"Everyone will be salted with fire…Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." (Mark 9:49,50)
Last Sunday, we heard Jesus tell us that in the economy of God, every human being has an everlasting value. And God's value is worth far more than any "value" which the economy of man might assign. Today, Jesus drops the other shoe. But of course if you cut off a foot, then you don't need that other shoe, do you? Now other than the occasional lunatic, no preacher in any pulpit preaching from this Gospel is going to take Jesus's warnings about amputation literally, otherwise we would all blind and lame. But this Sunday, Jesus turns over the coin that last week said, "value," and this week says, "price." The Good News is that whatever price must be paid in our lives can be paid, because Jesus has paid the greatest price already.
To catch us up: remember that last week, Jesus had predicted for the second time that he was going to be crucified and raised. His disciples, for the second time, missed the part about resurrection. And out of their anxiety for the future, began arguing about who would be the greatest when Jesus finally kicked the Romans' butts out of their Promised Land. They were arguing over who was most valuable to Jesus. So Jesus sighed and put a little child before them. And taking that little child in his arms, Jesus told his followers to welcome that child as they welcomed him. He presented the least valuable person in society and told his disciples to treat this person of no “value” as they would treat him. The Seminary-speak for this is transvaluation. Our values need to be transformed. Our calculation of what, and who, is worth our time and investment needs to be transformed. But what also needs to be transvalued is the price we are prepared to pay for that which we consider most valuable.
Something or someone can be valuable to us because we derive a material benefit from that person or thing, which we can quantify. If the price is high, that means its value to us is high and we won’t sell it unless we get something of at least equal value. It is worth our while. To be blunt, it is worth the price we must pay. Now Jesus has been imploring his disciples not to set a value on each other, because they are all of equal and everlasting value. But as I already said, there’s another word for the value of something – price. That which is most valuable is also that for which we must be prepared to pay the highest price. And today is when we begin to get a glimpse of how high that price might be.
Of course, the price for eternal life is infinitely higher than we could ever pay. Of course Jesus has already paid that price by his blood. That is our blessed assurance, that by God's infinite grace a room in the house of heaven has already been prepared. And yet, one cannot read today's Gospel, or Good News, and avoid the realization that we likely will have to pay with something of ourselves before we can fully benefit from that grace.
Are we too proud of our ability to see and know things that others cannot? Does that ability give us the right to impose our better idea on those whom we suppose can't see as well as we can? Is that what we must cut out of ourselves? Can we manipulate the world around us and bring the piece of the world within our reach under our control? Does this ability give us the right to manipulate and control people the same way we handle things? What in our lives are we the most proud of? Or to look at it another way; what are we most afraid of losing: our intelligence, our physical strength and talent, our independence? Or what part of our lives do we work the hardest to hide, from others, even from ourselves? Can we conceive cutting these off in order to enter the everlasting kingdom of God?
It has already been established that we are of everlasting value. If Jesus's disciples didn't get that when presented with that little child, Jesus reemphasizes that truth with a different metaphor -- salt. This week, the Hope diamond, all 45 carats of it, was brought out for public display this week by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. But shiny and valuable as that rock might be, it's got nothing on salt. There are about 14,000 known uses for salt today, in our factories, our hospitals, our homes. Not all of those were known in Jesus's time of course. But Roman soldiers understood the value of salt, perhaps better than we do, because part of their wages were paid to them as salt. When Jesus says, "Have salt in yourselves," he is testifying to the everlasting value that each one of us has in the eyes of God. At the same time, what most gives us that value is the price we are ready to pay, the fire that does not consume us but only refines.
Each of us needs refining. Those parts of our lives of which we are the most proud, those are the parts of ourselves that we risk confusing with ourselves. But we are not valuable to God because of anything we can do for God? If you need to cut off your special talent, the thing you are most proud of, in order to discover that your true value comes from God’s grace, then cut it off. If you need to cut off that part of yourself of which you are least proud, in order to fully know your need of God’s grace, then cut it off.
