Jesus Didn't Say

I'm not preaching this week, but I have some thoughts bubbling on the lectionary:
(you can find the text here: Forgiving 70x7)

Jesus Didn't Say

Jesus didn't say, "Feed the deserving." Jesus said, feed the hungry.
Jesus didn't say, "Clothe the deserving." Jesus said, clothe the naked.
Jesus didn't say, "Welcome the deserving."  Jesus said, welcome the stranger.
Jesus didn't say, "Visit the deserving." Jesus said, visit those who are sick and in prison. And not just those who were wrongfully imprisoned, but those in prison, period.
Jesus didn't say, "Forgive the deserving." Jesus said, to forgive those who hurt you, not just seven times, but seventy times seven.

The rhetoric of today, which is not unlike the rhetoric of Jesus' day, is that if you have problems, particularly problems related to poverty or marginalization, you must have done something to deserve them.  Therefore, by deserving the mess in which you find yourself, you do not deserve the public's help; you are a waste of resources; you have no value.

The thing about forgiveness is that by its very essence, it isn't deserved.

As Christians, we are to love not only our friends but our enemies. We are to risk looking foolish in order to carry out acts of love as we live out the kingdom of God here on earth.  If we are too afraid we might be taken advantage of, if we become too obsessed with only helping those who 'deserve' it, we cannot practice love.  We cannot practice our faith.  Our churches become meaningless, no better than country clubs or 'members only' exclusive societies. Our closed hearts and closed doors create further harm in the lives of those who already hurt.

The foundation of our faith is loving, caring for and forgiving others beyond what they deserve, because we ourselves are already loved and forgiven far more than we will ever deserve.

The Letter and the Spirit

Matthew 5:21-37; Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

(look these up on biblegateway.com or bible.oremus.org.)

Last week, the Gospel raised some uncomfortable questions.  You might remember Jesus’ saying (Matt. 5:17-18) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets.  I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill.  Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter nor one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”  When I read the Gospel for this morning, I really wanted to handle these passages together, because they do sound just a little bit ominous and perhaps even provoke a certain sense of fear—especially these verses about tearing out eyes and cutting off hands and going to hell and so forth.

So what on earth does Jesus mean?  Last week it all sounded so inspiring: Be salt.  Be light.  This week the teachings seem so hard.  So where I would like to start addressing this question is with...Love.

Love is the message of the Gospel and the measure of the law.

What I believe Jesus is trying to say in these texts is that there are plenty of opportunities to merely follow the letter of the law, without putting our heart into it.  Other times, we follow both the letter and the spirit of the law.  Probably more often than not, we even know when we are doing this.  We might call it ‘going through the motions.’  We might wonder what we can get away with, rather than wondering how we might, say, go the extra mile.  Or we might also head to the other extreme, which is becoming legalistic, too committed to the letter of the law to recognize the spirit.

Why do we do this?  Sometimes I think it’s because we’re overwhelmed by all those "opportunities," the long list of choices we have to make every day.  Or perhaps we’re angry or tired, or convinced we know better, or whatever. Sometimes I think it’s because we’re afraid of being hurt if we truly put our heart into something or make ourselves vulnerable to one another. 

And yet, what a relief often comes when we know we have truly put our heart into something, especially the example Jesus gives of going to be reconciled to a person you know you’ve hurt, before making your offering in worship.  This being Valentine’s weekend, it reminds me of an adage that’s kept harmony in our own home:  “You can be ‘right,’ or you can be married.”  And then there’s Jesus' example of adversaries going into court:  you could litigate to the very bitter end, spending all your energy and money in the process—or you could find a way to settle before it gets there…and be able to get on with the rest of your lives.  Anyone who’s been through painful litigation, even a divorce, can probably resonate with that.

And yet, to reconcile or to settle is not to act as if you’ve never caused harm, or been harmed, as the case may be, or as if whatever happened didn’t matter.  Jesus isn’t talking about cheap grace.  Rather, love holds each other accountable to our actions within the life of the community.

Accountability for our actions is also what makes forgiveness possible.  Forgiveness isn’t forgetting, because mere forgetting fails to acknowledge the existence of the law in the first place, or that there was ever a need to be forgiven when we have failed one another.  I would even say that forgetting is harder than forgiving, because somewhere on down the line, something will happen that will bring back that memory, and it will probably still hurt, maybe even with a hurt as fresh and raw as the day it happened.  We probably all have enough of our own examples already.  Forgiving is both acknowledging the truth of events, and loving either one another or even ourselves, enough to let go of that hurt’s grip on the rest of our lives.  In doing so, we choose to truly live.

