The Sermons of Martha Frances, the Rector of Hope Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas, and selected Sermons & Homilies of Others.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Advent I
By The Rev. Martha Frances+ Year B, Advent I - 30 November 2008
Text: Mark 13: 24-37; I Corinthians 1: 3-9 Other: Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18; Isaiah 64: 1-9a
One Sunday when Pittman McGehee was Dean at Christ Church Cathedral, he was carrying a newly-baptized baby down the center aisle for all to see when a woman in a red polyester pants suit stopped him in his tracks with, "Hi! I'm Jesus."
Dean McGehee responded with a brief bow & nod, adding that he was glad to know her. As the Dean began preparations for communion, he remarked to his assistant at table Canon John Logan, "See that woman in the red polyester pant suit about halfway down the center aisle?"
John responded, "Yes, I do. Why?"
The Dean continued, "She says she's Jesus."
"Is that so?" the Canon countered.
Pittman added, "I'm not surprised at Jesus' return as a woman, but I would have thought she would have better taste then red polyester." After a few moments concentrating on the bread & wine, he asked his Canon, "What if she's right?"
With a straight face, Canon Logan replied, "Look busy!"
Today's scriptures not only call us to look busy but to be about the business of spreading the gospel throughout the world as we await Christ's 2nd coming. The man going on a journey in Mark's gospel today puts his slaves in charge & tells the doorkeeper to be on the watch, to keep awake & be alert for when the owner returns.
Those folks who camp out on a mountaintop with provisions & arms, believing they know when Christ is returning in glory might beware. This passage tells us not even the Son knows when the time with come; only the Father. Folks sometimes claim that disasters happening in our world are those predicted in the biblical apocalyptic visions; thus, the end of the world is right around the corner. Such dire predictions have been made ever since Christ's ascension as various horrendous events have occurred. Thus far, they've all proven short-sighted. The present horrors always seem the worst in history, but Jesus assures us that all our predictions are pretty egotistical, that not even He knows the day or hour. Who indeed claims to know more than Jesus?
The last few days I've been acutely sensitive to fears brought on by apocalyptic-type horrors we've watched from Mumbai, India, with Americans & Brits particularly targeted, since my own brother, sister, & brother-in-law are presently in India, having been scheduled to attend a wedding in Mumbai this weekend. Thanks to the miracle of e-mail, we have been in regular touch, & I can tell you I breathed a sigh of relief when they wrote that they would meet the wedding party the next day in Goa rather than trekking to Mumbai. However, my own personal relief is clouded by awareness of relatives & friends of nearly 200 dead & twice that many injured as a result of the terrorist actions. My siblings report the depth of disbelief & pain at such an assault upon their own financial center as we experienced on 9/11. Once again, our world must adjust to a new "normal" as we move into the future. And, inadequate as it may seem in the face of such inane tragedy, all many of us can do is pray for all those involved.
Earlier in today's gospel reading, Jesus tells his community the time to live a faithful life of discipleship is now, not when they see the fig tree begin to green & put forth leaves, for by that time, the precious time for a life of faithfulness will have passed. One early church father—Augustine of Hippo, I believe—when struggling with his response to his conversion experience, prayed, "Lord, make me holy, but not yet!" He wanted to be free to live life on his own terms just a little longer. He wanted to stretch out the time when he could be in charge of his life, pushing back when he would turn his will & his life over to the care of the loving God who then could make his life truly meaningful.
Over the years I've observed people who in their loved ones eyes had tremendous difficulties with alcohol, drugs, or people addictions yet who continued to say, "If I ever get that bad, I'll quit!" How many of us have thought the epitome of adulthood was being in charge of our own lives? When we were kids, we looked forward to doing just what we darn well pleased, sure we could do a better job of life than the adults around us did?
Perhaps you have never hit the wall of your own self-will run riot in some area of your life, but many folks I have worked with over the years have ended up on our knees, defeated, lives in shambles, finally admitting that we can't pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. And some of us—the lucky ones, I believe—have learned that we aren't supposed to live as masters of the universe & captains of our own souls. Some have found kinship with Adam & Eve in the Garden, discovering that God really does have a better way for us. Only then have we been willing to let God control our lives because our running the show made the whole drama a grotesque comedy of errors. That's ok. Whatever it takes for us to let God be in charge is what it takes. And the funny thing is, life is so much richer & fuller when we turn things over to God & try to live our lives the way God created us to live.
Advent, which begins today, is the time in the church calendar when we are all urged to slow down & listen, reassess our lives & hear where we are missing the mark, running the show, keeping our lives overly-full so that we leave no room for Jesus to be borne in us this year. Isn't it interesting that the wise folk who established our liturgical calendar recognized that we need to cycle back around each year to make space for Jesus to be brought forth in us anew?
When St. Paul took up his pen to write the new Christians in Corinth in the beginning of the letter which we read today, he was dealing with some folks who thought the 2nd coming of Jesus had already happened & that they could do as they pleased. They had heard the powerful preaching of Paul or Barnabas or Apollos & had become part of this new Christian community. They had begun to rely upon the many blessings God had given their community, various spiritual gifts or charisms they had been given, & they had begun to use them for their own individual benefit rather than for the whole community. They thought they were immune from sharing their gifts to build up the Body of Christ & were taking credit for those spiritual gifts instead of honoring God with them. They had grown tired of waiting for Christ to come again & begun to bicker among themselves. The rules didn't apply to them, just to others. (I'm sure this couldn't happen in a modern church community, could it?) So Paul picks up his pen to remind them God has given them all they have, God is faithful, & they are called into fellowship for building up the Christian community & proclaiming the gospel to the ends of the earth. Perhaps we at Hope can learn from Paul's community's experience.
Today, the first Sunday of Advent, 2008, we light the first candle on our Advent wreath. For several weeks, we have read scriptures relating to the end times, & now we move into the season of promise & preparation, of anticipation & hope, in what is sometimes called restrained excitement, awaiting the birth of the Christ child.
Jesus was born centuries ago in a small country where today there is still no peace. Yet, if Jesus' birth is relevant today, it is for Jesus to be born anew in our lives. Today & throughout the next 4 weeks, we come together on Sundays & hopefully on Wednesday evenings to tell the story again, to re-member Jesus' entry into our lives—re-member because it's so real to us.
