Christ the King Sunday, A
Matthew 25:31-46

Scotch tape…was invented in 1925. What a world changer that was, heh? 1925 was actually kind of a big year. Not just the Scotch tape thing, although that was really big. 1925 also saw the death in Congress of what could have been the first U.S. Child Labor Law. The law met its demise largely due to concerns of child idleness. In 1925 Sears Roebuck opened its first retail store, Britain’s first television transmitter was created. In 1925 Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf and Benito Mussolini declared himself dictator of Italy.

And in 1925, in what has been described as “perhaps the most…ignored encyclicals of all time” Pope Pius XI established “Christ the King Sunday”, making today’s feast day one of the newest on the liturgical calendar. In the changing world around him, Pius XI saw an increasingly secular world; a growing division between the life of faith and “real life”. He established Christ the King Sunday in a deliberate attempt to strengthen his flock in their knowledge of Christ as the seat of their true allegiance. In a day and age in which allegiance to “king and country” was part of the cultural fabric through which all of life was woven, the concept made sense.

In the here and now Scotch tape does far more to hold our lives together than any notion of kings and queens. Our idea of royalty lies somewhere on that convoluted line from fairy tale character to the fascinating curiosity that is the House of Windsor to the sort of despotic dictator from whom our ancestors escaped to a new land and which remain far too common still today. Kings and their ilk summon images of power, of opulence, of entrenched tradition, of form over substance, and of self-important grandeur. The images bear little resemblance to the radical, homeless, penniless, counter-cultural, mystical rabbi Jesus.

The Gospel lesson starts out sounding pretty kingly. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him.” There the resemblance to our pre-conceived kingly notions ends. ‘I was hungry,’ says our king. ‘I was thirsty.’ ‘I was a stranger, naked, sick, in prison.’ This is, in Matthew’s Gospel, the last time Jesus teaches the disciples. This is is it. The last lesson. Two days later He’ll be debating the nature of Kingship with Pontius Pilate.

Read superficially, the lesson seems to be a checklist. Feed hungry, clothe naked, visit prisoners. Done. Sheep it is. See ya later, goats. Heaven, here I come. But wait, does that mean all the hungry? Am I a goat if I miss one? There are 2.3 million prisoners in the US alone – do I have to visit them all?

I may be getting myself into theological trouble here, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus was talking about at all. I don’t think he was taking this last teaching opportunity to advocate a running reckoning of righteousness. Jesus absolutely wanted the hungry fed, the naked clothed, the strangers welcomed – no question about it. And he wanted us, his body, his followers to do it. All the same, I don’t think He was offering us Heaven as a reward for living compassionately the way we might offer an extra story to a child because she got ready for bed without fussing.

Jesus was really saying something much more profound, about who he was, why he was here at all….Peter Woods says, “If I look closely at the Gospel for this Sunday I see not a distant detached King but a comrade who is hungry, thirsty, a stranger who is naked sick and in prison…Jesus is the one who comes to me when I am hungry even after my lovely home cooked meal, thirsty after my bottled Evian water, a stranger in my home town, naked in my designer labels and in prison whilst speeding down the freeway.” Jesus came to us to share our lives, our struggles, our journeys, our deaths.

Suzanne Guthrie writes, “… the moment my suffering meets your suffering, the moment our eyes meet, an alchemical change takes place. I am in you and you are in me. Suffering makes us one.” Jesus would be one with us, if we will join with Him. To join with Him, we must open our eyes and see – see the suffering, see the injustice, the pain, the love, the beauty – see the Christ in the eyes of all humanity and respond as we would to someone we love, someone who loves us.

Barbara Brown Taylor says of this process, “I will tell you something you already know. Sometimes when you look into those eyes all you see is your own helplessness, your own inability to know what is right. And sometimes you see your own reflection; you see everything you have and everything you are in a stark new light. Sometimes you see such gratitude that it reminds you how much you have to be thankful for, and sometimes you see such a wily will to survive that you cannot help but admire it, even when you are the target of its ambitions. These are all things we need to know—about Jesus, about our brothers and sisters, about ourselves—but we cannot know them if we will not look.”

To live is to be in relationship. To live in Christ is to be in relationship with Christ. Jesus does not offer us a get out of Hell free card – but He does offer us a choice. Today marks the last week of the church year. Next Sunday we begin afresh in the anticipation of new birth. Amidst the frantic hustle and bustle of the upcoming commercial season and the contemplation and uneasy expectation of the Advent season, we have a choice. We can live and love, eyes open, hearts open; or we can die into the emptiness of self-imposed isolation from God born in indifference.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

(Franciscan Blessing – author unknown)

Amen and amen

PROPER 28, A

Matthew 25:14-30

Today’s lesson is usually called the Parable of the Talents. It is the third of four lessons in Matthew that seem to be about judgment. All of them center on the return of the Master/king/bridegroom, the judgment that follows, and how those who await his return spend their time. (Mark Douglas, Feasting).

Hopefully you heard the first one five weeks ago. That was the parable of the wedding banquet, where a guest did not wear the proper attire, and was therefore thrown out. As Sam pointed out in her sermon, the wedding guest was thrown into an outer darkness of his own making because after being invited to the wedding party, he refused to fully participate.

The second parable we heard last week, the one about the ten bridesmaids who were keeping watch for the bridegroom to arrive. Five of them had brought extra oil for their lamps, since their job was to provide light to the groom, but the other five did not. When they feared they would run out, they left to find more oil rather than staying and trusting the bridegroom to forgive them. As a result, they were excluded from the party. Sam modeled this by showing up for her sermon even though she was not fully prepared. (And we didn’t throw her out!)

This week’s parable is quite similar, but even more specific. A wealthy man gives three of his servants large sums of money to care for while he goes on an extended journey. To one he gave one talent, the equivalent of 15 years of earnings for a day laborer (Lindsay Armstrong, Feasting). To another he gave two talents and to the third he gave five talents. This disbursement of his wealth was based on his estimation of the capabilities of the servants.

