to come we will see everything in full, even as we ourselves will be fully known.
So our saints shine in glory…but we still feebly struggle. We still run our race, still pursue our journey through life, keeping our eyes on Jesus. May we draw encouragement from these words of the Apostle Paul, written to the church at Thessalonica: But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.”
May it be so with us. Amen.
**************************************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38)
Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday, also known in historically German churches like Emanuel UCC as Tottenfest, or. In the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, there are many days set aside for specific saints – of course, we know St. Patrick’s Day as March 17. For some other examples, St John the Evangelist’s Day is December 27, and St John the Baptist’s Day is June 24. But November 1 is designated as All Saints Day or All Souls Day, when we remember all the unknown saints, all those believers who have gone before us, including departed family members and friends and church members. We give thanks for their lives, give thanks for those whose faith in Jesus Christ has shaped and strengthened our own.
It’s also a day when we ponder those most basic questions of our faith – what happens to those who die? Where do they go? Do they experience joy? Will we see them again? Will they recognize us and remember us?
It was to these questions that Jesus spoke in our Gospel lesson today. Jesus was being challenged by the Sadducees, the wealthy, aristocratic leaders who controlled the Temple priesthood with its system of sacrifices. The Sadducees could be considered the fundamentalists of their time – they considered only the written Torah, especially the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers – as authoritative. The Sadducees rejected the oral “tradition of the elders” that had built up over time to guide Jews in applying the written word to a changing society. Based on their interpretation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, they rejected the idea of an afterlife. Since they thought death was the end of human life, they concentrated their efforts on keeping the peace with Rome so that the Temple system of sacrifices could be continued undisturbed.
And so, in the typical manner of theological argumentation, they presented Jesus with a situation which they supposed made the idea of an afterlife absurd: a woman married a man, who had six brothers – so there were seven brothers in all. Her first husband died without fathering a child. Under the institution of Levirite marriage, under this circumstance, the wife was supposed to marry the late husband’s brother, assuming the brother wasn’t already married. The first child coming out of the wife’s union with the brother would be reckoned as the child of the deceased husband, thereby ensuring that his family line continued. So in the absurd example proposed by the Sadducees, the woman would up marrying all seven of the brothers without producing a child, after which she died. In the resurrection, whose wife was she. The Sadducees asked their question, not in a spirit of seeking fresh understanding, but rather they were trying to trip Jesus up, to put him into a theological box and make him look foolish.
But Jesus does not allow himself to be boxed in by their ridiculous example. The Sadducees proposed their question, assuming that Jesus’ conception of the resurrection was a continuation of life in its present form. But Jesus rejects that assumption. Jesus responds that, while life continues beyond death, our human institutions do not – the people of this age marry and are given in marriage, but it is not so in the resurrection.” But then Jesus goes on to turn the Sadducees’ trick question into a teaching moment: he affirms that since God out of the burning bush told Moses that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that since God is the God of the living, therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to God are….alive – for to God, all are alive. As are our departed family members, friends, church members – our saints.
God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. A dangerous text to preach in a church that’s surrounded on two sides by a cemetery, the maintenance of which has been a primary mission of our congregation in recent years. But nonetheless, the text stands – God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. The memorials of our loved ones are in the cemetery outside our window. But to God our loved ones are not headstones and memorial markers, but are alive, beloved of God, enjoying God’s presence. They are the cloud of witnesses spoken of in the book of Hebrews: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” The language of the text puts me in mind of a racetrack, on which we are all running a race, which represents our earthly life. Up in the stands, cheering us on, are all our departed loved ones who died in the faith – mom and dad and grandma and grandpa, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, all those who have gone on before us, cheering us on in our life’s journey. We feebly struggle; they in glory shine.
God is God, not of the dead, but of the living. So our church is not called to be a funeral parlor, a place weighed down by death. Rather we are called to be a place bursting with life – the new life of the Spirit, abundant life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come. In this world we suffer all the infirmities of the flesh – illness, weakness, temptation, exhaustion. But in the world to come, we will have glorious, resurrection bodies, as different from our own as an oak tree is from an acorn – in the words of our hymn, “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” In this world we miscommunicate; we keep secrets and hold grudges; as a result we suffer loneliness, alienation. But in the world to come we will all be in God’s presence, surrounded and embraced and enfolded in God’s love and the love of those who have gone before us, and God will wipe away every tear. In this world we see through a glass, dimly; in the world to come we will see everything in full, even as we ourselves will be fully known.
So our saints shine in glory…but we still feebly struggle. We still run our race, still pursue our journey through life, keeping our eyes on Jesus. May we draw encouragement from these words of the Apostle Paul, written to the church at Thessalonica: But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.”
May it be so with us. Amen.
**************************************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Monday, November 1, 2010
Newsletter Article: Saints and Stewardship
Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Luke 20:27-38
We will celebrate All Saints Day on November 7, the first Sunday in November. It is a day when we remember our saints – departed family members and friends, departed members of Emanuel Church, all those whose lives have helped to shape our lives, those who have departed from this life to be with God as members of the Church Triumphant.
