16 Pentecost Yr A Proper 21 Sept 28 2014

Audio 9.28.2014

"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus said to them. "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you." The Pharisees are astounded at this. They are the authorities in Jesus' world. They hold the power. Who is this Jesus who says that his authority comes from someone or something other than them? Who is this Jesus who eats with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, these people who are the scum of the earth? Who is this Jesus? 

We have been hearing about forgiveness and reconciliation in the gospel of Matthew, as well as in the Old Testament Exodus stories for quite a few weeks now. Today’s story from Matthew turns a bit however. What we hear today follows the movement in Matthew of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time, and he asks the disciples to get him a donkey. He rides into Jerusalem on that donkey, not a stallion, and Jerusalem is in turmoil. The question being asked is who is this? And they were saying this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Jesus then entered the temple, he tossed out all who were selling and buying and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers. He healed the lame and the blind, and the chief priests and scribes became angry, they said to him “Do you hear what these people are saying?” and Jesus replied yes, he knew what they were saying. Then Jesus went out to be by himself, but he came back to the temple, and there were the chief priests and elders again. Then comes the question, this all-important question. By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? The chief priests and elders end up arguing with each other, nobody can answer the question, and nothing really gets solved right here.

By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? Even the tax collectors and the prostitutes know something about this authority. Following this question, comes a series of parables, parables, we know, are about describing the inbreaking kingdom of God; they are about showing people what the kingdom of God looks like. We don’t know much, but what we do know is that it looks nothing like what anyone is used to. It is something absolutely new, something no one has any experience with, that’s why there are parables, they make us and the original hearers think in ways not before imagined. This new kingdom is nothing like what had come before.

The chief priests and elders were concerned, understandably so, because if they went along with Jesus, who is doing something – they’re not quite sure what - with an authority they can’t identify, the chief priests and elders also may be brought up on charges of sedition. They too may be tried for misaligned loyalty. They could be held liable for the damage Jesus has done in the temple throwing things around and turning the tables over.

By whose authority? By God’s authority, but this authority is new, it is not the same old story, it’s a new story, a new thing that God is doing in the life of God’s people. It is formed and shaped by the Exodus, by wandering in the wilderness, by the freedom that grows from wandering, but it is still a new thing, nothing anyone has seen, heard, smelled, previously. This new thing is the inbreaking kingdom, and we get a description of it in the gospels, we get a glimpse of it in our community of faith, and we are nourished by it in communion. We are made new ourselves by it in baptism. We have been baptized and forgiven.

Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom before you, because they get it. They understand this kingdom, they understand it to be something they had never experienced, because they were never included at the table previously, and now they are, they are brought from the margins into community. Something entirely new is happening.

The story of the man who had two sons shows us what the kingdom of God looks like. In Jesus' time, a father had ultimate authority. He could decide the fate of his children in a moment. He could decide that one son deserves his love more than another son. This father has asked his sons to go out into the vineyard to work. The first son says no, but eventually goes, the other son says yes, but in the end doesn't go to work. What does the kingdom look like? It looks like a father who loves his sons no matter what, it looks like a father whose love is a gift, it looks forgiveness.  

So what we have in front of us today is the truth of the story that God comes into our world to live and love, to suffer and die as one of us. The truth is in the story of creation, of blessing, of sin, of our creator God loving us so much that God is willing to live this life as one of us, of forgiveness and reconciliation. The truth is found in the story of death and resurrection, your story of death and resurrection. We know this story is true, because each and every one of us attests to it; each and every one of us lives death and resurrection all the time. The truth is found in the story that reminds us that we are God’s beloved, the delight of God’s life.

We gather together to experience the awesomeness of this God in the bread and the wine, the mystery that makes us whole. We gather together to experience the awesomeness of this God in the midst of our humanity; in the forgiveness of the hurt we’ve caused ourselves and others.

By whose authority? By the author’s authority. The one whose love calls us into being and blesses us. The one whose Word lives among us, in us, and through us. The one whose love forgives us when we are greedy and full of ourselves. The one into whose life we are baptized, the one whose love wins.