For a lot of people, this next month will mean a frazzled rush to spend money, to buy gifts, to get just the right do-dad for Aunt Sadie or Uncle Carlos. Especially this year, we get mixed messages to get out there & spend in order to help the economy but also to cut back to care for ourselves & our families in the long run in case the economy doesn't rebound pretty soon. We can be carried along by the society to believe that "things" determine the value of Christmas. We can allow the commercialism of the holidays to steal our cool, to make us act very un-Christian. But we have an alternative to such unhealthy behavior.
That's what Advent is all about. Our Christian community can help us prepare for the true Christmas, the coming of the baby Jesus & the adult Christ in our lives. We can await the Feast of the Incarnation this year with eager longing for God's redeeming presence in our lives & the life of Hope Episcopal Church, even as we give thanks for the presence which is already here.
We return to the gospel call to wait & watch, but not passively. As Jesus tells us, we each have work to do. We must prepare our hearts for God the potter to mold us & make us anew this year. We are called to reach out to others, to offer them joy & transformation as we accept it for ourselves. Who can you invite to wait with us? Remember, the savior will come quickly. Be ready!
The Reverend Martha Frances Year A, Last Pentecost, Christ the King Sunday 23 November 2008 - 8:00 a.m. only
Text: Matthew 25: 31-46Other: Ezekiel 34:11-16; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1: 15-23 Today is the culmination of the long green season of Pentecost—ordinary or common time. As we've moved through later Pentecost, we've studied parables concerning the end time called the parousia or the Eschaton. Today, we celebrate the fulfillment of those parables, a time which we only know in part in this life—the reign of Christ as King. Today's collect calls on God to restore all things through the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Note that we ask in the collect for God to free us from sin which divides us & to bring us together as one. For the past 3½ years, we've been on this journey of becoming one congregation of Hope, & we continue with our pledge ingathering & then Thanksgiving feast today. It is important, as we begin preparations for the coming of the Christ child once again, that we celebrate Christ's coming in glory.So what are most of the scriptures about today? Sheep & shepherds! We're reminded of how frequent are the images & stories of sheep in the Hebrew Bible by the first selection from Ezekiel who lived during the Babylonian exile. The Hebrew sheep have indeed been scattered to what was to them the ends of the earth—Babylon—& their God the Shepherd promises to search for them, to rescue them from all the dangerous places where sheep get themselves separated & stuck, especially on dark, stormy days. God the shepherd claims us all & yearns to gather us together, bring us into our own land, & feed us with the richest pastureland. Of course, we all know that the grass is always greener wherever we aren't, & the Hebrew people may have imagined the mountain heights of Israel as more plush than they actually are, but the point is that God plans to shepherd the Hebrew sheep Godself without the help of the kings who had really made a mess by not being faithful to the Lord God. God the Shepherd will care for the sheep—& at this point the goats are mixed with the sheep—in all the ways a shepherd does: feed & water them, make them lie down to rest, seek the lost, bring back those strayed, bind up the wounded, & strengthen the weak. Sounds like a pretty cushy life for sheep, doesn't it? And certainly, submitting to God's shepherding of our lives is more comfortable than when we're trying to run our lives by ourselves. But Ezekiel's vision of God the shepherd isn't all a bed of clover. The shepherd will destroy the fat & the strong; God will feed them with justice. Here we see an early image of the separation, God's judging between sheep & sheep, between rams & goats. What's the difference between the distinctive animals? They're all part of the same family, loved by God. The Gospel for today is one of the most familiar sheep & shepherd passages in the whole of Scripture, not really a parable, but rather a vision of the end times found only in Matthew. The shepherd is now revealed as the king—overlapping images which reach all the way back to King David, also a shepherd. The king separates the sheep from the goats, showing favor to the sheep. I think it's again important to see that both sheep & goats are of one flock & are both cared for by the same shepherd. Even the judgment scene is within the context of the shepherd who cares even for the less favored animals in the same flock. When the shepherd/king honors those he calls sheep, they are surprised. Notice that the favored ones aren't favored because they thought beforehand, "If we feed the hungry & clothe the naked, the king will be pleased with us & reward us." In fact, they're surprised that their actions have been noticed even by the king, much less that the king considers their works of mercy deeds done to him. It's all news to those who are being commended. What we have to remember in this story is that the good works are not done in order that the sheep may earn their way into eternal life. The good works are done because that's how the flock shows gratitude to the shepherd/king who has already saved them, protected them, fed & healed them.The actions that the honored sheep have done unto the least of God's people are the traditional works of mercy & loving-kindness every Jew is expected to do in society. The one exception which probably didn't come out of Jesus' original list of acts of kindness is visiting those in prison. Why? Prison was a punishment seldom used by the Hebrews. It is likely that the encouragement to visit those in prison came from Matthew's own time when Christians were being imprisoned for their faith & because they would not worship Caesar.How does this judgment scene relate to us today? Well, many Christians make this a list of whether we are being "real" Christians or not. As I indicated above, such merciful deeds would identify a good Jew as well as a Christian. Jesus' injunctions to action are no different from those he learned as a Jewish rabbi, & they are indeed valuable functions of any society even today—to care for those who are most vulnerable & least able to care for themselves. In fact, Jesus makes clear that we fulfill all the laws if we remember to love God with all our hearts, minds, & souls & to love our neighbors as ourselves. The kindnesses enumerated in this scene with the shepherd/king are examples of caring for our own neighbors as we need to be cared for. These examples are sort of the bottom line for fulfilling the 2nd commandment.The difference for Christians is that we fulfill the actions not in order to earn our salvation—that was done for us with the death & resurrection of Jesus who is Christ the King. Rather, we take up our crosses—& take on our responsibilities as Christians—in joyful response to the salvation & reconciliation already achieved by Jesus Christ.