In many churches, November is also a month in which “stewardship” - returning to
God a portion of our time, talent, and treasure – is remembered. It’s a recognition that all we have and all we are is a gift from God. It is a privilege to offer a portion of our time, talent, and treasure to God through the church – not in the spirit of paying yet another bill or fulfilling yet another duty or responding to yet another guilt trip, but instead, with joy, as an expression of our love for God and neighbor flowing from glad and generous hearts. It’s a form of “thanksgiving” we can practice all year ‘round. The Bible prescribes proportionate giving: as we have been blessed, so we can be a blessing to others. The Biblical standard is a tithe – 10% of income is to be given to the church. In a difficult economy, tithing is likely a stretch for most of us, perhaps for all of us, but we can all commit to giving some proportion of our income to support Emanuel Church. This giving is also a way to honor and continue the ministries that our departed members, our Emanuel saints, carried out. As they supported the church in their time, so it is our privilege to support the church in ours.
And finally, November marks the end of one liturgical year and the beginning of another. November 21 is the final Sunday of our church year, and is called “Reign of Christ” or “Christ the King” Sunday in recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord. And November 28 begins a new church year. November 28 is the First Sunday of Advent, that season of preparation for the coming of the Christ Child. In the words of the carol, “Let every heart prepare Him room.”
See you in church!
Pastor Dave
We will celebrate All Saints Day on November 7, the first Sunday in November. It is a day when we remember our saints – departed family members and friends, departed members of Emanuel Church, all those whose lives have helped to shape our lives, those who have departed from this life to be with God as members of the Church Triumphant.
In many churches, November is also a month in which “stewardship” - returning to
God a portion of our time, talent, and treasure – is remembered. It’s a recognition that all we have and all we are is a gift from God. It is a privilege to offer a portion of our time, talent, and treasure to God through the church – not in the spirit of paying yet another bill or fulfilling yet another duty or responding to yet another guilt trip, but instead, with joy, as an expression of our love for God and neighbor flowing from glad and generous hearts. It’s a form of “thanksgiving” we can practice all year ‘round. The Bible prescribes proportionate giving: as we have been blessed, so we can be a blessing to others. The Biblical standard is a tithe – 10% of income is to be given to the church. In a difficult economy, tithing is likely a stretch for most of us, perhaps for all of us, but we can all commit to giving some proportion of our income to support Emanuel Church. This giving is also a way to honor and continue the ministries that our departed members, our Emanuel saints, carried out. As they supported the church in their time, so it is our privilege to support the church in ours.
And finally, November marks the end of one liturgical year and the beginning of another. November 21 is the final Sunday of our church year, and is called “Reign of Christ” or “Christ the King” Sunday in recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord. And November 28 begins a new church year. November 28 is the First Sunday of Advent, that season of preparation for the coming of the Christ Child. In the words of the carol, “Let every heart prepare Him room.”
See you in church!
Pastor Dave
Reformed and Always Reforming
(Scriptures: Isaiah 1:10-18, Psalm 32
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12, Luke 19:1-10)
Maybe you remember the song your Sunday School teacher may have taught you when you were little:
Zacchaeus was a wee little man
A wee little man was he
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see
And as the Saviour passed that way
He looked up in the tree.
And He said, Zacchaeus, you come down.
For I’m going to your house today.
For I’m going to your house today.
Those who knew Zacchaeus – whose name ironically means “clean” or “innocent” - likely wouldn’t have felt any great desire to sing a song about him. He was a tax collector, and not just a tax collector, but the chief tax collector. We remember, of course, that he would have been a Jew who had thrown in with the Romans for the privilege of collecting taxes from his fellow Jews on behalf of Rome – with, of course, the opportunity to collect a little extra – or maybe more than a little extra - for himself. And since Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, he may well have had others under him, who were likewise giving him a cut of their overcollections. What a nice guy! Far from being clean or innocent, the guy was a crook! Zacchaeus would not have won a lot of popularity contests. He’d heard that Jesus was in the neighborhood, and wanted to see Jesus – but he was short, and couldn’t see past the crowds. So he climbed a tree – maybe as much to keep distance from the hostile crowds, as to see Jesus. Jesus saw him and called him to come down out of the tree, for Jesus wanted to stay at his house. Not just wanted; the Greek says “it is necessary that I stay at your house.” So Jesus invited himself to dinner at Zaccheus’ home. The crowd grumbled, but Jesus told the crowd that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house – because despite all his cozying up to Rome, he was still a son of Abraham. And Jesus’ visit to Zacchaeus changed his life. His was not a “pray a little prayer and go on with my life as I ever have” kind of conversion; but one that turned his life upside down, leading him to give up greed in favor of generosity, to give instead of taking, to repay four times as much as he had gained through his dishonesty. The good news of the Gospel had the power to break through even Zacchaeus’ hardened heart, bringing about his reformation.
Today is Reformation Sunday, when Protestant churches lift up a turbulent era of our church’s history. Earlier in the service, we sang hymns written by two prominent reformers, John Calvin, whose theology informs the teaching and practice of the Presbyterian church, and Martin Luther, whose theology lives on in the Lutheran Church. We may remember other names from our Reformed tradition: Ulrich Zwingli, Heidelberg Catechism creators Zacharius Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, and others.
