1 Advent Yr B November 29 2020

 

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1 Advent Yr B November 29 2020

Isaiah 64:1-9, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37, Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

 

The gospel writer Mark is here to tell us that God is in control, and when God is in control, hope and grace abound. Even when it seems like things are out of control, hope remains. And this is where we find ourselves this first Sunday of Advent. The world feels dark. This year, more than any year I can remember, I crave the light and the wonder of Christmas. I wonder how we can live in the anticipation and expectation that is Advent, and the hope of incarnation, the glorious impossible, while breathing in that Christmas air. One way is to turn to the readings that we have before us this Advent; they are stories that show us that nothing will be impossible with God.

 

In this thirteenth chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus exposes and reveals the powers and principalities that are destructive. When Mark writes, which is a few decades after Jesus has died, Israel is being consumed by a war with Rome. Mark uses Jesus’ earlier prediction to speak to his people’s current circumstance. This war brings suffering and death, and desolation and destruction. Previously, in chapter 11, Jesus has said that the Temple is to be a house of prayer for all the nations, and this abominable desecration of the Temple is caused by those whose goal was to kick all the nations out. You see, Jesus’ intention it seems, was that all people, all nations, all tribes, were a part of God’s dream, God’s vision for creation. But people who were afraid not only put up barriers to keep those who were not like them out, they went and destroyed the temple too. 

 

In the verses in front of us today, often called the little apocalypse, the focus shifts from an historical review of war and destruction to an apocalyptic vision. Let’s pause for a moment to remember what apocalyptic means. Apocalypse and revelation mean the same thing. Simply put, they mean that God shows forth. God shows up. So what we have here is a story about the God that shows up. In this story we see a picture of Jesus who returns to gather those who remain true to the course of resisting those who would divide, those who would exclude. The message is, despite fear or hostility, followers of Jesus are to continue to preach Jesus’ inclusive word, all are welcome. And doing that very thing, welcoming all as sons and daughters of God, is the very thing followers of Jesus need to be doing to be ready.

 

That’s why we hear, “watch out, be ready, don’t be caught off guard!”

 

These passages are not about fear, and they are not about hedging our bets for a future end time. This is about the now, and the not yet. This is why we read them in Advent, the season of now and not yet. The season of preparation. Being prepared is not just for boy scouts and girl scouts, being prepared is for all of us. Being watchful, being prepared, getting ready means that we proclaim Jesus’ inclusive word. It’s not so much about not knowing the hour of Jesus’ return, it’s about living awake and ready right here and right now. 

 

Sometimes I wonder if this pandemic is revealing our baser human inclinations. I’ve read that Pope Francis has said, “a crisis reveals what’s in our hearts.” And it seems that for many what may be in their hearts is hate, rather than love, meanness rather than compassion. 

 

We are in a time of revelation, apocalypse. And it’s time to pay attention to that man behind the curtain. Unfortunately, the curtain is being pulled aside and we are seeing a humanity acting on misguided, greedy, hateful values. Sometimes it even seems we are living in one those dystopian novels that I love so much, filled with images of destruction, violence, fear. We’ve heard about, or read, or watched, stories about being left behind. We steer clear of reading these hard stories in our bibles that seem to be about destruction because it seems hard to understand. But these stories point us to not to destruction, but to a new and better way. The way of Love, the way of hope. Friends, I want you to hear about hope. Because that is what revelation is all about. God reveals Godself to humanity and all of creation in so many ways, and in the flesh and blood of Jesus. This is the location of hope, and we can rest assured that we never hope in vain. 

 

This hope is the good news that we hear today. The good news specifically in this passage of Mark, is that all, everyone, is included in this boundary breaking ministry of Jesus. Listen to this word spoken into the world we live in today; a society that is contentious, acerbic, and fearful. No matter where you are or who you are, you are included. Jesus dealt with all sorts and kinds of people, often they are described as sinners, outcasts, tax collectors, women. People who were on the margins of community, and because they were they had no life, no hope. You and I are called to proclaim the good news in this world, by word and action, to those who are on the margins, to those who can find no love, no hope. This is what it means to be ready. 