15 Pentecost Proper 20 Yr A Sept 21 2014

Deacon Marty Garwood

September 21, 2014

Exodus 16:2-5; Psalm 105:1-6,37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

 

 

 

The kingdom of God is like.....

 

That is what parables do - they help us to visualize what the kingdom of God is like.

 

In today's reading from Matthew we are given a glimpse of what the kingdom of God is like.  It is a time ... it is a place ....... where there are no winners or losers.  Whether you work all day, half a day, or just a few hours, you are paid the same wage.

 

Well that hardly seems fair does it?  

 

But I suppose that my idea of fairness and perhaps your idea of fairness could be shaped in this instance by whether we worked all day in the sun or whether we were one of the later hires.  It is all a matter of perspective.  I am certainly more apt to feel it is fair if I am paid the same wage for my two hours of labor as you were for your eight hours of work.

 

Let me  give you another example,

 

The kingdom of God is like an Episcopal Church.  The founding members of the parish have cushions on their pews and they take communion first so they get the freshest piece of communion bread.  Those members of the congregation that have only been coming for 15 or 20 years sit in pews but aren't given cushions and they wait for their rightful place at the communion table.  The newcomers, those that have been here 10 years or less - they have rickety folding chairs placed along the outside edges of the sanctuary,  At communion, they receive whatever crumbs might still be left-over.  

 

Well that hardly seems fair does it?

 

We didn't like the first parable because it seemed unfair to give the same reward for different service.  And yet, we don't like the second example because it seems unfair that the reward is not the same for different length of service.

 

My goodness, we are hard to please aren't we?

 

The kingdom of God is like .........

 

We talk about the kingdom of God as something far off and perhaps unobtainable.  But we also talk about the kingdom of God as the here and now.  We are indeed living our lives - every day - in the kingdom of God.  How can we not be when we believe that all of creation, all of what was and all of what is comes from God.  But there is yet a fullness to the kingdom of God that has not been realized.  A fullness that we have the  potential to work towards - a potential to be God's partners.

 

With one set of lenses, we can see clearly what we are taught from early childhood on.  Life is often not fair.  We live that out daily.  We are humans.  We are not God.  Part of the humanity in which we find ourselves is that there is something in us that harbors jealousy, envy, lust, and the list goes on.  We want what we want and it isn't fair if we don't get it.

 

The Hebrew people were as human as we are.  God, you led us out of Egypt.  You freed us from slavery.  Couldn't you at least include decent food in the package?  We left our homes and are journeying to a unknown land.  We asked for food and you gave us quail at night and manna from heaven in the morning.  But we will get tired of quail and manna and will soon be complaining again.  

 

We tend to hear the story of the exodus and get a little smile on our faces and smugly think that the Hebrews were just a bunch of whiners.  "It isn't fair." they complained.  "It isn't fair." we complain.

 

With our new corrective lenses, we will see that when the fullness of God's kingdom is reached, we will realize beyond any doubt that it never was an issue of fairness.  It is, has always been, and will continue to be an issue of unlimited generosity.  

 

Who we are and whatever we have is a gift from God.  God has created us to become more than what we are.  God has created in us the opportunity to be transformed.  As we grow and mature in our spiritual lives, we too will offer to others the amazing gift of generosity, of love, of acceptance, of affirmation.  

 

We are created to love and to serve God.  And we are created to love and serve God in others.  When we let go of that idea of fairness, we will realize that we can love lavishly and freely.  We don't do it alone.  We do it with God's help.  Specifically we do it with God's example in our own lives.  We also do it with the support of a faith community.  I am a better person, a better child of God, because of each of you.  We see in one another the vastness of God's gracious ways.  

 

When we come to that point - and we will -  when we come to the point when we willing go to work in God's vineyard with happy  hearts and willing bodies, and minds set on God - that is when we will have finally accepted our God-given worth and value.  We will no longer feel that we must compare ourselves to others.  We will know that God's love is always beyond our finite view of fairness.

