November 6, 2014

Lettie Pate Evans Interim Chapel, Virginia Seminary

Luke 15:1-10

            Fred Craddock calls the joy of finding the lost in the parables we just heard the “heart of the gospel.”[1] This is great good news and is the message of the entirety of scripture. We all know this: God creates us in love and desires to be in relationship with us and even though we forget this and get lost again and again, God does whatever it takes to seek us out so that we might turn back and experience life as we were created to. Experience true, meaningful life in the here and now, that is, eternal life. And when any of us do turn to God, back to God, oh what joy in heaven.

            Except. Except that, as Craddock says, “This joy is also the offense of the gospel.”[2] Of course it’s easy for us to immediately go to the bad guys, to project that offense onto the Pharisees and Scribes, who yet again are causing trouble for Jesus.

            Jesus, as you know, has set his face toward Jerusalem and large crowds are now following him. Tagging along are people Joseph Fitzmyer describes as “immoral” and “irreligious.”[3] And Jesus, the accused drunkard and glutton, essentially revels with them. Of course, the Scribes and Pharisees are offended. Of course, they demand to know why Jesus welcomes tax collectors and sinners.

            And as Jesus is wont to do, rather than answering them straight out, he relates three parables: the lost sheep and lost coin and then will conclude with the prodigal son. This weird, circuitous non-sequitur of an answer is no doubt anything but satisfying for Jesus’ questioners. Certainly, all this is offensive.       

            New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, who happens to be Jewish, says that the parables of Jesus “often tease us into recognizing what we’ve already always known, and they do so by reframing our vision. The point is less that they reveal something new than that they tap into our memories, our values, and our deepest longings, and so they resurrect what is very old, and very wise, and very precious. And often, very unsettling.”[4]

            Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be unsettled. And I have found that being a seminarian, being formed, as it were, is deeply unsettling. Things I thought I knew about myself are constantly shifting here in our very close community, and it makes me grumble. I confess to you that sometimes, occasionally, this community whom I love, truly, nevertheless makes me grumble.

            But this community also makes me think that we, you and I, are perhaps parables to one another, at least following Levine’s definition, that you and I are living parables revealing the deep mystery of God to one another in often strange and even maddening ways.       

            But I digress, since of course my grumbling isn’t really in the same order as that of the Pharisees.

            Or, is it?

            Perhaps the Pharisees and Scribes we meet in today’s gospel are so offended by Jesus because they have forgotten what they already knew about God. They forgot that this great joy that Jesus talks about is the same joy God took in delivering God’s people from bondage, having heard their cry. It is the joy God took in calling God’s people into covenant, giving the law in steadfast love. And in forgetting how much they had been, were, loved, these particular Pharisees and Scribes were unable to take part in God’s great good pleasure in loving others, in welcoming them home, in the rejoicing, from whence flows true life.

            In reading the living parables around me here at VTS I, too, so often forget what I know. But my prayer is that we may all remember that Jesus Christ, as the very revelation of God, ensures us that God loves us immeasurably. That we are all already forgiven. That each of us is sought after, and found, and is the object of God’s great joy.

            I pray we remember this so that we might be as steadfast and persistent in our love for one another as the shepherd is for his lost sheep, as the woman for her lost coin. May we remember so that we might not only love one another, but also show forth God’s love into the world. May we remember so that the whole world might accept the invitation to the extravagant party of God’s rejoicing.

         

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[1] Fred Craddock, Luke (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 186.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 1075, Note 15:15.

[4] Amy Jill-Levine, “A Parable and Its Baggage,” The Christian Century, August 25, 2014.

October 19, 2014
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, VA

Year A, Season After Pentecost, Proper 24, Mt 22:15-22

            Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas writes about our gospel lesson that “You know you have a problem, at least if you are a disciple of Jesus, when you do not have a problem.”[1] “You know you have a problem . . . if you are a disciple of Jesus, when you do not have a problem.” And there is in fact a pretty big problem raised by our gospel lesson today. How are we to follow Jesus and also pay our due to the powers of this world, so often at odds with this this Jesus, whom we have committed to follow?

            Jesus, as he is wont to do, of course doesn’t give us a clear answer. He doesn’t really give us a way out of this problem, although he very tactfully frees himself, for now at least, from the trap set before him.