Now, that’s not easy.  We probably couldn’t fathom doing such a thing as forgiving others, or asking someone else to forgive us, without the help of God, who first forgave us and freed us to forgive one another and to be forgiven.  And even more practically speaking, we need our community around us, to hold us accountable, and to help us through the process of forgiveness, when we have failed to fulfill our obligations to one another.

++

The last few weeks here have been a bit of a blur and today, this final day, and final worship service, and final hour of service to you as your pastor, has come around really rather quickly.  I realized as this day was drawing near that there was no possible way to make all the visits, or phone calls, or even to write all the notes that I would have liked to do.  It would not be possible to follow through on every request, or even every hope for projects I wanted to complete before going.  And I was deeply distressed about not being able to ‘do it all.’

Then, in preparation for today, I read through the liturgy that we’ll be using at the end of the worship service, which brings a prayerful end to our ministry together, and I found it very comforting. 

I realized then what a gift it is in this liturgy that we will use today, to simply ask forgiveness for all the things I could not do.  It is a gift to be forgiven, even in the midst of celebrating and remembering all the things that have been done, the visits and calls made and projects completed and hopes realized and all the good things of these past two years as well. 

And, I realized, that I would have to rely on the Christian community that is present in this place, to care for everyone and help those in need, after today when I am no longer able to do so.  I also realized that I would have to put my trust in God, and in whoever comes to take my place, that the work of ministry and pastoral care will continue.

Paul put it so well when he wrote that one of us might plant and another water, but it is God who gives the growth.  We are each called to our times and means of serving, and we each have gifts through which we may share God’s love, which is the common purpose for everything we do.  I realize today that we may, some of us, not see each other again in this lifetime, but will only be reunited in heaven.  We have been God’s servants, working together; you are God’s servants and God’s building.  I give thanks for you, and for the time we have shared together.  I love you, and I leave you with peace.

Amen.

Hymns:  Thy Word Is A Lamp Unto My Feet, Seek Ye First, We Are One In The Spirit, Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace

Prayers This Week For:

+People of Syria

+All who struggle with the winter weather

+All who are in entrenched conflicts or struggling with relationships

That We May Have Hope

Second Sunday in Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10, Psalm 72:1-7; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

(Look these up on bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.com)

[These are some of my favorite Bible passages, especially the Isaiah, so I have a few other things in writing [in brackets] that time did not permit me to share on Sunday.  However, I share them here to peruse at your leisure].

Many of you know that on Tuesdays a bunch of us pastors get together to study the Scriptures for the week and get started thinking about the sermon.  And most weeks it’s helpful, but this week it somehow got dragged down into one of those discussions where you try to figure out how to fix the world--and an hour later you haven’t fixed anything and you’re just kind of tired, and maybe a tad cynical:  One says, raise the minimum wage, another says that’ll just make everything more expensive and folks’ll end up back in the same place. And on, and on.

I don’t want to sit there and dwell in cynicism too long, so let’s get some basic assumptions out of the way before we begin: We know there’s brokenness in the world, and we wish it were not so.  We wish there were some easy fix, but we also kind of know there’s not.  We know that whatever can change the world for the better, will take an enormous amount of energy and effort.  We know we can’t check out of the situation entirely either.  And we know we don’t want to think about all of that and just end up tired, we’d like to have something to hope for!

Isaiah 11:6 '...the calf and the lion...and a little child shall lead them.'
Found at doveandcross.org

Today in our Scriptures we’ve got some amazing and perhaps a bit confusing imagery of a hoped-for world: A world where nature is re-ordered such that predator animals and their prey can live together peaceably and no one fears harm; a world where a king does not just look out for his rich and powerful political allies, but creates justice for the poor, who can give him nothing in return; and how even from a seemingly-dead stump, new life can spring forth.  

Wouldn’t it be wonderful!  How can we get there?  How can we have such a world where these things that we deeply in our hearts hope for, could come true?

Ah, that’s what folks have wrestled with throughout all time!

So, now, enter this strange character, John the Baptist, kind of a wild and crazy-seeming guy, a prophet proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is near, and the people of Jerusalem and all Judea are going out to him to be baptized, and they’re confessing their sins.

And many Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious establishment leaders of the day, are coming out to join them.  And that’s where John gets angry.  Why is that?