Whether it is that of which we are the most proud, or that of which we are the least proud, those are the areas that will be salted with fire. But let us not fear the fire. Every Sunday we pray to the God "from whom no secrets are hid." And yet that same God welcomes us to the banquet of his Son. So let us not fear the fire, in whatever form it comes for us, and hide from it alone. Let us have salt within ourselves, and be at peace, with God, with ourselves and with each other.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Shining as One
On the Daily Office Blog, I wrote today that when Jesus says, “Let your light shine,” he isn’t saying that to you, or me, as isolated individuals. Jesus is saying to the community of disciples; let your light shine as one. The more of you that shine together, the brighter that light will be for all the world to see. Perhaps we should change the words of that traditional hymn to, “This little light of ours, we’re gonna let it shine.”The other day, I read an interesting blog post in which the author bemoaned the loss of civility, with the loss of civilization not far behind, perhaps. The angry town halls this past August: the proliferation of “news” that is tailored to fit one’s predisposed opinions, be they conservative or liberal: all are evidence that we are losing the ability to talk to each other about disagreeable subjects in an agreeable tone. According to “Tim,” the author of this post, the root of our uncivil culture is identity.
“I and others have staked our identity on a plethora of outward ‘forms’: Right/left, Democrat/Republican, Conservative Christian/Liberal Christian, patriot/expatriate, on and on.” The way that I would put it is this: Seeking safety in numbers, I stake my identity on a certain “tribe.” And having staked my sense of who I am on that tribe, any disagreement with another tribe isn’t really about the issue; it’s about me, my sense of vale and self-worth. No wonder disagreements about “issues” really degenerate into shouting matches when our very existence is in question.
Jesus asks us to stake ourselves on Him. Jesus asks us to recognize our poverty of spirit, or total need of God, to reveal who we really are to us. God knows who we are far better than we know ourselves. For us to know who we are requires the stripping away of all the false identities we have worn for so long, that we think of them as our skin. Once stripped, then we are free to be who God wants us to be, together, so that our lights may shine as one.
Is that daunting? Absolutely. To be a community where our lights shine as one requires a level of mutual honesty and vulnerability that is not easy to attain. In addition to the risk of getting hurt, there is another obstacle that is particular to churches: the fear of conflict. We know we’re supposed to love each other. So when something happens that upsets us, we who call ourselves Christians are tempted to sweep our anger under the rug.
But what I have found is that when we come to each other in love, then that love tempers our expressions of conflict. That love keeps us open to the truth that is bigger than one person’s grievance, and the other’s defensiveness. Out of these “conflicts,” then, emerges a deepened understanding of ourselves and our brother or sister in Christ. In this way, conflict can be made holy, the way in which Christ cements our loyalty to each other. Risky? Yes. But would you rather risk being hurt, or being alone?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Sermon, 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:37)When Jesus tells the disciples to welcome a child as though they are welcoming him, he is not commending the innocence of childhood to his disciples. Neither in this part of the Gospel, at least, is he telling his disciples to be like children. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus presents the least valuable person in society and tells his disciples, treat this person of no “value” as you would treat me.
That sounds harsh to we who try to preserve the innocence of childhood longer than any of the nations and peoples who have come before us. But other peoples in this “modern” world understand the relationship between “value” and childhood differently than we do. In China, where the more children a couple has the more provided for they will be in old age, The government’s one-child policy has led to highly increased abortion rates for girls. Presumably, the parents consider it more important to have a male whose labor will be more “valuable,” thus earning more money as they mature and provide for their aging parents. So, to understand Jesus today, our focus needs to be, not so much on the child, but on the ways in which we human beings judge something, or someone to be of value.
Value can mean two related but different things. Something or someone can be valuable to us because we derive a material benefit from that person or thing, which we can quantify. If the price is high, that means its value to us is high and we won’t sell it unless we get something of at least equal value. It is worth our while. Or, something or someone can be valuable because it has an importance for us that is not as easily quantified, but it satisfies some desire, which we can’t quantify, but is no less important to us.
