17 Pentecost Yr A

The Rev. Kathy Monson Lutes​17 Pentecost Proper 23 Yr A Oct 9 2011 Exodus 32:1-14​Psalm 106 Philippians 4:1-9​Matthew 22:1-14 ​Page of 1 We are at a time in the live of our family where there are many weddings to attend. It started three years ago with my nephew’s wedding. That wedding was north of Duluth MN, north of Two Harbors for those of you who may be familiar with Lake Superior’s north shore, just before you get to Gooseberry Falls. Two more nephews have been married since then, and two nieces. The weddings have varied, three of them were outside on the shore of lakes and two of them were very traditional church weddings. And, we've witnessed amazingly varied wedding wear on the diverse people that have been gathered for these weddings. The most interesting wedding wear was at the wedding of my nephew the actor who lives in New York, there were many New Yorkers there, young like him, 30ish, very well tattooed and pierced. The wedding attire ran the gamut from amazingly dressy to jeans and t-shirts, there didn’t seem to be any expectation of appropriate dress.   That wedding was also the first time I’d received a postcard, about 9 months previously, advising me to save the date, that seems to be the norm now as well. I appreciated that little notice, because it really helped me to make plans to be there, about 4 weeks before the wedding we received the actual wedding invitation. People came from far and wide to be at this wedding celebration.   In my life, the invitation to a party is an exciting thing. Part of the fun of a party is the expectation, the anticipation. Part of the fun of a party is being included, belonging. The “save the date” postcard I received for my nephew’s wedding went on my refrigerator door; the date went on my calendar. As soon as I received the actual invitation, I replaced the postcard, I looked at it often, imagining the fun, imagining the family gathered, imagining the celebration we would have at the very first wedding of any of my mother’s grandchildren.   It’s a bit unlike the response of the people in our story from Matthew today, they made light of the invitation, and even killed the messengers who delivered the invitation. The king may have shrugged and said, well then, if the chosen are not interested in the wedding celebration, then go and invite any one you want, they went to the outer reaches of the kingdom, they went to the margins, and those who came to the celebration were honored to be there.   The God of abundance has made a great offer, come to the feast. The God of abundance has set the table, has prepared a wonderful banquet. The thing about an invitation is that we can choose to come, or not. The thing about this relationship with God is that we can choose to be in it or not, we are never compelled.   As all these people arrived, people from all over the kingdom, people who were honored to be there; the ones who were tattooed and pierced, the ones who were curious and doubtful, the ones who were questionable and the ones who were upstanding, the ones who loved and hated, but all people who respected the king and the occasion for which they gathered, these people received a wedding garment, a robe. The people gathered for this wedding banquet mostly were the people gathered from the margins, they were the people who responded yes to the great offer made to them. They put on the wedding garment with honor and respect to the King.   Except the one in our story. He won’t put on the wedding garment. Not putting on the wedding garment is the very same thing as not saying yes to this relationship into which he was being invited. The outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, is of his own choosing.   Putting on the wedding garment, putting on the robe, reveals a willingness to respond to the abundant banquet that is available to us now, and available to us at the fulfillment of time. When I reread this story, I was reminded of the garment each of us puts on at baptism, figuratively and literally. The baptismal garment re-presents to us that new creation we become when Jesus calls us over the tumult of our life’s wild restless sea, day by day his clear voice sounds, saying “Christian, follow me.” We are dressed as one ready, ready to follow, ready to be a voice in the cacophony, ready to dive into the relationship that is offered to us by the one who prepares the banquet of abundance, the one whose heart's desire is to be in relationship with us.   When we put on the wedding garment, or the baptismal garment, it does not signify that we are finished, that we have arrived, or that we are perfected or done, because we are only beginning. We are saying yes to the abundant and amazing love that waits for us. We are saying yes to the journey of life and yes to the knowledge that the journey is not by ourselves, but with the one who creates us, the one who reconciles us, the one who revives us. Life is not a journey that should be taken by oneself; it is a hard and treacherous journey, as well as a joyful and exciting journey. It is a journey of love and forgiveness; it is a journey of grace and mercy. And it is a journey that our creator God desperately wants to accompany us on. So much so, that God came into this time and space, to be just like you, just like me, with all the joys and hopes, all the pain and the suffering, that human life has to offer. And so much love, that Jesus was willing to put himself in our place, to offer himself to suffering and death, so that you and I are not condemned to pain and sadness and tragedy for ever.   This abundant banquet is there for the taking. Nothing is held over our heads, no strings attached. The love that provides the banquet flows in and through and among us, and we have the opportunity to respond. We have the opportunity to pay that love forward. We have the opportunity to show forth the love that has been offered to us, and to be people of love and forgiveness ourselves. The response to this abundance that God offers to us through God’s son Jesus, is to offer that same love and forgiveness to others. It is not to hoard, it is not to keep to ourselves. It is to offer ourselves, as Jesus offers his life to us, we offer this love to others. The hard part is that Jesus offers this love to everyone, sinners included. Thank God for that, because that means you and I have a place in this amazing kingdom too.   And equally exciting is the abundant banquet that is in store for us at the fulfillment of time. We get a foretaste of that banquet in the bread and the wine that we share together each Sunday we gather. We get glimpses of grace, and those glimpses are powerful. One of those glimpses of grace is that everyone is included. You and I are included, the liar and the cheat are included, the tax collector and the sinner are included.   I think what is hard for us is that we come to believe that the abundance is the reward for right behavior, so that those whose behavior is not up to a particular standard can’t be part of the banquet. But that’s not the way it works. It’s the invitation that changes us. It’s the abundance that transforms us. It’s the anticipation and the expectation of seeing our friends and our loved ones that causes us great joy. Once we put on that wedding garment, or baptismal garment, we are not the same. We are made new, God’s love, God’s power, God’s abundance changes us. We can love others, we can forgive others. We no longer live for ourselves, or for greed, or for power. We no longer live for ourselves, but we live in relationship, and in relationship we find joy and peace.   Thanks be to God.