It might be worth noting that this idea of using water for spiritual cleansing is nothing new even in John the baptists’ time.  Jewish people for centuries had been using mikvehs, sort of like a big baptistry or if you don’t know what that is, a jacuzzi, with stairs that you descend on one side until you’re pretty well submerged, then you come back up the other side, ritually clean.  You do this after doing anything makes you ritually 'unclean'--such as preparing a loved one’s body for burial, or after childbirth, or a list of other things that I’m going to send you to Wikipedia for, since the list is a little 'earthy:'  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikveh

And here's a link to images of both ancient and modern Mikvehs, via Google image search. (Note that a person may not be wearing clothes in a Mikveh, so view at your own discretion).

Going Through The Motions

That makes you ritually pure to enter the Temple, the house of God, and worship.  It’s a powerful symbolic ritual, designed to prepare people to increase their relationship with God by leaving behind distractions of daily life.  But the real importance is not really the physical ritual, it’s the internal preparing of your heart for worship and relationship with God.  In other words, it’s not magic.  Going through the motions might make you look acceptable to your peers, but it doesn’t really do much for you if your heart isn’t in it.

That said, why is John so angry at the Pharisees and Sadducees?  It’s because they’re going through the motions, and they’re also relying on the privilege of their bloodline for their security in this world.  Rather than being accountable for their own actions and how their own corruption is harming other, especially vulnerable people, they are seemingly smug, and they hold everyone else accountable to the motions, without consideration for their human struggles, whether physical or spiritual.

Don’t Be Too Quick To Judge

We shouldn’t be too quick to judge, though.  Sometimes I think, If the Sadducees and Pharisees are there trying to get baptized, then really, maybe they’re not feeling all that smug and secure. And let’s be honest: we, too, could become smug, to say that we’re Christians, that Jesus reconciled the world 2,000 years ago, and that’s that.  Well, yes, we believe that our eternal salvation is in the death and resurrection of Christ, but if we do not let that affect how we live out our daily lives in relationship to God and one another, we really lose out on so much in this life.

The Gift of Baptism

In our faith tradition, we baptize infants because we believe that God does the work of salvation, that we do not and cannot earn our salvation, any more than an infant could.  God has done that work for us, that is God’s gift to us.  That is our gift whether we keep it up on a shelf, or whether we take it out every day and use it.  The gift is still ours either way, but in our daily lives right now, we are made richer by using it.  

[This brings up a tricky situation that many families wrestle with:  when grandparents want a child baptized sort of ‘just in case,’ even if parents don’t want the child baptized or plan to teach them the faith.  If you are a grandparent worrying over grandkids that aren’t baptized or don’t get to church, don’t fight with the parents over it.  And of course, you would never threaten a fiery hell or whatever else folks sometimes threaten others with, because that doesn’t help anyone.  Instead, you teach them the love of God and inspire that relationship two ways:  you show them God’s love with your own compassionate and gentle presence, and you teach them what it means to love others.]

In a world where we are living out our Baptisms, we aren’t afraid to love our enemies, to show compassion, or to forgive those who have hurt us. We hold each other to a different kind of accountability, one that says, ‘we’re all in this together, we care about the same things, we want a more peaceful world for our children here on earth,’ not a legalistic or revenge-based accountability that is so common in our world, yet so ultimately empty and unfulfilling.  

[After all, how many times have we heard where a person said about a lawsuit, it wasn’t really about the money and it didn’t make them feel any better, they just really wanted more than anything to hear that the person who hurt them was sorry for doing so.?

Sometimes in life, we cut off or try to avoid people who have done us harm because we think it’ll hurt less.  Granted, sometimes in life-threatening situations, such as a history of abuse or domestic violence, we do have to do that.  But in the more routine difficulties of relationships, the distance doesn’t really heal.]

[I’ve told you before as a pastor I’m often surprised by how many people worry whether they are actually saved or if they are going to hell.  And yet I take those concerns seriously.  If we ourselves haven’t faced that kind of anxiety before, we can at least sympathize with the people in the Gospel story, who are going to John the Baptist to be baptized for the repentance of sins.  They want  to be washed clean of whatever’s been bothering them that they’re not proud of.  But again, it’s not a magic trick.  It’s not a thing to check off your list.

Ideally, we’re reminded of the bigger picture, that world and kingdom of God we are hoping for, when we gather to worship, and then we are sent forth to figure out how to live that kingdom hope and those kingdom values in our daily lives--in how we treat our coworkers or fellow drivers or the store clerk or waitress or the person on the street asking for change.]