These theologians were active at a time when there was widespread dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church. The sale of indulgences – basically “fast track tickets out of purgatory” that the church sold in order to raise funds – was an abuse in its own right, but in a larger sense was just one symptom of a bigger problem - that of a church hierarchy that, many felt, grew rich by promoting and exploiting the spiritual insecurities of its members, was too quick to throw around its economic and political weight, that in its eagerness to become a political power had seemingly lost its connection with much of its own membership, and had grown distant even from God.
It was a time when many agreed that the church had lost its way, but differed on how the church was to find its way back to the right path, or even where that path was or what it looked like. Luther’s theology emphasized the primacy of the God’s grace over and against what he saw as the works-righteousness promoted by the hierarchy, and the priesthood of all believers, whose right and duty it was to encounter Christ not only in the sacraments, but through individual Bible reading and prayer. Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah likely would have resonated with Luther as he considered the Roman church of his day – “trample my courts no more; I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity…your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me and I am weary of bearing them….cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean….” The religious establishment of Isaiah’s time, and that of Luther’s time, was called upon to, as we would say, clean up its act.
Luther wished to remain in the Roman Catholic church, but was excommunicated – to this day, the Lutheran order of worship bears the strong imprint of the Roman liturgy from which it emerged. Others advocated more radical measures – for example, doing away with the hierarchy in favor of congregational autonomy - and broke with the Roman church. For its part, the Roman Catholic church, while it opposed those who broke from the church, it also eventually came to realize that some of the Reformers’ ideas had merit, that maintaining the status quo was not a viable option. As I said, it was a turbulent period, and men killed and were killed for religious control of territory in Europe. The winners of these wars established their religious practice by means of state-supported churches. And some of these conflicts have dragged on and on and on even into the present day, such as what were called “the troubles” between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, who reached some degree of coexistence through the Belfast “Good Friday” agreement of 1998, only a bit over 10 years ago. Many fled to America, in hope that in a new land, religious differences could be resolved by peaceable means, or at least that those of all religious persuasions could find some space in which to practice their beliefs. Many of the colonies were predominantly of one faith – Maryland was predominantly Catholic; Virginia and the Carolinas, Anglican; New York and New Jersey, Dutch Reformed; the New England colonies, Congregationalist. Under the Quaker William Penn, our state, Pennsylvania, was chartered as a sort of “Holy Experiment” where people of many faiths could find a welcome.
What are we to say about this? For my part, I think it’s hard not to feel some degree of ambiguity. In our reading from 2 Thessalonians, Paul boasted about that church’s endurance of persecution, but I doubt he’d have find much about which to boast regarding Catholic and Protestant churches persecuting one another – though despite these mutual persecutions, the church – “big ‘C’ church”, the universal, worldwide church to which Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox alike belong - has endured, sometimes despite our best efforts to the contrary. Perhaps it is a testimony that, as one of my professors states, we live in a sinful and fallen world, that the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation came to bloodshed, that men killed each other in the name of the love of Christ, and that to this day there is suspicion and misunderstanding between Protestant and Catholic, and even between varying stripes of Protestants. On the other hand, the Good News of Christ was carried all over the world by Protestants and Catholics of all stripes, even by those whose motives can at best be charitably described as mixed. And in recent years there have been some convergences of thought and practice – Catholic and Protestant alike affirm the importance of believers’ participating in both individual Bible reading and prayer as well as worship as the gathered body of Christ; many traditionally Catholic spiritual practices such as lectio divina and the prayer of examen are being rediscovered by Protestants, and Catholic and many Protestant churches alike use the Revised Common Lectionary, reading at least some of the same Biblical texts every Sunday, so that, literally as well as figuratively, we are at least in some ways on the same page.
The Reformation was a time when the Holy Spirit broke into what many saw as a calcified tradition, bringing messiness and disorder and even chaos to be sure, but also new life. As the mothers among us know, childbirth is not a neat, tidy process. Just as Zacchaeus’s life was turned around in his encounter with Jesus, becoming a giver instead of a grabber, the life of the institutional church and of individual believers was turned around, and for many believers, what had been dutiful obedience became a love affair with Jesus.
The Reformation is not a one-time, long-ago era of history, but an ongoing process. The Reformers said that the church was semper reformanda – reformed and always reforming – as individual believers, pastors, congregations, and faith traditions encounter Christ anew in the changing circumstances of the day, and the Scriptures yield new insights, speak in new ways – for God is still speaking, and the church is still reforming.