3 Easter Yr C

Myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, worthy is the lamb. Singing and worship are central to Revelation; a fact often overlooked by people who see the book only as a system of end time predictions. In Revelation we sing our way into God’s new vision for our world. We worship the God who gave us life. And wherever we go, to school, to work, or shopping, everywhere in the world, the lamb is with us, leading us into a new way of life. And that new way of life is forgiveness and reconciliation and is brought about by the power of vulnerable love to bring healing.

Chapters two and three are not in our lectionary to read, they are John’s vision for the seven churches that are in Asia. They show us that John’s Revelation is not a private ecstasy, just as the Gospel is not for private consumption. The Good News is personal, but it is never merely individual. The Good News is always revealed in a family, a tribe, a nation, a church. The gospel pulls us into community. Sin fragments us, separates us, and sentences us to solitary confinement. At the completion of each of John’s visions for the seven churches, are the words, Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

And that brings us to Revelation four and five, these chapters that point us to worship. In chapter four we hear about the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come. And continuing, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. Words you may be familiar with from hearing each Sunday worship service in our Eucharistic Prayer. Chapters four and five are all about worshipping the God who sits on the throne and the Lamb.

Christians worship with a conviction that they are in the presence of God. Worship is an act of attention to the living God who rules, speaks and reveals, creates and redeems, orders and blesses. According to Eugene Peterson, author of Reversed Thunder, The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination, outsiders, observing these acts of worship, see nothing like that. They see a few people singing unpopular songs, sometimes off-key, someone reading from an old book and making remarks that may or may not interest the listeners, and then eating and drinking small portions of bread and wine that are supposed to give nourishment to their eternal souls in the same way that beef and potatoes sustain their mortal flesh. The question Peterson asks is, who is right? Is worship an actual meeting called to order at God’s initiative in which persons of faith are blessed by his presence and respond to his salvation? Or is it a pathetic and sometimes desperate charade in which people attempt to get God to pay attention to them and do something for them? Jesus stands at the door and knocks. What happens when we open the door? Peterson goes on to write, In worship God gathers God’s people to himself as center. Worship is a meeting at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives.