For the ancient Jews, most of whom were poor and living in a harsh environment, children had to start working as soon as they could carry something. Note that Jesus presents a “little” child, presumably one who was too young to be of any “value” in the daily labor of the household. But if you were a carpenter and needed anyone you could find to hammer some nails, how soon do you suppose a boy could at least swing a hammer? If you needed someone to grind meal for bread, or else nobody ate that night, how soon would you put your daughter’s elbow grease to work? Extended childhoods did not happen in Judea and Galilee.
In the better-off Roman culture, children were extensions of their fathers, who would continue their father's bloodline after they died. If a child was born deformed in some way, the father had every right to abandon that infant to death. Until the daughter was married off, or the son achieved the independence of adulthood, the father’s authority over them was absolute, even to life and death. Either way, little children were of little value, of little worth and little importance.
It is in this context that Jesus sets a little child before them, a child little enough that he can take her in his arms. And he tells his status-conscious disciples, "If you are to be a leader in this community, you must welcome this powerless child of no value exactly as you would welcome me." There's a big word for what Jesus is trying to teach his followers - transvaluation. Our values need to be transformed. Our calculation of what is worth our time and investment needs to be transformed. Whatever we imagine about the future, and how our legacy might be continued, that also must be transformed.
To do that, we need to avoid making the same mistake that the first disciples made. For the second time, Jesus has told them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” And for the second time, that last part goes in one ear and comes out the other. Of course, this broken world of sin and alienation has trained the disciples, and us, to expect the worst, to discount good news as simply the silver lining of a dark cloud. We are trained to expect loss.
An Economics textbook I once had defined the “dismal science” as the allocation of scarcity. In the economy of the world, there never seems to be enough to meet all our needs or wants. In fact, the least available things in this economy are the most valuable, if you judge the value of something or someone solely by its market price. So, we learn to either hoard what we have and never give, or if we’re not gonna have enough anyway, then to live and spend like there’s no tomorrow. But in the economy of God, there is always abundance. In the economy of the world, all that we have comes to us from the outside. A business partner on the other side of the table writes us a hefty check. A relative living hundreds of miles away leaves us a substantial inheritance. Money goes into our bank accounts. But money is spent, or squandered by others, and just fades away.
But in the economy of God, there is always abundance: abundance of friends, abundance of fellowship and abundance of new possibilities. God's economy is not failure-proof. But from within our failures and disappointments arise new possibilities, new relationships, new understandings of what is most valuable in the economy of God. Jesus Christ also failed, descended into darkness, but rose from that darkness. And from within our disappointments, Jesus rises and brings us with him. You and you and you, each and everyone of you, are of the greatest value to Jesus Christ. He died for our failures. And he rose from the dead to give us all everlasting value.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sermon Preview, Proper 20
Courtesy of wordle.net, here's the 1st draft of my sermon. The biggest words are used the most.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Delivery of Tradition
Our English word, "tradition" comes from the Latin word traditio, which means "to deliver," or "hand down." In the Church, we are the latest links in a chain of handing down. But what sort of "delivery" is involved here? Are we simply copyists, doing our best to Xerox what was delivered to us, then transmitting that to the next generation? Our family's experience in moving from Virginia to Alabama provides a more creative understanding of this process of "Delivery."
It was in late November that I accepted the Search Committee's call to serve as Rector of Christ Episcopal Church, Albertville, a mere 11 hours away from the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, where I had lived for the last 23 years. This included 14 years in our apartment. Needless to say, we had a lot of work to do as we delivered ourselves and our home to a new place.
First, we had to look at the "stuff" we had accumulated for those 14 years, and had incorporated into our home. It's always easier to add things to your home than to get rid of them. You can always find a way to make space for something new. And over time, you can adjust your own sense of personal space to accommodate the stuff you've added. Getting rid of stuff you don't need takes money, because if you don't need it, chances are that nobody else needs it, and the labor involved in moving your junk out doesn't come for free.