 

And we hear this passage from Mark just as we begin the new year, just as we begin our preparations for Christmas, just as we begin Advent. Because Advent calls us to watchfulness, Advent calls us to being ready, not just getting ready, but being ready for this most amazing birth. The birth that is the glorious impossible. The coming of the one who loves us into life, loves us into ourselves, loves us into the image of God. 

 

You see, revelation is the Christmas story. At the heart of the story of Christmas is the promise that God comes in the small and vulnerable form of a baby born to poor and frightened parents, and that God keeps coming in small, vulnerable, unexpected, and unlooked for ways even now. In fact, each time we reach out to another in love, God is once again invading the kingdoms and structures of this world with God’s radical and transformative presence and grace. Being ready to receive this hope transforms how we approach and experience Christmas, and how we look at our lives in the world. 

 

What small things can we do in love through which God’s presence and redemption are revealed? Small gestures might we offer that signify our trust that God is with us and for us? What small sacrifices might we make – including, significantly, the sacrifice of not gathering with others when doing so risks spreading the coronavirus – that provide opportunities to see God still at work loving and blessing God’s people and world? Whatever our usual preparations for Christmas, fundamentally Christmas is about small things, a baby, this baby’s parents, bottom-of-the-economic ladder shepherds, wandering astrologers looking for someone to save the world, deep-held longings for presence and redemption given voice by Israel’s prophets. And this year, and particularly because our preparations and celebrations will be necessarily be a bit more muted, perhaps we’ll be able to hear that promise more clearly: that whenever and wherever we act in love, God is present. So indeed, watch, wait, look, and most especially listen, for in the Christ child who will grow up to embrace all of our longings and experience all aspects of our life, God is whispering, “Emmanuel, I am with you!”

Amen.

Christ the King November 22 2020

 

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Christ the King November 22 2020

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24, Psalm 100, Ephesians 1:15-2, Matthew 25:31-46

Matthew’s gospel continues to be terribly troubling, but this week we get a glimmer of hope, grace actually. The picture Matthew paints is the Son of man sitting on the throne, and before him are all the nations. The one sitting on the throne places the sheep on one side and the goats on the other. Those that were placed on the right hand, the sheep, were those who had encountered people who were hungry and thirsty and fed them, those who had encountered strangers, aliens, outsiders, immigrants, and welcomed them, those who had encountered people who were naked and clothed them, those who had encountered people who were sick or in prison, and visited them. And they were surprised, they asked when did we do these things? And the King answered, you did it each time you relieved the pain or suffering of the lost, the lonely, the least. 

Friends, this is incarnational ministry, we need look no further. This is what it means to live out the hope and grace of our baptism. Each and every time we encounter the most vulnerable and overlooked, the least of these, we are actually interacting with our Lord. As with the surprising appearance of God in both manger and cross, God continues to show up where we least expect God to be. The command to care for the most vulnerable is clear throughout Scripture; the promise that God is revealed to us when we do is the surprise. God’s inbreaking, God’s revelation, God’s presence is not some mountain-top experience or the result of an arduous spiritual journey but instead connected to actual, physical bodies and circumstances. Want to see Jesus? Look to the needs of your neighbor and, especially, your most vulnerable neighbors. And yet, so many who claim to be Christian look right past their most vulnerable neighbors. Or can’t seem to understand the category of neighbor at all. 

And I want you to hear verse 32 again. Before the son of man will be gathered all the nations… Friends, this a political gospel; the Gospel is inherently political in that it challenges the total complex of relations between people living in society. That’s pretty risky to say, isn’t it? This is about how the least, the lost, and the lonely are treated not only by individuals, but by groups of people and by governments. And this is where the rubber meets the road. How do we live in a secular world and live by kingdom ethics? That is what we must always be asking and working toward. 

This is a parable focused on a life of mercy. The criterion of judgment is the mercy we have lived. It is concerned with how we; followers of Jesus live out our baptismal ministry, how we let our light shine and give glory to God. Good works has less to do with ethical actions than with living a life of mercy in which Jesus is encountered and revealed. Again, not about moral dessert. But about living a live of mercy now, each moment, each day, this is how the beloved community works, this is what the body of Christ looks like, this is what loving our neighbor is about.

