Preached on October 14, 2007 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC
Dedicated to Finley Marie O’Neal, on the day of her baptism; and always to the glory of God.
Psalm 137
Mark 1:1-3
Listen to the things that we say about home.
- Home sweet home.
- Home is where the heart is.
- “Homeward bound. I wish I was homeward bound.”
- Or, as Dorothy Gale said, clicking her ruby slippers: “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
These words are a part of our cultural language, and tell us what we already know, that we there is within each of us the longing for home. We long for a home where everything is just right; is just as we always dreamed. I can remember what it felt like when I was away at college in December, studying for exams in the dorm lounge with Christmas decorations on the wall which were only dismal echoes of the way Christmas felt at home. I ached to be on my way to the familiar sights and smells of home. We all know the homesickness that comes when we are far away and long to be back home again.
But there is another kind of longing that we need to talk about, the kind that we feel not when we are far from home, but when the place where we live doesn’t feel like home, or at least not like the home we want. We are often homesick in this way, and the symptoms are disappointment, fear, and anger, because what we long for is a Norman Rockwell painting of a family meal, perhaps Thanksgiving, with the food glowing on it’s platters and bowls, and the children and adults beaming with clean faces and fine clothes. We long for home where everything is just right. The problem is that we are longing for the wrong home.
Often the home we long for is the home of our past. We remember how we used to sing Grandma’s favorite carol at Christmastime, but in the years since she has died, that song has too many painful memories. I remember a friend of mine, a minister in another church, who was in worship one Sunday morning when she stood to sing the closing hymn of the service. She had chosen the hymn for that day, but when she opened the hymnal, found the page, and tried to start singing, tears came to her eyes and her throat closed shut. She couldn’t sing the hymn because the last time she had sung it had been at her father’s funeral. How can we sing the old songs when that home is gone?
It’s not just our own homes and families that have changed. The world that we called home has changed. The Biblical teacher Walter Brueggemann writes that we live at a time when “Our society is marked by a deep dislocation that touches every aspect of our lives. The old certitudes seem less certain; the old privileges are under powerful challenge; the old dominations are increasingly ineffective and fragile.”[1]
That rings true to me. Our nation, once so certain to protect its citizens, now seems vulnerable to a new kind of threat. Our workforce, once proud, is caught between cheap labor overseas and unaffordable health costs at home. Even the church might long for the past, when we had almost universal influence: keeping stores closed on Sundays and even Wednesday nights free of community events. Now it is no longer the norm to attend church on Sunday; no longer is it the norm to offer Christian prayers at public events because the public is no longer uniformly Christian as it was mid-century, in the boom years after the war. Those of you who have watched generations grow up must feel as though this church, this country, is a very different place.
We long for a home as it used to be, for home as we dream of it. And we are not the first.
In the year 578 B.C., six centuries before Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river, the nation of Israel was attacked by the large and powerful empire of Babylon, which lay to the east. Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple razed. The king and much of the population, including all the leading merchants, owners, priests and politicians were taken into exile far away in Babylon, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They lost their home. They were conquered. This great exile is the subject of much of the old testament prophets and psalms, although it is a story we seldom tell, which is too bad, because it is a story we need. We are a people in exile. We feel that we have lost our home, even those of you who have lived in the same place all your lives may feel that the place has changed around you, and the home you had is gone.
Brueggemann makes the connection: “For ancient Israel, it was the end of privilege, certitude, domination, viable public institutions and a sustaining social fabric. It was the end of life with God, which Israel had taken for granted. In that wrenching time, ancient Israel faced the temptation of despair—the inability to see any way out.”
Despair is the inability to see a way out. Or as my friend, the Rev. Craig Barnes puts it, the danger when you are lost in a dark wood is not that you will become more lost trying to get to the right place, but that you will grow accustomed to the darkness.[2] The Israelites in Babylon were full of despair. Here they were by the rivers of Babylon, and they wept, the psalm tells us. Some of the Babylonians, the nation that had taken them captive, wanted to hear their songs. They wanted some culture, apparently, from across the desert. They said “sing us those songs of Zion. Give us the flavor of old Jerusalem.” But the Israelites hung their harps on the trees. They said “how can we sing the Lord’s song when we are far away in a foreign land?”
So it is with us. We cannot sing the old songs, acting as if nothing has changed. The old songs are too painful, or they have simply lost their meaning. Maybe we have stopped believing that they can be true.
It was two generations later that the exile in Babylon ended. The prophet Isaiah records the words of their return home: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight a path in the wilderness.” God prepares a way for us to go home. In the wilderness God makes a way. Think of their joy, their relief, to be going home, and keep that story in mind as we turn to the gospels with new ears. This morning we heard the first words from the gospel according to Mark, and he begins with those lines from Isaiah about preparing a way in the wilderness for God. All the gospels begin with old words that are about going home, and what they mean by this is that the way home is the way of Jesus Christ.
Forget the Norman Rockwell painting. If you want to picture home, you’d be better off with Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. You know the painting, with the long table, and everyone sitting on the same side. On the edges you can see in the disciples images of grief, confusion, and betrayal, but in the center is the savior who bears all burdens.[3] Home is not the place where every pain is eased and everything is calm. Home is found in the midst of pain and discomfort when we find ourselves at home in God who can hold all things together. That is what we long for, even as we try all kinds of substitutions: a home with God in the midst of our loss and confusion.