The Reverend Martha Frances Year A, Pentecost 27, Proper 28 16 November 2008
Text: Matthew 25: 14-30 Other: I Thessalonians 5: 1-11; Psalm 123; Judges 4: 1-7
When the man in this parable goes on a journey, he leaves three of his servants with a rather large amount of money for them to manage while he is gone. Now we are used to hearing the word "talent" to mean things we are capable of doing well, but that definition of talent actually arose because of this parable. In the parable itself, a talent is equivalent to about 15 years' wages for a laborer. The servant who is entrusted with 5 talents has a real fortune, & even the one with one talent has—considering inflation—a lot more money than some of us have ever been able to accumulate at one time. The journeyer certainly had a lot of faith in these folks, for he gives them enough money to take care of themselves & also to make some profit for him by the time he returns. Of course, when the man goes on the journey, as far as we know, he gives them no instructions at all. They're on their own.
What would you do if you suddenly received a large amount of money? How about if you won the Lotto? Would the 10% tithe come off the top? Hmmm. We'll be glad to give you a pledge card in case that happens. A very wise person once said if we want to know what a person values, look at his or her checkbook & agenda. Today it would be one's on-line banking printout & Blackberry, but the whole point is that what we value is certainly revealed in how we spend our time & money. It's a good exercise to try for yourself sometime: what does your time & financial expenditure say about what you really value? Despite the pain of the economic downturn in our world at present, perhaps one positive outcome is for us to discern the difference in our necessities & our luxuries.
Jesus tells us the amount of the money given to each man was "according to his ability," which means the man going on the journey has a pretty good idea how each of the three will use the money. He expects some increase from them & rewards the two who make their money "work for them," as is said in financial circles, & lambasts the servant who buries his one talent by calling him wicked & lazy. So much for taking the safe road, right?
We at Hope have suffered financially in the past few years, & our vestry watches our expenditures pretty carefully. We do not have spendthrifts inappropriately throwing money away. As we continue our stewardship campaign this year, we know we can be better stewards of our financial resources, but we already run a pretty tight ship.
Also, many of you who pledge already give sacrificially, but I hope many of us can continue to stretch a little more so this parish can continue to minister effectively. Our pledge campaign for 2009 which will culminate in Ingathering Sunday next week has been pretty low-keyed, yet I can assure you that your willingness to pledge from your resources & then to pay your pledge is the only means we have for responsible planning & then fulfilling the work God has given Hope to do.
Also, if we are able to invite those near to us to join us at this church, or to become more active, & if we attract more of the neighborhood to our community, there will be more of us to contribute to our own spiritual growth as well as to contribute to & expand more ministries, becoming more vital in this community.
What else does this parable have to say to us today? What is the Gospel calling us to today?
As I've already indicated, it should certainly encourage us to be giving to the church & to other organizations in which you believe. When I was vicar of Lord of the Streets, where most of the parishioners were homeless, I was always moved when they made their 10% tithe. The Biblical tithe helps us remember that all that we receive is because of God's goodness, so our returning 10% of it to do God's work is a privilege, not a burden. It took me years to be willing to risk tithing, & now, I can tell you that somehow, I don't seem to have any less to live on than all the years I said I couldn't do it.
Secondly, the word "talent" in the way we usually use it—an ability we're particularly good at—is perhaps as important for us to give generously of as our money. Each of us needs to choose what of our time & talents we can give this year, & then we can invite others to join us in sharing the tasks but also the joys of giving. At this time, in this community, you & I have a wonderful opportunity to grow as disciples & to cooperate in the building of this community of which God is the architect.
The saddest part of the parable to me is that the man who buries the one talent & doesn't try to make something of it probably has many abilities that he doesn't ever learn about because he is too afraid to take a risk. He even admits that to the journeyer. Why doesn't he use the talent? He says, "I was afraid." I think that must be what makes the journeyer so angry. The man is operating out of fear. He isn't willing to take a chance on learning what he can do. God created us to grow & mature & become more like God. Then God sent Jesus to show us how to become more God-like, but sometimes we're too afraid. Jesus certainly didn't operate out of a spirit of fear, did he? He risked even to his death, but he risked always in a spirit of love. Surely, that's what the one-talent man was called to do, too. One lesson I learned this summer on my sabbatical is how freeing is the blessing given when there is a high tolerance for failure. If we're overly-afraid we will fail, it's hard to take risks, isn't it? As part of the Hope community, we can risk with the encouragement of folks who will stand beside us even if we fail & cheer with us when we succeed.
In addition, I think we need to remember that Jesus tells this parable to encourage people who will live beyond his death & resurrection. There's a certain urgency for them & us to remember that we're called to live as if the end were near. Of course, it was for Jesus. In the next chapter of Matthew, Jesus' passion begins & leads soon to his death. This teaching is for his closest disciples, & he is reminding them that what he is teaching them now, they must live out in the new creation, after his resurrection & ascension. He has an urgency about his parables which we see also in today's epistle passage. I'll close with a few comments about it.
Paul tells the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, just as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman. Paul gives us some really vivid images, doesn't he? His advice? Keep awake & be sober. Belong to the day, not to the night. He then uses the image of dressing for whatever we might encounter when he tells us to wear the breastplate of faith & love & the helmet of the hope of salvation. Here we have the three virtues of the Christian life: faith, hope, & love. When we live into these virtues, allowing Christ to strengthen faith, hope & love within us, then we are able to live with Christ whether we're in this world or the next. We don't know what tomorrow will bring, but both Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians & Jesus in his teaching to his disciples encourage each of us to live today so that tomorrow will take care of itself.
Each of us has been given talents, & we have a community that can help us develop them to their fullest. Next Sunday, on the feast day of Christ the King, we will celebrate our church history with the Rev. Eric Law, offer gratitude for our blessings, & place our pledges right here on the altar. Please bring a covered dish & plan to celebrate with us.
Then Thursday week is Thanksgiving Day when we will focus on our blessings. We will celebrate with the other churches in this neighborhood next Sunday evening at St. Stephen's United Methodist at the community Thanksgiving Service. Then, the next Sunday, we will begin the preparation time of Advent which leads up to Christmas. Let us go into these special seasons alert to the talents that God has given us & let's stretch them, help them grow, so that we may live into an attitude of gratitude for Thanksgiving & look forward to Christ's being born anew in our lives & the life of this community.