Then he leaves town without giving them any instructions. Lindsay Armstrong sees this as God offering gifts and space to lead, grow, take chances (ie. Learn) and flourish. Robert Capon, who has written extensively on the parables, points out that the master has established a fiduciary relationship with his servants. The word fiduciary, while meaning then what it means today, is based on the Latin word fides meaning faith. He has given them great wealth and is trusting them to use it as they see fit.

The two servants who received the most money invested it and doubled it in the time the master was gone. The servant who received one talent just buried it. He expected to be treated harshly by the master if he lost any and so was afraid to invest it.

When he returned, the master praised the two servants who invested their talents and promised them more responsibilities. The master shouts at the servant who buried his talent and then orders him to be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Notice that this servant admits that he acted out of fear of the Master, when we have seen no reason for the servant to feel that way. Mark Douglas comments, in passing, (Feasting) that “perhaps , for Mathew, the God we face is the one we imagine.”

It might help to wonder what would have happened in the story if one of the other servants lost part of the master’s money, but stood up and confessed his mistakes or his bad luck. It’s hard to imagine that the master would have thrown him out like the servant who buried his talent.

Doesn’t burying your talent remind you of hiding your light under a bushel? While this is classified as a parable of judgment, it also strikes me as a parable of discipleship. That’s the part about how we are supposed to live while we await the second coming/final judgment. We are meant to live fearlessly, with passion and joy, giving our all, taking risks, using our gifts to do God’s work in the world.

The most prevalent understanding of this story is that God gives us various gifts to use in his service. Those who use them are blest and will have more, while those who don’t wind up with nothing. This is the timeless sense of the story in that it fits with our experience of life, no matter what age we live in.

We know from our own experience that if we don’t use the gifts and skills we have, we’ll eventually lose them. We know that if we work to develop our skills and natural gifts, our level of ability will rise. As it does we always have more to do. We are called on more often to use those talents.

For the people listening to Jesus, it would have had this same universal significance, but they would also have recognized this story as a comment on the scribes and Pharisees of their day. The scribes and Pharisees, by their own admission, wanted to build a fence around the law to keep it exactly the same forever. Their attitude was parallel to that of the bad servant. To preserve without risk, without use, without adaptation, is to turn your back on God. What’s the point in having brains and freedom of choice, if we’re going to put our heads in the sand and refuse to move. The paralysis of the bad servant is related to dead laws that the scribes and Pharisees wanted to preserve no matter what was happening around them.

Capon asserts that this parable is not about rewarding good works or punishing evil ones. “The only thing that can deprive us of the favorable judgment already passed upon us is our unfaith in his gracious passing of it.” This means that since God has already forgiven us, pretty much from day one, the only thing that can screw it up is our lack of trust in God’s promise to us. In other words, Capon sees these parables as illustrating the “sovereignty of grace over judgment.”

Do we believe the promises God made to us in baptism? Are we living out the promises we made to God in baptism?

For centuries the church emphasized the theology of fear and judgment, but in our church this has given way to a much greater emphasis on a theology of confidence, of grace, and of forgiveness. We are living in a time of rapid and sometimes mystifying changes.

Where do you stand? That’s your assignment for the week, not necessarily to change your beliefs, but to become very mindful of what they are. What kind of a God is the God you worship – a God of love or a God of judgment? Or both? Are you afraid of God or do you feel like a child of God, confident in God’s forgiveness, no matter what? Or both?

Do you believe the Spirit of God is still speaking to us or not? What are you doing with the gifts God has given you? And how willing, how confident, are you to risk those gifts to do God’s work in the world?

If you are, you can do as Alfred Souza suggests: “Dance as though no one is watching, love as though you have never been hurt, sing as though no one can hear you, and live as though heaven is on earth.” AMEN

PROPER 26, A

Micah 3:5-12, Matthew23:1-12

What fun it is to unmask a hypocrite! Especially one who has been telling others how to live – that is, a religious hypocrite.

There has been a long string of such unmaskings within recent memory – pastors and preachers who have been embezzling money or buying mansions or multiple fancy cars. They preach Jesus but live like Herod.

Let’s face it, we sort of enjoy seeing famous or wealthy folk

getting their comeuppance and even more so if they have pretended to be righteous.

Then there are those who were found to be stealing sermon material from others or cheated to get through seminary. Or the very worst, the clergy who have used their position to abuse others, especially those who have abused children.

On the other hand – – -how many of us can claim righteousness? Who among us has never been guilty of hypocrisy? Even Paul bewailed his inability to always do what is right, even though he knows what is right and wants to do it, but often fails to do it.

Some years ago I decided that I would never shop at Walmart and the reasons for that decision had everything to do with my religious faith. The family that owns Walmart has more money than the bottom 35 – 40% of our population. Yet the store pays most employees less than a living wage and it has cheap stuff because it’s made overseas, often by women and children in sweatshop conditions.

Still, when my cousin suggested a shopping expedition there because they had sweat clothes on sale, and I badly needed some sweatpants, I went with her. And that’s only one example out of innumerable others I can think of.

Both Micah and Jesus take on the hypocrites of their day in the lessons we just read, but their approach to the issue is different. Micah sounds as you’d expect an Old Testament Prophet to sound. He describes the issue this way: “The rulers of the House of Jacob and chiefs of the House of Israel abhor justice and pervert all equity. They build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong. They give judgment for bribes, the priests teach for a price and the prophets give oracles for money.”

Then Micah warns that such behavior will bring ruin on the country. “Zion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins . . .”

In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus complains of similar hypocritical activities, but his tone is quite different. For one thing, he begins by paying respect to the office the Pharisees and scribes hold. He tells his followers to listen to their religious leaders and to do what they are told to do.