We need to listen more to the Hebrews who were in exile. Their story is our story. We understand them when they say that they can’t sing the old songs in a foreign land because we feel that way too; we know that sense of loss. But they didn’t stay lost. Listen to what the prophet Jeremiah says to them about their time in exile, in the 29th chapter, he first tells them not to listen to false prophets who were telling them that God would fix it any moment and make everything just the way it was. It never works to wait for an instant return to the way things were. We do not worship a God of the quick fix. Jeremiah tells them this instead: “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
This is a new theology! When you have lost your home, make home where you are, because God is not left behind in that other place or in that other time, God is in the midst of the confusion and fear where you are right now. Home can be found here, with Christ in the midst of us. Prepare a way for the Lord. Instead of anger or bitterness about the place we are stuck in, when we seek the welfare of this place and time, it will work for our welfare.
Isn’t that interesting about the spiritual life: that it always leads us to work and give for the good of others, and this always results in deep good for ourselves, but whenever we seek good things simply for ourselves, it brings shallow results.
We long for home but we too often search for the wrong home. Home will not take away the complexity or difficulty of our lives, but will give us a strength and purpose, will give us God’s spirit to be home right where we are. And we will be able to sing God’s songs again. Amen.
[1] From “Conversations Among Exiles.” The Christian Century, July 2-9, 1997, pp. 630-632
[2] Craig Barnes, Searching for Home, 2003, Brazos Press, page 21.
[3] Craig Barnes, Searching For Home, 2003, Brazos Press, page 29.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sermon - Lost and Found
Preached on September 16, 2007 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC
Luke 15:1-10
Dedicated to Betsy; and always to the glory of God.
Last month, when the mine in Utah collapsed on those six miners, I remember following the news day after day about the efforts to find them, about the size of the holes they were drilling deep, deep into the earth to the places where they thought the miners might be trapped, with hope that they find signs of life. As it became ten and eleven days since the collapse, they were drilling yet another hole, and I wondered what hope they could still have? But everyone wanted to keep looking. When people are lost, we want to find them.
When someone is really lost and we know it, we will go to heroic efforts to find them. When there are climbers trapped on a mountain. Maybe they weren’t prepared, maybe they shouldn’t have gone up with a storm coming in, but it doesn’t matter, we will call forth great rescuers and resources. A child missing in a small town will have crowds combing the fields, parks, and woods. We post pictures and send them out in the mail, asking if anyone has seen them.
And we hope that if we are ever lost there will be no limit to the efforts made to find us, wherever we may be. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin tell us that when we are lost in a spiritual sense, when we are buried deep and the weight of the world is upon us, God will search and search for us, will find us, will rejoice and bring us back. That is good news, and news that we need to share, because too often the message about God gets twisted, and we hear instead that if we are lost, then we did it to ourselves, and it’s up to us to get back, not God. That’s not the story Jesus told, and not the one we should tell either.
The story Jesus told was about a shepherd who, perhaps, is bringing the sheep from the hills to the village at the end of day, only to realize that one sheep didn’t make it back. In those days, all the sheep owned in the village were herded together, and the owners would take turns to stay with the animals. As the shepherd goes back to the hills, the rest of the town waits and watches in the failing light, not knowing whose sheep is lost, but together hoping for its safe return. Finally, the shepherd’s form can be seen in the moonlight coming over a hill, the lost sheep across his shoulders. He calls out to them with triumph, and everyone rejoices, and brings out the food and drink for a late night celebration. The gospel is told in that kind of story.
Or try this one on: A woman loses one of her ten coins, called a drachma, which is each equal to the wage for one day’s labor. But a single woman in that time and place was not in a position to easily earn such a wage. She was a widow, perhaps, or never married -vulnerable in either case. Those ten coins are all her wealth. It would be like someone on a small fixed income of social security having lost a check. She laments to her neighbor, and soon word spreads. People feel awful for her loss, and what it means to her security.
The story goes that she lit a lamp and swept the house, which in those days would have had a pounded dirt floor covered by thatch. Not an easy place to spot a coin, especially by the limited glow of a lamp. But she is persistent, and does not give up the search until the coin is found. When she spots the dull glint of metal, smudged with dirt, she cries with happiness and relief, and calls to her neighbors, who come with hugs and food and drink to help her to bask in the joy of the lost being found. And so it is with God. The lost is found. God will search, and search, and search. And when we are found, what joy there is. If you finish this chapter in the gospel, you will find that Jesus completes these two parables by telling one more story, this time about a son who is lost and thought to be dead, and about the great party his father throws when his beloved child comes home.
We rejoice when the lost is found. But what about the people who are lost even while they are right in front of us? What about the people who might be in the same room, but to everyone else they are lost because of the way they look, or smell; because they are bitter and mean, those long-applied defenses; or lost because of the shameful secret about them that everyone else knows, the one that is whispered in the other corners of the room. “He’s the one.” “Do you know what she did?”
Those people are the ones that Jesus sought out – the ones who were lost in plain sight. He shared his meals and conversation with them, and showed mercy to them, trusting that these acts of generosity, of grace, would be a way for these lost people to be found.