 

In his book "God Has a Dream", Archbishop Desmund Tutu described the vision of God.  Archbishop Tutu put it this way:

 

"Dear Child of God, before we can become God's partners, we must know what God wants for us.  "I have a dream," God says, "Please help Me to realize it.  It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be more laughter, joy and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing.  I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God's family.  My family."

 

Bishop Tutu  continues:

 

"In God's family there will be no outsiders.  All are insiders.  Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian ----all belong."

 

 

 

 

The Kingdom of God is like.....

 

 

 

 

 

14 Pentecost Proper 19 Yr A Sept 14 2014

Audio 9.14.2014

Today we have the second installment of Matthew's gospel on forgiveness. Last week I said to you that forgiveness is about the heart, and not forgiving will kill you from the inside out. Forgiveness changes us. Forgiveness covers us with it's grace. Forgiveness can even rewrite the narrative of our lives. And, just as importantly, we are forgiven. In all of our impetuous imperfection, in all of our risky races, in all of our messy murkiness, we continue to be the delight of God's life, we continue to be loved perfectly, and forgiven abundantly. God continues to come to us in love, God comes to us in the unreasonable incarnation, God comes to us in Jesus, in the bread, in the wine, in each other, and God says to us, there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do that will separate me from you. God says, I forgive you now, and I will forgive you forever. 

How many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times? Jesus says, as many as seventy-seven times. Really? Seventy-seven times? Hyperbole? Exaggeration? Or truth? Forgiveness is to be given without limit—an abundance of forgiveness. The gospel writer Matthew uses the "perfect" number 7 in this story, which represents fullness and  spiritual perfection. So how many times is enough? 

Not enough or just enough or even good enough is not the measure here. Forgiveness is the attitude, the posture, that a follower of Jesus takes in all relationship. There are books written on forgiveness. There's "forgiveness Friday" on Facebook. Why does forgiveness remain so hard for us? We look at forgiveness as a transaction, if I forgive you you will change, you will show remorse, you stop doing that dastardly thing that you do. But the forgiveness that is shown to us in this passage is none of that. It is the kind of forgiveness that is not a transaction, it is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice. 

Sometimes, often in fact, forgiveness does not happen once and for all. That is one reason why forgiveness is so hard. Sometimes, the hurt and the pain are so big, and so deep, and maybe even so horrible, that forgiveness needs to happen daily, maybe even more often, it indeed becomes a constant practice. We see and hear when violence has been inflicted on someone, that the loved ones look for revenge, for retribution even. We ask how can there be forgiveness when the wrong is so horrible? We ask is there a time when forgiveness cannot or should not happen? But without forgiveness the heart hardens, the soul withers, and death occurs from the inside out. Forgiveness is a constant practice, and sometimes forgiveness takes a lifetime. 

Forgiveness wraps us in grace, and in love. Forgiveness does not take away hurt or anger, but forgiveness keeps the heart supple, so that it does not wither and die. We can forgive, because we have been forgiven. To be human is to miss the mark, to be human is to hurt and be hurt, to be human is to be broken, to fragment. We are created as these wonderful, beautiful, brutal, passionate beings. Our very beings long for joy, for meaning, for excitement, for wonder, for speed, and for peace and quiet. But life breaks us. We seek after so much that is good for us, and that which is harmful to us. In our seeking, we often hurt ourselves and others. 

But Jesus heals us. The pieces of our lives are put back together again, our lives will look and feel different, but we will be whole. That is forgiveness, forgiveness that brings healing, forgiveness that breaks our hearts. You see, when our hearts break, and then our hearts are healed, that leaves scars. And it is those scars that help us to forgive. It is those scars that give us the grace to see the beauty and the brutality in ourselves, in those we love, and those we cannot love, yet. It is those scars that create the space in our hearts and our lives and give us the capacity to forgive. 

That is what's in Matthew today. Forgiveness happened, forgiveness of a debt, a debt that kept this man a slave, a debt that held his life in peril. That debt was forgiven. That man was graced by forgiveness. And yet he did not let that forgiveness permeate his being, he did not let that forgiveness transform him, he did not pay that love and healing forward.