Then he calmly points out that they should not take these leaders as role models, because they do not do what they ask the people to do. “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to life a finger to move them.”

He then points out their wrongs and how they misuse their office for personal pleasure and gain. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.”

Jesus then turns this into a lesson for his listeners instead of calling down destruction on the land, as Micah did, or even suggesting that the religious leaders will somehow be punished. No, Jesus forgets about the hypocrites he’s just exposed and instead tells the crowd how NOT to become like them. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven.” (And how long have our churches ignored this lesson?????)

So what’s the problem with calling our priests “Father”? The same thing that’s wrong with having pulpits built high above the congregation, or having the altar fenced off and no one but “Father” allowed inside. It isn’t just the religious leaders who perpetuate hypocrisy, it’s also the institutional church and the people in the pews.

When I was ordained, I found people assuming that because I was the priest I was the boss of the team. But I wasn’t supposed to be boss of the team; the whole team was to take the place of the Pastor. But since I like to be boss, I had to fight both myself and others to not run things. And I didn’t always succeed!

No matter how much we may enjoy seeing a hypocrite exposed, our real concern should be about eliminating hypocrisy from our own lives. And, I suspect, if we set about to do that, we will be too busy to worry about hypocrisy in other people.

The way Jesus turns this conversation around to be about his listeners tells us that it’s our own behavior that we are responsible for, not other people’s behavior. I’m not sure that anyone but Jesus has the moral high ground to stand on in calling others to account, although doing so is still part of speaking the truth to power.

Preachers and teachers, politicians and celebrities will continue to rise and fall in the court of public opinion, but our responsibility is to clean up our own mess, whatever that may be, and to be grateful that we have a place to come each week with others who are trying to do the same thing.

Many years ago I was going out with a man who had no use at all for the church. I think his grandfather had been a missionary and his father had grown up in poverty. Normally we did not discuss church at all, but one evening he said to me, “I just don’t see how you can go to church and listen to some hypocrite preach to you.”

“But it’s doesn’t matter if the preacher is a hypocrite,” I replied. “After all, he’s just another human being. What matters is what kind of person I want to become. What he preaches can still help me with that.” It may have been the only time I got the last word with him.

Pastors and preachers are human beings first and foremost, so it’s not surprising that they are also vulnerable to hypocrisy. We all know that we often fall short of the mark. We admit as much each week in the confession, and we also know that God forgives us and loves us anyway. I’m so grateful that we’re all in this together – and hope you feel the same. AMEN

PROPER 24, A

Matthew 22:15-22

The punch line of today’s Gospel story is so familiar to us that we are likely to miss the meaning, partly because it’s often quoted and used in other contexts.

Our translation says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.” We may be even more familiar with it as, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

To appreciate the cleverness and the power of Jesus’ response, we have to understand the deviousness of the question. Jesus is in Jerusalem now, the seat of power and intrigue in the province. He has thrown the money-changers out of the temple and is drawing huge crowds wherever he goes.

The Pharisees are worried, and rightly so. Jesus has publicly taken them to task. We’ve heard parables in the last few weeks that were all told in Jerusalem within a much smaller time frame, moments or days rather than weeks – and they all suggest that the Pharisees and temple leaders are not doing their jobs and may be thrown out.

So, it makes sense that, “the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said.” The question they devised is simple. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?” The nature of this entrapment is neither simple nor clear without some understanding of the politics of the day.

Many factions existed. On the fringes of society were the Zealots. This group refused to pay taxes at all; they killed Romans whenever they could; they wanted Rome out of their homeland. Pious Jews would not carry Roman money because it had “graven images” on it, and the images were emperors whom the Romans worshipped as gods. They paid taxes, but did so through a third party to avoid handling Roman coins.

The Herodians were part Jew and part Edomite, followers of the family of kings who had been installed and controlled by Rome. They were pretty much considered traitors and toadies by everyone, but the Pharisees sometimes used them for political purposes.

The Romans had conquered Palestine and expected taxes to be paid for the maintenance of the army, roads, judicial systems, etc. So here’s the dilemma: if Jesus says it’s not lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, he’s in trouble with the Romans and could be arrested for sedition or treason. If he says it is lawful to pay taxes, he will loose popularity with the people, most of whom want to get rid of Rome and Roman taxes, and many of whom are hoping he will do just that. Besides, to pay taxes is one thing, to be oppressed by burdensome taxes is something else.

The Pharisees figured out this no win question. Then, since they were known to Jesus, they sent some of their followers to ask it, along with the king’s men, probably to act as witnesses. Notice how they coat the trap with honey, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one. Tell us, then what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Jesus is not fooled. He calls them hypocrites and then proves it. When he says “Show me the coin used for the tax,” they hold out a denarius, a Roman coin, something no pious Jew would do. Jesus doesn’t take it. Instead he answers their question with a question. “Whose head is this and whose title?”

They answer, “The emperor’s.” Then Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperors, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus avoids the trap by turning things around. He doesn’t answer in the terms expected. He doesn’t deal in black and white simple answers. And as is so often the case, what he says raises further questions. What belongs to Caesar? What belongs to God? We’re left to try to figure this out just as the Pharisees were.

Let’s start by looking at the example of Jesus himself. He didn’t seem to have money of any kind, nor do we know of him paying any taxes. On the other hand, he did not preach against Roman law nor had he been telling people not to pay their taxes. He did sit down with tax collectors. And what did he give to God? Only his life and his love.

Whose imprint is on the money? Caesar’s. Whose imprint is on Jesus? God’s. Whose imprint is on us?

The contrast seems to be between money and human beings. Money is man-made. Its value is determined by men and their institutions. People are God-made. Their value may be determined by society in one way, but Jesus makes it very clear that they have equal worth in God’s eyes.

Money is inanimate. It passes from hand to hand without choice. People are alive. They move and breathe and think and feel. They may be slaves, but they cannot be totally possessed in the same way that money can.