Some "stuff" we sold, but not for too much, since our goal was not to make money, but to get rid of it. Other "stuff" we simply gave away for free. Other things however, had too much memory attached to it for us to dispose of: pictures our son had drawn, framed pictures that reminded us of where we have come from. Those were to be delivered from the previous generations to the next. One that stood out for me was a landscape, painted by my Aunt Salome, of the Alabama woods in Elmore County. Playing by the water mill are my Aunt Faye, Salome and my grandmother, Belva, along with Uncle Kearney. That painting was delivered to me, and I will deliver it to my son, though how he chooses to dispose of it will be his decision.
Finally, we were ready to be delivered from Virginia to Alabama. We arrived early in January. The next day, the delivery truck arrived with our "stuff." We soon discovered that furniture which had fit in our old home did not fit into this new space. More phone calls. Parishioners helping to take some of this stuff away. Some of it being put into our new garage, slated for consignment. But the pictures, the repository of our memories, remain.
The very act of "delivering" requires the deliverers to make choices: what to keep, what to throw out, and what to store for the future. That is "Tradition." It is not about photocopying, but moving. And in that moving, we are bound by the memories of the past, but also by the demands of the present and future. And the flexibility of balancing past, present and future is something we have no right to deny to those who come after us. They too will be bound in love, for the past, the present and the future.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Sermon, 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Before he became the spiritual leader of all Anglicans worldwide, Rowan Williams was just your average, everyday bishop. But he was a well-known speaker in church circles. And so it was that on September 11, 2001, Williams was at a conference at Holy Trinity Church on Wall Street, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center. As dust from the first collapsed tower began to seep its way into the building, some were convinced that they were going to suffocate to death. Thankfully, police officers broke down a door, and escorted people out to a makeshift bus station; just a few minutes later, the second tower collapsed.
Williams later wrote a meditation on that day and its possible meaning called Writing in the Dust. In that short book, he recounts being accosted on the street by an airline pilot on the morning after. This pilot was a lifelong Roman Catholic. But he was also deeply angry. What the hell was God doing when those terrorists flew those planes into the two towers and the Pentagon; he demanded to know of the cleric. Williams did the best he could. We are not God’s puppets or pets, Williams basically explained, but partners. God gives us all freedom. And in Christ, God triumphs over evil, not by destroying it, but by enduring it, by outlasting it. That’s all true. But as Williams himself recognized, no human words could cover the enormity of the suffering, nor touch human hearts broken so deeply. As Williams wrote, words weren’t enough for this man who placed a lifetime of trust in his God, only to discover that in a crisis, this God might seem useless.
Peter could relate to that shocked pilot. He had given up his successful fishing business, and left his wife behind in Capernaum. He had given up comfort and security. He had been wandering from town to town behind this prophet, not knowing where he would be sleeping or from where his next meal would come. But finally, the payoff is in sight. Jesus has confirmed his greatest hope. Yes, he is the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, who will inaugurate the kingdom of God here on earth, give Israel her freedom, and vengeance to her Roman oppressors. All the hardship, the questioning of his sanity by his family, the ridicule of his neighbors, it’s all about to be redeemed.
But that lifting sensation in his heart, it was just a balloon that Jesus pops as soon as it’s inflated. Here’s the plan, Jesus says. First, we’re going to Jerusalem. Then the leaders of Israel are going to reject me, and then they’re going to arrange for me to be killed, and then I’ll rise again. Peter and the rest of the disciples miss that last part, because everything they’ve read about the Messiah in the prophets has told them that God’s anointed, the Messiah of Israel, would the liberator of Israel. But this would-be Christ is saying that he will confront Israel’s pagan enemies, and those enemies will deal with him as they deal with every other wannabe liberator, the cross. And if anyone would follow Jesus to Jerusalem, then they had better be prepared to share that cross. Just as Jesus confirms his claim to be the Christ, he sets himself up as a failed Christ, an unsuccessful liberator of his people.