It is good news that God finds us when we are lost, but that’s not why Jesus told these stories. He told these stories because the uptight religious people were upset again about Jesus spending time with all those sinners. Righteous people shouldn’t get near them, they thought; they should maintain their dignity! And God’s holiness surely could not be compromised by the presence of these sinners.
In response, Jesus told these stories, telling them not to the people who were lost, but to the people who were not joining the party, which is another way of being lost, I suppose. If one way of hearing these parables is identifying with the lost sheep and lost coin, the other way is for us to identify with the neighbors who are invited to join the celebration. How will we respond? Will we rejoice? Will we celebrate that God loves the lost, and loves them just because?
Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, tells the story of a ten-day backpacking trip in the mountains that she and her husband took with eight strangers and a trip leader.[1] Each day they would pack up camp and hike over mountain ridges to a new place to camp for the night. They took turns in the lead, and some were fast hikers and some were slow, but eventually they always had to wait for the last person in line to catch up, and so realized that the group could cover ground only as fast as their slowest member, and that was Pat. Pat was always the slowest, partly because she spent much of her energy to maintain a running commentary of her complaints. The day was too sunny or too damp, we can’t stop for lunch here, it’s too rocky. She didn’t join in conversations, but she would listen in on them, and interrupt in order to correct someone’s grammar, geography, history, or botany. She hadn’t come with anyone, and didn’t particularly warm up to anyone.
At the end of one difficult day in which they had climbed three separate peaks, they finally arrived at their campsite with little daylight left only to find that Pat was not with them. They quickly discovered that no one had seen her since just after lunch, when she had told the person responsible for bringing up the rear of the group to just go on ahead and she would be there soon. He’d been only too happy to let her take the last spot by herself, and no one had thought of her since.
Everyone was tired and hungry, and no one could imagine going back to look for her, although they all felt a chill and horror at the thought of being lost, alone in the woods. The trip leader took a flashlight, blanket, and warm soup and went back for her, because it was his job. The rest milled about, trying to avoid the awful thoughts about what might become of her.
Hours later, very late at night, the leader emerged from the trail into the clearing, and with him was Pat. Everyone swarmed around them, giving her hugs and pressing food and hot cocoa into her hands. Everyone was genuinely, intensely glad to see her, and did not remember anymore all the ways that they had come to dislike her. She was lost and now she was found. She didn’t return the hugs very warmly, and acted as if she had never been worried or scared, but the next morning she was one of the first to roll up her tent and pack her things, and that had never happened. She no longer lingered far behind, slowing down the group, and although she never became exactly easy to get along with, the experience of being lost and found did seem to have changed her, just as it changed the attitudes of those around her.
The thing is, Pat had been lost long before the night she was physically lost. And I wonder: how can we do the same thing for each other without waiting for someone’s life to actually be in danger? We are lost, in one way or the other, and we need to find each other, to see in each other what is valuable. When the lost are found, that is what leads to the joyful celebrations, and rejoicing for the lost who are found is what God is all about.
[1] From the sermon “The Lost and Found Department” printed in The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor, 1993.
Luke 15:1-10
Dedicated to Betsy; and always to the glory of God.
Last month, when the mine in Utah collapsed on those six miners, I remember following the news day after day about the efforts to find them, about the size of the holes they were drilling deep, deep into the earth to the places where they thought the miners might be trapped, with hope that they find signs of life. As it became ten and eleven days since the collapse, they were drilling yet another hole, and I wondered what hope they could still have? But everyone wanted to keep looking. When people are lost, we want to find them.
When someone is really lost and we know it, we will go to heroic efforts to find them. When there are climbers trapped on a mountain. Maybe they weren’t prepared, maybe they shouldn’t have gone up with a storm coming in, but it doesn’t matter, we will call forth great rescuers and resources. A child missing in a small town will have crowds combing the fields, parks, and woods. We post pictures and send them out in the mail, asking if anyone has seen them.
And we hope that if we are ever lost there will be no limit to the efforts made to find us, wherever we may be. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin tell us that when we are lost in a spiritual sense, when we are buried deep and the weight of the world is upon us, God will search and search for us, will find us, will rejoice and bring us back. That is good news, and news that we need to share, because too often the message about God gets twisted, and we hear instead that if we are lost, then we did it to ourselves, and it’s up to us to get back, not God. That’s not the story Jesus told, and not the one we should tell either.
The story Jesus told was about a shepherd who, perhaps, is bringing the sheep from the hills to the village at the end of day, only to realize that one sheep didn’t make it back. In those days, all the sheep owned in the village were herded together, and the owners would take turns to stay with the animals. As the shepherd goes back to the hills, the rest of the town waits and watches in the failing light, not knowing whose sheep is lost, but together hoping for its safe return. Finally, the shepherd’s form can be seen in the moonlight coming over a hill, the lost sheep across his shoulders. He calls out to them with triumph, and everyone rejoices, and brings out the food and drink for a late night celebration. The gospel is told in that kind of story.
Or try this one on: A woman loses one of her ten coins, called a drachma, which is each equal to the wage for one day’s labor. But a single woman in that time and place was not in a position to easily earn such a wage. She was a widow, perhaps, or never married -vulnerable in either case. Those ten coins are all her wealth. It would be like someone on a small fixed income of social security having lost a check. She laments to her neighbor, and soon word spreads. People feel awful for her loss, and what it means to her security.