The Reverend Martha Frances Year A, Pentecost 26, Proper 27 9 November 2008
Text: Matthew 25: 1-13 Other: Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78: 1-7; I Thessalonians 4: 13-18
Have you ever stopped to wonder what is actually going on in the scene which Jesus portrays in the parable of the ten wise & foolish maidens? It is helpful to me to know a little of the wedding customs in Palestine in Jesus' day, very different from our own. The night of the wedding, the groom—accompanied by his friends—descends upon the bride's family home & abducts the bride, taking her to their new home. The entrance of the bride & groom to the marriage home is, in fact, the symbolic act of marriage, beginning a festive wedding celebration which lasts several days. Young women of both families attend the bride, but the groom's relatives & neighbors wait at his house for the entourage to appear. Their arrival time is unpredictable, especially if they have come from a neighboring town. The maidens, in lighting the way to the front door for the new couple, hope to be invited in to the celebration.
Readiness & preparedness are watchwords for the maidens as they are for this time of year. During the last weeks of Pentecost & through Advent, our stance as Christians is one of preparation. We're not talking about shop-'till-you-drop urgency when people rush from store to catalog to find the right gift for Aunt Maud & a bauble for the children to give to each teacher. This preparation is of our selves, our minds & souls, for the time when Christ comes in all his glory. The last Sunday of this month, Advent begins, & the parables we read this month are about eschatology—a $5 word for the end times, the judgment day, when we want to be ready for Christ to invite us into the fullness of his reign which we can only glimpse here on earth. So Jesus uses a celebration familiar to his listeners to emphasize this need for readiness.
Jesus resorts to one of his favorite introductions in "Then, the kingdom of heaven will be like this." He means this is what life will be like at judgment time, when all are invited into eternal life. As in other judgment parables, there are wise & foolish folks. Remember the wise man who built his house on solid rock while the foolish one built his house on sand? In this parable, we encounter maidens waiting at the couple's new home. They've all brought lamps & are all ready to party. When the couple is delayed, they all fall asleep. Jesus had the same problem with his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, didn't he?
At this point, we might wonder why the groom is delayed. Perhaps he had to haggle with the bride's father over the bride price. Perhaps he was looking for the bride; did you notice that the bride never actually appears? At any rate, what we do know is that by the time Matthew wrote his gospel, Jesus' expected return in glory, sometimes called the parousia, hadn't happened as soon as the Christian community expected it. In fact, in the reading from Thessalonians today, Paul is already dealing with the same sort of disconnect between the earliest Christians' expectation about the timing of Christ's return. We humans struggle with the gap between our expectations & reality in our daily lives, don't we? From that standpoint, these stories become very modern. Jesus & Paul both counsel their audiences—which includes us—both a patience yet a watchfulness for the future, practicing a faithful lifestyle in the meantime.
Back to the story: The groom—presumably with bride on his arm—arrives to begin the celebration, & all 10 maidens awaken. By the way, I use the term maidens, a better translation of the Greek word than either bridesmaids or virgins, & also the same word used for Jesus' mother Mary earlier in Matthew. By this time, the lamps have burned out & the maidens start to trim their wicks & replenish the oil. But the foolish maidens have no more oil. At first glance, the wise maidens seem awfully selfish. However, if those wise maidens had shared their extra jar of oil, none of them may have been able to last through the festivities. The wise maidens have the one great thing in mind: entering God's kingdom. So perhaps we ought to cut the wise maidens some slack.
Where would the foolish maidens find oil at midnight? Even if there were a Super Walmart nearby, it wouldn't be close enough because, by the time they get back, the party is going on behind closed doors without them. The groom sounds rather harsh to us when he won't let the foolish maidens in the door, but the whole point of the story is that the maidens need to be prepared as do we.
When we read scriptures about end times at the end of the liturgical year, we are reminded to stay alert & be prepared for Jesus' coming once again. The passage ends with "you know neither the day nor the hour." Jesus' first followers looked forward to Jesus' return which was delayed far beyond their expectations. Perhaps they wondered how long they must be alert & prepared. We modern Christians, on the other hand, want to put off the judgment as long as possible. What does Jesus tell us about living in the meantime, whether that be until midnight or for a long time in the future?
We're surely not to be idle, waiting for something to happen. We're to be prepared, like the Boy Scout motto. It's not a matter of earning our way into heaven. Both groups of maidens are invited & are welcome. It's not that God is excluding anyone but that the foolish maidens are excluding themselves. It may be that they're not taking responsibility for themselves or preparing for the long haul.
But another intriguing idea is that the foolish maidens are foolish because they assume everything depends on them—they leave to buy more oil rather than trusting that the groom will have all that is needed when they get into the celebration. How often do we assume we know what's best, what is necessary, & we're too busy being self-sufficient to rely upon God's abundance? After all, it's the bridegroom throwing the party. All the maidens are doing is acting as the welcoming committee. Then, they'll all be invited in to join the party.
Jesus has already invited us to be new creatures in God's world, & Jesus continues to invite us. What are we invited to? The banquet. The joy of living in God's realm. We're invited to become the humans that God created us to be in the first place. God simply asks us to love God with all our hearts, minds, & souls & to love our neighbors as ourselves. God created us to be in relationship through Jesus, sustained by the Holy Spirit. Coming to the banquet involves celebrating Eucharist—that is, thanksgiving—together with one another regularly, praying privately & in community, Bible reading & study, & fellowship with the Christian community. Being in relationship with Jesus is horizontal as well as vertical. How do we behave as new creatures, new brothers & sisters in Christ?
As we meditate on God's word to us in a moment, I invite you to consider what time, talent, & treasure you are willing to contribute to keep Hope alive & to strengthen the new creation which we are becoming.
The Reverend Martha Frances Sunday after All Saints' 2 November 2008
Text: Matthew 5: 1-12 Other: Revelation 7: 9-17; Ps. 34: 1-10, 22; 1 John 3: 1-3
On my trip to San Francisco while on sabbatical this summer, I worshipped one Sunday at St. Gregory of Nyssa, an Episcopal Church whose acting rector is Paul Fromberg who was previously rector of our neighbor church, St. Andrew's in the Heights. St. Gregory's is a parish we studied in liturgy class in seminary because of the amazingly inclusive worship practiced there. I'll leave a description of the Service of the Word to another Sunday, but when it is time for the Eucharist, the whole congregation, led by several drummers, proceeds to the open rotunda room with altar table in the center with a stately but joyful dance step. Gregory himself said, "Once there was a time when the whole rational creation formed a single dancing chorus looking upward to the one leader of this dance."