You see, Peter and all the Jewish people had a very clear criterion of success by which to judge the success of any wannabe messiahs. Had that wannabe demonstrated a power that could stand up to any enemy and then annihilate them? Well, the disciples had seen Jesus walk on water, heal the sick, exorcise demons, make food for thousands of people twice. Up to now, Jesus has had a very successful trial run as the Messiah. But just as he lays claim to the title, he predicts failure.
But Jesus has a different criterion of success. The world measures success by quantity. We have lived in the “American Century,” because we’ve had the most money and the most military power. In the Church, we have called the most successful churches “mega-churches,” with thousands filling sports arenas every Sunday. But quantity is not God’s first criterion of success, but quality: the quality of our relationships with each other, the quality of our caring for each other, the quality of our love for each other. This doesn’t mean that quantity is irrelevant to success. The Church needs the financial support of her members. And if nobody comes to a church, then there won’t be a church for anybody to come to. But Jesus doesn’t want our money, our cold bodies. More than anything else, He wants our hearts. And the way we give our hearts to Jesus is by giving them to each other. If the quality of our heart-to-heart relationships is high, then the quantity will follow. And that quantity will consist, first and foremost, of more and more hearts.
I once saw a documentary on PBS’s Frontline about the questions of faith and doubt that survivors and others asked after 9/11. There is a rabbi who was moved by the expressions of love given by those in the towers and in the planes, on their cell phones to those they loved. They were words of love, and they so moved this rabbi that he actually set them to the Jewish chants he had known since childhood. Imagine these words as a Psalm: "It's Brian. I'm on the plane and it's hijacked and it doesn't look good. I just wanted to let you know that I love you, and I hope to see you again. If I don't, please have fun in life, and live life the best you can. Know that I love you, and no matter what, I'll see you again."
When we are leaving this world, all of the things we have piled up in order to claim “success,” will be left here. But the love we take with us, and the love we leave behind, that will be the mark of our success.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sermon, 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time
It took Jesus's brother, James, a long time to find out who he was. Throughout the three years of Jesus's public ministry, James was the embarrassed brother, wondering why Jesus was making a public spectacle of himself, risking the wrath of religious and political leaders, and saying such outrageous things as: in me and in my work all of the scriptures are fulfilled, for I am bringing the kingdom of God to you. James was probably one of the family members who came to where Jesus was teaching and tried to get him to come out, perhaps to stage an "intervention," only to be told, "Who are my brothers and sisters? Those who do the will of God." James was not one of Jesus’s disciples during those three years. And he wasn’t there when his Lord was crucified.
But Jesus always knew who James was. And so, according to Paul, after his resurrection, Jesus showed himself to his brother, who had not believed him for so long. And finally James knew who he was. He was a faithful son of Israel, who trusted God's promise to Israel, and trusted that Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise. James knew that his brother was the Anointed of God, the Messiah, the Christ.
James was a man of Holy Scripture. He knew the Law of Israel inside out. When Jesus said that you must love your neighbor as yourself, James knew that he was quoting Leviticus 19:18. And knowing Leviticus, James understood that loving your neighbor means much much more than coming up to the people you already know and giving them a hug. He knew that loving your neighbor means more than doing nice things for the people who can do nice things back. That's how love of neighbor is defined in Leviticus 19, and that's why James is so emphatic that our love must play no favorites whatsoever.
So, as the leading Apostle in Jerusalem, he refused to give up on his brothers and sisters among the people of Israel. He was a faithful Jew and a disciple of Jesus the Christ. When he feared that Paul might leave behind too much of the Old Covenant to gain the Gentiles, James reminded him that any pretense of faith which finds no expression in loving your neighbor as yourself, is dead. Finally, when overly zealous Jews stoned him to death in 62 AD, he knew that he was to be a sharer of his brother's death and resurrection. James submitted to the law of liberty, and in death, truly found himself.