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. I’d guess that all of you pay your taxes. What do you give to God? Your money or your life?

If you see yourself as belonging to God, then any labels placed on you by Caesar or anyone else in the secular society loses its power to harm you. It doesn’t matter, as Paul so clearly tells us, whether you’re slave or free, black or white, male of female, jock or geek, priest or prisoner, hetero or homo, rich or poor. You belong to God and you are beloved.

God doesn’t need our money. God doesn’t need our service. God doesn’t need our worship. These are actions that we take in response to God’s love for us. We give away money to help others; we do acts of service to imitate Jesus; we worship God with praise and gratitude; we support the church because it supports us in living a Christian life. But the money is not the church; this building is not the church. We, the people, are the church.

If I were to ask you what you give to Caesar, especially in the form of taxes, you could probably tell me the exact amount. I’m sure you know also how much you give the church. But what else do you give to God? If everything else but money belongs to God, what does that imply about our use or abuse of the planet? What does it imply about our accumulation of stuff? What does it say about how we treat the animals who share this fragile earth with us?

Whatsoever else you may do this week, I hope you will think on these things. AMEN

Proper 23, A

Isaiah 25:1-9

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

Today, we celebrate! Today we cry out with Isaiah, O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things. Today, we celebrate Natalie Karen Josephine Pavek’s birthday – her birth into the family of the Church, our family; her adoption into the body of Christ. We will baptize her, seal her as Christ’s own, pray for her, break bread together in a celebration of Christ among us, then join together for a feast of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. (or in this case, the MN equivalent of rich food and well aged wine; bars and coffee)

Jesus tells a story of a celebration today, also. A wedding banquet. The King is celebrating his son’s wedding. The pillars of society, the celebrities, the up-and-coming – all the important people are invited as befits a royal wedding. But they don’t come. They actively avoid coming. Even after reassurances that this is the party to end all parties, this is THE EVENT, they persistently and in some cases violently reject the invitation. Left without a guest roster, the King opens the invitation to all the world: good or bad, rich or poor, sick or well, worthy or not.

Common theological wisdom says this parable is an allegory – a story in which each element represents something specific. The royal invited guests are the nation of Israel, represented by the religious elite of the day. The first invitation represents the prophets of old; heard but not taken seriously. The second invitation represents the prophetic Christian missionaries. Spiritual destruction and devastating distance from God is the fate awaiting Israel’s elite as they ignore and mistreat God’s messengers and spurn God’s gifts.

The parable moves on to clearly elucidate Jesus’s all-inclusive, all-encompassing approach to ministry. Everyone is welcome. Fr. Richard Capon says, “The characters in the parable – whether they are graciously invited or compelled to attend, whether they accept or reject the King’s party – are plainly intended as stand-ins for the great, gray-green, greasy catholic mass of humanity with which God insists on doing business.” This is the Good News – it doesn’t matter who you are or who you know – you are a child of God. You are invited to the party. If only the parable stopped there. If only we just didn’t have to think about the whole outer-darkness, teeth gnashing, weeping bit. Over a fashion statement?

A bit of background: in the ancient near East, it was customary to wear a wedding robe. The garment showed respect for the host and for the occasion. Some modern restaurants which require men to wear a suit coat and tie in order to be served will keep a few around to lend to anyone who found themselves unexpectedly lacking the required gear. Similarly, the hosts of large occasions such as this wedding banquet would keep some of the appropriate garb around, ready to lend to the unexpected guest as required. Presumably, the man who did not don a wedding robe made that choice. Maybe he was overwhelmed, maybe he was deliberately being disrespectful, maybe he was just hanging back until he found out if this really was a party worth going to.

In college, I thought it would be fun to learn Highland Dance. I thought of it as a break from study, a way to keep muscles working and blood flowing without actually calling it exercise. I showed up in shorts and a t-shirt and bounced my way through a few lessons. Finally, Florence, my phenomenal instructor, frustrated, said “Yoo cannae be a dancer if yoo dinnae look like a dancer” It had nothing to do with clothing – it had to do with posture and discipline of movement. It had to do with putting self into the dance.

The man came to the party, but did not join the party. He may have tapped his toe, but he did not join the dance. He did not allow himself transformation from outsider to participant. He was cast back into a darkness of his own making.

Parker Palmer tells this story,

“On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks – an African American woman who was a seamstress and in her early 40’s – did something she was not supposed to do; she sat down at the front of a bus in one of the seats reserved for whites – a dangerous, daring and provocative act in a racist society.

“Legend has it that, years later, a graduate student came to Rosa Parks and asked, ‘Why did you sit down at the front of the bus that day?’….She replied, ‘I sat down because I was tired.’ … It was a moment of existential truth, of claiming authentic selfhood, of reclaiming birthright, baptismal right, giftedness, beloved-ness and by doing so she set in motion a process that changed both the lay and law of the land.

“Rosa Parks sat down because she had reached the point where it was essential to embrace her true vocation, her calling as a child of God, a person loved and graced by God – not as someone who was trying necessarily to reshape our society but as someone who would live out her full self in the world – come what may. She decided,” Palmer writes, “I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply on the inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself to be.”

In a few minutes, not only will we invite Miss Natalie into our midst, but we will have the opportunity to renew our own baptismal covenant. Will you proclaim the Good News? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons? Will you strive for justice and peace? We are all children of God. God calls us all into relationship. We are all invited to the party.

It is your choice. Will you wear the mantle of Christ, the garment of our baptismal covenant? Will you join the party? Live the relationship? Thus we are transformed and join in God’s work providing refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. We will wipe the tears from others’ faces, and find our own tears wiped away. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Amen.