The story goes that she lit a lamp and swept the house, which in those days would have had a pounded dirt floor covered by thatch. Not an easy place to spot a coin, especially by the limited glow of a lamp. But she is persistent, and does not give up the search until the coin is found. When she spots the dull glint of metal, smudged with dirt, she cries with happiness and relief, and calls to her neighbors, who come with hugs and food and drink to help her to bask in the joy of the lost being found. And so it is with God. The lost is found. God will search, and search, and search. And when we are found, what joy there is. If you finish this chapter in the gospel, you will find that Jesus completes these two parables by telling one more story, this time about a son who is lost and thought to be dead, and about the great party his father throws when his beloved child comes home.
We rejoice when the lost is found. But what about the people who are lost even while they are right in front of us? What about the people who might be in the same room, but to everyone else they are lost because of the way they look, or smell; because they are bitter and mean, those long-applied defenses; or lost because of the shameful secret about them that everyone else knows, the one that is whispered in the other corners of the room. “He’s the one.” “Do you know what she did?”
Those people are the ones that Jesus sought out – the ones who were lost in plain sight. He shared his meals and conversation with them, and showed mercy to them, trusting that these acts of generosity, of grace, would be a way for these lost people to be found.
It is good news that God finds us when we are lost, but that’s not why Jesus told these stories. He told these stories because the uptight religious people were upset again about Jesus spending time with all those sinners. Righteous people shouldn’t get near them, they thought; they should maintain their dignity! And God’s holiness surely could not be compromised by the presence of these sinners.
In response, Jesus told these stories, telling them not to the people who were lost, but to the people who were not joining the party, which is another way of being lost, I suppose. If one way of hearing these parables is identifying with the lost sheep and lost coin, the other way is for us to identify with the neighbors who are invited to join the celebration. How will we respond? Will we rejoice? Will we celebrate that God loves the lost, and loves them just because?
Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, tells the story of a ten-day backpacking trip in the mountains that she and her husband took with eight strangers and a trip leader.[1] Each day they would pack up camp and hike over mountain ridges to a new place to camp for the night. They took turns in the lead, and some were fast hikers and some were slow, but eventually they always had to wait for the last person in line to catch up, and so realized that the group could cover ground only as fast as their slowest member, and that was Pat. Pat was always the slowest, partly because she spent much of her energy to maintain a running commentary of her complaints. The day was too sunny or too damp, we can’t stop for lunch here, it’s too rocky. She didn’t join in conversations, but she would listen in on them, and interrupt in order to correct someone’s grammar, geography, history, or botany. She hadn’t come with anyone, and didn’t particularly warm up to anyone.
At the end of one difficult day in which they had climbed three separate peaks, they finally arrived at their campsite with little daylight left only to find that Pat was not with them. They quickly discovered that no one had seen her since just after lunch, when she had told the person responsible for bringing up the rear of the group to just go on ahead and she would be there soon. He’d been only too happy to let her take the last spot by herself, and no one had thought of her since.
Everyone was tired and hungry, and no one could imagine going back to look for her, although they all felt a chill and horror at the thought of being lost, alone in the woods. The trip leader took a flashlight, blanket, and warm soup and went back for her, because it was his job. The rest milled about, trying to avoid the awful thoughts about what might become of her.
Hours later, very late at night, the leader emerged from the trail into the clearing, and with him was Pat. Everyone swarmed around them, giving her hugs and pressing food and hot cocoa into her hands. Everyone was genuinely, intensely glad to see her, and did not remember anymore all the ways that they had come to dislike her. She was lost and now she was found. She didn’t return the hugs very warmly, and acted as if she had never been worried or scared, but the next morning she was one of the first to roll up her tent and pack her things, and that had never happened. She no longer lingered far behind, slowing down the group, and although she never became exactly easy to get along with, the experience of being lost and found did seem to have changed her, just as it changed the attitudes of those around her.
The thing is, Pat had been lost long before the night she was physically lost. And I wonder: how can we do the same thing for each other without waiting for someone’s life to actually be in danger? We are lost, in one way or the other, and we need to find each other, to see in each other what is valuable. When the lost are found, that is what leads to the joyful celebrations, and rejoicing for the lost who are found is what God is all about.
[1] From the sermon “The Lost and Found Department” printed in The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor, 1993.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Sermon - The Rule of Compassion
Preached on August 26, 2007 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio UCC
Luke 13:10-17
Dedicated to Betsy, my wife, who teaches me compassion;
and always to the glory of God.
The fourth of the ten commandments, which are the basis of Biblical law, reads like this:
“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work: you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
Jesus comes into conflict with his fellow Jews over and over again in the gospels when he heals on the Sabbath, and lets his disciples pick grain from a field when they are hungry. Jesus gets into arguments about the fourth commandment. But we need to remember what the argument is about. It’s not about whether to honor the Sabbath, but how to honor the Sabbath. And the larger question is this: What does it mean to be good? What are the ethics of the kingdom of God?
What we have here are two ways of understanding God’s commandments as we read them in scripture, and these two are argued by the synagogue leader and Jesus. But even as they argue, both Jesus and the synagogue leader believe that we must love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that this love is shown in our actions and choices. Their disagreement is about what actions and what choices?