It's never easy to find ourselves. We look in the mirror, and wish that whatever ghost lurks behind that image would show him or herself. We spend a lifetime trying out for a myriad of roles: the teen too cool for u: the angry young man: husband, wife, embarrassed sibling, father, mother: master of the universe, be it in politics or business: churchman, wise old grandparent. But when the end comes, we are the same wondering helpless child that we were at our beginning.
So what is the answer to this riddle, "Who am I?" Well, you will never find the right answer to that question, unless you ask a second question, “Who are you?” As long as you stare in the mirror, you won’t see yourself. You will only find yourself in relationship with your neighbor, loving your neighbor as yourself. And who are our neighbors, in the church and in our community? What do they look like? Well, if you can’t see who you are by staring in the mirror, you sure can’t tell who your “neighbors” are by their appearance. In today’s reading, James tells us that we all are beloved children of God, no matter how we look, no matter the mistakes we have made. And so, to our neighbors, our message must be: God loves you, Jesus loves you, and as Jesus's hands and arms, I love you.
This is the law of liberty. We all must love each other, equally, even as we love ourselves, in deed as well as thought. And when we submit to that law, we will be liberated from the false roles we try out, the false expectations we lay upon our shoulders. We will be liberated from our loneliness. We will be liberated to be ourselves as God loves us, loving our neighbors as Jesus loves us. Of that we can be sure, because it's the law.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Sermon Preview, Proper 18
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Deep Time and Spirit-Testing
I found Bishop Parsley’s post-convention meditation very helpful. Apparently he went from Anaheim to the Grand Canyon, and gained some needed perspective after two weeks of little sleep, and lots and lots of resolutions. To see such beauty, carved into the good earth over millions and millions of years, allows us to see things in terms of “deep time.” That’s a perspective that is needed even more in our 24/7 cycle of news. “The lesson worth learning is that we need to live by God’s time, rather than by the tyranny of the urgent,” Bp. Parsley writes.
The secular news media, desperate for “news,” largely concluded that General Convention had thrown the doors open to the election of a partnered gay or lesbian as a bishop, and the church blessing of same-sex unions. Neither headline is accurate. On the first issue, GC reiterated that according to our constitution and canons, the discernment process for bishops, priests and deacons is open to all Episcopalians regardless of sexual orientation. But as someone who only recently finished jumping through a lot of hoops on the way to his ordination, I assure you that saying the process is open to all is no guarantee of reaching the finish line. As to the second issue, it was decided to begin the process of considering a possible liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions at the next GC in 2012. Consideration is not the same as adoption.
With all that said, I suspect that at some point, some dioceses will probably do both. That will not happen in the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. Bp. Parsley is clear about that. But a few dioceses will enter a time of “testing.”
“Do not stifle inspiration or despise prophetic utterances,” Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “but test them all; keep hold of what is good and avoid all forms of evil” (1 Thess. 5:19-22). People whose sexual orientation is toward persons of the same gender are in every denomination. They are faithful Christians who did not ask to be homosexual. Every Church needs to discern how to care them in a way that is pastoral, not condemning. On the other hand, we have a moral tradition of lifelong marriage between a man and woman as the normative expression of God’s gift of sexuality.
Many Episcopalians believe that monogamous homosexual relationships should be treated no differently than monogamous heterosexual relationships. Many others believe that sexuality is ordained by God to be the means by which men and women become the “one flesh” that, according to Genesis, they once were. It appears that in this time of testing, we shall see some dioceses test the first proposition. What will be the outcome of their inspired experiment? In God’s deep time, we shall see.
In the meantime, all we Episcopalians will continue to worship every Sunday from the same Book of Common Prayer, and say the same Creed, professing our belief in those few doctrines that are truly essential to what defines us as Christian: One God in the person of the Father; One God in the person of Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified and risen; One God in the person of the Holy Spirit; One church; and the Resurrection of all. That has been the essence of our faith for nearly 2,000 years. Trust in God’s deep time and let the test take care of itself.
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