What will the “reformed and always reforming” church of the future look like? That very question was under consideration at our recent meeting of the Philadelphia Association of the United Church of Christ. The youth of our conference were invited to submit essays about how they saw the church of the future, and I handed out three of those essays – as well as an adult submission – during worship for the congregation's consideration. Many of the essays reflect a degree of youthful exuberance and impatience that, at least for me, has been tempered with the passage of time. Some of the comments concerning technology strike me as humorous, make me want to giggle – as I read them, I get pictures in my mind of the old Jetsons cartoon I used to watch as a child. You may remember the opening credits: “Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, Jane his wife…..” as they all climb into little pods and fly off to school or work or wherever, while Rosie the Robot Maid cleans house in their absence. Of course, I go to my day job in a pod that looks a lot like the Reading Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad and later the SEPTA trains built in the 1960’s and 1970’s, which is also roughly when the Jetsons cartoon was created – so the Jetsons’ vision of the future, at least in the realm of transportation, didn’t quite come to pass. And the visions, dreams – or what we may see as the nightmares – of the Philadelphia Association youth may or may not come to pass. What’s important is not necessarily their answers, but the fact that they gave the question – “what will the church look like in the future” – some serious consideration. It’s a question to which we at Emanuel should give serious consideration as well.
What will the Emanuel church of the future, the United Church of Christ of the future, the Universal Church of the future look like? Or, to use H. G. Wells’ phrase, “What is the shape of things to come?” What is the shape of things to come for Emanuel Church, for the United Church of Christ, for the Church Universal? The thought may seem ominous, marked with a sense of foreboding, of approaching danger – until we remember that we follow Jesus Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. And so the question really becomes “Where will Jesus lead us in the future? Into whose home will Jesus invite himself for dinner. Where will the Holy Spirit give birth to something new. Where will God do a new thing?”
Really, God alone knows. But on this Reformation Sunday, I would invite us to keep our eyes open, to be alert, to watch for the leading of the Savior, to listen for his words saying “Come, follow me.” Where Jesus leads, may we follow. Amen.
***********
You are invited to follow the Spirit's leading to Emanuel United Church of Christ, Fillmore Street (off Thompson). We worship at 10 a.m. www.emanuelphila.org
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12, Luke 19:1-10)
Maybe you remember the song your Sunday School teacher may have taught you when you were little:
Zacchaeus was a wee little man
A wee little man was he
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see
And as the Saviour passed that way
He looked up in the tree.
And He said, Zacchaeus, you come down.
For I’m going to your house today.
For I’m going to your house today.
Those who knew Zacchaeus – whose name ironically means “clean” or “innocent” - likely wouldn’t have felt any great desire to sing a song about him. He was a tax collector, and not just a tax collector, but the chief tax collector. We remember, of course, that he would have been a Jew who had thrown in with the Romans for the privilege of collecting taxes from his fellow Jews on behalf of Rome – with, of course, the opportunity to collect a little extra – or maybe more than a little extra - for himself. And since Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, he may well have had others under him, who were likewise giving him a cut of their overcollections. What a nice guy! Far from being clean or innocent, the guy was a crook! Zacchaeus would not have won a lot of popularity contests. He’d heard that Jesus was in the neighborhood, and wanted to see Jesus – but he was short, and couldn’t see past the crowds. So he climbed a tree – maybe as much to keep distance from the hostile crowds, as to see Jesus. Jesus saw him and called him to come down out of the tree, for Jesus wanted to stay at his house. Not just wanted; the Greek says “it is necessary that I stay at your house.” So Jesus invited himself to dinner at Zaccheus’ home. The crowd grumbled, but Jesus told the crowd that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house – because despite all his cozying up to Rome, he was still a son of Abraham. And Jesus’ visit to Zacchaeus changed his life. His was not a “pray a little prayer and go on with my life as I ever have” kind of conversion; but one that turned his life upside down, leading him to give up greed in favor of generosity, to give instead of taking, to repay four times as much as he had gained through his dishonesty. The good news of the Gospel had the power to break through even Zacchaeus’ hardened heart, bringing about his reformation.
Today is Reformation Sunday, when Protestant churches lift up a turbulent era of our church’s history. Earlier in the service, we sang hymns written by two prominent reformers, John Calvin, whose theology informs the teaching and practice of the Presbyterian church, and Martin Luther, whose theology lives on in the Lutheran Church. We may remember other names from our Reformed tradition: Ulrich Zwingli, Heidelberg Catechism creators Zacharius Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, and others.
These theologians were active at a time when there was widespread dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church. The sale of indulgences – basically “fast track tickets out of purgatory” that the church sold in order to raise funds – was an abuse in its own right, but in a larger sense was just one symptom of a bigger problem - that of a church hierarchy that, many felt, grew rich by promoting and exploiting the spiritual insecurities of its members, was too quick to throw around its economic and political weight, that in its eagerness to become a political power had seemingly lost its connection with much of its own membership, and had grown distant even from God.
It was a time when many agreed that the church had lost its way, but differed on how the church was to find its way back to the right path, or even where that path was or what it looked like. Luther’s theology emphasized the primacy of the God’s grace over and against what he saw as the works-righteousness promoted by the hierarchy, and the priesthood of all believers, whose right and duty it was to encounter Christ not only in the sacraments, but through individual Bible reading and prayer. Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah likely would have resonated with Luther as he considered the Roman church of his day – “trample my courts no more; I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity…your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me and I am weary of bearing them….cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean….” The religious establishment of Isaiah’s time, and that of Luther’s time, was called upon to, as we would say, clean up its act.