And it compels us to work to create merciful systems in our communities. It compels us to widen our circles. We are not the holders or keepers of the mystery of God, we are light bearers bringing God’s mercy to the outer reaches. We are the boundary breakers, not the boundary keepers. We are the margin sitters, guiding those who are lost to the places they may be found. 

In our community, where and how do we break down barriers so that each child of God has access to what you and I have, health care, safe housing, meaningful work? In our community, where and how do we break down barriers so that each child of God has equal opportunity to education, especially in this COVID world, how do we make sure that each child has a stable and reliable internet connection? How do we be a part of creating merciful systems of justice?

We are sent out from the Lord’s Supper as body of Christ to discover that the body of Christ is already waiting for the community in those suffering in the world. Then, it would appear that the judgment we are all subject to is not one from on high but a judgment that is spoken through the need of our neighbor.

In these COVID times, how can we care for our neighbor? If we are out, we can wear a mask. What a simple and wonderful way we can care for our neighbors we don’t even know. We can stay home as much as possible. We can support our local establishments by getting take out or curbside as often as we would have gone out for a meal. We can figure out how to shop locally for our Christmas presents. And with our church neighbors and our physical neighbors we can make phone calls. Check on each other, please. 

This day is called Christ the King Sunday. It is a day to affirm the reign of Christ and God's Kingdom, a kingdom in which we are citizens now, and to which we aspire in the future. A Kingdom in which we are called to encounter each neighbor as if they were Christ among us, because they are. We come to the end of the lectionary year, next week, the first Sunday of Advent begins the new year. We are meant to look back, and ask the question, how did the church live out and work for God's reign?

As the last Sunday of the church year, it transitions us into Advent and the beginning of the church year, and functions as a bridge. It reminds us that this is what we are about - to further the Kingdom, how we will be active and engaged citizens in God's Kingdom and the wider realities of community, the real meaning of the polis, or politics. Advent anticipates Emmanuel, with active and engaged waiting. 

Live incarnationally this week. Expect to encounter Christ in any neighbor you meet. Care for your neighbor, and you care for Jesus. Amen.

Twenty-fourth Pentecost Yr A Proper 28 Nov 15 2020

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Twenty-fourth Pentecost Yr A Proper 28 Nov 15 2020

Judges 4:1-7, Psalm 123, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, Matthew 25:14-30

Here we have another terribly troubling parable from Matthew. This parable is the second of three in this section of Matthew, last week we heard the parable of the ten bridesmaids, and lastly is the parable of the sheep and goats. Usually, when placed like this, the stories have something to do with each other. The first parable taught us the importance of living ready and awake in the complexity of life. The parable before us today shows us what it looks like to live ready and awake. 

The kingdom of God is like a man who was leaving on a journey. Upon leaving, he handed everything over to his servants according to their ability. After the man left, the servants did as they pleased with what they were given. The first two took what was given them, immediately went to work with it, and when the man returned, gave an accounting. Each of them had increased the original capital. The third man was a different sort of man. In contrast to the other two, he hid the money that had been entrusted to him. Now, this was a common way of hiding things. With no bank, no secure place to leave valuable things when going away, burying it was an accepted way to keep it secure. So the important thing for this man was that the money was safe and secure and that he could produce it when the time came. Keeping it in this way meant that there was no possibility of loss, but is also meant there was no possibility of gain.

Matthew makes a point to let us know that this master was a very rich man, and these amounts are huge, each talent may be worth about twenty years wages. And Matthew points us to a master who encourages his servants to use whatever they have been given for good, and to use it faithfully. The third servant was afraid, and did not use what he had been given for any purpose at all. The result of this fear was being consigned to the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So let's imagine today that in this parable the master is God who loves creation, who loves humanity. This is God in our midst, God who loves creation so very much that God is willing and wanting and yearning to be in relationship with God's people. God whose love is so deep and so wide and so broad. God who walks through this life with us, each one of us and all of us. In this kingdom God is like a man who was leaving on a trip. He handed everything over to his servants according to their ability, and then he left on his journey. It sounds to me like this is a relationship of trust and of grace. The man entrusts all he has to his servants. No instructions, no lists of what to do and what not to do, nothing. And yet this abundance doesn't belong to the servants. This abundance was not assigned to the servants based on who deserved what and how much, it was given over in trust. This abundance is not even dependent on anyone’s ability today, tomorrow, or any other day to do exactly the right thing with it.

