Pentecost 20

Year A, Pentecost 20, Proper 21

28 September 2008

Texts:  Matthew 21:23-32; Philippians 2:1-13;

Others:  Exodus 17: 1-7; Psalm 78: 1-4, 12-16 

      Once again, sisters & brothers, Good morning.  It is good to see so many folks here as I return from sabbatical.  It's wonderful to be back at Hope with lights & air & the evidence that much has been done toward cleaning up the neighborhood from the ravages of Ike.  Although I was out of town when Ike struck & came back concerned about what damage I would find, I actually had little damage &, thanks to being on the same grid with a sewage treatment plant, lost power for only a matter of days.  I know many of you have suffered through a couple of weeks camped out in your own house or at some other location, & perhaps some of you still have no power, so I'm particularly grateful that you are here for worship this morning.  I've heard many stories already of your Ike adventures, & we need to tell our stories as we work through our difficulties & come back to a new sense of "normal," whatever that is.

      We join Moses in the wilderness of Sin this morning as the people are desperate for water just as some of you have been for a cool house or a hot shower or a cooked meal these past days.  I wonder how many folks affected by Ike have murmured & grumbled like the Israelites, questioning where God was in the midst & aftermath of Ike, ready to find fault with civic leaders, FEMA, Moses, & even God for what has befallen them.  Moses himself turns to God in desperation & asks for immediate support for fear of being stoned.  And, as we see throughout the 40 year journey to the promised land, God reaches out & rescues the people when they recognize their need & their inability to provide for themselves, & are willing to let God take control.  Of course, they have to learn their lesson over & over again as we do. 

      Time after time, in our hurricane narratives, I've heard tales of blessings, of God's presence in the midst of darkness—sometimes even literally.  Bags of ice as gifts, shared meals over a grill with neighbors you've not known before, rubble cleared by a whole neighborhood, groups mucking out houses filled with water, a team of Mormons removing their ties & white shirts to go door to door, helping with cleanup, etc., etc.  Barbara Crafton's weekly Episcopal Relief & Development essay encouraged folks to give to ERD for hurricane relief for our area.  Our diocesan leaders are coordinating efforts toward the most serious devastation—Trinity, Galveston's deductible tops $3,000,000, I understand!  "Is God among us?" the Israelites asked.  Indeed, very much so!

      In our Gospel passage today, we join Jesus teaching in the temple soon after his Palm Sunday triumphal entry into Jerusalem & then his cleansing of the same temple.  The religious authorities are understandably nervous about his disruption of the usual goings-on in the temple environs as well as the accolades he garnered with the ad hoc parade.  They take this opportunity to confront him, to try to trip him up, by asking him the core question:  Who has given him authority?  Jesus responds using the time-honored rabbinic weapon—another question:  who gave John his authority to baptize?  The temple officials, cornered in their own trap, play it safe; they admit they don't know.  In answer to Jesus' question to me, I have to admit that I often play it safe when asked difficult questions.  How many opportunities to witness to God's love & Jesus' grace do I miss because of my failure of courage?  How about you?

      Undaunted, Jesus tells a parable about 2 sons & their relationship to their father's request.  Imagine the chagrin of the religious authorities if they recognize themselves as the son who professes to do the father's will but doesn't follow through.  We've all heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but in the case of these leaders, their intentions aren't even honorable; theirs are to maintain their own power structure rather than to take a chance to believe in this young rabbi.  We as a church community must always, I believe, be open to what comfortable position Jesus calls us to relinquish in order to be truly effective in ministry. 

      Jesus' parable indicates that the prostitutes & tax collectors, corrupt as they might have been, are blessed with transformed lives when they choose to repent like the son who says "no" but actually does the father's will.  Regardless of what they—& we—have denied in the past, what matters is what we DO in response to God's call.  This repentance is known in Greek as "metanoia"—a wonderful word which means to turn around, to make a 180 degree about-face & go the other way.  We experience such a turning in liturgy most profoundly in the baptismal service:  we ask those being baptized to renounce their old lives & the forces of evil, & then they are invited to turn to new life in Christ, following the steps of the baptismal covenant found on pages 304-05 in the prayer book. 

      The father expected the sons to bring in the harvest, & Jesus calls us today to be the harvesters of the fruit of new life.  Although the Church has often been too busy with our own preservation to be much concerned that the fruit is ripe for the harvest, if we hope to do God's will in the world today, we simply must leave comfortable middle-of-the-road answers behind & be willing to be transformed, to turn around in our tracks if need be & attend to the harvest Christ is inviting us to reap. 

      As usual, St. Paul gives us practical guidelines as to how to carry out the call which Jesus makes to us.  In the passage from Philippians we read today, Paul is writing to one of his favorite communities & is hopeful when he asks them to "make my joy complete" by "being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord & of one mind."  I had always assumed he means they were to have the same mind as Christ when he says this, but closer scrutiny tells me he is calling this church which he founded & of which he is very fond to cooperate with each other, to accomplish unity, to give up their own preferences for the sake of the whole.  Indeed, one of the greatest problems Paul seems to have had with the early Christian communities sounds strangely modern & familiar:  their quarrelling with one another, perhaps murmuring & grumbling like the Israelites when things weren't as comfortable as they would prefer! 

      Paul borrows the early hymn to show the type of self-emptying Jesus did—essentially, letting go of his divine nature to be fully human, self-limiting his own freedom to experience the human limitations, the final one being his accepting his own mortality & accepting the shameful death on a cross.  Just as Jesus reverses his status to be like us, we are called, for the good of the larger community, to work together to do the work which God calls us to do.  When we are willing to be obedient to God & to the health & well-being of the larger community, we can both grow together spiritually & also share the good news of God in Christ with those outside our congregation. 

      Good people of Hope, God raised Jesus up as Christ & Lord because he voluntarily lowered himself to the limits of humankind, & Paul is challenging us to be willing to open ourselves to be molded into Christ's ambassadors to the world.  Paul speaks of salvation here in terms of our total well-being, both now & in the future, as he calls us to allow God to work within this community.  Much has happened in the past quarter year to me & to this congregation to begin a maturing process which we've all hoped for as we've established Hope Church, & Paul tells us that the harvest which we begin to reap here at Hope can feed us more deeply & can equip us to offer bread to a wider community. One of the results, we're encouraged in this passage, will be God's good pleasure.  Let us renew our resolve to journey together as brothers & sisters in Christ.  Amen.