Luther wished to remain in the Roman Catholic church, but was excommunicated – to this day, the Lutheran order of worship bears the strong imprint of the Roman liturgy from which it emerged. Others advocated more radical measures – for example, doing away with the hierarchy in favor of congregational autonomy - and broke with the Roman church. For its part, the Roman Catholic church, while it opposed those who broke from the church, it also eventually came to realize that some of the Reformers’ ideas had merit, that maintaining the status quo was not a viable option. As I said, it was a turbulent period, and men killed and were killed for religious control of territory in Europe. The winners of these wars established their religious practice by means of state-supported churches. And some of these conflicts have dragged on and on and on even into the present day, such as what were called “the troubles” between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, who reached some degree of coexistence through the Belfast “Good Friday” agreement of 1998, only a bit over 10 years ago. Many fled to America, in hope that in a new land, religious differences could be resolved by peaceable means, or at least that those of all religious persuasions could find some space in which to practice their beliefs. Many of the colonies were predominantly of one faith – Maryland was predominantly Catholic; Virginia and the Carolinas, Anglican; New York and New Jersey, Dutch Reformed; the New England colonies, Congregationalist. Under the Quaker William Penn, our state, Pennsylvania, was chartered as a sort of “Holy Experiment” where people of many faiths could find a welcome.
What are we to say about this? For my part, I think it’s hard not to feel some degree of ambiguity. In our reading from 2 Thessalonians, Paul boasted about that church’s endurance of persecution, but I doubt he’d have find much about which to boast regarding Catholic and Protestant churches persecuting one another – though despite these mutual persecutions, the church – “big ‘C’ church”, the universal, worldwide church to which Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox alike belong - has endured, sometimes despite our best efforts to the contrary. Perhaps it is a testimony that, as one of my professors states, we live in a sinful and fallen world, that the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation came to bloodshed, that men killed each other in the name of the love of Christ, and that to this day there is suspicion and misunderstanding between Protestant and Catholic, and even between varying stripes of Protestants. On the other hand, the Good News of Christ was carried all over the world by Protestants and Catholics of all stripes, even by those whose motives can at best be charitably described as mixed. And in recent years there have been some convergences of thought and practice – Catholic and Protestant alike affirm the importance of believers’ participating in both individual Bible reading and prayer as well as worship as the gathered body of Christ; many traditionally Catholic spiritual practices such as lectio divina and the prayer of examen are being rediscovered by Protestants, and Catholic and many Protestant churches alike use the Revised Common Lectionary, reading at least some of the same Biblical texts every Sunday, so that, literally as well as figuratively, we are at least in some ways on the same page.
The Reformation was a time when the Holy Spirit broke into what many saw as a calcified tradition, bringing messiness and disorder and even chaos to be sure, but also new life. As the mothers among us know, childbirth is not a neat, tidy process. Just as Zacchaeus’s life was turned around in his encounter with Jesus, becoming a giver instead of a grabber, the life of the institutional church and of individual believers was turned around, and for many believers, what had been dutiful obedience became a love affair with Jesus.
The Reformation is not a one-time, long-ago era of history, but an ongoing process. The Reformers said that the church was semper reformanda – reformed and always reforming – as individual believers, pastors, congregations, and faith traditions encounter Christ anew in the changing circumstances of the day, and the Scriptures yield new insights, speak in new ways – for God is still speaking, and the church is still reforming.
What will the “reformed and always reforming” church of the future look like? That very question was under consideration at our recent meeting of the Philadelphia Association of the United Church of Christ. The youth of our conference were invited to submit essays about how they saw the church of the future, and I handed out three of those essays – as well as an adult submission – during worship for the congregation's consideration. Many of the essays reflect a degree of youthful exuberance and impatience that, at least for me, has been tempered with the passage of time. Some of the comments concerning technology strike me as humorous, make me want to giggle – as I read them, I get pictures in my mind of the old Jetsons cartoon I used to watch as a child. You may remember the opening credits: “Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, Jane his wife…..” as they all climb into little pods and fly off to school or work or wherever, while Rosie the Robot Maid cleans house in their absence. Of course, I go to my day job in a pod that looks a lot like the Reading Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad and later the SEPTA trains built in the 1960’s and 1970’s, which is also roughly when the Jetsons cartoon was created – so the Jetsons’ vision of the future, at least in the realm of transportation, didn’t quite come to pass. And the visions, dreams – or what we may see as the nightmares – of the Philadelphia Association youth may or may not come to pass. What’s important is not necessarily their answers, but the fact that they gave the question – “what will the church look like in the future” – some serious consideration. It’s a question to which we at Emanuel should give serious consideration as well.
What will the Emanuel church of the future, the United Church of Christ of the future, the Universal Church of the future look like? Or, to use H. G. Wells’ phrase, “What is the shape of things to come?” What is the shape of things to come for Emanuel Church, for the United Church of Christ, for the Church Universal? The thought may seem ominous, marked with a sense of foreboding, of approaching danger – until we remember that we follow Jesus Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. And so the question really becomes “Where will Jesus lead us in the future? Into whose home will Jesus invite himself for dinner. Where will the Holy Spirit give birth to something new. Where will God do a new thing?”