            He is approached by an unlikely alliance of Pharisees and Herodians. Pharisees, as you remember, are that Jewish sect concerned not only with extending Jewish practice into all areas of life but with also controlling those practices, that same group that Jesus has just condemned in the three parables preceding our gospel lesson. And this is a group that would have been against paying taxes to Rome. And Herodians, who would have been in support of paying taxes to Rome, are those supporters of Herod Antipas, the Jewish king and puppet-ruler of the Roman Emperor. These groups, who are in no way fans of Jesus, ally themselves to attempt to ensnare him with a question. After flattering him insincerely, they ask, “Is it lawful [that is, is it in line with the teaching of Torah] to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (22:17). Jesus knows, of course, that if he says yes, he will alienate many of his followers, poor Jews oppressed by the Roman government, for whom this tax is a great burden.[2] If he says no, he will be seen by Roman authorities as seditious. It is a lose-lose situation for Jesus.

            And yet, what he does is no less than point out what and whose those Pharisees and Herodians truly are, what and whose we truly are, which is great, good news. Though all this is also, as Hauerwas writes, not without it’s problems.

            Jesus requests from those questioning him a coin, a coin he apparently doesn’t carry with him, by the way. This Roman denarius not only contained the imprint of the emperor’s head but also carried a description that afforded the emperor divine honor: This Roman denarius would have read, “Tiberias Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.”[3] In short, this bit of currency and what it represented was not only oppressive for most Jews, but it was blasphemous, idolatrous.  As one commentator writes, “The inscription of the denarius that makes a theological claim about Ceasar would seem ludicrous from the perspective of Jesus’s community, were it not for the bloody oppression that comes with it.”[4]

            Nevertheless, Jesus calmly takes this blasphemous coin and simply says, what may be in the top ten of well-known lines of the bible, and I love the King James here: “Render therefore unto Ceasar the things which are Caesar’s.” And the verb here is interesting. “Render” in the King James Version and “give,” as we heard in the New Revised Standard Version, is a translation of a Greek word that has a sense of giving back what is due, of what is owed.

            Jesus tells the Pharisees and Herodians, give the emperor his due, that’s fine. And this might be a passage that calls on us to think about the separation of church and state in our modern life. Except that, Jesus has more to say, and so this passage isn’t really in any way about who or what entity gets what portion of what we have, not least of all because we cannot compartmentalize God.

            Jesus goes on to tell those questioning him not only to give back to the emperor those things that are his, but to give back to God those things that are God’s. And this is where our problem lies. Stanley Hauerwas writes, “Jesus is not recommending in his response to the Pharisees that we learn to live with divided loyalties. . . .  Just as Jesus knows no distinction between politics and religion, neither does he know any distinction between politics, economics, and the worship of God.”[5] That is, there are not those things that belong to Caesar and those that belong to God, but everything is, we are, all God’s. Thanks be to God.

            But, Hauerwas goes on to say that,  “For many, this account of Jesus's claim that we are to give to the emperor what is the emperor's and to God what is God's creates an insoluble problem because they do not see how followers of Jesus can then live in the world as we know it. But to recognize that we have an insoluble problem is to begin to follow Jesus. Jesus's response to the Pharisees and Herodians does create an insoluble problem, but that is what it is meant to do. [And, again] You know you have a problem, at least if you are a disciple of Jesus, when you do not have a problem.”

            Discipleship is problematic. It just is. Following Jesus challenges us to ask continually, as another scholar puts it, what do we owe and to whom?[6] What do we owe and to whom?

            It is easy enough to say that we of course owe God all that we are, all that we have.

But doing is harder than saying, and not only are there many, many taxes to pay, but also bills, and of course all those things that we think we need, all those things we have to have, all those things we want. What do we owe and to whom? This is indeed problematic for those of us who claim to follow Christ.

            I would be lying to you if I said that pledging to my parish, whichever parish I’m in, is an easy thing for me. We, I, so often believe that there’s not enough. Back a couple of years ago when I had an income, more often than not, I would try to figure out how much disposable income I had and then give out of that. But I eventually began to see giving as a spiritual discipline, and one that, as I said, is not easy for me. As someone who worked in university fundraising back in Mississippi, I was eventually found out and put on the stewardship committee of my parish. Before I left for seminary, I served for a while as chair of that committee. In that role, I was floored to learn that it wasn’t our most affluent parishioners giving the most, but it was a few couples who made considerably less than many in our pretty wealthy parish. They knew something that I hadn’t quite grasped yet, and that I need continual reminding about. For them, giving was a spiritual discipline, a reminder of their utter dependence on God for all they had, and a reminder of their identity as God’s very own beloved children. They gave out of the abundance of knowing who and whose they truly were, in the knowledge that all they were and all they had were God’s, in thanksgiving for their very being. They gave to our parish not to keep the lights on and the heat on and the water running and the programs going, but in recognition of and response to the one God who created, redeemed and sustained them.