We have been forgiven, so we may also forgive. And this is the depth of what Matthew shows us in these passages. Forgiveness is to be our posture in the world. So sometimes we find it incredibly difficult to forgive, and sometimes we find it incredibly difficult to accept forgiveness. When you have done wrong, when you have hurt, when you have dealt harshly with the ones you love, and you are offered the grace of forgiveness, how do you accept that? Do you think to yourself, I am not worthy. Do you think to yourself, I don't deserve such grace. The effect is the same as not forgiving. When you can't or don't or won't accept forgiveness your heart hardens, there is no space for love. Accepting forgiveness, accepting you are forgiven, accepting grace, opens your heart and your life to the possibility of transformation, the reality of resurrection. Accepting forgiveness profoundly changes the way we are in relationship with one another. 

"I'm sorry" - "no problem." "I forgive you" - "oh nothing to forgive" are just words without meaning. "I'll never forgive you for what you did to me" or "I can never be forgiven for what I did to you" are words carried on weapons of destruction. As a culture we seem to either use the platitudes, or be at the other extreme where there is no forgiveness possible. But what if instead, we practice forgiveness constantly, what if we carry ourselves with a posture of forgiveness. Forgiveness that conveys grace, forgiveness that heals. God's forgiveness, puts us back together again, binds us and makes us whole and mends our scars. God's forgiveness gives us compassion. God's forgiveness offers us hope. 

I forgive you - you are forgiven is the reality in which God's relationship with us abides, and our relationship with others must live. Forgive them, they do not know what they do, are the words we hear from the cross. Forgive them, forgive us, forgive me, Jesus, fill us with your grace so that love overflows. Amen.

13 Pentecost Proper 18 Yr A Sept 7 2014

Audio 9.7.2014

In one of the classes I took this summer at the Vancouver School of Theology we spent some time telling food stories. The people in the class were First Nations people from Canada, Alaska, and the United States, and anglos from the same places, and one fellow from Africa. Our professor had us tell food stories because they reveal so much about culture and relationships with one another, with one another, and with the land. The class was about food, water, and sustainability. A Navajo woman told us about the corn and the corn pollen. Corn is one of the main staples of the Navajo people. It's an important food item, and every spring, many Navajo families plant large fields of corn. But its use goes far beyond just nutrition--it's also an important part of Navajo prayer. The pollen of the corn is dusted off the tassels and used in ceremonies as a blessing, and is offered in prayer. Corn is used to make many traditional dishes, including kneel-down bread, blue corn mush, dried steamed corn and roasted corn. The corn is also used during a ceremony when a Navajo girl comes of age--a large corn cake is cooked underground in a circular pit lined with corn husks.

Well, that's her story. And I had an opportunity to tell my story. About Lefse, of course. I told them that my mother, who is Irish by the way, stood next my great aunt Minnie, who was Norwegian, as she mixed the Lefse dough, the potatoes and the cream and the flour, until the consistency was just right. Just right could only be felt, not measured. My mom stood by aunt Minnie while she rolled the dough out flat on the lefse rolling board, with the lefse rolling pin, until it was just right. There was no way to measure that, you just had to feel it. My mom stood by aunt Minnie while she pealed the lefse off of the lefse rolling board and set it flat on the griddle over the wood fire of the kitchen stove. I stood by my mother's side, feeling the lefse dough to see that it was just right, rolling the dough until it was thin enough, placing it on the electric lefse griddle as it turned just a little bit brown. My daughter in law stands by my side, mixing the potatoes and the flour until the dough is just right, rolling it out just thin enough, placing it on Audrey's lefse griddle until it is just a little bit brown. 