Really, God alone knows. But on this Reformation Sunday, I would invite us to keep our eyes open, to be alert, to watch for the leading of the Savior, to listen for his words saying “Come, follow me.” Where Jesus leads, may we follow. Amen.
***********
You are invited to follow the Spirit's leading to Emanuel United Church of Christ, Fillmore Street (off Thompson). We worship at 10 a.m. www.emanuelphila.org
Come As You Are
(Scriptures: Joel 2:23-32, Psalm 84
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Luke 18:9-14)
Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel continues the theme of last week’s reading about prayer. Remember last week, we had the parable of the widow seeking justice from an corrupt judge, and confronting him and pestering him and nagging him until the judge finally relented and gave her what she wanted, not out of any feeling of love or justice or compassion, but just so she’d get out of his face and go away. The lesson we’re to draw is that if even a corrupt judge can be persuaded by the persistence of a widow, among the weakest and most vulnerable members of the society of the day, how much more will a just and loving God eagerly listen and respond to our prayers, to the cries of our heart.
And so today we’re given another parable about two people who came to God in prayer, but whose prayers came from very different places, very different life experiences. It’s a parable in which Jesus’ original listeners, and we who hear the parable today, may feel discomfort with both of the main characters – not sure I’d want to invite either of these folks to dinner - but will want to identify more with one than the other. But if we take the time to let the parable sit with us, we may find that our discomfort with the characters may lead us to feel discomfort with ourselves – and ultimately that discomfort may lead us to seek God’s grace at the feet of Jesus.
Jesus’ snapshot of the Pharisee is so repulsive that it seems like a cartoon, a satirical portrait of religious self-righteousness run rampant. The original Greek is a bit ambiguous, and different English translations portray the man’s actions a bit differently. The NRSV, from which we read today, says that the man stood by himself – stood alone - and prayed – in other words, the man was physically isolated and separated from others at the temple, perhaps out of concern that he would be ritually contaminated, made ritually unclean, if the other poor slobs at the Temple that day accidentally brushed up against him. We get that sense from the words of his prayer – “God, I thank you that I am not like other people, not like thieves or extortioners – the Greek adjective means ‘one who is ravenous, vicious, destructive’ – not unjust, not an adulterer, and certainly not like that tax collector standing over there in the corner. Who let him in here anyway? He’s stinking up the place” The Pharisee felt he was better than other people, and so he would not stand near other people. Other translations say that the man stood and prayed with himself – in other words, his words were ultimately not directed to God at all, but rather the man in his self-satisfaction was in effect just making noise talking to himself, as he reminded God – as if God needed a reminder – of how zealously he had followed all the rules, doing more than required: ‘I fast twice a week, I give 10% of all my income.’ Either way, the man’s self-righteousness cut him off from God and neighbor alike.
The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable is an easy character to make fun of, but just a few words in his defence: with his society under Roman rule, with the Jewish way of life under constant threat, the Pharisee took seriously his duty not to cave in to Roman customs, but to hold fast to the way of life prescribed by the Torah – the written law – and the words of the prophets, and the oral tradition of interpretation that had evolved in order to apply the law and prophecies written centuries before to an evolving society. The Sadducees – the Temple hierarchy – largely collaborated with Rome, so that Rome would give them space to continue the rituals of the Temple. So long as they were allowed by Rome to do their thing at the Temple, the Sadducees weren’t overly concerned with what Rome did outside the Temple. Of course, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in AD70, the Sadducees had lost their place in Jewish society. And the Essenes largely kept to themselves, not interacting with the larger society, and at some point faded from history, though in recent years some of their writings have been rediscovered. It was the Pharisees who loved God so much that they wanted to stay connected to their society, not to go along with the crowd, but to bring God’s laws and commandments into their everyday lives. It was from the Pharisees that present-day rabbinic Judaism evolved. But even though the Pharisee in this parable – and I want to emphasize that he does not stand for all Pharisees or all Jews; we’re just talking about the guy in the parable – though he interacted with the larger society, his sense of self-righteousness and entitlement before God had the effect of cutting him off from neighbor, bringing his good intentions to naught.
And then Jesus introduces us to the other character, the tax collector. Just as a reminder, the tax collectors in Jesus’ day would have been Jews who had agreed to collect taxes from their fellow Jews on behalf of the hated Roman government. And under the system of the day, so long as the tax collector turned over to Rome what Rome wanted, Rome didn’t mind if the tax collector charged extra and kept it for himself. If the Pharisee went a bit too far in trying to preserve the faith of his fathers, and in the process had become a self-righteous jerk, a legend in his own mind, the tax collector had totally caved into Rome and turned his back on his fellow Jews.
And so the tax collector is also standing alone, probably out of embarrassment, to avoid being seen by his fellow citizens that he had exploited. The tax collector’s body language is telling; he wouldn’t even look up to heaven – lest God strike him with lightning, perhaps - but beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Again, the Greek is a little ambiguous; it can also be translated, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” The tax collector made no excuses for himself, no comparisons to others – “well, a saint I ain’t, but I’m no ax murderer either.” Just a plea for mercy, just a leap of faith into the loving arms of God.