The first way of understanding God’s commandments, the way that the synagogue leader understood them, is that we honor God by obeying God’s commandments. God is the one who deserves our absolute loyalty and service. And so we honor God by obeying the rules. Don’t work on the Sabbath. The woman has been afflicted for years - one more day won’t hurt. The synagogue leader is not opposed to healing; he just wants to be good by obeying God. His view is logical and consistent. But it is not the only idea of goodness.
Contrast his view with the way Jesus understands God’s commandments, and what it means to honor God. Jesus teaches us that God’s chief concern is not being obeyed. What is most important to God is to love and care for people and for the entire creation. The commandments, rules, and principles of scripture are all ways for God’s people to love and care for one another and for the world in their lives. When someone asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment he answered “‘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.’” And it’s important to remember what he says next: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40).
If God is primarily concerned with love and care for people, then to heal a long-suffering woman is to honor God’s commandments. And look what happens. The woman who is healed stands upright for the first time in years, and she praises God. And the people who were there celebrated with her and praised God together. Doesn’t that sound like a way to honor the Sabbath?
When we understand that God’s commandments are not tests of obedience, but are for our care, then we remember that the Sabbath is for us, a day when we need rest and time with God. God knows we need Sabbath, or else we will suffer exhaustion and will never benefit from any of the things we work so hard to accomplish on the other six days. We should honor the Sabbath, but we should do it as a way to honor God’s love and care for us, and not simply to obey the rule.
This is advanced ethics. It’s easier to be good if there are black and white rules and loving God is just a matter of obeying the rules as written. Like when we are young and we learn that it is wrong to walk out into the street. That’s black and white, and easy to know the right thing to do, even if we don’t always do it. But then one day your little dog is off the leash and out in the road and limping. There are no cars coming, but you know the dog is in danger and needs to be moved. But you’re not supposed to go out there. Suddenly you are in advanced ethics.
There’s a movie called The Village, made by M. Night Shyamalan after his big hit with The Sixth Sense. It’s billed as a scary thriller, but at its heart it is a movie about right and wrong. The setting is a small village isolated in a vast woods, which is completely self-sustaining. The people have isolated themselves away from the corruption and dangerous influences of “the town” or any other human contact. There isn’t even a path from the town, and the rules against leaving the village are strict, so that everyone may be kept safe. But then, a councilman’s son is wounded and becomes badly infected. A few of the elders know that out in the town there is medicine that would save his life, but most are willing to accept his death as the price they pay for keeping their town safe and holy and kept apart.
But what does the rule of compassion say? Compassion does not allow us to hold ourselves apart as holy observers of the law while people are in need. The commandments of God should lead to love for our neighbors, or they have been misused. The commandment to observe the Sabbath is for giving us rest, that we may have more strength and energy to love, and that we may have time to remember how much we are loved by God, how sacred is each life, and how holy is this world. Observing the Sabbath should increase our love.
When Jesus Christ healed the crippled woman on the Sabbath, he evaluated the word of God according to the greatest commandment, and now you and I must do the same. That is what we are called to, for we are followers of Christ, we are the people of “the way” as they were first named, which is the way of Christ, and later named Christians, because we seek to be Christ-like, and being Christ-like leads us to being ruled by compassion.
The rule of compassion is the final decision maker in advanced ethics. Sometimes it is difficult to know how to be compassionate. Does it mean giving someone yet another loan we never expect to be paid back or is it helping them to find a job or get treatment? Does it mean spending more on affordable housing and programs like head start and food stamps, or does it mean cutting taxes so that the upper class to stimulate the economy with their investment in jobs and demand for services? These are difficult questions, but my hope is that all of us who face hard questions will make the compassion of Jesus our rule, and follow the direction that it leads.
God knows there are enough people who are like this woman, bent over and weighed down. God knows that sometimes that woman stands for you and for me, when we are weighed down by hurt, trapped by our circumstances, bent over in pain and loss, and we do not need to find a God who will make us obedient; we need to meet a God of love and care who will heal us and change our lives. We need our lives to be changed by love that we may love back. As Christ has loved us, may we love one another.
Luke 13:10-17
Dedicated to Betsy, my wife, who teaches me compassion;
and always to the glory of God.
The fourth of the ten commandments, which are the basis of Biblical law, reads like this:
“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work: you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
Jesus comes into conflict with his fellow Jews over and over again in the gospels when he heals on the Sabbath, and lets his disciples pick grain from a field when they are hungry. Jesus gets into arguments about the fourth commandment. But we need to remember what the argument is about. It’s not about whether to honor the Sabbath, but how to honor the Sabbath. And the larger question is this: What does it mean to be good? What are the ethics of the kingdom of God?
What we have here are two ways of understanding God’s commandments as we read them in scripture, and these two are argued by the synagogue leader and Jesus. But even as they argue, both Jesus and the synagogue leader believe that we must love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that this love is shown in our actions and choices. Their disagreement is about what actions and what choices?
The first way of understanding God’s commandments, the way that the synagogue leader understood them, is that we honor God by obeying God’s commandments. God is the one who deserves our absolute loyalty and service. And so we honor God by obeying the rules. Don’t work on the Sabbath. The woman has been afflicted for years - one more day won’t hurt. The synagogue leader is not opposed to healing; he just wants to be good by obeying God. His view is logical and consistent. But it is not the only idea of goodness.