Proper 21, A

Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32

Matthew 21:23-32

I spent a number of my formative years in Tullahoma, TN. To this day, if I travel south of the Mason/Dixon line my vowels get a little longer, more yessirs and yessums sneak into my speech, and everything slows down, just the tiniest bit. Momma and Daddy were New England born and bred. They were Yankees in a foreign land down Tullahoma. Now and again the expressions of the South caught their fancy. In the Tennessean – that was the Nashville paper – in the Tennessean one day Daddy read a story in the police beat. It was a perfectly ordinary story. Several people had been arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior. Asked to clarify how he knew that the suspects in question were over the legal limit, the law enforcement officer responded, “They acted in such a manner as to draw attention upon theirselfs.”

There are vast tracts of the Gospel of Matthew dedicated to parables and pastoral teachings. This is not among them. As we join the story in progress today, Jesus has acted in such a manner as to draw attention upon hisself. It has not escaped the notice of first century law enforcement (known to Jesus as chief priests and elders). Jesus is not preaching peacefully on a remote mountainside or plain anymore. He’s not healing unspeakable illnesses or handing out bread and fish amongst the dregs of society in some wretched backwater anymore. Jesus is in Jerusalem. The Holy City. He didn’t just slip quietly in either – he came riding a colt to the waving of palms and the shouts of the crowd. “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna!” In the temple – far from being awed into silence by the tradition, the history, the majesty, the splendor – he’s been flinging over tables, tossing aside chairs, demanding radical changes. He’s been yelling and angry.

And now he’s teaching. Teaching in the temple. Their temple. Who does he think that he is? “By whose authority do you do these things?” This is your basic no-right-answer sort question. It’s the “Honey, do these pants make me look fat?” question of the temple world. Jesus cannot cite any human authority – the chief priests and elders ARE the final authority – they are law enforcement. They know very well they did not authorize his behavior. Jesus also cannot claim divine authority – true or not it would get him killed for blasphemy forthwith. In true rabbinical fashion, Jesus instead answers their question with question. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”

My ever-inquisitive husband asked, as I muttered my way through this lection, “What did the chief priests and elders really think of John’s baptism?” The text reveals their thought process only in terms of the answer most likely to further their goals, not their true opinions. I suspect the text doesn’t share that detail because they didn’t much care. It just didn’t matter. They were concerned with maintaining correctness, not with finding truth, with their own authority in the temple, not their relationship with the Creator. They prioritized perpetuating their current lifestyle over living life. And the tricky bit – the bit that makes me just a bit sorry for them? They never, ever knew it.

Why do I say with such confidence they didn’t know it? They answered the question. They didn’t answer questions that they perceived as potentially threatening in some way. The answer is so obvious – the first son did the will of his father. They do not see in themselves the second son.

Oscar Romero said, “It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualized word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts. What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine Church, is the word that, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims and accuses: proclaims to the people God’s wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God’s reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws – out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the rights of God and of humanity.”

Week by week we confess together that we have sinned against God, “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone”. It is so hard sometimes, so very hard, to fathom the undone – compassion withheld, charity not offered, welcome not given, inequity unmarked, injustice not rectified.This is the point of the confession each week. We do not confess in order to fill in the blank – sins confessed, check – good for another week there. We do not confess in order to make us feel ashamed or humiliated – that helps no one. We confess to protect us from walking merrily along in our own bubbles of denial or ignorance – to acknowledge that we are imperfect, that God’s work is still there to be done, in ourselves and in the world.

Political comedian Stephen Colbert said, “If this is gonna be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition — and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

We could be that person. We could hide behind words and propriety and self-justification – it worked for the chief priests and the elders. Week by week, day by day, we ask to walk in the way of Jesus. Author Irma Zaleski says “repentance (turning the path around) is a uniquely Christian path of liberation from self… We feel “conditioned”: bound by the chains of our habits and compulsions, our likes and dislikes, our fears and guilt, our inability to love. Our great tragedy is that we so often mistake these habits and compulsions for our true self. … Our false self must die, so that we can find our true self, the self which God meant us to be and which he created in his image and likeness.” It means choosing truth over correctness, relationship with God over dedication to orthodoxy. It means choosing life, choosing love. It means turning back to God, again and again and again. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against God, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Turn then, and live. Amen.

PROPER 20, A

Jonah 3:10-4:11

Matthew 20:1-16

How much do you remember about the story of Jonah? All I really remember is that he spent three days in the belly of a great fish. The reading we heard today is at the very end of the book of Jonah and I think it is much more interesting than what we learned in Sunday School.

God called Jonah to go to Nineveh to call the residents to repentance. Jonah responded by running away – by boat, which is how he wound up in the belly of the fish. But the second time God called him he followed orders. Not only did he go to Nineveh and preach repentance, he was successful! Even the king repented. You’d think he’d be ecstatic!

Instead, Jonah was highly displeased. He’d rather die than see the Ninevites forgiven. And the Lord said to him, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Remember this question. Is it right for Jonah to be angry?

Jonah stomps off outside the city waiting to see what will happen. What happens to Nineveh is nothing. What happens to Jonah is another thing. God makes a bush to grow up and give Jonah shade for the day and then makes a worm show up to destroy the bush. And again Jonah is mad.

God asks, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” Jonah replies, “Yes, angry enough to die!” God’s response is the point of the whole Book of Job. “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

It’s plain to see that Jonah has made up his mind about the people of Nineveh and he believes they should be punished. I even think there’s a sense in which he has been looking forward to it. He sits down outside the city to see what happens, still hoping God will rain down fire upon them, or some such terrible catastrophe.

He is very angry that God will not do what he wants. And I do know a bit about how he feels. Don’t we sometimes feel that way too, when we see scoundrels making a lot of money, or see wealthy people escaping the justice system. We want the bad guys held accountable and we want them punished. “It’s not fair!” we say.

Of course, it’s rather a different story when we are the ones who have done something wrong, isn’t it? Then we want God to be merciful to us.

It isn’t often that the Old and New Testament lessons go together as well as they do this week. If the parable Jesus tells in the Gospel today seems at all incomprehensible, just go back to the Jonah story.