So Jesus gives us two extreme, super-sized examples, a super-religious person and a super-sinner. And then tells us that it was the super-sinner, the one who threw himself on the mercy of the court, who was justified. The word “justified” is a relational word, meaning “brought into right relationship with God.” That right relationship with God comes, not by handing God our resume of good deeds and waiting for God’s admiration, but by coming into God’s presence, just as we are, and imploring God’s mercy….which we do every Sunday in the prayer of confession.
As I said, both of the characters in Jesus’ parable make us uncomfortable. Though we’re not crazy about either of them, we want to put ourselves in the place of the tax collector. We certainly don’t feel a lot of empathy for the Pharisee. But Jesus’ parable may lead us into an uncomfortable moment of self-recognition. Remember that the downfall of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable was in comparing himself favorably to those around him. And so, if we’re tempted to say that we’re nothing like him, we may come to find that we’re exactly like him. It’s a temptation into which longtime church members – and pastors – can easily fall – our long years of church work may give us a sense of entitlement: “this is our church, our place of worship. We’ve earned this. We’ve worked so hard to keep things going – God knows we’ve had little enough help from anyone else - and it’s only fair for God to bless our efforts.” We may compare ourselves favorably to other groups of Christians. C. S. Lewis wrote of those whose penny’s worth of imagined humility before God bought them a dollar’s worth of contempt for their neighbors. But in the words of the old hymn, the ground is level at the foot of the cross; Christ died for us all, and we all stand in need of God’s grace. Indeed, it is only by God’s grace that any one of us have a place to stand at all.
It was the tax collector who threw himself on God’s grace who went home justified, brought into relationship with God. The tax collector had made a fresh start with God. And so it can be for us, and for our neighbors. Our Old Testament reading from Joel describes this sort of fresh start. Joel’s words come in the aftermath of a plague of locusts which have devoured all the crops. “What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten. And what the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.” And our lives can feel like that, like we’re lurching from one disaster to the next. If our wanderings have taken us far from God, we may feel like we’ve wasted our lives, spent our time and money on things that have only hurt us, that the days and weeks and years of our lives have been eaten up by a swarm of locusts. What have we done with our lives? Where have the years gone? What do we have to show for them? But the prophet calls on the people, “Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him.” And God promises, if we return to him, “I will repay you for the years that the locust has eaten.” Whatever lies in the past for us – no matter who we are, or where we are on our journey through life – God is gracious to welcome us home from our wanderings. We can be restored to relationship with God and neighbor, so that, at the end of our lives, we can say, with the Apostle Paul – who also knew what it was to start over and begin a new relationship with God – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” May it be so with us here at Emanuel Church. Amen.
**************
Whether you're a tax collector or a Pharisee, a saint, a sinner, or both, or somewhere in between, you're welcome at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). We worship at 10 am. on Sundays. www.emanuelphila.org.
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Luke 18:9-14)
Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel continues the theme of last week’s reading about prayer. Remember last week, we had the parable of the widow seeking justice from an corrupt judge, and confronting him and pestering him and nagging him until the judge finally relented and gave her what she wanted, not out of any feeling of love or justice or compassion, but just so she’d get out of his face and go away. The lesson we’re to draw is that if even a corrupt judge can be persuaded by the persistence of a widow, among the weakest and most vulnerable members of the society of the day, how much more will a just and loving God eagerly listen and respond to our prayers, to the cries of our heart.
And so today we’re given another parable about two people who came to God in prayer, but whose prayers came from very different places, very different life experiences. It’s a parable in which Jesus’ original listeners, and we who hear the parable today, may feel discomfort with both of the main characters – not sure I’d want to invite either of these folks to dinner - but will want to identify more with one than the other. But if we take the time to let the parable sit with us, we may find that our discomfort with the characters may lead us to feel discomfort with ourselves – and ultimately that discomfort may lead us to seek God’s grace at the feet of Jesus.
Jesus’ snapshot of the Pharisee is so repulsive that it seems like a cartoon, a satirical portrait of religious self-righteousness run rampant. The original Greek is a bit ambiguous, and different English translations portray the man’s actions a bit differently. The NRSV, from which we read today, says that the man stood by himself – stood alone - and prayed – in other words, the man was physically isolated and separated from others at the temple, perhaps out of concern that he would be ritually contaminated, made ritually unclean, if the other poor slobs at the Temple that day accidentally brushed up against him. We get that sense from the words of his prayer – “God, I thank you that I am not like other people, not like thieves or extortioners – the Greek adjective means ‘one who is ravenous, vicious, destructive’ – not unjust, not an adulterer, and certainly not like that tax collector standing over there in the corner. Who let him in here anyway? He’s stinking up the place” The Pharisee felt he was better than other people, and so he would not stand near other people. Other translations say that the man stood and prayed with himself – in other words, his words were ultimately not directed to God at all, but rather the man in his self-satisfaction was in effect just making noise talking to himself, as he reminded God – as if God needed a reminder – of how zealously he had followed all the rules, doing more than required: ‘I fast twice a week, I give 10% of all my income.’ Either way, the man’s self-righteousness cut him off from God and neighbor alike.