Revelation calls us to worship God, and to respond to God’s presence. Many have legitimately asked the question, why go to church? Why worship God? Some people will say, I believe in God, I’m just not religious, or I’m spiritual, I just don’t believe in organized religion, or, I worship alone, by myself, out in nature. But I agree with Peterson, worship is a meeting called to order at God’s initiative and we are all blessed by God’s presence and respond to God’s salvation. Revelation shows us the way. And here’s a spoiler alert, near the end of the story, in Revelation 21, we hear that the home of God is among mortals, God will dwell with us, we will be God’s people, and God will wipe every tear from our eyes, death will be no more, and the one who was seated on the throne says, see, I am making all things new. This is why I find Revelation so exciting. God is doing these things now. Not at some future date, God is making all things new now, that is what happens in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This is why we are Easter people, because God is making all things new, God is making you and I new, God is renewing the face of the earth. And the fulfillment that God promises is that God dwells with us. I believe this is what heaven is, God dwelling with us.

This exciting and Good News calls us to worship, calls us to be blessed by God’s presence and to respond to God. It also means that we have agency in the new creation. We have the power to be co-creators with God and with Jesus in this new creation; we have the power to do something significant as citizens of God’s kingdom. Our Presiding Bishop has been quoted, “We claim a faith that has a vision of what civilization ought to look like, called the reign of God, or the kingdom of God. When current reality is dramatically divergent from that vision, most of us feel it's our responsibility to advocate for a different vision.” What is our vision of this kingdom on earth? What is it that our worship creates in us, in our church, in our world?

Our worship forms a vision of hospitality. We recognize the risen Christ in our midst by the offer of “come and eat,” we recognize our true selves in the meal Christ offers. In Jesus’ life, all were welcome, even if that wasn’t so true in the culture in which he lived. At Jesus’ table, all were welcome. The impetuous Peter, naked in the boat who dressed before he jumped into the water, who denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed, and who repeated three times “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” Thomas, not the doubter, but the one who needs to ask the questions. John, who always refers to himself as the one Jesus loved best. Matthew, the tax collector. Judas, the betrayer. Mary, who loved Jesus enough to sit at his feet and be still, Martha, who loved Jesus so much she would leave her kitchen to come and be with him. Zaccheus, the one who had to climb the tree to see Jesus, who was also a tax collector. Saul the persecutor, who became Paul, the bold and courageous. All whose lives, whose relationships, were broken, all who were welcome to come and eat. All who recognized Jesus and were loved, and fed, and who were restored to wholeness.

We are invited to come and eat. In the midst of the mess of this world, in the midst of tragedy we are called to the hope of transformation. We are invited to the meal, and no one is left behind or left out. We are invited to worship God who is the center of our lives, personally and collectively. We are invited to forget about ourselves, our problems, our needs, and are to be concerned about the other. We are invited to feed each other. And in the feeding, we become who we are created to be.

The vision of the new kingdom, the kingdom that we are active in creating is a vision of hospitality. At God’s table, all have enough to eat. All are healed of brokenness, of alienation, of separation. Everyone sits down at the picnic table together to feast on fish and bread. The lives that are changed by this meal are our lives. We are invited to eat, and in the eating God seeps into our very being. We offer our brokenness, we offer our true selves, and we are accepted and loved and empowered. Jesus’ hospitality empowers us to respond in worship in feeding others as we have been fed. We are empowered to offer dignity where there is none.

And this vision of hospitality is about the now and the not yet. The charcoal is laid, and we are invited to eat. Now, this very moment. It is also a vision of what will be. Revelation calls us to wake up and change, Revelation calls us to transformation, Revelation calls us to the supper of the Lamb. The vision in Revelation is invitation to the supper it is of new and transformed life and it is about being in the world as an empowered and nourished agent of change.

Alleluia, The Lord is risen: Come let us adore him. Alleluia!