Neither story is about fairness. They are both about grace, specifically the grace and forgiveness of God. And both should remind us that in God’s Kingdom, grace and forgiveness are much more important than fairness. Both stories also help us see that in God’s eyes, everyone is equally important, whether sinners or saints. Talk about not fair!!

In the parable today we have a landowner who hires day workers to work in his vineyard. Some work all day, some work part of the day and some work only an hour or so. When the landowner pays them all the standard daily amount, one of the men who had worked the whole day grumbles, pointing out the unfairness of that.

The landowner says to the grumbler, “Friend,” and according to Robert Capon, the word used in Greek for this is seldom used as it carries an element of sarcasm, more like “listen, Buster, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

In giving equal amounts of pay to each worker no matter how much or how little they worked, the landowner has defied the customs of the marketplace. He values the work of each the same, and we’re not used to that. If we work hard and win the prizes we expect rewards greater than others — BUT that is not the way it will be in the Kingdom and we must find a way to understand and accept this difference.

First and foremost we have to leave the judging to God. Second, we have to understand that God loves all his children equally. And why is it we get so hung up on judgment that we seem to forget that God’s mercy is also available to us? If we get the same mercy from God as anyone else, why get so bent out of shape about it?

I think we all tend to be like the older brother of the Prodigal Son. If we’ve worked hard all our lives and followed the rules, we resent God’s forgiveness of a sinner who repents at the last moment. “That’s not fair,” we exclaim.

Well, “fair” in that sense is not part of God’s promise to us. He didn’t promise us fair. He hasn’t said, “if you are good all your life, I promise to punish those who aren’t.” Our desire to see others suffer is a sure sign that we still have some growing up to do.

Are we being good because it is a joy to serve the Lord? Or are we being good so we can look down on others? Are we focused on how we can become better people or are we focused on what’s wrong with others? Are we grateful for the gifts we’ve been given or are we envious of the gifts God has given to someone else?

The parable seems to say very clearly that even those who come late to the table are welcome to the feast. And we are meant to be comforted by this. Whether we die at the end of a long and righteous life or die in our youth, before we have time to grow in the faith, Jesus will be there to meet us.

The next time you say, or hear that voice in your head say, “That’s not fair!” stop and ask yourself this: did I react because it was unfair to someone else or because it was unfair to me. Who’s standard am I applying, my own or God’s? Is the situation an example of true injustice or is it a form of envy?

Then remember Paul’s line about God’s kingdom – we are no longer male or female, slave or free, rich or poor. We are no longer smart or dumb, capable or hopeless, motivated or lazy, handsome or homely, popular or not, interesting or boring. And when the world turns, all these labels will be gone, and we will all be nothing more than beloved children of God. Why not try to live that life now? AMEN.

Proper 17, A

Matthew 16:21-28

This week’s lesson follows on the heels of last week’s lesson. Remember that last week we heard Jesus ask his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

As Sam so precisely put it, Peter blurts out his response, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And as Sam pointed out, Jesus blesses Peter, not because he got the answer right, but because he answered from his heart.

An old version of Webster’s defines blurt as to “utter suddenly and unadvisedly or impulsively.” That’s Peter, for sure, isn’t it? And we see it again in today’s lesson.

As soon as Jesus is done blessing Peter and giving him the power to bind or loose on earth, he orders his disciples not to tell anyone he is the Messiah. Then he goes on to tell them that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will suffer at the hands of the chief priests and scribes, he will be killed and on the third day be raised.

Peter again responds from his heart, from his emotions, taking Jesus aside to rebuke him, telling him that he must not say such things. In other words Peter responds to what Jesus has said out of fear and denial.

He can’t bear the thought of Jesus dying without fulfilling the disciples dreams of what he could accomplish in the years ahead: a whole lifetime of miracles, healings, preaching and teaching; he has the power to save Israel from Rome. Why is he talking about dying?

Now Jesus chastises Peter for not understanding, that is, for not using his head. Why doesn’t Peter respond to that bit about rising? “Hey, Jesus, what do you mean you’re going to be raised?” Peter doesn’t even seem to hear that part. He is too deeply reacting emotionally to the possibility of Jesus dying.

Here we see the dark side of reacting from the heart without any process through the brain. It should remind us that reacting from the heart alone is just as unbalanced as reacting from the head alone. We need to engage both of them to maintain balance, to see clearly, to both feel and understand what is going on around us.

Jesus responds sharply to Peter’s rebuke. “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Peter is playing devil’s advocate without intending to by tempting Jesus NOT to go to Jerusalem, NOT to put himself in danger, NOT to defy the authorities so openly. And let’s face it. Jesus could have lived out his days preaching in Galilee, and he might have done a lot of good, but it’s not hard to figure out that his movement would not have lasted.

What gave the movement real momentum were the events of Easter through Pentecost. The empty tomb did not really convince anyone of anything. It was the appearances of Jesus to his followers post-Easter and the work of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that sent them out into the world proclaiming the Gospel.

The heart of today’s Gospel comes in what Jesus says to his disciples after he has rebuked Peter. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

What does it mean to deny ourselves? I think it’s learning to deny our own selfish needs and self-interest in order to put other people’s needs first. If a man asks for your cloak, give him also your shirt. If your enemy reviles you, love your enemy in return. Do not seek vengeance. Turn the other cheek. And so on –you can fill in many more.

Then follows another paradox that turns the world around, as Jesus so often does: anyone who wants to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for his sake will find it. So – by trying to avoid the consequences of being a Christian, that is by trying to save my life, by trying to avoid death or change, or by trying to keep it comfortable, just as it is, I will in fact lose it. I think that means that I will fail to live up to my potential, fail to enter into partnership with God to move this world towards love, peace, justice and non-violence.

And what might it mean to “lose your life for Jesus’ sake?”