The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable is an easy character to make fun of, but just a few words in his defence: with his society under Roman rule, with the Jewish way of life under constant threat, the Pharisee took seriously his duty not to cave in to Roman customs, but to hold fast to the way of life prescribed by the Torah – the written law – and the words of the prophets, and the oral tradition of interpretation that had evolved in order to apply the law and prophecies written centuries before to an evolving society. The Sadducees – the Temple hierarchy – largely collaborated with Rome, so that Rome would give them space to continue the rituals of the Temple. So long as they were allowed by Rome to do their thing at the Temple, the Sadducees weren’t overly concerned with what Rome did outside the Temple. Of course, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in AD70, the Sadducees had lost their place in Jewish society. And the Essenes largely kept to themselves, not interacting with the larger society, and at some point faded from history, though in recent years some of their writings have been rediscovered. It was the Pharisees who loved God so much that they wanted to stay connected to their society, not to go along with the crowd, but to bring God’s laws and commandments into their everyday lives. It was from the Pharisees that present-day rabbinic Judaism evolved. But even though the Pharisee in this parable – and I want to emphasize that he does not stand for all Pharisees or all Jews; we’re just talking about the guy in the parable – though he interacted with the larger society, his sense of self-righteousness and entitlement before God had the effect of cutting him off from neighbor, bringing his good intentions to naught.
And then Jesus introduces us to the other character, the tax collector. Just as a reminder, the tax collectors in Jesus’ day would have been Jews who had agreed to collect taxes from their fellow Jews on behalf of the hated Roman government. And under the system of the day, so long as the tax collector turned over to Rome what Rome wanted, Rome didn’t mind if the tax collector charged extra and kept it for himself. If the Pharisee went a bit too far in trying to preserve the faith of his fathers, and in the process had become a self-righteous jerk, a legend in his own mind, the tax collector had totally caved into Rome and turned his back on his fellow Jews.
And so the tax collector is also standing alone, probably out of embarrassment, to avoid being seen by his fellow citizens that he had exploited. The tax collector’s body language is telling; he wouldn’t even look up to heaven – lest God strike him with lightning, perhaps - but beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Again, the Greek is a little ambiguous; it can also be translated, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” The tax collector made no excuses for himself, no comparisons to others – “well, a saint I ain’t, but I’m no ax murderer either.” Just a plea for mercy, just a leap of faith into the loving arms of God.
So Jesus gives us two extreme, super-sized examples, a super-religious person and a super-sinner. And then tells us that it was the super-sinner, the one who threw himself on the mercy of the court, who was justified. The word “justified” is a relational word, meaning “brought into right relationship with God.” That right relationship with God comes, not by handing God our resume of good deeds and waiting for God’s admiration, but by coming into God’s presence, just as we are, and imploring God’s mercy….which we do every Sunday in the prayer of confession.
As I said, both of the characters in Jesus’ parable make us uncomfortable. Though we’re not crazy about either of them, we want to put ourselves in the place of the tax collector. We certainly don’t feel a lot of empathy for the Pharisee. But Jesus’ parable may lead us into an uncomfortable moment of self-recognition. Remember that the downfall of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable was in comparing himself favorably to those around him. And so, if we’re tempted to say that we’re nothing like him, we may come to find that we’re exactly like him. It’s a temptation into which longtime church members – and pastors – can easily fall – our long years of church work may give us a sense of entitlement: “this is our church, our place of worship. We’ve earned this. We’ve worked so hard to keep things going – God knows we’ve had little enough help from anyone else - and it’s only fair for God to bless our efforts.” We may compare ourselves favorably to other groups of Christians. C. S. Lewis wrote of those whose penny’s worth of imagined humility before God bought them a dollar’s worth of contempt for their neighbors. But in the words of the old hymn, the ground is level at the foot of the cross; Christ died for us all, and we all stand in need of God’s grace. Indeed, it is only by God’s grace that any one of us have a place to stand at all.
It was the tax collector who threw himself on God’s grace who went home justified, brought into relationship with God. The tax collector had made a fresh start with God. And so it can be for us, and for our neighbors. Our Old Testament reading from Joel describes this sort of fresh start. Joel’s words come in the aftermath of a plague of locusts which have devoured all the crops. “What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten. And what the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.” And our lives can feel like that, like we’re lurching from one disaster to the next. If our wanderings have taken us far from God, we may feel like we’ve wasted our lives, spent our time and money on things that have only hurt us, that the days and weeks and years of our lives have been eaten up by a swarm of locusts. What have we done with our lives? Where have the years gone? What do we have to show for them? But the prophet calls on the people, “Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him.” And God promises, if we return to him, “I will repay you for the years that the locust has eaten.” Whatever lies in the past for us – no matter who we are, or where we are on our journey through life – God is gracious to welcome us home from our wanderings. We can be restored to relationship with God and neighbor, so that, at the end of our lives, we can say, with the Apostle Paul – who also knew what it was to start over and begin a new relationship with God – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” May it be so with us here at Emanuel Church. Amen.
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Whether you're a tax collector or a Pharisee, a saint, a sinner, or both, or somewhere in between, you're welcome at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). We worship at 10 am. on Sundays. www.emanuelphila.org.
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