The story is as much about the corn pollen, or the lefse, or the tortillas, or the bread, as it is about the relationship, the connection to those who came before, and those who come after. It is about who we are and to whom we are related. It is about how our culture forms us as a people, and how our story sustains us. The story we hear today from Exodus is a story like that. It is a story that forms Israel as a people, and it is a story that remembers who they are. Today's portion of the story almost reads like a recipe, it is that and it is a call to remembrance and to reconciliation and forgiveness. It says this is who we are and what we do together, this is what we eat, why we eat it, when we eat it, and who we worship. It calls Israel to remember. This story says to the people, and to us as well, this is hard, being a people is hard, and you can do hard things. This is a story of survival, of tragedy, of heartache, and of hope. It says, if we can hang together, we can make it. It is a family story. 

We, right here, have a story centered in a loaf of broken bread, made real by Jesus' love for us, and when we tell the story, and eat the broken bread, Jesus' brokeness makes us whole, our fragmented parts are put back together again. We are healed, we are whole, we are forgiven, we are set free. 

And in the gospel of Matthew our family story tells us about how followers of Jesus are in right relationship with one another, even when the relationships are troublesome. Churches are full of troublesome people, imperfect people, sinful people. And some of these people are us. Church though, in this part of Matthew is a future reality, it is not present in the mind of the author as we know it today. So this passage is not necessarily about church as we experience it today, but it is most certainly about family, about community, and about connections, it is most certainly about how we interact with one another, and I believe it is most certainly about how we approach one another with forgiveness. We don't forgive to help the other person, and we don't forgive for others, we forgive for ourselves. We forgive, because not forgiving kills us from the inside out. Forgiveness is never about the one forgiven, it is always about the one doing the forgiving. Jesus knows this, of course. Forgiveness is about right relationship.

Being in relationship can be at times wonderful, at times fulfilling, and at times very very painful. Such is the nature of trying to love one another in a fallen world. We witness bad behavior and anger all around us in response to being hurt. Anger seems to be a more socially acceptable response to hurt, instead of forgiveness. I think this is so because so many people think forgiveness is about the other person. Like it is a transaction of some sort. You can only forgive if the other person is sorry, or if the other person changes their behavior, or if the other person does what you want them to do. But forgiveness is not a transaction. Forgiveness is about a transformed heart. Anger really gets us nowhere. Anger only kills us from the inside out. Anger only hardens our hearts and cuts short our lives. 

Forgiveness changes us. Forgiveness covers us with it's grace. Forgiveness can even rewrite the narrative of our lives. And, just as importantly, we are forgiven. In all of our impetuous imperfection, in all of our risky races, in all of our messy murkiness, we continue to be the delight of God's life, we continue to be loved perfectly, and forgiven abundantly. God continues to come to us in love, God comes to us in the unreasonable incarnation, God comes to us in Jesus, in the bread, in the wine, in each other, and God says to us, there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do that will separate me from you. God says, I forgive you now, and I will forgive you forever. 

Amen.

12 Pentecost Proper 17 Aug 31 2014

Audio 8.31.2014

During the 9 o'clock hour this summer we have been reading and talking about a book called Making Sense of the Cross, by David Lose, a former professor at Luther Seminary. It has been a lively discussion about what it is that God has done and is doing through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. We are still not exactly sure that it all makes sense, but we're reasonably clear on the reality that this life takes a lot of death. In Matthew's gospel we hear, "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life." 

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, Jesus is charged with sedition, and is sentenced to death on a cross. In the eyes of the culture, then and now, death, and especially death on a cross -  was not only terminal, but counted as failure as well. We know that Jesus' mortal life ends on a cross, hung between two thieves. But the reality of this story, this story of life and death and resurrection, is that what the world counts as loss, what seems like failure, what looks to the world as death, is really something amazing, something astounding, something completely new. When a new doorway is entered, another doorway is closed. When a seed is planted in the ground, it comes up looking nothing like it did when it went into the ground. When a branch is pruned, it makes way, it leaves space for completely new growth. For every new thing, something dies.

The reality is that this life takes a lot of death. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's also not necessarily a good thing either. It is usually painful, but it's most definitely not failure. It just is. The world shifts under our feet, it is not exactly what we expect, it is not what the world expects. The shifting is literal, earthquakes and hurricanes, the shifting is violent, wars and shootings, the shifting is heart-wrenching, broken hearts and broken lives, the shifting is decisive, the death of our loved ones. 