It might mean to die literally as Jesus and so many others have done – to be a martyr for the cause of God’s dream for the world, to be hung on a cross, eaten by lions, tortured on the rack or the wheel, burned at the stake, investigated by the FBI, crucified in the press, or thrown in jail. Not many of us are called to this extreme of sacrifice.

At the personal level it may mean to die to your old life, to let loose of old ways and take up new ones. These would affect all areas of life, including politics, life style, personality, and religious practice. All of us are called to this path of personal transformation.

This may not sound so hard compared to physical death, but it is still very hard work. For one thing, any time you try to change your ways, you have to put up with backsliding and disappointment in yourself. This is not pleasant!

When we change our lives, we often experience the displeasure of friends or family, who don’t want us to change. They can become like Peter to us, encouraging us not to proceed, but to avoid the pain of change. What must Peter’s wife have felt when he gave up fishing and went off to follow Jesus? Can you imagine that she didn’t try to change his mind?

The earliest name for Christians was “followers of the way.” They understood that they were to follow the way of Jesus, meaning to follow his example, to follow his teachings, but also to follow him in the journey to Jerusalem and through death to resurrection.

I’ve mentioned this before but will do so again. As Marcus Borg puts it, this journey to Jerusalem is a metaphor for the inner journey of transformation that is at the heart of the Christian life. We must die to our old ways of selfish self-interest and rise into new life of service to others.

Borg also suggests that we shouldn’t get discouraged by the size of the problems. Instead, think of the whole world as a patch-work quilt. All we have to do is make our own patch better. We can give our time and energy to improving our piece of the planet in any number of ways. If we are blessed with more than we need we can give money, time, or goods to help others work toward economic justice and peace. And we can all vote for candidates who most closely reflect our desire for a better neighborhood, and we can speak up for what that means: a place where everyone has enough, and everyone is respected as a child of God.

God won’t create this kind of world for us, and we can’t do it without God, but working together we can make our patch shine. To quote Sam again, “Go forth into the world and change it!” AMEN

Proper 16, A

Matthew 16, 13-20

Some questions you answer with your head – or you don’t as the case may be. What is the square root of 81? What year was Midsummer’s Night Dream written? What is he capital of Uzbekistan (Tashkent)? How do you bake bread? You know it, you can figure it out, you can google it, or you can fake it as the case may be. Or you can’t, and you decide how to deal with that. Jesus warms up with this sort of question: Who do people say that I am? A question of fact. Approximately 50% of people polled said John the Baptist, 28% favored Elijah, 14% Jeremiah and the remaining 8% was split among the remaining prophets. Straight forward. Ok. Got one right. I can relax. But Jesus isn’t interested in polls, or popular opinion, or ego puffing, or even in right answers. He merely got the distractions out of the way with His question.

Who do you say that I am? That’s the important question. Peter blurts out an answer. There is no translation of the bible anywhere so far as I know that says he blurts. I don’t even know if there is a Hebrew word for “blurts”. But he blurts. You know that he does because Peter is Peter and Peter blurts. “Command me to come to you on the water” he blurts (except he sinks like the rock he is named for). “Even though I must die with you,” blurts Peter, “I will not desert you,” followed not many hours later by another spontaneous blurting, “I do not know him.”

Who do you say that I am? “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus blesses Simon Peter with one of the most powerfully worded blessings in all the New Testament. He isn’t blessing Peter for knowing the right answer. Not too far down the road we find out Peter didn’t half know what he was talking about. As we will hear next week, Peter rebukes Jesus for doing exactly what Jesus must do to fulfill the very role Peter identified. Jesus blesses Peter, not for being right, but for listening to his heart, to the Word with a capital “W” etched there by God.

Who do you say Jesus is? Within our culture, within our upbringing, we know the “right” answer. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is our Lord and Savior. That is the answer that “they” say, that we ingested with our baby food, that, at least within many of our social structures, is the correct and undeniable answer. There is nothing wrong with the answer. But the right answer is not what Jesus seeks.

Theopan the Recluse said, 120 years ago, “You must descend from your head into your heart. At present your thoughts of God are in your head. And God Himself is, as it were, outside you, and so your prayer and other spiritual exercises remain exterior. Whilst you are still in your head, thoughts will not easily be subdued but will always be whirling about, like snow in winter or clouds of mosquitoes in summer.”

Look into your heart. Who do you say Jesus is?

Ambrose of Milan, a mere 3 centuries after Jesus died on the cross had this to say: “When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking of Christ.”

The Rev. Scott Colglazier describes this image: “Christ is a word that names the divine energy that was released into the world through the life of Jesus. Just as stars explode and new planets are formed, so in the life of Jesus a certain kind of Christ energy was constellated and released into the world, and this energy is still changing the people. This is nothing less than the energy or presence of God. Compassion exploded into the world through the life of Jesus. Unconditional love and inexhaustible grace was released into the world through the life of Jesus. Creative, transforming and inspiring goodness was released into the world through the life of Jesus”

Most of us in this room profess to be Christian, to follow the Christ, the Messiah. As Teresa of Avila says,

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ’s compassion to the world,
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

“Who do you say that I am?” Look into your heart. Blurt out your answer – blurt it out with all your heart, all your life. The lives we live with the hope of Christ in our hearts is what brings the love, the energy, the compassion, the justice, the healing of Christ to another and another and another.

A wise Rabbi asked his students, “How do you know the exact moment a new day has dawned upon the earth?” Said one student, “Rabbi, you can tell when, standing some way away, you can tell a sheep from a dog.” The rabbi agreed that this was a useful discernment to be able to make, but said it did not define the new day. A second student hazarded that the new day dawned when, from down the road, you can tell a fig tree from an olive tree. The rabbi felt this might help determine your direction on the road depending on your appetite, but did not define the new day. The rabbi paused. He looked at his students, looking from one face to the next. Finally he said: “It’s a new day when there is enough light that allows you to see the face of another human being, and looking upon that face, you see your brother or sister. That is the moment when the night ends and the day begins.”