Up on the walls & ceiling of St. Gregory's is a double layer of 90 saints dancing with Jesus, the Lord of the Dance, leading the dance from the south wall of the rotunda. You have a sketch of a few of those saints in your pew bulletin today which I hope you'll turn to so you can fill in details as I lead you in our sermon today. After the Eucharistic prayer & reception of the Eucharist at St. Gregory's, the living, worshipping saints join those above them in a celebratory dance, offering themselves to God's love & service.
Surely it is this sense of our all being saints, joining with the communion of saints who have gone before us, of which we sang in our sequence hymn a few minutes ago. The song reminds us of the stained-glass saints who have made it onto our liturgical calendar which we commemorate through the church year—like St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, or St. John Donne, priest & poet—but each verse reminds us that each of us can mean to be one, too, God helping.
The Hebrew idea of holiness was having God's stamp on you, like a branded steer. Such is the New Testament meaning of saints regardless of which writer mentions them: those people called by God to participate in God's work who then actually do it. You may recall the words we say when anointing a person after baptism: "you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own forever." By our baptism we are called to become saints, a vocation it takes a lifetime to live into.
Today, instead of your giving me names of those who have gone before to name in our prayers at the altar as we usually do on the feast of All Saints', I want to encourage you to use your saints' page to identify those folks through whose lives you have seen the light of God's love shine, those who have modeled for you Christ-centered lives. I invite you to label the figures on your page, drawing more in if you'd like, coloring them in or drawing in personal characteristics, & then naming your own personal saints during the Eucharistic prayer this morning. Some of the saints who have influenced your spiritual growth may be folks who are in our official liturgical calendar as is St. Hildegard von Bingen for me, but you may add members of your family, friends, teachers, mentors—anyone who has allowed God's love to radiate from them to others.
Jesus introduces his Sermon on the Mount with a list of characteristics which are his criteria for sainthood—not the usual list for those who most win friends & influence people—but then Jesus usually threw in his lot with those who were marginalized for one reason or another, didn't he? Perhaps you know people who would make Jesus' list: those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek & merciful, those who hunger & thirst for righteousness' sake, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, & the persecuted.
To stimulate your imagination, let me tell you of a few of the folks whom St. Gregory's chose to dance with them on their rotunda wall:
Julian of Norwich, English mystic, anchoress, & spiritual director who spent years of her life living in an anti-room of the church at Norwich, survived the Black Plague, & wrote the first book in modern English.
Mohandas Gandhi, a martyred Indian spiritual leader who taught peace & reconciliation as he modeled nonviolent social change & led India to independence.
Sojourner Truth, an illiterate freed slave, eloquent critic of slavery & sexism whose "Ain't I a woman?" speech at an 1851 rally energized the abolition movement.
Charles Wesley, priest & hymn writer, who with his brother John, began the Methodist movement within the Church of England.
John Coltrane, a jazz saxophonist whose faith helped him overcome a heroin addiction.
An anonymous Alexandrian washerwoman who represents those who have prayed ceaselessly through the ages.
Thurgood Marshall, a supreme court justice who had a passion for fairness & justice itself.
Moses the Black, an Ethiopian thief & gang leader who, after conversion, became a Desert Father, an early monastic.
Jenny Read, a San Francisco sculptor who was raped & murdered while working on a sculpture of St. John of the Cross.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori, in her All Saints' sermon, reminds us that the Good Shepherd knows each of us saints by name even if we don't or if we just haven't learned them yet. She asks us to consider who are those who labor on our behalf or on behalf of those who are voiceless in our society. Such are those who are our fellow travelers who journey toward the City of God beside us & through whose examples we can renew our strength.
I'm reminded of the story of the college professor who once gave an exam which was pass/fail & had one question: What is the name of the person who cleans the classroom every day as we leave class? How many of us know our service people by name: the person at the post office, the bagger at the grocery store, the school crossing guard? Perhaps they are those whose names we simply don't know yet, but they may be anonymous saints of God.
You know, this God who is sovereign of the universe loves us each & knows & calls us each by name. In this world which is so polarized politically, in which there is so much criticism of our fellow humans, God is yearning to unite us, to woo us to love & live as God's own forever. The insightful Presbyterian minister & author Frederick Buechner tells us "In God's holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. The handkerchiefs are called saints." On this All Saints' Sunday, may we recognize God's handkerchiefs, celebrate them, & allow God to fashion them as God desires.
The Reverend Martha Frances Year A, Pentecost 24, Proper 25 26 October 2008
Text: Matthew 22: 34-46 Other: I Thessalonians 2: 1-8; Psalm 90: 1-6, 13-17; Deuteronomy 34: 1-12
When I first became an Episcopalian, every Sunday the Eucharist service began with recitation of the 10 Commandments, an option we still have during penitential seasons. In our Rite I service usually held at 8:00 on Sundays, we still hear Jesus' summary of the Law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, & with all thy soul, & with all thy mind. This is the first & great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law & the Prophets."
For the past several chapters, & the past several Sundays, Jesus has been confronted by Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees & Sadducees, increasingly hostile as they try to trap him into contradicting Jewish law. In this final controversy with them, Jesus rebuts with their own law & then asks them his own question about the identity of Messiah that they cannot answer. After this encounter, Jesus' opponents withdraw, & he converses only with the crowds & his disciples until the Passion begins.
The Jewish leaders conspire to trap Jesus, to show how he cannot possibly be a law-abiding Jew. The lawyer, a professional theologian, drips with sarcasm when he calls Jesus "Teacher." The Pharisees' purpose is to "test" him just as Satan "tested" Jesus in the wilderness. They say, "Name the most important of the 613 laws Jewish people are to follow." Can you imagine trying to keep up with 613 laws, the 248 positive ones corresponding to the parts of the body, & 356 negative, one for each day of the year? Gives me a headache—so many things to do & not to do.