            Reading a few verses ahead of our Gospel lesson, one of the Pharisees will ask Jesus which is the greatest commandment, and Jesus will, as you know, remind those around him, and us, that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds and likewise love our neighbors as ourselves. How do we do that? One way is to remember that this God loved us first and loves us always. How can we do any less, then, than remember that all that we are and all that we have are God’s? “Give to Caesar those things which are Caesar’s.” Yes. Fine. “And to God those things which are God’s.” 

            In this season of stewardship, I would submit to you, that we all consider Jesus’ words as we prepare to give back to God out of the bounty that we have received. And we all have received bountifully. I pray that you and I not be fooled into parsimonious thinking, believing that some things belong to God and others do not, but that every good gift, our very breath, our very being, and that of those we love and have loved, is God’s free gift to us out of God’s own loving and self-giving being.

            God is due everything of course. I pray that all of us might remember this each day as we navigate this world, where we are often forced to “render to Caesar,” as it were. In such a world, it’s so easy to forget that God is in fact due our all, and I often do.

            But just as that coin the Pharisees show Jesus is imprinted with the head of the Caesar, imprinted upon you and me is the very image of a God, as Tertullian noted. We are imprinted with the image of God. And this is a God who is merciful and compassionate beyond our imaginings. What do we owe and to whom? I pray that we will continue to ponder this question and in so doing, may we always remember in whose image we are made and whose we are.

Amen.

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[1] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 190.

[2] Susan Grove Eastman, “Matthew 22:15-22: Exegetical Perspective, Feasting on the Word,   Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 191.

[3] Eugene Boring, “Matthew,” New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 420.

[4] Richard E. Spalding, “Matthew 22:15-22: Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 190.

[5] Hauerwas, Matthew, 190.

[6] “Matthew 22:15-22: Homiletical Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4     (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 191.

September 21, 2014
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, VA

Year A, Season after Pentecost, Proper 20, Matthew 20:1:16

            The more I preach (which is maybe in the double digits now), the more I really just want to tell people how much we are loved, how relentlessly we are pursued by a God who wants nothing more than for us to know God’s love, and to tell people how much God desires relationship with us. I want to preach this, I think, because it’s a message I constantly need reminding of. This is a message that is so very hard to hold onto in our culture, or really hard to hold onto in any culture, because we love one another so very imperfectly.

            We are unkind and ungenerous and exclusive, and hurt one another again and again because rather than focusing on who we truly are—on our true identity and purpose as God’s beloved children called to live out that love—rather than focus on that, we instead believe that we have to somehow earn God’s love, and that others do as well. And so we lose sight, and as a result, we buy into the messages of the world around us. That our worth and that of others is measured by how hard we work, or which political party we support, or what kind of education we have, or how much we earn, or what we buy. None of that, of course, has anything at all to do with God’s love for us, and that, of course, is the only thing that really matters in the end.

            The thing is, as you already know, that there is of course nothing to earn, nothing that we can do or say or believe or not believe to merit God’s love since it is already given. It is ours. God’s generosity is so big, so overflowing, in fact that it belongs also to those we would discount, those we think beyond any hope of redemption.

            This is inherent in today’s gospel lesson and it’s important that we understand God’s generosity since in understanding it, we can live it, and in living it, we can experience eternal, that is, true, life in the here and now.

            In our lesson, we have Jesus on the way to Jerusalem with the disciples preaching and healing and and teaching in parables and among those is the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, as it’s come to be called. And these laborers would have been familiar to the disciples. These were the folks on one of the lowest rungs of Greco-Roman society, very poor men, who would have just been looking for a day’s wage to feed their families and who perhaps would not have eaten on this particular day if not for the landowner who goes out to hire them. And we have a landowner who is exceedingly generous because not only does he go out early in the morning to hire, but he goes out four more times to hire men to work, the last time just an hour before the usual quitting time.