It seems to me that the kingdom of God is this way. God leaves us with and trusts us with the entirety of creation. So much more than we can even see and experience. God entrusts us with the sea and the sky, with the animals and the vegetables. God entrusts us with all that is valuable, and God entrusts us with one another. And God lets go of the outcome, God does not control what we do with any of it. We can do with it what we want. That is what is at the very center of this relationship. God creates us and all of what is seen and unseen, God declares it good, and God loves us. God trusts us, what are we to do? 

This is the same God who loves us so very much and is willing to live and die as one of us to show us the very best way this life may be lived. Imagine a God who is the creator of all that is seen and unseen, and to whom each and every one of us matters. Imagine a God whose heart’s desire is to be in relationship with us. Imagine a God to whom justice matters, the kind of justice that includes everyone having enough to eat, everyone staying warm when it is cold, everyone being able to feed their families. 

We are to respond to this abundant and amazing grace with all of our heart and our soul and our strength. It's not about our trustworthiness, it's about God's trust and love and grace. It's not about our ability or inability to use the gift properly, it's about God's trust and love and grace. It's not about what we deserve or don't deserve, it's about God's trust and love and grace. It's not about our fearfulness, but it is about fearlessly being about God's business of love, and healing.

These stories about the kingdom are not about being safe and secure. This story, and the ones around it, are about being ready, awake and alive, not to be afraid.

You see, when it comes to serving Christ, when it comes to following Jesus, we can be bold and not be afraid of risks. Not so much concerned about securing our own lives but getting on with lives of self-abandon and witness, knowing that the grace of God in Jesus will more than compensate for any mistakes we may make. Instead, we behave more like the servant who hid his talent in the ground. It’s not a bad thing to do, but it isn’t living ready, awake, and alive, it is more like being afraid.

In these days it is so hard not be afraid. In A Wrinkle in Time, the main characters, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace wrinkle travel, a little like time travel but not the same, to an in between planet before they get to their intended target, Camazotz. From the in between planet they can see the darkness covering Camazotz, the place where Meg’s father is being held captive. These days feel that, that there’s a darkness that hangs over us. A darkness that holds in its snare’s liars and bully’s. A darkness made up of quips and snipes. A darkness that covers rudeness. A darkness that feeds racism and misogyny. But you and I know the remedy to that. Hate and fear will not dispel the darkness, only love can do that. 

We can choose in small ways and in large ways how God's amazing gift is made available by our lives and by our love. Choose love. Choose to be a steward of all of God's gift. Choose not only to care for creation and all you have been given but do something great with it. Don't bury it out of fear, but share it knowing that is was never yours in the first place. Choose to be a part of relationships that do what Jesus asks us to do, feed those who are hungry, love your neighbor. Share your hearts and your lives and your treasure, not because of what you will get, but because of what you have been given. Love. 

Amen.  

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 27 Nov 8 2020

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Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 27 Nov 8 2020

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25, Psalm 78:1-7,1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13

 

Last Sunday, the Feast of All Saints, we recommitted ourselves to following Jesus, we reaffirmed our baptismal promises. In these days it feels to me like not only do those promises call me into ministry, but they are also like armor donned not for battle, but for life, life that just keeps throwing down the crap.

 

And I think Matthew keeps throwing it down, one parable after another, one parable more difficult than the last one. This parable in front of us today is one of those watchful parables that we heard in the preceding chapter of Matthew's Gospel. And it challenges our quickly made assumptions about judgment, grace and the end times. The characters in this story are not simply good or simply bad. The definitions we give good and bad have always reflected our own prejudices more than they have faithfully represented Gospel truth. And another thing this story is not about is getting into heaven by what we do or don’t do.