According to Rabbinic law, all the laws are equally important, so the question itself is a trick question. Jesus answers not with one law, but with two interdependent ones. However, the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:5, actually says "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, & with all your soul, & with all your might," reminiscent of the first of the 10 Commandments, "You shall have no other gods before me."
How is a Jew to love God? With all one's heart, the center of knowing & willing as well as feeling; thus, to turn one's whole desire to loving God. With all one's soul, as in "Soul Food" or "Soul Music;" to give all the energy & passion of our lives to God. So how can Pharisees or this particular lawyer disagree with Jesus as to this part of the greatest commandment?
Jesus changes the 3rd word from the original Shema, however: loving God with all one's mind rather than might. Herein lies a change for Jesus in our love of God, for we are to use our minds—using our heads, figuring things out. Loving God requires thinking, not just sentiment, good will, religious feeling—though those things are good. This may be another signal from Jesus that the reign of the Messiah will not be a military victory but one over sin & death, one which involves our engaging our brains. Reminds me of the expression you may have picked up at a confirmation class: in the Episcopal church, we don't leave our brains at the door.
Jesus doesn't stop there, does he? He also says the 2nd most important law is like—equal to—the 1st one: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," a law found in Leviticus 19:18. Obviously, this law is not new to the Jewish leaders but another of the 613. Jesus neither contradicts the Jewish law nor combines them for the 1st time for that has been done in Wisdom literature. He says there is nothing wrong with these laws but they must be applied in relation to each other. The way we love God totally is expressed in how we love our neighbor. We can't have one command without the other; they are interrelated. Furthermore, these two commandments make all the scriptures we know as the Old Testament make sense, even the 613 laws. Our love for our neighbor is the way we show our love for God.
I've used an image before in how we live out these two great commandments—that of the cross. We have crosses in churches & cemeteries. We wear crosses around our necks. Streets & telephone poles are shaped like crosses. Many of us make the sign of the cross on our own bodies to affirm what we hear or say like at the end of the creed. Attention to this familiar symbol can help us fulfill the 2 commandments in our lives.
First, the vertical arm can remind us to love God with all our hearts, minds, & souls. The north/south arm of the cross is like the connection which we have with God. In praise & worship, in private & corporate or public prayer, we strengthen that upright arm of the cross. Bible study & study of other good literature engages us to expand our minds after God's will. Even when we don't hear God respond clearly to our spoken or silent prayer, we are assured that our waiting on the Lord shall renew our strength.
We each yearn for our personal relationship with Christ to be more visible, clearer, specific enough that there's no doubt in our minds what God wants us to do. I don't know about you, but neither God the Parent nor Christ the Son speaks to me that clearly very often. Much of my life is spent praying to do the next right thing & then stepping out in faith that Christ will redeem my best efforts. My awareness of that vertical connection with God is one of blind trust more often than the "blessed assurance" I occasionally receive.
We have a key in today's Gospel for how to worship God with all our hearts, minds, & souls. Jesus says to love our neighbors as ourselves is equal to the first one. Here is the horizontal arm of the cross: how to strengthen that vertical relationship with God. We love our neighbors—acting out our love of God by taking our neighbors' needs seriously. The whole rest of the law is understood by loving our neighbors as fully as possible. The horizontal arm of the cross reaches out to others, makes us all neighbors, puts us all in community with each other.
Remember the story Jesus told us about who our neighbor is? That's right: the Good Samaritan. Another lawyer had asked, "Who is my neighbor?" He wanted to limit his responsibility to a certain group of people so his conscience could be clear beyond his own circle of friends, but Jesus had the nerve to tell him that even the Samaritans, those folks whom the Jews thought were hypocritical & lower-classed, could act more like neighbors than the Jewish lawyer himself.
Who are the neighbors Jesus would have us love today? The mentally ill? The physically handicapped? The homosexuals? The Jews? The Middle Easterners who might look to us like terrorists? Those in prison for hideous crimes? Those who serve prison time & move back into our neighborhood? Please, Jesus, you mean we have to love all those folk? Yep, Jesus says, we're to love these people just as we love ourselves. We're to treat them with the same dignity & respect that we yearn to be treated, as brothers & sisters in Christ, even when they don't deserve it.
Not only that, but Jesus tells us it is in making a decision to love our neighbors, treating them as we want to be treated, that we live out loving God with all our heart, mind, & soul. We can't just go into our closet & pray & read our Bible & sing "O how I love Jesus" & that's enough. In order to love God, we've got to love all those people whom we don't even like & who often don't like us? The two arms of the cross go together; they can't be separated. The arms of the cross upon which Jesus stretched his arms & died embrace all of us: Jew & Greek, male & female, slave & free, young & old, homeless & warm & comfortable, executive & job-seekers, homosexual & hetersexual, businessman & bag lady. Nobody is excluded. We're all each other's neighbors, & we all need each other in order to love each other as God's precious creations.
Yesterday's fall festival was one such opportunity to extend Christ's love to our neighbors in substantive ways. How we follow up to invite them & others into our midst, to learn from others as well as reach out to them, is the beginning of the radical hospitality which Diana Butler Bass & others include in whether neighborhood churches can be relevant in the 21st Century. How we embrace diversity, form community, practice justice, & practice stewardship of the gifts which God gives us are further ways we will be a vital partner in our community & world. Are we willing to make these efforts throughout the year?
Jesus' answered the lawyer with two commandments, & we can remember them & their interdependence every time we see the cross, the vertical arm connecting God with us earthlings, & the horizontal arm binding us as sisters & brothers in a loving community of neighbors. Jesus gave us the essence of the law both in combining two ancient Jewish laws & in interlocking them inextricably in each other. By doing this, he teaches us how to live, loving God with all our heart, mind, & soul by loving our neighbors as ourselves. Amen.
The Reverend Martha Frances Year A, Pentecost 23, Proper 24 19 October 2008
Text: Matthew 22: 15-22 Other: I Thessalonians 1: 1-10; Psalm 99; Exodus 33: 12-23
Today's Gospel story is a short one, one we all know or at least have heard the punch line to: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's & to God those things that are God's." At first glance, this story of Jesus teaching in the temple seems to be about our being good citizens & paying our taxes.