Contrast his view with the way Jesus understands God’s commandments, and what it means to honor God. Jesus teaches us that God’s chief concern is not being obeyed. What is most important to God is to love and care for people and for the entire creation. The commandments, rules, and principles of scripture are all ways for God’s people to love and care for one another and for the world in their lives. When someone asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment he answered “‘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.’” And it’s important to remember what he says next: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40).
If God is primarily concerned with love and care for people, then to heal a long-suffering woman is to honor God’s commandments. And look what happens. The woman who is healed stands upright for the first time in years, and she praises God. And the people who were there celebrated with her and praised God together. Doesn’t that sound like a way to honor the Sabbath?
When we understand that God’s commandments are not tests of obedience, but are for our care, then we remember that the Sabbath is for us, a day when we need rest and time with God. God knows we need Sabbath, or else we will suffer exhaustion and will never benefit from any of the things we work so hard to accomplish on the other six days. We should honor the Sabbath, but we should do it as a way to honor God’s love and care for us, and not simply to obey the rule.
This is advanced ethics. It’s easier to be good if there are black and white rules and loving God is just a matter of obeying the rules as written. Like when we are young and we learn that it is wrong to walk out into the street. That’s black and white, and easy to know the right thing to do, even if we don’t always do it. But then one day your little dog is off the leash and out in the road and limping. There are no cars coming, but you know the dog is in danger and needs to be moved. But you’re not supposed to go out there. Suddenly you are in advanced ethics.
There’s a movie called The Village, made by M. Night Shyamalan after his big hit with The Sixth Sense. It’s billed as a scary thriller, but at its heart it is a movie about right and wrong. The setting is a small village isolated in a vast woods, which is completely self-sustaining. The people have isolated themselves away from the corruption and dangerous influences of “the town” or any other human contact. There isn’t even a path from the town, and the rules against leaving the village are strict, so that everyone may be kept safe. But then, a councilman’s son is wounded and becomes badly infected. A few of the elders know that out in the town there is medicine that would save his life, but most are willing to accept his death as the price they pay for keeping their town safe and holy and kept apart.
But what does the rule of compassion say? Compassion does not allow us to hold ourselves apart as holy observers of the law while people are in need. The commandments of God should lead to love for our neighbors, or they have been misused. The commandment to observe the Sabbath is for giving us rest, that we may have more strength and energy to love, and that we may have time to remember how much we are loved by God, how sacred is each life, and how holy is this world. Observing the Sabbath should increase our love.
When Jesus Christ healed the crippled woman on the Sabbath, he evaluated the word of God according to the greatest commandment, and now you and I must do the same. That is what we are called to, for we are followers of Christ, we are the people of “the way” as they were first named, which is the way of Christ, and later named Christians, because we seek to be Christ-like, and being Christ-like leads us to being ruled by compassion.
The rule of compassion is the final decision maker in advanced ethics. Sometimes it is difficult to know how to be compassionate. Does it mean giving someone yet another loan we never expect to be paid back or is it helping them to find a job or get treatment? Does it mean spending more on affordable housing and programs like head start and food stamps, or does it mean cutting taxes so that the upper class to stimulate the economy with their investment in jobs and demand for services? These are difficult questions, but my hope is that all of us who face hard questions will make the compassion of Jesus our rule, and follow the direction that it leads.
God knows there are enough people who are like this woman, bent over and weighed down. God knows that sometimes that woman stands for you and for me, when we are weighed down by hurt, trapped by our circumstances, bent over in pain and loss, and we do not need to find a God who will make us obedient; we need to meet a God of love and care who will heal us and change our lives. We need our lives to be changed by love that we may love back. As Christ has loved us, may we love one another.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Sermon - The Problem with Having Too Much
Preached on August 5, 2007 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge
Dedicated to my Grandparents Nelson and Donna; and always to the glory of God.
Luke 12:13-21
A man becomes rich, and stores wealth far in excess of what he will ever need, and considers himself secure and happy for many years to come. But suppose, Jesus says, that his life is demanded of him, and suddenly all that wealth becomes as worthless to him as losing lottery tickets. So, you can’t take it with you? Is that the message of Jesus. The hearse never has a trailer? But we already know that. We know that one day this life will end, although we don’t often think about it, and then the things we have stored away will become someone else’s problem.
But we also know that we want people to have a home that is safe and secure, there’s surely nothing excessive about that. We want people to be clothed well, to have enough to eat. That’s why we send out mission tours, and give our resources so that people can have what they need. Last week this congregation supported the building of an addition for a family’s home in southern Kentucky. We didn’t go down there and say, well, they might die tomorrow, so there’s no sense spending our time and money to house them. Of course we didn’t say that, because while life is not a guarantee, long life is what we hope and plan for, and we want people to live with dignity.
The problem with the man in the parable is not that he was well housed and fed - that’s our hope for everyone. The problem is that he was rich to excess, and his riches stood in the way of being rich toward God. Jesus says it over and over again, and our experience tells us the same thing: material riches stand in the way of being rich toward God. That’s the problem with having too much.
Charles Dickens knew that this was true. He wrote about Ebenezer Scrooge, the richest man in town, and about Bob Cratchit, who worked for him even on Christmas Eve for barely enough money to feed his family. And yet, on that fateful night when Scrooge was forced to look clearly at his own life, and then to look at the life of the Cratchit family, he found that Bob was a much richer man.