A Transformation Of Hearts

The Gospel for today happened to be the text for Friday’s Bible Study group, and one question came up, how do you really know that you have repented and are forgiven?  And I would answer, you know in your heart.  If that’s confusing, because I think that can be, even for me sometimes, then ask yourself--about a situation where you’re upset with someone, for example.  If you have something that you are sorry for, some harsh words, well, are you really sorry?  You know when you’re holding back in your heart.  When there’s someone out there that drives you nuts that you see everyday, (maybe even at church!), have you learned to feel compassion for them and whatever they may be going through?  

Are you just being nice to someone’s face, or do you truly deeply care about them?

There’s a quote in the book, Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, which really stuck with me this week: “I find that by the time I truly understand my enemy... then I also love them…”  Those of you who know the book know that the quote ends with gaining advantage over and destroying the enemy, which isn’t all that loving.  But for our purposes today, let’s just take that first part:  

Can you go up to a person who drives you nuts and say directly to them, “hey, I know we’ve had our differences and probably still will, but I just want to let you know I care about you and I want to keep trying to work things out?”  When we are living out our Baptism, we don’t have to destroy our enemies.  It is enough just to love them.

(You can read the full quote here via Goodreads.com).

Anxiety and Hope in an Uncertain Future

While we’re talking about total transformations of the heart, let’s be real.  I’m a pastor, and I can be totally loving and forgiving and compassionate and understanding of each and every human being I meet for oh, at max, about six or seven days in a row. (And sometimes, if we’re really going to be honest, maybe some days, only a few hours, or a few minutes.  Some Sundays, I’m not even home from church before I’ve grumbled about three other drivers along the way). But, six or seven days, let’s say, and then I need to be reminded that the Kingdom of God is built not by resting on our laurels or by going through the motions, but by the active, daily practice of love.  Love in forgiveness, love in compassion.  We will all need to keep working at this, every day, for the rest of our lives.  Our eternal salvation does not depend on this, because that work has already been done.  But our world today, very much needs these daily doses of love.  By love, true community is built.  By love, all obstacles and challenges can be faced together.  By love, our world is transformed.

While I’m not likely to take the Isaiah passage literally and allow my young children to go play with nests full of snakes anytime soon, I do still fervently hope for a day when no one will hurt or destroy within the realm of God.

In an uncertain future, we can take hope.  And really, no matter how good or bad the present times are, the future is always uncertain.  We can allow that to paralyze us with fear, or we can allow that to turn us into cynics, or we can live into hope.  As Paul has written: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayers this Week:

For all who struggle in body, mind, or spirit, with the winter weather

For all who are hungry or homeless at Christmas, and at any time of year

For all who are grieving or hurting at this time of year

For all who are unable to gather with family and friends for the holidays

For the hope and justice and inspiration brought to all people by the life and leadership of Nelson Mandela

For All The Saints (Even The Rascally Ones)...

Luke 19:1-10
look this up on bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.com

On the occasion of All Saints’ Sunday, and the dedication of our new hymnals

In between our All Saint’s day liturgy and dedicating our new hymnals and celebrating communion and everything else we do this day, lies the Gospel story of a man named Zaccheus.

Now, Zaccheus is described as a tax collector--and in those days one might just as well have added, a corrupt tax collector.  It was understood that they all were.  In fact the Gospel says he was the chief tax collector, and he was rich, which meant that he was really corrupt--because they didn’t pay tax collectors all that great; they earned their money by extorting extra off the peasants of the land.

Zaccheus was hardly righteous, a most unlikely saint.

And yet somehow he is a beloved little villain in the Bible--maybe because he was so short, or maybe because he was up in that tree, or perhaps because of that famous children’s song.  Sing with me if you know it:

Zaccheus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way He looked up in the tree, and said:

Zaccheus, come down, for I’m going to your house today.

I’m going to your house today.

(That’s probably the second song I learned in Sunday School when I was about three years old, right after ‘Jesus Loves Me.’)

So you might even say he’s the character not that you love to hate, but that you almost hate to love.

Ah, but there’s the problem.  The crowd gathered there knows all about Zaccheus, and they don’t love him.  He’s done them wrong.  They’ve got his number, and he’s making Jesus look either naive or incredulous, hanging out with him.  Maybe they’re even trying to warn him: Look out Jesus, you’re about to get scammed here.  He’s no good.