As a matter of fact, our elections are only a couple of weeks away (in case you haven't noticed!), & I want to remind you that one of our duties as Christians & privileges as Americans is to vote. We are called to study the candidates & vote our consciences. However, there's more to this story than voting rights. That's not what Jesus had in mind.
As this episode begins, it sounds like Jesus' opponents have finally found a subject in which to entrap him. Not much is known about the Herodians except they supported the Roman rule of the heirs of Herod the Great, in this case Herod Antipas. They would have believed the Jewish people should pay taxes to Caesar as their protector. For Jesus to declare otherwise, in fact, would be insurrection.
However, we are much more familiar with the Pharisees, the major Jewish party of Jesus' time. Their life's mission was to keep the Torah, the Jewish law passed down from Moses. They would have opposed paying census taxes to the Roman emperor. It is truly an example of politics making strange bedfellows for these two groups to approach Jesus jointly, & their flattery is a sure sign of their attempt to entrap him. Jesus is not about to be cornered.
Remember the first two of the 10 Commandments: the Hebrew people were to have no other gods except the Lord God YHWH, & they shouldn't make any graven images. Jesus, calling them all hypocrites, asks them to produce a Roman coin which would have borne the graven image of Caesar on it. The people had to pay taxes with these coins. Significantly, Jesus did not possess a Roman coin, but the Pharisees readily produced one. Their having a Roman coin at all indicated they accepted payments in coinage which should have been anathema to them. Hmmm, who is being trapped here?
Jesus answers their question with an answer neither group can argue with yet neither side will be satisfied. "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, & to God the things that are God's." For many, this expression has epitomized separation of church & state. Actually, Jesus is much more radical than that. Jesus recognizes that his opponents are looking for the limits of their responsibilities, both to God & to the Roman government. Jesus tells them they should give what the government requires as part of residing where Rome provides protection & governance.
However, much more important is his assertion that we are to give to God that which is God's. I ask you today as Jesus could have asked those around him, "What things are God's?" Or even more to the point, "What part of our resources are not God's?" You see, Jesus reminds us that, while there are limits to our responsibilities as citizens to provide for the upkeep of our government, giving to God is all-encompassing, for all is of God.
Jesus is telling us all of our lives & resources should be dedicated to God. His opponents look for limits—how little they can get away with & still be legal. But Jesus turns their question on end & reminds them—& us—that God's part is 100%. The Gospel records that Jesus' opponents were amazed & they left him & went away. If we were to take Jesus' admonition seriously, we would be amazed also, & perhaps we would also go away sorrowful just as the rich young man did in another story you may remember. Jesus asks his disciples to love God with all their heart, mind, & strength—with all their lives. He tells them all is God's anyway; they must make their whole lives available to God.
You know what? Jesus tells us the same thing today. Jesus says, there are responsibilities which we owe to the government—paying taxes, voting, participating as informed citizens in our political system—& we should fulfill these. But to God, we owe everything. We must not hold back anything to God. We shouldn't be squabbling about whether our tithe is 10% before or after taxes because it all belongs to God anyway.
During my over 4 years as vicar & executive director of Lord of the Streets, the Episcopal mission for homeless & transitioning people in Midtown Houston, I was regularly touched by the number of our parishioners there who took tithing seriously. They might only work periodically or receive some kind of disability check, but 10% of what they made came directly to LOTS. If members of most parishes gave proportionally as many LOTS' folks did, we wouldn't have budget problems in our diocese. The Biblical tithe of 10% is still an important marker amount to consider or work toward as part of fulfilling our promises to God, & some of our community is faithful to that. And the vestry, whose responsibility it is to plan for & administer the ministry of Hope Church, is incredibly grateful to those who commit to & pay a proportional pledge, even in times like these when the world is in financial turmoil & we are recovering from a natural disaster as well.
However, when Jesus talks about giving to God that which is God's, Jesus is speaking of our whole lives, not just our material resources. Jesus isn't talking about limiting our giving to 10% of the money we earn. No, Jesus isn't talking about limiting at all. Jesus urges us to give freely, giving of our lives & our abilities as well as our financial resources. Jesus calls for us to be generous with our whole lives: that whatever we give to God is only a shadow of what Jesus gave when he surrendered his life for us.
What might this sort of generosity of spirit mean in our lives today? For one thing, it means that this being a Christian is an on-going process of becoming more Christ-like, & it doesn't just happen by osmosis. St. Paul honored the Thessalonians today for their "work of faith, labor of love, & steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." Do faith, love, & hope sound familiar to you? Yes, they're the 3 cardinal Christian virtues. Paul uses action words with them: work, labor, steadfastness. The gifts we give back to God require on-going effort as do most things that are worthwhile.
What have you read recently to strengthen your faith? Do you have a study group or reunion group with whom you are accountable regularly for forming your mind after the mind of Christ? Growing in the faith assumes we're struggling with questions of faith & how they touch our daily lives.
Yes, love is a labor many times—an action verb which we choose to exercise, not just good feelings. This week I had the privilege of planning two funerals, one with the person soon to be deceased & the other with a family whose loved one had died that very day. Sherley Holden accompanied me on the first pastoral visit, & she can testify to the peace this man exhibited when he knew his wishes would be fulfilled & he had received final anointing & communion—the last rites. Such work of love is labor-intense, yet that is a priestly duty which is always an honor for me to do. Your providing prayers & casseroles & ongoing care for families who are grieving is similar loving labor. How many other ways can you render to God what is God's through the work of loving yourself & others?
Steadfastness is necessary as we show hope in the present & future in God's world, especially when such disasters as we have recently been experiencing sap people of their positive outlooks. Our parish is well-named, for we can all exhibit hope for Hope as we participate in the ongoing life of this parish, not only with our treasure but also with our time & talents. Participating in the fall festival next Saturday (don't forget to bring your animals for blessing at 3:00) & then the jazz service & ministry fair the next day should give us a new lease on the life of this parish. Your choosing in what ministries you'll participate this next year is as essential a part of stewardship as is catching up on your pledge & making a 2009 pledge which stretches you but which is still realistic.