Or think of that other Christmas classic, the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, watches as his childhood friends and younger brother move away from Bedford Falls to become successful and rich, while he remains at home, giving everything he has to make a modest living with the Bailey Building and Loan, ever on the watch for rich man Potter, who threatens to buy up the whole town. But in the end it is not Potter who prevails. When a mistake puts George in danger of losing his business and being sent to jail, he discovers just how rich he is, not in material wealth, but in relationships and good will with all of Bedford Falls. His brother returns and gives the toast “to George Bailey, the richest man in town.”
These two stories are ways that we remind ourselves about the difference between being rich and being rich toward God. And we need reminding, because there are enough reminders in the world about what it means to be rich. We also need perspective, because most of the time we do not think that we are rich. No matter who it is, everyone compares themselves up, and never down. “You think I’m well off, you ought to see what so-and-so is making. You should see their house.” The reality is that if you take a global perspective, we then recognize that half of the world’s people live on less than one dollar per day. We then recognize that to have enough money to put $10 in a savings account, or even extra change in a bowl, means that we are among the wealthiest people in the world. We always compare up. And so we need reminding and perspective.
I want to suggest three ways to be rich toward God, and perhaps you will identify others.
Firstly, those who are rich toward God are be rich in relationships. Instead of storing up more for themselves, they will add extra seats at the dinner table, they will invite someone who may be alone to the Thanksgiving meal. They will open their homes to foster children, exchange students, and homeless animals. They will plan a vacation, and invite other people to come with them. We have a number of vacation organizers in this church.
Tony Campolo tells the story of a very successful businessman he knew who was getting ready to buy a new car once, and really liked these high end BMWs. But then he asked himself, would Jesus spend that kind of money on a new car? And so he made a different decision. He bought a used car, and he took that money and signed up to send monthly payments to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic to house and feed a number of children. And now he goes to visit this orphanage, and he has gotten to know the children he is supporting, and it means so much more to him than a great car ever could.
We need to listen to the psychologists. There’s a book in our church library called Stumbling on Happiness by Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert. It doesn’t mention Jesus or his parable about the rich man. But it tells us about the difference between shallow happiness and deeper, lasting happiness. Gilbert reminds us that things like a new car, new clothes or cd’s, all bring us a short-lived happiness. It’s great when they are new, but very soon what was new becomes what is expected. Our expectations change rapidly. At the end of World War II it was exotic to have strawberries in winter, and only the elite could afford it. Now it is expected. The shine of material riches fades fast. Lasting happiness, psychologists say, comes from our relationships with others. The more connected we are in relationships, the greater our riches toward God.
Secondly, those who are rich toward God are rich in meaningful work. Whether it is the work we are paid for, or the volunteer work given to ministries in the church, in our community, or in the world, when we are working for something that is important, that seeks to promote good in the world, then we will be rich toward God. I find that usually meaningful work has a way of choosing us. I remember attending the funeral of a young man who had been mentally ill and, tragically, had ended his own life. His mother was a retired teacher, and she told me that she had found her work for the next part of her life, to work for the care and support of those who suffer mental illness.
I think of the man I met in Atlanta, who was homeless and spent many years living at a shelter called the Open Door, and now he’s living in his own home, and working, but when he has a day off he comes back to this homeless shelter, and he stands at the pot of soup for over an hour at lunch time, filling the bowls one at a time, smiling and joking and meeting new friends. He says he needs to give back.
I want to tell a personal story about my grandparents. They were active in church, singing in choirs and volunteering in other ways. They volunteered at a hospital in retirement, just like so many in this church. And when they learned that three of their four grown children were gay, they helped to begin a group in their city for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and they would meet on the front porch with other parents, and they would give each other support, and they would work together to build bridges of understanding and an end to violence and hate toward their children. They are two of my greatest role models.
I think of all the business owners I have met who feel called to ignore the bottom line when someone can’t afford the supplies to repair their home, or needs groceries, or is unable to pay for the burial of a parent. And these people say “here, do me the honor of accepting a gift. Let me do this for you.”
Meaningful work has a way of choosing us, and it makes us rich toward God.
Finally, those who rich toward God will be rich with time. Sometimes we operate on the principle that time is money, and that every minute should be producing wealth. But what about the hour we spend here? What about the minutes that pass as we wait to receive the bread and cup? I believe that there is a richness in time that is set aside from doing, and is merely for being. We need time to simply be in the company of our spouses, our children, and our neighbors. We need time to simply be with God. That’s why we are here. We are not going to let our wealth get in the way of being rich toward God.
Dedicated to my Grandparents Nelson and Donna; and always to the glory of God.
Luke 12:13-21
A man becomes rich, and stores wealth far in excess of what he will ever need, and considers himself secure and happy for many years to come. But suppose, Jesus says, that his life is demanded of him, and suddenly all that wealth becomes as worthless to him as losing lottery tickets. So, you can’t take it with you? Is that the message of Jesus. The hearse never has a trailer? But we already know that. We know that one day this life will end, although we don’t often think about it, and then the things we have stored away will become someone else’s problem.
But we also know that we want people to have a home that is safe and secure, there’s surely nothing excessive about that. We want people to be clothed well, to have enough to eat. That’s why we send out mission tours, and give our resources so that people can have what they need. Last week this congregation supported the building of an addition for a family’s home in southern Kentucky. We didn’t go down there and say, well, they might die tomorrow, so there’s no sense spending our time and money to house them. Of course we didn’t say that, because while life is not a guarantee, long life is what we hope and plan for, and we want people to live with dignity.