And that, you see, that is what Peter is railing against. Even to Peter, Jesus' impending ordeal and death looks like failure. What a disappointment this must have been, what a baffling shift in expectations. Clearly, this is not what Peter had imagined. Peter says something like, "listen, Jesus, this cannot be what God intends for you. There must be a different way. This is not what our deliverer ought to do. Suffering and dying is what we have all endured, prophet and ordinary person alike. You are supposed to be different. You are supposed to save us from all our enemies!"

What does it look like to follow the Messiah, the anointed of God? That path is lined with crosses and paved with Jesus’ passion. This is a matter of life and death for his followers as much as it is for Jesus. It is the making space for the new thing that will grow, that must grow. We usually don't really even know what that looks like until we are facing it head on, or until we trip over it, or until we step in it. You know what I mean, what is it you must lose, so that you may live fully alive? What is it you have to die to, or let die, so that you can live fully and completely the new creation that God promises?

These are the things that place demands on our time and attention that adversely affect our relationships. These are the things that pull us away from mercy and compassion, and cause us to judge and criticize. These are the things that harden our hearts and keep us from forgiveness and healing. These are the things that hold on to us so tightly, we cannot see beyond them. They are seductive, like all things which divert our attention from the one who loves us to the things that will destroy us. They are not intrinsically bad things, they may in fact seem like good things, but their claim is so strong on us that we can not pay attention to that which has the ultimate claim on our lives and our souls, which is Love. The Love of the creator for all of creation, the Love of the creator who is willing to show us how it's done, the Love of the creator who gives up all power to show us the way of the cross, to show us the way of Love, and mercy, and compassion, and reconciliation, and healing. 

That is what is happening in this passage from Matthew. Peter and the disciples, and you and me, are witnessing this powerful thing that God is doing in our lives and in our world, then and now and in the age to come. As followers of Jesus we are called to lay down that which is killing us, and to pick up the new life that Jesus offers. It is not really easy. 

And yet we learn that suffering and death, each and every death that is part of this life, this cruciform existence is not all that there will be. The Son of Man will return and bring justice in this world. Such justice is not merely the paying off of old debts or the settling of bitter scores. Instead, this justice is a promise of deliverance.

The cross will appear to span finality. The cross will appear to be the end of the story for us all. But the promise Jesus makes here and the promises God has made from the beginning assure a future, a future in which justice blooms, a future in which the hungry are fed and the imprisoned are comforted. And that future is not a long way off. 

The promise is that there is life after death. The promise is that the story doesn't end with death, even death on a cross. The promise is that Love wins.  

11 Pentecost Proper 16 Yr A Aug 24 2014

Audio 8.24.2014

Who do you say I am, Jesus asked Simon Peter. And Simon Peter announces, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. 

Who do you say I am, Jesus asks each one of us. Who do you say Jesus is? We come here, every Sunday morning, and who do we say Jesus is? Who do we say Jesus is when we arrive at work on Monday morning? Who do we say Jesus is when we arrive at school each day? Who do we say Jesus is when we are sitting in traffic, or deciding how to spend our hard earned money, or wondering about what government services should be cut, or when considering the violent events in our country and our world?

Who do you say I am? Like Peter, I announce Jesus is the son of the living God. But I also think those are just words, unless they are backed up by what I do with my time, my talent, and my treasure, how I make my decisions and how I treat people. You and I aren't the kind of people who have a ready answer to the question, who do you say I am? The words don't come easily, but I guarantee the words don't really matter if our lives don't speak of mercy and compassion. 

Jesus is teaching disciples in these stories. Jesus is trying to impart all he knows and all he is as he prepares for his last days in Jerusalem. Jesus is developing ambassadors of the kingdom, you and I are ambassadors of the kingdom, our work is to live the answer to the question, who do you say I am, with our words and with our lives. 