            What a wonderful story of God’s generosity and God’s pursuit of us this is. How nice it would be if the parable ended there. How great it would be for Jesus to just stop there and let us all rest in the knowledge that no matter how late we show up to the party, no matter how idle we have been, not only is there space for us in the vineyard but that we are sought after. And that is of course all true.

            But, that’s not the end of the story. Jesus, as he is wont to do, makes things a little bit uncomfortable for us. Jesus, as he is wont to do, turns everything upside down and forces us to look a little bit harder. Challenges us, to see differently in fact. Challenges us to see as God sees.

            So imagine it: you are a hard worker. You get up early, get dressed, have the great good fortune of a landowner himself finding you and hiring you. You are very happy and grateful to do a day’s work for a day’s wage and are thankful that you will be able to feed yourself and your family on this evening. All day the sun is beating down on you, but you continue to work and work and there’s plenty of work so you do not begrudge the others when they show up in the field to help and hopefully make at least something for themselves before the day’s over. You are a little disappointed at the end of the day when you’re told to get in line and that you’ll be paid last. You’ve been working really hard all day and you just want to get home and eat and get some sleep so you can hopefully earn enough to eat tomorrow. But then as you’re standing there in the back of the line, you see that the guys who arrived last are getting a full day’s wage. This is wonderful, you think. You’re mind races with the thoughts of how much you’ll earn and with the knowledge that maybe you can get some sleep tonight without the worry of whether you’ll eat tomorrow. There will be enough to last maybe even a week. But then you see that those who arrived around 3 also got a full-day’s wage as did those who arrived around noon. You become angry and resentful and wonder at the injustice.

            This story that Jesus tells is in no way fair. And it’s made even less fair by the fact that those who got there earliest are made to wait in line for their pay, for the exact same amount as those who worked only an hour. This landowner is not only unfair but verges on sadistic. Is this really how God operates?

            Thankfully, yes. “Are you envious because I am generous?” the landowner asks the workers who arrived first. Rendered more faithfully to the Greek, the landowner asks, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” (John Donahue, The Gospel as Parable, 82). For Matthew, the eye is the lamp of the body (Matt 6:22, Donahue 82), and as John Donahue notes, “these servants allow their attitude to ‘darken’ their whole way of viewing the world. What began as an act of goodness to them and unfolded as an act of generosity to others blinded them to the goodness of the owner and the good fortune of others” (Donahue, 83).

            How often and in what ways are we likewise blinded? It’s a question the parable calls us to wrestle with. The landowner could have made life much easier on himself and just paid everybody in the reverse order. And as I said, Jesus could have made things much easier on the disciples and on us and ended the parable before the laborers get their pay. But neither action adequately illustrates the radical nature of God generous love to us and neither action calls us into that generosity.

            Now, let me be very clear. There is nothing that you or I can do or not do or believe or not believe to separate us from the love of God. St. Paul tells us as much in Romans 8. But experiencing that love is an entirely different matter. And the way to experience God’s love fully is to follow Jesus into these very difficult places, and to embrace God’s freely given love, that is God’s grace, rather than oppose it.

            Our tendency, or maybe it’s just my tendency, but I think our universal human tendency is to oppose this overabundant love of God. This opposition to grace is what Karl Barth, the great 20^th century German theologian, called sin. We sin when we, like the grumbling workers, begrudge God’s generosity. We sin when we, to paraphrase Donahue, create categories of worth and value that separate ourselves from others (Donahue, 85). Because none of us is more or less deserving of God’s love. We all just are loved. As we are.

            But when we put human limits on God’s goodness and mercy, when we determine who is in or who is out, when we actually believe that there are people Jesus actually would not sit down and break bread with. When we put these limits on God’s generous love, we limit our ability to live into, to experience fully, God’s goodness and mercy so very freely and generously granted to us (Donahue, 85). When we limit God, it’s really hard to experience God’s love. Not because God doesn’t allow us or somehow prevents us or is punishing us or doesn’t want us to experience that love, but instead, it’s just that our own attitudes blind us.

            It is true that God loves us without measure, without bound, generously and unequivocally. But it is also true that Jesus forces us out of our comfort zones and challenges us to take a long, hard look at where we set limits on this love, on the ways in which we re-make God in our own image to adhere to our ideas of fairness and justice.

Jesus challenges us to think seriously about those places where we begrudged generosity given to others and to open our hearts to those we would rather not, so that we may experience more and more the expansiveness of God’s love.

Amen.