The problem with the man in the parable is not that he was well housed and fed - that’s our hope for everyone. The problem is that he was rich to excess, and his riches stood in the way of being rich toward God. Jesus says it over and over again, and our experience tells us the same thing: material riches stand in the way of being rich toward God. That’s the problem with having too much.
Charles Dickens knew that this was true. He wrote about Ebenezer Scrooge, the richest man in town, and about Bob Cratchit, who worked for him even on Christmas Eve for barely enough money to feed his family. And yet, on that fateful night when Scrooge was forced to look clearly at his own life, and then to look at the life of the Cratchit family, he found that Bob was a much richer man.
Or think of that other Christmas classic, the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, watches as his childhood friends and younger brother move away from Bedford Falls to become successful and rich, while he remains at home, giving everything he has to make a modest living with the Bailey Building and Loan, ever on the watch for rich man Potter, who threatens to buy up the whole town. But in the end it is not Potter who prevails. When a mistake puts George in danger of losing his business and being sent to jail, he discovers just how rich he is, not in material wealth, but in relationships and good will with all of Bedford Falls. His brother returns and gives the toast “to George Bailey, the richest man in town.”
These two stories are ways that we remind ourselves about the difference between being rich and being rich toward God. And we need reminding, because there are enough reminders in the world about what it means to be rich. We also need perspective, because most of the time we do not think that we are rich. No matter who it is, everyone compares themselves up, and never down. “You think I’m well off, you ought to see what so-and-so is making. You should see their house.” The reality is that if you take a global perspective, we then recognize that half of the world’s people live on less than one dollar per day. We then recognize that to have enough money to put $10 in a savings account, or even extra change in a bowl, means that we are among the wealthiest people in the world. We always compare up. And so we need reminding and perspective.
I want to suggest three ways to be rich toward God, and perhaps you will identify others.
Firstly, those who are rich toward God are be rich in relationships. Instead of storing up more for themselves, they will add extra seats at the dinner table, they will invite someone who may be alone to the Thanksgiving meal. They will open their homes to foster children, exchange students, and homeless animals. They will plan a vacation, and invite other people to come with them. We have a number of vacation organizers in this church.
Tony Campolo tells the story of a very successful businessman he knew who was getting ready to buy a new car once, and really liked these high end BMWs. But then he asked himself, would Jesus spend that kind of money on a new car? And so he made a different decision. He bought a used car, and he took that money and signed up to send monthly payments to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic to house and feed a number of children. And now he goes to visit this orphanage, and he has gotten to know the children he is supporting, and it means so much more to him than a great car ever could.
We need to listen to the psychologists. There’s a book in our church library called Stumbling on Happiness by Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert. It doesn’t mention Jesus or his parable about the rich man. But it tells us about the difference between shallow happiness and deeper, lasting happiness. Gilbert reminds us that things like a new car, new clothes or cd’s, all bring us a short-lived happiness. It’s great when they are new, but very soon what was new becomes what is expected. Our expectations change rapidly. At the end of World War II it was exotic to have strawberries in winter, and only the elite could afford it. Now it is expected. The shine of material riches fades fast. Lasting happiness, psychologists say, comes from our relationships with others. The more connected we are in relationships, the greater our riches toward God.
Secondly, those who are rich toward God are rich in meaningful work. Whether it is the work we are paid for, or the volunteer work given to ministries in the church, in our community, or in the world, when we are working for something that is important, that seeks to promote good in the world, then we will be rich toward God. I find that usually meaningful work has a way of choosing us. I remember attending the funeral of a young man who had been mentally ill and, tragically, had ended his own life. His mother was a retired teacher, and she told me that she had found her work for the next part of her life, to work for the care and support of those who suffer mental illness.
I think of the man I met in Atlanta, who was homeless and spent many years living at a shelter called the Open Door, and now he’s living in his own home, and working, but when he has a day off he comes back to this homeless shelter, and he stands at the pot of soup for over an hour at lunch time, filling the bowls one at a time, smiling and joking and meeting new friends. He says he needs to give back.
I want to tell a personal story about my grandparents. They were active in church, singing in choirs and volunteering in other ways. They volunteered at a hospital in retirement, just like so many in this church. And when they learned that three of their four grown children were gay, they helped to begin a group in their city for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and they would meet on the front porch with other parents, and they would give each other support, and they would work together to build bridges of understanding and an end to violence and hate toward their children. They are two of my greatest role models.
I think of all the business owners I have met who feel called to ignore the bottom line when someone can’t afford the supplies to repair their home, or needs groceries, or is unable to pay for the burial of a parent. And these people say “here, do me the honor of accepting a gift. Let me do this for you.”
Meaningful work has a way of choosing us, and it makes us rich toward God.
Finally, those who rich toward God will be rich with time. Sometimes we operate on the principle that time is money, and that every minute should be producing wealth. But what about the hour we spend here? What about the minutes that pass as we wait to receive the bread and cup? I believe that there is a richness in time that is set aside from doing, and is merely for being. We need time to simply be in the company of our spouses, our children, and our neighbors. We need time to simply be with God. That’s why we are here. We are not going to let our wealth get in the way of being rich toward God.
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