In addition, our steadfastness in hope leads us to commit to witnessing to others of the love of God through Jesus Christ just as we vowed at our baptisms & re-commit to doing every time someone is baptized here at Hope. We reach out to others to share the amazing generosity of Christ's love & grace because it's the greatest gift possible, whether or not folks actually end up here at Hope, although we always hope for them to come to experience the attractive goodness which we strive to display.
During this time in which we are focused on how we can continue & grow the ministry of Hope in our community, I encourage you to open yourself to how much of the "all that you are & have" which God has given you you will return to God's use. Render unto God those things which are God's.
Several important messages hide in the lessons for today which I'd like us to explore. In the Hebrew scripture, we have a story many of us grew up with because of the old movie, The Ten Commandments if not from the Bible itself. The Israelites grow impatient once again as they await Moses' return from his mountain visit with God, & what do folks do when they are restless & bored? Often they get themselves into trouble. In this case, they entice Aaron into fashioning for them a golden calf to worship just as their masters had done in Egypt.
Today's volatile financial situation could easily lead us to fashion golden calves out of many things in our lives which we have come to see as necessities, but I wonder if, due to the upheaval of Wall Street, we might not reexamine what are the real necessities in our lives & what we might have made into golden calves during times of prosperity. In fact, Hurricane Ike has already made many of us aware of blessings we usually take for granted. Sitting in my breakfast room with a cup of coffee enjoying the air conditioning & electric lights in the mornings has certainly made my gratitude list of late. Once again this year, gifts for adults in my life will lean toward my giving donations in their names to Episcopal Relief & Development for hurricane relief. I pray we are all looking for ways we can become more intentional & effective environmental stewards as we become more aware of how much our carbon footprints affect the world we are leaving to our children & grandchildren.
Moses & God have a spirited discussion about the Israelites' idolatrous pastimes, & it is interesting that Moses' plea for God to be merciful prevails so that God gives the Israelites another chance. In fact, Moses' tempering of God's wrath hinges on his reminding God that these are God's people whom God gave to Moses to shepherd through the wilderness. God has established a relationship with this people, & Moses urges God to put the relationship with them first.
It is when we have relationship with each other that we are most inclined to be merciful. No wonder we're encouraged over & over to work toward "being of the same mind in the Lord", as Paul urges the Philippians, & especially the women whom Paul names in his epistle who have obviously had some disagreement with one another. Paul does not solve their issue for them but urges the community to work through problems by joining with each other to rejoice in their common love for God & to lay all upon God in prayer & supplication—just as we do in our intercessory prayer in worship.
Here in this community, we are prone to let differences of opinion with one another become occasions for lack of generosity of spirit, especially when we find that finances are tight & we each have personal concerns which lie heavy upon our hearts. Paul calls us to pull together, to keep in mind that we must work in unity to do our part in the incoming of God's reign in the world, & that only as we accept each other in relationship can God's peace fall upon us. Not only do we miss out on peaceful coexistence when we are at odds with one another, but we certainly do not attract others to our community when our differences separate us. In our weekly worship, we are given the opportunity to affirm the importance of brotherly & sisterly relationship as we pass the peace with one another before sharing Christ's Eucharistic table. I encourage you to give & receive the peace of Christ seriously when we exchange it in a few moments.
What does this strange parable about the wedding banquet have to say to us today? Jesus tells us that God's reign on earth—the kingdom of heaven—is like the king who provides a great wedding celebration for his son. The king sends out the invitation to folks 3 times. Everyone is invited! It's as if we were invited to a great inaugural ball & we drove through the fast food take out line instead. God wants us to celebrate the joy of gifts of life which God offers us free of charge—God's generous grace poured out for us—& some can't be bothered. Jesus tells this parable to the leaders—those who are in charge—because they are the ones likely to miss out on God's incredible gift of grace because they are so busy trying to earn it.
The part of the parable that has been most peculiar to me over the years is the king's anger that one man is not wearing a wedding robe. One would think that, since those who ending up coming to the banquet were the everyday folks the king's slaves found on the streets, this man could catch a break for coming as he was. It has been helpful, therefore, that at least a couple of commentators believe that the king provided not only the banquet but the proper apparel which this man refused to wear. My experience has been that God provides all that we need in order to respond faithfully to God's invitation to us, so this man's refusal to accept the requisite wardrobe is sort of like someone's refusal to wear a seatbelt & then being angry at God for being thrown out of the automobile in a crash. Hmmmm.
We at Hope have begun a wonderful adventure in intentional multicultural community, & we have established a fine foundation. Our work is not completed, however, & perhaps never will be since we are all human & growth toward God's reign on earth is ever a challenge to us. However, we have various wonderful opportunities to deepen our commitment to living together in love & respect & welcoming others into our midst. Some of you may be interested in several days of training up at Camp Allen in November similar to the work which Melanie Fahey, Cornelius & Danita Perry, & I have been doing in Los Angeles. Please see one of us for more information on that opportunity. In addition, I have purchased the documentary on the slave trade, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, for viewing in our community which will aid us in continuing our conversation about how past history in this country affects our society & the church today. I hope we can gather in small discussion groups to share this excellent tool which was introduced to me by the director/producer when I was on sabbatical. In what other ways can we deepen our commitment to being a Christ-centered community of faith ever reaching beyond ourselves? Your suggestions are most encouraged.
As Episcopalians, we express ourselves most effectively in our worship, so I call to your attention again the celebratory nature of our Eucharistic table. The king prepared a wedding banquet for his son & invited all to partake. Each time we come together, we prepare Eucharist—our Great Thanksgiving—to share the body & blood of Christ who desires us to fill ourselves so completely with his love that it overflows from our lives to others. As we participate in the Eucharistic prayer, we give ourselves as Jesus did, & we gain the strength for the journey to go out beyond the doors of this place to share Christ's Good News with others, & perhaps to encounter Christ in those we meet. Come! Let us pray & praise, sing & feast with one another, opening ourselves for Christ to use us in the world. May others truly know we are Christ-bearers by our love.