What you do this week will change the world. In the Exodus story, 

a single act of resistance saved an entire people. The King had commanded that all male babies be killed. The baby in our story, Moses, was hidden from that awful fate, by the midwives who caught him, until the daughter of Pharoah found him and raised him as her own. Moses went on to lead his people out of Egypt into a new land and a new life, Moses led his people from slavery into freedom. Like Shiphrah and Puah, what you do this week will change the world. We just don't know how what we do will effect that change, but it will, and it does. Who do you say I am? How your life answers that, makes a difference. 

Last week I said to you that our words matter. This week I say to you that what we do matters. Jesus’ teaching is to love your enemies, to come before God in prayer and in worship, and to forgive one another. And that Jesus’ life will be given for ours. This is the kingship in which the God who created the heavens and the earth inaugurates a new creation. And even the ancient story of Moses shows us that what we do matters to God and matters to the world.

Who do you say that Jesus is? This question presupposes that what we believe about Jesus matters. What we believe about Jesus matters to you and to me, it matters to our church, and most importantly it matters to the world. 

It also assumes a relationship; there is no way to begin to say who Jesus is without the relationship. And in this relationship with Jesus, we learn who we really are. In response to Peter’s naming Jesus, Jesus tells Peter who he really is. You are Peter, a rock. In this relationship, Jesus knows who we really are, we are named and marked as Christ’s own forever, you are my beloved, the delight of God’s life. 

I think this is the most important part of this story. It is not so much about the right answer to the question who do you say that Jesus is, but it is very much about the relationship the question presupposes, you are the delight of God’s life. We might not be very good answering the question with words, but we can begin to show the world that Jesus matters, that this relationship with Jesus matters. 

That brings us to the image that is presented in Romans, we, who are many, are one body in Christ. This is an amazingly counter cultural image, one body, with different graceful gifts. This new creation that God inaugurates in Jesus is all about a completely new way to live on this earth. We live not for ourselves, but for the greater good of God’s creation. Do not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the amazing and abundant love that God has for you. 

How do we live in the world as the body of Christ? How do we live in the world as the delight of God’s life? How do we live in the world as people to whom Jesus matters? How do we live in the world as agents of new creation? How do we live in the world as a people transformed by God’s love? I think we do that by showing forth love not only for those it is easy to love, but for those we count as enemies as well. I think we do that by showing mercy and compassion. I think we do that by caring for God’s creation. 

One of the things that is very important to me as your rector here at St. Andrew’s, is that we be a witness to the diversity of the body of Christ. What that means is that we stay in the conversation, we stay at the table with people who hold very different views about God than we do. This is not to say that everyone here at St. Andrew’s has the same view and understanding about God, in fact it is to say that here at St. Andrew’s we may have very different views, and that is exactly who we are. We witness to the diversity of the body of Christ. 

So by staying in the conversation, staying at the table, even when that is challenging, difficult, and sometimes infuriating, the whole body shows forth. And by staying in the conversation, the whole body is transformed. We all begin to see with transformed eyes and hear with transformed ears, and love with transformed hearts. We are better able to respect the dignity of every human being; we are able to show forth the love that God has for us. 

The same is true on the congregational level. We stay in the relationship, we stay around the table, no matter our disagreements, because we are the body of Christ, and the body is lessened when we don’t show up. The question then, who do you say I am, may be answered by our presence, by our showing up at the table, by the mercy and compassion that we show to all people, by our showing that we love one another because we are all of God’s creations, to show that Love wins. 

Who do you say that Jesus is?

10 Pentecost Proper 15 Yr A Aug 17 2014

Audio 8.17.2014

It's been a hard year. There has been fighting and conflicts all over the globe, do we send troops or do we not? There is senseless violence in our own country. People are behaving badly all over the place. We've been stretched to breaking with the demands on our patience and on compassion. People we know and people we hardly know dieing senselessly. There is disease that we don't understand. We have experienced so very closely the broken world in which we live. There is goodness all around us, in so many places and in so many people, but it is a broken world, and we have seen much of the brokenness in these days. 

And we have before us a hard lesson from Matthew and this continuing story in Genesis of Joseph and his brothers, brothers who sold him into slavery because they didn't like that he was a dreamer. What are we to make of it all? What are we to make of the readings and what are we to make of the reality? 