Who do you say that I am?

May we look in our hearts and discover the presence of God.

May we look into the faces of our neighbors and find the face of our brother, the Christ.

May we look to our lives and proclaim with them the New Day coming.

Amen.

Proper 15, A

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Matthew 15:10-28

May de lord bless dem dat loves us,
an’ for dem dat don’t love us,
may He turn their ‘earts,
an’ if He canna turn their ‘earts,
may He turn their ankles,
so we’ll nu dem by their limpin’.

So easy to divide the world that way, isn’t it? Dem that loves us, and dem that don’t. Them that threatens and them that doesn’t. Them that think like us, them that don’t. Them that share our religion, or up-bringing or social status, them that don’t. Us and Them.

Isaiah’s author was very familiar with us and them. He was writing for a mix of exiles returning from Babylon, Jews left behind at the time of the exile and foreigners who never had any status in either group all struggling to form community, jockeying for position, vying for place, praying for peace. He brought no words of preference or exclusion to this chaotic soup. “Maintain justice and do what is right”, Isaiah says. And with that he strives to bring all humanity into relationship with God. “Whoever you are, you are human.” says Barbara Brown Taylor. “Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.” All the human race is invited to share in the holiness, to cling to the covenant.

You hear sometimes of professed Christians acting in an ungodly manner. No. Really. It happens. It may even happen to us…How easy is it for lies or slander or the all-encompassing “evil intentions” to creep into our lives? How easy is it to miss the holiness, and succumb to the all pervasive “dem” and us? We are human, after all.

But here’s the question. Can Jesus be unChristian? ‘Cause he seems to be making a good stab at it today. The canaanite woman. She doesn’t even rate a name in Matthew’s story. She breaks any number of rules, coming into public, talking to a Jew, talking to a man. She is begging, pleading, for help – not even help for herself, but help for her daughter. She’s desperate. He.walks.away. Doesn’t even respond. She tries again – it’s her daughter’s life! He talks around her, still not recognizing her – to the disciples. ‘She’s not my problem. She’s not one of us‘ And she isn’t one of them. She’s a Canaanite, an ancient enemy – she wouldn’t worship the same God, observe the same customs. ‘She’s not who I came to help‘ Maybe he was setting his own limits, but to us this seems cold, callous.

But it doesn’t stop there. This persistent foreign mother is kneeling at His feet. “Help me.” “Lord, help me.” Who could resist that sad plea? Far from succumbing to his own melting heart, our Lord and Savior turns to insults. Calling someone a dog is not kind in our world – in Jesus’s it’s downright nasty.

To be fair – Jesus is having a tough few days. He’s just learned of the death of John the Baptist and went from straight from there to host a dinner party for 5,000. He just wants to be alone for a while. But a storm comes up, and he ends up taking a long and watery walk. He has to fish the soggy Peter out of the drink. Then the pharisees actually follow him out of Jerusalem to Gennesaret to complain about the poor hygiene, or more accurately poor purity practices of Jesus’s followers. Gennesaret having proven a poor choice for a get-away, He leaves Jewish territory altogether. Enough to make anyone cranky. Even still, it’s disturbing. Cranky or no, Jesus has clearly been “caught with his compassion down.” The Wisdom and Wit of Rabbi Jesus – William E. Phipps

So how do we get Him off the hook, explain Christ’s un-Christlike behavior? We’ve been trying for centuries. We’ve amassed quite a series of explanations:

1. A real life parable. Jesus said what he did to echo the pervasive prejudice and divisiveness of his society for his followers. The disciples would see how intrinsically wrong it sounded. He could correct it, explain it. This is the “He didn’t really mean it” theory.
2. He said it to test the canaanite woman, to bring out her faith, make it real and strong and incontrovertible. This is the “For her own good” theory.
3. It’s an inauthentic statement – somebody put these disturbing words in the mouth of Jesus. This is the “He didn’t say it after all” theory.
4. According to homilist Delmer Chilton, “Others say Jesus was not referring to her as a dog but was simply using an old saying or a village proverb. Does anyone get offended when we “The early bird gets the worm,” is used in such a way that they are obviously the worm? This is the “We don’t really get it,” explanation.”

(Thanks to Rev. Delmer Chilton for the basic delineation of the explanations from which this is adapted)

So, which one is right? Dunno. None of them, maybe. Any of them really ring true to you?

What if we don’t get Him off the hook? What if we let Him be human? Fully divine, fully human. He lived 30+ years in a society where honor and shame were paramount, where being God’s chosen ones constituted the entire underpinning of identity, where outsiders, women, persons exposed to illness were ‘less than’, inferior, sub-human. He had to internalize some pieces of his environment. What if , in the face of the holiness of this mother advocating in all humility, all love for her child, what if he changed that day? What if Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the incarnation of our immutable God grew that day? learned that day?

Oddly enough, I find this explanation not only the most true to the text, but also the most comforting. If Jesus himself had to expand his thinking, expand his love, bust his pre-conceived notions, perhaps I am not such a hopeless case if I have some growing and changing to do.

Maybe it was a parable, maybe it was a test, but I think Jesus’s interaction with this strong, fiery, quick-witted, desperate mother that he never “should” have listened to changed him, opened a broader relationship to all the world, the us’s and the thems. Our faith calls us to follow Jesus through life, into death if necessary. God’s love is unlimited – a crumb is enough. WE place the limits. Might we not follow Jesus into eschewing those limit – stretching our our arms to those who love us, and those who don’t; seeking justice and doing what is right. As German theologian Jurgen Moltmann once wrote, “The nearer we come to Christ, the nearer we come together.”

Let your ways, oh God, be known upon earth, and your saving health among ALL nations. Let ALL the peoples, upon whom you have poured out your mercy and your blessing, praise you, and honor you by extending that mercy to all.