 

In these Covid days, I’ve been watching The Good Place on Netflix. On first blush The Good Place is a story about getting into heaven or going to hell. The basic premise is that you need to earn enough points to get into the Good Place. However, as the story unfolds, we learn that something has gone wrong, and the Good Place might not actually be the Good Place. Discussion ensues about how you earn points, and what you do to earn points, and what you do to earn points and why you would even want to earn those points. Michael, the demon turned friend, calls those points moral dessert. Isn’t that great? Moral dessert. The result of earning your way into the Good Place is moral dessert. However, the story deepens to acknowledge that humans are much more complex than originally thought and that what humans do is not always easily categorized into right and wrong. And the question is raised about who does the judging and accounting of the points anyway.

 

That is partly what this parable in Matthew is about, it shows us the complexity of our moral decision making, but this parable leaves us uncertain. There is no right and wrong, there is no satisfying ending, and there is no moral dessert. Because this parable may very well be about how to live ready and awake even in the complexity of life.

 

Let’s take a look. What Matthew presents to us today, as he has throughout his gospel, is terribly troubling. These ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. How were five foolish and five wise? Because five of them took their lamps, but no extra oil. So when the bridegroom was delayed and they all fell asleep, and they were running out of oil and the other five wouldn’t share with them, they were denied entry to the marriage feast. How could that possibly be? You’ve got five who won’t share with the other five, and five denied entry, it just doesn’t seem fair. So one explanation for this rejection is that the five foolish maidens had already somehow been determined to be evil. It brings me right back to the Good Place, in spite of a list of good deeds these maidens may have had, they are rejected at the door to what seems to be the good place.

 

What do we do with this? How are the maidens being judged? Why are they being judged? That’s what brings me to what I really think this parable is about. I think it is about living ready and awake in the midst of this complexity of life. And, this is a story about the end of all things, and the beginning of the new, and the coming of Christ. But I think it’s mostly about how we live in the world, the place God has given for human habitation.

 

First we look to being ready and awake in the midst of the complexity of life.

 

Secondly, it is not the maidens who are doing the judging of one another, it is the one who is called Lord.

 

In Matthew’s gospel we can go right to the Sermon on the Mount, and the beatitudes for direction. We can go right to the answer to the lawyer’s question, which is the most important commandment? We all know the answer, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ We go to these passages in Matthew not because these are easy answers, but because they show forth the complexity in which we are asked to live our lives. The complexity in which we are to be ready, to be awake. What is the measure by which humanity is judged? That measure is our willingness to wrestling with the complexity of these blessings. Blessings that don’t show specifically what is right or wrong, good or bad, and don’t earn us moral dessert. If we are honest with ourselves, we wrestle with these beatitudes all the time, we ask what it means to be poor in spirit, or meek, or merciful, or pure in heart, or a peacemaker, or even what is persecution. Because the reality is that you and I rarely are poor in anything, or meek, or persecuted.

 

Even loving our neighbor seems hard and complex in these days. In these times of division, how do we love our neighbor when we know we cannot agree to disagree about really important things; like the evil nature of racism, or the devaluing of women’s bodies, or the wonder of how love chooses a partner in life?

 

You and I must grapple with the complexity of this life. This is what kingdom readiness is about. We must wrestle with blessing and beatitude. We must love our neighbor even when we don’t like our neighbor. Not because we hope to rack up points and get the moral dessert, but because this is our ministry, this is our call, this is what it means to follow Jesus. We must love, because we are loved first, and because if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.

 

And more good news in this terribly troubling story in Matthew is that you and I are not the judge. It is not up to us who gets into the Good Place, thank God, because I for one would really botch that one. No, it is not up to us. That work is not ours. That work has already been done on the cross. The cross disrupts all of our categories of good or bad, and lays them at the foot of that cross with Jesus’ words, forgive them, forgive them. It is finished. We are called to lay down our pride and arrogance and love every neighbor. This life may not be comfortable when we do that, and it is indeed complex. And we may be called to stand in places that are difficult or dangerous, but this is the readiness for God’s kingdom as it will be, there is no other. Loving one another, standing with one another, is what following Jesus looks like. Being ready is not about you and me deciding who is foolish or who is wise, that’s God’s job. Being ready is to watch, and wait, and in the midst of that complexity, to love one another with abandon. 

Thanks be to God.