In the verses from Matthew we have before us today, Jesus really seems mad. He's been spending all of his time teaching the disciples and other followers, parable after parable, story after story, trying to impart everything he can about humanity's relationship with God, and God's relationship with God's people. Jesus experienced the tragic death of his relative, John. Jesus has fed thousands of people, and all he wants is to get away by himself for a little R and R. He's got to walk on the water out to the boat to save those hapless disciples, and after all that, the Pharisees come all the way from Jerusalem to entrap him. I imagine that the telling of this story has quite of bit of censoring and editing, I imagine Jesus' language may have been much more harsh than we hear today. 

Jesus says that what comes out of our mouths and from our hearts can be disastrous when we don't speak with love and truth. Jesus says, our words matter. Our words have the power to create a compassionate reality, and our words can challenge the darkness, our words can even be the light in the darkness. Our words and our actions even have the power to dispel the darkness. One of my favorite books by my favorite author is A Wrinkle in Time, it is a story that is all about about using our gifts, following in the footsteps of the saints who came before us, about daring to be different, it's about foolishness, faith and free will, and the greatest call and commandment, loving one another. That story shows us, like scripture tells us today, what we say to one another matters, our words matter. 

The words that dispel the darkness are words that come from a heart that is filled with mercy and compassion, a heart filled with love for each and every gift of God's creation. Even in the midst of sadness, even in the midst of tragedy, we are called to speak words of mercy and compassion, words of God's love for all of God's creation. We are called to speak words of mercy and compassion into every darkness. If we don't do it, if we don't speak words of love, words of mercy and compassion, the darkness will not be dispelled. That is what Jesus is trying to show us in this gospel today, and that is the truth of what God in Jesus has done and continues to do. Darkness does not win. Love wins. Our words can create a compassionate reality. And we are desperate for a compassionate reality. 

The second half of the story from Matthew paints a picture of Jesus that may be even harder for us to understand. He is angry, and mean, and in this particular story, Jesus claims an exclusive mission. He says he is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. What is amazing in this story is that the Canaanite woman challenges Jesus, and her challenge creates a new compassionate reality. She challenges Jesus to include not just the lost sheep of Israel, but everyone in the known world. 

In this story, the Canaanite woman is absolutely and completely the other, the foreigner, she doesn't look like us or talk like us. But she's also a mother. Jesus is speaking to a mother whose daughter's life is at risk. Many of you know that when your child's life is at stake, you will do most anything, go to any lengths, you'll stay by their bedside, you'll take them to the hospital in the middle of the night, you'll pray and ask everyone you know to pray, you'll even bargain with God. This is that mother. She's not an insider, she's not an Israelite, she's a foreigner, and even Jesus, this Jesus who I have always believed includes everyone, says no. Maybe he's just too tired, maybe he's had a hard day, maybe he's fed so many people he's just spent. I've felt that way. 

But then, when you don't think you can do one more thing, help one more person, listen to one more story, something happens. Something shows forth the light, the love, the healing, the hope. Lord, help me she prays. And he does. Something breaks through. And the break through expands the love, she challenges Jesus, and the result is not just her baby being healed, but it is healing for everyone, for all of us. The light shows forth, mercy and compassion are possible. 

We are desperate for this compassionate reality. Our words matter. Love wins. What we do and what we say in the midst of sadness and tragedy, are capable of healing. Remember, what Jesus does on the cross is to take evil out of the world with him. He does not look for revenge, and surely he is the one who would have the right to. Instead he loves. Instead he forgives. Instead he heals.

It is our job to bear Jesus' love, forgiveness and healing into the world, it is our job to speak words of compassion into the world. This is our mission. To build bridges of love and compassion, to build bridges of healing and hope. Today, we will send a missionary into the world to build those bridges. And we will do that centered in our baptismal covenant, because all of us are called to be missionaries, all of us are called to be bridge builders, all of us are called to be love bearers, all of us are called to build a compassionate reality. This is our mission, the one we send bears our mission, our love, our words. Because, love wins.