Then, in front of the crowd, Zaccheus says he’ll give half his possessions to the poor and pay back four times as much of whatever he’s defrauded anyone.  This means Zaccheus in on the hook for a lot of dough, and he’s about to become a very poor man.

And that is perhaps a better definition of the saints, those all-too-human and fallible, maybe even rascally, folks we know and love.  People that aren’t perfect, but have known love and shown love.  People who have not matched every footstep as Jesus’ disciple, but who still try to follow as best they can, knowing that it is not their perfection that is counted, but God’s grace.

On this All Saints’ Day, we remember those whom we have loved who have died and gone to their heavenly home before us.  Sometimes we might wonder, particularly if our loved one had his or her troubles, will we see them in heaven?  Yet I believe God’s grace is sufficient, and finds even the most rascally ones to transform.  By that day, we will all see with new eyes, and all that blurs our vision now will fall away, and all we will see is love for one another.  That task has been completed, because we are reconciled to God in the resurrection.  And knowing God’s grace for us, grace while we were still sinners and hadn’t done one thing to deserve it, can transform our lives right now, causing us to do the most generous and amazing things for others, even if nobody else thinks we ever would.

Jesus says, the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.  Not the perfect, not the self-righteous, but the lost.  Zaccheus had it all, but he was so very, very, lost.  Whether we are half as lost, or even if we’re twice as lost, there is hope in this life.  In the most unlikely times and to the most unlikely people, Jesus shows up.  Jesus might even say, “I simply must stay at your home today.”  And in the hosting, we will find joy.  It may not make us rich, at least not as the world counts it, but we will find joy.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this week:

Those struggling this week with a reduction of food stamps

For those transitioning to long-term care facilities, or to Hospice

For those providing care for a loved one with a long-term or terminal illness

Credo: This I Believe

Recently a seminary classmate from my home presbytery was called to a church nearby and mentioned that he had liked my Statement of Faith which I prepared for ordination. I was touched by this, and thought it might be time to go find it again amidst all my ministry papers, and I share it with you here:

Credo

I cling to the church reformed

        And always, still, needing to be reformed

                    Fallible, broken, but worthy of change

                                God alone may be capable of perfection

                                                                    But we are not all for lost.

I believe Holy Scripture is the Word and Event of God in our lives

        Also broken by human doing, despite our best doing

                    Sometimes contradictory and not always clear

                                But also, by and through and with and in God

                                                                                Complete and whole.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

        The Lord, the Giver of Life

                    That she does, indeed, give Life

                                And breath; that she stirs to life

                                            That which seems beyond all hope of being stirred.

I believe in Christ, who came not only to save, despite death

                    But also came to teach us, in life, how to go on living

                                                                    And this, in its own way, also saves.

I believe in Christ

        Speaking truth as well as reconciliation

                    Justice as well as peace

                                Disrupting human convention

                                            Crucified for his ‘sins’

                                                        Would Christ be welcome in our churches today?

I believe in Christ

        Incarnate among us

                    As a human, still facing human shortcomings

                                Foreign women taught him love of neighbor

                                            Perhaps having other things to learn

                                                        By becoming fully us

                                                                    Yet also intimately God

I believe that in worship we encounter the Holy;

        In water, wine, and bread, God touches us still.

                                Here Christ holds us and heals us;

                                            Here the Spirit reconciles us to one another

                                                        In the midst of bitter church conflicts, remember:

                                                                                We are all still standing on holy ground.

I believe in God who created heavens and the earth

All that is, though seen and unseen

        Though heard and unheard, powerful and vulnerable

I believe that God did not walk off

        Leaving us to our own devices

                    That God knew we couldn’t make it on our own

                                And stayed with us, creating, redeeming, sustaining

I believe God is still speaking

        Moving, changing, inspiring

                    Beyond class, race, or gender

                                God calls whom God wills.

I believe God wills for God’s people—

        All God’s people—

                    Justice, freedom, and wholeness

                                That the world alone cannot provide, and often works against

                                            That the church alone cannot provide, and often works against

                                                        God has not yet given up, despite us.

I believe God is not done with us yet,

        Even when life be too painful for words;

                    That in this world we can choose to go on living

                                Or to go on dying

                                            In that desolation God is there

                                                        Even when no one else is

                                                                    And I believe that even when

                                                                                we cannot see the path ahead,                                            

                                                                                                                    There is one.

I do not need to believe

        That God is all-powerful,

                    or all-good

                                or all-just

                                            or all-knowing

                                                        to believe in God.

In truth, I need only to believe that God is Greater.